by UD Yasha
The woman was strapped at her ankles, thighs, stomach and neck. She used whatever little free movement she had to raise her head and check what the madman who had captured her was doing. When Zakkal realized this, he took out a scalpel from the duffel bag and quietly walked towards the woman.
‘I’ll kill you right now if you try that stunt again,’ he said as calmly as anyone would have asked a waiter at a restaurant for some extra ketchup.
Zakkal returned to the duffel bag and removed three more items—a syringe, a cotton swab and some spirit. He held the bottle of spirit in his mouth as he walked back to the woman. He poured some spirit over the cotton and rubbed it on the woman’s forearm.
Zakkal leaned forward and said in her ear, ‘Think about all those whom you loved.’
The woman knew what was coming next. She was still trying to free herself, somehow thinking that there was still a chance to escape. Zakkal smacked her across the face again.
‘I just told you to think about all the people whom you loved. There’s no need to move,’ Zakkal said.
The woman did not listen to him. Zakkal bent down and pulled a strap that he hadn’t used earlier. He whipped it at the woman’s arm and fastened it. The woman still tried to move, but her left arm was tightly tied.
Zakkal hooked up her arm to the blood pressure monitor. He waited for a few seconds as the reading stabilized.
He looked at the camera and said, ‘A touch higher. It’s one hundred by one sixty. But everything is relative, right? I think she’s doing incredibly well knowing that she’s about to die. I’ve seen much higher readings.’ Zakkal walked closer to the camera again. ‘In fact, let me share a secret with you, Siya. If I wasn’t sending this video to you, I would have tried to increase her blood pressure. It’s more fun that way.’ He paused for a beat. ‘In case you were wondering, your mother’s blood pressure was one hundred and twenty by one hundred and ninety. She was really scared that day. She was shouting out your name… She even kept saying it when I had taken her. Her family was all she could think about. It drove me mad for several years. How could she think about anyone else apart from me? But my love for her was far stronger. And then, when you met me at Yerwada, I understood why your mother missed you so much. I mean, look at you! Since then, I’ve made it my life’s mission to love you the same amount that she does. And that day will come, Siya. It’ll come very soon. For now, I’m going to finish what I have started.’
Zakkal walked back to the woman. He connected the remaining syringe into the transparent tube. He rubbed the cotton swab on the woman’s forearm again. In one quick motion, he inserted the syringe in the woman’s arm.
My eyes searched for where the blood was being drawn to. I didn’t see any bag or anything, for that matter, connected to the other end of the pipe. A realization hit me and my hands went cold. Rathod knew Zakkal the next best after me, so even he realized what was going to happen next. He put an arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer.
Zakkal turned to the camera and smiled again. His eyes were bloodshot. His face was pure evil. He raised his hand, thereby raising the other end of the pipe along with it. Blood thrust out of it.
Zakkal stepped closer to the lens again, holding up the pipe.
'Bye-bye, Siya,' he said while laughing and pointing the stray end of the pipe at the camera.
The entire frame turned a dark shade of red as more blood hit the lens square in the middle. As the blood leaked out of the woman, some of it trickled down the lens. All that we could see was Zakkal's figure, against a filter of red while he laughed the way I had never heard a man laugh before.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I had never seen Zakkal kill anyone before. If the way his eyes changed right before he killed was evil, the manner in which his entire body vibrated while actually killing the woman was downright scary.
None of us said anything for a while. We were too jarred to form coherent thoughts. Rathod squeezed my shoulder and pulled me even closer. All I wanted to do was bury my head in his chest and forget about everything. But I had a job to do.
‘There’s one more video,’ I said and tapped on the file that was named ‘Be A Good Girl’.
Another video popped up and consumed the entire screen.
An empty chair lay in the same room-- the background still had the rough wall from which paint was peeling, and the floor was still white. Zakkal stepped into the camera frame two seconds after the video started. He was wearing different clothes this time. A pair of black jeans and a white T-Shirt that hugged his body. He looked fitter than he did when I had seen him at Yerwada Jail.
