by UD Yasha
‘Hey, that’s not a problem. It’s only natural. There’s nothing wrong with it,’ I said. ‘We won’t tell anyone if you’re not comfortable. But we’ll just need to speak to your boyfriend once and check with the place where you stayed to confirm what you’re saying.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, wiping his eyes. ‘I just…I haven’t even told my parents yet. Only a few people know. I feel like I’m letting my parents down by not telling them who I actually am. I’m sorry I’m breaking down,’ he said, taking out his phone and manipulating its screen. ‘We stayed here,’ he said, turning the screen to me, showing the receipt of the hotel and restaurant.
I took a picture of it.
‘Is that all?’ he asked.
‘Yes, and please don’t worry—’,
‘I’m sorry for this scene,’ Bimal Roy said and walked out.
My heart went out to Bimal and others like him. The LGBTQ community had been marginalized for years in India before finally, homosexuality was decriminalized in India by the country’s Supreme Court in 2018 but the stigma was yet to evaporate fully.
I went after Bimal. I saw him turn to the emergency exit staircase. I crossed to it and pushed past it.
‘Bimal,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry about us. We won’t tell anyone about this.’
I wanted him to feel better but there was nothing I could do but reassure him what we had promised. I returned to the cabin.
Rahul said, ‘Is he okay?’
‘Not yet. Hopefully, he'll be soon.'
‘Now only Anil Verma remains. He has not come in today. Let’s call him,’ he said, pulling out his phone.
He put it on speaker phone. The rings echoed in the cabin. There was no answer. Rahul tried again. Still, no response.
‘He’s not answering probably because he’s sick,’ I said.
‘Or maybe he has other reasons.’
‘Let’s pay him a visit. He lives close by.’
Chapter Eighteen
Anil Verma lived five minutes on foot from Smart Tech’s office but we still decided to drive. I took my Glock from the glove compartment before we stepped out. Anil lived in a tall standalone building called ‘Daffodils’. I noticed his car was parked in his apartment’s parking spot. We went up fifteen floors to his apartment and turned right in the corridor. I made sure my waist holster had the Glock securely fastened. I put a hand on it as Rahul rang the bell of apartment number 1501.
A light came on inside. We saw it in the crack of the door.
‘Who’s it?’ a man’s voice said.
‘I’m Siya Rajput, a private detective. I’m here to talk to Anil Verma regarding Supriya Kelkar’s murder.’
The door opened. My hands tightened around the Glock.
A balding man of perhaps fifty stood in the doorway. His eyes were bloodshot and bulged out. ‘What? Supriya’s dead?’
‘Don’t you know?’
‘I saw her just the other day at our event.’
‘She was killed right after that.’
Anil’s face went white. He stepped away from the door. I released the gun and brought my hand forward into its natural position. Anil beckoned us to take a seat on the couch. As we sat down, he pulled an armchair for himself. I looked around the apartment. There was a big flat screen television to which all the furniture pointed at. Even the family portrait on the wall behind us looked at the television screen. Anil Verma had a wife and a daughter.
‘Are you with the police?’ Anil asked.
‘I’m a private detective,’ I said.
Anil looked to the ground and then back up at us. ‘What happened to her?’
‘She was killed after the launch event.’
Anil wiped his forehead.
‘You haven’t gone to work since the event. We heard you were ill.’
‘I was running a fever earlier.’ He touched his forehead with two fingers.
There was something off about this man. He was taking that extra half a beat to answer any question.
‘What was your temperature?’
‘I…I—it was around a hundred.’
‘Where were you between four and eight yesterday morning?’
Anil’s eyes wandered. ‘I was home. Right here.’
‘Was your wife or daughter with you?’
‘No, they’ve been out of the country for the past week.’
‘So, no one can vouch for your presence?’
‘No.’
Silence.
‘How would you describe your relationship with Supriya Kelkar?’
