by UD Yasha
Rathod’s suspicion was confirmed.
John Doe had been brought willingly by Malhar and Niyati from somewhere. They had tried to keep his arrival a secret by hiding him on the back seat of their car. Rathod looked around the underground parking lot. He saw at least two CCTVs, one of which was right above the elevator. It would have captured the man entering the elevator with the Jathars. That would give Rathod a timeline of when and how the man had got there. All he knew right now was that the murders had been committed between ten and twelve at night.
As Rathod thought about it, a crime scene technician stepped out from the elevator.
Rathod said, ‘Check if the grease on the back seat is the same as that on the dead man. There’s a blanket inside as well which I think was used to cover the man when he was brought in.’
The technician nodded and got to work. Rathod walked away, happy that he had found something that would advance the investigation, but still worried about what had happened exactly. He knew that the key to knowing what happened to Siya in the morning and who and why three people were killed in the apartment number 6 lay in identifying the people who were killed in both cases.
Three minutes later, through a pair of binoculars, a bald man wearing a black leather jacket saw Rathod step out in the morning sun and get in his car. He had wondered where the police inspector had gone earlier in the morning. The timing was suspicious because of what had gone down before sunrise. Their plan had miserably failed. At least a part of it. But at the same time, they were sure that they could keep things under control. There was too much at stake.
Chapter Eleven
Rathod had sent a man named Harshvardhan Kuhad to take us to Stan Mills. I recognized him from the team that had helped us raid a warehouse six months back to rescue an eight-year-old girl.
Kuhad was a robust man several inches above six feet. He must have weighed around ninety kilos. It looked like he had recently had a fresh haircut and shave. There were several threads tied around his right wrist. It reminded me of my nani (grandma) when she used to say the Hanumanchalisa, a prayer to Lord Hanuman, and tie a black thread around the wrists of Radha, Kunal and I to protect us in life.
At that moment, Kuhad handed me something else to protect ourselves. He gave us two guns he had brought with him. He would have been licensed to own and carry them, as Indian law enforcement officers were legally permitted to own up to three firearms. But the amendment to the law was being tabled in the Parliament to restrict one person to one firearm.
Rahul asked me several questions about what had happened since morning. I answered them all, knowing that he needed to know whatever I did as he was involved in the case now.
On reaching Stan Mills, Kuhad pulled over next to my car. The three of us stepped out. The Stan Mills factory appeared smaller during the day. It was surrounded by a dense tree cover from all sides except the road leading up to it. I realized how easy it would have been for anyone to get away through the woods. As far as I knew, there was vast empty land on all sides beyond the tree cover. It would definitely join some road, making it easy to get away from the factory.
Kuhad led the way and headed for the main door. It had a large padlock on it. He turned for the back door when I pointed it to him. Seeing the back door brought back the memories of the morning. Goosebumps crawled up on my skin. I walked slower, falling out of step with Rahul and Kuhad.
‘I lost consciousness and woke up here,’ I said, pointing at an area on the ground that had some blood, mostly transferred from my body. Rahul pulled out a brush and plastic cover from his bag and took samples from the area.
‘There has to be more blood somewhere else,’ he said.
‘Close to us as well,’ I said. ‘I can’t think of how I could have gone far off from here.’
‘I’ll go inside and see if I find anything,’ Kuhad said.
I walked closer to the trees. I could see that they got dense in the distance. My eyes swept the ground, looking for any disturbance amid the scattering of dirt, grass and leaves. Everything seemed natural like no one had stormed off through the woods.
‘I wonder how the person who called me got here,’ I said.
‘We’ll check the approach road for fresh tire tracks that don’t match yours, Kuhad’s and Rathod’s cars,’ Rahul said. ‘Maybe the third person, if they were here, could have also used the same road to come and go.’
Rahul and I scanned the rest of the ground around the factory but we couldn’t find anything. There were no footprints anywhere either. Rahul took samples of various bits on the ground and bagged them up. Just as he finished dusting the backdoor of the factory for fingerprints, Kuhad called for us.
‘Come in here,’ Kuhad yelled from inside.
Rahul and I jumped in. Kuhad was in a corner, a few feet away inside to our left. There was blood on the ground next to him. It was like someone had dropped a bag full of it and it had burst on the ground.
‘I found something else too,’ Kuhad said and he walked right up the wall next to him. ‘Come here.’ He beckoned us to join him.
We walked up to him. Kuhad pointed at a spot on the wall.
‘A bullet is lodged in the wall,’ he said.
I clicked pictures of it on my phone. Rahul plucked it off the wall with tweezers and put it in a plastic bag.
‘There’s one more,’ Kuhad said and asked us to follow him to the adjacent wall. This one was stuck in the wall too.
We walked closer to it to check it out. This bullet had lodged in deeper. Rahul put it in a fresh bag after I took a picture.
