CRIME FICTION
The Photograph
In the Shade of Mango Blossoms: Chapter 1
Scrolling through specimen O level papers, Mrittika lost track of how much time she had spent in front of the desktop. Her midriff started to cramp and her ankles were swollen from sitting too long. Clutching a bone china cup, she shuffled to the snacks station, and was flustered to find an empty coffee pot.
“Shall I make the coffee?” A husky voice caught Mrittika off guard. The smirk on the school janitor’s face betrayed the benevolence of her words. Her coal-black eyes glinted in the sunlight that waltzed through clerestory windows. Declining the offer, Mrittika returned to her desk with an empty cup and an uneasy feeling.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Mrittika’s contemplations would have to wait until after the third period. The Year 9 teacher gathered her markers, pens and binder in a stripe leather tote bag, and dashed to the language lab at the far end of the building. In her hurry, she dropped a colour photograph, which a wrinkled hand grabbed soon after and deftly concealed beneath an azure apron.
Jeffrey Archer kept the 39-year-old divorced school teacher company as she sipped cinnamon tea in her moonlit bedroom. The power cut showed no sign of relenting. Unable to bear the strain on her eyes, Mrittika tossed the paperback onto a bean bag ottoman and desperately tried to nap. High-pitched voices emanating from next door robbed her of some much needed quiet time.
A phone call from the other side of the world provided forty minutes of relief. This was followed by a light supper of couscous with grilled peppers, and a refreshing glass of lemonade. The week’s tabloid regurgitated scandals that were past their shelf life. An old edition of Good Housekeeping would have been a delightful alternative had the lights not extended their sabbatical.
At bedtime, Mrittika took her medication and leapt into bed with her notebook. As she was writing her to-do list, she remembered something and scampered to the living room. Her wallet was missing a crucial piece of evidence and she had no clue where she might have dropped it.
The previous night’s unpleasant discovery took a toll on Mrittika’s complexion, but she couldn’t be bothered about it at this point. Rubbing aloe vera gel on a fresh pimple, she thought hard about where she had put the photograph. It was the only hard evidence she had to prove her father’s innocence in a protracted money laundering case.
A silvery grey 10-seater van pulled over in front of the driveway gate and announced its arrival, exasperating neighbours who cursed the driver through toothpaste foam. The incessant honking snapped Mrittika out of her daydream. She quickly tamed her unruly curls into a neat bun, securing it with as many hair pins as she could find on her dressing table. Grabbing her headscarf and satchel from the living room sofa, she darted out of her one-bedroom apartment, neglecting to lock the main door.
In the elevator, she fumbled with her scarf pins, but managed to pin up the headscarf snugly around her head, neck and shoulders. In the staff bus, she gobbled down homemade oatmeal cookies — her preoccupation denied her a full breakfast.
By noon, Mrittika was famished. She had a club sandwich at the school cafeteria and then headed towards the language lab on a futile quest for the photograph. Undeterred by the outcome, she sprinted up the half turn stairs to her workstation on the third floor. Once more, success eluded her.
Panicking, she searched the library, computer lab and classrooms on the same floor. When it was past dismissal time, Mrittika embarked on a comprehensive search of all the other rooms in the building. It wasted a good couple of hours from her uneventful life. Her knees hurt from running up and down the stairs of the modest five-storey campus.
As she bent down to sit on the bottom-most step of the top floor staircase, she was startled by the sudden appearance of the janitor. The middle-aged lady gave her the same unnerving smile as she reached inside her apron. Before Mrittika could muster the strength to get back up and walk away, the janitor’s wrinkled hand held something familiar in plain view. “No!” gasped the English teacher.
