by UD Yasha
Zakkal had that effect on people. I had many such vivid memories of our conversations at Yerwada. I empathized with Devaki again. ‘Can I ask you a question?’ I said.
Devaki made a ‘please do’ motion with her hand.
‘Why did you publish that story?’ I said.
Devaki inhaled sharply. ‘I had my reasons.’
‘Is that all you have to say?’
‘I broke some rules of ethical journalism when I published that story. I can’t go into the details but the story wouldn’t have happened in the first place if I didn’t quote you.’
Silence.
‘You were telling us about the third bit,’ I said.
'The third is the abduction. He told me that women are like flowers. They bloom over a period of time. Truly appreciating someone's beauty and love means to be with them for a long period and experience that change. If the love stays despite the change, it's meant to be.'
Maa was his first victim. Since Maa’s return, I had tried hard not to think about what had happened to her for all those years. The conversation with Devaki was triggering some of the things that Zakkal had done when he held her captive.
‘Thanks a lot for that,’ Rathod said. ‘Is there anything else that jumps out from your meetings with Zakkal?’
‘I can’t think of anything else.’
‘Did he mention any other woman to you?’ I asked.
‘He only talked about two women for more than two seconds. You and your mother.’
Rathod said, ‘And do you have any idea where he might have gone after escaping?’
‘No clue,’ Devaki said.
Rathod shot me a quick sideways glance.
I said, ‘Has Zakkal ever tried to contact you after you met him at Yerwada?’
Devaki shook her. ‘No. Why do you ask?’
‘We’re trying to trace some aspects of his life,’ Rathod said. ‘This has been helpful.’
Rathod got up and offered her a hand. Devaki shook it.
I said, ‘Can you please not publish anything about what we spoke until we get Zakkal? We suspect he has abducted some women already. It’s for their safety.’
‘How about you give me exclusive access to the investigating team after the case is solved?’ Devaki said.
I knew it was a tough decision for Rathod to allow the woman who had ruined his boss’ career complete access. I don’t think the CID was allowed to even be selective about giving any exclusivity. From what I had seen of Shukla today morning, I reckoned he would be okay with it as long as it meant saving lives.
That’s what Rathod must have thought as well because he said, ‘Done deal.’
They shook hands on it.
We exited the News Twenty-Four Seven office and got in the car just as it started drizzling. I saw the time on the car's dashboard when we started for the CID's office. It was two-thirty in the afternoon.
Time was running out. Zakkal was going to strike again in just over ten hours.
‘What did you make of that meeting?’ Rathod said.
‘I don’t think she’s the one,’ I said. ‘She seems to be too ambitious about her career for Zakkal to care.’
‘You can’t say that. You are ambitious too.’
‘Devaki Sharma is ambitious in a different way. She’s a shark and goes after blood the moment she smells it. Without admitting it, she accepted that she wrote that fake story about me because Zakkal told her to—that was the only way he was going to speak to her. For all you know, that was Zakkal’s way to test her out. She took the bait and possibly saved her life. Devaki runs after the most glittery object. Zakkal would have found it hard to trust her. If she was Zakkal’s lover, and Zakkal was caught, I wouldn’t be surprised if she claimed that she was undercover and writing a story. She’s too volatile,’ I said. ‘I also felt sorry for her for what she had to go through. Meeting Zakkal in Yerwada for any young woman is tough.’
‘So, where do we go from here?’ Rathod said.
Rathod’s phone began ringing when we were ten minutes away from the office. It was Bhalerao. The call got connected to the Bluetooth system when Rathod answered.
Amid the pattering of the rain on the car’s roof, Bhalerao’s voice echoed in the cabin. He said, ‘Rathod, I’ve some news. We’re almost done going through the letters and we’ve got something. We’ve found three women who fit the bill of whom we’re looking for.’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Sudha Barve opened her eyes, unsure of what had happened to her. Her eyelids felt heavy. She tried to stay awake because every second she kept her eyes open, her memory returned in small fragments.
She last remembered a man standing next to her bed, his shadow falling over her. Before she could even scream, his hands had pushed against her face.
Then, it was all black.
She kept her eyes opened and some more fragments came to her one by one. Her body stiffened. She remembered that she had been kidnapped and then drugged.
She looked around. It was pitch black. She had no way to know whether it was night or day. She then remembered that she had heard some sounds not so long ago.
It had been a woman’s scream.
Am I able to still hear it?
There was no sound now. Even the air in the room was dead still.
She tried to get up, and to her surprise, she could stand. Her feet ached terribly. Her head swirled. She sat down again. She told herself that she had the strength to survive whatever was thrown at her.
She sat still for a spell before trying to move again. This time, her balance was better and her head felt calmer. She could move her toes and bend her knees. She took a step to nowhere in particular. Everywhere that she looked, there was only darkness. She paused for two seconds after every step and raised her arms mid-air to look out for obstacles.
After taking roughly eleven steps, her hands hit something. She moved them and realized that she was touching a wall. She walked along it for six more steps until the texture changed.
A door.
