The Siya Rajput Crime Thrillers Books 1-3 (Where Are They Now / Finding Her / The Bones Are Calling)

by UD Yasha

  ‘What happened next?’ I said.

  Manohar kept the bottle down. ‘Then I heard a noise,’ he said.

  Just then, the door of the interrogation room opened. Senior Inspector Kapil Rathod walked in. He had a paper in his hand. He crossed to the table and put it in front of me. He eyed me for a flash. I could make out he was confused to see me there. As far as he knew, I was not a practising lawyer anymore. I would tell him how I was involved in this case later. Having worked with him on multiple cases before, both in the capacity of a lawyer and private detective, I knew I could count on him to do the right thing every time.

  Manohar’s gaze formed a triangle as he glared at Rathod, the paper and me.

  I looked at the paper Rathod had given me. It was an official court order to hold Manohar for the next twenty-four hours. I knew the CID would push for the ballistics report by then. If the gun Manohar was holding matched the murder weapon, then he would be put in jail until the investigation began or new evidence came up, that painted him in a different light.

  I thought of telling Manohar about the report later, but I could tell from his face he knew it was something important. I needed him to go through his story with nothing else on his mind.

  ‘Can I see it?’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, handing it to him, realizing that denying his request would only make him more curious.

  He read it quickly and then kept the paper on the table.

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ he said again.

  ‘You said you heard a noise.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What sort of a noise?’

  ‘What’s going to happen now in the investigation?’

  Manohar was not going to let this go unless I told him. I said, ‘They will run tests on the samples they took from your body and clothes for gunpowder residue and other particulates. A gun powder residue match alone would not be conclusive evidence. All it would prove is that you were near a firearm when it was discharged. I will claim there is still reasonable doubt that you did not fire the weapon yourself. They will also see if the weapon that you were holding matches the murder weapon. A positive match there coupled with all the other evidence found against you will be enough for the CID to charge you with multiple homicides. The court will order your immediate arrest. A court trial will follow, where your guilt or innocence will be established. The arrest will be ordered only if the gun in your hand matches the one used to kill.’

  ‘There’s a high chance that it’ll be a match.’

  I didn't like the sound of that. But I wanted to know Manohar's version of the story. ‘You told me you heard a sound. What was it?'

  Manohar shut his eyes tight. He was showing signs of being in distress for the first time. Maybe the reality of the situation was just hitting him. I needed him to hold himself together for a few more minutes. He opened his eyes.

  ‘The sound was loud. I don't know what it was. But I'm sure it came from inside the house. From upstairs. I was already scared. On hearing the loud sound, I genuinely thought there was a threat to my life. The noise could have come from the killers. They could have still been inside the house. I looked around for something that I could use in self-defence. I saw a flower pot. The kitchen was next to me. It would have knives and other hard steel utensils. But my eyes fell on a gun on the floor. I had missed it altogether earlier. Maybe because I wasn't looking for it and my mind had already been inundated with too much information. I ran to it and picked it up. I had no idea what to do with it though as it was my first time holding a gun. More sounds came from upstairs. I pointed my gun in the direction of the sounds. Then it became silent. I could not move. Before I knew it, the place was swarming with cops.'

  I said nothing. Manohar had not even mentioned Rucha till then. Was she gone even before he arrived? Or was he lying? He had to be a great actor. Post the interruption by Rathod, Manohar’s story had been infused with an excess of emotion.

  ‘Can you help me?’

  ‘Can you describe the sounds you heard?’

  Manohar looked away. Maybe he was trying to remember. Maybe he was trying to make something up. Throughout, I felt he had been hiding something. There was more to the proceedings of the evening than what he had described.

  ‘I can’t remember. They were loud though. Short and loud.’

  ‘Will you be able to confirm the sounds if you heard them again?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps. I was in shock. I’m not sure.’

  Still no mention of Rucha.

  ‘Why are you here?' he said, surprising me with the question as if he was reading my mind.

  ‘I am a defence lawyer. Isn’t that clear?’

  Manohar shook his head. ‘Was my case assigned to you?’

  Does he know I am lying? ‘Yes,’ I said. I did not want to tell him about Atharva’s call for obvious reasons. ‘I want to do a good job defending you.’

  ‘I have nothing else to say. I cannot prove what I just told you. But I know I did not do it. I understand it looks bad for me. If I were the police, I would be thinking I was guilty too. But I am a simple teacher and I wouldn't ever think of killing anyone, no matter what they did.'

  ‘How do you think the police got to the crime scene while you were still holding the gun?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe they were responding to the shots that actually killed those four people.’

  I made another mental note to ask Rathod about it later.

  Manohar’s breathing became even again. He drew his hands close to his body and licked his lower lip again. If he had killed them, he had thought it through. Both the actual act, and now the story.

  Silence resounded to the point of it getting deafening. In all my experience of being a criminal defence lawyer, most suspects told me the most minute and even irrelevant details that they thought would make me believe they were innocent. With Manohar, it was the exact opposite. He had maintained an air of calmness even when he had gotten emotional while telling his story. Everything he told me was relevant. No words were wasted. It was concise. Too succinct an account. While he was maintaining that he was innocent, he had not yet said or done anything that had made his case. What was Shaunak Manohar hiding?

