Patang (7 page)

‘What?’ Rathod’s voice rose several decibels as he took a few threatening steps towards the kid. ‘I couldn’t hear you properly. You were saying something about my rights? Why don’t we bring in her husband and let him ask you questions instead, huh?’

‘For heaven’s sake, shut up, Karan!’ screamed the girl.

Karan looked at Reena with bloodshot eyes.

‘Mr Grover,’ the CSO said gravely, ‘it is in your’s and Mrs Sharma’s best interest that you cooperate with the police.’

‘I’m willing to cooperate in any way, sir.’ The girl took a few steps towards Rathod.

Rathod observed her closely. She was clearly scared, but it was also obvious that she was the smarter of the two.

‘Who found the body?’ Rathod asked.

‘We…both did, sir,’ Reena replied.

‘Tell me about it.’

‘We were…well, we were here, s-standing under this tank, and I suddenly saw a lot of blood on Karan. He said he wasn’t hurt, so we…looked up and saw the body tied to the base of the tank…up there – ’ she pointed at the overhead tank.

Rathod looked at the tank and said, ‘What did you do then?’

‘We immediately went downstairs and spoke to our team lead, who informed office security.’

‘Correction, Mrs Sharma,’ the CSO said. ‘You spoke to your team lead a good hour after you reached your desk. Other members of your team have said that you seemed most distressed and even tried to leave the building in the middle of the night, which they repeatedly advised you against. Your team lead was then called to your cubicle and you…broke down and reported the body to him.’

The girl gripped her umbrella tightly and hung her head. Rathod exchanged glances with the CSO, then walked up to the tank and examined its base carefully. The forensics team had told him there had been a pool of blood below the tank, and its outline was visible even now.

‘Did you see the body?’

‘Only briefly…and it was quite dark…’ Reena whimpered.

‘Describe it for me.’

Reena swallowed hard and remained silent for a few seconds. Then she said, ‘It was ghastly…ghastly…one of his legs was missing…’

‘The right one,’ Karan chimed in.

‘And an arm too…’

‘The left arm,’ Karan said, ‘just below the elbow.’

‘Will you shut up for one second?’ Reena screamed at Karan.

‘What? I just want to help, okay?’ Karan yelled back.

‘All right, everybody calm down,’ Rathod said. ‘Please continue,’ he said to Reena.

‘…and…and there were chunks of…f-f-flesh…that had been…t-taken off…’ Reena whimpered.

‘Was it hanging from a rope, the body?’ Rathod asked Karan, sparing the trembling woman any more trouble.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there were two parallel ropes tied from one end of the base to the other, and he was…sort of…caught in them.’ Then, as an afterthought, he murmured to himself, ‘Just like a kite!’

Rathod’s sharp ears caught the words and he swivelled around to look at the young man. He had hung his head and was fidgeting with the button of his umbrella. The CSO watched Rathod stare at the young man for a long time with a deep frown on his forehead. Finally, Karan looked up and stared blankly at everyone’s faces in turn. ‘Wh-what?’ He fumbled, sounding confused. ‘What did I say now?’

Rathod said nothing. Instead, he watched the kid closely for tell-tale signs, but didn’t seem to find any. The CSO waited patiently and, after sometime, Rathod finally broke eye contact with the young man. He asked both of them to not leave the city without informing the police and then dismissed them. He turned to the CSO and asked, ‘How long has the boy been working for you?’

‘Mr Grover? I’ll need to check for the exact tenure. We can share his records with you, if required.’

‘Hmm…is there any way an outsider could have come up to the terrace unnoticed?’

The colonel thought for a few moments and said, ‘There’s only one way. There’s a service elevator towards the back of the building that isn’t under surveillance. If someone were to gain access to it somehow, he would be able to ride it all the way up to the twelfth floor, from where it’s just one flight up the stairs to the terrace.’

‘And the access door had a glitch?’ Rathod asked.

‘Yes,’ the colonel admitted calmly.

‘Hmm…I’m going to need the security cam feeds from all around the premises.’

‘We have already made copies and handed them over to the police.’

‘Good.’

‘But, Mr Rathod, what I don’t understand is, how did the killer bypass security at the main gate, go to the back of the building and get into the elevator? There are several security guards patrolling the campus, especially at night. Plus, the service elevator needs an access card to work. How did the killer operate the elevator?’

