by UD Yasha
She screamed but no sound came out because Zakkal put a hand on her mouth. Before she could even register the scar on Zakkal’s face, the world behind her eyes blacked out.
Chapter Nine
Being back in the CID office brought back memories of the time when we had caught Zakkal’s protégé Ranjit Kadam two years ago. I was in the waiting room for a few minutes until Rathod himself showed up to usher me inside. Seeing Rathod always made me feel safe and peaceful. I was glad our friendship was strong again after having gone through some tough times over the past few years.
‘Are you alright?’ Rathod asked.
‘Yes, but I’m concerned about what Zakkal will do next,’ I said as we walked to a small cabin.
‘I told ACP Shukla that you were coming down and he wanted to see you personally,’ Rathod said.
The ACP and I did not share the best relationship for a host of reasons. That I had been a part of three of CID's most recent investigations had not made the relationship any better. But he particularly disliked me for one reason. Zakkal had been arrested seven years ago based on my investigation. I had no desire to claim credit for the work, but a journalist had written a story that quoted me taking all the credit when I had not even spoken to her. The ACP had been caught on the wrong foot because he had told his bosses that Zakkal's capture was all his work.
‘Here I was thinking I would never have to see you again,’ ACP Shukla said as he walked into the cabin. He sat across the table. His hair had gotten greyer since the last time we had met and he had also put on more weight. ‘Rathod told me Zakkal has been in touch with you.’
I said nothing but placed the letter with the flower pasted on it on the table. Shukla pulled out a pair of gloves from his back pocket and put them on. He picked up the letter with disdain and read it in his mind. After he had finished reading it, I gave him my statement about the events of the evening.
‘Do you think he’s just toying with you by sending you this?’ he said.
‘I have a feeling he’s onto something this time,’ I said.’
‘He didn’t do anything after he sent you that earring the last time around.’
The tone of ACP's voice was awkward. I was not supposed to take anything into the prison cell when I met Zakkal at Yerwada Jail. When Shukla got to know what I had done, he was not pleased with it at all. That giving him the earrings had provided us with a valuable clue that eventually helped us crack the case had blunted the blow of my disobedience. But I had still undermined his authority, which pissed him off. I wondered if he was even angrier that it was a woman who was not obeying his commands.
I said, ‘That’s right. But back then, he didn’t issue any warning. It was merely a reminder, a scary one nonetheless, that he was still roaming free in the world.’
Shukla squinted his eyes and read out aloud from the letter. ‘But here’s what I want to tell you. Everything that happens from now on is on you. All the blood, all the deaths, all the fun. It’s on you. Consider yourself warned.’ He paused for a flash. ‘What does he want from you?’
'Amongst all the women he had taken, my mother was his favourite victim. Then, I entered his life and he's become obsessed with me. I remember him telling me in Yerwada during one of my visits that I look even more beautiful than my mother.'
‘We’ll check the CCTV cameras in the vicinity of where Swapna and Meena Kiran stay and try to get him,’ Shukla said.
‘I don’t think you’ll be able to find anything on the cameras. He’s going to be careful. He’s been hiding somewhere for a long time now and has evaded us all this time.’
Silence.
Shukla said, ‘I’ll assign a security guard each outside the houses of the five women who were rescued two years ago.’
‘That would be very helpful. Thank you. I request you to please do it tonight.’
‘Yes, that’s the plan,’ he said. ‘We’ll also examine the letters and flowers closely. If there’s anything of interest, we’ll be in touch.’
‘Let me be clear about one thing,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to meddle with your investigation. That’s why I came in and gave the statement to set the record straight.’
Shukla seemed at a loss for words. ‘Alright. I’ll ask a hawaldar to escort you out,’ he eventually said and pressed a button on the intercom.
We rose together and exited the cabin. A hawaldar was waiting outside for me. He walked me to the elevator and summoned it for me as the stairs were being cleaned. I caught a glance of Rathod, whose eyes had followed me, probably wondering how the conversation had gone. I would probably tell him about it later. The elevator arrived on my floor and its doors opened after a small tinkle.
