by UD Yasha
‘It was a case of hit and run. A man named Madhavrao Zakkal had been killed.’
‘When was this?’
‘2nd September 1985.’
‘I remember it,’ Phadkule said. ‘I remember that night very well. It was only the second death I had come across in my time with the police. His body was a nasty mess. He had been flung by a car from the footpath.’
‘What else can you remember about that night? Your report is very vague.’
‘It was late in the night. I was on patrol duty. We didn’t have cars then. We only rode motorbikes. It was raining heavily then. You know how Mumbai rains can get. They’ve calmed down now, I tell all the youngsters when they complain about it. Anyway, I had stopped to eat guthka when I was paged about a possible crime. As I said, I didn’t see many deaths in my career so I remember that night very well. After being paged, I directly went to the possible crime scene. I saw Madhavrao and almost puked. He was badly hit. I remember it vividly. All parts of his body were bleeding. The car had to be extremely fast.’
‘Didn’t you follow up on the car?’
‘I put an all-points bulletin across all agencies for a car that looked like it was damaged. No leads came up.’
‘Who had reported the crime?’ Rathod said.
‘Madhavrao’s family. It had happened a few minutes away from their house. It was a big freeway back then. Now it’s a small road because of all the construction that has taken place over there.’
‘Did you meet his family?’
‘I did. I felt for them. The mother was going to have to fend for both her kids.’
Everyone in the office caught that. We turned to each other. We knew Kishore Zakkal was the only child.
Shukla leaned forward towards the phone. ‘Both as in two kids?’ he said.
‘Yeah. Two kids. Both boys.’
‘How old were they?’
‘I don’t know. They looked young.’
‘How young?’
‘Well…I can’t be sure. Both looked to be in the same age bracket. I would say above five or six but definitely under ten. Boys grow very fast after crossing ten.’
Zakkal was eight years old then.
‘Did you get their names?’ Bhalerao said.
‘I had no reason to. I only got the mother’s name.’
We had seen it in the report.
‘Can you tell us anything about them that stood out?’
‘In the kids?’
‘Yes.’
‘The mother was holding them both close to her. They all appeared to be in deep shock.’
‘Nothing else about the kids?’
‘No. What do you expect kids will do when their father dies?’
‘Thanks for your time. We’ll call you if we need anything else,’ Bhalerao said and hung up. I sensed an irritation in his voice, an emotion we all felt as a result of shoddy police work thirty years back. A sincere cop would have followed up on the missing car, noted down the details of those who reported the crime and got multiple witness accounts before shutting the case close. Unfortunately, Tukaram Phadkule was not a sincere cop.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
We returned home at three fifteen in the night. The night was cold so our house felt cosier. We spoke for a bit before Radha and Rahul went upstairs to sleep. I made a cup of coffee for myself and went to the garage. Could the boy with Zakkal actually be the Bedroom Strangler?
I typed out a small report of my meeting with Zakkal and emailed it to Ranjit Kadam. I texted him, asking him if he could check his email and get back to me soon. I stared at the murder board. I had to rework it. I looked at the list of suspects once again. I called Rathod to get clarification.
‘What have your officers who are tailing Manoj Bedi found so far?’ I said.
‘Nothing alarming. He goes to his office from eight in the morning to eight in the evening. He comes back home tired. He hasn’t stepped out anywhere apart from when he goes out drinking to a local bar. We asked around at the bar about him and found out he was a regular. They’ve dance-shows and a disco.’
Booze and sexual fantasies. The ultimate escape of an unhappy man.
Rathod continued. ‘We don’t know where he was during the first murder though. We only started tailing him after that. He told us he was at the bar when the second murder was committed. When we asked the bar, they said they were not sure as the bar was particularly crowded those two days as a dancer by the name of Chikni Kamini was coming. Apparently, she’s a big deal in these bars.’
‘How long are you going to tail him?’
‘I will take them off tomorrow night.’
‘What about Sham Pundlik?’
‘He’s still missing.’
‘Does he go under the radar often?’
‘No. His colleagues said he was particular. But even they weren’t alarmed because he called in sick last week. His family didn’t know he was missing until we told them. They said they spoke to Pundlik on Sunday like they do every time. He didn’t mention he was sick or that he had taken time off.’
‘When did he call in sick?’
Rathod knew where I was going with that question. ‘A day before we found Supriya Kelkar.’
I thanked him and hung up. I moved Manoj Bedi to the list of cold suspects. I had two more hot suspects. Shaam Pundlik and Hardik Karve. I compared them against my list of the Bedroom Strangler’s traits. Shaam Pundlik fit them all. Right from being intelligent to having medical expertise. I was not sure about Hardik Karve’s knowledge of medicine or first aid. Shaam Pundlik was thirty-six years old. Two years younger than Zakkal. As children, they could have been bracketed under the same age group.
I went to Shaam Pundlik’s file. He was born in Nagpur. He was put in an orphanage when he was six months old. There was no information about his biological parents. A family in Mumbai had adopted him. Both his adoptive parents were doctors. He was their only child. Why had he lied to his parents? What was he doing?
