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

by UD Yasha

  ‘I’ll try to find out. I’ll ask him directly when I meet him again tomorrow.’

  I once again became level with Kalindi and said, ‘I don't know if you know this, but always remember that darkness is merely the absence or lack of photons. Photons are what make up light. You can never be afraid of a lack of photons because photons light up this world.'

  I did not expect an eight-year-old to know about photons, but it put a smile on Kalindi's face.

  ‘Also remember another thing,’ I said. ‘Always grin widely when you give a high five.’ I raised my palm again.

  Kalindi grinned, showing all her teeth, or the lack of the two central incisors, and then jumped in the air and gave me a high five.

  I pulled out my old visiting card from my purse and handed it to Sheila. ‘Please call me if you want to talk to me about anything,’ I said and got up to leave.

  As I got back to my car, two questions burned in my mind: Where had Manohar gone late last night? And why the hell was he lying so much?

  Chapter Nine

  Armed with new information, I did not want to wait to meet Manohar till the next morning. I wanted to talk to him right away. The clock on the dashboard told me it was ten minutes past one. Malini Sinha would have just reached Pune. Rathod and the ACP would be talking to her now.

  I pulled out my phone and texted Atharva, asking how far he was.

  Before anything else, I needed to eat. My growling stomach was a constant reminder that my last meal was an early lunch—two chapatis, potato sabji and the evergreen summer favourite aamras.

  I thought of dropping by home to have dinner. I also realized that I would have to do a lot of research on the different people involved in the case. I could use some help. Radha had done research for me before. When I used to practice law, she was still in college and enjoyed the small research tasks I gave her. She had been terrific with computers even then. She knew how to keep her identity a secret while getting exactly what she wanted. Rahul would also be home. Apart from his vast knowledge of biology, he could handle pressure and think laterally. I was certain that a combination of their genes was going to create superhuman kids one day. I joked they would be cute as well as they had an aunt like me.

  The light in the living room of our house was on when I pulled over outside. I guessed Radha would still be awake, waiting for me. She came to the door the moment I opened the gate.

  ‘How did it go?’ she said as I walked up the porch steps.

  There was a genuine concern in her eyes. I knew where it was coming from. She had seen me at my absolute rock bottom in the past three years ever since I had wrongly defended Kunal Shastri. I could not imagine going through what I had without Radha. She was the reason I could fight it all.

  Just then, Shadow, our two-year-old rescue dog ran towards me, wagging his tail. I stroked his head as he licked my face. For a moment, I forgot about everything else. It was Radha’s idea to get a pet dog. She thought it would aid my recovery. Two years on, Shadow was so much more than that.

  I got up after Shadow calmed down almost a minute later. I swept my gaze to see if anyone else was inside the house. I did not want to talk about anything in front of maa. My sister-in-law, Shama, had moved in with us almost two years back as Karan was posted in a conflict zone in Kashmir. The Army did not encourage families to move there because of security and safety reasons. I had come to know Shama really well since then. She was a quiet and reserved person who cared a lot for others. I did not mind speaking in front of her.

  ‘Maa and Shama are upstairs. Maa’s sleeping. I told Shama where you were so she kept maa occupied while you were gone,’ Radha said as we settled on the couch.

  I said, ‘Rucha is still missing. The police don’t know what happened to her. But their priority is catching the killer instead of finding Rucha. Rathod will tell me if the missing person’s database and alert system throws any results.’

  ‘Are you okay?’ Radha said.

  I nodded my head. I was not lying. I had been pulled into an investigation for the second time in four months. The first was when a serial killer had openly challenged me to play his nasty game in exchange for telling me the truth about maa. I had felt alive for the first time since I had quit law the moment I started working on that case. Even then, I was afraid. Just like I was scared right now. Like in maa's case as well as this one, I felt my involvement could not make the situation any worse than what it already was. I was not even going to attempt to prove Manohar’s innocence. I was going to step away the moment I found Rucha.

  Just then, we heard a two-wheeler outside, followed by the sound of the opening of the main gate of the house. A small screen next to the door sparked to life. We had installed a security system four months back after the notorious serial killer Kishore Zakkal had returned to torment us. Along with his protegee, he had held maa and five other women captive for more than a decade. There was nothing like being too cautious while trying to protect ourselves against Zakkal. The cameras would automatically detect any movement and turn on large white lights that lit up the entire garden of our house.

  We saw Rahul on the small screen as he walked towards the door. Radha opened the door for him. Shadow came running once again and gave Rahul a warm and wet welcome too.

  ‘I came here the moment I could get off work,’ Rahul said.

  ‘Radha gave me the broad highlights,’ he said to me. ‘Do you think the man they have in custody did it?’

  I went to the kitchen and grabbed some dinner for Rahul and me. I told them about my meeting with Manohar and his wife and how we did not know his motive behind the murders and the kidnapping if at all Manohar was behind them.

  ‘The case seems odd. There’s definitely something more than what meets the eye,’ I said.

  ‘I know Dr. Malini Sinha. She is my boss' friend,’ Rahul said. ‘She is extremely active in the field of fertility awareness. She conducts many workshops for free in government schools and offices. She is famous for her fertility awareness drive in slums as well. I remember she had conducted more than a thousand such workshops for free when she came to our company last year.'