Zakkal sat on the chair. It was made from metal and it creaked ever so little when Zakkal sat on it. He dragged it closer to the camera.
‘If you watched this video before the previous one, please expect to receive a small gift that you can give your friend Raghav Barve’, Zakkal said, saying Dr Barve’s name with a touch of disgust.
Zakkal face’s this time bore no emotion. In the previous video, he looked excited and happy…as crazy as that seemed.
Zakkal leaned forward on the chair.
‘Now listen to me very carefully. You have twenty-four hours starting from now.’
I checked the time. It was twenty minutes past midnight.
You may be wondering how I would know when the timer starts…I have downloaded a small application on my tablet that lets me know when certain files have been opened. Some anti-virus company thought it was a cool feature to track unauthorized access.’ Zakkal chuckled.
He sat up straighter and continued. 'I bet they never thought that I would find it useful one day. Anyways, I'm deviating from the point. You see, Siya. This is what happens when I talk to you. I lose track of time and I tend to forget what I want to say, I enjoy it so much…So, where was I? Oh yes, you have twenty-four hours. For the record, I'm telling you that I have started the timer. I told you when I first wrote to you that all the blood that is spilt is on you.' Zakkal laughed again. 'I swear that pun wasn't intentional. I meant what I said. I'm giving you one more chance. Surrender yourself to me and nothing else will happen. As I said, you've twenty-four hours for that. If you fail to surrender yourself, then I will kill someone once those twenty-four hours are up. If you still don't surrender yourself to me, I will kill someone twelve hours after that, then six hours later…you get the drift. After six hours, it'll be someone every hour till zero-hour.'
Zakkal leaned forward in his chair and said, ‘I have also been scouting my next prey so rest assured I won’t ever run out of targets. And you know what the best part is? I’ll come after your sister Radha and your mother Naina. It’s in your best interest to come home to me. I’ll be waiting for you.’
Hearing Zakkal say Maa and Radha’s names sent a shiver through my spine. I looked away, repulsed by the thought of him getting anywhere close to them. Then, the fear took over. He cannot take them; not in a million years. The initial wave of terror passed over me and I regained my composure.
My suspicion of Zakkal having abducted more women was right. What we had seen at the farmhouse was just the tip of the iceberg. From what Zakkal said, he had taken at least eight women, including Sudha Barve.
Zakkal went on. ‘If you want to surrender yourself, just let your friend Devaki Sharma know. She’ll broadcast it to the world and I will find out. I’ll do the rest. I’ve had enough time on my hands to plan it all out.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The lives of many, many women are in your hands, Siya. Do the right thing. Come to me. I’ll treat you with nothing but respect and I’ll love you with my whole heart.’ Zakkal blew a kiss to the camera and said, ‘See you soon, my girl. See you really soon.’
With that, the video ended and the screen went dark.
‘That man is screwed in his mind,’ Shukla said. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked me. ‘I’m so sorry you have to go through this.’
I nodded. After the initial flurry of emotions, my mind had calmed down. I kept telling myself that Zak
kal had always engaged in big gestures. This was just one of them. But it felt different this time because Zakkal had planted a metaphorical ticking time bomb by threatening to kill more women.
Shukla said, ‘Zakkal talked about stalking more women and having selected new targets. I think it’s time to issue a statement.’
Rathod said, ‘It’ll only cause people in the city to panic. He could have been talking out of his—’
'You can't base a decision like this on "he could have". Our first responsibility is towards the safety of people,' Shukla said. 'If we issue a statement, people will panic but they will also be more careful. We could prevent Zakkal from abducting more women. If he's indeed been targeting prostitutes, he's going after an already vulnerable subset of the population. I'm calling for a press conference tomorrow morning itself. If it wasn't this late, I would have done it right now. Let's hope that Zakkal doesn't abduct anyone tonight.'
