by UD Yasha
‘I’ll start now. In fact, I’ll call my wife right away,’ Rathod said, feeling the fear, calling his wife.
He had a hard time explaining to her the rationale behind his odd request. He got off the phone call in a minute and again referred to his mobile. ‘I didn't finish the autopsy report,' he said. ‘There's a vinyl residue under Supriya's fingernails, suggesting she resisted the strangulation. Also, from the strokes of the letters, the message left on the ground was written by a right-handed person. We don't have suspects for now but that could be useful later. The ME also confirmed that the blood in the bathroom belongs to Supriya. It was drawn from the victim's wrist using a fat syringe.'
‘Just like Zakkal.’ The more I thought about Supriya Kelkar’s murder, I was starting to believe her death was Zakkal’s plea to get attention. Zakkal stalked but he also liked to speak to his victims. We did not know yet if the Bedroom Strangler had spoken to Supriya but he had gone overboard and stayed at her house.
‘Also, Sonia is performing more tests on your mother’s hair and what they found at the crime scene. We should have the results on that soon.’
A shiver ran up my spine at the mention of maa. I wondered if that would ever stop.
Rathod continued, ‘Also before we ask a palynologist to look at the pollen grain, Sonia wants to analyse it for other evidence. I have Dr. Raghav Barve's contact details. I'll contact him myself after Sonia is done with the pollen.'
I sat in the waiting room for the next five minutes before Radha, Rahul and Shadow came to pick me up. Both of them had decided to skip work that day. I told them about our visit to Supriya Kelkar’s house, my meeting with Zakkal and the autopsy results on our way home.
‘We need to be careful,’ I told them as we entered our house, wondering if it was a good idea to have mentioned Radha while talking to Zakkal.
‘I’ll double check all the locks, windows and doors. The security company you contacted is coming tomorrow morning as well,’ Rahul said and disappeared upstairs.
‘Are you okay?’ Radha said, putting an arm around me.
‘There’s a chance maa is alive. Can you believe that? After all those years of mourning and missing her? I’m going to fight like hell to get her back this time. I cracked Zakkal once before. I’m going to get him again. The hope of saving her can take us through everything.’
I paused a moment after I stopped talking and realized Radha had other concerns. She had seen me at my rock bottom, feeling devastated, hopeless and lost. I was surprised myself at my new-found resolve. It was hinged on getting maa back. I had not thought about the scenario in which she could not be saved. Until then.
Chapter Sixteen
Five years ago
Armed with a solid new clue, I got a jolt of energy investigating maa’s disappearance.
In the coming days, Rahul introduced me to Dr. Raghav Barve. Within the next three weeks, he narrowed down the possible places where we could find the Lundi plant in Pune. We were not successful because of its widespread pollination. I then made a list of all children who had Marfan Syndrome. I got just over two thousand results. I knew this was not a foolproof method to go about finding the person of interest as the kid only had a fifty percent chance of getting the disease. But once again, I had no other leads to follow so I went ahead nibbling bread crumbs, hoping to catch a lobster.
Santosh Wagh introduced me to India's Foreign Ambassador to Canada. He knew him through a case he had worked on. The Ambassador agreed to help me with highly sensitive immigration data. I was not even sure if the data I acquired would be permissible in court, but I had nothing to lose. No bribe was paid anywhere. I just asked the Ambassador for a list of Indian men who were in the United States when Holly was murdered but back in India when my mother went missing. I also gave him a list of the fathers whose kids had Marfan Syndrome and asked him to tell me who was in the US and India on the concerned dates.
Suddenly, the list was shredded to just twenty-six people across India. I could handle twenty-six. I was feeling optimistic. Finally, there were suspects to pursue. I trimmed the list down to eighteen by eliminating those people who were under the age of sixteen when my mother disappeared.
