Bhendi Bazaar (9 page)

The Delhi Police had instructed Samir Suri's office to wait for the two detectives from Mumbai. Mathur & Mathur went around questioning the key people in the workplace, but nothing seemed out of keeping. Samir's co-workers largely agreed on their opinions regarding the guy. Most were convinced he was a role model, a leader and a family man. A few disagreed — two women to be precise. One was a junior girl in the sales department who broke down telling her woeful tale of how Samir had harassed her, threatened to ruin her career till she agreed to sleep with him. The agreement had been for one night, but Samir kept coming back under various pretexts. The second girl, the receptionist, didn't come forward till someone disclosed the information of her trysts with Samir to
takla
Mathur. When questioned, she agreed, though she admitted she hadn't required any coercion to sleep with the guy. Although neither of these two women had travelled to Mumbai, their mobile phones were scanned, and the mobile companies contacted, to check if either had called someone in Mumbai to get rid of Samir. Nada.

Samir's desk phone still had the list of last ten numbers dialled. Not a single call made to any Mumbai number. Strange, someone in Mumbai knew Samir was travelling to Mumbai. All ten numbers were redialled, checked and eliminated from the enquiry. Delhi Police had acquired the entire telephone list from telephone exchange, but it was worthless. As Samir's office phones had a PBX, it was impossible to identify who made which call. With over 120 people working in the same premises, it would be unworkable. Mathur & Mathur requested Delhi Police to filter the lists and send all Mumbai telephone numbers to the crime squad as soon as prudent. Samir's office was thoroughly searched. Nothing.

The disreputable Delhi Police — who, it was said, could make a corpse confess and a dead man dance — couldn’t bring in a single suspect. They had procured a search warrant and rummaged Samir's house in Vasant Kunj. Still no lead.

Rita got the reports from Delhi, transcript of Vikram’s interview with the deceased’s widow, initial tidings from S/I Nene from the autopsy suite and Jatin's brief preliminary synopsis from forensic laboratory — the detailed reports were to follow. The murders of Lele and Suri, and hence the reports, mimicked each other. She looked at the clock and saw that it was close to midnight. The day had literally flown away. She paged her driver to bring the car around from the parking. It was well past midnight when she arrived at her
Sheesh Mahal
. It had been an extraordinarily long day that had started at five in the morning and lasted nineteen hours.

As she got out of the lift car, she was, she realised, extremely tired. Exhausted. Exhaustion didn’t necessarily mean satisfaction. On the contrary, the feeling of exhaustion was a sign of dissatisfaction; when she was satisfied, she was seldom exhausted, she knew.

Jim looked at her, begging to be picked. Not tonight Jim, I’m drained.

NINE
2007

The phone call could have waited till Rita got to office, but who could blame Vikram for excess adrenaline since he had received intelligence from Juhu Police a couple of hours before. On his part he had tried hard to fight the impulse of calling his boss the minute he got the news, which was quarter past four in the morning. Any more waiting was proving to be an exceedingly uphill task that threatened his sanity.

Rita peeked at the bedside clock. 6:35. This better be good.

'Good morning ma'am.' Vikram sounded excited, like a schoolboy who wanted to share his marks sheet with his mum.

Vikram at this hour could mean one of the two discoveries: another corpse or the killer. Or at least a lead. But the tone wasn't grave enough for either.

'Good morning Vikram,' Rita tongued, rubbing her eyes and mentally working out that she'd had five hours of wholesome sleep. The body felt so much better than the night before.

'Sorry to bother you so early, but I thought you'd like to hear this one. Juhu police got the guest list of all previous guests who had stayed in the hotel room that Samir Suri had checked in since the deep-cleaning over the weekend. The police have questioned the two guests, both males. Both were single occupants, and have confirmed, beyond any doubt, that they did not carry any lipstick into the room. Nor did they have any women visiting them who could have dropped the same. So, our killer goofed up on this occasion.'

'Any lead from the Forensics? Did they find any prints on the lipstick or anything else?'

'No ma'am, nothing whatsoever. Everything has been wiped clean.'

'Wiped clean,' Rita repeated. 'Including the lipstick?'

'Including the lipstick.'

'Not having enough prints, or too many, or smudged ones, for identification is one thing, but prints having been wiped off is a different story. Can you imagine our perp inadvertently dropped the lipstick after erasing all evidence?’

'Yes. I mean no...' Vikram figured his yes, in fact, implied that he could imagine. 'Something tells me it's not accidental. It doesn't seem like miscue, it's deliberate. Our killer is hell-bent on hoodwinking us, wants us to believe it's a woman.'

'Why would anyone do that?'

'Don't know. Can't think of anything concrete at the moment, but the tableau — both the victims naked in bed as though they were waiting for a fuck, both mercilessly gashed in the groin, and then this premeditated slip-up. Doesn't sound right. As I said, I can't put my finger on it though. Any results from the hotel's CCTV?'

'The hotel doesn't have many; the cameras are only in the bars and the car park, and Samir Suri did not go near either and nothing caught on camera seemed suspicious or loitering.'