I stepped in and rode it down. As the elevator reached the ground floor and its door sucked open, my phone started vibrating in my jeans pocket. It was Dr Barve. I stumbled out quickly, eager to know what he had found out. Surely finding a match for the pollen in such a short time was a record.
I swiped up the screen and answered the call.
'Siya…Siya,' Dr Barve stuttered, his voice was high-pitched and trembling.
And at that moment, clarity flickered in my clouded mind. I knew what he was going to say next.
Chapter Ten
Before I heard Dr Barve's next words, I grabbed the railing and bolted up the staircase, not caring about the wet floor. As I reached the first floor, Rathod spotted me first, surprised to see me back. The look on my face and the urgency with which I was moving told him I had some bad news to share.
'Siya,' Dr Barve said, not able to find the right words. 'I just reached home. Zakkal…Zakkal was here.' His voice was cracking from the emotion flooding his mind and heart. 'He took…took Sudha, he took my wife. She's not here and there's blood in the bathroom.'
I beckoned Rathod to run towards me as Dr Barve's words confirmed what I feared the most. I had never imagined Zakkal going after Dr Barve or his wife. I cursed myself. How could I have not seen it coming? But hearing his terrified voice on the phone had sparked a different line of thought in my mind.
'I'm coming there right now,' I said to Dr Barve. 'We're going to get her. Believe me, please. We're going to get her back.'
Because of the sudden movements, I had already drawn the attention of many people in the CID building. A hawaldar ran towards me, considering me a threat.
‘Stop! She’s a friend,’ Rathod yelled seconds before the hawaldar rammed into me.
‘What’s the matter?’ Rathod said when we met each other halfway.
'It's Dr Barve. His wife, Sudha, has been taken. It's Zakkal. The bathroom of her room was splashed with blood too,' I said in one breath.
Rathod picked up the telephone from the nearest table and summoned a dispatch to Dr Barve's residence.
‘Sit here for a second,’ Rathod said, pulling a chair for me. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said and headed to ACP Shukla’s office.
A few minutes later, both of them along with Rathod’s partner, Mahesh Bhalerao, walked out.
‘We’re heading there now,’ Rathod said. ‘I spoke to the ACP. He’s okay with you coming with us for now. The details will be figured out later.’
I walked in stride with Rathod to the police van whose engine was already running when we reached the parking lot. Rathod and I got into his car while the rest got into the van.
The air in the car felt heavy. I felt a massive burden build up in my spine.
‘It was my fault,’ I said. ‘Zakkal sent that letter to me. He knew that I would want to get the flower checked as soon as possible.’
I fell silent. The thoughts in my mind raced. Of course, Zakkal knew I would contact Dr Barve to analyse the pollen. He knew our history. He also knew the role Dr Barve had played in his original arrest. Zakkal had two long years to plan this out. He had set a trap. He wanted Dr Barve out of his house so that his wife would be home alone. Once Dr Barve was outside, he had struck. Oh God, I could not believe I had fallen for this.
Zakkal was ge
tting even with all of us. I had believed that the only way Zakkal would try to harm me was by targeting Maa, Radha or Rahul. But I was wrong. He was coming after everyone I cared about.
‘You can’t beat yourself up. You’re not the one responsible. Zakkal has taken her, not you,’ Rathod said.
'I didn't see this coming. Not at all. Poor Dr Barve. I dragged him into this,' I said. 'You need to be careful, Rathod. Send a security detail to your house as well.'
‘You think he’s—’
‘Yes, it seems like he’s either coming after all the people I care about or those who were directly involved in his first arrest. You had helped me with his capture then and you’re the only real friend I have.’
Rathod called the CID’s extension of the dispatch team and told them to patrol his house. Once the line was cut, he said, ‘Just before we left, the ACP also put a security detail outside the houses of the five women we rescued from Ranjit Kadam, including yours.’