Anil breathed deeper on hearing the question. ‘We had a working relationship. We saw each other every day but interacted very little as our work was different,’ he said.
‘Have you heard of the serial killer named Kishore Zakkal?’ I said.
It was worth a shot to catch Anil off guard. I watched his eyes and his body language closely. He shook his head. His eyes remained unmoved. Most ordinary people flinch at the mention of the word serial killer.
‘Who’s he? I haven’t heard of him. Is he the one who killed her?’ Anil said.
‘We don’t know yet. We’re trying to find out.’
‘What caused your fever, Anil?’ Rahul said.
‘It must be the exertion from the past two weeks. And probably the wave of cold weather.’
‘You look fine to me now.’
‘Yeah, it has got better after lunch. I’ve rested all day. I got up just before you rang the bell.’
‘Can we run a small test on you to check if you were actually ill?’ I said.
‘That’s an intrusion of my privacy.’
‘You don’t need to be afraid if you have nothing to hide,’ Rahul said.
‘I think you need to leave,’ Anil said, getting up, pointing at the door. ‘You’re not even police.’
‘We’ll have them pay you a visit then,’ Rahul said.
‘Go on. I’m not afraid,’ Anil said, virtually pushing us out.
He closed his apartment’s door on our faces.
‘What a guy,’ Rahul said.
‘I don’t know what it was, but he was lying about something. I’m going to ask Rathod to follow up on him.’
We rode down the elevator. I went to Anil’s car. I put my head up to its window and tried to look in. The dark tint on it made it hard to notice anything particularly. I went around and leaned on the windshield to get a better view. I suddenly realized his car’s engine was warm. He had been out recently. His words came back to me. I’ve rested all day. I got up just before you rang the bell.
I turned back and headed to our car with only one thought in my mind. Anil Verma was hiding something. He was a liar. Was he also a killer? My phone vibrated. It was a message from Rathod.
Sonia found a partial fingerprint inside the bag that held the pollen. She’s testing it now.
I punched the air and grinned. We were making progress.
It was almost four o'clock by the time we picked up Radha and Shadow from what she called ‘heaven on earth'; she was referring to a pet-friendly book café she had found. I could already picture all of us going there more frequently later on. As we neared our house, I called Rathod and told him about our afternoon.
‘Also, good news,’ he said. ‘I hastened the process of making copies of Zakkal’s prison correspondence for you. It’s almost complete. Twenty more minutes. I’ll send it across right away.’
‘What about the tests on the pollen grain?’
‘Sonia just got started on it. She said it might take time as the pollen grain was inside Zakkal’s mouth for a while and it’ll be quite a task to analyse it completely. She’ll get the fingerprint results soon. She’s testing it against the inmates at Yerwada,’ Rathod said and hung up.
Five minutes later, Rahul veered the car into the compound of our house. Like always, Shadow was excited to get back home. He loved it more than a man who was desperate for a leak. He tapped his paw on the door until I had to lean sideways and open it. He
jumped out and ran around the house.
We walked to the main door when Shadow completed his round. He was still barking. I had never seen him this excited. He ran towards us and then back to the lawn where he had finished his round.
That’s when I saw it.
Shadow was not excited to be back home, he was angry someone had been to his home without his permission.
An envelope lay in the middle of the lawn.
I gasped and stepped back instinctively. Radha and Rahul turned to me. They followed my gaze to the envelope. They saw it as well. Radha clenched my shoulder. Goosebumps chilled my body.
‘What is that? Rahul said and broke step for it.
I held his hand and pulled him back. ‘We don’t know if it’s dangerous,’ I said, putting on my gloves.
‘What are you doing?' Radha said as I walked out of her grip on my shoulder.
I ignored her and walked to the lawn. The envelope was rectangular, regular sized and white in colour. It was blank from the outside. I picked it up. It was light. I held it against the sun. There was something inside. Another paper. I could see it through the opaque envelope against the light. I turned to Radha and Rahul.
