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

by UD Yasha

  I paused. Rathod was going to say death. It had been sixteen long years. He had been legally declared dead. Was it true?

  Rathod continued. ‘I have been looking at past records since we found Mule’s corrupt cop register. Just some basic digging told me that a lot of names in it were of corrupt cops indeed. But I cannot account for others like your dad. It doesn’t mean that they weren’t rotten apples, but I just haven’t found enough information on them,’ Rathod said.

  Silence resounded.

  The man who had opened the gate of the bungalow walked up to us. ‘You need to change,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Your clothes. There’s blood all over them.’

  I shot him a bewildered look. ‘How will I change?’

  ‘The doc told me you could use his daughter’s clothes,’ he said. ‘Her room is the second one down the corridor inside. She’s away studying in Mumbai so you can use her room to change too.’

  I nodded, not knowing what to say. I was not very comfortable wearing someone else’s clothes. But I also needed fresh clothes. The blood on it had dried a bit but it felt moist every time I moved.

  ‘Also, I’m Abhishek,’ the man said, shuffling his gaze between me and Rathod. ‘Please tell me if you need anything else. I help the doc and his wife around the house.’

  I thanked him and went to the doctor’s daughter’s room. It had a queen-sized bed and a balcony. I sat on the bed and buried my face in my hands, hoping I would remember what had happened to me. I hoped I had not hurt the woman downstairs. I’d used a gun multiple times in my life before, but I had never used a knife. I wondered if there was anything special to using it as a weapon than just slamming it into someone’s body. I pictured her face, hoping I would recall something useful.

  Nothing stirred in my mind.

  I opened the cupboard. It had the kind of smell that comes from not being opened for a long time. Clothes were stacked neatly inside.

  I decided not to change. I would just wash my face instead.

  I went to the bathroom and stood over the wash basin, looking at the mirror. Blood caked my face. Some curly strands of my hair had been smeared with it against my forehead. I splashed the cold water on my face, keeping my mouth tightly shut to not let any blood seep inside.

  The water burnt through the cut on my cheek. The pain was refreshing. I splashed some more water on it, making it sting each time until it became numb. I used some soap and lathered it fiercely around the cut. I washed it off after a minute, carefully wiping the skin around the cut. I dabbed it gently at the end. Some fresh blood squeezed out from it and trickled down in contrast to my skin. I stepped out of the bathroom, feeling better and fresh just by not having to sniff blood each time I inhaled. The numbness of the cut had vanished and I felt my heart throb in it.

  Right then, there was a knock on the bedroom door.

  ‘Siya, can I come in?’ Rathod said.

  ‘Yes, it’s open,’ I said and started for it.

  The door swung inside and Rathod stomped in. His face was white. I had never seen him so flustered before.

  Just as I opened my mouth to ask him what had happened, he said, ‘I…I’ve got bad news.’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Dr. Rastogi just told me,’ Rathod said. ‘The woman…she…she just died. They couldn’t save her.’

  I gulped hard, somehow tasting the blood once again in my mouth.

  ‘She was stabbed and it damaged her organs and there was internal bleeding. She had a cardiac arrest on the operation table.’

  I said nothing but my mind was buzzing. Had I killed her?

  ‘Dr. Rastogi is calling us. He wants to speak to us.’

  I held Rathod’s wrist and he turned around.

  ‘Did I kill her?’ I said, my voice shivering.

  Rathod realized what was happening. I was connecting this to the biggest mistake of my life that I had committed five years back. I had defended a guy named Kunal Shastri. He was a guilty client who I had thought was innocent. His wife was his alibi, but I did not know then that he was killing with her. A few weeks later, he and his wife had almost taken the life of another young girl. Kunal had come to my office, boasting about his latest conquest, telling me I had helped them in their latest kill. The little girl had survived, but three years later, she was still in coma, fighting for her life. My mistake was enough to drive me away from practicing law again.

