Bhendi Bazaar

by Vish Dhamija

  Nightmares, like dreams, know no bounds — in fact, some languages, like Hindi, don't even make the distinction; adjectives are used to discriminate between the good and the bad dreams — nightmares don't have to follow a structure or care about limitations. But Rita's nightmares, she had noticed, were somehow always followed by some bad news. The telephone ring at this hour didn't sound promising either. It was an unearthly 4:43 a.m. If she hadn’t been in police service, Rita swore she would take the telephone off the cradle every night. Not another murder she prayed before picking up the phone.

  'Sleeping alone?' the affected female voice asked confidently. 'Who is it?' Rita was still in a stupor.

  'I thought you were the one looking for me, DCP Ferreira.' The voice was muffled, like someone trying to disguise it.

  'Who is that?' Rita annoyingly asked. She was wide awake now. The voice, and the comment, sounded ominous.

  'Now, now, now...calm down, DCP. I am, oh, I can't tell you who I am. That's your job. I can tell you what I've done though. I killed those two dogs.'

  'Which dogs?'

  'Lele, Suri, remember?'

  'What…I mean…how do I know you're the killer?' ‘Believe me DCP.’

  ‘Believe a voice at the other side of a phone? You don’t think I am still at kindergarten, do you?’

  ‘You will have to trust me.’

  ‘How do I know you are him?’

  'Her...can't you hear I am a woman? As for how to attest I killed them, I can send you Suri's dismembered dick. You might need it… since Karan is no longer with you.'

  The voice had obviously done her research. She was playing games with Rita fearlessly. Cat and mouse? Why did it surprise Rita? The police hadn't got any closer to the killer, there wasn’t much in the media after two murders, and hence he or she must have decided to get closer to the police.

  “Every serial killer's dark, secret craving, always, is to get caught. Ego, surreal ego. They are hardly ever discreet, knowing well that the sought-after glory also periled them.”

  'Is it a confession Miss —'

  'Nice try, DCP. If I were you, I'd take it as a challenge.'

  Was the voice thinking her call would attenuate Rita's resolve? On the contrary, it would only intensify her efforts, now that she was challenged.

  'If it's a challenge to me, why are you killing innocent people?'

  'Their innocence could be a misgiving, who knows? In any case, it's you Miss infallible who's failing to protect them. Now, you can't blame me for your inefficiencies, can you?'

  'Listen...' Rita attempted in a negotiating tone.

  'No. I made the call, so you listen to me DCP. I promise I’ll listen to you if you decipher my number.’ There was an uneasy silence for a minute. ‘Have you ever played chess DCP?

  'Way back in school, why?'

  'They say if you can guess your opponent’s move, it’s an easy game. So let me squash your next move then. Your control room will not be able to identify me based on this call.' The voice conveyed a for-your-information tone.

  'Why are you doing this?'

  'That, again, is for you to figure out. But you have disappointed me by not forewarning me that you would be taking poor Ganesh Hegde to a police station. He is no good.'

  'How do you —?’

  'I know everything DCP. Don’t forget, this is my show and you are merely a spectator. And now that you’ve inadvertently bought the ticket to my show, you must sit comfortably and watch. Or you can run as much as you want, but you can’t ruin my plan.

  ‘Wait a min —‘ The line was dead.

  Rita was rattled at how much the voice knew. Her unlisted number, though that wasn’t so difficult to get hold of. About Karan? Her personal information had somehow been compromised. A small compromise, but compromise just the same. Hegde been taken to the police station...how did the caller know that? It had only been hours. Hell, even the media didn't have any inkling about Hegde. Hegde couldn’t have called; he had been in police custody since the evening. What could be a better alibi than that? Some mole at Juhu Police Station? Rita could feel her annoyance rise uncontrollably, like a tide. The voice certainly knew more than Rita could have imagined. How? And the killer had the audacity to call the chief of the investigation. Her mind raced all around to remember if she had seen anything odd, any unknown face in the building when Vikram had dropped her the night before. Had she missed it? Take a hold of yourself Rita, her wit argued — even if there was, it could be someone's guest — don't turn into a xenophobic even if you saw some new faces. You live in an apartment block, not in some private mansion like Shahrukh Khan.

