by UD Yasha
‘We reached five minutes ago,’ Shukla said to Dr. Barve. ‘We’ve got the lights in place. We’ve ten officers here. All are trained in operations like these. The dogs will lead the search.’
‘Good. Because we don’t know what we’re dealing with. This could be a ploy to kill us all for all you know,’ Dr. Barve said.
I knew killers like Zakkal always loved to show how smart they were. There could be anything waiting for us. I imagined Zakkal laughing his gut off if this was some sort of a plot to kill more. But something told me this had a deeper meaning. Everything had led up to this moment.
‘Any specific instructions doctor?’ ACP Shukla said.
‘We need to search this entire area. It’s could be a stiff task because it covers about ten square kilometres. The good part is that the land is flat. Just that the grass is high in some areas. We’re looking for anything that comes off as suspicious. Look for signs of freshly dug soil. Ask your men to be careful,’ Raghav said and pulled out a box from a pocket in his coat. ‘This has the pollen. The dogs can use this for a reference smell.’
‘Noted. We'll split up in two teams if need be. In that case, five search ops officers and one dog will be with each team.' He turned to his team. ‘We'll split up amongst the two teams. Dr. Barve and I will go with one. Rathod, take Siya.' Shukla paused and turned to me. ‘Be alert,' he said and crossed to his van. He came back with three bulletproof vests and gave them to us.
‘Let’s find what this moron has hidden,’ he said.
I pulled out my Glock. Both the dogs headed east, towards the rising sun. We followed them with torches. ACP Shukla led the way. We had walked for fifteen minutes when the dogs began to get excited. Their leash stretched and they egged their handlers to move faster. They pushed through grass that got progressively higher. Strobes of light zigzagged ahead of us. Soon, the grass got waist high. At that point of time, we were more worried about snakes and animals than any other human.
The dogs began to bark.
The land cleared.
The clear land was circular. It was surrounded by tall grass. There was a small lamp in the centre of the clear patch. We could not make out anything else in the sparse light. We walked closer to the centre.
Trepidation grew with every step. Our eyes adjusted to the low light gradually. Finally, we were close enough to realize what was kept around the small lamp. My hands went cold and shivers spiked through my body when I realized what it was.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The arrangement around the lamp was chilling. Ten glass jars were placed in a circle around a lamp on a red silk cloth. There was something inside the jars. I could not yet make it out. The lamp's light glistened on it, adding to the theatrics while throwing light on the ten jars around it.
Sonia raised her hand. She had a crime scene to protect. ‘Stand back, everyone,’ she said and turned her wrist to check the time. ‘I need to secure this area.’
She beckoned to her team to start searching and taking pictures of the area. There could be footprints or something else left behind. Her team searched the area for the next ten minutes by which time the sun rose. Everyone else watched the proceedings from a distance. Tense silence resounded.
I walked as close to the arrangement as possible without disturbing Sonia. I felt a knot in my neck that kept getting bigger when I realized what lay in the jars. It looked like a human organ. I could not recognize the organ but I could make out that they had been pushed inside the jar and were somehow fitting in. I wondered what else was there in the other jars. Just thinking about it made me quiver. A cool breeze brushed my neck. Sweat beaded my forehead.
Sonia's team moved quickly once the sun rose. Another ten minutes went by before Sonia cleared the area for us. She went to the jar nearest to us and picked it up. She gazed at it through the transparent walls.
‘It’s a heart,’ she said, her voice soft and low.
Several gasps escaped in unison. Uneasiness spread across the air. My fingers and toes tingled. Everyone turned to each other in shock.
‘An actual freaking human heart?’ Shukla said.
‘Yes, the jars are airtight. Probably to preserve the heart.'
Silence.
‘Wait, there’s something under the jar,’ Sonia said, raising it higher to look below it. ‘There’s a paper stuck to it. There’s a name written on it. Madhuri Kenjale.’ She paused. ‘And there’s a heart next to it.’