  Rathod put his arms around me and hugged me tightly. He stroked my back and said, ‘Siya, you can never harm anyone,’ he said. ‘We’ll figure out what happened to the woman.’

  I was too stunned to think. I hugged Rathod back because it felt better and the noise in my brain seemed to mellow down when I did.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said.

  I nodded and started for the corridor.

  Dr. Rastogi was waiting for us in the clinic. He turned around when he heard us. He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t save her. The woman was in a bad state when she got here and then her system collapsed as soon as we took her to the operation theatre. I tried to revive her with multiple shocks but it did not work.’

  He turned to Rathod when he said, ‘Who was she?’

  Rathod told him everything that had happened. He shot me a glance in the beginning, asking if he could tell him about my father. I nodded and filled in about what happened at the factory.

  Dr. Rastogi listened to everything patiently and said, ‘Did you find any ID on her?’

  ‘No, there was nothing. No phone, no ID,’ I said.

  ‘So we don’t know who she is,’ Dr. Rastogi said. ‘I’ll check her fingerprints to see if she’s in the police system. If not, I’ll check for other markers in her body.’

  Silence.

  He disappeared into the operation room once again. I had somehow missed the large clock in the clinic. It was twenty past seven. I looked out the window and saw daylight.

  Dr. Rastogi turned to me. ‘Before that, I need to examine you. Memory loss is always a tricky symptom. You don’t know what could have caused it. I’m not trying to scare you but it could be something temporary and fickle, or it could be life-threatening.’

  I gulped and nodded. Dr. Rastogi asked me to lie on his examination bed. As I lay down on it, I popped my head up, looked at Rathod and said, ‘I need to tell Radha that everything is fine,’ I said.

  ‘I called her and told her you are okay. She also knows you’re with me,’ Rathod said. ‘I haven’t told her anything else.’

  That put me at ease. I did not want to worry Radha further. She had been shot six months back and her recovery was moving along smoothly. She was almost back to full fitness. I wondered how I would tell her about the developments in dad’s disappearance.

  My chain of thought was broken when Dr. Rastogi turned on a lamp right above the examination bed.

  ‘As hard as it may seem, I need you to relax,’ he said and smiled for the first time.

  Over the next several minutes, Dr. Rastogi checked my pupils, asked me maths questions, information about myself, the name of India’s first President, my favourite childhood memory and some random general knowledge stuff to see if any other part of my memory had been affected. I could answer all questions without any problem. Or at least I thought so. The doctor maintained a poker face throughout so I got nothing from his expressions.

  He checked my body for any physical injuries but could not find any except for the cut on my cheek. He put an antiseptic on it and cleaned the wound. He stuck a band aid across it. I was always amused by how there was a band aid of every size for all shapes of a wound.

  ‘What was the last thing you remember?’ he said, while checking my pulse.

  I had gone through it myself many times. ‘I exited the factory. I saw something…rather someone. I don’t remember who it was. Then, I woke up breathless.’

  ‘But are you certain you saw someone?’

  I strained
my mind again. ‘Yes, I am sure,’ I said. ‘It still feels extremely real. It’s weird because I don’t remember who it was.’

  Dr. Rastogi narrowed his eyes and nodded. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’ll come back.’

  ‘Is she in any kind of danger?’ Rathod said, stepping forward.

  ‘Her vitals are alright. I see no apparent threat. But I recommend you to get an MRI and a CT scan. It will show if something else has been affected.’

  ‘What could have caused the memory loss?’ I said.

  ‘There could be many reasons to be honest. Don’t hold me to this, but if your MRI and CT scan results are clean, its cause is most likely a psychological factor. Your last memory was of seeing someone. I suspect what you saw, or in this case, who you saw triggered so much stress and trauma that you forgot what happened. There’s a lot of research happening around the world on how the brain works. We know a lot now compared to ten years ago but it’s still just the tip of the iceberg. Having said that, you would find the entire scientific community agreeing to the fact that our brain is a fighter. It does its best to protect us. Having a gap in the memory with no physical changes observed in the brain is a classic sign of trauma or stress-induced memory loss. The brain tries to forget something, or not register an event to protect itself.’

