CHAPTER-5::Confession
A large bang at the main door made her sit on her bed.(Oh no! It was dawn already).For a second she thought she misheard something but it didn’t take her much time to realize that it was real as soon as she heard a series of knocks and bells thereafter from downstairs. Raya hurriedly went out of the room. A strange smell of rotting flesh was in that atmosphere. The sounds gradually become louder and clearer as she climbed down the stairs to reach the hallway. Now she could heard clearly the sound of siren coming from outside. Her body soon started to get the chills as she heard it.(How could they even possibly know? No, Mrs. Goodwill could have never called them. I believed her. It was just a usual weekly patrol. That’s it! Don’t be panic Raya).But before she helped herself to go outside through the front door, she took a look in the living room. Her breath ceased, her body shuddered and her heart wrecked when she saw the woman’s body lying flat on the couch. She couldn’t believe her eyes.(NO! IT COULDN’T HAPPEN…NEVER…I…I…I DON’T KILL…HER…). Raya collapsed on the wooden floor. And then the door opened wide, letting the officers and some other cops to enter inside. One of the officers bent down and put handcuffs on her skinny hands.
“You have to come with us.” said the officer in a cold way and then took her with him out of that house.
The officer opened the back door of the car and made her sit inside. Raya sitting alone in the backside turned her head slightly to see theman standing quietly behind the windows of her bedroom and looking straightway at her eyes. Her face soon become white and then she fainted.
“Where am I ?”said Raya in a very low voice as she lifted her body. She could still feel slight pain at some of the joints. It was quiet dark there. Gently she opened her eyes and to her astonishment she found herself in her bedroom(Was that all a dream?).The phone was buzzing silently at the side table. She hastily picked it up, turned the alarm off and checked the time,4:37 am(the body was still down there!).
Raya quickly gathered her limbs to get down from the bed and as she was about to leave, she saw someone. A black figure standing beside the window. She suddenly felt goosebumps(was it him… BUT HOW?)And before she could move, he come out from the darkness. The man leapt right away and grabbed her neck. She screamed with terror. Soon he buried his clumsy hands deep around her neck. Raya being helpless threshed impatiently on the bed as he pressed them harder and then she woke up panting heavily from her sleep.
“Are you alright?” asked the cop while giving her a glass of water. Raya got startled at first when she saw him but then she took the glass of water and drank it quietly(It was all indeed a dream!…a bad dream …with a more horrible reality).
“ I think you are looking fine now after being unconscious for hours, so we can start our interrogation within few minutes and it will be really helpful if you will cooperate with us!” saying that the cop left that room immediately.
Later Raya was sitting on a metallic chair placed in front of a large table with two more vacant chairs facing oppositely. Soon she heard some footsteps from outside and then two men entered the room, shutting the door behind them.
“Let me first introduce myself. I am Andrea Fischer, handling this case and he is…”
“ Kevin Weiss, working in this case with him” the other cop answered promptly.
“Let us start the interrogation without any further delay” said the man in his orotund voice. “ So, why did you do that?”
Raya remained quiet. She clenched her fist tightly and sank herself down on her chair. The other cop leaned forward from his seat while resting his arms on the table, he spoke to her gently “ Listen Raya, we just want to know the details. Please, tell us.”
She rose her head gradually and then looked into his eyes directly. After a long pause she began “ I was being followed by a man for some few days. I first saw him outside a bar nearby my workplace .Then I started to see him daily but at different places.And yesterday…”she paused for a moment and then taking a deep breathe she continued “while I was waiting for my bus at night he appeared again in front of me but this time he attempted to kill me not once but multiple times, back at my own house too!”.
Her voice raised “ I literally have no idea how he got inside my house or made him disappear and reappear at different times but he was frightening me. I was really afraid at that time and then Mrs. Goodwill come to my house.She insisted to stay with me after I told her about that man. And there she was sleeping in the living room at that night when the man appeared again.” Raya stopped. Her eyes instantly filled up with tears. She clenched her fist strongly once more and then spoke to them at once “I was so terrified and scared. I just want my peaceful life back so I took a knife and went into that living room. He was standing there in the back so I moved towards him and…”she almost broke up. “FOR GOD SAKE!! I don’t know how did it happen but TRUST ME!! I didn’t kill her”. After saying that she started crying.
