by UD Yasha
Rahul read the letters chronologically while I went to the most recent ones in the third bag. I figured if the letters were used to relay messages regarding the murder, maa or the pollen grain, then there would be some mention of it closer to when it happened.
I kept an eye on the clock as we went through them. The tests on the pollen grain would come out soon. At least I hoped. We sifted through over four hundred letters between us in the next four hours.
The sun had set and the air got cooler. We had not found anything yet that connected anyone to the Bedroom Strangler or the pollen grain. I got up stretched. My mind became numb reading letters on a page. It was a major part of my job once upon a time, but now I needed a small break. I took Shadow out into the garden. He relieved himself near our ambitious bio compost area and then began sniffing around. I sat on the swing and let my mind wander.
How did Zakkal get the pollen grain in the first place?
Somebody had to hand it over to him. No one from the outside was allowed to meet him.
Then it hit me.
If no one from outside gave it to Zakkal, what if someone from inside gave it to him?
All sorts of contraband flow in and out of a jail. Each jail has its designated smugglers. Right from money and mobile phones to condoms and valuables, anything could be smuggled into the jail. And not just that, but what if another prisoner, who was allowed visitors, got the pollen grain from the visitor, and then handed it to Zakkal? Was that even possible?
Zakkal was in solitary confinement. His cell chamber had additional security and more restrictions that made contraband smuggling harder. But not impossible. Certainly not something out of limits of a serial killer who was unknown till he was caught.
I knew the Indian Constitution had provisions for prisoner rights as well. That made it imperative for all prisoners to get adequate sunlight and open-air time. Zakkal's lawyer would have definitely requested for it under the garb of basic human rights. Maybe another prisoner had slipped Zakkal the pollen grain then. There were ways to hide stuff in a prison's open grounds.
My excitement with the theory faded a tad. If indeed someone had slipped Zakkal the pollen grain, then how were we going to find out who it was? It could have entered the prison through at least a thousand ways.
Thinking about Zakkal’s lawyer pushed me to think along another line. I remembered his name. Tarun Mishra. I knew him from my days of practicing law. He was one of the most sought-after criminal lawyers by crooks of all kinds. The biggest criminals in India employed him. I called Rathod.
‘When was the last time Zakkal met his lawyer Tarun Mishra?’ I said.
‘I’ll have to find out. Give me a minute,’ Rathod said. I heard flipping of pages. ‘Ten days ago. Hey, hold on.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘You said his lawyer was Mishra, right?’
‘Yes, he’s the one who defended him five years ago.’
‘Well, it’s someone else now. His name is Hardik Karve. He has been fighting Zakkal’s case for the past three years. First, he represented Zakkal for his appeal to the Supreme Court and then put his paperwork in place for his mercy plea to the President.’
The name did not ring a bell. But that meant nothing as I had been out of touch for three years. I wondered why Zakkal would have changed his lawyer. ‘Have they been meeting regularly?’ I said.
‘Fairly. At least once a month.’
‘Since when?’ I heard more pages flip.
‘For a long time. Wait, I’m checking. The past three years.’
‘And how often did Zakkal meet his old lawyer?’
‘Rarely. Only three times in three years before that. That was when his case was being heard in the High Court. Do you think he’s involved?’
‘It's worth looking into him,' I said. Lawyers are supposed to be checked before they meet their client in prison. Most of the time, it's just the tired hawaldar who is counting down the hours before he would be able to go back home, giving you a pat down along with a basic walk through a metal detector. So, you can get away with something as small as a pollen grain.
‘What makes you think he’ll talk to us? He knows the law. He’s not obliged to answer our questions,’ Rathod said.
Which was true. Karve was also bound by attorney-client privilege. Even if he wanted to, the law prohibited him from speaking to us about Zakkal. But there had to be a reason he was meeting Zakkal so often.
‘How long did they meet generally?’ I said.
‘It varied. But at least fifteen minutes. Most of the times it was around half an hour.’
‘He might know something about what’s happening. Let’s meet him.’ I wanted Rathod to come with me. A CID officer’s presence would amp up the pressure on him.
‘I’ll look up his contact details,’ Rathod said.
‘Let’s surprise him tomorrow morning,’ I said and clicked off.
Thirty minutes, once a week for three years. Karve was certainly chatty with Zakkal. We were not going to know what they had spoken about. Karve would also mostly use his right to remain silent when we asked him any questions. We probably would not get any information from him. At least not verbal information. But I wanted to see if he could look me in the eye, if his forehead got sweaty, if he got excited and if he enjoyed being asked questions about Zakkal. At times, the use of words is detrimental to telling to truth.
My trail of thought was broken. Someone was calling my name. I looked up. Radha was at the door, raising her hand, trying to get my attention. Shadow had already spotted her and was jumping on her.
Radha said, ‘Siya, come inside fast. Rahul found something in the letters.’
Chapter Twenty
I returned to our cosy house. The letters. It came back to them. Even before I said anything, Rahul ran to me with a stack of papers in his hand.
‘You wouldn’t believe what I found,’ he said.
He handed me a paper and said, ‘This is the first letter a man called Shaam Pundlik wrote to Zakkal.’
