CHAPTER 7: "THE COVER-UP"
The Yamuna river at 2:00 AM smelled of rotting marigolds, chemical sludge, and death.
It was a thick, cloying stench that coated the back of Vikram Sharma’s throat, tasting like copper and sewage.
But tonight, the smell of the river was secondary to the metallic tang of fresh blood that seemed to emanate from his own skin.
Vikram stood at the edge of the muddy bank, his Woodland boots sinking slightly into the silt.
The darkness here, under the rusted girders of the old iron bridge near the Okhla barrage, was absolute.
The city lights of Delhi were a distant, hazy orange glow against the smog-choked sky, indifferent to what was happening in the shadows.
Next to him lay the body of Bunty.
The thug who had threatened to cut Aanya’s face just hours ago was now a heavy, inert sack of meat wrapped in a plastic tarp Vikram had found in his garage.
Vikram's hands were shaking so violently that he had dropped his car keys twice while dragging the corpse from the trunk of his Honda City.
He looked at his hands now in the gloom.
They were stained dark.
He rubbed them against his jeans, a frantic, scrubbing motion, but the sensation of stickiness remained.
It was phantom blood now, seeping into his pores, into his soul.
"God... oh God..." he whispered, his voice cracking.
It didn't sound like his voice. It sounded like a stranger’s—thin, reedy, pathetic.
This wasn't the voice of a Senior Systems Architect who managed cloud migrations.
This was the voice of a murderer.
He grabbed the tarp-wrapped bundle.
It was heavier than he expected. Dead weight was a real thing, he realized with a hysterical edge to his thoughts.
Bunty had been a scrawny street rat in life, full of nervous energy and malicious swagger.
In death, he was lead.
Vikram gritted his teeth and heaved. His lower back screamed in
protest. He dragged the body toward the water. The mud sucked at his feet, trying to pull him down with the dead man. You belong here too, the river seemed to whisper. With the filth and the forgotten things.
He reached the water’s edge. The black water lapped sluggishly against the shore.
He pushed the body.
It didn't float away elegantly like in the movies.
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It just bobbed, snagged on a submerged tire, and rotated slowly.
The tarp had come loose at the top, revealing a patch of Bunty’s cheap, flashy shirt.
Panic flared in Vikram’s chest—hot and blinding.
If it didn't sink, someone would find it tomorrow. A fisherman. A ragpicker. Anyone.
"Go," he hissed, shoving it harder, wading shin-deep into the toxic water. "Just go!"
He found a loose chunk of concrete, a piece of debris from the overhead metro construction.
With a grunt of exertion that tore a sob from his throat, he jammed it into the folds of the tarp.
The body gurgled
—a horrific, escaping bubble of air—and then sank beneath the oily surface.
Vikram stood there, panting, staring at the ripples spreading out in the darkness.
Then the bile rose.
He scrambled back up the bank, fell to his knees in the dirt, and vomited until his stomach was empty, dry-heaving long after there was nothing left to expel.
He spat into the dust, wiping his mouth with a trembling hand.
I killed a man.
The thought wasn't a realization; it was a sentencing.
The Vikram Sharma who worried about home loan EMIs, who helped Aanya with her math homework, who argued with the vegetable vendor over the price of okra—that man was dead.
He had died the moment he plunged the screwdriver into Bunty’s neck.
He checked his watch. 2:45 AM. He had to move.
He drove to an abandoned construction site in Kalkaji, a skeleton of a building stalled by litigation for years.
He stripped off his shirt, his jeans, even his socks.
He stood shivering in his underwear in the cold night air, pouring petrol from a plastic bottle he kept for emergencies over the pile of clothes.
He struck a match.
The flames roared up, hungry and bright.
He watched the fabric curl and blacken.
The bloodstains turned dark, then vanished into ash.
He wished he could burn his memory just as easily.
He dressed in the spare gym clothes he kept in the trunk—shorts and a t-shirt.
It looked ridiculous at 3 AM, but it was better than blood-soaked formals.
Driving back to Lajpat Nagar, paranoia set in.
Every headlight in his rearview mirror was a police jeep.
Every shadow on the street corner was a Khanna gang member. His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs:
They know.
They know.
They know.
He parked the car a block away from his house, checking the bumper and the trunk lip for any trace of blood.
He wiped the interior handle with a wet wipe, scrubbing until the plastic squeaked.
He entered his home quietly.
The house was silent, wrapped in the peace of sleep.
The familiar smell of Priya’s lavender air freshener hit him, and he almost broke down again.
It was the smell of a normal life, a life he had just forfeited.
He tiptoed to the bathroom.
Under the shower, he scrubbed his skin raw.
He used the loofah until his chest and arms were red and stinging, but he still felt dirty.
The hot water swirled down the drain, not pink, but clear.
Yet he saw red.
When he walked into the bedroom, the first grey light of dawn was creeping through the curtains.
Priya stirred.
She sat up, squinting at him.
"Vikram? Where were you? I woke up and you weren't..." She
stopped. Her eyes widened as they adjusted to the dim light. She saw the raw, scrubbed redness of his skin, the haunted hollows of his eyes. And then she saw a tiny, missed spot—a speck of dried blood near his earlobe.
"Vikram... is that blood?"
His heart stopped. He froze, his hand instinctively flying to his ear.
He scratched it off quickly.
"I... I couldn't sleep," he lied, his voice sounding like gravel.
"Went for a drive. Got a nosebleed. You know how dry the air is."
Priya stared at him.
She knew him. She knew his tells.
She knew when he was stressed about work, when he was hiding a surprise gift.
But she didn't know this look.
This was the look of a man who had seen the abyss.
"A nosebleed at 4 AM?" she asked softly.
"Go back to sleep, Priya. Please."
He turned away, unable to meet her gaze.
He crawled into bed, pulling the duvet up to his chin, shivering despite the warmth.
He lay there with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling fan cutting through the stagnant air.
Aanya was sleeping in the next room, safe. Priya was beside him, safe.
But for how long?
I didn't start this, he told himself, the mantra playing on a loop.
They came for us.
They threatened my daughter.
But justification didn't stop the trembling.
He looked at his hands again in the semi-darkness.
They were the hands of a killer now.
The line had been crossed.
The law was on one side, and he was on the other, standing in the dark with the monsters he hated.
He closed his eyes, but he didn't sleep.
Every time he drifted off, he
heard the gurgle of the sinking body, the sucking sound of the mud.
He wasn't a victim anymore.
Victims suffer.
Murderers act.
And God help him, he knew this was just the beginning.
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