We soon reached Dr Barve's residence. He lived in a three-storeyed building. I wondered how Zakkal would have managed to take a woman from a residential complex. He usually preferred more private houses. An ambulance and a police van were already outside. We stepped out and I made a run to go inside. I was frisked by a female hawaldar and then let in.
The ACP was speaking to Dr Barve, who was sitting on the sofa. He had put his hand on his back as Dr Barve tried to hold back his tears. He had been a friend of the law enforcement fraternity. As the field of palynology had picked up in India over the years, he had been roped in as a consultant every now and then. If Zakkal had targeted him, he had made it personal with the police. Zakkal would have known that before taking Sudha Barve.
I saw Dr Sonia Joshi being ushered to a bedroom. The ACP followed her inside. I walked over to Dr Barve.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, taking a seat next to him.
Dr Barve said nothing. He was in shock and stared into nothingness. I sat beside him for a spell. A few minutes later, Rathod beckoned me to come to the bedroom.
As I got up and walked to it, images from eighteen years ago flashed behind my eyes. Maa had been taken by Zakkal at night. I was the first one to go to her room and find her gone. I had seen the blood splashed in the bathroom and then screamed loudly. That had brought my father to the room. He had carried me out, covering my eyes and ears. The image was crystal clear. So was the sound of my scream that had echoed in my mind for years to come.
A strong, pungent smell hit my nostrils the moment I entered the room. It was unmistakably bleach. Zakkal had been known to use it to clean evidence at crime scenes.
‘He must have been hiding in the cupboard and under the bed. Both those areas have been cleaned using bleach,’ Rathod said.
I was too numb to react. Rathod read my body language. He held me by the shoulder and dragged me out, muttering a ‘follow me’ under his breath. He climbed down the stairs with me close behind. Soon, we were breathing fresh air in the building’s parking lot. It must have been raining nearby because I could smell wet mud.
‘You have to stop blaming yourself for this,’ Rathod said.
'How can I not? I was the one who dragged Dr Barve to his lab to test the flower. I could have very easily handed it directly to the CID.'
'And the CID would have given it to Dr Barve. Considering it was regarding Zakkal, chances are that he would have been summoned to the CID office as soon as you left. He would have left his wife alone at home in either case. Zakkal had set his eyes on Sudha Barve. If not today, he would have made sure he abducted her on another day.'
‘Zakkal knows me. He can predict my behaviour,’ I said.
‘And out of everyone living in this world, you know him the best. Can’t you see why he’s targeting you? It’s because you got to him the last time you spoke while he was in jail. You had no business of getting any information out of him. Yet, you did it by defying all odds. You got him to talk and it led us to save five women, including your mom.’
I said nothing in response.
Ranjit said, ‘Don’t forget that because of that we also got Ranjit who was himself a horrendous serial killer.’
Rathod mentioning Ranjit triggered a thought in my mind. I looked around. The apartment building was a standalone construction. There were other similar buildings in the neighbourhood but they all had their own compounds. ‘This was a gutsy move,’ I said. ‘It is unlike Zakkal to take someone from such a place.’
‘I’ve already asked two of my officers to go door to door in the neighbourhood and ask if they saw anyone or anything unusual in the past two hours. Someone must have surely seen something. The only thing that might save him is that it has been raining today, which could have provided him with an extra layer of cover.'
‘He had help the last time from Ranjit Kadam. He’s got to be working with someone this time too. Think about it for a second. To take a woman from an apartment complex in a relatively crowded neighbourhood is not his strength. Yes, he had time to prepare but there are so many variables here. People going in and out, parcels getting delivered, residents peering out of their windows…The list is endless.’
‘Who are you thinking about?’
‘Maybe he has one more disciple. Maybe it’s someone else.’ I paused. ‘What about Nana Shirole?’
‘The gangster?’ Rathod said, his tone unsure.