My eyes moved as I read the letter. It was dated 14th December 2015.
Dear Kishore Zakkal,
I am a huge fan. I really admire your work. I wish I had known you when we could still meet openly and talk face to face. I would have loved to know about your craft and technique. From what I’ve read, your work was a piece of art. To have kept the bodies hidden, seven of them! Wow! You deserve to be given more credit and accolades.
I wish to hear back from you. I wish to learn whatever I can through these letters. If not your technique, at least the thoughts you had before and after you killed.
Yours truly,
Shaam Pundlik
What a crackhead, I thought.
‘There are more of them. Here’s Zakkal’s reply,’ Rahul said and gave me another letter. This one was dated 2nd January 2016.
Dear Shaam,
Thanks a lot for your kind words. I would've loved to meet you as well. Maybe we'll still meet under the blue sky on a cosy winter night. Who knows? Weirder things have happened.
I want to know something. Have you ever killed or are you a closet murderer? Let me tell you one thing. The difference between the two is like porn and sex. They seem the same until you experience both. I look forward to hearing from you. Also, wish you and your family a happy new year on my behalf.
With love,
Zakkal
‘How many of these are there?’ I said.
‘Sixteen letters in total, back and forth. At times Shaam wrote two in one go. Zakkal only replied after a month in most cases. You’d find this one most interesting. This is the reason I called you in,’ he said and handed me another letter.
This one was dated 4th June 2018.
Dear Shaam,
I am glad to know you’re considering my request of experiencing the joy of killing. Here’s a tip. I learnt it the hard way because no one taught me. You’re lucky to be learning from the best. When you strangle someone, keep the pressure on
for a good three to four minutes. You’ll need physical strength for it. Let me know how it goes.
Good luck,
Zakkal
‘Here’s Shaam’s reply to that letter,’ Rahul said, handing me another letter dated 20th June 2018.
Dear Zakkal,
Thank you for the tip. I am strangely not feeling nervous. I've selected my target. As you said, I am trying to get to know her from afar. I'll let you know everything. My hands are shivering with excitement as I write this.
Thanks for everything,
Shaam
‘I started off on your pile,' Rahul said. ‘I found this inside.'
‘I’ll tell Rathod,’ I said, taking my phone out to text him the serial numbers on the letters we were looking at.
‘Regardless of whether he is the Bedroom Strangler, do you think this guy Shaam actually went out and stalked someone and then killed them?’
‘We’ll pay him a visit nevertheless,’ I said, glancing at the clock. It was almost eleven. Where had time flown by? ‘How many letters did you go through?’ I asked Rahul.
‘About six hundred between us. I took them from all three bags, though the first bag mainly has letters from news channels and science journals.’
Radha referred to her notes and said, ‘Out of the six hundred and sixteen letters, two hundred and three are from news agencies, one hundred and ninety are from science journals, seventy from random people asking Zakkal about his life and the rest are either love letters or creepy people like Shaam.’
‘There are more who seem like they could kill?’
‘Not kill as such, but they showed a weird attraction toward Zakkal,’ I said.
My stomach growled. I realized I had not had much food since the early breakfast. I grabbed a glass of water and settled on the couch. I massaged my temples. We ordered dinner from a Chinese restaurant called Chef Chu's. It was near our house and we were its most regular customers, and thereby friends with Chef Chu himself. That’s why we knew that the chef’s real name was Sarang Kulkarni, making him a Marathi person and not Chinese.
Our food was delivered in fifteen minutes. We had the same order most times. Chicken lollipops, burnt garlic chicken noodles and American Chop Suey. We had a special bone for Shadow every time we ordered in.
We finished eating at midnight. The food as always was delicious. I kept checking my phone throughout, hoping for some update from the tests on the pollen grain. I went for a bath after dinner, which I knew was unhealthy but I needed hot water on my body. I kept my phone out of the bathroom, hoping to give my mind some much-needed respite.
I checked my phone right away after coming out. Rathod had sent me three messages.
Bimal Roy from Smart Tech checks out. The hotel confirmed he was with his boyfriend.
We’ll meet Anil Verma and bring him in for questioning if he doesn’t cooperate with us.
Vivaan Deshpande is clear. We spoke to the taxi company and the hotel in Bangalore. All have confirmed his whereabouts.
I felt relieved to know that Vivaan’s alibi had checked out. I went to my bed and crashed and before I knew it, I was snoring away.
My ringing phone woke me up at seven in the morning. It was Rathod.
‘You need to come to the CID office right now,’ Rathod said.
‘I will,’ I said, slipping into the first T-Shirt and pants that I saw. ‘What happened?’
‘Sonia found something surprising. Rather unexpected. It’s about your mother’s state of health when her hair was cut off. She had been living a healthy life when it was cut. Complete with a full diet and no health issues. She has been gone for over sixteen years. She shouldn’t be healthy. But she has been well taken care of.’
Another chill ran up my body. What was happening?
‘I’ll be right there,’ I said and rushed downstairs.
