माधवपुर Part - 3 | The Client

"Hello.. Hello."

"Who is speaking??"

"I am Abhishek, from Assam."

"Have we ever met?"

"No."

"Where did you get my number and what is your work?"

"Urmila didi gave me this number and told me to contact you when I am unable to understand the situation."

"Urmila.. Urmila.. Urmila Bhattacharya???" Raghav asked remembering her.

Abhishek, "Yes."

"How is she now and where is she?"

"Urmila didi is no more!" Saying this, Abhishek started crying on the phone. Tears started flowing from his eyes and started dripping down his cheeks.

He said while crying, "The police closed the case by calling it a suicide."

Raghav was stunned to hear this. How could an intelligent and promising girl like Urmila commit suicide? Her nature was such that she would get carried away by troubles. Raghav had never seen her getting scared of trouble.

It was because of this nature that he liked her. Urmila Bhattacharya was her full name. She used to be a student leader in JNU. She was so far away from her home in Assam, even after coming to Delhi, she was never scared.

"Tell me the whole story Abhishek, what happened?" Raghav insisted.

"Bhaiyya, water", Somnath uncle's daughter Nandini brings water to Abhishek. Abhishek drinks water and wets his throat and then starts speaking further.

"On 16th September, I got a call from Urmila Didi. That morning, the dead body of her father-in-law Kunal Barua was found lying there. She told me that last night she was sleeping very deeply, normally her sleep is very light. She wakes up immediately if she hears any sound, but that day I don't know if she was conscious at all."

"At what time did she wake up that day?" Raghav asked.

Abhishek, "I didn't ask this but she called me from a hospital number. It was 10:30 in the morning."

"Why did she go to the hospital?"

"She has a 6-year-old daughter Manju, that night she saw a ghost. She was fainting repeatedly so Anil Bhaiya took her to the hospital."

"Who is Anil?"

"Anil Barua is Urmila Didi's husband and is a station master in his village Madhavpur. He was at the station that night. When he reached home in the morning, he was very worried seeing the situation. He quickly took Manju and went to the hospital."

Raghav, "Who else was in the house?"

"Didi's family is not very big, after sister-in-law's marriage, there were only Babuji, Didi, Manju and Anil Bhaiya in the house. Apart from this, there are two servants, Bijoy Kaka and Hema Kaki. Both of them also go to their homes at 8 in the night."

Raghav, "Have they ever had any enmity or quarrel with the people around?"

"Didi's in-laws are the richest family in the village. Anil Bhaiya is respected in the whole village, everyone calls him Chote Malik, why would anyone have enmity with him?"

Raghav, "How did the police decide that both of them had committed suicide?"

"Under pressure from the villagers." Abhishek replied and started telling further.

"The villagers believe that a ghost lives in that mansion. There was no such thing earlier. A few months after Didi's marriage, a very surprising incident happened with Anil Bhaiya. One day Anil Bhaiya did not come home. Didi enquired at the station and he was not there either. Two days passed but there was no news of him. When the station staff started looking around, they found him lying unconscious in the bushes on the other side of the station."

"Later Anil Bhaiya told that he saw a woman in white clothes walking on the tracks at 12 o'clock at night. He thought that she was going to commit suicide. He followed her for some distance but suddenly she disappeared from his sight."

"This was the first time, after a few days she was seen again. This time when Anil Bhaiya followed her, that woman attacked him and he fell unconscious."

"After that day, that shadow was seen many times by the villagers as well. This was confirmed by more than fifty people and some people even lost their lives."

"The villagers also say that the shadow had accompanied Anil Bhaiya to his house. He was often seen walking on his roof at night."

"It was from here that the matter started becoming incomprehensible. When the villagers started speaking in one voice, the police also had to accept this."

Raghav had been listening to Abhishek for a long time. Many questions were running through his mind. But he knew very well that Abhishek did not have the answers to these questions.

"When did you last talk to Urmila?" Raghav asked Abhishek.

Abhishek, "After her father-in-law's death, she became quite depressed. We insisted that she come with us for a few days, but she did not agree to come. There was something that was eating her up inside. She sent Anju but did not come herself."

"I had to leave for my college in Guwahati the next morning, so I started packing my clothes at around 9 in the night, when the phone rang. Mother picked up the phone, it was Urmila Didi on the other end but she could not talk. When I asked, mother said that the voice got disconnected suddenly. The next day we got the news of Didi's suicide."

"Did you guys try to call again?", Raghav asked. He was quite confused. He knew that she had come to know something that night, she must have called to tell something.

"Yes, we tried but the call did not connect. Bhaiyya, we have only one last hope from you, please help us.", Abhishek said in a hopeless tone.

"Who all live in the mansion now?"

"No one. Anil Bhaiyya now stays at the station itself. Even if he comes home, for whom? Anju lives with us now."

"Is there any train to Madhavpur?"

"Yes, there is a train from Kolkata, Kaamrup Express train number is 5959.

"Okay, I am coming – Madhavpur."

To be Continued...