Instinctively, her hands searched for the doorknob. She found it. She said a silent prayer to God and turned the knob. It was locked. She was careful not to be too loud as she wasn't sure who or what was on the other side.
She put an ear to the door.
First, she heard the deafening sound of vacuum.
Then, she heard the man.
His voice was coming from afar. Sudha tried to make out what he was saying. He was speaking to someone but she couldn’t hear the other person. He might be speaking on the phone. She pressed her ear harder against the door. The man sounded angry. It triggered another memory. She didn’t know when it was from, but then she didn’t even know for how many days she had been held captive.
She remembered that the man had come to her room. She wasn’t sure if it was the one she was in or some other room. He had cursed her and had told her that he hated her husband.
‘Your flirty husband is the reason I am in this position today,’ the man had said.
Sudha had gotten a clear view of his face. That’s when she had realized that she had been taken by Kishore Zakkal, the psychopath serial killer. Raghav never discussed his work with her, but he had shared the news of Zakkal’s arrest seven years ago. Raghav had been especially proud of his work on that case. She had also read nasty things about Zakkal in the newspaper. Her feet started shaking. The confidence that she had built up was beginning to waver.
Zakkal’s voice became louder with every passing second.
He is coming closer.
Sudha tried to go back to her bed. She stumbled forward. Her hands tried to search for something to hold on to but they found nothing. With a dull thud, she fell on the floor.
She managed to drag her body to the bed. Zakkal’s voice kept getting louder. Just as she reached the bed, a light came on under the crack of the door.
She heard another voice.
It wasn’t Zakkal’s.
Instead, it belonged to a woma
n.
It seemed very familiar.
And at that moment, Sudha remembered the woman as well. Her body started shivering and a piercing pain ripped through her head.
Zakkal was bad, but she knew the woman was a different breed of evil.
Chapter Forty
On our way to the CID office, we realized that we were hungry but couldn’t waste time having lunch. So, we picked up some burgers from a local joint and had them in the car. We reached the CID office at three in the afternoon. I was beginning to feel uneasy. We needed a clue and we needed it fast.
We headed straight to the conference room. Shukla was at the head of the table. Bhalerao and Mathew were next to him. A man whom I didn’t recognize was sitting across the table.
'Rudra Dastur,' the man said and got up on seeing us.
We shook hands. Rudra was tall and he had the kind of hair that male models do in shampoo commercials. In fact, he even had the face that would give some models a run for their money.
‘I’m Siya Rajput. Rathod has told me about you. Thanks for making it at such short notice.’
‘Of course,’ Rudra said. ‘I asked Bhalerao for the case file after Rathod called me. So, I’m familiar with what’s been happening. I knew of Zakkal from before as well because he’s one of India’s most well-known serial killers.’
‘Let’s get straight to business now,’ Rathod said and turned to Bhalerao. ‘Tell us about the women who wrote to Zakkal.’
Bhalerao said, ‘Mathew and I have gone through all the letters. I’ll bring you up to speed with our findings, while Mathew looks up the women and makes some calls to locate them. That way we won’t waste time.’
Mathew got up and left the conference hall along with his laptop.
Bhalerao continued once the door was shut. ‘A total of seventeen women wrote to Zakkal while he was in Yerwada Jail. Out of them, Zakkal responded more than twice to eight, more than thrice to seven and then the number dropped off to three for more than four letters,’ Bhalerao said.
I turned to Rudra. ‘Do you think there’s any chance that Zakkal’s lover could be amongst the fourteen women he stopped responding to?’
Rudra said, ‘My reading of Zakkal is that he’s a master manipulator and control freak. With that in mind, while it could be possible, the odds of it are very low. I’d first focus on the three women he was in touch with longer.’
‘How long did their communication last?’ Rathod asked.
‘Zakkal was in Yerwada for sixty-two months. All three women of interest started writing to him at different times. He has been speaking to Kritika Das the longest. She wrote to him during Zakkal’s second month at Yerwada. The second woman, Anita Thomas, wrote to him in his ninth month. The third woman, Sheetal Patil, wrote to him in his twentieth month at Yerwada. None of them stopped writing to him. Zakkal’s last reply to all of them was three weeks before Ranjit Kadam started killing for his mentor.’
‘What was the usual time between the letters?’ Shukla said.
‘It varied each time. There was no pattern. Sometimes, Zakkal wrote back the day after he received their letters, while other times, he wrote back to them a month later. The same with the women. Although they usually responded within two weeks of hearing from Zakkal,’ Bhalerao said and handed us copies of the letters that the three women had written to Zakkal.
I glanced at the clock. It was three-fifteen.
‘The topmost letter in the stack of papers was written by Kritika Das,’ Bhalerao said. ‘It’s the first one she wrote to Zakkal.’
Dearest Kishore,
I have been following your trial very closely. I look forward to watching you on the news every day. I really wish that the trial hadn’t ended. That was the only way I could see your face. Now, they have locked you up in jail.
How are you? I hope they treat you well inside. There’s a part of me that doesn’t believe that you killed all those women. But there’s another part of me that forgives you. Those women must have done something terrible to you.
