The COMPLETE Siya Rajput Crime Thrillers (Books 1 to 4)

by UD Yasha

  ‘Zakkal had a heart attack,’ I said.

  Ranjit pursed his lips. He wanted to say something but he stopped because I got up to leave.

  ‘Where do you have to go?’ he said, picking up his car keys from the table.

  ‘Yerwada.’

  ‘Don’t drive. I’ll drop you.’

  I considered. I realized then that my hands were shaking. It was not a good idea to drive. I nodded.

  ‘Radha, Rahul and Shadow can fit in my car as well,’ Ranjit said as he got up.

  He headed to the kitchen to turned off the gas under the tea kettle. As he came out, he was on his phone. ‘Cancel my evening appointment. I can’t be there,’ he said as he ran to get his car’s keys.

  We were soon outside. I told Radha about Rathod’s phone call. She hugged me tightly. ‘Don’t worry. He has not yet escaped,’ she said.

  I tried to keep my calm. My mind kept telling me the worst was yet to happen. I inhaled deeply.

  Ranjit veered his car out of his society. He put his foot on the accelerator. Just as we were turning for the main road that would have taken us to Yerwada, my phone started buzzing again. It was Rathod.

  ‘Don’t come to Yerwada. Head to Sasoon. They’re taking him there now,’ he said and cut the line.

  ‘We need to head to Sasoon Hospital,’ I told Ranjit. ‘They’re moving Zakkal there.’

  Cars honked as we changed lanes. Ranjit was manoeuvring the car swiftly. He took a U-Turn and pulled over a little further away on the opposite side of the road. ‘We’ll follow the ambulance taking him.’

  ‘There’ll be a string of police cars on all sides of it,’ I said.

  ‘I know. We’ll be as close as possible.’

  We first saw police cars, followed by the ambulance and then some more police cars come out from Yerwada’s lane. I recognized Rathod’s SUV marked ‘Police’. It was last in line behind the other police cars. There were two police officers on either side of the ambulance. Ranjit eased into the flow of traffic and got behind Rathod’s SUV. I called Rathod and told him we were behind him. The traffic police would have been alerted because signals at some intersections had been stopped and police were manning them. Rathod would’ve also told them that we were a part of the envoy because even we got a free pass everywhere.

  We reached Sasoon in twenty-six minutes. The police cruisers lined up, forming a semi-circle around the ambulance. A crowd had gathered, wondering what was happening. We got out of the car and left the windows open for Shadow to breathe. The ambulance door opened. Two doctors pulled out a stretcher.

  I saw Zakkal. He lay unconscious on a stretcher. An oxygen mask was put on his face. I saw another doctor, holding an oxygen tank. They put the stretcher on a trolley and took him inside the hospital. He was already surrounded by four armed guards and two doctors.

  Rathod joined me by my right elbow. He gave me a reassuring nod.

  ‘This doesn’t seem right,’ I said under my breath as we jogged behind Zakkal’s stretcher.

  We saw him being taken into an elevator that was already full because of the number of doctors and guards accompanying Zakkal. We took the other elevator. More guards came with us. Zakkal’s room was going to be a fortress. As the elevator door opened on Zakkal’s floor, I felt a cool breeze flutter against my neck.

  My stomach sank.

  How could I have missed it?

  The clues had all been there. They were right in front of me all the time. Panic unfurled its wings and fluttered hard inside me. I clawed Rathod’s arm. He looked at me in alarm.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I think I know who the killer is,’ I said.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  I hope I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong. I said to myself as I fumbled with my phone to call Radha. I tapped on her contact card. I pressed the phone hard into my ear. It beeped once, twice. I could not get through to her. My mind turned numb. How could I have missed all the clues?

  ‘Ranjit Kadam is the Bedroom Strangler,’ I said, realizing I had left Radha, Rahul and Shadow alone with him.

  ‘What? Ar—?’ Rathod stopped halfway through.

  ‘Radha, Rahul…’ I said, not able to complete the sentence

  ‘I’ve dialled Rahul’s number,’ Rathod said, his eyes narrow. I waited.