“Mrs. Goodwill!” muttered the officer.
The two men sitting on their chairs looked towards each other in disbelief. One of them took out a photo from the file and slid it on the table towards her. Raya looked at the photograph with her bleary eyes. It was of that deceased lady. She immediately turned around her neck and then pushed away herself from the desk.
“Officer! Why are you showing me her photograph? PLEASE…I am requesting you, just don’t…I honestly can’t face her. ” yelled Raya. She was panting heavily on her seat with tears in her eyes. Then she said regretfully
“I indeed have done the biggest mistake which costs me the life of the most precious and loving person of my life.Now I am ready to accept my crime, arrest me officers in charge of killing Mrs. Goodwill” she declared right away by holding back her tears.
“No need to feel sorry, my dear” said the officer tenderly. “ Because I am certain that you never killed her!”
Raya become shocked to hear that.
“NO!… Officer as I have told you earlier…It was my fault that I stabbed her instead of that man.” her voice cracked as she spoke. The officer straightened his back ,leant forward a bit, crossed his hands and then said sternly
“How could you possibly kill someone who has already been dead for years!”
Right afterwards the room become completely silent for a minute or two. Raya could not believe her ears. She was still staring at the officer in complete bewilderment. It was the other cop who broke the silence first
“Can’t you remember anything, Raya. The lady whom you were talking about is actually your grandmother who had passed seven years ago due to dementia”.
Her mind went completely blank at once. She shook her head in denial and then tossed herself back on the chair. Again tears started to shed off from her eyes, this time not from grief but in madness. She again tried to look at the photograph carefully placed on the table.It was certainly of her grandmother.Raya lost her mind and started to laugh out loudly. Extreme pain and grief being evoked in her laughter. It soon faded into the oblivion and thereafter balancing herself over the chair she finally spoke in a very quiet voice
“What…what do you want from me then ?”
The officer quickly grabbed the files from the table and opened it in his front and started reading it gravelly “ 23rd of December 2011, a few days after your grandmother’s demise you were diagnosed with schizophrenia which includes symptoms like hallucinations, paranoia, amnesia, delusion, fear…etc. and for which you were shifted to University Hospital Graz. Spending almost four and a half years in that hospital you were discharged but your medications were still continued with monthly visits to your doctor. And finally you returned to your grandmother’s house which is now under your name as per the will. You tried several part time jobs and lastly found one in a private company as a typist” saying that he flipped the pages swiftly with his brawny hands and then stopped at a page. He scanned the sheet quickly and after keeping that file aside he started “ About an year later you met a man named Erik Schmid in a coffee shop through your friend. Am I right Miss Raya? Oh…I mean Mrs. Raya!”. She slowly moved her head upwards and started looking in his direction. A faint smile gradually drew up on one side of her mouth.The officer withdrew a handkerchief from his side pocket and wiped his forehead with it. Then placing it back in his pocket he continued “ The man was working as a salesperson and was living alone in rent in the down streets nearby your working place. An orphan from his childhood hence no relatives except some few friends. You both started to meet each other subsequently and then got married in this year on sixteen of July. He moved to your apartment thereafter. But within a month he lost his job. And then after six months of your marriage you killed your husband brutally by stabbing him several times at his abdomen and locked his body inside the spandrel( small room below the staircase)!.” the officer completed his sentence breathlessly and then looked towards his fellow companion. The cop bent forward and then asked her intrepidly
“Why did you kill him, Raya?’’
