The COMPLETE Siya Rajput Crime Thrillers (Books 1 to 4)

by UD Yasha

  Rathod turned to the next page, but I could tell he was not reading further. He probably needed a few more seconds to come to terms with the new information. He looked up eventually. The anger on his face had segued into agony.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Siya’ he said and then opened his mouth to say something more but then stopped. Words can sometimes make a situation much worse.

  Silence resounded.

  ‘I should have told you,’ I said. ‘I was afraid. I’m sorry.’

  ‘We are partners of some kind, aren’t we? You’ll always have my back. Don’t ever think that I’ll judge you for anything. I was just mad when I saw you back at the CID defending a suspect because I was confused with everything you were doing. I didn’t hear from you for three years until your mother’s case came up. Then you vanished again before showing up today. I now understand why that happened.’

  ‘I should have told you, despite all that was happening. You deserved to know. I came close to telling you many times. But I was reminded of the mistake I made every time I thought of talking to you about it. It wasn’t you, but rather the thought of solving a crime that put me in that mindset. I was ashamed to admit my mistake as well. I didn’t want to let you down as I respect you both as a police officer and a person. Then, I started to recover from the initial trauma and I was afraid I’d relapse if I brought it up. It became a vicious cycle.’

  Rathod leaned forward on the table. ‘What had started as a strictly professional relationship between us soon became a friendship, Siya,' he said. ‘I wouldn't be let down by you. I trust you, no matter what. I was wondering why you were behaving the way you were when I saw you today when you again emerged from your cave. Deep down, I knew there had to be a valid reason. You don't need to apologize to me, seriously. I'm here for you.'

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  We sat in silence for a spell. A waiter got two cups of cold coffee for us.

  ‘But I still don't understand,' he said and paused. ‘Why are you representing Shaunak Manohar?'

  ‘I don't care about whether he killed them or not. There's something else. I'm worried about the eight-year-old missing girl. Rucha Sinha. I'm hoping he tells me something as his lawyer that could lead us to her.'

  Rathod set his cup on the table.

  I continued. ‘I know her uncle. Atharva Mehta.’

  ‘Yes, we spoke to him.’

  ‘We were childhood friends and then had dated for two years. He is desperate to find his niece. He called me and asked for my help. Children are my weakness. They have always been. From even before Suhana Kulkarni. I haven’t told this to anyone, but I was hesitant to defend Kunal Shastri in the first place because kids were involved. But I still took it on. And that’s why it hurt me more when I made the error. There’s not a waking moment in which I don’t think about that decision. I continued making mistakes.’

  Silence.

  ‘You’re a good person, Siya. You cannot let one incident dictate your life.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say. I ruined a girl’s life.’

  ‘You said Kunal Shastri’s wife also killed with him.’

  I nodded. I felt heat emanate from my face. I had never spoken about this in such detail with anyone else apart from my therapist, not even Radha.

  Rathod picked up the file in front of him once again and said, ‘This report clearly states his wife was the dominant person in their relationship. Two independent criminal psychiatrists have confirmed that after speaking to them separately for hours. There’s a high chance that the wife would have continued killing even without her husband. Those are the words of the criminal psychiatrists again. Losing her husband could have made her more aggressive and hostile. For all you know, your mistake has saved more lives because his wife was also caught. I’m not saying one life is more important than the other. If you had not made that mistake, one more murderer would’ve still been out there, killing more children, with even more vigour.’

  I had never looked at it that way. I felt better for a beat. But then the feeling washed away as quickly as it came.

  ‘How’s your mother doing now?’ Rathod said.

  Thinking about maa suddenly lifted my spirits. She was the living example of beating the odds and achieving the impossible. Just three months back, a serial killer and his protegee had challenged me personally to find my mother who had been missing for sixteen years. The latter had provided evidence of her being alive while the former was still in jail. After a whirlwind investigation that had almost gotten Rathod, Radha, her fiancé Rahul and myself killed, we had somehow managed to save maa and five other women—all of whom were victims of long-term abduction. The protegee had been caught but his teacher, a notorious serial killer named Kishore Zakkal, had escaped from prison in an elaborate plan.

  ‘She’s recovering. But it’s going to be a slow process. Sixteen years in captivity is a long time. It can do a lot of damage. There are times when she gets sweaty and starts to panic even when the sun is out. But she’s a lot better now than she was when we got her back.’

  ‘What you did to get her back was nothing short of remarkable. Siya, you need to get back to work. As I said before, one mistake cannot define you.’

  ‘I’m not going back. I cannot afford to be wrong again because I am directly dealing with human lives. But it’s funny. I still have a strong urge to find Rucha Sinha. I cannot sit idly when I know a small girl is in danger, especially when I know I can do something about it.’

  ‘You were born into a family of crime solvers, Siya, with both your father and grandfather being in the police department. It’s in your DNA.’

  I stayed silent. More than DNA, I felt my drive to seek justice stemmed from my parents going missing within three months of each other when I was fourteen years old. I had decided to be a criminal defence lawyer because my father had been accused of kidnapping and even possibly killing my mother all those years back. The police had wondered why he would disappear just three months after his wife had gone missing. I knew even then that he would never ever hurt any of us.

