by UD Yasha
Zakkal had been known to use the British era underground canals to move around the city of Pune the last time he was active. Rathod thought that there was no reason Zakkal would not use them now.
To get an idea of the layout of the neighbourhood, Rathod went through the various CCTV videos for the next half hour. Raghav and Sudha Barve lived in an area called Bund Garden in Pune. It was around eight kilometres from CID's office. Just as the fatigue of looking at the screen for a long time kicked in, a message popped up on his computer, alerting him of an incoming email.
It was from the PMC’s Metro Construction Wing, giving him exactly the information he was looking for.
Chapter Sixteen
When I woke up the next day, the initial shock I had experienced from Sudha Barve's kidnapping last night and then Dr Barve's reaction had faded away—what remained was an even stronger will to get her back and put Zakkal behind bars again.
I had received a text from Rathod telling me that Dr Barve had insisted in the morning that he should be allowed to return to work to find the location of the pollen. ACP Shukla had relented and sent a two-man security detail to Dr Barve’s lab.
After a heavy breakfast of Rahul's delicious omelettes and some filter coffee, I strode to my garage and got to work. I knew there was a very high chance that the answers to Zakkal's whereabouts lay in the letters he had received while in prison. I texted Rathod, telling him about the line of investigation I was taking.
I sifted through the papers to find whackos and creeps who had expressed to Zakkal their desire to kill. Zakkal had only replied to a few of these letters. Two that stood out from the list were Shaam Pundlik and Manoj Bedi.
We had spoken to both of them two years ago. Both were doctors and Zakkal had suggested that they should meet once he was out of prison. If their letters to Zakkal alone were not strong proof, meeting them had convinced us that both were first-degree creeps. We needed to find out if they were all just talk, or if they had actually tried to partner with Zakkal in some way.
I stacked the letters that Shaam Pundlik and Zakkal had written to each other. I wanted to read them again and try to get into the mind of Pundlik before meeting him. I started with the first letter that Pundlik had written to Zakkal.
Dear Kishore Zakkal,
I am a huge fan. I really admire your work. I wish I had known you when we could still meet openly and talk face to face. I would have loved to know about your craft and technique. From what I’ve read, your work was a piece of art. To have kept the bodies hidden for so long! Wow! You deserve to be given more credit and accolades.
I wish to hear back from you. I wish to learn whatever I can through these letters. If not your technique, at least the thoughts you had before and after you killed.
Yours truly,
Shaam Pundlik
Zakkal’s reply had gotten me curious. Even though he had gotten many different requests—of varying nature, he had not responded to all of them.
Dear Shaam,
Thanks a lot for your kind words. I would've loved to meet you as well. Maybe we'll still meet under the blue sky on a cosy winter night. Who knows? Weirder things have happened.
I want to know something. Have you ever killed or are you a closet murderer? Let me tell you one thing. The difference between the two is like porn and sex. They seem the same until you experience both. I look forward to hearing from you. Also, wish you and your family a happy New Year on my behalf.
With love,
Zakkal
I wondered if Pundlik had actually taken up Zakkal on his offer. It seemed like the man was ready to take the plunge. I read two more of their letters.
Dear Shaam,
I am glad to know you’re considering my request of experiencing the joy of killing. Here’s a tip. I learnt it the hard way because no one taught me. You’re lucky to be learning from the best. When you strangle someone, keep the pressure on for a good three to four minutes. You’ll need physical strength for it. Let me know how it goes.
Good luck,
Zakkal
Pundlik's reply to it was even scarier.
Dear Zakkal,
Thank you for the tip. I am strangely not feeling nervous. I've selected my target. As you said, I am trying to get to know her from afar. I'll let you know everything. My hands are shivering with excitement as I write this.
Thanks for everything,
Shaam
We had not been able to locate Pundlik right away the last time around. He had lied to his family about his whereabouts. Eventually, the officers chasing him had given up and Pundlik had returned to the hospital where he worked. Rathod had later asked a hawaldar to follow up, and the only reply that Pundlik gave was that he was travelling to Mahabaleshwar and it was none of our business. The hawaldar had enquired about Pundlik at the hotel where he said he was staying and his story had held up.
Manoj Bedi’s correspondence was not as explicit, even though he had shown tendencies of wanting to murder other people and learn as much as he could from Zakkal. One line that Bedi wrote in his letters to Zakkal stood out: Let me know if I can assist you in any way. It’d be my honour to work for you.
I knew from our investigation files where Pundlik and Bedi stayed and worked. I got up from my chair, thinking it was time to say hello to them again. Radha and Rahul came to the garage with some coffee for all of us.
‘We want to help,’ Radha said.
I had feared that Radha or Rahul would say this. ‘Please let me do this on my own for this case. It’s dangerous.’
‘We don’t have to step out of the house. We can go through paperwork, do some digging online or make calls. Whatever to ease your burden,’ Radha said.
‘Hand us the donkey work and you can do what matters,’ Rahul said and grinned.