‘That’s one of the women who Zakkal had abducted,’ I said.
All eyes turned to me.
Sonia crossed to the next jar. She picked it up and examined it.
‘This one…this one also has a heart,’ she said, her voice trailing off. She turned it around and looked below it. ‘There’s a name once again. Kanaka Madhavan.’
I said, ‘That’s another woman he had admitted to taking.’
Sonia was at the next jar. ‘This one isn’t an organ,’ she said. ‘It’s a lock of hair.’ She looked under the jar. She looked up at me, nodding her head. ‘It’s your mother. Naina Rajput.’
My eyes welled. I did not know why the thought of maa dying cropped up. I fought the tears. This was not the time to cry. Not now. The sadness made way for anger. My fists clenched. Zakkal’s face from the day before came to my mind. I love the way your mom smells. It enriches me. I cannot wait to hold her close again. I was going to get that son of a bitch.
I had not realized Sonia was at the next jar until she spoke. I snapped out of my daze.
‘There’s more hair in this. It’s a different shade than the previous one,’ she said, holding the box up for everyone to see. ‘The name under this is Swapna Kiran.’
‘Swapna Kiran?’ I said. ‘She wasn’t among the ones Zakkal had taken. At least according to him.’
‘We’ll check if she has been reported missing,’ Rathod said.
Sonia held the jar lower, realizing herself that she was adding to the drama the Bedroom Strangler and Zakkal had planned. She went around the lamp without saying anything, picking up one jar after the other. Her assistant followed her, putting the jars in plastic evidence bags. She approached us after going around.
‘I found five hearts,’ she said, her voice brimming with alarm. Those were words no one ever expected to hear or even say.
‘What’s the condition of the hearts?’ Shukla said.
‘There has been some kind of an embalming routine performed on them. They are well preserved and have a darker dye on them. The airtight jars also kept animals away from it. I'll have to conduct tests to know more. And to even verify whether the heart belongs to the labelled women.'
Two officers from the search team turned away. They had not signed up for this. Their faces had gone white. The scene was gruesome for even experienced murder detectives. I gulped. A glance around told me none of us were doing well. More than the sight and thought of what lay in front of us, the sheer shock of the scene was too much to comprehend. None of us had expected to come across something so graphic. The scene itself was a big statement.
‘What about the remaining five jars?’ I said.
‘They all have locks of hair in them. A cursory visual examination tells me that they all come from different women because of the difference in shades and textures. But I’ll know more about them and the hearts once I test them. I can’t say anything more right now. The scene is now yours,’ she said, beckoning Shukla to it.
‘Who are the other women?’ I said.
Sonia’s assistant walked to me and showed me the list he had prepared. It had ten names with either a heart or a curving line against it. I recognized six of the ten women, including my mother. I had never even heard of the remaining four. Shukla crossed to me and looked at the list as well.
‘What’s going to be your line of action, doctor?’ Shukla said.
‘Firstly, I'm going to check if the hearts and hair belong to the women labelled under each box. Then I'll conduct tests on each to find out more about them.' She tu
rned to me. ‘I'll also be able to tell from the hair if the women were alive when it was cut.'
I nodded. The rage I had felt a while back returned. I needed to meet Zakkal again and know what game he was playing. But at the same time, I knew it would be wise to wait until Sonia finished running her tests. They could reveal something.
I turned to Sonia. ‘There are four women on the list who are not known to be Zakkal’s victims. Can you find out who they are before performing other tests?’
Sonia nodded, but then paused, realizing she needed permission from her boss. She looked at Shukla. He lifted his hand, beckoning her to go ahead with my suggestion. She packed her small suitcase and left with her team. Two officers went with them back to the vans. We watched them disappear beyond the tall grass.