  His name had eventually been cleared when we got maa back. But he was still missing. No one had even the remotest of hints as to where he could be.

  I put those thoughts at the back of my mind. I would have enough time later to ponder over the past. A girl had been taken. We had to get her back.

  I said, ‘Manohar said he doesn’t know anything about Rucha’s disappearance.’

  ‘I know. He said the same thing to me. He was unmoved when I brought her up.’

  ‘That’s strange because the moment I mentioned her name, he seemed to get flustered for half a second. He didn’t know how to react but then gathered his thoughts.’

  ‘You spoke to him about her before we did. We got to know the girl was missing only when you went in.’

  Silence.

  Rathod put a hand in his trousers’ pocket and pulled out a pen drive. ‘This has everything you need,’ he said, placing it on the table.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, taking it and putting it in my purse. The pen drive would have all the crime scene photos, the initial reports and the medical examiner’s observations. Rathod always gave them to me when we worked on a case together.

  There was one thing on both our minds. Rathod dared to say it first. ‘Do you think we are looking at two different crimes?’

  ‘It has to be one hell of a coincidence. Four murders and a kidnapping in the same family, on the same day,' I said. ‘What do you know about the Sinha family?'

  ‘We’ll start exploring tomorrow. But I know the basics. Daksh Sinha, the girl’s father, was a financial analyst. Malini Sinha is a doctor. A gynecologist. Word is that she was good at her job. But she limited her practice to focus on the kids. Their son was fifteen. Daksh's mother was seventy-six and his father was eighty-two. Hopefully, we'll get some useful information from the mother—Malini Sinha. She must be heartbroken but we need to know more about the family to find the daughter,' Rathod said a
nd checked his wristwatch. ‘She'll be reaching Pune in an hour.'

  ‘Have you found anything that connects Manohar to the Sinha family?’

  ‘Not yet but my team is working on it.’

  I downed the last sip of my cold coffee. I had finished it too fast so I raised my hand, signalling to the waiter to get me another cup.

  ‘Do you think Manohar killed them and somehow took the girl?’ Rathod said.

  ‘I can’t say yet, but I got a sense from Manohar that he isn’t telling us the complete story.’

  ‘Everyone at CID believes he is as guilty as they come. They're hell-bent on obtaining evidence against him to close this case fast. They have increased motivation to do so now because the media got a whiff of what was happening. Someone inside the department must have leaked information. You got out just in time. The gates were completely blocked when I got out of the CID building. I even saw Devaki Sharma.'

  I shook my head. Devaki was the journalist who had published the fake story with my quotes that had irked ACP Shukla.

  I said, ‘How did the CID get to the crime scene so fast?’

  ‘Because of a new system called Gunshot Detection System.’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘Not many people know about this technology. But after the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, the government is trying to be proactive about the response to a terror attack. They want to cut down the response time to an attack. As a part of that plan, they are beta-testing different technologies that track gunshot sounds. The one being tested in Pune actually listens to the sounds of the bullet bow shockwave or the muzzle flash. The same technology is being used in American colleges to detect campus shootings. It was first developed during the First World War. It was used extensively in California from the early-1990s. The version used today is obviously more advanced and less expensive. It is very useful to say the least,’ Rathod said and paused as a group of teenagers went past our table.

  He continued when they went past us. ‘When a madman has a gun, even a few milliseconds can save lives. In Pune, when less than five shots are detected within a minute from one location, the CID is alerted. When there are more, the case is directly reported to the anti-terror squad. The technology is being tested in Pune at different locations because of the bomb blasts at German Bakery nine years back. Four gunshots were reported. The CID was alerted and the officer closest to the location was asked to check the place.'

  ‘Is there a lag between the detection of the shots and the alert?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Maybe a few seconds.’

  ‘Do you have access to the system’s data?’

  ‘No, but I can request it. I will share it with you when I get it,' Rathod said.

  I wanted to get a timeline of events. Of all the evidence we had so far, this bit was most crucial. I said, ‘What did Manohar tell the CID?’

  ‘Nothing. Apart from claiming innocence.’

  ‘Well, he told me something more.’

  Rathod was intrigued. His eyes narrowed as he folded his hands on the table and leaned forward.

  ‘I’m telling this to you in confidence and off the record.’

  ‘You’ve my word.’

  ‘Manohar claimed the people were already dead by the time he reached the Sinha house,' I said and then told Rathod the rest of Manohar's version of events. ‘We can corroborate the logs from that system and see if he was lying.'

  ‘We could have also checked the CCTV tapes from the society that the Sinhas stayed in, but they have been wiped.’

  ‘What about the camera from the traffic signals nearby, or even shops that have cameras.’

  ‘I’ll ask for the tapes.’

  ‘And I'll summon the logs of the gunshot detection system to check the time,' I said and paused. ‘I don't understand one thing. The wiping of the tapes means a sophisticated person was behind it. But at the same time, Manohar was found red-handed. If he went to the trouble of wiping the tapes, he surely had to be wise enough to flee the crime scene fast. Also, if he had just committed the murders, and the CID had reached the crime scene almost immediately, how did he manage to kidnap Rucha? And where could he have taken her in such a short time?' I said and paused. ‘How many times in your career so far have you caught a murderer at the crime scene almost right away?'