I met Dr. Barve again. I shared the profiles and addresses of the shortlisted people with him. He cross-referenced the addresses with known points of Lundi pollens. I decided to go around the country, taking soil samples and making my own profiles on all the eighteen suspects. The process was time-consuming but I was determined and Santosh Wagh gave me a free leash for two months. I used to send the soil sample to Dr. Barve the moment I left a place. He would tell me in two days if it was a match for Lundi. Even if it was, it did not prove anything conclusive because of the rampant presence of Lundi in India and big leaps of faith I was taking with this case. But at least I was making progress. No attempt is unsuccessful for it teaches you how not to go about your goal. I kept moving from one suspect to another.
Then came suspect number twelve in Pune. Kishore Zakkal. I began following him in the morning on Thursday. He seemed like the others – normal, living a mundane life and fighting it in the city to earn bread for his family. He was married with two children, both boys. He played with them before heading for work. He even opened the door for his wife and made dinner. He worked long hours as an accountant at an IT firm. He was well liked and respected in the office. He had a decent income from the looks of it.
But then Zakkal – the seemingly ideal family man – did something out of character on Friday night. He left his office earlier than his usual time – six o'clock. He removed his blazer and folded his sleeves. He put on a black jacket on top. He went home and made dinner. The family of four ate together after praying to God. He and his wife were in their kids' bedroom for a while after that, probably telling them a bedtime story. They came out and went downstairs and had sex on the kitchen counter. Holding hands, they went to their bedroom and slept – I guessed as the lights went out and there was no sound. I waited for an hour. I was almost ready to call it a night.
It all seemed normal till then.
But then, out of nowhere, Zakkal exited his house from the back door. He was wearing a black hoodie. He walked with his head down on the narrow road behind his house. It was deserted and had inch deep potholes at every foot probably due to corruption.
I got down from my vantage point. Why was this man out on the road past midnight? He got in a car that had been parked where the road got wider. Whose car was that? It was a dark blue Honda hatchback. I followed him from a distance and on parallel roads. With every kilometre we progressed, a chilling realization hit me. He was driving towards our old house – the one from which maa had vanished.
He lowered his speed to half of what it was earlier and drove past our old house a few times. He peeked out of the window whenever he passed it. How often had he been doing this? My hands shivered on the steering wheel. I immediately decided I would have a security camera overlooking the street in front of our current house at all times. I got more careful following him, putting more distance between us.
As my thoughts wandered, he turned around and drove towards Viman Nagar. He entered a neighbourhood of standalone bungalows called Leela Park. He drove up and down the lane two times. He slowed down in front of a particular bungalow near an old banyan tree both times. I watched him from a distance. After five minutes, he drove out of the lane and parked the car. He set off on foot for the bungalow. He walked fast with his head down and went inside it.
I went in the lane after him and noted he had entered a bungalow named ‘Tulip'. The letterbox on the gate told me that the house was occupied by a woman named Sangeetha Rajan. I immediately asked Santosh Wagh to give me information about her.
No lights had come on even after Zakkal had gone inside. The house was still. My mind was scampering. Why had he gone inside? Did they know each other? Was Sangeetha in danger? I weighed my options. I could break in, but for all I knew, Zakkal actually knew Sangeetha. He was prob
ably not a killer but just a cheating husband. But then why had he driven past our old house? I watched the house from the bushes outside I got a message from Santosh with information on Sangeetha. She was a doctor, thirty-one years old and a recent widow. Her husband had died of colon cancer. Her photo revealed she was attractive, even in her hospital ID. Panic unfurled inside me. I decided to go in.
Just then, Zakkal came out. I ducked back in the bushes. He looked around. Then strode towards his car and headed back home. He parked the car where it was before and went back to his room, to his sleeping wife as if nothing had happened. The events of the night did not make sense to me.
Santosh and I decided to share our investigation on Zakkal with Kapil Rathod in confidence. We told him we did not have concrete evidence. Even from a legal standpoint, there was not enough to arrest him. If that was not enough, our evidence would not be permissible in court either. Rathod said he would have a team on standby at the Viman Nagar Police Station. But due to lack of funds, keeping it alert round the clock was going to be hard.
