Chapter One
CHUBS
What would drive a man to cut off his dead lover's head? Its not easy. That is the thought running through my mind as I race to meet my writing deadline at the Weekend Financial Review.
I am frustrated.
"No, you cannot interview the wife, because she is just too tired to talk anymore," says my editor. I stare angrily at him down the phone. I can picture him running around the office with his sleeves rolled up and his collar awry. He has nice grey eyes. He does not take leave, even on his birthday or on Ramadan. He goes home at 2 am, after everyone else has left the evening shift.
How will I write my piece on the Midway Murder? All I can think about is this buff sexy ole cop dude who has now hung himself in the middle of the jungle. He had annoyingly taken the mystery with him. A mystery that has this entire island talking.
"How do you know the wife didn't have something to do with this?" says my mango friend Faa, in the middle of feeding her cats, in a rather manky dressing gown. Through the WhatsApp video, I can see them plowing restlessly through her house, on her laundry, on her countertops, on her washing machine, in her armchairs, under her bed. There seem to be cats everywhere, but there were only four at the last count. I told her not to increase her population of animals, but I know the next time she sees a kitten or some geriatric dog she will feel sorry for it. A crow popped its head in at the window and cawed raucously for food. Faa has named it Rasta.
"How do you know- she must have got fed up with this old bugger messing around with the girl and she must have done something. Like a hooniyama," said Faa.
Hooniyama is the Sri Lankan word for Voodoo. There is a God in charge of this process, named the God in Charge of the Village. I'm surprised at her because Faa is a Muslim.
"What kind of hooniyama can you do?"
"Anu knows we should ask her, there are lots of things… that can be done" says Faa, evasively. I feel that she has already consulted Anu and is not ready to discuss it yet. Faa was creative in thinking up ways to discretely torture her husband when he annoyed her.
This is interesting. Why didn't I think of this before?
As a journalist and an ex-wife myself I can begin to imagine the drama behind this murder story. And feel enraged for us all, the dead man, the murdered other-woman and the grieving wife and children. No one plans these things they have a way of happening. Well, sometimes wives plan things. But we will come to that later. I need to finish my article. My petrol tank has corroded and Im without transport too, which is bad in the middle of a pandemic. I have to get through all of this without getting this damned virus and spreading it at home.
My current husband keeps trying to be funny with me but I told him to stay one meter away.