I turned around and looked at the lamp. It was still burning. I noticed a small solar panel next to it. Zakkal and the Bedroom Strangler knew it could take us some time to find this place so they had armed their lamp with an unending source of energy. I walked around it to get a feel. The Bedroom Strangler would have walked the same way, arranging his trophies one by one. He could have taken his time. There was no one out here for many kilometres to disturb him. I had not seen any signs of human settlements close by. The sugarcane factory had been long abandoned because of a legal tussle. Like everything else in this case so far, this area was well chosen and planned. I eyed the lamp in the middle. I wondered if the arrangement was Zakkal’s idea. He had always loved drama. He had also loved to show his might and intelligence. Nothing screamed ‘Fuck You’ more than putting parts of women he had killed around a lamp.
Zakkal's quest for power got me thinking about something else. I wondered if the women whose hair we had found were all alive, apart from maa. That would change everything. Zakkal would have the upper hand. He could be hoping for some kind of barter. The moment Sonia would confirm that five of the women Zakkal had taken more than fifteen years ago were still alive, the police would have no choice but to cooperate to some extent with Zakkal. The media would love to grab everyone's attention. Their coverage would spread panic. Rumours would follow. Because of the upcoming elections, politicians would get involved to appear as the good guys. They would put pressure on the police to negotiate some kind of a deal with Zakkal.
He would not be released. Never. But still, there could be a middle ground where Zakkal reveals the location of the women who are still alive. What could he ask for in return for the information?
A voice inside told me it would be something far worse, a situation that would send chills through all of us. This was always going to be more than random murders of innocent women. The plan was something larger. I was just starting to get an idea of how bad the situation could get.
I wondered where the Bedroom Strangler fit into all of this. The same questions haunted me. How did he know Zakkal? Why did Zakkal trust him so much?
I stopped mid-way. I looked around at the high grass around us. The sun was up now, bringing with it a dull warmth. I checked the time on my smartphone. Almost seven thirty.
‘We’re going to search the rest of the place,’ Rathod said. ‘Coming?’
I shook my head and said, ‘I need to do something else.’
The search team along with Shukla and Rathod were enough heads for the task. I also doubted if they would find anything. The planning, throughout for all of the murders, had been meticulous. Leaving any kind of evidence behind was highly unlikely.
I returned to Rathod’s car along with Dr. Barve. A CID van was leaving to return to the city. It dropped us all back at the CID office.
‘What the hell did you find?’ Radha said. ‘Everyone walking back here seems to have come from a funeral.’
‘At least five women are dead,’ I said. ‘We found five hearts and five locks of hair kept in separate jars. All jars were labelled with the names.’ I paused. ‘One of the jars with hair in it had maa’s name. If the first crime scene is anything to go by, the locks of hair are of those women who are still alive.’
We were dropped home by a CID van heading back to the office. Knowing I would be late for my meeting with Dr. Ranjit Kadam, I texted him when we started, telling him that I wouldn’t be able to make it before nine thirty. I knew that he had another meeting soon after mine and my house was close to its venue. So, I asked him to come home instead of wasting time by going to his hotel.
As soon as we got back, I headed for a shower, wanting to wash off the sweat and stench of death. Once done, while drying my hair, I heard Ranjit Kadam at our gate. With our new security system, I had to buzz him in. As I went down the stairs, I wondered if he could help me understand the inner workings of the two monsters we were facing.
Chapter Thirty
I recognized Ranjit Kadam from his profile picture on WhatsApp. I buzzed him and went to the veranda. I beckoned him to head to the garage. I didn’t want Radha and Rahul to be exposed to any more serial killer talk; at least what wasn’t necessary.
Ranjit was wearing blue denim jeans and a white T-Shirt over which he had pulled a dark blazer. He was taller than me by at least four inches. He had probably shaved last evening given his rough stubble.
As we stepped into the garage, I said ‘Apologies for the last-minute change in our plan as well.’
‘No, don’t worry about it. I have some meetings at the Pune University so I was any way going to pass from your house while heading there. We’re designing a course on criminal psychology. It’s still at least a year away from being approved,’ Ranjit said. ‘But I’m pretty excited about it. India doesn’t have many courses like that.’