I looked up Hardik Karve. He was not famous by any means but he took up all kinds of issues. He was the kind of lawyer who earned a truckload of money by taking a truckload of cases. I tried to deduce Karve’s age. I remembered seeing a certificate he had hung in his office. It was his diploma from the Government Law College in Mumbai. I had remembered the year on it as well. He had graduated in 2003. He was eight years my senior. Hardik Karve was thirty-eight years old. The same age as Zakkal. Because of GLC Mumbai, I knew he was in Mumbai from the age of eighteen. But Zakkal was not there then. Where had Hardik Karve spent his childhood and teenage years?
I sat still, consumed in my thoughts for a spell, trying to make sense of it all. I downed my coffee and wondered about the second thing that Zakkal had let slip while talking to me. He had accidentally revealed the Bedroom Strangler was not a new killer. Supriya Kelkar was his first known victim but he had killed others before. Like Sonia had suspected.
I had run a search for a similar modus operandi in house strangulations. The combination of necrophilia and strangulations was not common. There had been five reported cases of that in the past forty years in India. All five murders had been solved. The killer was either in jail or was dead. Nothing had come up in my search. Had the Bedroom Strangler changed his methods? But Zakkal had revealed that his protégé had always been into necrophilia.
If Zakkal had a bigger plan at work, then the only way to have gotten police attention was to stage a crime scene like he had known to do. The Bedroom Strangler used to kill before also but maybe he changed his method to help Zakkal satisfy his goal, which was still a mystery to us.
Zakkal’s words came to me. He adores me. He knows I’ve shaped him. He would never go behind my back. I know it. I’ve seen his dying loyalty for me in action many times.
He probably killed before but not by breaking into people’s houses. Maybe the theatrics of a house strangulation with messages left behind for the police and me was Zakkal’s idea. In what bigger way could a killer show his
loyalty to his teacher than by changing his method of killing to help him? Ranjit had told me that the Bedroom Strangler and Zakkal shared a special bond. We had talked about a mentor-apprentice relationship and had even entertained them being lovers. But what if they were like brothers?
I heard the first birds of the morning chirp outside. I glanced at my phone. It was almost four thirty. I just saw then that I had received two new messages. I don’t know how I had missed them. The first was from Rathod. He had sent it at three thirty.
Zakkal will be given the deal to sign at 11 AM. I just saw the paperwork. His free time is scheduled from five fifteen to six fifteen in the evening. We’ll be at Yerwada to speak to him after that.
The second was from Ranjit Kadam who had replied to my message.
Superb job. I don’t know how you got him to talk. This is helpful. Let’s meet tomorrow evening. I’m tied up through the day.
I replied to him right away.
I have to go to Yerwada to meet Zakkal in the evening at 5 PM. Can we do 3.30 PM instead?
I headed back to the house. Shadow was waiting for me right outside the garage. He moaned and brushed his head against my legs, telling me in a way that it was time to sleep.
I lay on my bed with my eyes open for a while. My mind was too active to fall asleep. The nap in the evening had been very powerful indeed. I eventually closed my eyes. The image of Zakkal’s monster eyes was my last memory.
Chapter Forty
At the same time, the Bedroom Strangler was getting up. He was an early riser. Especially on days when it was time to do business. He had to make sure everything went as per plan. He had been looking forward to this day for five years. Ever since his teacher has been taken.
And then one day, less than two years ago, he had hatched the plan when Kishore Zakkal had been sentenced to death. He loved every aspect of a kill. Right from the planning to the execution and then his favourite part—to fuck them till they got cold.
Zakkal and him went back a long way. They were practically brothers. He would die for Zakkal. He laughed every time he heard anyone say “I would kill for this…I would kill for that…” None of the bastards had the balls to actually kill. But he had killed for Zakkal. Their bond went so deep. He would do it again and again for him. Zakkal was the one who had taught him how to kill.
‘Embrace it. It’s only natural,’ Zakkal had told him. ‘Just be wise. Don’t get caught.’
That was the beginning of the innumerable conversations they had gone on to have about killing. They had thought of killing together as well. The Bedroom Strangler did not mind it. But Zakkal said it was better if they did it individually.
‘Killing with a friend is like having sex with a friend. Once you do it, the friendship is over,’ Zakkal had said.
He got up from his bed and went to the bathroom to splash some water on his face. It dawned on him that he would see Zakkal later that day. They had last met out in the open five years ago, a few days before Zakkal had been arrested. They had not even gotten a chance to say goodbye.
But they had figured out a way to communicate once just a day after his arrest. Zakkal had told him about the women whom he had abducted and where they were being held. He had told him to go and have fun with them and screw them till they got ice cold.
The killer smiled, knowing what happened next. He was supposed to have killed them all. At least, that’s what Zakkal had thought and even expected. But he knew how much Naina Rajput meant to Zakkal. So, he had kept her alive. It was a decision made on instinct. He had tried to keep them all alive, but at times, his urge to kill and fuck them got too strong. That’s how he had ended up killing five out of the ten women. But Naina Rajput was still alive, unharmed and beautiful.