  ‘Wow, that’s something,’ Radha said.

  Rahul nodded. ‘Until a few years ago, she had a thriving medical practice, specializing in various aspects of fertility. But she had a difficult pregnancy during the birth of her second child.’

  ‘That’s during Rucha’s birth,’ I thought out loud.

  ‘Yes. That incident changed her. It's not often that a fertility specialist has a complicated and life-threatening pregnancy. She was missing in action for three years after Rucha’s birth but came back with the single mission to make each and every pregnancy safe. She trimmed down on her practice and became an activist for women's health and fertility.'

  My mobile phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out. A text from Atharva.

  I just reached the CID building. I’m waiting for Malini to come out. I missed her by a few minutes. An officer told me she could take an hour.

  I typed out a reply. I knew how daunting it could get inside the office of a law enforcement agency.

  Come home if she’s going to take an hour. I live 10 minutes away. Take care.

  ‘How do you know so much about Malini Sinha?’ Radha said.

  ‘She had been invited to speak about her journey by our CEO.’

  Fertility was a tricky space in India. It provided a doctor with ample opportunity to grow and do good work, owing to the changing lifestyle habits and rapid urbanisation. But at the same time, like in almost all fields in India, there were segments of the population that still lived by hugging outdated and conservative thoughts, the most prominent among them being female feticide and infanticide. Such heinous and sickening acts still existed in India due to extreme poverty and the dowry system—an illegal practice where the groom’s family demands jewellery and money from the bride’s family before marriage. In order to avoid paying the dowry and not spend money on a daughter w
ho would leave the family after marriage, thousands of female infants were killed within two years of being conceived. The number came down every year but a lot of work still needed to be done.

  Making sex screening illegal was one of the measures taken by the Government to prevent such acts. But still a lot of doctors conducted them to make a few extra bucks. They turned a blind eye to the fact that such a seemingly ordinary test was the first stage in the killing of the female child. Had Malini gotten involved in illegal foetus screening? Or other crimes related to in-vitro fertilization? She could be the villain or she could have even stumbled upon something that made her a person of interest.

  Radha looked up from her phone. ‘I looked her up on the Internet. She has a home clinic and a weekly two-hour slot at a hospital called Healing Grace.'

  ‘That reminds me. Can you get as much information as possible on Malini Sinha, her husband, Shaunak Manohar and his wife? Manohar's wife doesn't have an alibi.'

  ‘I will be on it.’

  ‘I’ll summon Healing Grace to give us all of Malini’s patient records and personal notes,’ I said and then turned to Rahul. ‘Do you think you can examine the clothes of the victims and Manohar?’

  ‘Yes, I can use the laboratory at work,’ Rahul said.

  Rahul and his company's CEO had great mutual respect and understanding for each other. Which made such seemingly outrageous requests possible.

  ‘I'll schedule an appointment with the CID tomorrow morning so you can go and collect all the samples you need. As the defence counsel, I have a right to perform my own tests on the evidence collected,' I said, feeling a rush of energy. I inhaled deeply and then turned to Radha. ‘How much should we tell maa?'

  ‘I don’t think we should tell her anything in the beginning at least. It could get too much for her to deal with.’

  I remembered what Dr. Aakash Pande, maa’s psychiatrist, had told me. Your mother has gone through intense mental and physical abuse when she was kidnapped. We will never know what happened then and how much damage it has caused. But that’s not the point. It’s you and your family’s responsibility to ensure she is not reminded of it. At least for now. The wounds are too raw.

  I knew from experience that such cases could easily escalate fast once the media got interested in them. I did not put it past the local news channels and papers to wait outside our house and hound everyone inside. To add to it all, the media often views criminal lawyers as immoral. With multiple murders and a missing child in question, things could get nasty very soon.

  ‘I agree. We’ll keep her away from everything as much as possible,’ I said. ‘I’m going to head out later in the night to speak to Shaunak Manohar again.’

  Radha moved closer to me. ‘Be careful,’ she said, squeezing my hand gently.

  ‘You don’t need to worry. Rathod and Atharva will be with me throughout. I’ll also have my gun.’

  Silence.

  ‘I’ll head upstairs. I need to review the evidence that Rathod has shared with me,’ I said as I went to get my laptop from my room. I had only one thought in my mind: what could have possibly happened to Rucha Sinha?

  Chapter Ten

  I sat on my bed to take a moment for myself. Each bout of high energy was followed by a lull where all my fears began screaming in my head. The same had happened three months back in maa’s case. The stakes were high then. Just like they were now. I focused on my breath. I was still a novice meditator but was already experiencing its benefits.

  My mind calmed after a spell. I tried to make sense of it all. I wondered whether Shaunak Manohar was as innocent as he claimed to be. He was not making a great case for himself by lying. His face kept coming back to me. There was something in the way he had suddenly become alert when I had mentioned Rucha. I could not forget it. I hoped to get more answers when I would meet him again in some time.

