by UD Yasha
I walked deeper inside.
That's when I noticed that the bucket was filled a quarter of the way with a red liquid. It felt too thin to be all blood. But I was sure that the redness came from blood. The plastic sheet next to it also had stains of red.
‘We need to show you something at the back,’ Bhalerao said to Rathod and me. ‘Come with me.’
We followed Bhalerao out and towards the backside of the house. The water tower stood tall next to us.
'In there,' Bhalerao said, pointing at a narrow staircase that went to a chamber underground. 'It's the engine room of the tower. They built it many years ago. There's no engine inside it now because it's all-electric. But the chamber is still present.'
Shukla emerged from the staircase. He gave us a slight nod of his head and stepped out of our way.
As Rathod and I went down the stairs, unsure of what to expect, an impersonal, but an all too familiar coppery smell of blood greeted us. It was bracing us for what was to come.
I realized right away why Bhalerao wanted us to check it out.
The chamber was the one where Zakkal had shot the videos in which he killed the lady and recorded the message for me.
I stood still, knowing that not long ago, Zakkal had breathed in the same air that I was breathing. He had stood at the exact spot and plotted out his revenge, or as he would say it, his ploy to get me. I could picture the entire video play out in the room.
The stretcher had been pushed against the wall. There was nobody on it then, but I still pictured the lady we had seen in the video, begging Zakkal to let her go. Zakkal’s laugh that followed still echoed in my mind. The images were so vivid that it almost felt like Zakkal was right in front of me. His words played in my mind.
Surrender yourself to me and nothing else will happen. If you fail to do so, 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.
Rathod’s hand on my shoulder brought me back to the present moment.
‘Hey, you okay?’ he asked. ‘I know this is hard. But that we’re here is a big step. We’re closer to him than we think.’
I took Rathod’s hand from my shoulder and held it tightly. I felt my eyes get heavy. I leaned on him and hugged him tightly. He put a hand on the small of my back and gently patted it. I realized why I had broken down. I had remembered something else that Zakkal had said. I’ll also come after your sister Radha and your mother Naina. It had triggered thoughts that I had tried to keep away.
I withdrew from the embrace and wiped away the tears. Rathod didn't look back at me while I was staring at him. Instead, he was looking at the chamber. That's why I appreciated having him as a partner so much. He always knew what to say and what to do. Along with Radha, he was my pillar of strength.
The outburst of emotion made me feel better. I had been holding it in for far too long. I turned back to the chamber. It was bigger than I had anticipated before entering it. The white floor had a tint of red on it. There was blood splatter on the walls as well.
‘Let’s go back upstairs,’ Rathod said. ‘I don’t think we’ll find much else here. Sonia’s forensic team will sweep this place soon. ACP Shukla told me he’s already asked for backup to arrive. They’ll watch this place from a distance and see if Zakkal gets back.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
We climbed up the stairs and inhaled the night air. I had never been happier to breathe fresh air. I saw ACP Shukla and Bhalerao in the distance near the riverbank, wondering what they were doing there. I looked their way for a few more seconds before heading to the house.
Shankar was standing guard outside.
I pointed at Shukla and Bhalerao and asked him, ‘Do you know what the two of them are doing there?’
'They just went there. I think they got a call from Dr Sonia Joshi's office. She wanted them to get some samples of the soil.'
I thanked him. Rathod and I entered the house.
‘I’m not sure what Zakkal used this place for,’ Rathod said. ‘The underground chamber seems like his killing floor.’
‘How many times has Zakkal actually slit the throat of someone he had abducted?’ I said.
‘That’s a good point. No one comes to my mind,’ Rathod said.
‘He has taken his victims’ blood out and sprayed it around. He only slit the throats of people like Smita Kale or Kumar Singhal. They were never his ideal targets but just obstacles in his way.’
‘But that doesn’t tell us why he had this place,’ Rathod said.
‘Maybe the bed in front of us is where he strangled those women to death,’ I said. ‘His twisted mind works in ways that you and I can never imagine.’
‘But why take bodies to the farmhouse and put them on display? The water tower engine room chamber is a better place to hide bodies.’
'Let's look around,' I said and walked deeper into the room.
We pulled out gloves from our pant pockets and put them on.
I said, ‘According to Dr Sonia, the women were kept here while they were alive or after they had been killed. They were all strangled to death. Maybe this very room is his killing floor.’ I pointed at the hooks on the ceiling. ‘Just look around. Why would you have all this? That bucket and mop there as well.’
‘Don’t forget those clean white sheets,’ Rathod said.
‘And these large closets too. They look so out of place,’ I said, wondering what was inside them.
I stood in front of the closet nearest to me and stared at it for a second. Both the closets were made from dark wood. Both had the same intricate carving on the front side along with a steel handle. It did not have a keyhole. I pulled the door open.
The moment I saw what was inside, I knew I would never be able to forget it. My hands turned cold and my throat became dry. A gasp escaped my mouth and made Rathod rush to my right elbow.