‘Let’s go inside,’ I said.
We were wary of any sound or movement as we got indoors.
‘I’m going to check everything inside properly,’ Rahul said.
‘Here, take this,’ Radha said, giving him a knife from the kitchen. ‘Be careful.’
The Bedroom Strangler had instilled fear in us. We did not feel safe in our own house. Rahul bolted upstairs. Shadow ran with him. Rahul announced each room he went to—'Siya’s room, Radha’s room, bathroom, terrace, balcony.’
He returned two minutes later and went to the only bedroom on the ground floor.
‘It’s all clear. I checked everywhere. The windows are still locked and the doors are bolted. All cupboards and beds are safe,’ he said. ‘What’s in the envelope?’
Radha spread out a newspaper on the dining table. We sat around it. My heart pulsated in my neck and ears. I did not remember a time it had beaten so fast. Sweat gathered inside my gloves. I opened the flap and pulled out the paper inside.
It had been folded twice. I peeled them out.
There was a message inside. Handwritten. In cursive.
My hands holding the note started trembling. My stomach turned to ice and threatened to crush me. At that moment, I remembered Zakkal's stare of death from the morning for I read the words in his voice.
Be glad you were not home. Because I was here.
-xoxo, you know who
Chapter Nineteen
I was here. I put the note down. I gathered my composure. I blew air from my mouth. Rahul’s hand patted my back. Another realization dawned on me. This note could’ve been for Radha as well. Thinking about her being in danger made my palms sweaty again. I thought back to when we left the house. I couldn’t help but think what would have happened if Radha and Shadow had been home.
‘What about the security cameras?’ Radha said.
‘I’ll check them,’ Rahul said and went to get his laptop.
I knew the killer would be smart enough to avoid the cameras. He would also be smart enough not to leave any evidence on the envelope or the letter inside. While Rahul pulled up the security camera footage, I called Rathod and told him about the incident so he would take the envelope for analysis. You could never be too careful.
‘It’s clean. There was no one in front of the house at any point,’ Rahul said. ‘Once the security system gets updated tomorrow, we’ll have a view of all the sides of the house.’
The initial wave of fear subsided in the next five minutes. The logical part of my brain took over. The killer had not been inside the house. He had not even entered their house compound. But he had been outside their house. He liked to stalk his victims. And now he was stalking us. This could be perceived as a warning, but more than that, I felt, this was again a statement. The killer was saying to us—I was so close to you and you still did not catch me.
I moved my chair closer to Radha and snuggled her. ‘Big sister’s here to protect you, okay? I would never let anything happen to you.’
I felt warm tears on my neck. I gently passed my hand over Radha’s head. She had been everything I could have imagined and more in the past three years. She had been my rock. She was the sole reason I was even able to breathe then. She needed me now. And I was not going to let her down.
The only way to feel safe again was to catch the killer. Doing that would also help us find maa. I realized I needed to take a step back in the investigation. So much had already happened. There was bound to be a clue somewhere. It would be hard to find because my gut told me Zakkal had been planning this for months, maybe even years. He would have looked at every move with a scrutinizing glare to find faults and rectify them. But there was someone else involved this time. Another monster along with him. However much control Zakkal thought he had, he could not pull someone else’s strings as efficiently. Zakkal had himself given me a clue in the form of the pollen grain. I was afraid to find where it would lead us.
The image of Zakkal pulling the pollen out of his mouth came back to me. I had wanted to puke then and I wanted to puke now just picturing it. It got me thinking about how he could have possibly gotten it inside the prison. The answer could be in his letters of correspondence. The tests on the pollen grain could also possibly reveal how long the pollen had been inside Zakkal’s mouth. That could be corroborated with who sent him letters then. Or who met him. He did not have any visitors; the jail warden had said. He was in solitary confinement as well. How the hell had he gotten the pollen grain?
Just then, the doorbell rang.