  And the voice had planned the call indeed. Chess or no chess, the killer wouldn't have called from a personal line. What baffled Rita was that the killer was planning the whole nine yards, calculating the police's probable next moves. It was alarming. Insidious, actually.

  But why in a female voice?

  This was the third incident where the killer had endeavoured to mislead them into thinking he was a female when both the killings had male imprinted all over them. Female killers had always — in theory and in past cases — shown a tendency to use a conniving method to eliminate men; poisoning the victims was the preferred choice. Female serial killers manifestly murdered inside their homes, and mainly for money, though some were known to commit murders for attention. But nothing valuable had been found missing in the two cases reported. There had also been an incomplete medical research that most such women, with killer tendencies, suffered from something called Münchausen syndrome but that, too, couldn’t provide any conclusive direction; for the most part, such cases of women having this syndrome might either not report or not get diagnosed. Rita, not wanting to take chances, made a mental note to send out a circular to all police stations across Mumbai asking to report back any cases of the syndrome reported. But she knew she couldn't depend on that.

  A lot was atypical of a female serial killer there — this woman was murdering outside her home, not poisoning but brutally murdering the victims, though after drugging them, and using canards to hoodwink the police.

  Rita cast the theory aside; past never took any guarantees of future in any event. She considered that the theory that most serial killers were men could be hyperbolic too. It wasn't even falsifiable anymore, with numerous female offenders on record; the fabled green swan could well exist in this case: the fact that you hadn’t come across a female serial killer does not mean that there were none. Besides, what about cold cases? And despite the numerous conspiracy theories, who was Jack the Ripper?

  Rita knew too well that the voice would have used an untraceable line; it was so characteristic, so very tiredly banal of the killer to think Rita would go on a futile hunt.

  But Rita did exactly what the killer had wanted.

  She called the control room to see if they could trace the call that had been made to her unlisted official telephone.

  To catch a thief...she reflected on the much clichéd maxim. However, in this case, the killer was the one thinking like a detective. An ex-cop? Or maybe someone who had read too much detective fiction?

  It was turning into a race of who reached whom first. The DCP had certainly lost in heats. It was time to train better. She stopped to think if she should call Ash. It was 5 a.m.

  She called Vikram. 'All OK, ma'am?'

  'We have a problem. The killer knows we've got Hegde.' Rita narrated the call she had got a few minutes previously.

  'How can that be possible?'

  'We have a leak, I can't think of any other possibility. Speak to the SHO at Juhu Police Station. See you at seven.’

  Getting back to sleep, though desirable, was difficult. Rita's body needed it, but her brain barred it.

  Sleep. Wake. Sleep. Wake. bed.

  6 a.m. Another day. She had slept sporadically in the last hour. It was time to leave her

  It was morning enough to call Ash.

  Ash was a bit groggy when he picked up the phone, bu
t he came alive the moment

  Rita started recounting the telephone call she had received only a couple of hours back. 'You should have called me rightaway.' Ash's voice indicated his concern.

  'And what would you have done right then?' Rita attempted to disguise the stress. 'Stop being frivolous. Can't you see killing is his idée fixe, and obsession doesn’t discriminate between criminals and coppers.'

  'You think he might come after me?'

  'Might?' He let out a chuckle. 'I thought you were smarter than that.'

  'Appearances can be deceptive.' Rita was trying hard to remain calm.

  'I take back my compliments to your smartness, but stop kidding yourself. He will come after you. I was surprised he hadn't already. He may even be following you. The risk — that you're closing in on him — is part fright, part exhilaration to him. And biologically, both can evoke monovular chemical reaction in the brain, which can make him dangerous, even life threatening. Remember, killing, to him is identical to some adventure sport, and you are just another opponent. And though you don't fit the caricature of the men he's killed so far, you challenge his mission — however insane or grotesque you may consider it — it is still his mission. Be alert.'

  'Ash, in light of this development, do you want to revise your profile to fit a female?'