We exchanged pleasantries for the next couple of minutes.
‘I was going to speak to you three years back but never got around to it,’ I said.
Ranjit’s eyes flickered. He did not give much away but I could tell he was curious to know the reason. He said, ‘I wish the circumstances of our meeting right now were better.’
‘There has been a new development in the case. In fact, that’s why I was late today,’ I said and went on to tell him about the morning.
Ranjit leaned forward, his palms joined in front of his face, as he listened to me. After I finished speaking, he brought his palms down, leaned back in his chair and stayed silent for a spell.
After almost ten seconds, he finally spoke. ‘The amount we've come to know about Kishore Zakkal in the past three days is several times more than what we had known till now. After years of silence and non-cooperation, he's finally speaking. Though, I doubt his reasons are anything but cooperative. He has an agenda. I agree with you that there's a larger game at play. It could very well be some kind of revenge. Or even a final act of showing the world that he is smart. It fits into my theory about him, which I'll share with you shortly. I hope that takes you a step closer to finding the Bedroom Strangler.'
Just as he finished his sentence, Radha knocked on the garage door. She had brought some steaming tea and sandwiches for us. On seeing food, I realized I was famished.
‘Thanks for this,’ I said with a wide grin.
‘I knew you would want something to eat after the kind of morning we had,’ she said. ‘Let me know if you need anything else.’
I was glad that Ranjit took a sandwich right away as my stomach was growling. Over years, I had realized that I was not one of those people who found eating repulsive even when the conversation was about death or murder. I would have hardly eaten anything in my twenties if that was the case.
Ranjit sat up straight in his chair as he munched on the sandwich and took a sip of the tea.
‘I’m a big tea enthusiast and this one right here is delicious’ he said, raising his cup. ‘It reminds me a tad of the tea my mother makes. She also loves adding that extra dash of lemon grass and ginger.’
‘We have survived on tea. All of us love it. Radha and her finance make it much better than I do, though.’
As he finished a sandwich, Ranjit said, ‘We know Zakkal stalked his
victims. What we did not know until now was that he kept at least one of them alive while killing some of them. Such sustained periods of kidnapping indicate that he has a personality that likes to exert control and dominance. Stalking was a part of his process as well. The entire act gives him a sense of being powerful. For some killers, the act of murder is attractive. For someone like Zakkal, everything that precedes the actual murder is arousing, not necessarily sexually. The stalking coupled with extended periods of abduction, in particular, reveals a lot. It shows he's a meticulous planner and stays cool under pressure. He's also patient. He's highly intelligent. He can hide or show his emotions to manipulate you. But while he does that, his need to dominate his victim keeps getting stronger. That's why he'll kill his victims slowly. He'll try to get as much pleasure from the entire process as possible. The more he prolongs the kill, the more pleasure he gets.
He also enjoys the pain his victims have to endure. They know the end is coming. In fact, they’re hoping for the agony to end. But by keeping them alive, he has them completely at his mercy. That further puts him in a position of power. He is driven by the need to exert dominance and show his power. This need is so strong, that the only way to feed it is prolonged and extended torture of his victims. There have been other serial killers who have tortured their victims. It normally goes on for some days or a few weeks. But Zakkal kept doing it for years. There’s a huge monster in his mind,’ Ranjit said.
‘What about the splashing of the blood in the bathroom?’ I said. ‘What was that for?’
‘That kind of a blood bath could have some significance in his life. Maybe a memory from his childhood triggered that action. I’m not sure though. Whatever it was, Zakkal probably knew it would leave clues if he always splashed blood that way. He was smart. He did not want attention, at least not then. Until you found him, the world thought it had one less serial killer. He only admitted to taking the women when he was booked for murder and he knew the evidence was against him. He wanted a final hurray. Again, a show of power. He knew the families of the victims would suffer, not knowing if their beloved member was dead or alive. That again gave him pleasure.’
