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

by UD Yasha

  My eyebrows went up in surprise. That was the last thing I was expecting to hear. I laughed again. ‘I’m sure it’s true if your wife says it. I need your help in getting to know the Gills better.’

  ‘I can tell you they weren’t the happiest though. I remember now. Even back then, just like every day now, I used to sit on our porch swing. I have always liked to observe things. And I noticed that they fought a lot. There was always a lot of noise coming out of that house. I never saw domestic violence or anything like that but only a fool would not realize that something was wrong with them.’

  ‘Why do you think so?’

  ‘I remember abuse being hurled all the time by the husband. The wife gave it back to him a few times but it almost always ended up with him screaming even more.’

  I got what I needed along with some enjoyable quips from the old man. I thanked him and moved on to the third and final name on the list. It was clear Sumeira and Sachin Gill were not happily married. Why had Manohar asked me to find out about Sachin’s death? Was there foul play involved? Had things got out of control to the point that Sumeira had killed her husband in self-defence? In that case, Sumeira was within her rights to defend herself. She had also a five-month-old baby to worry about.

  The third person on the list was a woman named Anamika Thorat. I dialled her up and once again went through with the entire process of introducing myself. I wondered if a woman’s perspective of the events would be different.

  ‘That lady,’ Anamika said. ‘She had problems.’

  I could not place her age but there was pity in her tone. I said, ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I remember Sumeira Gill very distinctly. Every evening her house would light up. Her husband and her would have some or the other argument.’

  ‘Were the two of you friends?’

  ‘No, but we spoke every now and then.’

  ‘Did she ever tell you about her marriage problems? Or anything about her husband?’

  ‘She had made me promise not to tell anyone.’

  I pressed my phone harder into my ear. ‘What was it? Sumeira and her daughter’s life could be in danger.’

  Silence.

  ‘Anamika?’ I said.

  ‘Okay, I'll tell you. I don't know if you'll get it because most people I have spoken to don't. Thank God you're a woman because most women tend to get it.'

  ‘I’m listening to you. Go ahead please.’

  Anamika whispered, ‘Her…her husband used to rape her.’

  A breath escaped my mouth. ‘I get it,' I said. Shockingly, marital rape was not illegal in India. A woman owed her husband sex and it was considered consensual every time, even when it was not. Women and child rights activists had fought for years to make it illegal and equivalent to rape outside of marriage. But their cries had not been heard.

  ‘Did she tell you this?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  I sensed something more was coming.

  ‘Their daughter, Natasha, was born as a result of rape.’

  My heart went out to Sumeira. Thousands of women like her were stuck in abusive marriages. They were helpless. They could not do anything about it. The few who were brave enough to approach the police were turned away. Nothing illegal was happening according to the police. A lot of women were afraid to even ask for a divorce. They were stuck in a rotten cycle. A part of them died each day, and what sucked most was that they had to live through it as if everything was rosy.

  I thanked Anamika for her time and courage to tell me about it. As I hung up, I wondered. Had Sumeira killed her husband?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I found no reason why anyone would make up stories about someone’s bad marriage. Coupled with the two other takes on the Gills, I could safely conclude that they had a terrible marriage, one that I did not wish upon even my worst enemy.

  It was almost eight thirty, two hours since I had spoken to Rathod. He would get a warrant to access Sachin’s medical records any time now. I began to call him but kept my phone away.

  I told everyone what I had learnt. A stunned silence resounded.

  I dared to speak first. ‘However bad that is, it still doesn’t tell us why Manohar wanted me to find out about Sachin’s murder even if we assume that Sumeira had a role to play in her husband’s death.’

  ‘What if you tell this much to Manohar?’ Atharva said.

  ‘He wouldn’t accept it. He specifically asked me to find out the cause of Sachin’s death. Not why he was murdered. The medical records are key. Hopefully, they can give us something substantive,’ I said.

  I still had not heard from Salim Khan about Manohar’s mobile phone. Just as I thought about it, my phone buzzed in my pocket. A text message from Salim.

  It’s going to take some more time. It’s heavily encrypted. The data was also wiped.

  I found both parts surprising. Encrypting the phone and then erasing its data were not precautions most school professors would usually take.

  ‘Here’s what we’re still waiting for,’ I said. ‘Number one, Sachin’s medical records. Two, whatever data that can be salvaged from Manohar’s phone. Three, Rahul’s particulate analysis of Manohar’s clothes and shoes. Four, the data from the burnt laptop that we found at Sumeira’s house. Five, financial records of Manohar, the Sinhas and the Gills.’

  I looked around the room at everyone. ‘There are multiple lines of investigation open. It’s better to recap everything. Manohar is the primary suspect in killing four people. All the evidence points towards him. He denies the charges but has a mysterious connection with the Sinha family. He also appears to know something about the Gill family that we don’t yet know. The two living Gills are missing. We are awaiting results from all the points I mentioned above. Manohar is afraid of something and wants to be sure he can trust me before he can tell me what it is. That’s why he has asked me to find out about the death of Sachin Gill. My reading of this situation is that he got to know something big and damning about the Gills when he met them at his school during Natasha’s admission. That also concerns the Sinha family.’