  ‘How many bodies did you see in the house?’ I said.

  He shot me a quizzical look. ‘I told you. Four.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course. Even the inspector who arrested me said I was being arrested for committing four murders.’

  ‘There was no fifth person?’

  Silence.

  ‘Are you aware that the Sinha family had six members?’

  Manohar stayed still.

  ‘The four people who died. The mother. And an eight-year-old daughter.'

  Manohar was unmoved again. But his eyes sputtered just a fraction, enough for me to catch it.

  ‘The mother was away to conduct a fertility related workshop,’ I said, pronouncing each word slowly. ‘The daughter was supposed to be home. But she isn’t there anymore.’

  Manohar licked his lower lip again and gulped. ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ he said and sat up straight in his chair.

  ‘Do you have kids?’ I said.

  ‘A boy and a girl.’

  ‘Just like Daksh and Malini Sinha.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How would you feel if one of them was kidnapped?’

  ‘I don't know what you're trying to imply.'

  I pulled out my phone and opened Rucha’s photo. I turned my phone around and showed it to Manohar. ‘That’s Rucha Sinha. She’s only eight years old. She is missing.’

  ‘As I said, I don't know anything about that,' Manohar said, his stare so strong that I would have felt it on me even if I was not looking at him.

  There are a few things I have been certain of in my life. But at that moment, I was convinced that Shaunak Manohar was lying through his teeth about not knowing anything about the disappearance of Rucha Sinha.


  Chapter Four

  It was almost eleven fifteen when I came out of the CID’s interrogation room. I saw familiar faces outside. ACP Siddhanshu Shukla was one of them. He was not pleased to see me.

  I saw Rathod speaking to a constable near his office. I felt guilty for a beat on seeing him. He had been my partner in solving cases in a way. But I had vanished three years back, without telling him anything. Mahesh Bhalerao, Rathod’s partner at CID was also outside the interrogation room. He had joined the Pune CID only recently, so I did not know him personally. I had only met him three months back when I had worked with the CID to find my mother and catch a maniac serial killer.

  ACP Siddhanshu Shukla was standing with his arms folded and his eyes squarely focused on me. He was not my biggest fan to put it lightly. A falsified news story from five years back, in which a journalist had put words in my mouth, had halted Shukla's promotion to the CBI in New Delhi. The article claimed I took credit for catching a killer. Even though my investigation was pivotal to the case, I had not said a word to anyone, let alone a journalist. Shukla believed that I told the story purposely. His career had been stuck in limbo since then. He hated me for it.

  My eyes narrowed as his burly figure walked towards me.

  ‘What are you doing here again?’ he said.

  I did not trust Shukla to tell him about my real reason for representing Manohar. ‘Everyone has the right to be defended, ACP Shukla,’ I said and walked away. I did not want to waste my time and energy.

  I walked out of the CID building. Went to my car and got inside. The moment at which I had told Manohar about Rucha came back to me. What was Manohar hiding? I wanted to know more about him. What was he like as a person? He had almost choked up while talking about his family. Maybe that was a starting point. I also needed to speak to Malini Sinha. She was on her way to Pune. The CID would want to speak to her first. I reckoned she would go directly to the CID office. I had at least an hour's window to meet Manohar's family before CID officers would want to speak to them.

  Before doing anything else, I pulled out my phone. I typed out a message to Rathod.

  I will explain everything. Text me once you are free. When can you meet me? I owe you an apology.

  I inhaled deeply. I decided I would tell Rathod about what had happened with Kunal Shastri three years back. I wished he would give me a chance. The truth was, I was afraid to admit to Rathod that I had been wrong. We had been through a lot together. I did not want to let him down by telling him I had messed up. But I also could not keep him in the dark anymore.

  I rummaged inside my tote bag for my copy of CID’s file on Manohar. I found his address in it. He lived in Hinjewadi, an up and coming area in Pune, popular for hosting dozens of IT companies. It was past Baner and near the Pune-Mumbai expressway. The drive would take me about twenty minutes at night. I put my foot on the accelerator and veered the car on the main road.

  My next course of action was to know more about Manohar. What he did, what ticked him off, what his family had to say about him. I wanted to get a feel for the kind of person he was. Being his lawyer, his family would be more than happy to talk to me.

  My mind drifted and I began thinking about my meeting with Manohar.

  Apart from his reaction when I had mentioned Rucha, something about the case seemed off. Manohar had spoken with restraint and caution. Those are not the characteristics of an innocent man. But at the same time, he made no effort to prove his innocence. Which was also unlike a criminal. He told me his version of what happened. There was no way I could prove it in court. I could have independent forensic experts analyze the evidence and point out a loophole in the prosecutor's argument. But did I even want to go down that road? Was Manohar actually innocent? I was not yet sure. Thinking about all of this, I wondered where Rucha Sinha fit into the plan. Four murders, one kidnapping.