There were three shelves inside the cupboard. The topmost shelf had six bottles of lens cleaning solution, all placed equidistant from each other. Next to each bottle, there were three packets of zero-power contact lenses. They were all green, the same eye colour as Maa, Radha and me.
On the second shelf, six wigs were placed next to each other, once again equidistant from each other. The artificial hair on the wigs was curly, the same kind that Maa, Radha and I had. A bottle of hair serum, shampoo and conditioner lay on the extreme right of the same shelf. It was all of the same brands that I used. I had changed my brand of hair serum just a year ago.
A chill ran up my spine. I had always thought that Zakkal was watching us. But looking at the exact same brands of the haircare products that I used, I was sure he had been watching me. Had he been to my house? To my bathroom? Had he watched me, Maa or Radha sleep?
On the bottom-most shelf, clothes were stacked in four piles, once again all equidistant from each other. Each pile had the exact same type and colour of clothes. For example, the first pile had only light blue kurtas. I owned the exact same kurta. The second pile had white slip-on salwaars. I owned those as well. The third pile had my favourite T-Shirt in which I loved sleeping. It was green in colour. The fourth pile had grey shorts that I wore along with the green T-Shirt.
‘All those are mine,’ I said, my voice almost a whisper.
‘The other closet had more of the same,’ Rathod said.
I took a step back. I knew Zakkal was obsessed with Maa, Radha and me. But what I was seeing in front of me was pure lunacy. What was even more eerie was how Zakkal had arranged everything. There was a method to his madness.
What Dr Sonia had shared about Aarti Lunkad and Jane Doe Two came back to me. 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 a contact lens cleaning solution in the eye sockets of both the women.
I felt sick in my stomach after knowing what Zakkal had been doing.
‘He’s actually dressing up his victims from head to toe to make them look like you,’ Rathod said.
I needed to get out of there. Away from that closet, away from the room and away from anything that Zakkal had ever touched or set his sight on. I went out in the open air. The cool breeze once again lashed on my face.
I heard Rathod come after me. He said nothing but just stood next to me. We stood under the moonlight, watching the water flow and hearing the insects chirp. We needed some normalcy in our lives to ground ourselves and believe in the simpler things.
What we had experienced in the last six hours was not human. Zakkal was evil, and we knew we had to give everything we had if we ever wanted to catch him.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Any police officer or detective who has spent long enough in the field knows that there comes a point in every investigation when you feel you have reached your absolute limits of extreme emotion. It’s a feeling where you think you can’t give anymore. When it came to dealing with Zakkal, I knew we had already hit that limit on a couple of occasions this time around. That’s why there was pin-drop silence when we drove back to the CID office.
We reached at four-thirty in the morning. I was exhausted from the day. Parts of my body that I didn't know existed were aching. Shukla told us that we would have the debriefing session the next day when all of us were in better shape.
Rathod walked me to the top floor of the CID building that had the guest quarters.
He said, ‘We’re going to get him, Siya. He’s made two mistakes so far. The bodies at the farm and then leaving traces of the soil sample at Sudha Barve’s house. I feel we’re very close.’
I hugged Rathod. I always felt safer when I did that. ‘Thanks for everything,’ I said and then bade him goodnight.
I watched him enter the lift and then went to the guest quarters. Dr Barve had stayed there the previous night. That room was not big enough to accommodate four people. So, two mattresses had been spread in the office next to the guest room.
A sound came from the room and then the door opened. Radha walked out. Her eyes were swollen. I could tell she hadn’t slept.
‘Is everything okay?’ she asked me.
‘Yes, Dr Sonia finished performing the autopsies and we went out to follow up on some clues,’ I said. I wasn’t going to tell her anything more—there was no point to it and she would unnecessarily lose sleep.
‘Good. We tried to sleep but couldn’t manage to since you were out,’ Radha said. ‘They had originally put us in two different rooms. But we decided to drag the two mattresses from the office into the guest room. We didn’t feel like sleeping separately.’
‘That was a good idea.’
‘You look tired. Let’s go in, big sister.’
I once again felt blessed to have a sister like Radha. I followed her into the room. There was not much spare space inside once the additional mattresses had been brought in. But, that night, there was no other place that I would have rather slept.
I lay on the bed and fell asleep before I knew it.
‘What a load of shit,’ Zakkal muttered under his breath.
Zakkal was in the study room of his house. He was staring at a red dot that was flashing on his laptop screen. He had installed a security system that tracked movement at his hideout in Shileshwar. He had almost considered not having it. He had wondered if it would ever be useful. But on escaping from Yerwada, he had realized that the world in the year 2020 was very different from when he used to abduct and kill women before. Technology was leading the way in every field—whether it was forensic science or how teenagers used their thumbs more than their brains.
A part of him had also wanted to install security cameras at the hideout. However, the water tower was a secluded spot and he thought having the cameras would draw attention. Apart from that, they would also record him entering and exiting the hideout. He thought getting caught because of that would be stupid.