And now, looking back, keeping her alive had been a masterstroke. His teacher had no idea that his most prized treasure was still alive! He had so hoped he would have been able to see Zakkal’s reaction when he found out about it. He owed so much to Zakkal.
He thought back to the time when they were just two kids. He hated his childhood, except for his friendship with Zakkal. He was such good friends with him that he was embarrassed to tell him what was going on. Because it had got something to do with Zakkal’s own father.
Zakkal’s father, Madhavrao, had always been good to him when he used to play with his son. But then one day, when Zakkal had gone out with his mother for some work, he was alone with Madhavrao. He would never forget that day. Just thinking about, he found himself clenching his fist. Like every evening, he had gone to Zakkal’s house to play some random game with him. As Zakkal was way, he was alone with Madhavrao, who had first asked him to take off his shirt. Even as a young boy, he had found it odd.
‘I want to count your ribs,’ he had said.
He had taken off his shirt. But then, that request was followed by one more. He remembered the next words like they had been said just a few minutes ago.
‘I want to see your balls and make sure they’re alright,’ he had said.
And before he could understand what was happening, Madhavrao had dropped his pants and entered him from the back. He was six years old when Madhavrao had sodomized him for the first time. He had no idea what was happening, but it pained like hell. That was just the start of what would be the scariest three years he had ever lived. Eventually, when his friend Zakkal had found out what was happening, he vowed to end his friend’s misery by killing his father.
Then, from the day Zakkal smashed his father’s face to pieces with a broken bottle of beer, Zakkal became his personal hero, his God and his saviour. He still remembered the look on his face when Zakkal had run to his house and said, ‘He’ll never hurt you again.’ After that, he had helped Zakkal set up the scene to make it appear like a hit and run case. They had got the idea from an actual death that had taken place that way in their chawl.
Thinking back, the killer knew he would see that fire in Zakkal’s eyes soon.
Continuously communicating with Zakkal after he had been arrested was a challenge. But then, three years ago, he had changed his lawyer. Through various sources, they found out that Hardik Karve was a corrupt attorney. He paid judges for rulings in his favour. He bribed cops to fabricate evidence. He was notorious for his connections with local dons, most prominent of whom was the Shirole gang. Karve was only driven by money. And money was something he had in large numbers.
So, he and Zakkal had paid Hardik Karve to keep his mouth shut and then communicated through him. That had made everything simple. Plus, they could always ask someone from the Shirole gang for favours to get stuff into the prison. They had contacts everywhere. Even prison guards were on their payroll.
And now they were going to pull off the ultimate escape.
The new killer made some tea for himself. He enjoyed the silence. It was still early in the day and the sun had just risen. By seven o’clock Naina Rajput would be up. He had a few things to do before that.
Chapter Forty-One
I woke up at eleven and only because I had forgotten to cover my face and Shadow had started licking it. I freshened up and went downstairs to find that even Radha and Rahul had just woken up. I imagined Shadow getting bored, being the only one awake, and waking us up to have some company.
Radha took Shadow for a walk in our yard. Rahul made an omelette while I brewed some filter coffee. The sumptuous smell of breakfast made me forget everything else. As I sat down with my cup, my phone started vibrating. It was Ranjit.
‘I read your email. I have thought long and hard and now have some more insights,’ Ranjit said. ‘By the way, great job yesterday on getting some information from Zakkal.’
‘Thank you. It wouldn’t have been possible without some of the things that you shared,’ I said.
‘I’ve back to back meetings once again till evening so I can’t meet you at half past three. But you need to visit Zakkal at five,’ Ranjit said and paused. ‘Let’s do one thing. Yerwada is closer from where I’m staying right no
w than it is from your house. Why don’t you come by to where I’m staying at four o’clock?’ Ranjit said. ‘You’d take about fifteen minutes to reach Yerwada from my place. Actually, it’s my sister’s place. I tend to set up camp here whenever I come down to Pune. Like you, I have converted a room into an office.’
I considered the time frame. It seemed like it would work. ‘Sounds good.’
‘I’ll see you around. I’ll text you the address,’ he said and hung up.
We started eating our omelettes by the time Shadow finished his four boiled eggs. We realized we had missed dinner yesterday, something that had not happened for a long time. I observed Radha. I could sense relief and joy in the way she moved. She turned to me and said, ‘What’s the matter? You seem distracted.’
‘I don’t think Zakkal is going to stand by his part of the deal. Think about it. Why would he do all of this and then just tell us where he has kept maa and the other women. It just feels too drawn out. And too easy.’
‘Why would he want the time out in the open?’ Rahul said.
‘I can't figure that out. It's not like there is less security during open time. In fact, there are guns pointed at you from high above. Even a small fight can lead to an inmate being tranquillized. The guards are authorized to even shoot to kill if the situation warrants that extreme a measure.
‘Maybe the location he reveals is a setup.’
‘That could be possible. But the CID will bring a big backup when we go there. Bigger than the one they had for the pollen grain location.’
‘Does he want to meet someone in particular…maybe one of the inmates?’
‘The ten inmates for the free time are chosen at random. Only Warden Shetty would know who will be with Zakkal. And regardless, what could he do on meeting one of the inmates? They’re only going to return to their cell.’