Chapter Twenty-One
Even before I hung up, I decided Radha, Rahul and Shadow were going to come with me. I did not want to leave anyone behind, not after receiving the letter yesterday afternoon.
Rahul’s bed was empty. I woke Radha up and told her we had to go to CID’s office. She did not ask any questions, much to my relief. Rahul was in the kitchen making coffee when I went down.
‘You've an uncanny knack of getting up when coffee is ready,' he said.
He handed me a cup at the dining table. That’s when he saw my face.
‘What’s wrong?’ he said.
I told him about Rathod’s phone call. He listened patiently and then said, ‘Alright, make sure your stomach is full.’
He made six cucumber sandwiches and wrapped them in a silver foil and then went upstairs. Shadow sensed something was happening, so he waited by the door, holding his leash in his mouth. I tried to think hard about how maa could have stayed healthy. The questions that had come to my mind earlier about how and where she would have been held after Zakkal had been arrested came back with a resounding echo. That she was healthy did not make sense. Also, why had she been kept alive at all? I felt guilty for asking that question but there was no reason why Zakkal would abduct a woman, splash her bathroom with her blood and then, sixteen years later, tell the world that she was alive by leaving her hair at another crime scene.
I snapped out from my thoughts when I heard Radha and Rahul come downstairs two minutes later. They were both wearing jeans and T-Shirts. They grabbed their sweaters and we were on our way to the CID office.
We reached in less than fifteen minutes. I went to Rathod’s office while Rahul and Radha stayed in the waiting room with Shadow. Rathod took me straight to the basement to the Medical Examiner’s office. Dr. Sonia Joshi and Bhalerao were already present. Dr. Sonia’s eyes were heavy. From the looks of it, she had worked through the night. Just then, the elevator door opened and ACP Shukla walked out. He buttoned his blazer.
‘Thanks for coming at such a short notice, everyone,’ Sonia said without wasting time. ‘Let’s get started.’
We followed Sonia past two doors and into the morgue. The blast of cold air and the smell of formalin hit me hard. It reminded me of my meetings with various medical experts while I was investigating maa's disappearance. It was my first time at an autopsy. Police officers do not like lawyers or private detectives hanging around at their workplace.
‘First up on the agenda is the pollen grain. Good news. Ten minutes ago, I got a match for the partial fingerprint we got from inside the bag in which the pollen was kept.’
I heard my heart thud in my mouth. Finally, a solid lead.
‘The fingerprint belongs to a man named Dhruv Kataria. He’s an inmate at Yerwada.’
Rathod cut in, taking out his phone. ‘I’ll call Warden Shetty—’
‘I already spoke to Warden Shetty,’ Sonia said. ‘Dhruv Kataria was killed six days back.’
‘How?’ I said, my heart sinking. He was our only connection to Zakkal and the Bedroom Strangler. He was now dead even before we knew it was him.
‘A fight broke out in the jail. He was stabbed and punched. He sustained heavy injuries. He was under observation in the Intensive Care Unit of Sasoon Hospital. He died two days later from internal bleeding and trauma.’
‘Wasn’t there an investigation into the death and the fight?’
‘There was. It’s still going on. It’s a jail, Siya. You know better than us how it is in prisons. It’ll be a miracle if the case is ever solved.’
‘Who did he fight with?’
‘We don’t have the exact information. But there are multiple gang members accused of starting the fight. The questioning is on. The jail warden is investigation it himself.’
‘Can the CID take over the investigation?’ I said, turning to Rathod and Shukla, knowing it was going to be a long shot.
‘Not without pissing off Warden Shetty,’ Shukla said. ‘I’ll see what I can do. There might be an easier way out as this is directly related to a murder investigation we’re conducting. I’ll call him now.’
‘You won�
��t get reception here,’ Sonia said. ‘You’ll have to go up. I suggest you wait till I share what I found in the autopsy. You’d want to hear it. You’ll anyway need time with Warden Shetty to convince him to let you run an investigation.’
I made a mental note to look into Dhruv Kataria later. He was Zakkal’s link to the outside world in some way. At least now we knew how Zakkal got the pollen in the first place. God knows what else he had gotten.
‘We should search Zakkal’s cell,’ I said. ‘Who’s to say he has not gotten anything else from outside?’
Everyone’s gaze turned to Shukla. I could again tell he was not liking this one bit. He knew I had a point.
Rathod backed me up. He said, ‘That’s a good idea.’
Shukla tried to maintain a straight face. ‘OK. I’ll tell Warden Shetty to check that.’
‘What was Dhruv Kataria in jail for?’ I said.
‘Warden Shetty sent me a file on him. I’ll forward that to you,’ she said.
‘What about the pollen itself? What did you find there?’ I asked.
‘I called Dr. Raghav Barve earlier in the evening. He has taken it for an analysis. He said he can’t say how much time he would take.’
Which is why I wanted him to have it as soon as we got it. Identifying a pollen's history was painstakingly time-consuming unless there was a straight match.
Sonia said, ‘But I can tell you it was clean and has no kind of DNA evidence. It stopped germinating only a few days after being put in a plastic bag.’ She paused and then crossed to Supriya Kelkar’s body that was in the middle of the morgue.