The flashing red dot was a bad sign.
How the hell did they find my place?
He knew Siya would make the connection that he had killed that woman and recorded the message for him in the old engine room of the tower. She would also find the wigs, the contact lenses and the clothes.
Zakkal cursed again under his breath while shaking his head. While the situation itself was bad, he hated it even more because it had taken place when he had plans to spend time with his lover.
He was aware that the damage was done. He thought hard if he had left anything else behind that may be a problem for him. He had always been cautious.
But then how the hell had they found my place?
Zakkal believed he had planned each and every small detail till then. Left just enough breadcrumbs to play around with the CID.
Had they found out something else?
‘Are you coming, honey?’ His lover asked from the bedroom.
Zakkal raised his hand high, fist coiled and smashed it on the desk. His teeth clenched. Hearing His lover’s voice at that moment was a distraction he didn’t want.
This isn’t the time to lose your cool.
Zakkal closed his eyes, running various scenarios in his mind. Despite being watchful, he knew there was a loose end somewhere. He thought back to the conversation he had with Siya at Yerwada. He had slipped up then. He had told her that his first murder was that of his father. That's how she had connected the dots and gone after Ranjit.
Did I mention anything else to her?
He was sure he had not. While he was planning his next moves after escaping from prison, he had considered the off-chance that he had let something more important slip while talking to Siya. That’s why his entire plan was not based on anything from his past. He had stopped spraying his victims’ blood in their bathrooms. He had started abducting prostitutes, something he never thought he would do. He had also not kept them alive for a long time. He had also hunted for prostitutes from different agencies.
I still can’t tell how they found my place near the water tower.
And then an idea popped into his mind.
He remembered that he had visited the water tower a few hours before abducting Sudha Barve. He had to pick the supplies to spray her bathroom with her blood.
Did I leave something behind?
He realized he had to have. There was no other way… right?
But what could I have left that took them to the water tower?
Zakkal was sure he was missing something. For the first time, he felt anxious. Not knowing how Siya had found the water tower was driving him crazy.
‘My sweetheart, are you coming? I’m sleepy!’ His lover said again.
Zakkal clenched his fists even harder. This is going to end now. He got up from his chair and turned around in one quick motion. His hands tingled. He marched to the bedroom. His lover looked up and smiled. Zakkal’s face stayed the same—devoid of any emotion.
His lover grimaced. ‘Is there anything wrong?’ she said.
There will be something wrong very soon.
On instinct, Zakkal leapt forward. He had told His lover that he liked to be rough in bed so she didn’t flinch when he pounced on her. He was itching to grip her throat and watch the life get sucked out of her. She wouldn’t know that he was going to kill her until her face turned a light shade of blue.
But something changed and it held him back.
Looking in her green eyes and her curly hair, he pictured Siya in place of His lover.
I cannot harm Siya, can I?
Zakkal got down from the bed, leaving His lover with a confused look on her face. He exited the bedroom and just then, he realized what may have led the CID to find the tower.
It has to be the farmhouse.
Zakkal didn’t have a security system installed there
because the place had no electricity. I need to go and find out for myself.
Fuming, he slipped into a thin sweater and stomped to his car. The drive to the farmhouse was going to take some time. If the CID had found the bodies at the farmhouse, then Zakkal knew there was a chance they were staking out the area. He knew just the place to find out if the farmhouse had been breached.
If it had been busted, he knew exactly what he was going to do next, and the prospect of it put him in a blissful trance because it meant that he was going to fast track his plan.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The sun had made an appearance the next day by the time I woke up. It was almost nine-thirty. Despite sleeping for less than six hours, I felt incredibly fresh and the adrenaline was already pumping in my veins. Time was running out. We had fifteen hours and ten minutes before Zakkal would kill again.
Radha, Rahul and Maa had had a late night as well so even they were just waking up. I got a generous morning display of affection from Shadow. Over the last few years, he had developed a keen sense to know when to cheer me up.
After I freshened up and came back to the room, my phone buzzed in my hand. It was a text from Rathod.
I just reached the office. Let’s all have breakfast together. Let me know when you all can come to the canteen.
Within the next ten minutes, because of the added incentive of a good breakfast, all of us, including Shadow, were in the canteen. Rathod told us that he missed the CID canteen dosa the most when he had been suspended. So, we had filter coffee and dosa for breakfast. Radha pulled out some treats from her purse for Shadow.
We were losing valuable time so we made it quick. At five minutes past ten, we had finished eating.
Just as we were going to leave for the safehouse, Rathod’s phone pinged twice.
He turned to me and said, 'I’ve got some good news. Dr Sonia just texted me. She has found some DNA in the wigs we found yesterday. She’s trying to find a match. And ACP Shukla's media statement and press conference are starting in five minutes. He has advanced it so that people get an adequate warning and he gets done with the media frenzy first thing in the day.'