  I put away the idea of the two being different crimes. It was too big a coincidence. I don’t think I would have found more than a couple of dozen instances of something like this happening across the world. I felt Rucha’s abduction was central to the murders. It was the cause of the murders, and not the effect. I could not think of a reason to take the child after the murders were committed.

  The thought did not give me comfort.

  Children going missing is an epidemic in India. More than sixty-three thousand children have disappeared in India in the past year alone. That is an average of one hundred and seventy-four children every day. And that is not even the scariest part. More than fifty per cent of them are still missing. It is a chilling fact and even though I was aware of it already, my hands went cold just thinking about it. I pulled over on the side of the road. I was afraid one more child was going to be added to that stat.

  Children were kidnapped for extremely specific reasons. Child trafficking and prostitution were the most common ones. Both generated billions of dollars across the world. The crime syndicates operating them were sophisticated. In most cases, by the time a child was reported missing, he or she was already en route to the nearest port or airbase. Within no time, they were shipped out of the country. The favoured destinations included South East Asian and Eastern European countries. From there they were trafficked to the rest of the world for different purposes like child slavery, forced labour, child trade and prostitution.

  A kidnapping in the middle of the city in a high-class neighbourhood by such a crime syndicate seemed unlikely. It was too inconvenient and out in the open. Not to forget too risky. The same crime syndicate would have been better off nabbing Rucha from her school than from her house.

  Then there were domestic motivations for abducting a child. These included a classic case of kidnapping by a stranger where a demand for ransom was made in exchange for the child's release or a parental abduction during a custody battle. There were other reasons of course, apart from these two general categories.

  I wondered if Malini and Daksh were having any problems in their marriage. I knew I would be able to meet Malini once Atharva was in town. With him by my side, she would have her guard down when she spoke to me. I figured the CID would want to meet her first. I could only meet her much later in the night or the next day.

  The stream of my thoughts broke when my phone vibrated on the dashboard. I picked it up. A text message. It was Rathod.

  This better be good. I just got done with Manohar. Shelly’s Smokes in 20 minutes?

  My phone buzzed again in my hand as I was reading the message. It was Rathod again.

  I only have forty minutes though. Malini Sinha will reach soon and I have to be back to speak to her.

  I texted him with an affirmative, deciding that I would go to Manohar’s house after meeting Rathod. Shelly’s Smokes was the restaurant where Rathod and I used to meet to discuss all our cases. It was nearby. The last time we had been there, Rathod had told me that my mother was still alive, sixteen years after she had gone missing.

  This time, I needed to tell him about the day that haunted me even now in order to save our friendship.

  Chapter Five

  The girl opened her eyes to darkness.

  What’s happening?

  She looked around. But she could not see anything. The air around her was black and still. A terror seized her body. She started shaking.

  She waved her hands. But she could not move her legs. Something was restricting them. She tried to feel what it was. A chain. Her legs were bound. She knew something was very wrong. Her heart was beating loudly. Despite the air being hot around her, a chill ran down her spine.

  And then it hit her. I have been taken.

  She did not remember how long she had been sleeping. Was I sleeping at all? Even after opening her eyes, she wanted to close them. Something heavy was pulling them down. Her mind was blank. She tried to remember how she had gotten there. But nothing came to her. She could not even tell what time it was, whether it was night or day.

  She kicked, hoping the chain would give away and magically s
et her free. Instead, something stung her leg. Like pins poking it. She shrieked in pain. What was that? She grimaced and felt the rings around her ankles. The inner wall of the rings had small pointed teeth. They scratched against her skin every time she tried to move her legs. She wanted to explore where she was by walking around. But that was not going to be possible now. She became dead still.

  Her world was collapsing.

  She could not hold them in any longer. Tears flowed down her cheeks. She wiped them with the back of her palm but they kept coming, making her feel worse. Her body began shivering again. She had always been afraid of the dark. But at that moment, she somehow knew that something worse than darkness was waiting for her. She pictured her mother, the way she put her to sleep every night, telling her stories from the Panchatantra. She wished she could be with her then and this was just another night where it was the two of them. Thinking about her made her cry harder. Her eyes hurt. Her head drummed. She looked around once again but all she could see was darkness. Where is mommy?

  A gasp escaped her mouth as her leg hurt once again. The cut was stinging. Her head began to ache from the crying. She stared into the darkness until her eyes became dry.

  ‘Anybody there?’ she said softly.

  Silence.

  ‘Can someone help me?’ she said, her voice louder now. She felt her energy being sucked out each time she opened her mouth to speak.

  Silence.

  ‘Is anyone out there?’ she yelled as loudly as she could.

  Silence.

  She heaved, taking in air. She bit her lower lip and shut her eyes tight to stop the tears from flowing.

  She closed her eyes and tried to remember what had happened. She could not place the events that had led her to be there. She tried harder. Her mother had taught her how to meditate. It helps you find happiness in this world that tries to rob you of it every moment, she had told her. She had no idea what that meant. Not then, and not now. She had never enjoyed their meditation sessions. She used to always open one of her eyes and see what was happening around her. Now, she wished she had done it properly.