‘I’m afraid to involve either of you, especially after what happened to Dr Barve’s wife. I want to keep the people I care about away from all this. Please, let me do this by myself.’
‘What about your safety?’ Radha said.
‘I’m always going to be either around the house or at the CID office. I’ve enough people around me,’ I said, knowing there were plenty of chances for Zakkal to show himself to me without anyone being around. But I wasn’t going to share that with my little sister.
‘Still, please be extra careful with everything.’
‘I will. Don’t worry. You both stay indoors too. How’s Maa doing?’
‘She has already watered her plants and spoken to them. She’s now in her room reading a book. She’s alright and doesn’t know anything yet.’
‘I’m glad I have been using the garage for work other than solving crimes in the past six months. So, me spending time in the garage won’t alarm her.’
I glanced at the clock. It was almost twelve. ‘I need to go to the CID office,’ I said, getting up from my chair. I hugged Radha and whispered in her ear that I loved her. Then I pulled out my phone and texted Rathod that I was on my way to the CID office.
Chapter Seventeen
I saw Rathod staring at his computer screen when I reached the CID office. He noticed me as I pulled a chair next to him.
‘You won’t believe what I’ve found’ he said, keeping his eyes on the screen.
I noticed he was looking at two maps of Pune city; both were zoomed in on Bund Garden, the area where Sudha Barve lived.
‘We know that Zakkal used the canals from the British era to move about in Pune, right? I’m cross-referencing the known locations of those long-lost canals with the roads around Bund Garden,’ Rathod said.
‘That’s a brilliant idea,’ I said. ‘Bund Garden is at the Mula-Mutha river, which means it would have had many of those canals.’
Running through the centre of Pune City, the Mula-Mutha river had once divided it into two parts. Now, the river’s flow had been significantly reduced and it had become narrower as the city had become larger. More than a river, many of the city’s residents looked at it as a glorified
gutter; at least the part of the river that ran through the city.
‘I’ve found six canals, all of which open at different points in and around Bund Garden,’ Rathod said, pointing at the screen to show the circles he had drawn on the map. ‘I’ve gone through four so far. We have one advantage here. Because the canals are old, they are located at extremely tricky points—completely isolated from easily accessible areas. That makes monitoring them extremely easy. There was no activity near the four I have looked at. But them being in unpopular areas is also a drawback as there aren’t enough shops or restaurants around them. So, we don’t have the kind of CCTV footage we would want.’
‘How are you checking them out then?’
‘As I know where the canals are, I’m looking at the vehicles that have travelled in their direction from Sudha Barve’s house. I know it sounds tedious but there’s no other way.’
‘Let me help,’ I said.
Rathod pointed at a free computer next to him. ‘Use that. It already has the data we want. Check for the canal near the Royal Connaught Boat Club. I’m looking at the one next to it near the Max Mueller Bhavan.’
I booted up the computer and got to work. A lot of Pune’s elite were a part of the Boat Club. It was a classic place to enjoy an evening or spend your Sunday afternoon. Despite the club's extensive coverage, no camera pointed directly at the canal I was interested in.
'Even I'm using the footage from the Boat Club. These are the moments I love rich people the most—the extent to which they go to protect their own or keep the world at large away from them is staggering. But I wouldn't complain if it gets us to Zakkal,' Rathod said with a smirk on his face.
Rathod pushed a list towards me. ‘Those are the cars that came from around Sudha Barve’s house post eight in the evening yesterday. Check if any of them show up near the Boat Club canal.’
I glanced at the list. It was long. Each entry had a number plate, a rough description and the make and model against it. I could tell that Rathod had been at this for a while and he had worked tremendously hard to find the canal that Zakkal had used. He believed in his theory. It was a sound one, which enthused me as well.
I squinted my eyes hard at the screen. I didn't make much progress in the first minutes. Then, in quick succession, I saw two cars from Rathod's list crossing the Boat Club area. One was a Mahindra Scorpio, a large SUV and the other was a Honda City, a sleek sedan. Both cars had exited one after the other from Sudha Barve's lane at fifty minutes past nine. They had entered the Boat Club premises nine minutes later. The Scorpio had exited Boat Club almost right away but the Honda City had stayed back. This seemed strange to me.
I got a zoomed-in version of the number plate on both cars from the cameras at the security gate of the Boat Club. I noted it down for Rathod to run it through the central database. Being a consultant, I did not have access to it. I tried to zoom in on the faces of the people inside the cars. But the sun had long set and the light simply was not enough. A powerful camera would have been able to get a better picture, but the grainy feed of the zoomed-in CCTV footage was not cutting the bill.
If Zakkal was in one of the two cars, then I guessed there would be some movement at the canal near the Boat Club. I switched to the feed of the camera nearest to the canal.
The timestamp read fifty-nine minutes past nine.
The angle was not ideal. The feed I was looking at was coming from the rowing area’s entrance. The canal was deep in the background and in the dark as it was not a part of the Boat Club. Apart from the canal and the rowing space’s entry, I could see a part of the restaurant building and a small portion of one of the three car parking areas. It was going to be hard to spot any movement near the canal. I looked for other cues that could give me something to work with.
