‘What’s your enmity with the man?’ Joppan chettan asked, coming up to me from behind and touching me on my shoulder.

‘Nothing.’

‘We’re just helping him cross the bridge,’ Mary teacher said.

She sat on the low wall around the front yard, smoking a beedi, looking exactly as she had a year ago when she died, the same face and the same innocent smile. The whole world was in a conspiracy against Peter sir, I thought.

‘Well, this game won’t end quickly,’ I said. ‘It takes more artistry to confront death gradually than just dying.’

Together, the three of us banged and scratched on the windows, and ran across the yard throwing fearsome shadows on the walls. Peter sir let go of his grip on the door frame and sagged to the floor where he writhed and curled like a dead worm. A stench of old faeces and urine emanated from him.

I jumped over the compound wall and set out in a different direction, mulling over all the things that had happened in the span of two nights and a day. From the top of a hill, at the distance of half an hour’s walk, I could see the lights in the veterinarian’s quarters. She was there, sleepless in her bed. I thought of flying across to her, like a bloodthirsty vampire bat.

murder at the culvert

On an intensely cold evening at the end of December, they got together as usual at the club, named after a white man, around two miles from Kaliyaar Estate. Many of the regulars had stayed away because of the thick fog and drizzly rain, and even those who had braved the weather had gone back home earlier than usual. The main room had plenty of empty tables, but they sat huddled around a table in a corner of the extension on the eastern side, talking softly over a bottle of expensive poison.

‘We must unearth his secret today,’ one of them said, rubbing his palms vigorously against the chill.

He was the shorter of the two, and had successful businesses in Kottayam and Ernakulam. His wife and children were abroad, and consequently, his life was as free and dangerous as a country with no government. He had acquired a level of fame within his circle of acquaintances because of a recent solitary trip to Thailand and the liberally embellished stories he shared when he returned, including one about a massage he received from a young Thai woman. And now, even the most measured of women shook with suppressed laughter when they saw him.

The second man, the owner of a bus service that monopolized the routes all across the High Range, grunted in agreement as though he had carefully thought about the matter.

‘I’ve heard so many stories about him ever since I was a young man,’ said the first. ‘What a life!’

A pretty, foreign-made scarf was slung around his neck, but a pong of wet leather emanated from his sandals. It annoyed the second man, who was dressed in an expensive khaddar-silk shirt like the ones usually worn by wealthy men, and a mundu of such fine quality that those who saw him felt the need to rise from their seats in respect.