“Don’t worry, okay? I’ll see you tonight. And remember what I said. Dress fancy.”

Her Uber pulled up just in time, and she jumped in without a second glance.

That’s strange. Why didn’t Kaavi want anyone to know she was going to Cinnamon Grand? It was one of Colombo’s many five-star hotels, and one that I’m sure she frequented regularly.

I checked my watch—12:15.

What were you trying to hide, Kaavi?

ANDRE

Interview Transcript: Aumunupalage Asoka Dinesh Kumara (abbrev. AADK)

Date: January 25, 2020

Location: The Mount Lavinia Hotel

EP: I understand that this must be a difficult time for you, Mr. Dinesh Kumara, thank—

AADK: Andre.

EP: Sorry?

AADK: Please call me Andre. Everyone does.

EP: Yes. As I was saying, thank you for agreeing to speak to us. I understand that you must be in considerable shock and—

AADK: I am. In considerable shock. But the Fonsekas are like family to me, so it doesn’t matter if I still feel like fainting. I will do whatever it takes.

EP: Yes. Thank you. Could you please state your full name and address for the record?

AADK: My name, as you might already know, is Andre.

EP: Your full name, sir, if you don’t mind. We have on your National Identity Card, which you handed in to my colleague earlier, Mr. Amunupalage Asoka Dinesh Kuma—

AADK: I told you already, darling—must we keep going over this? I haven’t been called that since I dropped out of school many moons ago. Even my late mother, god bless her soul, called me Andre. For heaven’s sake, I’ve been traumatized enough as it is.

EP: Yes, Mr. . . . Andre. And your address is 26 Church Road, Moratuwa. Am I right?

AADK: That’s my registered address, yes. Though I mostly stay at the annex attached to my studio at 187/1A Ward Place, Colombo 07.

EP: Thank you. And you are the Fonseka family’s dressmaker, am I right?

AADK: I’m a designer. I’ve been designing wedding dresses for the cream of Colombo for many years now. If you need a reference, please feel free to call His Excellency, the president. I did his daughter’s bridal a few years back, and his nephews’ wives—yes, the ministers, their wives came to me for their bridals as well. I am regarded as a close family friend, after all. Anyone could probably tell you. I am certainly not just a dressmaker.

EP: I see. I was told that it was you who first reported the crime. Would you mind going over what happened this morning and how you came to know Miss Fonseka wasn’t there?

AADK: Of course. Like I told the security at the time, I arrived alone to the hotel. From the very moment that I knocked on the door, I knew something was very, very wrong. I could just feel it, you know, the energy was off. I knocked multiple times, but there was no answer. This wasn’t my first wedding, you know. I’ve seen many brides have one too many drinks the night before and struggle to wake up in the morning. I’ve had to drag quite a few of them into the shower myself.

I sweet-talked a housekeeping boy into opening the door for me. I didn’t want Mrs. Fonseka to catch her daughter in a hangover—she’d have really blown a gasket. So I got the boy to open the door, and I stuck my head in. I didn’t want to catch her in a compromising position, after all. Who knows what these young women got up to?

The blinds were drawn and the lights were off, so I stuck my arm in and flipped the switch.

That’s when I saw the mess. And the blood. The place was torn apart. Like there had been some sort of wild animal attack. Bless that poor girl.

EP: Could you please describe exactly what you saw in the room?

AADK: You’ve seen it, haven’t you? There was definitely some sort of struggle there. Her makeup pushed off the dresser. Things on the floor. The mirror broken like someone . . . like someone smashed something into it. And blood. Like I said. There was blood everywhere. The window to the balcony was open, and there were drag marks leading outside.

EP: And what did you do?

AADK: I immediately screamed for the housekeeping boy to call security, of course. And then I called Fiona, that’s the bride’s mother. Sorry, if you could please just give me a moment.

[Pause]

This was all very traumatic, you know. My hands are still shaking, you see?

EP: Yes. And Mrs. Fiona Fonseka also informed me that you had some information for us? Something that you hadn’t yet divulged to her?

AADK: Well, yes. I thought about it long and hard, you know. Whether I should come forward or not. You know, I prize my reputation above everything else, and the last thing I need is my clients worrying about my discretion. I don’t just dress brides, you know. I do saris and jackets for all occasions, and my clients, well, they’ve built a certain relationship with me. You can call me the keeper of Colombo’s secrets, if you like. My god, the things I overhear about cheating husbands and office affairs and who is sleeping with who. I would be dragged out of my studio and whipped if everything I knew got out.