I knew this was a tricky topic. Zakkal would love the attention he would get. His name and face would flash on news channels and on the front pages of all newspapers, and he would start trending on Twitter. By going to the media, we were giving Zakkal exactly what he wanted. But at the same time, Shukla had a valid point. In most societies, prostitutes were amongst the most exploited groups of people. If there was even a slight chance that CID’s statement would prevent the abduction of a woman, then it was worth the risk. When it came to dealing with the most devious minds, I had realized it was futile to engage in ego battles. They never backed down and the collateral damage was too high.
It got me wondering about what I should do. Zakkal wanted me to surrender. I could end this all by turning myself in. I could use myself as bait to get him.
‘You can’t be thinking about it,’ Rathod said, reading my mind.
‘I don’t know. It might be the only way to avoid losing more lives if we don’t get Zakkal by midnight tomorrow.’
Rathod shook his head. ‘You’re not doing that and that’s the end of the discussion. Of all people, you know he’s a psychopath. Do you really believe that he’ll release all the women he has abducted and then never kill again if you surrender yourself to him? Let’s go back to the CID office. We need to go back to the drawing board and regather our thoughts. Dr Sonia has sent two members of her forensic team. They will reach any moment. They’ll sweep the entire place and check if Zakkal left anything behind.’
Before leaving, I looked around once. I said a silent prayer for Smita Kale and then left along with everyone. Just as we got in the car, Shukla’s phone started ringing.
‘Go on, Mathew,’ Shukla said as the call got connected to the car’s Bluetooth.
Mathew said, ‘I just reached the house of the guy who we suspect set Siya Rajput’s house on fire. I have some bad news. Kumar Singhal has been murdered in his house. His throat has been slashed.’
Chapter Thirty
There are two unsaid rules that all police officers live by: eat when you can, and sleep when you can. So, despite the grim state of proceedings in the investigation, all of us were famished by the time we reached the CID office. At one fifteen at night, the canteen in the CID premises was shut and so were most of the restaurants.
I took a punt and texted the head chef of Chef Chu’s, a Chinese restaurant that Radha, Rahul and I ordered from every week. We had become friends with the chef, who was actually a Marathi guy named Sarang Kulkarni. But according to us, he made the best Indo-Chinese food in Pune. Luckily for us, Sarang was awake and ready to deliver food to the office.
‘Making food for police officers would be my honour,’ Sarang said.
He personally delivered the order in twenty minutes. We got plenty of Chicken Lollipops, Burnt Garlic Chicken Noodles and American Chop Suey. A few junior staff members along with Rathod, Shukla, Bhalerao, Mathew, Maa, Radha,Rahul and I—all headed to the conference room. Sarang had got a special bone for Shadow, which he was more than happy to chew on. For the next thirty minutes, there was no talk about the case. In fact, there was hardly any talk at all. Everyone devoured the food. As was always the case, Chef Chu's food was delicious. It tasted even better that night because Sarang threw in a fifty percent discount for us.
Once we were done, it was decided that we would stay in the CID guest quarters for the night. Rathod’s safehouse was ready but it didn’t make sense to move there at night. His close confidant, Shubham Dhawan, had already reached the safehouse.
Soon, Radha, Rahul, Maa and Shadow were taken to the guest quarters on the top floor of the building by an officer named Neeraj Gujre. Knowing we would all be in a building full of police officers was comforting. I stayed back to talk to Rathod about some aspects of the case that were running through my mind. Everyone else had left the office.
Just as I was about to speak, the phone on Rathod’s desk started ringing. Fueled with energy because of the food, Rathod crossed to his desk, picked up the phone, gave two grunts of acknowledgement and said, ‘Yes, we’ll be there.’
He replaced the receiver and said, ‘That was Dr Sonia. She is burning the midnight oil too. She just finished conducting the autopsies of the bodies from the farmhouse. She thinks she has found something that we would want to know.’
Both of us ran downstairs, knowing that this was the one part of the case in which Zakkal had made a mistake. The clues we would find at the farmhouse were actually the ones that would lead us to him. So far, all our efforts had come up empty.
