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

by UD Yasha

  ‘All I want is to find and save that girl,’ I said.

  ‘You should know about this person called Sitaram Mule. He was the former Chief of Pune Police. Trust him. We've been—'

  Manohar never finished the sentence.

  My heart thudded so loudly that I could hear nothing else. Manohar’s head, or whatever remained of it, landed on the table with a thud. His brain matter was oozing out. I could taste his blood in my mouth.

  He had been shot.

  I stared at his blown apart head for half a picosecond. Someone had just taken a shot at him. I thought of the window. One that he loved to stare out of so goddamn much. The next half of a picosecond, I was wondering how anyone could have shot him through the window. The only building that was close and tall enough around the CID office was a shade less than a kilometre away.

  I realized what it was.

  A sniper.

  I ducked down. I felt the air above my head move and almost immediately a bullet rammed into the wall behind me. They wanted me dead as well. I ducked under the table and got out of the sniper’s sight for a flash. But I knew it would not stay that way for long. I crawled back, just as another bullet sliced through the table and slammed into the floor, hitting it at the exact spot where I was less than half a second back.

  The Detention Room’s door flew open. Rathod’s eyes almost popped out when he saw what had happened. He first saw Manohar’s body, then looked at me and made the connection that a sniper was at play.

  I scrambled across the floor, extending my hand. Rathod took half a step inside and pulled me out, closing the door behind him.

  Chapter Thirty

  The next few minutes were a complete blur. I remember Rathod pulling me out of the Detention Room and settling me in the corridor itself, away from any windows. I heard him call for backup and a one-kilometre perimeter around the building from which he thought the shot was taken.

  ‘Will you be okay for a minute?’ Rathod said.

  I nodded my head. ‘Yes, don’t worry. But please don’t tell anyone what we’ve found,’ I said, remembering what Manohar had said just before dying.

  ‘I won't. I need to report this on the off chance that the shooter is still lurking in that area.'

  Sitaram Mule. The name had stuck. Manohar had said we could trust him. He was the former head of Pune Police. That was all I had gotten from him. Nothing more. I had not even asked him about why he was spying on the Gills or where he had gone in the middle of nowhere near the Pune-Solapur highway.

  Rathod returned after what I guessed had been five minutes. My breathing had stabilized by then and I could think clearly once again.

  ‘Let’s take you somewhere safe and comfortable,’ he said and offered me a hand to help me get up.

  I accepted it and followed Rathod deeper into the CID office. I had never been to this part before. He unlocked a room and we went in.

  ‘This room has extra fortification. The walls aren't just bulletproof but even blast proof. You can get your breath back,' Rathod said and handed me a towel. ‘It has a bathroom as well if you want to wash up. Stay in this room. I’ll be back in a bit.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  I thought it was a good idea to wash my face. I went to the bathroom and stared at the mirror inside. I closed my eyes and splashed water on my face. As the cold water hit me, the image of Manohar’s head blowing up and falling forward flashed through my mind. I opened my eyes and I realized I was heaving loudly. I stayed inside for a while and only came out when I heard Rathod enter the room.

  ‘The media knows about the shooting. Radha called me. She is worried. They’re coming here right now,’ Rathod said.

  ‘What about maa?’

  ‘We’re placing a patrol team outside your house.’

  ‘Manohar said we can’t trust the police. He said even the top is rotten.’’

  ‘This is my patrol team. I have personally vetted each of the people in it. I trust them.’

  I nodded, feeling better. I trusted Rathod the most at that point. If he believed in something, I definitely did.

  Rathod’s phone chimed. ‘I just got a text from Radha. Atharva is staying back with your mother and Shama.’

  I heaved a soft sigh of relief. Atharva would be inside the house. He also had the skills to protect maa and Shama in case things went south.

  ‘What did Manohar say?’ Rathod said.

  I told him everything that had happened since I had entered the Detention Room.

  ‘I know Sitaram Mule,’ Rathod said. ‘We worked together during his final year of service. That was my first year in the police force.’

  ‘We need to meet him. Manohar said they were working together. He would know what’s happening.’

  ‘Are you sure you can go right now?’

  ‘We don’t have a choice.’

  ‘We'll take my car. It’s bulletproof,' Rathod said.

  ‘We also need to go to the place that Manohar visited twice off the Pune-Solapur highway.'

  ‘Let’s fly under the radar. But we wouldn't get back up on time if we need it.'

  ‘Yes, we need to stay off the grid. Manohar's instructions were clear. If he was willing to take the punishment for committing four murders and kidnapping a girl, he knew he was up against a powerful enemy. We need to be careful. Also, someone was following me earlier tonight. They know who I am. They know my family. They are upping their game. Which also means we're closing in on them. They are scared. But that also makes them desperate. We have got to get to the bottom of this before they do something nastier.'

  ‘We’ll head to Sitaram Mule’s place in five minutes. I need to sort out a couple of things first. I’ll be back. I’ll ask Radha and Rahul to join you here.’

  I sat in silence for a spell. I could still taste vestiges of Manohar's blood in my mouth. I went to the bathroom and washed up again.

  There was a knock on the door before it opened. Radha and Rahul entered.