The light from the tower near the rowing area was just about reaching the place where the canal was supposed to be. It was slightly breezy because of the rainy weather. I could make out ripples in the water from the light coming from the rowing tower. I did not know much about camera technology but a photography expert I knew from my days of practising law had once told me that everything looks better when it is brighter. When I was trying to get a better view, the light shining on the water near the canal made the ripples much crisper.
I had found my reference point.
Once again, it was not ideal, but better than literally staring into the dark. I had to be on top of my game to spot the movement if there was any. That's why I could not afford to fast forward either. I watched the seconds roll by. They soon turned into minutes as the clock kept ticking. The timestamp on the bottom right of the video read thirty-two minutes past ten when I still had not found anything.
I paused and went back to check the main gate’s cameras. I could afford to fast forward footage from this angle. At twenty-two minutes past twelve, the Honda City went out. It had been inside for around two hours. I went back to the canal’s video and kept watching it frame by frame.
Then, something strange happened at forty-one minutes past ten. The Honda City entered the car park. I had one eye on the clock so I knew it stayed there for four entire minutes. Then, it drove away. I could only see its profile view. No one had entered or exited it from the side visible to me. But the other side was a blindspot. Anybody could have exited the car from the doors on the side I couldn’t see. The car also had stayed long enough for whoever had stepped out to not be blocked by the car itself.
I turned to Rathod, feeling confused but hopeful.
‘I might have got something,’ Rathod said to me just as I said, ‘I think I’ve got something.’
If Rathod had longer hair, his eyebrows would have touched it.
‘Wait, you got something too?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said in a low voice.
‘You were looking at the Boat Club videos, right?’
I nodded.
‘I was looking at the canal near Max Mueller Bhavan,’ Rathod said.
‘Both of us possibly can’t be right,’ I said.’
‘You go first,’ he said and I told him what I had seen.
‘What about you?’
‘Just a minute,’ he said and turned to the paper on which I had scribbled the registration numbers of the cars. He fed them into his system and waited. His fingers tapped the desk while a small circle on his screen got filled.
The moment the circle got fully coloured, Rathod slammed his fist on the table, drawing the attention of the people around us. ‘I got it,’ he yelped. ‘We’ve found our first clue, Siya.’
Chapter Eighteen
Rathod jumped up from his desk in excitement. His hands were still working away on the keyboard and mouse.
‘What’s happening?’ I said. ‘What did you find?’
‘Hold on for a second. I’m making sure I’ve got this right,’ he said as he read the document that had popped up on the screen.
A few minutes passed before he spoke. 'Nana Shirole. He's involved,' Rathod said, looking at me. 'The two cars that you found are suspected to be used by members of his gang. I was just checking some police reports where they have been sighted before at crime scenes in which Shirole's gang are suspects. By itself, what you found would not have been enough. But, it ties in perfectly with what I came across. The canal camera footage that I was looking at was also not a hundred percent conclusive. But it clearly shows that a car that exited the lane of Sudha Barve's house stopped very close to the canal for a minute. It was a Maruti Suzuki Ertiga. It's an SUV, so it's big enough for Zakkal and Sudha Barve to be at the back. Its windows had a dark tint. I got a partial view of the person driving the car. A guy named Kunal Shah. He's a known associate of Nana Shirole.' Rathod paused for a flash. 'What are the odds that three cars linked to Nana Shirole left from around Sudha Barve's house and stopped near two canals, either of which Zakkal might have used.'
I felt a cocktail of anger, excitement and frustration rip through my veins. ‘What time did the car you were tracking leave
Sudha Barve’s house?’ I said, remembering that the cars I was following had left at nine fifty.
‘Forty minutes past nine,’ Rathod said.
‘So, before my cars left.’
‘Some could have been a decoy.’
‘Why have three cars?’ I said.
‘I have absolutely no idea.’
‘Great work,’ I said.
‘But…’ Rathod said, realizing that even though we had linked Zakkal to Shirole, we were going to get very little out of the lead. ‘Shirole…that son of a bitch won’t talk.’
‘Can we offer him something for his cooperation?’ I said.
‘We’ll have to take it up with the Governor.’
‘Why would Shirole get in bed with Zakkal?’ I said, voicing a thought I had right from the start.
‘Money,’ Rathod said. ‘Shirole runs after money. Zakkal might have offered him a high amount to seek his services.’
‘That’s true, but Zakkal’s evil is extremely different from Shirole’s evil. I can’t figure out the reason.’
Silence.
Rathod said, ‘Could Zakkal have something on Shirole? Could Zakkal be blackmailing the master of blackmail?’
‘We need to talk to Shirole. It’s going to be hard getting through to him but we need to figure out a way.’
‘Even if we meet him, he’s just going to deny any wrongdoing. At best, we have circumstantial evidence. But like you said, he’s our only lead right now.’
‘Along with Shaam Pundlik and Manoj Bedi,’ I said.
‘You still think they might be involved, especially if Nana Shirole is in play as well?’
