The Woman Who Vanished

by UD Yasha

  We rode the elevator down. I went to Anil’s car. I put my head up to its window and tried to look in. The dark tint made it hard to notice anything particularly. I went around and leaned on the windshield to get a better view. I suddenly realized his car’s engine was warm. He had been out recently. His words came back to me. I’ve rested all day. I got up just before you rang the bell.

  I turned back and headed to our car with only one thought in my mind. Anil Verma was hiding something. He was a liar. Was he also a killer? My phone vibrated. It was a message from Rathod.

  * * *

  Sonia found a partial fingerprint inside the bag that held the pollen. She’s testing it now.

  * * *

  I punched the air and grinned. We were making progress.

  It was almost four o'clock by the time we picked up Radha and Shadow from what she called ‘heaven on earth'; she was referring to a pet-friendly book café she had found. I could already picture her going there whenever she had the time. As we neared our house, I called Rathod and told him about our afternoon.

  ‘Also, good news,’ he said. ‘I hastened the process of making copies of Zakkal’s prison correspondence for you. It’s almost complete. Twenty more minutes. I’ll send it across right away.’

  ‘What about the tests on the pollen grain?’

  ‘Sonia just got started on it. She said it might take time as the pollen grain was inside Zakkal’s mouth for a while and it’ll be a task to analyse it fully. She’ll get the fingerprint results soon. She’s testing it against the inmates at Yerwada first up,’ Rathod said and hung up.

  Five minutes later, Rahul veered the car into the compound of our house. Like always, Shadow was excited to get back home. He loved it more than a man desperate for a leak. He tapped his paw on the door until I had to lean sideways and open it. He jumped out and ran around the house.

  We walked to the main door when Shadow completed his round. He was still barking. I had never seen him this excited. He ran towards us and then back to the lawn where he had finished his round.

  That’s when I saw it.

  Shadow was not excited to be back home, he was angry someone had been to his home without his permission.

  An envelope lay in the middle of the lawn.

  I gasped and stepped back instinctively. Radha and Rahul turned to me. They followed my gaze to the envelope. They saw it as well. Radha clenched my shoulder. Goosebumps chilled my body.

  ‘What is that? Rahul said and broke step for it.

  I held his hand and pulled him back. ‘We don’t know if it’s harmful,’ I said, putting on my gloves.

  ‘What are you doing?' Radha said as I walked out of her grip on my shoulder.

  I ignored her and walked to the lawn. The envelope was rectangular, regular sized and white in colour. It was blank from the outside. I picked it up. It was light. But there was something inside. Another paper. I could see it through the opaque envelope against the light. I turned to Radha and Rahul who had broken step for me. We all went inside.

  ‘I’m going to check upstairs,’ Rahul said.

  ‘Here, take this,’ Radha said, giving him a knife from the kitchen. ‘Be careful.’

  The Bedroom Strangler had instilled fear in us. We did not feel safe in our own house. Rahul bolted upstairs. Shadow ran with him. Rahul announced each room he went to—'Siya’s room, Radha’s room, bathroom, terrace, balcony.’

  He returned in two minutes and went to the only bedroom on the ground floor.

  ‘It’s all clear. I checked everywhere. The windows are still locked and the doors are bolted. All cupboards and beds are safe,’ he said. ‘What’s in the envelope?’

  Radha spread out a newspaper on the dining table. We sat around it. My heart pulsated in my neck and ear. I did not remember a time it had beat so fast. Sweat gathered inside my gloves. I opened the flap and pulled out the paper inside.

  It had been folded twice. I opened the first fold, wary in the case of a harmful chemical being sprayed on it. We were dealing with a psycho. Anything was possible. I opened the second fold.

  There was a message inside. Handwritten. In cursive.

  My hands holding the note started trembling. My stomach turned to ice and threatened to crush me. At that moment, I remembered Zakkal's stare of death for I read the words in his voice.

