Fiction: A woman finds herself in an affair with a property developer and, then, in a double murder

I have been wandering these streets all day. Driving around Delta, through sectors Alpha, Beta, Block A to J, in circles. Biding my time, rolling up the tinted windows against the white sun.

Driving past his construction sites, past the white apartment complexes, their foundations obscured by billboards. Svelte blondes in yoga wear meditating in serene forests, gleeful gap-toothed children. Corporate types shaking hands. One by one by one, I drive past them all.

“Casablanca: A World Apart”, I read once again at the entrance. He may be inside right now on a site visit, approving raw material, doing any one of those unnameable things that are making all this happen, or he may be in the corporate office in Gurgaon.

And on the other side of the highway – there it is as always, the entrance to the village. I screech to a stop in the middle of the highway, echoing the gruff volley of abuse in my head. Look back at the men driving past, plaster the sweetest smile I can at heads that poke out of windows. Crazy fucking bitch –

I let them pass, one by one. Let them all pass. Let it all pass.

Then, before the next car can overtake, I make a hairpin U and turn off the tarmac into the village. Relieved for no reason, I bump along the open drains of plastic and sludge. Past, once more, the kirana stores of paan packets, ladoos and kachoris leeching oil and flies, advertisements on crumbling walls – ointments to increase the sex drive, astrologers to revive your business, an unused post box with a dozen fluorescent bills saying “PG for girls”, “English Tushuns”, “Repair Electronix Items”…

Today as well, I take it all in – the women in their pallus and bangles, boys in acid-washed jeans, children sucking jellied lollipops. The Wah Ji Wah restaurant is in slumber now; it will blink alive tonight, blasting Haryanvi pop from the speakers.

And the nouveau millionaires – the once land-rich farmers sitting cross-legged on charpoys, shadowed by their mansions. They flick channa into their mouths, look around listlessly, watch their sons race each other in their Lamborghinis, their Maseratis that bump off the dirt tracks to the silken highway.

Suddenly I swerve, missing the jagged rump of a cow, its face buried in plastic.

I catch my breath, tell myself to focus, focus, please just focus, damn it.

Two weeks since that night. Two weeks of aimless wandering, cruising the highway and thoroughfares of Noida, inching through the afternoons. Driving past his construction sites, and come evening, back to the frenzy of the village again. Driving up and down the gallis for hours. Watching everything, everyone – the same families, women cutting vegetables, the poorest sitting on their haunches on top of garbage mounds as high as the neighbouring mansions. Keeping myself busy scrutinising, conjuring backstories – who inherited which property from which grandparent, who secretly hates their husband? Who is plotting to kill their sister-in-law tonight?

Anything to keep the mounting dread at bay.

I feel somewhat comforted here, at watchful ease amid the chaos of everyday life. Far more than in the township that is my new home.

And today too, I buy the Loksatta clipped to the line outside the pharmacy. Go back to my car, bang the door shut. Sit back and scan every page, run my finger across every headline, inside and out, for any hint of that Friday night, two weeks ago.

Night now and close to the mall, I spot the wings of the angel glow against the sky.

On the bench outside with outstretched arms sits Ronald McDonald, the eternal joker with a few tricks up his sleeve. And sitting beside Ronald, he is waiting for me.

In a sharp black suit, the top buttons undone, the jacket folded on Ronald’s outstretched arm. Right leg bent on top of the left, the gleaming leather shoe ticking like an alarm. He holds a burger in one hand that drops mayonnaise on his pants. Holds a toy in the other – a tiny wide-eyed doll with a thick ponytail. I can’t see it from here of course, but by the swish of its hair, I can tell what it is. He always teased me saying he would get it for me.

Our weekly date night and he has bought me a Happy Meal.

I park the car a little beyond sight, switch off all the lights. Watch him search these streets, scan every car for me. And even though I am the one lurking at a distance, I can feel his eyes poring over me, my body, inside it. And even though I am the one watching him sitting in this parking lot, so alone, just a man after all, I know he knows everything I have done all day, everywhere I have gone and wished further to go.

I wait. And watch him wait. And wait and watch him wait for me. Take off the ticking watch, shove it in the glove compartment. Prick my ears at the hum of the dead engine.

He’s looking this way now, shuffling, rising to stand.

Our eyes lock onto each other’s. I slide the sweaty key into the ignition, slipping, sliding back in, acting out a well-rehearsed script. Not looking down, back, not even shifting my eyes to the rear-view mirror, I reverse straight through, straight out the open gates and onto the highway, a deer in retreat, eyes locked on his the whole time.

Excerpted with permission from Girls Who Stray, Anisha Lalvani, Bloomsbury India.