I don’t even know if you’ll read this letter. In case you do, I’d love to hear from you.
Yours,
Kritika
I turned to Rudra. ‘I need to understand this. Why do women feel attracted to serial killers?’ I said.
‘The human mind is a funny place. Hybristophilia is a condition of the mind in which you’re sexually attracted to people who commit crimes. These crimes could be of different types—robberies, armed assaults, mass murders…the list goes on. A lot of serial killers across the world have received fan mails and female attention. Some serial killers have even gone on to marry their fans. The most popular example is Ted Bundy. He was said to be handsome and charming. Some women went crazy over him. The same happened with Zakkal. He was arrested at a time when social media usage and news consumption exploded. He was also an unlikely killer. He was a husband and a father. Yet, for these women, he took on the risk by killing so many women. He wasn’t caught for many years, which indicates he’s highly intelligent. He was charismatic, mysterious and authoritative. Having said all that, there isn’t much research on hybristophilia right now so it’s hard to say why women are exactly attracted to serial killers. From the limited research conducted, it is believed that women are more likely to have hybristophilia. It's kind of strange but seventy percent of the reviews of True Crime books on online bookstores are by women. I remember reading that in a working paper written by some professors at Oxford University.' Rudra paused for a flash. 'It's not just women though. All of us have an element of darkness in us and we like to play with it.' Rudra leaned forward. 'Just look around. We call ourselves investigators. We've all seen dozens of horrendous dead bodies. We've listened to criminals speak about their crimes. These are dark acts. But we keep going back to them. We want more of it. You all will admit, that as bad as all this is, we get a kick from solving a crime and getting a killer. Forget about us. Even people who don't work in law enforcement are drawn to crime. The sales of crime books are going through the roof, shattering the previous year's record every time. Crime TV shows are binged at a rate faster than anyone can make them. The BDSM genre in romance is ripe. As I said, we're all dark in some way. Most of us use that darkness to entertain ourselves on a Sunday evening or to put food on our table. Some go the extra mile in indulging it for the thrill.'
Silence resounded in the conference room.
‘Let’s go back to the letters,’ Rathod said.
Zakkal had replied to Kritika a week later.
Dear Kritika,
It's nice to meet you (through this letter?). I loved hearing from you. I hope we can keep talking. It gets lonely at times, but otherwise, I'm fine. I'm keeping myself in shape so that takes a lot of time.
Let me tell you something. You’re right. They were all mean women. I’m glad you understand me. I would love to know you more. You seem like such a sweet woman. Tell me something about yourself.
Till next time,
Kishore
PS- I’ll try to see if I can arrange for a picture to be sent to you.
‘He did manage to send her a picture,’ Bhalerao said. ‘Look at the seventh paper from the top. ‘Even she sent him her photo. First with clothes, and then without.’
‘Did he ever—’
'No, he told her in one of the letters that he wanted to save him for her when she met him in person. He went into graphic detail about the shape, size and what not.'
‘What about the other women?’ I said.
‘Anita Thomas’ correspondence with Zakkal is in the next part. They are held together by a different paperclip,’ Bhalerao said.
I flipped through the stack, pulled it out and read the first letter that Anita Thomas wrote.
Dear Zakkal,
I’ve been a silent admirer of yours for a long time. I had been wondering if I should write to you at all. I’m shy that way. I don’t even know if this letter will reach you. But I was having a bad day, and all that I could think
about was you. So, I thought that I would take the plunge and write down my thoughts. In all honesty, I don’t know if I’m going to send this to you.
I first saw you when they spoke about you on the news. They called you lots of bad things. I want to know your side of the story.
I wish I could meet you once in my life. It would be something special. I want to keep writing these letters to you because I already feel better talking to you this way. Like I said before, I don’t yet know if I should send them to you. Maybe, I think I will. If just thinking about you made me feel better and more secure, hearing back from you will be even better. I really want to know you as a person.
Hopefully, you'll read this soon.
Anita
‘The language in this letter is better than the first one we read, but the content bone-chillingly creepy,’ I said.
‘I know what you’re talking about,’ Bhalerao said. ‘This woman, Anita Thomas, conveys her disturbing thoughts like someone’s writing an email to their boss, telling them that the email has an attachment.’
I went to Zakkal's reply to Anita.
Dear Anita,
I'm glad I made you feel better. I hope what was bothering you has been handled. Also, please remember that you are a strong woman. I know it. You don't need me or anyone else to tell that to you. Especially not another man.
I would love to share all my thoughts with you. Let’s play a game. We’ll ask each other one question each time. There’s just one rule—we will never lie to each other.
Are you game?
If yes, please tell me what you’d do if I was standing next to you right now?
I hope you indulge me. Even I want to know what goes on in that mind of yours. Looking forward to knowing you more. I thought this game would be a fun way to do that.
See you around!
Kishore Zakkal
‘They go back and forth like this,’ Bhalerao said. ‘As you can imagine, the questions and answers get strange. In fact, there’s banter, sexual innuendo and a genuine effort to connect in all the letters that Zakkal wrote to all the three women.’