  'Women kill for a motive, which is absent here.'

  'Maybe the motive isn't apparent. That might be one of the many loose ends that need tying,' Rita pointed out.

  'Yes...or this might be an accomplice, not the killer. How confident are you that it was a female voice. I mean, you said it was a muffled, unnatural voice, didn't you?'

  'What are you thinking?'

  'There are enough electronics available to guise and modify voices instantaneously.'

  'I know that. What I don't know is why is the killer so keen to make us believe he's a female then?'

  'So that you don’t look for a male, and he keeps off your radar?' Ash had a valid argument. The opinion was sensible. And comprehensive.

  Why the chicanery to impersonate a woman? The female voice, the lipstick left behind, the whiff of floral perfume, that perfume; Rita got a sudden flash that she had got a faint smell of the same or similar perfume somewhere else. Where? Rita contemplated as she switched off her cordless phone. But before she could push further into her brain to retrieve where else she had come across the fragrance that she had smelt at the site of the first murder, the phone rang again.

  'Have you seen NEWS of the DAY this morning ma'am?' It was Jatin Singh. 'Anything I need to know?'

  'You'd better look at it yourself.'

  'I know we had to give them a briefing last evening, but I got totally occupied by the case.' Rita narrated the evening's meeting with Hegde, and the subsequent call in the night. 'Did you give Anita any info?'

  'No ma'am. Anita had called last evening, but I told her to hold on for another day. She wasn't ruffled, she said they could fill up the pages without being specific about the case —'

  'And you don't like what they've filled the columns with?'

  'It's nothing wrong or derogatory, neither does it reveal much about the case, but you seem to have taken over the whole front page.'

  'Me?'

  It is a strange world. People are unhappy and discontented when they don't get credit for what they do and Rita was embarrassed — when she got a copy of NEWS of the day — by the manner and scale of how the NEWS of the DAY had praised her on her past work on the single homicide case she had solved in Pune. The editorial disquisition ran several columns of laudation. She might have apprehended a murderer in Pune, but hey, she had no clues in this case. This wasn't some fucking zero-sum game. This was about lives. Making her appear invincible might be the beginning of expectations, and problems for her. She looked at the by- line: Amit Narang.

  Amit Narang was passionate about his newspaper, but his brain was vacant. So vacant that any random words of wisdom echoed in his ear. In his sheer eagerness to please DCP Rita Ferreira, Narang dug deep into her past police postings and her successes, and had plastered the front page of NEWS of the DAY with his sycophantic renderings. Since when had she become the “best detective in the country”, as he put it? With the way the current case was progressing, she could almost taste failure in her dry mouth. The government should ration ink to the likes of Amit Narang.

  Vikram arrived at seven. He had had a word with the Juhu SHO, stressing upon him the gravity of finding the source of leak in his constabulary: “Information regarding Hegde's questioning has been compromised and it would not be taken lightly by the Commissioner.”

  The SHO had recited the gist of their breakthrough with Hegde. They had to hold back as the Mobile Operator declined to oblige the police with the coordinates of the mobile numbers. He had given the mobile numbers to Vikram to follow up with a Court Order. No, they hadn't released Hegde and they needed to know if they should charge him or release him after forty-eight hours.

  'Change of plan Vikram,' Rita told Vikram as he put the Gypsy into gear. 'Let's go to the HQ, there won't be any more new eggs Hegde can lay on this.'

  'Did you see the NEWS of the DAY ma'am?' I was honestly proud that I work for the best detective in India.'

  'It's embarrassing. By the way, do you have the two telephone numbers Hegde gave to the SHO at Juhu?' Rita pulled out her mobile.

  'Yes.' Vikram passed his ubiquitous pad to her.

  Rita called up the Operation Room. She knew Jatin was there as he had called earlier. 'Good morning again, Jatin.' Giving a brief preamble on what she wanted, she read out the mobile numbers from the little pad Vikram had given her. 'Pass this on to our legal department, ask them to get us a Court Order first thing when courts open. We need to know the whereabouts of these numbers.'