The implications of bullets being fired started to dawn on me. I wondered. Was the caller shooting at me? Or was a third person, the shooter, also present in the morning? The bullets did not look like the ones that went in my Glock. They were not 9mm, but a smaller calibre, indicating that a smaller gun was used. So, I knew I wasn’t the shooter. The more I thought about it, I got more certain that I wasn’t the one being shot at. I thought about my chances of escaping from a shooter in pitch darkness when I had no idea of the layout. The woman who was now dead would have been the target. But in that case, who had stabbed her if not me? And why was she in the trunk of my car? I wondered if I was trying to take her away somewhere safe. But I wouldn’t have put a dying woman in a boot if I wanted to save her. I would put her in the back seat.
My hands went cold at the thought of me leaving the woman in the boot to let her die. In that case, she was not on my side. In turn, if a third shooter was present, then that person was looking out for me. If that was the case, then why had they left me when I had become unconscious? If the point of shooting the woman was to save me, why didn’t they tell me who they were or something else about the entire situation?
I needed to think about everything with a clear mind. I wanted to focus on getting as much as possible from the crime scene.
‘Can you hand me a pair of gloves?’ I asked Rahul. I knew he carried extra pairs in his black bag.
I put them on and leaned forward, putting an arm on the wall. I sniffed the area where the bullet had been lodged. The small cavity made by the bullet had a hint of a pungent odour. Like the air around a sugar factory.
I knew what it was.
Nitroglycerin. One of the components of gunpowder post the Second World War. It was also a common propellant used in missiles and rockets. The ironic part, which always amused me, was that nitroglycerin was given to heart patients to widen their blood vessels so more blood flowed through them when they experienced chest pain. Same chemical, used differently, saved thousands of lives across the world, probably killing the same number of people too.
But its presence in the cavity told me that the bullets had been freshly fired. The pungent smell was a result of gunpowder and not the bullet, which meant if the bullets had been there for a longer time, the smell would fade away. Given what had happened at the factory since morning, I could make an educated guess that the bullets were fired around the time I was there.
‘I’m not an expert at this but I can tell you something about where the bullets were fired from,’ Kuhad said. ‘We learnt about firearm trajectory in our self-preservation training during a hostage-like situation. Knowing where bullets are coming from can be a massive advantage when you’re confined to an enclosed space.’
‘That’ll be super helpful,’ Rahul said, nodding.
Kuhad stepped forward, his shoulders now broader and his chest pumped up. ‘The first bullet we saw was in the wall to the left of the back door. It was more or less perpendicular to the wall. It’s also very rare that bullets make something close to a circular hole on impact. So, I think the first bullet was fired from the back door. The second hit the wall at an angle, so it would have again been fired from the door.’
Out of instinct, my eyes searched the ground.
‘I already checked the room for bullet casings,’ Kuhad said. ‘The shooter must have taken them with him.’
Or her, I thought.
I tried to picture the scene. The wall that had the first bullet was right next to the blood on the floor. The second wall was a foot away. I had woken up outside, but extremely close to the place where all the action had taken place. I stared at the walls, the ground and the blood. Nothing came to my mind. It seemed like the memories of those minutes were being buried deeper into a bottomless abyss.
Harshvardhan Kuhad told us he had not found anything on the upper floor so we headed to our cars. I thanked him for all his help.
He acknowledged us with a nod and a smile, and said, ‘It was my pleasure. I have been asked to make sure you get back safely so I’ll follow the two of you home in my car.’
Rahul got behind the wheel and I took the side seat.
Once we were inside Rahul broke the silence in the car by saying, ‘You need to get those scans the doctor had asked you to get.’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, thinking it was a waste of time. I was certain that the dementia was induced by a stressful situation—whether it was seeing dad, realizing something traumatic or just something else entirely that riddled me up with anxiety.
‘You need to get it checked. I’m not taking no for an answer. I’ll schedule an appointment in the afternoon.’
‘They’ll ask me how and where the memory loss happened. It’ll unnecessarily become an elaborate process.
Before Rahul could retort and just as we turned into the lane of our house, my phone started ringing. Dr. Rastogi’s name flashed on the screen. I answered it right away and subconsciously pushed the phone deeper into my ear.
The next words he said filled me with excitement and apprehension.
Rahul slowed the car to a halt in front of our bungalow. His eyes were transfixed on me, wondering what I had just come to know. I put the call on speakerphone so Rahul could hear it as well.
‘I was going to conduct a basic postmortem of the unidentified woman or Jane Doe,’ Dr. Rastogi said. ‘Even before I started, I found something that will be useful to you. The woman has undergone plastic surgery.’
My eyes narrowed. ‘What kind of plastic surgery?’ I said.
‘The full deal. She changed the way she looked. Her facial structure, nose, eyebrows, cheeks and jaw bones have all been chiselled. It is clear to me that this woman wanted to look completely different than how she looked before.’
‘Can you tell when she got it done?’ I said, and started thinking about an expert I knew who could help us figure out how the woman looked before getting the plastic surgery.
‘I have no idea. But I can tell you one thing. Whoever conducted the surgery did an amazing job. Usually, when someone’s looks are altered to that extent, a physical examination of the face is enough to give it away. There are all kinds of marks next to the ears where the skin is pulled when significant changes are made to the face. The only clue that got me started on checking if she had her face altered was a very small cut behind her ear. Usually it is on the front with plastic surgeries.’
‘So, we’re looking at a skilled doctor,’ I thought out loud.