Both were silent. Rita racked her brain on how to move the case forward; Vikram waited for further instructions.

'Any results from the pipes that the forensic team took from the bathroom in the hotel?' Rita could hear Vikram sifting through papers.

'No. Not even any skin residue like last time. No hair, no fluid, nothing.'

'He plans ahead, gives himself enough time to obliterate any evidence after the act...but why is he doing it?'

Vikram responded with silence.

'Vikram, I am quite convinced it's the same killer now. Are you?'

'A hundred per cent ma'am.'

'Then there has to be some connection between the two victims, irrespective of the fact that they resided in different cities, had different lifestyles, different socio-economic- demographic-fuck-whatever. Get someone to check the backgrounds thoroughly. Did they know each other, share any common interest or hobby? Did they ever holiday at the same destination, take the same flight, attend the same exhibition, show, anything? Did they ever use the same
hawala
broker or did Lele ever broker a
hawala
transaction for Samir Suri?'

Rita could picture Vikram scribbling copiously. The case had shown little progress so far, and she knew what she was asking for would burn innumerable man-hours and might prove to be utterly useless. But everything else done hitherto had been equally inconsequential, unprofitable. When it was murder, even minor misses had the potential to get blown out of proportion. History could account for a litany of such dissected cases having led to ruined careers. Her instincts warned her of the consequences of ignoring trivial, even futile, clues; some ombudsman might come knocking doors later; who knew? How did one determine inconsequential clues from real ones in any case? Gut feel? The characteristic "
yes ma'am"
from the other end suggested the end of jotting.

'Please ask the team to contact me on phone. I shall be a bit late to office today,' Rita informed before disengaging. She poured water in the cafetiere and switched on her laptop. She recognised there was a dearth of intelligence available on serial killers in the department. Her department. In living memory, the last time Mumbai Police had ever apprehended a serial killer was, probably, never. There was no one in the current flock to look to for advice.

Everything from now on would have to be theory then. Thank the Lord for Google.

The search
"serial killers"
generated over 7.5 million results, more pages than she could read in a lifetime. There was so much material available on the web that one could do a doctorate thesis on serial killers without stepping out of the house. Ted Bundy. Andrei Chikatilo. Javed Iqbal. Fred West. Harold Shipman. Albert DeSalvo - The Boston Strangler. Almost every country had a listing of serial killers. Including India, China Hong Kong and Japan. Even Pakistan. How did that prat
Sexy
proclaim that serial killers were a disease of the West? Smart arse.

Rita read through the top ten killers, their crimes, their MO, what gave them away, how they were arrested. It wasn't news to her that a serial killer's crimes were not necessarily short-lived. On the contrary, they could be long drawn out with, sometimes months between loathsome dispatches. And that they generally, as a rule, plotted and acted alone, which made it virtually impossible for snitches to sniff them out; since they seldom exchanged information or ideas, there wasn't an opportunity for a leak. Lone wolves were acknowledged to be the most dangerous. She was convinced that the next kill was impending, almost definite.

But when?

And who would be the next victim? Rita closed the web window taking in that it was turning into an endless drill. Plus the coffee was long over; only the dregs remained in the cup. She looked at the time on the laptop. Ten past nine. She switched off the computer, turned on the cafetiere once again and called the Ops Room. No response. Worrying. Did the team not realise the seriousness and urgency? Exasperated after trying a few times, she called Jatin on his mobile.

'Where are you?'

'Good morning ma'am. We are in the Ops Room, Inspectors Milind Anand, Rajesh Nene and I. We're allocating the tasks Vikram gave us following your instructions this morning.'

'Why is no one taking the call?'

'Where?'

'In the Ops Room?'

Jatin picked up the landline. 'Shit, it's dead. Sorry, we've got so used to the mobiles ma'am, no one bothered to check.'

'Ah, OK...make a complaint to the telephone department and ask them to ensure it’s fixed today — that's the only listed phone in the room, what if someone wanted to call to give us some info?' Yeah right! What's the frigging probability of that Rita, she could hear her wits mutter even as she mouthed the words. 'I'll be there in an hour. None of you need wait for me, carry on with the jobs. Ask everyone to keep in touch.' Rita disconnected the line and paged her driver to be ready in twenty minutes.

Milind was about to leave the Ops Room when Rita arrived to find the walls plastered with even more scene of crime photographs, forensic and autopsy reports, addresses, maps, et al, of both the murder victims. The whiteboard was filled with key numbers, contacts, messages, and other critical info that outlined the likeness in the two murders. The arrangement denoted that everyone had now agreed that the two murders were the same case file. Four hundred documented interviews in eight box files lay on the table. Milind handed her the comprehensive manuscripts received so far, and also passed on the message that Mr Joshi wanted to see Rita in his office at eleven.

Fortunately, Vikram had summarised both the extensive reports into a single sheet highlighting the salient points:

Primary crime scene: body wasn't transported from elsewhere.

Cause of death: Class IV Haemorrhage leading to loss of over 50% of circulating blood volume.