  One thought resounded in my mind. ‘Is it possible that I could have seen my father?’ I said, wondering if that trauma was the cause.

  ‘I cannot say that with certainty. Doctors and patients tend to realize the cause of psychologically induced memory loss in hindsight.’

  ‘Is there any way I can accelerate the process of remembering?’

  Dr. Rastogi shook his head and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘At times, you need to let some things unravel themselves.’ He smiled but saw that I was disappointed with the answer. ‘It’s important not to hurry in such situations. The cause of the memory loss could be something deep. Something you don’t even know exists. Maybe seeing a psychologist can be helpful but it can be a long process.’

  I had stopped going to therapy almost a year back. It had helped me get on my feet and breathe freely after my mistake of letting Kunal Shastri and his wife off the hook. Suddenly, the way Shastri had laughed rang in my head like it was happening in front of me all over again. It hit me that even then, I had blacked out right after alerting the police and sharing with them my theory of where they had kept the girl they had kidnapped. But I had still been able to remember what had happened, right down to every last excruciating detail. I wondered if it was a good idea to take Dr. Rastogi’s advice and see my psychologist again.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said to him and rose to my feet.

  ‘I know you want to know what happened to your father and this is a critical piece of the puzzle.’ he said and his wandered for a few beats before settling squarely on me. ‘But Siya, you need to take care of yourself.’ He paused and took off the stethoscope around his neck. ‘I suggest you get those tests done to rule out anything that could be alarming.’

  ‘I’ll make sure she does,’ Rathod said.

  Dr. Rastogi was still looking at me. ‘I will take some blood samples from your clothes and check them against that of the dead woman. You can wear my daughter’s clothes to get back home. I’m sure she’ll have no problem helping you out.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, remembering seeing the folded clothes in her cupboard.

  I went to her bedroom once again. I picked a blue T-Shirt and cream pyjamas. We were almost the same size. I folded my clothes and gave them to Dr. Rastogi.

  ‘I’ll also try to identify the woman,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you with a status report later in the day.’

  I thanked him and exited the house. Rathod and I drove in silence for the most part.

  ‘Thanks for coming today,’ I said as we got closer to my house.

  ‘Please don’t do something like that again on your own,’ Rathod said.

  I could sense a hint of annoyance in his voice. I grunted in acknowledgement.

  ‘How do you plan to go about this?’ he said.

  ‘I’m trying to figure it out.’

  ‘Why don’t you think out loud?’

  ‘You were probably right,’ I said. ‘Something happened when we found the register of corrupt cops at Mule’s house. It’s no coincidence that I got a call about dad a day after that.’

  Rathod said, ‘Only you and I knew about it. Unless you told someone else.’

  ‘I didn’t. Did you?’

  ‘No, but you said you spoke to that hacker…Jay Parikh, right? You asked him to trace the location of the call.’

  I hadn’t known Jay for long but I trusted him. He was a young man with strong ideals who had been mentored by Sitaram Mule. ‘I trust Jay,’ I said. ‘He wouldn’t have told anyone.’

  ‘But what if he ruffled the wrong feathers when he was searching for the number?’

  ‘That’s possible. I’ll talk to him once. But if it wasn’t him then I don’t know how anyone got to know about it.’

  ‘Maybe Mule could have been connected to it. But then again I haven’t been able to find a link between Mule and your father. I have searched a lot ever since we found Mule’s register. I know they knew each other by the virtue of Mule being the Pune Police’s Chief and your dad being at a senior position as well.’

