Book I - Husband, I Love You (Completed)

Part 39

"Why?"

"To see whether Balraj was really in the hotel with us in the party night."

"How you got the CCTV footage?"

"You remember that teenage boy Sunny with whom you danced and pissed me off in your father's company's silver jubilee party?"

"Yeah. He worked as a part time waiter in Purple Orchid Hotel."

"He only helped me in getting this footage"

"Oh!" she said and closely scrutinized the video. It was the recorded video of the camera fitted in the hotel elevator

"This girl?" Madhu asked seeing a girl walk into the elevator. "Is she the one who bumped into me in the party?"

"Yep! And she is the one who broke into our house twice."

"What's her name?" Madhu asked as she couldn't remember her name from what her husband told the other day.

"Dipali. Dipali Bhatia" he said and moved to the next footage. "See this, before she ran into you she was talking to that man in dark suit." Rishab paused and zoomed for the close-up of the image for her to see clearly. "That guy is her father"

"He is the owner of the hotel right?"

"Yes and he is Balraj" Rishab blurted out looking at Madhu, gauging her expression.

"What!!!" Madhu screamed almost tearing his eardrum. "You sure?" she asked. He nodded.

"Can I see a clear picture of him? In this one I could see only his back"

"Yeah sure" he didn't show the picture of Balraj he extracted from the video instead he typed in Google 'Purple Orchid Hotel owner Kulbushan Bhatia' and it showed a cluster of his photos.

"I don't think he is Balraj..." Madhu shook her head doubtfully. If it was him she surely would have recognized him when they both searched for Dipali's images the other day when she broke into their house.

Rishab quickly opened a folder which contained details of Balraj and his pictures of some 15 to 20 years back.

"This is the guy who kidnapped you when you were a kid right?"

"Yes" she can never forgot neither Balraj nor Bujang. She loathed both the monsters with passion.

"Then wait a sec..." he quickly ran the facial recognition app to see whether both the old and new images match.

"Is this your intuition? Then to hell with it because I'm sure this guy is not Bal..." Madhu stopped her blabla seeing his laptop screen flash the word "Perfect Match" on and off with a green tick.

"It's been 19 years, Madhu. He has changed a lot. He is no more the ugly guy with full beard and thick mustache. He has groomed up to match with the elite class and he surely has put on some weight. You see, Balraj and Bujang went MIA for years and came out in the public with a new identity that was clear from any criminal records. He even cut ties with his underworld dealing for long but started again when Dutta was encounter."  he said everything to her he found from his investigation.

"I still can't believe my own eyes, Rishab... this guy... Bhatia is so different from Balraj..." she said still staring at both the old and new photos projected on the screen side by side.

"How... how did you come to the conclusion that he is Balraj? You haven't even seen him as Balraj but only as Bhatia."

"You said in the therapy..."

"What I said?" she asked.

"First let me finish the sentence, Madhu, will you?" he asked. She nodded. She was so anxious to know so she was popping out question after question interrupting him and annoying him.