Rahul had his laptop open in front of him. ‘It’s Rathod’s man from the CID,’ he said and got up to open the door.
Rahul put the letter in an evidence bag and gave it to the CID officer, who in turn gave Rahul three large plastic bags that had all the letters sent to and received by Zakkal from prison. Rahul locked the door after him and put the letter bags on top of the dining table.
Radha looked up from my shoulder. Her eyes were puffy. She wiped her tears with her sleeve.
‘It's just that too much has happened since yesterday,' Radha said. ‘First, we got to know maa is still alive. We were always hopeful, but I never thought it would actually happen. And then, you met Zakkal. I was so concerned about you. If that wasn't enough, we get this letter right now. I'm scared. But I'm also overwhelmed.'
‘It’s alright. You cannot always be the reservoir of everyone’s pain. You needed a release. Please remember we’ll always be there for you,’ I said.
Rahul joined us on the couch. We sat without saying anything for a spell. At times, the best support that you could get was not soothing words but just a calming presence. The sunlight was fading outside. The clock in the living room chimed at five o'clock.
‘Enough of this now. I’ll make tea,’ Radha said, getting up.
I laughed. Not a day in the past thirty years had gone by when tea had not been prepared in the Rajput household between lunch and dinner. Both our parents had the habit of drinking it and we had grown up into it.
Rahul and I went to the dining table. We removed the letters from the first bag. They had been organized chronologically. The first set of letters dated back to Zakkal’s first year in prison. Over the years, public interest in him had gone down; almost like that of a star athlete after retiring. We divided the letters amongst ourselves.
‘Let's note down people who wrote to him multiple times,' I said, picking up the first letter. ‘It'll give us a starting point. Also, look out for anything abnormal in general. Because the same person might have written to Zakkal under different names.'
Radha brought three steaming cups of tea in fifteen minutes. The strong smell of ginger was refreshing after everything that had happened during the day. Radha joined us in reading the letters.
‘There are so many o
f them,’ she said, looking at the pile on the dining table.
‘Two thousand and twenty-one to be exact,’ I said.
‘No way,’ she said. ‘Why do people talk to known and convicted serial killers?’
‘Various reasons. Like for example,’ I said, showing her the letter I was reading. ‘This is from The Pune Point newspaper. They wanted Zakkal’s thoughts on a story they were doing. Zakkal did not bother to respond.’ I rummaged through the pile that I had sorted. ‘But there are others. Like this lady called Apeksha Manohar. She started off by asking Zakkal about why he killed. Zakkal replied saying because it was fun. Then the conversation moved to their favourite movies, tourist destinations and memories. It meandered along. Zakkal even asked Apeksha to send photos of her friends.’
‘That’s creepy.’
‘Apeksha ignored that request. But a lot of people don’t. I already have found another woman who sent Zakkal her photo when he asked for it.’
‘Did he respond to that?’
‘Yes. He told her she was beautiful. He also told her he would have loved to know her when he was outside and free. There are more letters between them that I haven’t got around to reading yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if some women here felt like they were dating Zakkal.’
‘Why would anyone do that?’
‘There’s a basic intrigue about such things, especially when it’s about someone dangerous. Not always, but a lot of times, communicating with a serial killer, or any criminal, gives you a high. You experience a thrill in your seemingly mundane everyday life. Also, several people believe that talking to prisoners is a form of community service. They believe that even prisoners are human—the underlying reason behind why they are allowed to get letters in the first place—and that they’re being punished for their crime, so in due course, why not make them feel a bit better?’
‘That’s the most twisted thing I’ve heard.’
‘Some of these conversations get weird. I’ve already found two instances where women wrote to Zakkal on their own in the first twenty minutes of looking through the letters. Since these are from his early days after being convicted, they’re mostly from psychologists who want a sneak peek into a serial killer’s mind and news organisations so they generate hype around their stories. The latter group will fade away once we get to letters from his second or third year in prison.’