  Rathod slowed the car as we approached my house. It was a standalone bungalow with a front yard. We had moved into it after maa had disappeared from our old house. None of us, including dad, could see our old house the same way after having seen maa’s blood all over her bathroom walls. We had decided to move to a house that my grandparents had bought more than sixty years ago as a real estate investment and a retirement home. It was unoccupied then as they had both passed away even before I was born. I used to feel sad that they never got to enjoy the house they had built with their hard-earned money.

  My two siblings and I had made it our home. With maa joining us almost a year back, it felt better than it ever had. I smiled as I subconsciously pictured maa and dad sitting on the swing in the verandah, enjoying a cup of tea in the afternoon. Would that day ever come?

  I was drawn out of my thoughts when Rathod stopped the car in front of my house.

  ‘I’m not sure what my course of action will be,’ I said. ‘What do you make of the situation?’

  ‘My first goal is to identify the woman in your trunk. That will tell us a lot about who called you and why. That’s the start. In the meantime, I’m going to ask one of my trusted CID technicians to check the CCTV footage around Stan Mills. Let’s see if we can find anything useful.’

  ‘My car is still at Stan Mills. I was thinking of heading there in some time to get it back and also sweep the area in daytime. We didn’t see any blood when we checked earlier. But it has to be somewhere given how much was there on me.’

  ‘Don’t go alone,’ Rathod said, his eyes wandered as he thought.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of it. I was planning on asking Rahul to come,’ I said. Rahul was a biologist. He worked as a consultant at a pharmaceutical company but had also advised law enforcement agencies on certain biology and forensics related topics to help them in their investigation. He was smart and had developed the expertise needed to examine a crime scene. I also shared a great bond of trust and respect with him.

  Rathod said, ‘I would have come but I need to head to the crime scene and then follow up on that. I’ll ask someone from my SWAT team to accompany you. While he has the technical expertise, both of you need to be protected. You don’t know who could be waiting there for you.’

  ‘Thanks. I was going to request you to send someone,’ I said. Radha had been shot less than a year ago and I was in no way putting my family at risk again. ‘Who do you have in mind?’

  ‘Let me figure out who is available,’ Rathod said. ‘I’ll let you know.’

  ‘I was also wondering why I was specifically called to Stan Mills today. Whoever called me was possibly familiar with i
ts location. That it burned down is all over the newspapers, but even in that case, the person who called me had to be comfortable with the factory’s layout both before and after the fire.’

  ‘Do you think it was someone who worked there?’

  ‘Might be. It’s worth looking into. You could filter out the women who worked there based on what Dr. Rastogi tells you about her age or other noticeable features, and then check which of them aren’t traceable.’

  ‘The labour working there would be difficult to trace down as they could be illegal workers or immigrants. But I’ll check nonetheless.’

  ‘I’m here to help you in any way I can.’

  ‘I will call you in some time. You need to rest.’

  I nodded but didn’t tell Rathod that I wouldn’t be able to think about anything else until I got to the bottom of what had happened in the morning.

  I pulled the handle on the door to leave when Rathod said, ‘Also, here’s a theory that has been circling my mind.’

  ‘Shoot,’ I said, closing the door.

  Rathod’s eyes sparkled the way any good detective’s do when they are excited about an investigation. He said, ‘There are only two possibilities. You either attacked the woman or you didn’t. If you didn’t, then there was someone else at the factory who attacked her. Maybe you saw that third person and got shocked. The person may or may not be your father. Either the woman was attacked to silence her from sharing what she was about to, which according to what she told you was key information about your father. In that case, the person who attacked her was not on your side.’

  I jumped in and said, ‘However, I don’t know why they didn’t attack me. It doesn’t make sense to kill the person who had called me, but then let me off with just a cut on my cheek.’

  ‘Yeah, I was coming to that. What if this was all a plan to kill you? The woman tried to save you, probably even injured the other person enough to drive them away. This is just a theory, but maybe you had so much blood on you because you tried to revive the woman. But there’s also the possibility that someone else attacked her because she posed danger to you. They were looking out for you.’