She inclined forward and opened her mouth slightly in order to speak something and then in a very low voice she said “ Because… he was a monster. A deadly venomous creature behind a soft cornered humble man who was eagerly waiting to dig his fangs deep inside your body until the last drop of your red blood turned black with his deadly poison. ” The officer raised his eyebrows vaguely and his eyes flickered as he sensed such intense animosity from her. She continued “ You know officer I was not that kind of person who could easily trust anyone. But to be honest now I am afraid that how had I not been able to see the reality behind the mask he always used to wear. For God sake, I had totally become blind then”. Tears begin to flow down. Raya wiped it immediately with her frail hands. She gradually gathered herself and continued again “He never lost his job, he was fired from there when they come to know that how he was illegally selling some products in the black market. I really don’t know for how many years he was doing that but ya…finally he got caught. Later on I started to feel like I was forgetting things very easily. I simply could not recall much of the things happening in my day on that time and that was when I started to write down things again. Well, it was my secret diary so I never told him about it. And then one day while cleaning the closet beside the stairs I found a bunch of my medicines inside one of the polybags. I was shocked indeed much terrified to see those in bulk because I trusted him. I felt betrayed.My heart was completely broken.But the numbers were enough to tell me that he had stopped giving me medicines for a long time ago. I hurried back into my room with the bag, kept it safe inside my closet, wrote down about the whole incident. And then in the evening we had a long fiery argument but I could not recall anything of that frightful night. Next day to my surprise I found out that my whole body was aching so badly and there were some bruises on both of my legs and arms. But the most infuriating thing was that I could not remember how I got all of them. Well after that day onwards we rarely used to talk with each other and he also started to come late at night. I also had taken a few days leave from my job in order to give some rest to my mind. Now It was happening to me on every single day, fresh new wounds appeared on different parts of the limbs plus sometimes in my face too. And then one day I discovered a deep strangled mark around my neck. I was horrified…really horrified…it was making my flesh to crawl. I just didn’t know how I was getting them all. Probably then, I had just totally forgot about his betrayal and everything hence never suspected him.But one day while looking at those bruises all those gruesome dreadful memories at once rushed through my mind and I know I had to do something before I forget everything. For safety, first I took a knife from the kitchen and slide it inside the inner pocket of my coat and then I searched the entire house. After exploring everything I found that some precious items including my grandmother jewels and some official documents related to the house plus the will were missing. I made my mind to call the police and right away headed towards the land phone placed on the side table of our guestroom. But then when I was just holding the cradle and about to dial the number, I sensed someone’s creepy eyes on me. I turned around and was scared to death when I saw him standing outside the gate with his filthy murderous eyes keenly scanning the whole situation around him. And then he sprung over me like a wild bear and secured his hands around my neck. But I was already prepared with my defense. I drag out the knife and struck him hard at the lateral part of the abdomen. That wild beast wailed in pain(maybe was also quiet shocked to get a surprise blow from his daily suppressed and infirm victim). As his grip loosened I managed to pull myself out from his hold. But he was strong, not ready to unleash his prey that much easily without tasting its flesh. He clasped my legs with his own and tried to pull me towards him. I was frightened but not fool enough to give up my life to a deadly hellhound. I kicked him hard, clenched the knife in my fist, jumped over him and landed my knife at his abdomen. His head paced forward with his eyes bulging outward and dripping some amount of blood from his mouth. I could see fear in his eyes. He still moved his nasty hands towards me but then I hit him several times with the knife until he stopped…moving ” said Raya in one breath and then retreated back to her chair. She somewhat felt very peaceful like a great burden had finally gone from her life. After so many years a smile naturally glowed on her face, eliminating all the negative energies surrounding her and revitalizing happiness in her life.
The officer and the cop looked toward each other in satisfaction.
“Thanks dear, for giving us all the details” said the officer contentedly and then left the room with the other cop.
. . .
Epilogue
( Date::1 January 2019, Tuesday, New Year)
Two weeks later the interrogation. The cops had verified Raya’s sentence and found out that the deceased Erik Schmidt was indeed responsible was physically abusing Raya for a long time. By analyzing all the fingerprints and blood samples collected from the house in addition to matching it with Raya’s they confirmed that most of the blood stains were of her. All the other things which she had mentioned earlier about him was also confirmed after they collected the whole data from his company and local agents. While autopsy they identified some superficial skin damages other than those deep cuts on his abdominal region which in fact was done in case of defense. At last it was concluded that all the facts she had mentioned was true and she had killed him in order to protect herself.
The decision was taken firmly by a council of members of judiciary on behalf of equity and also considering her mental condition, it was decided to admit Raya again at the same hospital for her further treatments until she recovered fully.
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