[Giggles]

But of course, I always keep my lips sealed. Sealed with a kiss, I say. It’s important that my clients trust me, after all. I don’t just sew sari blouses for women, my dear. I capture her essence in nine yards of silk, cocooning her, helping her turn into a beautiful butterfly. I can’t do that if I don’t know her soul. If I don’t know where her heart lies.

Which is why I didn’t want to come forward, at first. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m giving away their secrets. But then I said to myself, “Andre, darling, that poor thing has been attacked under the most horrific of all circumstances, and you would never forgive yourself if you didn’t do everything in your power to help.”

And so, here I am.

EP: And the information?

AADK: Ah yes, you see, much like anyone of repute, Kaavindi Fonseka was . . . is my client. Her mother rang me up the very day after the engagement and insisted I cancel my entire afternoon to meet her. I couldn’t believe the timeline when she told me. I normally had an entire year, maybe a year and a half to plan a bridal, but she gave me a few weeks.

“My darling,” I said, “are you trying to give me a heart attack? I’m fully booked until next August, at least.”

But she just laughed and said I was the only designer her family would consider, so how could I say no after that? Besides, I could only imagine the look on that smug Stephan de Krester’s face if he got to dress her instead. I couldn’t stand for it.

And so I sourced the most beautiful lace—got it down all the way from Vietnam, you know. It’s handmade. Only the best of the best for the Fonseka princess. And I came up with a design that would—

EP: Mr. Kumara, would you mind stating the information you said you had for us?

AADK: The informa—ah, yes, yes. Of course. And again, please, call me Andre. The information I wanted to give you is that I think I know who did it. I know who had it in for Kaavindi Fonseka.

EP: And who would that be?

AADK: Look, I’m happy to go on record for this because I care about Kaavindi, you know. They were like family to me, the Fonsekas.

EP: Sir, who do you believe to have hurt Miss Fonseka?

AADK: Okay, okay. So listen. She brought this friend along with her, and I knew, from the moment I saw this girl, that something was off. She was jealous of Kaavindi, I could just tell. Always staring at her, buzzing around her like some sort of bee, or wasp. I just knew she was trouble. That’s why I came here. To tell you to investigate that girl.

EP: Are you referring to Miss Amaya Bloom?

AADK: Oh, that skittish thing? No, my god, no. That girl looked like she would faint if she saw her own shadow. No, I mean her friend Laura. The American. Gave me the worst vibes, that one. You know what she said to me? She actually told me that my designs were too colorful. I mean, she’s from Houston—what does she know about sari design?

EP: And why is it that you suspect Miss Laura?

AADK: Well, there was an instance where Laura took Kaavi’s phone without her permission or knowledge. It was at one of the earlier fittings, when it was just the two of them. Kaavi was quite glued to it, maybe more so than usual that particular day. I thought she looked a little upset. Maybe she was having an argument with Spencer—young couples do tend to bicker, you know, with the stress of the upcoming wedding and all. But when Kaavi went behind the screen to change, Laura swiped Kaavi’s phone and clicked on it. I have no idea how she managed to get the passcode. She turned bright red when she noticed that I saw her, and mumbled some excuse about trying to find the driver’s number. Unluckily for her, darling, I can smell bullshit from a mile away.

EP: Anything else you noticed about Miss Laura?

AADK: Well, I don’t know about you, but she seemed quite obsessed with Kaavi to me. She even asked me if we could do an off-the-shoulder style sari jacket for her. Well, guess who else was getting an off-the-shoulder jacket? That’s right, the bride. I couldn’t give Laura the same design as the bride, now could I? Mrs. Fonseka would have had my head on a platter. Especially given the rumors about Laura.

EP: And what rumors are these?

AADK: Surely, you must have heard? Now, this isn’t the reason why I think she had something to do with it. After all, I’m not one to judge. It’s just that, well, like I said, I service the cream of Colombo, and the cream of Colombo loves to talk. But I have it on good authority that Laura wasn’t just staying with Kaavi’s family—she was, oh, you know, doing the dirty, with Mr. Fonseka himself. You’ve heard the rumors about him, I’m sure. Especially about his youngest daughter, you know, the toddler—Nadia—that he has supposedly adopted out of the goodness of his heart. Like I said before, darling, I can smell bullshit from miles away. It was definitely not out of the goodness of his heart that he got some girl pregnant and decided to adopt the child. I’m just surprised that Fiona went along with it. But then, she’s known for putting up with his nonsense. Did you hear what he did on his fiftieth birthday? He apparently got down a whole case of Cristal—you know how hard it is to find in Colombo, right? Everyone is always clawing one another for a bottle. Anyway, he filled his entire king-size tub with Cristal and took a bath in it. Just to show he can. I heard from a very reliable friend of the family who has no reason to lie, you know.

