Inspector Nayak licked his lips. It was a hot day even by Bangalore standards. Even the potted plants in his office, the cactus included, seemed to be screaming out for cold majjige. What a boring week it had been. Once in a while he'd get a murder to liven things up, but this week, not a robbery even! To top it all he had had a bad fight with his wife. She wanted a washing machine(with drier) but the stupid woman didn't realize that he was stuck at one of the most "dry" postings in Bengaluru. "Eh Benjamin!", he screamed out, "Get some tea I say. Make it fast you bloody fellow. No bewarsi wants to do any work around here".

It was then that constable Ramprasad walked in. Ramprasad and Nayak shared an easy camaraderie. The constable had been working with Nayak for over ten years and they had developed a deep level of bonding and understanding. Whenever Nayak was transferred, he made sure that Ramprasad went along with him.

"Murder case saar", he announced as he walked in. "Ah! good. Yelli"?

"Nearby, saar, 15'th main, 3'rd cross. Rich fellow, killed a girl. Today early morning. Some TV serial producer it seems, saar". "Ok, let's go, you take out the jeep, I need to go for one quick recess. I will come within 5 minutes". Nayak loved murders. He had never failed to crack a murder case ever. He loved the rush of stalking of the prey, getting into people's heads and figuring out their motives. He hated people in general and it gave him great pleasure to have the power to make them squirm. As he finished zipping up his pants after finishing his business, he wondered how long it would take to crack this one. Rich people were always a problem. You couldn't rough them up and couldn't threaten them. He got into the jeep and winked at Ramprasad. "Lets go".

It was a posh house in Koramangala on an eighty by one hundred site with a seven foot high compound wall. Nayak immediately liked that it had at least two trees in it. One jackfruit and one gulmohar that was in full bloom. He paused for a while to look at the gulmohar. It was a big fancy "architect-designed-saar" house. He sauntered into the hall walking on the Italian marble and past a very expensive looking home theater system.

There was a man sitting on the sofa sobbing inconsolably. He didn't pay much attention to him and simply nodded to one of the constables there. "Illi saar", the constable pointed him to a room. He walked into the bedroom and into the weirdest looking murder scene he'd ever seen. There was a woman in a white sari lying in a pool of blood. Lying next to her was a dumbbell, which was purportedly used to bludgeon her to death. Clutched in the dead woman's hand was a candle.

He walked out back into the hall and was immediately depressed to see that bloody buffoon Parthasarathy there. "Wopen and shut case saarr", said sub inspector Parthasarathy walking towards Nayak. "Eh, you let me decide how open and how shut this case is. Now, you shut your mouth for some time. That's all". "Who is that guy on the sofa crying"?

"Saar, he only did it saar, he killed that woman". "Hmmm.. ok", Nayak said as he thoughtfully bit his moustache. He sat down next to the man who was still sobbing inconsolably and muttering to himself, "why her", over and over again. "Eh you! stop crying", he screamed at the top of his lungs. The whole room went silent. The only sounds you could hear were the chirping of the birds on the Gulmohar tree. The crying man was shocked into silence. Nayak paused for a moment and reveled in the silence. He listened to the birdsong for some time.

"Ok. now tell me what happened. And if you start crying in, I'll kick you on your tika with my leather boot". It was best to extract as much information out of someone before the lawyer came and Nayak had half an hour tops.

"Ok, ok", said the crying man. "It happened like this. I was asleep...". "Hey you bloody fool! I heard you were a TV producer. Tell the story properly I say. Start with your bio data first".

"My name is Prakash Pai. I'm 41 years old and married. I have no kids. I'm the head of programming at Grahana TV. We are going to launch soon. . I came back home around 11 PM last night, had dinner and a couple of drinks".
"Which drink?", interrupted Nayak. "Single malt. Glennfiddich". "Oho! good choice. Hey constable, find that bottle and get us two drinks. Neat. Make it fast. Ok continue".

"After I had finished my drinks, I sat down to watch some TV in the hall and then went up to bed to sleep. I'd had a very tiring day and was asleep as soon as I hit the bed. Then, in the middle of the night, I don't know exactly what time it was, I was woken up. Someone was shaking me violently. I woke up and found the face of a woman six inches from mine. She was laughing and screaming hysterically. She was saying something like "Utth, Pai, utth, aaj teri baari hai". There was blood dripping from her mouth and honest to god she had sharp dracula like teeth. I almost had a heart attack. I looked for the first thing I could find to hit her with. There was a dumbbell lying nearby and I took it and lashed out. I just kept hitting and hitting her until she didn't move anymore. I think I passed out for sometime after that. After I awoke, I called the police. That's all I know"

Nayak considered this for some time. As he was thoughtfully rolling around this supposed confession inside his head, there was some kind of commotion at the door. "What is it?", he asked Ramprasad. "Sir, the TV producer's colleague. He wants to give you some information". "Ok, let him in".