  ‘This is the first time.’

  ‘It’s most likely going to be the last as well.’

  ‘Manohar might have had a partner. He stayed back at the house for some reason, while the partner could’ve taken Rucha.’

  ‘That’s also a possibility,’ I said. I had not ventured the angle of there being multiple shooters. ‘There’s one more thing.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Manohar told me he drove to meet Daksh. Did you find his car outside their house?’

  Rathod shook his head. ‘We didn’t even find car keys on him.’

  ‘That’s the question to answer then: Where is his car now?’

  ‘Unless he’s lying.’

  ‘Possible.’

  ‘We can’t verify with the security logs at the society’s entrance as well. The two cameras that took snapshots of license plates of cars as they went in and out were also disabled.’

  Rathod pulled his phone out and made a call. He said, ‘Shaunak Manohar had driven to the crime scene in a car. Run his registration through the system and issue an APB on it.’

  Silence.

  ‘Something about this is extremely fishy. It seems straightforward but there are too many questions,’ I said.

  ‘The murder is a straightforward case for the CID and ACP Shukla. Especially if the ballistics report comes as a match for the murder weapon Manohar was holding.’

  ‘If the log times are a mismatch—’

  ‘They would only matter if we found evidence that Manohar was not in the house during the murders. Which can only be proven if he is spotted in any of the footage from the nearby CCTVs.’

  ‘Did he have a mobile phone with him?’

  Rathod nodded. ‘We’re going through it as well. It’s with the technicians. They could hopefully tell us about Manohar’s whereabouts.’

  Location tracing via mobile phones was not always permissible evidence in court. But it was better than having nothing. More than permissible evidence, I was looking for something that could hint whether Manohar’s version of the story was true. If it was, I would know that he was not behind Rucha’s kidnapping. I was not sure about the course of action if he was the killer.

  I said, ‘What’s the update on Rucha Sinha?’

  ‘A missing person’s case has been lodged already. The CID is treating it as a separate investigation at this stage. It’ll take time. With regard to the girl herself, we have entered her name in a cross-agency channel. All police stations in the state and nearby hospitals have been sent her photo and description. They will alert us the moment they get to know something.’

  I shook my head in disbelief. That would only be useful when a child was lost and then found by a Good Samaritan. In this case, with the background of murders, it was less likely to be an instance of a child innocently walking away.

  Rathod said, ‘We also did a door-to-door, and asked neighbours if they saw or heard anything. But we haven’t gotten any breakthrough yet.’

  ‘What time was the CCTV footage erased?’

  ‘There are three cameras in the society. All three went blank at approximately seven thirty.’

  Silence.

  Rathod continued. ‘An officer is reviewing the CCTV tapes from the nearby traffic signals and shops. But it's a lot of footage and it's going to take time to go through it all. We could have more officers go through them but our resources are divided between the quadruple homicide and kidnapping.'

  ‘Why isn’t the CID focusing on the girl?’

  ‘We only got to know about it when you went in. Four more officers were assigned to the kidnapping after we spoke to Manohar about it. The ACP is still convinced that if we nail Mano
har as the killer, he’ll come clean about the kidnapping.’

  This is what I was afraid of. A lot of police work and investigations are dictated by numbers like successful closing rate, the number of criminals caught and so on. A quadruple homicide was sure to draw attention. I could picture full-fledged stories on it in newspapers and local news channels. National media would also get interested closer to the trial. That made me think.

  ‘Does the media know that an eight-year-old girl is missing?' I said.

  ‘Not yet. But the ACP is planning to hold a press conference in which he will reveal it.'

  A missing girl’s case would grab all the headlines. The ACP knew that. How long did he think he could hide such a big piece of information? He would later state that the CID did not reveal it for strategic reasons. In any missing person’s case, the first twenty-four hours are the most crucial. That's because the odds of things going wrong in the perpetrator's plan are the highest in the immediate hours after the crime. And now we were wasting the most vital time.

  Rathod said, ‘I know what you’re thinking but there’s very little I can do about it. If I was in charge, I would divert all funds to find the girl. There’s still a chance to get her back alive. The four dead people will stay dead and getting justice for them can be delayed if it means saving a life. But the system doesn’t think like that,’ Rathod said.

  It was this kind of thinking that made me trust Rathod. I could see he had his moments of frustration while working in the system. He worked hard and long hours. But there was little more he could do. Not everyone could afford to be a private detective. The money was sporadic at best. You keep hoping a big case would come your way so that you could sustain yourself for the next year. Rathod could not take that kind of chance. His parents were old. His father was now cancer-free but his treatment had been costly. Their medical insurance had only covered a part of the expenses. Rathod had no choice but to keep working in the system. I could only afford to do it because I had earned enough money during my years of practising law. I invested strategically and Radha was kind enough to use a small portion of my investments to trade as well.