I observed Zakkal for the next three weeks. He used to step out at night every time he cooked. On weekends, he would follow Sangeetha everywhere. At her workplace, at shopping malls, at restaurants. He kept his distance. But he made notes. He went back home to his wife that day and made love to her. I was genuinely concerned about the safety of both the women in his life. Who knew if there were more?
On the third Sunday, he did something that scared me in a way I would never forget. Once Sangeetha exited her house for an early dinner, he broke in using a lock pick. I wondered what he would do next. I was terrified. What would happen if Sangeetha actually came back home right now? But at the same time, if Zakkal was indeed a killer, then taking him in on stalking and breaking in charges was not enough. However, I could not let anything happen to Sangeetha. While I was observing her house, Rathod was monitoring her at a restaurant. Thirty minutes later, he told me she left for her house. Twenty minutes later, I saw her pulling her car over in front of her house.
Zakkal was still inside the house. A wave of fear took over me. I could not leave the woman unguarded. I could not get that carried away to know what had happened to my mother that I looked past a woman’s safety.
I bumped into the woman. Quite literally. About thirty metres from her house. We were hidden because of the trees. The backup team was still three minutes away. I showed the woman my private detective ID. I hugged her and whispered a message in her ear. ‘Your house is unsafe. A killer is waiting for you inside.’
‘What?’ the woman said with bloodshot eyes.
‘Stay away. The police will arrive at any moment.'
‘What’s happening?’ the woman said.
‘Not now,’ I replied, eyeing her house.
The woman looked perplexed but followed my instructions. I took a scarf the woman was wearing and tied it around my head as she had. I took her house keys and entered it instead of her. The only way to get a killer like Zakkal was to catch him in the act.
Hands grabbed my neck the moment I got in. Pain shot through my body as I gasped for breath. Two beats later, Zakkal realized I was not his target. The smirk on his face was wiped away. He released my neck in shock and walked back.
‘Who are you?’ he said, his eyes bulging out.
‘Your time is over.’
‘You look like Naina Rajput,’ he said in disbelief.
‘I’m her daughter. You’re going to be arrested.’
Zakkal leapt forward. I was ready this time. I elbowed his face. He turned away and I missed my mark. All I managed was to just scrape his right ear. I ran indoors, pulling out my Glock from my purse. I pointed it at Zakkal. He narrowed his eyes. He knew it was all over. But he was not going to go down without a fight. He ran towards me, hoping to get me before I could pull the trigger. A loud sound echoed in the closed home as I squeezed the trigger once, aiming for Zakkal’s foot, a part of the human body that has comparatively fewer arteries than the rest. A bullet sliced through the air and hit Zakkal. He bellowed in pain and fell to the floor.
Police sirens swirled in the distance.
Within the next minute, police cars screeched to a halt outside the bungalow. They went into the house and dragged Zakkal out. He was arrested and taken to a hospital. Over the next six months, the CID gathered more evidence and built a more solid case against Zakkal. They found seven locks of hair belonging to different women in the boot of Zakkal’s car. There was blood belonging to various women in the basement of his house. Eventually, Zakkal admitted to kidnapping seven women and killing Holly Summers. He did not reveal if the women were still alive.
The Mumbai High Court sentenced Zakkal to life imprisonment. I felt vindicated. My father’s name had been cleared. Sameer Rajput was an innocent man to the rest of the world. But we still had no clue where he was. There was not one shred of evidence.
Capturing Zakkal marked a shift in my career. I followed my mentor, Santosh Wagh’s footsteps and applied for a private detective’s license. I was no longer just going to defend the innocent. I was also going to hunt the monsters.
Chapter Seventeen
Present Day
I made coffee to feel upbeat. As I took the first sip, I said, ‘I mentioned to Zakkal that the Bedroom Strangler was stalking Supriya, just like Zakkal stalked his victims. He seemed impressed.’