A tall handsome man in his late thirties walked in. He was white as a sheet. He walked towards Prakash and put his arm around him. "Don't worry Prakash, I'll sort everything out". He then walked towards Nayak and sat down.

"Sir, what a tragedy sir". "Fellow, let me decide whether this is a tragedy or comedy. Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"Sir my name is Anant. I work with..". "Full name", interrupted Nayak.

"Anant Borkar. I work with Prakash. We are colleagues at Grahana. All this was supposed to be for a TV show. It's all gone so tragically wrong. Two months ago, we were in the process of coming up with new shows. Then Prakash himself had an idea of doing a show like MTV bakra. But we wanted to take it to the next level and really scare people. We wanted to do something great for the first show. The idea was to have a woman dressed in a white sari and go around waking up people when they are asleep. Like the bhatakti aatma in films. She would go wake people up when they were asleep and we would get the entire thing on camera. For the first show we wanted to turn the whole thing around and play the first trick on our boss. So we got together our crew and decided to do it tonight. The girl who was killed was an intern at our office. Her name was Dipti. Of course, Prakash didn't know about any of this. Oh my god! How am I going to face her family!"

Nayak chewed his moustache some more. "OK. What's done is done. Clean this place up. There's nothing more for us do", he said. "Ahhh, only one last thing", he said to Prakash, "you kept saying 'why her', 'why her'. What kind of relationship did you have with the victim"? "I was her boss", said Prakash. "

"Sir, one minute", Ramprasad called out from the scene of the crime. "Sir, look at this dumbbell sir, they generally come in pairs, but I have searched and searched for the other one and can
t find it. Then I searched in the house and found this other one in the utility. Sir, don't you think it's funny that there was only one dumbbell in this room. Looks like it was intended for something other than exercise".

"Hmm...", said Nayak and smiled. This was not so "open and shut" after all. He was going to enjoy this. He went back into the hall and asked Prakash, "where was your wife when all this was going on?".

"She has been staying at her mother's place in JP Nagar for sometime".

Back at the station, Ramprasad came into his room. "Sir, it seems that the husband wife were having a lot of problems. I talked to the neighbours and and some people who worked at their house. They used to fight almost yeveryday it seems. Then about one week ago, she left him and went away to her mother's house".

"Good work. OK. I want you to do one thing. Get the phone records of all these fellows. Prakash, his wife, Anant and the dead girl. Study them and see if anything comes up. Also call this fellow Anant in for questioning. Something about him is not right."

A week later Anant walked in with his lawyer into the station. Nayak was in a good mood on that day. He had come very close to cracking the case. All he needed to do was talk to Borkar. "Ahh, Mr Borkar, please come, have a seat. Will you take some tea or coffee?"

"No thank you", said Anant. "So Mr. Borkar, I want you to start out by explaining to me why there were 20 calls between you and Mrs Pai the day before the murder?"

Anant's face turned stony. "We were good friends. After Deepika, sorry, Mrs. Pai, started having problems in Prakash, she confided in me. We became good friends. And spoke to each other once in a while."

"Really?", Nayak raised a eyebrow, "Good friends, or much more than that? Maybe you should explain to me why Mrs. Pai has never been seen near her mother's place for the past month? For the life of me I could not figure out the connection. Then it hit me. But I'll let you explain. So how long has the affair between you and Mrs. Pai been going on? There's no point denying it. You better come clean."

Anant sighed. "We were in love. We have been for the past year. Prakash was a bastard who didn't treat his wife well. Sometime ago, Deepika found out that Prakash was having an affair with Dipti and left him. Deepika confided in me."

"Ahh yes, yes. Which is why I was surprised to learn that Prakash had taken out a policy of 1 crore on Deepika AFTER she found out about him and Dipti. Anyway go on."

"Yes", continued Anant, "Prakash didn't know that Deepika and I had fallen in love with each other. A while ago he came to me with a plan. He wanted to get rid of Deepika. The bakra idea was his. The idea was to set this whole thing up and then get Deepika to carry out the prank. She would walk in and then Prakash would kill her. The whole thing would look like an accident of course and he would pocket the insurance money and I would get a cut"

"Deepika and I went ahead with the plan as is. Only we replaced Deepika with Dipti", smiled Anant.

"And the poor girl was killed", said Ramprasad who was listening to all of this.

"What poor girl! Everyone in this world is a bastard only I say. That's why I hate people so much. Go get me one cold Yelneer from outside"