By noon, Raghav Mehra had already become someone else.
The body was gone. Removed quietly, without ceremony, wrapped and taken away in a van that did not linger. What remained was not him, but the hollow he left behind. The house adjusted to it in small, nervous ways. Doors were left open and then closed again. Drawers were pulled out, pushed back in, pulled out once more. Even when no one was watching, voices dropped. Silence carried weight now.
Aarav spent the morning in the living room. Not because it offered answers, but because it held people. The truth about a man rarely stayed where he died. It surfaced in how others spoke his name, or avoided it, or corrected themselves halfway through a sentence.
Neha Mehra sat at the far end of the sofa. She had changed clothes sometime after dawn. The shawl was gone, replaced by plain dark cotton. Her hands rested together in her lap, fingers loosely interlocked. Her eyes were dry. That did not mean she felt nothing. It meant whatever had broken inside her had done so earlier, when no one was around to watch.
Aarav sat opposite her, far enough to give her space.
"Tell me about your husband," he said.
Neha let out a breath she seemed to have been holding. "Which version?"
"The one you lived with."
Her gaze drifted toward the staircase. "Raghav believed order fixed everything," she said. "If something went wrong, it meant someone hadn't followed instructions."
"And people?" Aarav asked.
She paused. "People were variables. Some useful. Some replaceable."
He nodded, letting her set the pace.
"Did he have enemies?"
A corner of her mouth lifted, not quite a smile. "He made them without trying."
She spoke carefully after that, choosing words that felt safe. Raghav had controlled conversations the same way he controlled negotiations. Neha had learned early that saying less was often a form of protection.
"He liked leverage," she said. "Money. Information. Favors owed. He made sure people needed him."
"Did you?" Aarav asked.
Her fingers tightened for a moment, then relaxed. "Marriage has its own dependencies."
Aarav did not press. He shifted instead to the night before.
They had eaten dinner together. Talked about nothing that mattered. Raghav had gone upstairs sometime after ten, annoyed about work. Neha had stayed downstairs with a book. There had been no shouting. No argument. No sound that stood out.
"When did you last see him?" Aarav asked.
"Ten fifteen," she said. "He was distracted. Irritated."
"About?"
"A file," she said. "That's all I know."
Aarav thanked her and stood.
Kunal Mehra did not sit still. He paced near the dining table, movement sharp, restless. Anger hovered just beneath his skin. When he spoke, it came quickly, almost eagerly, like words that had been waiting.
"He ruined people," Kunal said. "Then acted surprised when they hated him for it."
"You worked with him," Aarav said.
"Because I didn't have a choice."
"Why stay?"
Kunal laughed, short and bitter. "Because walking away from Raghav Mehra costs more than staying."
Money tied them together. Accounts, obligations, shared liabilities. Separation was never clean.
"He was pushing me out," Kunal said. "I found out last week."
"How?"
"I saw the documents. He didn't even bother hiding them."
"And you confronted him."
"Yes."
"When?"
"Yesterday afternoon."
Aarav noted it down. "Did anyone else know?"
Kunal shrugged. "Ask his assistant. If anyone knew, she did."
Maya Iyer appeared in the room without announcement, carrying a slim folder. She handed it to Deshpande, waited until he acknowledged her, then stepped back. The folder was neat. Tabs aligned. Pages flush.
Raghav's habits lived on through her.
Sanjay Rao arrived closer to midday, loud in his disbelief, apologizing before anyone accused him. He filled the room with explanations, hands moving, voice rising and falling.
"Raghav was difficult," Sanjay said. "Everyone knew that. But murder? That's madness."
"You argued with him," Aarav said.
"Business arguments," Sanjay replied. "Normal."
"What was it about?"
"A deal that collapsed because he tried to control both sides."
"Did you lose money?"
"Of course."
"Enough to kill him?"
Sanjay scoffed. "If that's the standard, you'll need a bigger list."
He wasn't wrong.
By early afternoon, Raghav Mehra was no longer just a man who had died behind a locked door. He was a pattern that stretched outward. A pressure point in too many lives. Someone people worked around, endured, resented.
Aarav asked Deshpande for access to the study files. Deshpande hesitated, then agreed.
The study felt altered without the body. Not cleaner. Just emptier. Aarav moved through it slowly. Drawers. Cabinets. Files. Property transactions. Legal notices. Correspondence. Everything precise. Everything cautious.
One file stood out only because it lacked a label.
Inside were photocopies. Signatures circled in pen. Margins filled with notes. Names repeated, then vanished. One name appeared more than once.
Maya Iyer.
Aarav closed the file and returned it to its place.
He turned to the desk. The phone was gone, already with forensics. The lamp stood where it always had. Pens aligned. Papers stacked with deliberate care. Even in death, Raghav had left the illusion of control behind.
The photograph caught Aarav's eye again. Still face down. He turned it over this time. Raghav stood between Neha and Kunal. All three smiled, but none of them looked at ease. The smiles were practiced, almost contractual.
Aarav set the frame back the way he found it.
Downstairs, Deshpande joined him in the hallway.
"So?" the inspector asked.
"So Raghav Mehra lived in a way that made this possible," Aarav said.
"That's vague."
"He built pressure everywhere he went."
Deshpande rubbed his temple. "You're saying the victim is the problem."
"I'm saying the victim explains the room," Aarav replied.
They stood quietly. The house felt drained now, as if it had offered everything it could without being asked the right thing.
Aarav looked toward the staircase, at the study door.
People would chase motive first. Anger. Greed. Resentment. They would build theories around the loudest emotions in the room.
But Raghav Mehra had not been killed in a burst of chaos. He had been killed inside order. Inside control. Inside a space designed to remove uncertainty.
That told Aarav more than any argument downstairs ever could.
This was not about who hated Raghav Mehra enough to kill him.
It was about who understood him well enough to make the room lie.