Rathod didn’t respond. He didn’t have the answers to those questions just yet. In fact, he didn’t have answers to several questions yet. For instance, in the letter, the killer had written that the body of the second victim would be found ‘caught somewhere high up, near a place where dull boys only work and work and work, and do not play’. Rathod found one of the words in the letter quite curious. Why did the killer say that the body would be found
near
a place where dull boys worked? Why hadn’t he use the word ‘at’? If he was referring to the office building as the place where dull boys worked and never played, then the use of that specific preposition made no sense.

Rathod looked around the terrace, unsure of what his next step should be. Then he walked up to the edge on the eastern side and looked down at the sprawling parking lot below. Hundreds of cars stood waiting in the rain. After a few seconds, he started walking along the edge, skirting the entire area, closely observing the neighbourhood as the CSO watched him patiently. As Rathod came to the southern side of the terrace, he slowed down and finally came to a halt.

‘What is that?’ he pointed towards an open area in the adjacent plot.

‘That’s a school – St. Joseph’s Boys.’

‘St. Joseph’s? Not St. Xavier’s?’

‘No, St. Joseph’s. It’s a pretty old school.’

Rathod frowned. The CSO found him staring into the void, lost in thought while muttering to himself. After almost a minute, Rathod asked in an excited voice, ‘Isn’t that run by Jesuits?’

‘Well, I’m not sure about that…perhaps…’

Rathod seemed like he had found a ray of light in the dark. He thanked the CSO and left the McArthur office. As he drove through the streets, he dialled a number.

‘Wagle, I want to see the security cam feeds for the McArthur building, along with the company’s employee records. I also want the records of all students who have passed out of St. Joseph’s Boys in Vikhroli…yes, the one next to the McArthur building. And find out if Father Patton ever worked for that school in the past…no, in any capacity…go back several years if you have to. Yes, I’m going to Sukhdeo Saran’s office.’

9

‘Well, I have 15 minutes, what have you got?’ Mule asked, sitting back in his chair as he glanced at his watch.

Rathod stood against a white board that had several post-its stuck on it. He began with a confession. ‘Sir, I was wrong, right from the beginning.’

‘How so?’ Mule asked patiently.

‘The place where dull boys only work and work and don’t play is not an office, sir, it’s a school. The killer was referring to the St. Joseph’s Boys School in Vikhroli, which is right next to the McArthur building. Several years ago, Father Patton used to be a teacher in St. Joseph’s. Later, he was transferred to St. Xavier’s
in Bandra, where he rose through the ranks and became the principal. I have interrogated several staff members and learnt that, several years ago, Father Patton was extremely popular among students and teachers alike, and he was responsible for all the sports and games-related activities in the school. But for some reason the twice-a-week sports and games class was cancelled.’

DCP Uday Singh, who had been called in for the meeting, and Commissioner Mule listened with rapt attention as Rathod went on.

‘Now, I went through the student records of St. Joseph’s for the last 30 years and profiled the students.’

‘30 years! That’s a lot of students,’ Uday Singh interrupted him.

‘Well, yes, but I narrowed down my search to only those students who were in the Boy Scouts.’

‘The Scouts?’ Uday Singh frowned. ‘I thought you said the school abolished the sports and games class? Why did they spare the Scouts?’

‘They didn’t,’ said Rathod. ‘It was taken off their co-curriculars, too…roughly around the same time. But some students, especially the ones in higher classes, had already undergone several years of Scouts training by then.’

‘But why did you filter your list with the Scouts?’asked Mule.

Rathod took an enlarged photograph and held it up. ‘Look at this photograph. Sukhdeo Saran was left hanging up there on the CNT. But how did the killer manage to hang him from this pole over here, which was at a significant height and to which he would have had no access at all?’

Mule and Singh were silent.

‘I’ll tell you how. He used an “axle hitch”, which is a specific kind of knot or hitch that one can make on a rope to tie something or someone securely to a place that is inaccessible. It is very useful in mountaineering, and is regularly taught in Scouts camps.’

‘Go ahead.’ Mule was impressed, but didn’t let it show; from the corner of his eye, he could see the DCP shake his head.