  ‘I asked Malini. She doesn’t know the Gills,’ Atharva said.

  ‘Do you think the daughters knew each other?’ Radha said. ‘After all, we think Manohar got involved in all of this after Natasha applied to Ad Astra.’

  ‘Possible. But they went to different schools. They also didn't have any classes in common outside school,' Atharva said.

  ‘What about friends of friends?’ I said.

  ‘I’ll look into it,’ Radha said.

  ‘Not to forget even Manohar’s daughter is of a similar age.’

  ‘We haven’t been able to find a link between any of them.’

  A knock on the door drew our attention to it. I was surprised to see who it was.

  ‘Can I come in?’ maa said, partially opening the door.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I got up and opened it fully.

  Maa was grinning. ‘I can’t help in any other way, so I thought I would make you some nice cold panha.’

  Panha was raw mango juice—and as the raw mangoes used to make it were plucked just before they had fully ripened, panha tasted both sweet and sour. I remember maa making a big jar full of raw mango pulp. I remember helping maa wash the raw mangoes in March before she made the pulp. This year, panha had been prepared at our house after sixteen years. We had many such Marathi traditions despite our surname being Rajput. My dad was originally from Rajasthan but he had lived all his life in Maharashtra where he had also met my mother, who was Marathi. So, Radha, Karan and I had a predominantly Marathi upbringing.

  I found myself grinning widely as I sipped the panha. Maa had never been one to sit out and miss all the action. I had not expected her to actively enter our control room. She winked at me when she caught me smiling. She always seemed to know what I was thinking.

  ‘I hope you all like it,’ she said, handing the glasses to everyone.

  We took a small break as we drank
panha. It was always useful to think about something else, even if it was for a short time. My mind was refreshed. We got back to work in ten minutes.

  I stepped outside and entered maa’s bedroom that was just across the hallway. I sat on the bed, closed my eyes and began meditating. It had played a massive role in putting my life back on track. My guru had told me that the key to meditation was to make it a part of the routine and not use it only when you feel stressed. I was satisfied with how things had panned out since maa’s return. Her making and handing out panha to us was a huge step in her recovery, one that I could not wait to tell her psychiatrist, Dr. Pande.

  Before starting to meditate, I went downstairs. Maa was sitting on an armchair, knitting. She kept away the needle when she saw me walking towards her.

  ‘I’m very proud,’ I said and hugged her tightly.

  ‘You stole my words for you,’ she said, rubbing my back.

  I returned upstairs after a spell. I set a timer for ten minutes and started meditating. But I did not get to ten minutes. Halfway through, my phone began buzzing. I opened my eyes.

  The moment I saw the name of the person calling me, I knew it had to be something good and something big.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The person calling me was Salim Khan and I answered the ringing phone immediately, excitement flowing through my body.

  ‘I have been waiting for your call,’ I said.

  ‘I could retrieve the data from his phone.’

  ‘You’re a superstar. I knew I could count on you.’

  ‘Not so fast. I could only retrieve it partially and it is still encrypted. I remember your sister being interested in such stuff.’

  ‘Radha? Yes.’

  ‘I need some extra eyes on this to crack it quicker. I could use her help.’

  ‘I’ll ask her to call you right away. You can discuss it all in your own techie language.’

  ‘I'm sending her a copy of the data now. We'll be able to crack it faster if we work together.'

  I thanked him and hung up. I ran to my room and told Radha about Salim. I came back to maa's room. I inhaled deeply. Just as I closed my eyes, my phone started buzzing again. It was a message from Rathod.

  Got the warrant. I’m heading to the hospital myself to get Sachin Gill’s medical records.

  I punched the air and sent a message to Rahul, telling him we were going to get the reports soon. He was going to show them to the in-house doctor at his company. I texted Rathod, asking him to send the reports directly to Rahul. Things were finally falling into place. I closed my eyes and felt my body relax.

  I opened my eyes when my phone went off. This time it was actually my alarm, playing a happy tune of birds singing. I rubbed my eyes and went to the control room once again only to find it empty.

  Just then, the door swung open and Radha entered. ‘We’ve cracked Manohar’s phone,’ she said.

  At that exact moment, the man who wore a diamond ring in his index finger was getting restless. He had not anticipated Manohar to cause harm from behind bars. Especially when he knew what was at stake. Siya Rajput had also been a nuisance. She had come in from nowhere and was poking her nose in places where it did not belong.

  None of the safety triggers he had set in place had gone off. Yet. One was about to start ringing. He needed to think about what could be done. Whatever approach he took, he knew it was going to get messy. Two people had to be killed. The trick was to get them together and then take them down one after the other. That was the ideal plan. A lesser logistical nightmare. But this situation was not ideal.

  A little bird inside the CID had told him that Manohar’s transfer to Yerwada Jail was going to take place at midnight.

  Was a lawyer supposed to be present when her client was being taken to jail?

  He was not sure. Plus, Siya Rajput had been unpredictable. In that case, he had to be ready to execute plan B. He inhaled deeply and thought it all out. Money was not a problem for him. All he was worried about was the mess that would be created. If it were not for what had happened with the Sinhas, he would not have been worrying about any of this at all.