  * * *

  Be glad you were not home. Because I was here.

  -xoxo, you know who

  Chapter Nineteen

  I was here. I put the note down. I gathered my composure. I blew air from my mouth. Rahul’s hand patted my back. Another realization dawned on me. This note could’ve been for Radha as well. Thinking about her being in danger made my palms sweaty again. I thought back to when we left the house. What would have happened if Radha and Shadow had been home?

  ‘What about the security cameras?’ Radha said.

  ‘I’ll check them,’ Rahul said and went to get his laptop near the fruit basket.

  I knew the killer would be smart enough to avoid the cameras. He would also be smart enough not to leave any evidence on the envelope or the letter inside. While Rahul pulled up the security camera footage, I called Rathod and told him about the incident so he would take the envelope for analysis. You could never be too careful.

  ‘It’s clean. There was no one in front of the house at any point,’ Rahul said. ‘Once the security system gets updated tomorrow, we’ll have a view of all the sides of the house.’

  The initial wave of fear subsided in the next five minutes. The logical part of my brain took over once again. The killer had not been inside the house. He had not even entered their house compound. But he had been outside their house. He liked to stalk his victims. And now he was stalking us. This could be perceived as a warning, but more than that, I felt, this was again a statement. The killer was saying to them—I was so close to you and you still did not catch me.

  I moved my chair closer to Radha and snuggled her. ‘Big sister’s here to protect you, okay? I would never let anything happen to you.’

  I felt warm tears on my neck. I gently passed my hand over Radha’s head. She had been everything I could have imagined and more in the past three years. She had been my rock. She was the sole reason I was even able to breathe then. She needed me now. And I was not going to let her down.

  The only way to feel safe again was to catch the killer. Doing that would also help us find maa. I realized I needed to take a step back in the investigation. So much had already happened. There was bound to be a clue somewhere. It would be hard to find because my gut told me Zakkal had been planning this for months, maybe even years. He would have looked at every move with a scrutinizing glare to find faults and rectify them. But there was someone else involved this time. Another monster along with him. However much control Zakkal thought he had, he could not pull the strings of someone else as efficiently. Zakkal had himself given me a clue in the form of the pollen grain. I was afraid to find where it would lead us.

  The image of Zakkal pulling the pollen out of his mouth came back to me. I had wanted to puke then and I wanted to puke now just picturing it. It got me thinking about how he could have possibly gotten it inside the prison. The answer could be in his letters of correspondence. The tests on the pollen grain could also possibly reveal how long the pollen had been inside Zakkal’s mouth. That could be corroborated with who sent him letters then. Or who met him. He did not have any visitors; the jail warden had said. He was in solitary confinement as well. How the hell had he got the pollen grain?

  Just then, the doorbell rang.

  Rahul had his laptop open in front of him. ‘It’s Rathod’s man from the CID,’ he said and got up to open the door.

  Rahul put the letter in an evidence bag and gave it to the CID officer, who in turn gave Rahul three large plastic bags that had all the letters sent to and received by Zakkal from prison. Rahul locked the door after him and put the letter bag in front on the dining table.

  Radha looked u
p from my shoulder. Her eyes were puffy. She wiped her tears with her sleeve.

  ‘It's just that too much has happened since yesterday,' Radha said. ‘First, we got to know maa is still alive. We were always hopeful, but I never thought it would actually happen. And then, you went and met Zakkal. I was so concerned about you. If that wasn't enough, we get this letter right now. I'm scared. But I'm also overwhelmed.'

  ‘It’s alright. You cannot always be the reservoir of everyone’s pain. You needed a release. Please remember we’ll always be there for you,’ I said.

  Rahul joined us on the couch. We sat without saying anything for a spell. At times, the best support that you could get was not soothing words but just a calming presence. The sunlight was fading outside. The clock in the living room chimed at five o'clock.

  ‘Enough of this now. I’ll make tea,’ Radha said, getting up.