  ‘His phone has been switched off.’

  A chill darted up my legs past my heart and to my neck. I shivered. Over and over again. I ran for the staircase.

  Fuck.

  How could I have missed all the clues?

  They had all followed one another and come to me in one moment of realization.

  The first clue was something that had I had wondered before. How had Zakkal come to know that I had defended a guilty murderer? The only people who knew were Radha, Rahul, Shama and Karan. They had seen first-hand what I had gone through. Apart from them, I had only told Ranjit what had happened. I could not remember why. It might have been in the heat of the conversation. But I remembered the exact words I had said to him. I made a mistake. I defended the wrong person. Because of that, a young girl is battling to stay alive. It really hit me hard. I took time to recover. I’m only here because I want to get my mother back. I had not ventured into the details but he profiled criminals for a living. He could have figured out the rest about me. He had access to police records as he was a criminal profiler himself. Zakkal got to know about Kunal Shastri because Ranjit told him.

  I was yet to confirm my second clue. I had been trying to find a link between Supriya Kelkar and Tarla Raheja. I knew both of them had gone through medical treatments—albeit of different natures—in the past two years. Fertility consultations for Supriya and therapy sessions for Tarla. Ranjit Kadam was a certified doctor as all psychiatrists have to study MBBS. Ranjit went around the country conducting various kinds of workshops and sessions on dealing with trauma. Dealing with fertility issues was a hard phase in any woman’s life. She would have probably gone through therapy herself. With Tarla, there was a high chance that she would have been asked by her therapist to go for to one of Ranjit’s lectures. I needed to verify Ranjit’s movements between two hospitals—where Supriya and Tarla went for different treatments. I was fairly certain he would have been at both the hospitals when the women in question were visiting them.

  The third clue was the rags to riches story of Ranjit Kadam, coupled with where he stayed in Mumbai as a child. The retired cop, Tukaram Phadkule, had told us that the hit and run had taken place near Shivaji Park—which is where Zakkal lived. Less than an hour back, Ranjit had let it slip that he used to stay near Shivaji Park. He did not know we had spoken to Phadkule. I told Rathod again to look at Ranjit’s childhood. Did he go to the same school as Zakkal? Did he live in the same locality even when he was a kid?

  The fourth clue was how he had described Zakkal’s protégé. His words rang in my mind. It shows he’s a meticulous planner and stays cool under pressure. He’s also patient. He’s highly intelligent as well. He can hide or show his emotions to manipulate you. Throughout all my meetings with Ranjit, he was describing himself. My stomach turned to ice thinking about it. I had been talking with a deranged psychopath for all this time.

  There were other small things as well. Ranjit had told me that Zakkal had not cooperated with him when he had visited him. But the time stamps that I had seen on Zakkal’s visitor log suggested he had spent two full days inside talking to Zakkal. I had wondered what Ranjit had done for so long. There was also a spark in his eyes when he was profiling himself and Zakkal. He spoke with passion. I had been fascinated by his energy. Now, I knew where it stemmed from. He had been talking about himself. He had spoken about control so many times. I realized, in those moments, he had been controlling me by talking about control.

  As we rushed reached bottom of the staircase, I turned to Rathod to ask his officers to call the hospitals and check the validity of my theory. Right after that, he got another call. It lasted only for a few seconds. But whatever th
e person across the line had told Rathod had made his face go white.

  He turned to me and said, ‘It was one of my officers. They were following up the adoption angle. It turns out that five years ago, someone put up a kid with Marfan Syndrome for adoption. They tracked down that person. It’s someone from Ranjit Kadam’s counselling firm.’

  ‘That is too close to him for it be a coincidence,’ I said and then told him about my hospital theory.

  Ranjit Kadam was an ideal member of society. No one had ever looked at him with suspicion. He was a doctor. He was supposed to be a bearer of life. Instead, he was a beast. I was sure we would find more missing women across his workshops and medical practice.

  I looked around once we got out of the hospital building, weaving my gaze through the crowd. Ranjit’s car was nowhere to be seen. I opened my phone and went to the app on my phone that I was using to trace Radha and Rahul’s ankle tracers. They had stopped responding. How had he disabled them? Fear paralyzed me. Rathod was calling out my name.