‘Yes, one who's really good. This woman would have had to go under the knife several times to achieve the look. First to get her face changed and then to make sure no one would know that she changed it that much. There would have been several surgeries, again all complex ones, to smoothen the skin around her ear.
‘Thank you,’ I said and Dr. Rastogi clicked off after he told me he would keep me in the loop with any new development.
I started thinking. Getting a full-fledged plastic surgery could have multiple reasons. It could be something drastic like an acid attack or another severe injury to her face, a major career requirement or she was running from her old self because it was now dangerous to be that person. Given the circumstances of how we had found her, the last option seemed the most likely. She must have been mighty scared of something if she changed her looks completely because of it.
I stepped out of the car and was about to call Rathod when I saw his car veer into the lane of our house. He hastily parked his car ahead of mine and walked briskly to me.
I said, ‘The woman in my boot underwent full-face plastic surgery.’
Rathod’s eyes narrowed. ‘What?’ he said under his breath. ‘I don’t know if the two are connected but in the triple homicide from today morning, the woman who was murdered was a cosmetic surgeon.’
Chapter Twelve
An eager Radha and Shadow greeted us at the door. After Shadow showed his appreciation by jumping on us one by one, we sat on the couch and told each other about what we had come to know in the past hour.
‘I don’t believe in coincidences, but this could very well be one,’ Rathod said, referring to Dr. Niyati Jathar being a cosmetic surgeon and the dead woman in my trunk having had plastic surgery.
‘We’ll have to dig more and rule it out,’ I said. ‘The timing of both events makes me suspicious. They happened too close to each other. You said that the three murders were committed between ten and twelve at night. I got the call about three and a half hours later.’
‘I think we should get Dr. Sonia Joshi, the CID’s Chief Medical Examiner on board with what’s happening. We could use her expertise to know if there’s a link,’ Rathod said.
‘But that would mean involving the police.’
‘We need to make sure we’re looking at all angles.’
‘What would she bring to the table?’
‘For starters, I was thinking she could take a look at the dead woman. She’ll also be able to tell us if there is any other forensic evidence common to both crimes. Plus, she has access to previous crime records and can tell us right away if these people are linked to any other crimes.’ Rathod paused and scratched his chin. ‘We also don’t know the identities of the woman in your car and the guy from my crime scene. She can catalyse the process of finding out who they are.’
‘I get it but I don’t know if involving the police is a good idea’ I said, my voice trailing off.
Just one look at Rathod told me what he was thinking. He said, ‘Are you worried about the repercussions of telling people about the presence of your father’s name in Mule’s journal?’
I said nothing.
‘You don’t have to be. We don’t even know if the stuff in the journal is legit. You know this better than me, but it wouldn’t ever be enforceable evidence in a court of law. We don’t know how Mule got the information and because he’s dead we can’t find out either.’
‘It’s not just that. I’m worried if involving the police would jeopardize this investigation. I was told repeatedly by the person on the phone not to involve the police. I know her motives are questionable. But we have to be cautious. Maybe the police are involved in this somehow.’
I gulped before saying the next words. ‘Then we also have to consider if my father was a corrupt cop. If he was, there’s a good chance that bringing him up will unsettle the other cops who were corrupt along with him. Cops are seldom corrupt alone. They hunt i
n packs.’
I turned to face Radha who was on an armchair next to me. ‘Of course, I don’t think our dad was corrupt. There has to be a reason why his name was in Mule’s register. I could very well be in denial about him and have a very rosy picture of the kind of man he was…or is. Hell, I was just sixteen years old when he disappeared, but I think I knew him well enough to be sure he was not a rotten apple. It has no other rationale or logic to it.’
I fell silent for a second. ‘But this all suddenly seems to have started when Rathod and I came across his name in the register. I don’t know how, but that must have triggered all this. No one apart from Rathod, Jay Parikh and I knew about it. I have dropped Jay a text to ask him if he thinks his search into the call’s origin could have raised a red flag.’
‘What if we take Dr. Sonia into confidence?’ Rathod said.
‘There’s no denying that her expertise and resources will be useful.’
‘I can convince her not to tell anyone.’
‘Two points. First, are you sure you can trust her? I can’t see how, but there’s a chance she could be involved in all this. And second, when she runs, for example, the ballistics report through the system, would it still be safe?’
‘I trust her. Also, she’s just forty years old, making her twenty-four when your dad disappeared. She was still in medical school and too young to be dealing with corrupt cops. With regard to your second point, she can delete the requests and searches in the system. If she does it fast enough, then no one can find out about it. We will bring her to a remote location, possibly Dr. Rastogi’s clinic, to conduct a postmortem of the dead woman’s body. She can corroborate its findings with the triple homicide from the morning.’
‘If you think she can be trusted, then I have no issues with involving her.’
Silence resounded.
I said, ‘We need to make sure that whatever Dr. Sonia finds can be used as evidence in the court of law. I’ll draft a letter that contains an anonymous tip.’ I turned to Rahul. ‘Make sure the evidence you have is marked and labelled. We need to be as thorough as possible with both the letter and evidence to make sure a judge takes it seriously.’