'I'm glad I caught you both before you left,' Sonia said when we reached her office. 'ACP Shukla and Bhalerao are on their way too. Luckily, both hadn't gotten that far away.' Sonia then walked to her office's door. 'If you don't mind, it's been a long night, so I'm heading to the coffee machine to get some.'
Shukla and Bhalerao had reached by the time Sonia returned with coffee in hand. She took a few sips and then downed all of it. ‘Let’s go to my examination room,’ she said and we followed her through the corridor.
Before entering it, a peon handed us face masks that we strapped on. The examination room had also received an upgrade like the rest of the forensic department. It had large steel panels on one side, which I guessed was the cold storage to preserve the bodies while they were being examined. The primary morgue was down the corridor that we had come from. A large screen occupied most of the wall to my right, while there was a large closet to my left. The temperature inside had again dropped by several notches and the smell of formaldehyde wafted in the air. Sonia's assistants, two women whom I had seen around the forensics department before were working in a corner with some test tubes. On seeing us come in, they joined their boss near the steel panels.
Together, they pulled out the steel panels one by one. Once they had been fully removed, I realized that the panels were actually large stretchers on which the bodies were kept.
Sonia stood at the head of the first table and said, 'As you know, we have six bodies, all women aged between twenty-five and forty-five. All were strangled to death. None of the bodies have any other sign of trauma. As I shared with you all earlier, the strangulation marks on the neck of the latest victim, now identified as Aarti Lunkad, are a match with Kishore Zakkal. The remaining women are still unidentified.' Sonia walked across to the second body. 'The condition of Jane Doe Two's remains was worse than those of Aarti Lunkad, but better than the other bodies. Both their bodies gave me something to work with. I've found some commonalities in both. For example, it seems like both women's heads were shaved before they were killed. In fact, the hair follicle pattern and the follicle root's growth indicate that Zakkal shaved their heads repeatedly. I can't tell you why, but this is something that might be useful to you. Apart from the shaving of the hair, I saw some residue of contact lens cleaning solution in the eye sockets of both the women. It was more prominent in Aarti Lunkad's eye sockets, but I found traces of it in Jane Doe 2 as well.'
‘This may sound stupid, but is a contact lens cleaning solution used for anything else apart from cleaning lenses?�
�� I said.
‘It can be for cleansing the eyes in a dire situation, but that’s if you’re stranded on a remote island where there is no medical help and you have developed an eye infection and you happen to have a contact lens solution for some reason.’
‘So, the short answer is no?’ I said.
'Well, you can say that.'
‘Also, this is not consistent with Zakkal’s other known victims, right?’ Bhalerao said.
‘That’s right. He did not do either of these two things.’
Sonia walked across to the last body. 'I can give you a fair idea of when these women died. Please keep one thing in mind—the older the death, the higher is the margin of error. So, take all dates with a wiggle-room of about two weeks.' Sonia paused and inhaled deeply. 'The first woman was killed sixteen months ago. Certain types of flies, insects and maggots only show up during particular seasons. They also breed only at certain times of the year. I found the remains of some maggots in the body that only show up in late winter in Pune. It is June right now. That coupled with the level of decomposition and scavenger activity, I can say that this woman died sixteen months ago.'
Sonia walked across the steel panel. ‘Zakkal killed the second woman about twelve months ago, the third, six months ago, the fourth, two months, the fifth, one and a half months ago, and the sixth, Aarti Lunkad, about ten days ago.’
I ran a quick mental calculation. If the first woman died sixteen months ago, there was a very high chance that she was kidnapped roughly two years ago, soon after Zakkal escaped prison. Zakkal was also killing at a much faster rate now. I glanced at the large clock in the examination room as Zakkal’s words echoed in my mind. If you fail to surrender yourself, then I will kill someone once those twenty-four hours are done. The countdown had started at twelve twenty. It was three o’clock, which meant we had less than twenty-three hours before Zakkal killed again.