‘Yes. We know he helped Zakkal relay messages in and out of Yerwada Jail the last time. Shirole is also how Zakkal got the pollen grain into the prison. We also suspect he had a role in Zakkal’s escape, right?’
Nana Shirole was a local politician who had been accused of smuggling, harassing people and contract killing. He was loved in his constituency of Narayan Peth, a part of old Pune, and had been elected to parliament since 1994. His father Manoj Shirole was also a politician from the same constituency back in his hay day.
It was believed that Nana Shirole was heavily into betting in cricket matches. He was suspected to have ventured into fixing cricket matches in smaller leagues across the world.
Despite all of this, he was loved by the people of his constituency. He had gone out of his way to make sure their issues were resolved. A lot of the people there came from a poor background. Since being elected in 1994, he had raised crores of rupees every year to fund the school fees of the needy kids in his constituency.
I knew he was considered a people charmer. There were several charges against him yet no one had ever come forward to testify, either because they disappeared altogether or Shirole bought them out with money or promises. There were whispers that he had connections with Dawood Ibrahim’s notorious D Company. Shirole’s gang was virtually untouchable.
‘If Shirole is involved, it’s going to get messier because we won’t be able to get much information out of him,’ Rathod said.
‘It’s just a hunch. Zakkal has been out of jail for more than two years now. Over this time, I have thought a lot about how we could have managed to stay under the radar for so long. He would have needed a place to stay, food to eat, and money to buy basic stuff. All that is not easy when the police are trying to find you. Right after Zakkal escaped, his face was also all over the news.’
‘There’s someone else who could be helping him through all this,’ Rathod said.
My eyebrows went up as I tried to think.
‘Hardik Karve, his lawyer. In 2019, we suspected he might have had a role to play in everything that went down.’
‘Yeah, I remember visiting him. He’s a freaking creep. But he was not useful back then so I don’t think he’ll let anything slip this time. Having said that, these are the only two leads we have.’
Rathod’s attention was drawn to his vibrating phone. He answered the call, held it against his ear for about ten seconds and then grunted in acknowledgement. ‘It’s the ACP. He’s calling us upstairs.’
We scampered to Dr Barve's apartment. Seeing him sent waves of guilt through my body again. I knew that the only way he was goin
g to feel better was if we rescued his wife. There seemed to be more people in the apartment than earlier. Sonia's colleagues were dusting the apartment for fingerprints and taking samples and photographs.
A sinking feeling took over me as we approached Dr Barve's room. It had been darkened using some heavy curtains. I knew what was happening. They were spraying luminol in the room to detect blood splatter. I also knew right away why we had been called upstairs.
On the wall above the bed, a message glowed in blue.
I really want to say I told you so, Siya. I had warned you. All that happens now is on you.
Chapter Eleven
We drove back to CID's building half an hour later, at almost midnight. Dr Barve came with us as well since he was going to stay at the guest quarters in the CID building. Rathod would make arrangements for him at a safe house close by the next day.
I was waiting in ACP Shukla’s office as he wanted to speak to me. I could see frantic activity outside through the transparent walls of his office. Two active investigations were taking place, both of which were extremely urgent and serious.
Fifteen minutes later, ACP Shukla walked into his office. He closed the blinds before he sat on his chair.
'A lot is happening, Siya,' he said. His voice held a concerned tone. 'I'll make this quick. Zakkal is back and we don't have the slightest clue of where to find him. If that wasn't enough, we're also investigating another possible serial killer. To say that we have our backs against the wall is an understatement.' He paused and gulped once. 'You've caught Kishore Zakkal before. You know him the best amongst all of us. You had also managed to break him when we got Ranjit Kadam. That's why I'm asking you to consult us this one time,' he said in one breath like he was ripping a band-aid.
‘I’ll be glad to do everything I can to get him this time too,’ I said.
‘Now that that is done, let’s get back to work. Join us in five minutes. We’re having a briefing session,’ Shukla said as he stepped out, leaving me alone.