Incisions by saw-like knife. Four inches deep lacerations: vivisection – victim was dead before stabbing. to Suri.

Trichloroacetaldehyde. Same toxic chemical that was found in Lele's blood was given

Bullet: 9x19 calibre fired post-mortem at close enough range to singe the skin around on forehead.

Weapon used: Glock 26. Only one slug fired.

The economical killer never wasted more than a bullet per corpse. Actually, he didn't need to fire any.

No prints, no fluid, no hair, no fibre, no skin residue of the murderer found on site or on the victim's body. All the diligent evidence gathering and analysis had got them nothing.

Ditto. Rita could well have been reading Lele's report. There were two disparities though. In Samir Suri's case, the killer had taken away the victim’s penis. And the lipstick — what was that left behind for? Did it even belong to the killer? It could well be something the hotel cleaners had overlooked while vacuuming over the weekend.

At any rate, if Rita had any misgivings that they were two separate incidents before seeing these reports, they were now decimated. Should she dispatch these to
Sexy
with a note?

When Rita knocked and entered his office, his secretary was serving Jt Commissioner Joshi tea in fine bone china, an indulgence of the Indian bureaucracy. He beckoned her to sit down and with a jiggle of his head signalled the secretary to pour a cup for Rita. In Indian bureaucracy, you didn’t bother asking your subordinate if she wanted tea or not. The host was entitled to take offence if the guest declined, and Rita was in no disposition or position to antagonise Mr Joshi.

'How are we doing today, Rita?'

'Fine sir, thanks.'

Before Joshi could utter the next words, Rita ran through the condensed update for the boss.

'Precisely why I called for you this morning. I have been reading the summary documents of the two cases, and I have the same surmise as you, that we are looking for some maniac serial killer here, forget whatever Mr Saxena said yesterday. I think he was only trying to be optimistic, making an effort to comfort us in his own way.'

'Thank you sir.'

'For what?'

'For reinforcing my hypothesis.'

'In fact, I have some good news for you. I was speaking to an old friend of mine last night — he's a doctor, lives in London — and we got talking about the recent murders. He told me to get in touch with a young colleague of his...' Joshi looked at the Post-It at his desk and read. 'Ash Mattel. Doctor Ash is a psychiatrist; he specialises in criminal psychology, and helps Scotland Yard in criminal profiling. Particularly on cases where they believe, like we do, the crime seems deviant and can be attributed to some kind of a mental disorder.' Joshi gestured Rita to hold on to her questions and doubts and kept going. 'Serial killers unquestionably fall into this category. As it turns out, Dr Mattel is currently on a vacation in Mumbai and I spoke to him this morning. He was more than willing to help, so I asked him to see you at six-thirty today evening. Pencil in some time in your diary. I know this is busy time but this should be valuable, as we do not have any such profilers in Mumbai.' He took a breath. 'Now, you can ask your questions.'

'This Doctor Ash, does he know anything about India?'

'The straight answer is yes. He was born in India and moved to the UK later. However, even if he were not, human minds, despite the cultural, social, educational differences, have comparable motivations. That's not to say they are alike, no two minds are alike... but the delta of dissimilarity doesn't multiply simply because two people live in separate continents. He should be able to provide some insight into criminal minds. In any event, what do we lose? An hour, a few hours?'

'OK sir, I shall certainly make time.'

'You can come to my office. I'll introduce both of you and then, you can take it from there.'

'Thank you sir. I really appreciate this.'

'One more thing. Mr Saxena had asked us to organise a press briefing, which my secretary has already set up for 4 p.m. today. My apologies, but I have some other important appointment to attend.'

Even if the press briefing were scheduled for 5 or 6 p.m., Joshi would have found some justification to excuse himself. What could be more important than briefing the press, Mr Joshi? Buying a gift for your wife? Rita smiled inwardly. Unless
Sexy
literally whipped Joshi, under no condition would her boss ever chair the briefing.

'No worries sir, I'll take care.'

The telephone in the operations room was screaming like a neglected child that needed coddling when Rita returned. The caller disconnected when she picked up. Poor guy, whoever it was must have given up. Well, at least, the landline was working again.

Mathur & Mathur, having concluded their investigations in Delhi, had scanned through the contact list on Samir Suri's telephone and tried to find if he and Adit Lele shared a mutual contact. None. The local police had scrutinised all the Mumbai contacts in Suri’s phonebook. They had also probed all the business contacts that had known about Samir's arrival in town, checked and crosschecked alibis. Nothing seemed inappropriate or suspicious. The looming press briefing, with no advancement in the investigation, was daunting. Rajesh Nene, the kind soul, brought in
vada-pau —
the mouth-watering Mumbai burger
—
for lunch for everyone.

The aroma of deep-fried potatoes in batter and red-chilly-garlic chutney, at least momentarily, parked the grim thoughts as the team wolfed on the snack. Rita apprised the team of her meeting with Mr Joshi, the upcoming press briefing and the visiting criminal profiler.