Thread by @Hemanth02933027

#WritingCommunity #shortstory #readers #readingcommunity @ramkid @RoaldDahlFans
This #twory is my humble tribute to Roald Dhal
A BAD STORY
1/n

Driving out of Delhi, Madan noticed traffic was light on the highway. Though the #pandemic was receding, it’s impact was still discernable in many things. Like the almost empty roads. He was driving the new compact SUV 2/n

as their driver had returned to his hometown down south to wait out the pandemic. Madan would have been happier if his wife was not sitting beside him. He scowled at Anita’s side profile. 3/n

Anita was the only child and now the heiress to a vast fortune. Lots of properties all over the country, dozens of factories and offices, a business empire. All created by her father who passed away 3 or 4 years back and her mother had died 4/n

even earlier. Madan had joined her father’s management team as a junior executive. Within a year he had mapped his moves and went to great lengths to be nice to her father. And feigning love, he had wooed Anita with the sole aim of climbing up the ladder. 5/n

God, how he hated her! Indifference and dislike had snow-balled to hatred during the #Covid-19 lockdown. He could not go abroad; he could not spend time with his French girlfriend. Instead, he had Anita, who was no fool. She knew Madan did not love her at all. 6/n

She had spoken frankly during one of their increasingly frequent quarrels. “Listen Madan, I know you want to be rid of me but not my money! And as long as I live, you aren’t getting anything more than what you get now. Be patient and you might get all my things later”.
7/n

Now he wanted to achieve his ambitions faster, having wasted about two years, and he was ready for anything, to even kill her if he must. “This will climb easily…” Anita’s words startled him to the present. Often it seemed as if she had the uncanny ability to read his mind. 8/n

As if she knew what he was thinking and it made him jittery. “What are you blathering about?” he snarled at her. “Don’t shout like a spoiled brat that you are,” Anita said and calmly continued “I was saying this is better than taking my sedan. Good thing I bought this SUV.
9/n

Easier to drive on the mountain roads.” She’d take over the driving after some time. Not only she was good at driving, she knew more about cars than anyone he knew.
They drove up in the Himalayas to Manali and then took a diversion to climb higher to their colonial villa.
10/n

Pandu and his wife were the caretaker and cook but the pandemic had displaced them too. Before they departed to their village in the plains, Pandu had stocked the kitchen and stacked bunches of firewood. It snowed, as it was doing now, 11/n

in the evenings and nights and Madan promptly had a fire going in the hall’s fireplace.
Next day, late afternoon, Madan was ready. When Anita got up from the sofa in the hall to go to kitchen, Madan grabbed a wooden log from the pile of firewood and brought it down hard 12/n

at the back of her head. Her cry of pain stopped abruptly as she fell in a heap, already dead.
Madan stood stock still and took a few deep breaths. He looked at his hand holding the log and noted it was trembling only slightly. With a grunt and a cruel-looking half smile, 13/n

he placed the log in the fire place and lit a fire. Next, he went to his dead wife and holding his handkerchief, caught and broke her pearl necklace. Then he phoned his friend Dhumal, the sub-inspector for the area. 14/n

“Aah, good whiskey,” appreciated Dhumal. He and Madan were sitting close to the fireplace to get as much heat as possible. Dhumal had arrived promptly after the phone call from Madan and later had summoned two constables to the villa. They had looked 15/n

all over the place, without any results. Dhumal took a sip of whiskey and said a burglar had killed Anita and had to flee without taking anything when he heard Madan returning from his walk.
“Very sad thing. Wish I could help more but this pandemic has dumped a heavy work 16/n

load on those of us who are still living. I will explain to the doctor who does police work, post mortems and things like that and between the two of us will take care of all paper work. You do not worry and you can take her to Delhi tomorrow.” Dhumal sighed and rubbing 17/n

his palms together in front of the burning logs, murmured, “I could have at least got some clues if the murder weapon was found.” Madan turned away for a moment, to hide his smile.
An hour after the sun had come out, 18/n

Madan was ready to go, with his wife’s body in the back seat. The SUV started smoothly and the engine was purring as if it too was eager to take part in the good times ahead. All the fortune would now be his and thinking of a quick trip 19/n

to Paris to see his girlfriend, Madan smiled. He was driving downhill and at the second hairpin bend, it happened. The brakes failed at the turning. He tried to remain calm, shifted into lower gears, decided not to switch off the engine, all the while steering and trying
20/n

the brakes again. The vehicle skidded just as it neared the next hairpin bend and tumbled down, down and down, to smash on to the boulders at the bottom. As he died, just as life was leaving him, he suddenly remembered Anita spending time in the garage the previous day.
FINISH