  I laughed. Not a day in the past thirty years had gone by when tea had not been prepared in the Rajput household between lunch and dinner. Both our parents had the habit of drinking it and we had grown up into it.

  Rahul and I went to the dining table. We removed the letters from the first bag. They had been organized chronologically. The first set of letters dated back to Zakkal’s first year in prison. Over the years, public interest in him had gone down; almost like that of a star athlete after retiring. We divided the letters amongst ourselves.

  ‘Let's note down people who wrote to him multiple times,' I said, picking up the first letter. ‘It'll give us a starting point. Also, look out for anything abnormal in general. Because the same person might have written to Zakkal under different names.'

  Radha brought three steaming cups of tea in fifteen minutes. The strong smell of ginger was refreshing after everything that had happened during the day. Radha joined us in reading the letters.

  ‘There are so many of them,’ she said, looking at the pile on the dining table.

  ‘Two thousand and twenty-one to be exact,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Why do people talk to known and convicted serial killers?’

  ‘Various reasons. Like for example,’ I said, showing her the letter I was reading. ‘This is from The Pune Point newspaper. They wanted Zakkal’s thoughts on a story they were doing. Zakkal did not bother to respond.’ I rummaged through the pile that I had sorted. ‘But there are others. Like this lady called Apeksha Manohar. She started off by asking Zakkal about why he killed. Zakkal replied saying because it was fun. Then the conversation moved to their favourite movies, tourist destinations and memories. It meandered along. Zakkal even asked Apeksha to send photos of her friends.’

  ‘That’s creepy.’

  ‘Apeksha ignored that request. But a lot of people don’t. I already have found another woman who sent Zakkal her photo when he asked for it.’

  ‘Did he respond to that?’

  ‘Yes, by saying you’re beautiful. I would have loved to know you when I was out. There are more letters between them that I haven’t got around to reading yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if some women here felt like they were dating Zakkal.’

  ‘Why would anyone do that?’

  ‘There’s a basic intrigue about such things, especially when it’s about someone dangerous. Not always, but a lot of times, communicating with a serial killer, or any criminal, gives you a high. You experience a thrill in your seemingly mundane everyday life. Also, several people believe that talking to prisoners is a form of community service. They believe that even prisoners are human—the underlying reason behind why they are allowed to get letters in the first place—and that they’re being punished for their crime, so in due course, why not make them feel a bit better?’

  ‘That’s the most twisted thing I’ve heard.’

  ‘Some of these conversations get weird. I’ve already found two instances where women wrote to Zakkal on their own in the first twenty minutes of looking through the letters. Since these are from his first days after being convicted, they’re mostly from psychologists who want a sneak peek into a serial killer’s mind and news organisations so they generate hype around their stories. The latter group will fade away once we get to letters from his second or third year in prison.’

  Rahul read the letters chronologically while I went to the most recent ones in the third bag. I figured if the letters were used to relay messages regarding the murder, maa or the pollen grain, then there would be some mention of it closer to when it happened. We told Radha to make notes wherever we thought it was needed.

  I kept an eye on the clock as we went through them. The tests on the pollen grain would come out soon. At least I hoped. We sifted through over four hundred letters between us in the next four hours.

  The sun had set and the air got cooler. We had not found anything yet that connected anyone to the Bedroom Strangler or the pollen grain. I got up stretched. My mind became numb reading letters on a page. It was a major part of my job once upon a time, but now I needed a small break. I took Shadow out into the garden. He relieved himself near our ambitious bio compost area and then began sniffing around. I sat on the swing and let my mind wander.

  How did Zakkal get the pollen grain in the first place?

  Somebody had to hand it over to him. No one from the outside was allowed to meet him.

  Then it hit me.

  If no one from outside gave it to Zakkal, what if someone from inside gave it to him?