  ‘I just received a message from my officers. Both the hospitals confirmed that Ranjit Kadam conducted a workshop in their hospitals. Both Supriya and Tarla had attended it. That’s too big of a coincidence. Ranjit Kadam also went to the same municipality school as Kishore Zakkal. They lived in the same chawl as well. We need to get Radha and Rahul back fast,’ Rathod said. ‘It has only been five minutes. He would not have been able to go that far.’

  My heart beat fast. We needed to act. Every moment was crucial now. Even five minutes was a lot. The Bedroom Strangler had taken Radha and Rahul. I turned to Rathod and said, ‘The big question is, where are they now?’

  Chapter Forty-Five

  They could have gone anywhere. The sheer enormity of the expanse of the world scared me. I focused on my breath. I had to maintain my calm. I would not be able to think otherwise. I pictured maa’s face alongside Radha’s. I counted to ten. It helped every time.

  Ranjit Kadam has been killing for a long period of time. He has gone undetected until now. He has only been caught because he changed his modus operandi to draw attention for Zakkal. I don’t know if taking Radha and Rahul was a part of Zakkal’s plan. Right now, I needed to focus on Ranjit and getting back Radha, Rahul and Shadow. Or even maa if Ranjit had taken them to where he had held her.

  I tried to get into Ranjit's mind. How many women had he killed so far? He had been a practising psychiatrist for over fifteen years. He had travelled a lot for work for the last few years. Through his workshops and by the virtue of being a doctor, he potentially had an unlimited access to women. He was also into necrophilia. Zakkal had told me that women who had been dead for a long while were not Ranjit's thing but he still had sex with them when there was no one new. To satisfy that urge, I reckoned, Ranjit would need a place to keep all the dead bodies.

  Five years ago, he had also started looking after Zakkal’s women. At least five of them were alive. He probably also had to preserve the ones Zakkal had killed. Or at least make sure their hearts were well maintained for all those years.

  ‘He needs a place to keep all the women,’ I said. ‘It needs to have virtually unrestricted privacy. It also needs to be huge.’

  ‘It could be anywhere,’ Rathod said.

  ‘Even I thought so. But the privacy bit is crucial. It cannot be in the city. It needs to be away from nosy people.’

  ‘How are we going to find it though?’

  ‘The straightforward way. We look up places that Ranjit Kadam owns.’

  ‘Why would he keep women he has killed and Zakkal has kidnapped in a house that’s in his own name?

  ‘For the world till now, Dr. Ranjit Kadam was a peace-loving doctor. He had no reason to hide anything even though he has been killing for almost two decades before being found out now. And that was only because he moved away from his original method. If he did not want to be a part of Zakkal’s plan, we would’ve probably never known that Ranjit was a serial killer. The best place to hide anything is in plain sight. Like you had told me. Occam's razor. At times, the simpler choice is the better one.’

  ‘We’ll start looking at all the properties he owns in and around Pune.’

  We walked to Rathod’s SUV as he called ACP Shukla, explaining to him what we had found. The call went on for five minutes.

  ‘He’s putting up roadblocks. An APB has been issued for Ranjit’s car. His photos are being sent across all departments. He’s also sending us a list of all the known houses Ranjit owns,’ Rathod said.

  ‘What about the house you visited just before coming here?’ Rathod said.

  ‘That would have been too risky. And it was also in the city. I think he’s holding these women somewhere outside the city,’ I said.

  We got in the car and waited patiently.

  ‘I did not think that Ranjit’s decision to take Radha and Rahul was premeditated. It has too many variables,’ I said. ‘That gives me hope. With someone who has the experience of planning a murder like Ranjit, it would have been virtually impossible to trace him if he had planned this through. This rash move gives us a chance. Moreover, he is on the defensive. He is not used to taking action without a solid plan.’

  Rathod’s phone started ringing. It was hooked up to the car’s Bluetooth system. It was ACP Shukla.

