The Siya Rajput Crime Thrillers Books 1-3 (Where Are They Now / Finding Her / The Bones Are Calling)

by UD Yasha

  I started checking the pictures of the other side of the room. It had a large bookshelf and a dressing table. There were four photos of it from different angles. I zoomed in on the bookshelf to see if there were any notes in the books themselves. I would later compare the image to how the bookshelf looked earlier and then check if any books were added or deleted. I would then ask Motilal if those books triggered any memories.

  I started off from the topmost row, going right to left. As I reached the bottommost row, I was feeling a sense of resignation.

  Just as I was starting to lose hope, I noticed something that could change the case for us.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  My heart beat faster. I contained the smile that was curling my face.

  I had not been able to see the CPU of the computer in the pictures on the other side. But I could see it in the mirror of the dressing table. In one photo, I could clearly see that there was something in the floppy disk drive. I was old enough to remember putting in floppies at our home computer to play games. Even once they were in, they stuck out a little. In the photo I was looking at, the CPU had a floppy in its floppy drive.

  But I hadn’t seen it in the other photos that had the reflection of the CPU. The quality of the photos was good enough. I was sure. One picture had the floppy drive. The others did not.

  Who had taken it?

  ‘Radha and Rahul, can you check this for me?’ I said, showing them my laptop.

  ‘It’s definitely there in one and not the others,’ Rahul said.

  ‘Thanks. I wanted to double-check that I wasn’t seeing it only because I wanted to.’

  I said, ‘According to the crime scene report, all the three corrupt cops were at the crime scene when the forensic team was working. My gut tells me that the cops took the floppy drive. They had to be audacious to pick up stuff from a crime scene that was being photographed. But then again, from what Radha found, they seemed to have grown in confidence over the years. Then, they had suddenly waned down after the Ahuja murders. Something had changed.’

  Radha said, ‘That’s when they crossed paths with the Viper.’

  ‘Maybe they had taken the floppy disk or even something else and then blackmailed the Viper. Maybe the Viper had himself coerced them to arrest Dhar. Once they would have taken the bribe or arrested the wrong man on purpose, the Viper would have had them pinned down.’

  I downloaded the picture that had the floppy drive and sent it to Jay Parikh. I told him to clean it up as much as he could.

  The new clue enthused all of us. There was an outside chance that the person who Kabir was supposed to meet had met him. He might even have handed Kabir the evidence if it was indeed the floppy drive. I felt I was onto something. I called Rathod and told him about what I had found.

  The answer to who Kabir was going to meet had to be somewhere in the heaps of data that we had on his emails, call records and IM and text messages.

  I once again began going through his emails. I resumed from September 2002. Out of the hundreds of emails he had got that month, one got me interested. It was from a woman named ‘Anju Sharma’. Kabir and her had exchanged only one email.

  Anju had written the first one.

  Dear Kabir,

  I loved your interview with our Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. You praised his Cabinet Ministers. I have some information on one of them that will interest you. It doesn’t hurt to look.

  Regards,

  Anju Sharma

  Kabir had responded to it two days after getting it.

  Anju,

  Thanks for writing to me. Please share what you have. I will go through it and get back to you. If you are not comfortable sending it to me, please send it to Indian Times’ ‘Anonymous Tip’ email address.

  Best,

  Kabir Ahuja

  There was no more correspondence between them. I knew there was no way to get our hands on the contents of Indian Times’ anonymous tip email address or even the specific email Anju may or may not have sent.

  The exchange made me curious. It also made me think how difficult it was to be a journalist. If you were remotely successful, everyone wanted a piece of you, whether or not they had something that would actually be of value.

  As I was going through more emails, I noticed that Kabir played a game called ‘World of Titans’. At first, I thought Jay’s spam filtering system was not working. But then I saw what the email was about. Kabir had forgotten the password to his game’s account and had got an email from the game’s makers to reset it.

  I texted Jay to confirm once.

  Even if an email is auto-generated, will your software mark it as important if the user has opened that email?’

  Jay always had his mobile next to him. I got a reply within the next minute.

  Any email that is opened will NOT be classified spam.

  I Googled the name of the game and found that it was a virtual player multiplayer game. If you had an account, you were a part of a virtual world where you were a different person. I found it strange that a man as busy and sought after as Kabir had time to play such games. Not that playing games was wrong or made you less productive, but they didn’t fit the kind of person I thought Kabir was.

  I had a theory. I called Jay.

  ‘I know the World of Titans,’ he said. ‘It’s a cool game. You have an online persona. You build it by doing random everyday things. It’s basically how life is, but virtually.’

  ‘I don’t get the fascination behind it,’ I said. ‘That’s not why I called you though.’

  ‘I figured,’ Jay said.

  ‘If it’s like real life, can you talk to other people who have accounts as well?’

  ‘Of course. That’s what makes it so good. You can actually talk to people over the microphone. The voice gets redone because they don’t want anyone to know the real you.’

  I knew games kept getting updated and given the bandwidth available in 2002, I had a doubt. ‘Was this feature available in 2002?’

  ‘No, it was released six years back.’

  ‘How did people speak on it earlier then?’

