Keeping Secrets

Chapter 8

"Look, Nikki is dead," Gaurav had returned to the lunch room much calmer than he had left. He tried to appeal to their grieving human side this time, "She was strangled to death and then stabbed at least 43 times even after that. Now, it turns out that she had also been drugged and pregnant. Her body is covered in scars and bruises that date back to a long time before her murder. None of this is normal. It does not happen to most people we know, and this city has never seen a crime so violent. I refuse to believe that none of you knew anything she was going through. I do not want any of you to decide what information is important to this case. If there was anything that struck you as out of place, or anything that can lead us to this 'mystery man' in Nikki's life, this would be a good time to share it with me."

"Sir, I actually ran into Nikki two or three days before the trip. She was waiting for someone at the tiny tea shop outside our college," Ryan mentioned hesitantly. "It was almost 9 at night and I had to buy a jacket for the trip before the mall closed, so I just spoke to her for 10-15 minutes. She was aggressively typing on her phone and did not notice or hear me at first, but then, I walked up to her and then we talked. Although she was startled to see me first, she looked really happy. She told me that she was waiting for this boy she was seeing. I did check with her a couple of times to ask if she was really okay to wait there alone, but she promised to tell me when we were on this trip, and literally pushed me to leave for the mall before it closed. To be honest, I almost felt she just didn't want me to be around when the person came. Still, I was curious and wanted to see who it was, so I went around and came back from the other side of the street but she just continued to type away on her phone. I had to leave before the mall closed so I left after waiting for sometime."

"Ugh! Why do you all know so ridiculously little about your friends?"

Gaurav's contempt and wonder were both genuine. In that moment, he felt much more confident in his decision to stay away from commitments he couldn't keep. At least he could be sure he was not disappointing anyone who didn't expect it of him.

"Sir... I...I had not completely believed her back then. To be honest, Nikki would sometimes even come to class and talk to any one of us about some mystery guy or the other whom she was having a thing with. It was always someone none of us knew, never someone from college and she would say she met them at very random places like malls and parties and bookshops. I thought she was just saying that because I had moved on and she wanted me to think she was doing okay," Ryan sounded hesitant to open up and seemed to be careful with his words, but to be fair he was saying untoward things about his best friend who had barely been dead for a little over a day now.

"Me too," Maya quietly chimed in before Gaurav could reply to Ryan. "She told me over a text that she was seeing someone, but I had no idea that she had met him, or that she was pregnant. In fact, she said she was about to stay back here after the trip and meet him for the first time." This time everyone stared at Maya in disbelief.

"What?! That is extremely critical information, Maya," Gaurav was beside himself in frustration.

"You should have shared this sooner. Is there anything else that any of you might have missed telling us?"

"Sir, I wanted to mention something too," Kevin said hesitantly. "I had to tell Aryan about Nikki's pregnancy last night since he was making cocktails and he noticed that I was slipping Nikki drinks with no alcohol."

Gaurav sighed, "Okay. What about the marks on her body? I can understand that nobody else knew about it, but you all claim to be best friends. How is it possible that none of you knows anything about the scars Nikki has been living with for at least some months now"

"Sir, Nikki was... erm... how do I put this? She would often say very incredible things, like Ryan said she would come up with so many of these mysterious men. Just like that, she would come in with these random marks every now and then, and tell us these hard-to-believe stories behind them, like she fell off over the staircase railing, or that someone pushed her on the street. We knew about her history of self-harm but she had also told us that it was a long time ago. After a point, we were confused if she is, indeed just doing it for attention. We were all worried for her, and we did bring it up with her, but she always dismissed it saying she was okay or by making some lame joke," Ruby looked towards all of her friends for backing, but their eyes were glued to the floor.

Gaurav looked at each member of the group in disbelief and disappointment.

"If your friend was just seeking your attention, she was having to put herself through a great deal for it."

"Sir, it was not like we didn't care. We tried one on one, and all together. We sat her down and told her that we were all really worried for her. We told her we could not recognise her anymore. She had first gained a lot of weight and then lost quite a lot of it, all in a very short span, and we had had this conversation more than once, but she always told us that she was totally okay, and we did know her to be a very clumsy person. She was really goofy too. She was always the one to laugh the hardest at herself, and we had started to give in and believe her," Maya said.

"Sir, I don't know if it's relevant to the case, but... I think I saw something last week,"Ruby's voice was small and shaky.

"Nikki seemed to be texting someone on ChatSnap. She was the only one in our group who did not use the app. She always said it's not her thing, but that day, I could have sworn that was the chat interface I saw on her phone. I went home and looked for her for a very long time, but could not find her. Eventually, I fell asleep and forgot about it, until now. "

Once everyone was dismissed, Gaurav found himself alone with Nikki's phone. He looked at the collage of pictures tucked under the transparent phone case. It had barely been a few hours since Gaurav had wished he could know more about Nikki than what everyone was letting on. Within that short time, he had uncovered what seemed like a significant amount of information, but none of it was adding up. Now, he wondered if anyone knew Nikki at all.