But anyway, yes, back to Laura, maybe she was jealous of the attention Mr. Fonseka gave his eldest daughter; after all, we all knew she was the apple of his eye. Or maybe she felt she could never compete with the perfect Kaavindi Fonseka. Either way, that girl is trouble. I know it in my bones.

EP: Anything else you would like to tell us?

AADK: Hmm? No. No. That was it.

EP: Mr. Andre, thank you so much for sharing your suspicions. Would you mind if we asked you a few more questions, now that you are here?

AADK: Of course, darling. I have nothing to hide. I’m an open book.

EP: Mr. Andre, you dressed Miss Fonseka in her traditional Kandyan sari, yes?

AADK: Yes, I did. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you—she looked positively divine. Possibly the most beautiful bride I’ve ever dressed.

EP: And you were also set to dress Miss Fonseka in her going-away sari later on in the day, am I right?

AADK: Yes. Rose gold to match her engagement ring. That girl was mad about the color. I’m devastated that we can’t eventually see her in it. What a tragedy.

EP: But you didn’t design her wedding dress, am I right? The one for the church ceremony. I am told that she flew out to Singapore to purchase that particular dress.

AADK: No. Actually, I did design her wedding dress. But apparently the original dress I designed, and hand made, mind you, was damaged, somehow? The details are still unclear to me, but Kaavindi called me the day before yesterday, quite late in the night, in absolute hysterics, saying that someone had destroyed her dress.

EP: And did she mention who she thought might have done it?

AADK: She did blubber something about the hotel having to take accountability, but to be honest, I was a little too upset to really pay much attention. I asked if I could salvage the dress—if it was a tear or a rip or something I could mend—but she said there was no point.

EP: And were you upset at Miss Fonseka that the dress was destroyed?

AADK: I was upset that the dress was destroyed, of course. I spent hours upon hours doing all the embroidery by hand. I thought I would lose my eyesight at the end of it, that’s how intricate the threadwork was. Of course I was absolutely devastated that she wouldn’t be wearing it. That she wouldn’t even show it to me. But then, she did have a backup dress. A Hayley Paige that she flew down from Singapore. Can you believe that? Hayley Paige being backup to me? Anyway, Fiona was quite upset, but Kaavindi had decided to wear that to the church, apparently.

[Pause]

It was almost a little too convenient, if you ask me. The lowly local designer’s dress gets mysteriously ruined, and the high-profile foreign designer’s backup dress that cost a hideously obscene amount gets moved to the spotlight. Stephan de Krester would have thrown a party when he heard. But then . . . well, I guess there are more important things to focus on now.

EP: So you weren’t meant to be dressing her in your own design this morning?

AADK: That’s right. Sadly.

EP: Then can I know, Mr. Andre, if you weren’t dressing Miss Fonseka in her church dress, why you went to her room this morning?

AADK: What’s that supposed to mean?

[Pause]

Kaavi actually messaged me last night and asked me to come in about an hour earlier than planned. Something about wanting to do a livestream of her interviewing me, so I got there even before the makeup artists and hair people.

[Pause]

Look, she might not have been wearing my dress anymore, but I was overseeing her entire wedding aesthetic, you know. Just because she was wearing a fucking Hayley Paige, that didn’t mean I washed my hands of her completely. Like I said, Kaavindi was like family to me. I cared about her deeply and only wanted what was best for her.

EP: I see.

[Shuffling of papers]

Mr. Andre, I wanted to thank you for handing your phone over to my colleagues this morning. We have a few bits of information that we would like to verify. Would you mind stating for the record what these are?

[Shuffling of papers]

AADK: They appear to be printouts of text messages, I think.

EP: Yes, they are text messages sent between you and your assistant—a Miss Kumudini. Would you mind reading the highlighted text on page three?

[Shuffling of papers]

AADK: Can you believe the audacity of that selfish, spoiled bitch?

[Pause]

EP: Please continue, Mr. Andre.

AADK: Look, you have this wrong.

EP: Let me read out the rest of it for you. Can you believe the audacity of that selfish, spoiled bitch? All my hard work and she destroys my dress just so she can wear a trashy fucking gown that makes her look like a fucking chandelier? Fuck that rich bitch. I could fucking kill her.