  ‘I’m so relieved to see you,’ Radha said and held my face with her hands and started sobbing. ‘I thought of the worst when I saw the news.’

  ‘I’m safe. It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Does maa know?’

  ‘We told her you were alright.’

  ‘How did she take it?’

  ‘She’s strong. I don’t know what it is, but she has been better ever since yesterday after you had that conversation with her. She’s going to be fine.’

  The door opened again and Rathod came in. He said, ‘I've got a warrant to exhume Sachin's remains. The problem is, we don't have enough skilled technicians available now who can exhume a body. We'll have to wait for a day or two. The experts will have to come down from Mumbai,' Rathod said and paused. ‘Let's go to Sitaram Mule's house.'

  All of us walked down to the parking lot. Rathod took the wheel, Rahul sat in the front seat, and Radha and I crept in at the back. We took almost ten minutes to escape from the media madness outside the CID office and another five to make sure we were not being followed.

  At the stroke of midnight, we started for Former Police Chief Sitaram Mule’s house. I wondered what we were going to find there.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Radha held my hand tightly during our drive to Mule’s house. I realized then how close I had been to dying. A blink’s delay on either side would have killed me.

  ‘How can someone summon a sniper on such short notice?’ I said.

  ‘I don't think it was an impromptu plan. They must have known Manohar was going to be transferred to the jail. They wanted to kill him before that. I would have waited for Manohar to step out though, instead of shooting him in the Detention Centre. The latter would always be a harder shot,' Rathod said.

  I felt Rathod had something more to say. ‘Why did you stop midway?'

  ‘I didn’t. I was done’

  Silence.

  ‘Okay, you got me,’ Rathod said. ‘You wouldn’t like to hear this. Maybe they wanted to come after you too and that’
s why Manohar was taken out in the Detention Room.’

  Radha’s grip around my hand tightened.

  ‘That means they knew I was going to be there. They also knew Manohar was going to be transferred.’

  ‘I tried to keep your arrival as low-profile as possible. I had told the security guard to let you in right away. He recognizes you by now,’ Rathod said and paused. ‘Someone inside the CID could be involved as well. Manohar said the system is corrupt. That’s how they would have known about Manohar’s transfer to Yerwada as well.’

  ‘It’s okay. I’m still here. I don’t think we could have saved Manohar. The CID wouldn’t have thought about a sniper taking him out even in their wildest thoughts.’

  ‘We’re almost there,’ Radha said. ‘Take the next right. He lives in the second apartment building on the left.’

  Rathod pulled over and we stepped out. Rahul moved to the driver’s seat and Radha joined him in the front. They were going to stay in the car while we spoke to Mule.

  Rathod and I drew our weapons as we entered the building’s premises. The building had ten floors. Mule lived on the third floor in apartment 301. The building did not have a watchman or any security cameras. An uneasy feeling crept on me.

  We took the stairs because if anyone was waiting for us, the lift was the easiest way to kill us. I followed Rathod’s lead. We stuck close to the walls as we went up the stairs. The first floor was clear. We climbed up with feline caution. Turned at the break of the stairs. The second floor was clear. Rathod motioned me to wait at the stairwell of the third floor. He turned right and stepped into the corridor.

  He emerged five seconds later and said, ‘It’s clear. Come up.’

  Rathod was staring at the door of apartment 301 when I joined him at his right elbow.

  ‘It's locked from the inside,' he said.

  I rang the bell. Rathod still had his gun up high. We stayed clear of the peep hole. We did not want a bullet smashing into our eye sockets and brains.

  I pressed the bell again.

  Still no answer.

  Something was not right. I turned to my right and saw Rathod backing up.

  ‘Move away from the door,’ he said.

  I expected him to back up and slam open the door by kicking it down. Instead, he reached his pocket, pulled out a lock pick and began fidgeting with the lock.

  I held my gun chest high. A finger on the trigger, ready to fire. The lock gave in and the door swung open inside.

  The apartment was pitch black. Rathod found a switch inside and flipped it on to reveal the living room.

  The first thing we saw was a medal of valour on the passage wall right in front of us. It had been awarded to Mule by the President of India in 1995 for his work in the anti-terrorism squad of Maharashtra in the aftermath of the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts.

  The second thing we saw was complete and utter chaos. The apartment had been turned upside down. Someone had been inside. They were looking for something.

  Rathod held out a hand and beckoned me to wait where I was. He thought someone could still be in the apartment. He went inside. The air in the apartment was dead still. I counted the seconds in my mind. There was no sound, which I took as a good sign. I waited. I wondered where Sitaram Mule was. Just then, Rathod ducked back into the passage and asked me to come in.

  Every object in the living room had been tossed over. It once had a wooden TV cabinet that was now smashed to bits. Its drawers has been pulled out. The TV lay on the floor, its screen shattered all over the living room. If this was anything to go by, I knew the people who had ransacked this place were looking for something small enough to fit inside a flat screen TV or small cabinet drawers. Even the couch cushions had been ripped open.

  We walked with our backs to each other, taking everything in. The apartment had two rooms. Both were to our right. Their doors were closed. Rathod pointed to the room on the right-side while he himself moved to the left.