‘We never really knew his process when he was caught,’ Rahul said.
He had played a part in catching Zakkal and had also testified against him in court. He knew the case well. He had a point. There was a lot of mystery surrounding Zakkal. More than usual because he had pleaded to being responsible for the disappearance of seven women. Even at the end of the trial, we did not know why he killed or how he selected his victims.
‘That’s true. We only know three things about Zakkal. First, all his victims were attractive women, second, they were around the age of thirty and third, he stalked them. Even the Bedroom Strangler stalked his victim.’
‘You think Zakkal mentored him?’
‘It’s hard to say. I’m just wondering if the Bedroom Strangler was pushed over the edge to kill by Zakkal or he killed before as well.’
‘When is Rathod sending copies of Zakkal’s jail correspondence?’
‘He said by evening. It is a lot,’ I said and fell silent. ‘Supriya Kelkar spent a lot of time at work. If someone was stalking her, then they might have seen something.’
‘Or someone from work itself could have been stalking her.’
I had learnt to never say never. ‘Let’s go to her office and talk to people there.’
‘Do you want me to call the office to let them know we’re coming?’ Radha said.
‘No, if someone at work was stalking Supriya, let’s surprise them. They wouldn’t be expecting us.’
I pulled out my phone and looked up the company’s address. They had an office in Koregaon Park, near Supriya’s house. By the time I looked up from the screen, Rahul had already taken the car keys and was standing at the door. Shadow was quick to bark and jump to the door, thinking it was time for a long drive.
I did not want Radha to stay alone at home. Neither did I want Shadow to be alone. So, they both came along. It worked out for everyone. While Rahul and I would go to Supriya's office, they would wander around KP, maybe even go to one of the pet-friendly cafes.
We drove in silence. I felt all of us needed to take a step back and be with ourselves in what had been a chaotic twelve hours. It had seemed much longer. We reached Smart Tech’s office in half an hour. Radha found a café across the street that welcomed pets and went to it as we turned for the Smart Tech.
The Smart Tech office was located in a big coworking space called Our Work–one of the most recent babies of the shared economy generation. A coworking space lowered cost for all companies housed within the big complex but that same reasons made it a nightmare for any investigator. I read in a brochure at the reception that the Our Work building h
ad more than five hundred employees from twenty-two different companies.
Our plan to surprise Supriya's colleagues also fell flat because we could not get past the reception without an ID or an employee signing us in. Rahul called the HR Department of Smart Tech. A lady in palazzos and a shirt came down in five minutes and signed us in. Our names and IDs were registered before we got in. I was relieved in a way, knowing that the stalker would also have had to sign in if he had come there. I made a mental note to ask for entry and exit logs. If someone repeatedly followed Supriya in and out, then we had a suspect. Offices of all kinds – from diagnostics laboratories, financial advisors and travel agents to technology start-ups, banks and handicraft designers – all were represented in Our Work's co-working space. We got in an elevator made from glass. The lady pressed for the top floor and I marvelled at the vast expanse I saw.
The lady guided us to a waiting area. From the top, we could see the ever-growing skyline of Pune. Places like these were synonymous to the times India was going through as a country. A burst of modernity and sophistication was coupled with a hard-working middle-class population of all religions and castes under one roof, a few amongst whom dared to change their life by starting a small enterprise of their own hoping to make it big. To complete the image, the Our Work building was located less than a kilometre away from a slum that was being redeveloped. The Mula River, called the Mula Gutter by a lot of the residents, was a kilometre away on the other side of the building.
As I turned back to look inside, I saw a man, dressed in a crisp light-yellow shirt and black trousers, walk up to us.
‘Vivaan Deshpande,’ he said, extending his hand.
I knew Vivaan was the founder and CEO of Smart Tech from my five-minute reading about the company in the car. He looked younger in person than his photo on the company website.
