Sashi noticed only the screenplay displayed by Mitra. It tickled his mind that she was finally showing a movement.
"Nah, you must be more curious about my identity than how I know about you," he went back to baiting her.
Mitra thought about it honestly. She was very much intent on knowing his identity, but not more than her determination to know his connection to Lekha's case and the details of the other woman he killed in her presence a fortnight back. Yet, it wasn't the time to let him know that.
She stayed silent, her eyes wavering the right amount.
"Should I talk about our hometown? Or about the cove where you and your boyfriend practiced music?" Sashi's voice deepened.
Mitra's breath quickened as a sudden spike shot in her heartbeat.
The lake, the cove; he had been there when I and Vishal hung out in the evenings. It was the crime scene of the murder, and if he had indeed followed us and known that place, he could very well have committed that murder there as some sort of signalling to us.
Mitra's thoughts started their wild chase again, but she tried to tone them down. Answers, she needed answers instead of speculations. She turned up her gaze towards Sashi without lifting her head, just her eyelids moving up as if she were finally noticing Sashi sitting in front of her.
Sashi was elated on getting her attention finally.
"Tell me what you want to know," he said with his smile back on his face. "I am in a mood to talk tonight."
"What's the use of talking about anything, Sashi?" Mitra spoke slowly, her voice cracking, which was unintentional on her part but added up positively to her show. "I don't trust you. How am I ever going to validate your statements? For all I know, you could be making up everything to just make a fool of me, dupe me into playing into some game of yours. It's just your word here. After everything you have done to me over the past few days, you can hardly expect me to listen to you with an open mind and acceptance."
Sashi looked at her hard, cupping his chin with his hand in scrutiny of Mitra's words, a finger to his lips as he pondered over her statement of doubts.
"How do you think I know about the cove near the lake?" he asked seriously.
"For someone who knows about Lekha's murder, the knowledge of the crime scene is not news," Mitra muttered disinterestedly.
"Should I hum you the song your boyfriend composed for you at that cove?" he prodded her dangerously.
Mitra didn't budge.
"Or, should I tell you who killed that girl?" his voice was getting deadly deep.
Mitra held her breath. It wasn't time yet. She kept her straight face displaying her complete distrust towards his question. After all, he could name any random person as the culprit and pass it off the truth.
"Maybe I should tell you who picked up the book you dropped when you were getting beaten that night." Sashi's eyes were glazing with an indecipherable power.
Mitra's eyes widened in horror. It was completely out of the blue. She had imagined he would talk about the kidnap and murder in detail to make her believe, which would have in one way led him to spill the beans on the actual culprit.
Never did she ever imagine him, or anyone in the world as a matter of fact, to remember the book she had lost that night. In the aftermath of the crime, with all their focus on Lekha and Mitra's subsequent guilt, the thought of the lost book had completely skipped her mind. Not even Vishal knew about it.
But Sashi did.
"The book?" she managed to question with a shaky voice.
"Yeah. The book on introductory computer networks course. That girl had kicked it away when she hit you," Sashi answered.
Mitra couldn't even blink her eyes.
Sashi smiled coldly, a smile that sent shivers down Mitra's spine, as he said, "It was I who picked up that book. I still have it. Do you want to see it again?"
Sashi's expression changed after a moment of silence. A frown crept on his forehead as a haunted look shadowed his face, removing his smirk, and he leaned forward in his chair levelling a gaze at Mitra.
"I will ask you one last time Mitra, without anyone watching us here, no recording, nothing to ever bear witness to the truth other than you and me. Do you or do you not remember me?" There was a mix of curiosity, hope and denial in the hard look he gave her.
Mitra studied him for a full moment. No, she didn't know him. No matter how hard she thought, she couldn't think of any scenario where she might have interacted with him.
"No," she replied honestly.
Sashi's mouth quivered as he tried to control his raging emotions. He pursed his lips, his jaw twitching as if he had something vile to say to her.
Mitra kept up her defiant stare at him. It softened a bit when he squeezed his eyes shut in what could be termed as an untold pain. When he opened his eyes, he appeared old and haunted.
He breathed out a lungful and asked her, "Do you hate this basement?"
Mitra was thrown off with the unexpected question. Was he baiting her with the possibility of freedom?
Her head swayed to the side as she pondered over the distraction and answered with an unsure tone, "Isn't that obvious? Yes. Why?"
Sashi's lips twitched to a forlorn hint of smile as he revealed, "I was locked up for years. For ten years, maybe? Well, I did escape out a lot, but I had to walk back in on my own every single time, you know."
Mitra looked at him in confusion and alarm. Sashi was giving her a sneak peek into his life, of his own accord, and it wasn't anything good. If what he spoke was true, he had had an abusive life.
"It is unbelievable, isn't it?" he said out Mitra's thoughts.
Mitra didn't show any stimulus.
"Well, I don't blame you. You wouldn't have thought it possible that someone capable of murder like me would have been locked up and beaten. You must have assumed that I was born violent and grew up a murderer." Sashi got up from his chair and started pacing across the room.
"I get it, you never bothered to know me. Even when we were kids, when I followed you everywhere, you always managed to look beyond me at everything else, everything and everyone other than me. No wonder you don't remember me or know anything about me." He turned to find her watching him with surprise.
"I was never a bad person to begin with," he stated.
Mitra sighed and spoke her mind, "That's not for you to say, Sashi. Everyone is a good person to their own selves. But your actions hardly highlight anything good about you. With the limited information you have given me, I can't just pity you and approve of you as a person who had to pick the wrong route just because of the abusive circumstances you have been in. You are a murderer, an abductor and a psychopath. After all, you have me locked up here despite "confessing" to me that you like me. You are just perverted in your ideologies if you feel you are a victim."
Sashi smiled wryly. "Always the blind judge you are." He sat back in his chair, leaning forward to look more directly into Mitra's vindictive eyes. "Then what would you call my drunkard, rowdy father who beat me every night because I was a useless weakling? What would you call my mother who would lock me up at home in the day so she could go out and earn money without her husband's knowledge?"
"I would say they are horrible parents and you needed help as a child," Mitra said it out instinctively.