  ‘On three,' he mouthed and began a countdown with his fingers.

  I put my hand on the doorknob when Rathod finished the countdown. I turned the knob and pushed the door.

  It was dark inside.

  I flipped a switch. The room had a desk, a cupboard and a chair. All had been knocked over from their original places. They lay on the ground, broken in many pieces. Hundreds of sheets of paper lay scattered on the ground. I picked a few up. They were all blank letter heads of Sitaram Mule. They read: Sitaram Mule, Consultant – Secure Point. I had not heard of a company called Secure Point. I moved in, my gun still held in position. My eyes stopped on another door inside. It was probably the bathroom.

  I pushed it open just as Rathod yelled, ‘Clear!'

  Come here,’ I said not able to believe what I was looking at.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Silence resounded.

  My eyes bulged out and my body stiffened.

  Sitaram Mule lay dead on the bathroom floor in a pool of his own blood in front of me. He had been shot in the head. Streams of his blood had trickled into the drain.

  I dropped a knee to the ground to check for a pulse. I could feel nothing. Mule was dead. But he was still warm. He had been killed very recently.

  ‘What the hell,’ Rathod said under his breath as he came from the other room.

  I looked up at him. ‘The killer has to be nearby. He was killed a few minutes back.’

  ‘Should I call it in?’

  ‘Hold on, we don’t know who’s involved.’

  ‘No one knew we were coming here.’

  ‘Maybe they thought Manohar had told us about Mule and what has been happening. I was with him for at least half a minute. That could have made them suspicious.’

  Rathod shook his head. ‘We were late by a few minutes.’

  ‘The sniper could have easily made it here right after he took the shot.’

  ‘That means we are getting closer. We are on the right track.’

  I pulled out my phone and called Rahul. I told them to be careful after what we had found. I avoided stepping in the blood and got close enough to Mule to check his pockets. I slid a hand over them. They were empty.

  ‘Was the other room also searched?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. That was the bedroom. The bed has been smashed like everything else in the room. Whoever searched the place had come prepared with bats and hammers.’

  We stepped back outside into the study. I had not gotten a chance to look at it properly. I realized two more small cupboards had been ripped out from the wall. There was also a computer and what looked like a couple of laptops on the floor.

  I examined the laptops. Their screens were broken. But that was not what had me intrigued. The laptops had been opened and their hard drives had been removed. Someone was looking for something very specific. It hit me that the information in question could have been stored digitally. A flash drive could fit into almost any small crevice. That made sense as well, given the way Mule’s house had been torn apart.

  ‘This computer is missing its hard drive as well,’ Rathod said, examining the desktop.

  We got up and looked around the room.

  ‘It looks like whoever searched this place did not find what they were looking for,’ Rathod said. ‘Otherwise they wouldn’t have continued to look. One of the rooms or corners of the house would have been clean.’

  ‘That means whatever they were looking for is still in this house or hidden somewhere else,’ I said.

  Silence.

  I said, ‘Sitaram Mule was a trained cop. A former Police Chief.’

  ‘Yeah, so?’

  ‘Why would he run to the bathroom when an assassin has entered his house? It’s the last place you would go to if you want to get away. I checked the window inside as well. It’s too small for a man of Mule’s size to get out from.’

  ‘Maybe he was taking a leak?’

  ‘He had his pants on.’

  ‘Maybe he had just finished,’ Rathod said and smiled.

&nb
sp; I gave Rathod a look.

  ‘What are you trying to say?’ Rathod asked.

  ‘He went to the bathroom for a reason,’ I said and started for it.

  The bathroom itself was average sized. Its door opened inside. The commode was to the right while the shower and wash basin were to the left. Mule lay dead face down on the left side. What was he doing here?

  I had checked his pockets. They were already empty. His fists were closed tight. Could he be holding something in them? Opening them would be easy as rigor mortis hadn’t set in yet. I bent down and straightened the fingers of his left hand.

  Nothing was inside the fist.

  I stretched over him to open the fist of his right hand.

  Nothing again.

  As I got up, I noticed something else on the bathroom wall. A stain. Or rather the lack of one.

  Water flowing over and over the same area leaves a light stain because of the minerals present in it. Especially if the water is coming from a borewell. I was sure I would find one in the premises of the building if I went looking for it. The leaking water from the shower had left faint vertical marks running down from its base. The marks should have been constant and uninterrupted lines of the same colour.

  But they were not.

  The lines passing over one particular tile of the bathroom wall about four feet from the ground were fainter. I also noticed a slight discolouration there. The tile was cleaner. Like it had been put there later. Not enough water had passed over it yet.

  I got up and tapped the tile. A hollow sound echoed softly, like there was a cavity on the other side. Was I onto something? I tapped a different tile. This time the sound was solid.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Rathod said, standing in the bathroom doorway.

  ‘There appears to be a chamber behind this one tile in the bathroom,’ I said.

  Rathod joined me in front of the shower. His eyes narrowed as he saw the break in the marks left behind by the leaking water. He went outside and came back with a knife. He slid it into the side of the tile and yanked it forward.