  Cops have a demanding job: to follow the suspect, while thinking ahead of him. If the voice that called Rita last night knew Hegde was in the police station, what were the odds that the mobile number that Hegde had given them would work now?

  'I know the numbers won't work now, but I cannot take the risk of calling them from my mobile. We need to know the location of these phones to apprehend Malti and Julie,' Rita told Vikram after the call.

  Vikram nodded and drove on. Traffic on Marine Drive was building up. The tide, in the azure Arabian Sea, was high, the wind rough; frothy waves splashed water on the promenade. The austral winds were carrying pregnant clouds towards the city. The sun was mild, getting ready to disappear behind dense clouds.

  The clouds burst the minute Rita got down outside Crawford Market as if the rain had decided to rush down to taste her, soak her. She smiled once she was in the building. Mumbai monsoon was just doing its job. Just like her.

  The walls in the Operations Room were plastered with even more scraps of paper, every bit fighting for space. With a confession from Hegde, new material, names and numbers had been added since the night before.

  The Forensics failed to find any prints from the letter and the SIM received by Narang at the NEWS of the DAY. Yes, the post stamp established the letter had been posted near Churchgate Station, but considering the number of people who passed that place it was futile to imagine someone would have seen or remembered who posted some letter. The paper used was 75 gms JK Bond, which, again, could provide no pointers; roughly one in five offices in India used JK Bond in their printers. Any worker could have taken a few leaves home. Then there were retailer customers. The laser printer used was Canon. Again, similar overwhelming stats ensured the inquiry didn’t get any direction from that discovery either.

  The Court Order to track and provide the co-ordinates of the two mobile numbers afforded by Hegde turned out to be an equally damp breakthrough. Both the numbers had been switched off for quite some time. And both numbers were last tracked outside of Mumbai. The numbers, according to AirMobile, had been used as call-forwarders before being keyed off. Most illicit activities, Rita knew, took place through sophisticated and byzantine call-forwarding
systems to dodge telephone companies, and the law. Nothing was easy for anyone in Mumbai. Why would criminals make it easy for the police?

  A disappointed Rita ordered the experts to call the numbers to see if they could puzzle out anything new. Both calls, if they were picked up, would be recorded, digitalised, and then broken down to bits and bytes, literally, by specialists to see if they could unearth anything from the voices, accents, background noises; anything really. It didn't take long for Rita's fear to come true though. The killer, knowing Hegde had been apprehended, would have surmised it wouldn't be too difficult for Mumbai Police to reveal him and had disabled call-forwarding from the two numbers.

  'We've been chasing rainbows, it seems...' Nene shrugged his shoulders in frustration. 'It might seem like that, but we've moved a step forward in the last 24 hours, I would say.' Rita gestured them to take their seats at the briefing table, reading from their faces that most hadn't made the leap. 'The fact that the killer called me to convey he was aware that Hegde had been taken in for questioning, and then disabled the mobile numbers from forwarding, what does it say to all of you?'

  'There is a probable connection between the two?' Chota Mathur uttered thoughtfully. 'What could be the other probabilities, Inspector Mathur?’

  'Coincidence?'

  'As a detective, the first rule I learnt was to ignore coincidences. At any rate, even if we think the probability is fifty per cent, it merits a serious investigation. Any more than fifty per cent and it would be worth going after because it wouldn't be considered wise to ignore the possibility.'

  'I agree,' Chota Mathur acknowledged.

  'So, here's the plan. We go after every known pimp, every brothel owner. We ask uniform police in every locality to uncover all such tele-pimps like Hegde — if these sick bastards pay hafta to local cops, they should be easy to hunt down. Remember, we aren't sure if Malti or —' Rita paused to recollect the second name.

  'Julie,' Chota Mathur scored a point.

  'Thanks Mr Mathur, as I was saying Malti and Julie could be fake names, but if the numbers these tele-pimps had called all along have been disabled now, new ones would have to be issued, which should be a giveaway. Track down as many of these agents as you can, divide areas between yourselves. Please press upon the uniforms to work along with you. Any issues, report back immediately and I shall speak to them personally. Any questions?'