For three days the rain had not stopped. It fell over the Charmadi hills in long grey sheets, and Kodekallu Gudda, with all its shola forests, had vanished behind a wall of mist.
Sukumar woke at his usual hour and waited for the smell of coffee that drifted, every morning, from Gulabi's house across the slope. This morning it did not come.
Gulabi was a widow in her mid-fifties. She lived alone on the hillside facing Kodekallu Gudda, the widow of Rajendra Shetty, and though she had no children of her own, she had always treated Sukumar and his younger brother Dinesh as her sons. They were her only neighbours and her dearest friends. Her days were full ones — cooking, working the small farm about her house, living just as she pleased. She was fond of her solitude, and she guarded it.
That morning the house was silent. Sukumar had kept a spare key for years, and when he let himself in, he found no Gulabi at all. He found only the dark stains spreading across the kitchen floor, and they looked very much like blood.
He telephoned the police.
When they came, they confirmed what he had feared. There was blood on the floor. The cash was gone. Her jewellery was gone. To every eye it was a robbery that had ended in something worse.
Then a constable stepped outside, and stopped, and stared.
Dinesh was standing near his own doorway, quite still. His shirt was marked with blood. And when the men searched his cupboard, they drew out Gulabi's missing cash and her jewels, pushed far back upon a shelf.
They arrested Dinesh where he stood.