  ‘Good old messenger. The game makers have developed an internal messaging system.’

  I felt excitement crawl up my body. ‘If I give you someone’s user ID, can you break into their account?’

  ‘That’s my job,’ Jay said and laughed. ‘Send it over.’

  I once again stepped out of the garage to stretch my body and move around. When I finished walking the length of our garden once, Radha came out, holding her hand up, saying, ‘Siya, you’re getting a call from Kedar Sathe.’

  I ran to her and answered the call. He uttered the words that I was hoping he would. He said, ‘Siya Rajput, I’ve got Jane Doe’s original face for you. I’m sending you an image of the reconstruction of how Jane Doe looked before her plastic surgery.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  While Rathod was looking up the murders that had happened on the same day in Pune when Kabir Ahuja was murdered, he was subconsciously tapping his feet on the floor under his desk. He was both excited and nervous. He had just been told by Siya about the possible theft of the floppy disk. Rathod had been a cop for more than a decade and he had developed an innate sense to know when things were starting to unravel.

  He shifted his focus back to the task at hand. According to police records, there had been just two other murders on that day in Pune. One was of a man who had cheated on his wife and the wife had pushed him from the balcony of their house. It was a straightforward case as the neighbours heard the fight, placing the couple in the house when the murder had taken place. The wife was serving time in jail. Rathod was sure that it had nothing to do with Kabir Ahuja.

  The second murder was tricky, because it was eventually ruled out as not a murder. A forty-seven-year-old man had been found dead by the side of a road with his wrist slit. All cases of suicide had to be reported to the police. They had found it odd that someone would kill themselves i
n a public area. Most suicides were extremely personal. The place where this body was found was far away from Kabir’s farmhouse. But his farmhouse was in the middle of nowhere. The case file told Rathod that the guy’s name was Shikhar Kunthe. The police had explored the angle of murder because Kunte’s life seemed to have no problems. Plus, there was no suicide note. They also felt it was their duty to explore all angles as Kunthe was one of their own. He was a junior officer at a police station in Mumbai, who was visiting his extended family in Pune.

  It could not be a coincidence, Rathod thought. It was a different police station than the one that was investigating Sheena Ahuja’s murder. But still, it was the same day as when Kabir had died. He needed to know if there was a link. He took the file and went to the basement to the forensics department.

  ‘Can you look up this case?’ Rathod said to Dr. Murali Murthy, Sonia’s temporary replacement.

  Murali was a thin and bespectacled guy. He looked like he was twenty, but was actually fifteen years older than that. He was soft spoken and had come in with rave reviews.

  ‘Sure,’ Murali said and referred to the file. ‘Suicide…killed himself on the same day as the one where Kabir was murdered. Do you think there’s a connection? I’ll run it against the murders we know of. In fact, in our case, only Jane Doe was stabbed,’ Murali went silent for a spell and then said, ‘I’ll see what I can find.’

  Rathod said. ‘Call me downstairs once you’re done.’

  Rathod returned to his desk and started reading what the police had recorded about Shikhar Kunte. He went to the final page where the police had made their observations and then stated why they thought Kunte’s death was most likely a suicide.

  For starters, the police had found that Kunte had no known enemies. He was a kind and loving man. They had found no evidence at the crime scene or in Kunte’s personal life to think he was murdered. At the same time, they stated that he was a high-risk suicide candidate. The statement had been backed by three independent psychologists. Their reason was simple. Kunte worked at the Headquarters of Mumbai Police, which meant that Kunte had dealt with a life of high-stakes crime. Prolonged exposure to violent crimes increased the odds of suicide according to the psychologists.

  Rathod wanted to know more about Kunte. He was aware that ACP Shukla had more contacts in the Mumbai Police Department, especially from the days when Kunte was an officer. He went to Shukla’s office and told him what he had come across.

  ‘It can’t be a coincidence,’ Shukla said.

  ‘That’s what I thought too. I was wondering if you could ask any of your old contacts about him.’

  ‘I’ll ask and tell you,’ Shukla said.

  Rathod returned to his desk when his phone started ringing. It was Murali. Rathod ran downstairs and went straight to Murali’s office, which was smaller and further inside the corridor than Sonia’s office.

  Rathod knew Murali had stumbled upon something given the smirk on his face. In their short time together, Rathod had gathered that Murali didn’t show much emotion.

  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ Murali said. ‘I examined the photos and scans of the slits on Kunte’s wrist. I can tell you that there’s a very high chance it was not a suicide. The direction of the cuts is opposite to that of how anyone would usually make a cut.’ Murali gave me a demonstration. ‘For example, as Murali cut his left wrist, the cut marks should have been from the outside to inside of the wrist. Here they are from right to left, indicating that someone next to him had cut his wrist. And that’s not it. Because someone else cut it, the knife or blade entered the skin at an angle. I compared it to Jane Doe’s stabbing. Without examining the remains of Kunte, no medical examiner can give you a sure answer. But based on the evidence I have, Jane Doe and Shikhar Kunte were killed using the same weapon.’

  Rathod felt the blood cruise through his body. He hugged Murali, which took him by surprise. He gently patted Rathod’s back as Rathod pulled out of the hug and said, ‘Great work,’ and then ran upstairs.