  All sorts of contraband flow in and out of a jail. Each jail has its designated smugglers. Right from money and mobile phones to condoms and valuables, anything could be smuggled into the jail. And not just that, but what if another prisoner, who was allowed visitors, got the pollen grain from the visitor, and then handed it to Zakkal? Was that even possible?

  Zakkal was in solitary confinement. His cell chamber had additional security and more restrictions that made contraband smuggling harder. But not impossible. Certainly not something out of limits of a serial killer who was unknown till he was caught.

  I knew the Indian Constitution had provisions for prisoner rights as well. That made it imperative for all prisoners to get adequate sunlight and open-air time. Zakkal's lawyer would have definitely requested for it under the garb of basic human rights. Maybe another prisoner had slipped Zakkal the pollen grain then. There were ways to hide stuff in a prison's open grounds.

  My excitement with the theory faded a tad. If indeed someone had slipped Zakkal the pollen grain, then how were we going to find out who it was? It could have entered the prison through at least a thousand ways.

  Thinking about Zakkal’s lawyer pushed me to think along another line. I remembered his name. Tarun Mishra. I knew his lawyer from my days of practice. He was one of the most sought-after criminal lawyers by crooks of all kinds. The biggest criminals in India employed him. I called Rathod.

  ‘When was the last time Zakkal met his lawyer Tarun Mishra?’ I said.

  ‘I’ll have to find out. Give me a minute,’ Rathod said. I heard flipping of pages. ‘Ten days ago. Hey, hold on.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘You said his lawyer was Mishra, right?’

  ‘Yes, he’s the one who defended him six years back.’

  ‘Well, it’s someone else now. His name is Hardik Karve.’

  The name did not ring a bell. But that meant nothing as I had been out of touch for three years. I wondered why Zakkal would have changed his lawyer. ‘Have they been meeting regularly?’ I said.

  ‘Fairly. At least once a month.’

  ‘Since when?’ I heard more pages flip.

  ‘For a long time. Wait, I’m checking. The past three years.’

  ‘And how often did Zakkal meet his old lawyer?’

  ‘Rarely. Only three times in three years before that. Do you think he’s involved?’

  ‘It's worth looking into him,' I said. Lawyers are supposed to be checked before they meet their client in prison. Most of the times, it's just the tired hawaldar counting down his duty hours, giving yo
u a pat down along with a basic walk through a metal detector. So, you can get away with something as simple as a pollen grain.

  ‘What makes you think he’ll talk to us? He knows the law. He’s not obliged to answer our questions,’ Rathod said.

  Which was true. Also, Karve was bound by attorney-client privilege. Even if he wanted to, the law prohibited him from speaking to us about Zakkal. Also, there had to be a reason he was meeting Zakkal so often.

  ‘How long did they meet generally?’ I said.

  ‘It varied. But at least fifteen minutes. Most of the times it was around half an hour.’

  ‘He might know something about what’s happening. Let’s meet him.’ I wanted Rathod to come with me. A CID officer’s presence would amp up the pressure on him.

  ‘I’ll look up his contact details,’ Rathod said.

  ‘Let’s surprise him tomorrow morning,’ I said and clicked off.

  Thirty minutes, once a week for three years. Karve was certainly chatty with Zakkal. We were not going to know what they had spoken about. Karve would also mostly use his right to remain silent when we asked him any questions. We probably would not get any information from him. At least not verbal information. But I wanted to see if he could look me in the eye, if his forehead got sweaty, if he got excited and if he enjoyed being asked questions about Zakkal. At times, the use of words is detrimental to telling to truth.

  My trail of thought was broken. Someone was calling my name. I looked up. Radha was at the door, raising her hand, trying to get my attention. Shadow had already spotted her and was jumping on her.

  Radha said, ‘Siya, come inside fast. Rahul found something in the letters.’

  Chapter Twenty

  I returned to our cosy house. The letters. It came back to them. Even before I said anything, Rahul ran to me with a stack of papers in his hand.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe what I found,’ he said.