‘I profiled a list of ex-students from St. Joseph’s who had Scouts training, and then cross-referenced that list with McArthur’s employee records. My guess was that the killer worked in the building, and walked right past the security guards at the BPO building. But…’

‘But?’

‘I didn’t get a match.’

Mule didn’t comment. DCP Singh shifted in his chair.

Rathod seemed excited. ‘But…hang on…I found this. The McArthur building is a rented one, and it was built several years ago. And the land on which it now stands used to be part of the sprawling St. Joseph’s campus. The school used to have an open field there, where students used to play, but it wasn’t very well-maintained, because the school was running low on funds. Then, one day, on Father Patton’s recommendation, the school authorities decided to sell off that land and shrink their campus to a more manageable size. The land was purchased and developed by a builder, and an office building was constructed there. Guess who the builder was.’

‘Sukhdeo Saran?’ Mule asked, leaning forward in his seat.

‘Exactly!’

‘So, what are you trying to say?’ asked the DCP.

Rathod looked at Uday Singh with an irritated expression and said, ‘I can’t believe you can’t see the obvious connection.’

Uday Singh had had enough. In as cold a voice as he could
muster, he said, ‘Are you trying to say that our killer was an alumnus of St. Joseph’s? That even after he has grown up he still has the mind of a child? That he is extremely upset at the fact that his school ground, a real jungle, was turned into a concrete jungle which took away all the fun and games out of his life? And that he is killing people who upset him at various points of time in his life and is hanging them from high places, just like kites?’

Rathod remained silent.

‘Does that make
any
sense to you?’ asked the DCP again.

‘I have seen stranger things emerge from the minds of serial killers, sir,’ Rathod said calmly.

‘Yes, but you don’t have any
proof
, do you?’ the DCP barked.

‘No, I don’t,’ admitted Rathod.

‘And you haven’t identified the killer yet, have you? You yourself said that you didn’t find a match in the cross-references…’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean…’

‘Sir,’ the DCP ignored Rathod’s argument and turned towards Commissioner Mule. ‘I think this has gone too far. Even if we forget Saran for a minute, we have to be extremely careful about how we use sensitive information about Father Patton, especially at this crucial juncture. He was an extremely popular and well-respected public figure. I strongly recommend…’

Uday Singh couldn’t complete his sentence, because the phone on Mule’s desk rang. Mule answered the call, spoke briefly, put the receiver down on the cradle calmly and said, ‘They’ve found a third body.’

10

Chandrakant Rathod gestured towards a constable who nodded understandingly and spoke briefly with a short and stout man holding a walkie-talkie. The man looked at Rathod and walked towards him.

‘Mr Rathod?’ the man offered his hand. ‘Welcome to the site, sir.’

Rathod shook the man’s hand and looked around.

‘If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, will you please put on the helmet that has been assigned to you?’ the man insisted.

Rathod put on his helmet, not because the man had told him to, but because the drizzle had picked up. The man pointed towards a signboard and said, ‘As you can see, safety first, sir. All personnel on site have to wear protective headgear – no exceptions. As you can see, yours is grey – that’s because you’re a visitor. Mine is white – because I am the supervisor.’

The man continued to exhibit that he was doing his job by expounding on why it was important to wear hard hats and other construction norms as he led Rathod through hundreds of people who seemed to be working tirelessly, even in the rain. ‘All construction must stop at 9 p.m. sharp – Supreme Court orders. As you can see, we’re in a hurry to finish construction of Towers E through H. We have a deadline coming up in four months, and we always, always keep our promises to our customers. So, here we are, working tirelessly in the rain and despite…you know… the tragedy. Deoji would have wanted the same.’

The supervisor halted midway and Rathod almost bumped into him. The man turned towards him and said in an earnest voice, ‘I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, sir, but you find the bastard who did this to our beloved Deoji. You find
him, and you hang him…you hang him upside down…just like he…’The man choked up with emotion.

‘Yeah, yeah, we will,’ Rathod said impatiently. ‘Where’s the body?’

The man bit his tongue and said, ‘Sorry, sir, come right this way, please. And, please, mind your step. As you can see, we are all very busy here…and then…first Saran sir’s death…then today’s mishap…it’s too much…too much, I tell you.’