  He had a theory in mind and he needed to check something before he could confirm it.

  Chapter Forty

  I went to the garage and put the phone on speaker, closing the door behind me.

  ‘I’ve already sent across the picture of the face to you,’ Kedar said.

  Radha refreshed my inbox and nodded animatedly as she saw the new email.

  Kedar said, ‘A word of caution. The face that I have is about eighty percent accurate. Having said that, anyone who knew her would be able to recognize it. There were far too many tweaks to her face to give an accurate image. The face I reconstructed accounted for aging. But I have sent you three versions of how she would have looked before the first surgery. That’s the version of her that people will remember if you show the pictures to them.’

  ‘Opening it now,’ I said as three images popped up on my laptop’s screen.

  Radha, Rahul and I exchanged glances. We shook our heads, not being able to recognize her.

  ‘Did you find out when she had got the first surgery?’ I asked.

  ‘The first one was definitely between fifteen and twenty years ago. Twenty years because the technique used to graze her bones was not available before that. More than fifteen because the surgery technique used on her then changed and got more advanced. I noticed scars of the old surgery technique on Jane Doe’s face. Also, my guess is that the woman is between forty and forty-five-years old right now. That means she didn’t have surgery until she was at least twenty years old.’

  ‘What was the technique used for her surgery called?’ Radha said.

  Kedar said, ‘It’s called free tissue transfer. It involves making sure the new skin gets enough blood supply. It helps with restoring it post-surgery, otherwise it would appear dead. The woman’s mandible, that’s her jaw bone, and mouth’s floor were changed drastically. The finesse with which it was done indicates that free tissue transfer was used.’

  I turned to Radha to see if she had any more questions to ask. She was already looking up something on her laptop.

  ‘You’re a lifesaver. Thanks a lot. I owe you one,’ I said to Kedar and hung up.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked Radha.

  Rahul was now next to her, looking something up with an equally high amount of energy.

  Radha said, ‘We’re looking at the surgeries that Dr. Niyati Jathar conducted, and shortlisting those that were conducted between fifteen and twenty years ago on women aged between twenty and twenty-five. We’re also checking which ones involved operations to the mandible that used the free tissue transfer technique.’

  Before I could say anything, Radha said, ‘Got it.’

  ‘Found the woman?’

  ‘I’m close. I found three women who fit that criteria,’ Radha said.

  Rahul peered into my laptop and read out Kedar Sathe’s email address.

  ‘I just sent their surgery notes and reports to Kedar Sathe and asked him to check which one belonged to Jane Doe. We’re soon going to get a name if Niyati operated on Jane Doe.’

  The air of anticipation lingered among us.

  I heard a car come to a halt outside. I looked out the garage window. It was Rathod. I was surprised to see him. He knew we were in the garage so he directly came inside.

  ‘I think I’m onto something,’ he said and started pacing the floor of the garage.

  There was not much room left to move, considering we were all inside.

  ‘What happened?’ I said.

  ‘First of all,’ he said and looked at me. ‘Jane Doe’s killer also killed another guy named Shikhar Kunte on the same day that Kabir Ahuja was murdered.’

  I punched the air. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘A police officer at the Mumbai Police Headquarters. I checked. He’s not connected to our investigation.’

  I waited. I knew how the tone of Rathod’s voice changed when he thought he had a strong hunch about something.

  ‘I have a theory,’ he said. ‘I c
ame down to tell you because I was not sure that sharing it over the phone was a great idea.’

  ‘Do you think that the Viper could be snooping?’ Radha said.

  ‘Considering where we are right now, yes,’ Rathod said. ‘It’s just a theory, though.’ Rathod blew air out of his mouth and massaged his temples. ‘Okay, here we go. Shikhar Kunte worked all his life at the Mumbai Police Headquarters opposite Crawford Market. All his life. I double-checked and realized that Motilal Ahuja also always uses police personnel for all his raids and encounters from the Mumbai Headquarters. It’s some sort of arrangement that he had with the IAS officer who heads the HQ. I also checked the old records. Between December 2001 and November 2002, Kunte was listed on the teams of four encounters that were headed by Motilal Ahuja.’

  I thought about how Motilal was called an encounter specialist and how apt the nickname Viper was if he was indeed the person behind all this.

  ‘Are you saying that Motilal Ahuja is the Viper?’ Radha said.

  ‘I’m not saying that, but I feel it’s a damn big coincidence that the person who worked for Motilal Ahuja was murdered on the same day as his son. One of the major points that is stopping me from believing this is the murder of his own family members. What kind of father would kill his own son and daughter in law?’

  Just then, Rathod’s phone started ringing. He answered it right away. It must have been a quick message because he put it back in his pocket ten seconds later.

  He turned to me and said, ‘Sure Locked has only two clients in Pune. And guess what? A robbery was reported at one just nine days back.’

  ‘I guess we know where we’re going to go.’

  Chapter Forty-One

  The robbery had taken place at a company called Safe Zone. It provided high-end security solutions. They had been using Sure Locked’s safes and locks for the past thirty years and had never reported a robbery.