  ‘Ranjit Kadam owns three houses in total. One is in Mumbai, which is where he stays with his family. The second is in Bangalore. Both of them are apartments. The third is a farmhouse in Pune. I think that is what you’re looking for. It’s in Gahunje, which is towards the Pune-Mumbai expressway. I’ve sent you the location of the farmhouse.’

  ‘When did he buy it?’ I said.

  ‘Roughly fourteen years ago,’ Shukla said.

  ‘That fits the timeline perfectly,’ I said.

  Rathod put the car in gear. The tires screeched when he veered it away from the hospital. He said, ‘Thank you. We’re heading there now.’

  ‘Backup will take some time to come.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Maybe half an hour to assemble and another hour to reach. Gahunje is away from the city.’

  ‘Hopefully, they'll make it on time and save us if we need help. But we cannot wait for them,' I said.

  Silence.

  ‘You don’t know how dangerous Ranjit is or what weapons he has,’ Shukla said.

  I said, ‘I don’t care. People I love are in danger. This could also be my only chance to get back my mother. I’m going in regardless of how unwise it is. I understand the risks.’

  Silence.

  ‘Go ahead. We’ll join you soon with backup. Stay careful and get that bastard,’ Shukla said.

  Rathod put up his police siren. The traffic parted for us like the sea was supposed to have for Lord Krishna in Mahabharata. I did not know what awaited us at the farmhouse. I knew Ranjit would not be stupid. There would be some kind of security presence there.

  Rathod and I didn’t speak much as we drove. Forty minutes later, we were in the vicinity of the farmhouse. The road got narrower and the trees around it got denser.

  I looked around. There were houses on one side of the road. They had large yards around them. The actual houses were so deep inside their plots that we could not see anything through the thick tree cover. All we managed to see were the big gates that manned them. Gradually, the road itself deteriorated. Our SUV wobbled as we made our way to plot number ten, the one owned by Ranjit. Rathod pulled over just before it.

  We stepped out and got on foot.

  Rathod threw me a bulletproof vest. I slipped into it. I pulled out my Glock. I walked behind Rathod who had taken a duffle bag from his car’s boot. He plucked out a pair of binoculars from the bag and looked through them at the gate.

  He said, ‘The nameplate confirms that this farmhouse belongs to Ranjit.’

  Were they actually inside? Was this the place maa had been held captive since Zakkal’s arrest?

  A barbed wire fence spiralled the compound for as far as we could see
. Rathod laid his duffle bag on the ground. He pulled out a large pair of scissors. He took off his shirt and held the scissors with it and began cutting the wire. Sparks flew the moment the two metals touched. But we were inside in less than two minutes.

  ‘What all is in the bag?’ I said.

  ‘First aid, scissors, extra rounds for Glocks, two extra Glocks and tranquillizer shots.'

  We ran past the trees. I heard a buzzing sound every few seconds. I looked around. Cameras. Maybe we’re in the right place.

  ‘He’s watching us,’ I said. ‘The cameras have motion detectors.’

  ‘Let him follow us. There’s little he can do. This place is going to be swarming with cops very soon.’

  I stayed silent. That’s exactly what was worrying me. I did not know how Ranjit would react then. Or what he would do to the women he had taken. He might panic and kill them all.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  We ran for the next three minutes. All those runs with Shadow were coming in handy. Finally, the tree cover cleared and we saw the house. And then we spotted Ranjit’s car.

  Relief flooded me. He was inside. He had come here after all.

  He had been careful not to park it at the front. But he had not accounted for anyone coming in from the back.

  ‘Slow down,’ Rathod said. ‘He knows we’re here. Remember, don’t be shy to pull the trigger. I’ve a feeling we might need to. We don’t know yet when the backup will come.’

  I checked my phone and there was no signal.

  Rathod said, ‘Even I don’t have signal. He might have installed jammers on this property. Don’t lose me. We need to stay together.’

  I nodded. Rathod had more experience in these situations than me. I didn’t even remember when I had last fired a gun. It was definitely more than three years ago.

  ‘Follow me,’ Rathod said, crouching low and moving forward.