Infidelity

Old tales

Sacra sat with Janis as Islam worked on the papers in the next room. It should have been a normal day at work but it was not . There were underlying tensions of an investigation delayed that went on through the minds of everyone at different levels. Janis asked again , " I must know why all this elaborate ruse to get him back into investigation team. The Head could have just instructed him, it would have been much easier and we would not have lost any time. "

Sacra sat quietly.infact the newer members did not know the case of Delawares. But in that year it had been a case that had baffled the team.

A prominent family in their town, Delawares had a neat household. Till one morning seventeen year old Rose Delaware walked in to Police Station to complain against his father of Fredrick Delaware of unbearable cruelty and domestic violence against his wife, Rose's mother, Greta. It was a case that was assigned to Officer Islam. He had visited and been told by Greta that Rose was an imaginative child who always feared her father and thought that Greta was beaten every night.

Greta said that this complaint was not just registered at the Police Station but also Rose had complained to her class teachers leading to both parents being called to school. Greta explained to the Officer that her husband was closer to her boys and from childhood, Rose had been afraid of her father. She had added that the father while deeply caring, was infact a loud man who laughed loud, when angry shouted loud, moved loud etc. But he was a gentle giant.

Evryone wanted Officer Islam to close the case. But he did not. He spoke to the daughter again who insisted that she was correct but in a hushed tone. Yes she was afraid of her father but she seemed worried about her mother more.

Officer Islam had asked repeatedly if there was any risk to the girl herself, but Rose had always maintained that she had no request for herself. If Officer Islam had been retelling the tale he would have added that for five nights he stood camafloudged paying attention to the house. The girl had said something macabre happened in the evenings , late evenings after she had gone up to her bed. As there house was an old one, there were many passages and hidden nooks and corners. So Rose always heard her mother but could not reach her. Also after evening her father used to say that he would release the dogs. The dogs had free reign of the house in the ground floor but since she was afraid of dogs, then first floor was locked.

Officer Islam could not find anything untoward even after the nightly watch. It possible would have never come up again and slowly like many little unsolved mysteries the story would have disappeared from Officer Islam's mind. But that was not the case. The peace before the storm , one day Rose called to say that her mother had a fatal fall and would not survive. She was in tears. Yet behind each tear spoke an anger of not being able to save her mother. Officer had rushed to the hospital to find her mother in a private chamber. She did not look hurt but there was an internal haemorrhage that could not be stopped. Officer Islam had despaired and lost his composure. The hospital had never seen a Police Officer cry so they gave him some space to grieve. But the grief could only be brief as the lady, Rose's mother had wanted to give a statement.

She had said with soft but firm tones, laced with deep pain ,"This is an accident. I was unmindful and slipped. You must not bother my family asking them questions. Let them grieve in peace. My sons should come down and if possible I insist that you look into the matter of Rose's stay with her brothers. Her father is very unmindful and hence managing himself alone that he will manage but nothing else. Rose must go to stay with her brothers."

Rose said to him the next day when her mother was no more, " She committed suicide. I am sure. I was looking down at the stairs and she looked up at my door. Before I knew she was tumbling down. She committed suicide as no one would save her from the daily torture that she had to endure. No one, not even you. "

Officer Islam visited the crime scene and all he could see were undisturbed fallen objects surrounding the table. It appeared that many came to meet the family but no one had disturbed the crime scene. By now he had noted that Rose's mother Greta had a will of her own. She had property of her own and also had money. The will was to be read the next day but he noted that Greta's husband was not there in the hospital with Rose when the time came for Greta to leave the world. She left with a sigh and only Rose's hand in hers.

Rose had smiled sadly and said, "None of my brother's reached to say her a goodbye."

But that was not the case, the brothers had reached and were with the father. It appeared they were comforting him. When they heard their mother had passed away they looked broken but they did not regret not being there beside her hospital bed and Officer Islam remembered wondering what was happening. They said their mother would have wanted their father to have support. The father had to answer on why he never visited the hospital post rushing his wife to the emergency facilities and hearing that the hemorrhage and his answer was, he was blaming himself for the accident as he was not at home and hence could not face his wife.

He was indeed not there. He was infact just outside the door having an argument with angry neighbour on his dogs that had chased the neighbour's son. There were more than one witness to that fact along with the daughter who was stuck upstairs for the closed doors.

The issue came out more in the reading of Greta's final will. Greta had left everything to her daughter. The sons got a token thank you and an additional fund from a trust if they had Rose with them. If they did not then they would not get a penny. The house that they resided in, went to Rose. Their father was never mentioned in the entire Will. It was as if he never existed in the world for Greta. As if no one did but her daughter. Then suddenly at the end of the reading there was a gift of a vintage car to Officer Islam. He remembered having praised the car once in the vicinity of Greta, a tactic he used to distract when he felt his questioning were getting pre decided responses. It had not bothered Greta much beyond a pause and then a slight tightening of the lips. But that was the first time he had taken on the case at Rose's complaint. By the end of it he knew Greta were one of those women who can get abused for years and not speak a word for reasons best known to them and her. But then gift of the vintage car was not acceptable. He had however no one to listen to him as by then he saw a slight shift in dynamics infront of his eyes and the sons and father started to crowd the daughter till the lawyer said, the father could not be in the vicinity of the property where the daughter stayed was the final clause of handing over an old envelop to him.