  He had to make it clean this time. There was no other choice.

  A rap on his door. He turned around. It was his secretary.

  ‘The news channel is here,’ he said. ‘Should I tell them you would be joining them soon?’

  The man turned the diamond ring on his finger once again as he nodded, his mind still occupied by Shaunak Manohar and Siya Rajput.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  We huddled around Radha’s laptop to know what she and Salim Khan had found in Manohar’s phone.

  She typed some code for a few minutes and said, ‘Manohar had started taking out his phone’s SIM card since the day of Sumeira’s interview at Ad Astra. He did not want to be tracked. He removed it whenever he stepped out of his home or school.’

  Radha paused and looked around the room. She said, ‘Luckily for us there's another way to track location of a mobile phone. The first is the popular method in which the location is found by knowing which cell towers the phone is getting a signal from. The phone always interacts with a number of towers so its location needs to be triangulated to know the exact spot. But there is another way to track location thanks to the proliferation of the internet. We can do the same with phone WiFi. Do you remember the last time you navigated to some place, your navigation app asked you to turn your WiFi on for a more precise location?'

  ‘Yeah, I have never understood why,’ Rahul said.

  ‘Your WiFi alone can't work as a GPS. Not right away at least. When GPS determines a location, it tries to access whatever information is publicly available to be accurate. It interacts with the WiFi networks present in that area. It records the location information of all such networks. This way, even if someone else doesn’t have GPS or has disabled it, it can get location information from the WiFi networks. We were able to track Manohar's movements using WiFi in this way. Because even if he had removed his SIM card, his phone was still interacting with a host of WiFi networks.’

  ‘That’s creepy but helpful to us.’

  ‘I know. There’s a way to stop the network location from being recorded. It’s pretty simple actually. Just add underscore nomad to the end of the network name and Google will stop tracking it.’

  ‘What did you find out?’ I said.

  ‘Based off the WiFi connections that Manohar interacted with, we know he went to Sumeira Gill’s house late at night on the 12th of April. He came back home that night. But then he went to her house again. Salim and I were able to track the route he took to go back and forth.’

  ‘Do you know how long he was at Sumeira Gill’s house?’

  ‘Yes. Let me check when he started interacting with other WiFi connections in the area.’

  ‘Sorry, go on. You were telling us something else as well when I interrupted you.’

  ‘Manohar kept going to Sumeira’s house, day after day. He went late on the days he was working. Salim and I aren’t sure, but we think he was never inside their house.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He was always close by, literally a stone's throw away.'

  ‘He was spying on them.’

  ‘That’s right. But WiFi data used for tracking location this way can be unreliable. However, we have several reference points to make the most educated guess.’

  ‘How many times did he go to their house?’

  ‘Sixteen times between 12th April and 22nd April.’

  ‘22nd April was the last time?’

  ‘Yes, unless he changed his phone or left it behind before going.’

  ‘Even Sumeira’s neighbours said they last saw the mother-daughter duo more than a month back. Have they really been gone since? No one has missed them enough to even file a missing person’s report.’

  ‘We also found another place that Manohar visited a couple of times. This one is going to interest you more,’ Radha said. ‘It is outs
ide Pune and he went there on the 22nd of April for the first time.’

  ‘No way.’ Could he have taken Natasha and Sumeira Gill?

  Radha said, ‘He again went there a week later.’

  ‘What’s this place?’

  ‘We’re not sure because there were no WiFi networks in the area. Which tells us that it is a deserted place. Which neighbourhood doesn’t even have one WiFi network? We know it is in the direction of the the Pune-Solapur highway though. His phone last got a signal from a WiFi connection at the start of the highway.’

  Solapur was a small town near Pune.

  ‘How far is it?’

  ‘About an hour away from Pune.’

  ‘This could be the place where he’s holding Natasha and Sumeira Gill if he has taken them. There’s a chance that even Rucha could be held there,’ I said and paused. ‘While you're in his phone, can you also check where he was yesterday when Rucha was taken and the Sinhas were killed,' I said and felt bad to have used those words in Atharva's presence.

  ‘Hold on, searching for it now,’ Radha said and started typing faster.

  We held our breath in anticipation. This was the moment of truth. I wondered if tracking a location based on WiFi triangulation was permissible in court. There were already issues with normal cell phone tower triangulation. There was a chance a judge could hear her out. Do I finally have something that will prove Manohar's innocence?

  Even though I felt something was amiss in all the evidence we had collected, I still did not have a shred of substantive tangible evidence that proved Manohar's innocence. Kunal Shastri's face came to my mind, but I pushed it away by thinking about maa and how much progress she had made.

  ‘I got it,’ Radha said. ‘He reached Malini Sinha’s house at 8.40 PM.’

  I remembered Mahesh Bhalerao’s report. The Gunshot Detection System had alerted him at 8.36 PM. According to Rathod, if at all, the GDS reporting was off by a minute. Bhalerao had reached the crime scene at 8.42 PM. That was in line with Manohar’s story. He got there after the shooting and before Bhalerao arrived at the scene.