  The burning question returned: why was Manohar lying to me? As far as he knew, I was the one person who would defend him. I thought hard but I could not figure out a good enough reason. My clouded reasoning made way for two possibilities. First, the main issue was something else altogether. He was okay with sacrificing himself for a greater cause, whatever that was. Second, Rucha Sinha’s abduction was pivotal to all of this.

  But why was she kidnapped in the first place?

  In most kidnappings, a ransom call is made to the family. But in this case, most of the family was dead. The police would be monitoring Malini’s phone. Something told me this wasn’t an ordinary case of kidnapping. All this was happening because of something else entirely.

  I tried to run different scenarios in my head to try to make sense of what had happened. Why would someone kill an entire family and kidnap an eight-year-old girl? I wondered for a moment, if something else could have happened to Rucha. What if this was not a kidnapping?

  Just then, I heard Shadow hop up the stairs. He must have thought that I came up to sleep. He always slept in the room I was in, most of the time near my legs. He stood silently, his earnest eyes watching me, confused for a jiffy that I was not yet asleep. I patted his head when he came up to me. He jumped on the bed and rubbed his nose on my pillow before making himself comfortable on it.

  As I flipped open my laptop and inserted the pen drive that Rathod had given me, Shama opened the door to her room. She stepped out and stood in the corridor. I could see the concern in her eyes. She closed the room's door behind her and walked across the corridor.

  ‘Maa has fallen asleep,’ Shama said. I could tell she wanted to speak to me, but she saw my open laptop and said, ‘I’ll let you be. I’m downstairs. Let me know if you need me for anything.’

  ‘Thanks for everything, Shama,’ I said, smiling.

  When maa had first come back, she and I had shared a room for a few days. But we slowly began to realize that maa was afraid of the sounds coming from the street that my room overlooked. I caught her staring out of the window in the middle of several nights. She would cover her face with a quilt and block her ears. The slightest sound of any vehicle from the main road sent jitters through her body. The same was true for any kind of bright light.

  All of us decided that maa would move to Radha’s room. It was in the back part of the house and away from any obvious distraction. We did not consider Shama’s room on the ground floor as maa had made it clear she wanted to stay upstairs. Almost overnight, maa began to feel safer. She still got nightmares but they had reduced in frequency. She also needed someone to be with her throughout the day. But we were prepared for it all. She was a fighter, battling the unimaginable things that had happened to her in the sixteen years she had been held captive.

  I stepped away from the laptop and crossed to my cupboard. I had been going to a shooting range once a week since we had gotten maa back. I did not know when that practice was going to come in handy but it is always better to be over prepared. I pulled a drawer. My gun, a Glock 19, was right at the back. I grabbed it, buckled my waist holster and put the Glock in it. I also pulled out another gun, a Glock 26; a much smaller firearm but just as mean as the 19. The 26 was easily concealable. I put on a chest holster and inserted the Glock 26 inside. I could conceal the Glock 26 in small places and the best part about it was that it was compatible with Glock 19 magazines.

  I took my laptop, went downstairs and straight to the garage from the back door. I had converted it into a makeshift office. I had primarily used it for my investigation into maa’s disappearance. Now that she was back with us, I had been thinking of actually using it to park our five-year-old Honda Jazz. But now I had found another purpose for it. It would be my centre for another missing person’s investigation.

  The garage was quite large and the assembly inside was basic. There was an L-shaped table and two chairs at one end, while there were two bean bags and a large whiteboard next to the table. The latest addition was a coffee machine that was kept on the table. There was enough stationary in there to last me the next five years. The garage had a CCTV scr
een as well. I do not know why I had insisted on having a screen in the garage as well. There was one in the living room and a third one in my bedroom.

  I wiped the sweat off my forehead and let out a big sigh. The garage got direct sunlight for most of the day so it stayed warm, even at night. We had a spare water cooler which I thought I could set up in the garage the next day.

  I sat at the desk and opened the laptop, ready to take a look at what the CID had found out.

  Chapter Eleven

  The pen drive had several folders. I opened the first officer’s report right away. It was written by Senior Investigating Officer Mahesh Bhalerao. He was Rathod’s partner. I started reading his report.

  I got an alert of gunshot sounds emanating from Sindh Society at 8.36 pm. The Gunshot Detection System had triangulated the origin of the gunshots in a fifty-metre radius. I navigated the route the GDS had sent me and reached the location at 8.42 pm.

  Some part of at least four houses lay within the fifty-metre radius. First, I went to Bungalow Number 28. I rang the bell. An elderly couple opened the door. They said they heard loud sounds a few minutes back, but did not know anything else. I cleared the house after searching it.

  I then went to Bungalow Number 42. Nothing seemed out of place outside the house. But I suspected this was the house of interest when I saw that its main door was open. I followed protocol and announced that a CID officer was coming in.

  I kicked the door open and saw a man inside. He was holding a gun, pointing it at the door that I had slammed open. There were four dead bodies in the living room, all a few feet away from the man. He obeyed my commands and dropped his weapon and stood away with his hands up. I called for backup. I asked the man for his name. He told me it was Shaunak Manohar. He was not violent and did not protest when I handcuffed him to the front door of the house.