by UD Yasha
Sonia continued. 'I can also help you to identify these women. Apart from the first two victims, the teeth of the rest are intact. I've shared the data with my team to check for a dental records match. The fourth woman to die also had some soft tissue left. I ran some tests on it and found that she had AIDS. It also explains why her bones were more brittle than those of an average thirty-five-year-old woman.'
While I didn’t want to generalize, the AIDS diagnosis further fortified our view that Zakkal might be targeting prostitutes. I made a mental note to follow through with the agency that Aarti Lunkad worked with. If we could find out how Zakkal established contact with them, then there was a chance we could catch him while he took his next victim. As far as I knew, Zakkal did not know yet that we had stumbled upon his body farm.
Sonia said, ‘Please stop me if you have any questions at any point. I know this is personal for all of us as Zakkal has targeted Dr Raghav Barve’s wife. That’s why I asked all my staff to wait back. All of us are working round the clock.’
Shukla said, ‘Have you finished analyzing the evidence you collected from Sudha Barve’s house?’
‘We did not get any fingerprint or DNA evidence. We are currently running tests on some samples we had collected from the crime scene. In fact, my colleagues are analyzing something right now. We’re expecting some of the test results to come soon, while we’ll have to wait for a few days for the others.’
Right on cue, a bell chimed.
‘Hold onto that thought, one of the test results has come through,’ Sonia said and walked across the room to the area where her assistants were working. ‘I had to heat some samples we collected to get a better understanding of an angle I’m exploring.’
All of us turned to Sonia as she peered through a microscope at a specimen on her desk. There was a white spotlight over her, almost like a halo. After twenty seconds, Sonia looked up from the microscope with a grin on her face.
‘I was analyzing the particulate sample we got from Sudha Barve’s room,’ Sonia told us. ‘I separated the residue and found traces of a drug named Cisplatin. It’s a chemotherapy drug, one of the oldest used for cancer treatment; it goes by the trade name Platinol.’
All of us exchanged looks, trying to figure out what Sonia was saying. But Sonia was oblivious to the fact that her words were already out of our scope of understanding.
Sonia went on. She said, ‘Finding traces of Cisplatin is not the intriguing bit, at least by itself. I found traces of several random chemicals or compounds in the six bodies from the farmhouse. Stuff like potassium tetrachloroplatinate, silver nitrate, silver iodide and potassium chloride among others. Not all were present on all the bodies—which is why I almost missed it. But finding those compounds together anywhere is like finding a gold coin at the bottom of a swimming pool—it almost never happens. That made me think about why those compounds would be present in the bodies. I ran tests on the samples we picked from the farmhouse. Nothing came up in those. But when I found traces of the cancer drug in Sudha Barve's house right now, it all made sense and I knew what it was. The compounds I mentioned are used to make Cisplatin. And the residue in which I found it had a small portion of silt that you find on the banks of the Mula Mutha river.'
Sonia paused for a beat and grinned, realizing that we had not understood even a bit of what she had said. 'I'm sorry. I should have made it easier for all of you to understand. I got carried away in the excitement. Let me explain this to you in simple English. There's only one pharmaceutical company in Pune that makes the cancer drug I mentioned. It's called Sino Pharma. It releases its wastewater after some treatment into the Mula Mutha river at a place called Shileshwar, which is at the outskirts of Pune. The presence of the ingredients used to make the cancer drug along with the silt indicates one of three things. Firstly, these dead bodies were kept in that place. Secondly, these women were kept there while they were alive. Thirdly, Zakkal lives close to this place.’
‘That’s brilliant, Sonia,’ Shukla said proudly.
Sonia said, ‘It gets better. I know those compounds can be hazardous so there’s a very high chance that you’re looking at a very specific area. In fact, let me share a list of the possible places with you. Give me ten minutes. I need to work out the silt sedimentation pattern in Shileshwar.’
‘Did you just give us Zakkal’s location?’ Shukla said, enthusiasm ripe in his voice.
'Either that or the place where he kept those bodies before bringing them to the farmhouse,' Sonia said.
'Let's head there now,' Shukla said and referred to his wristwatch. 'We have only got twenty-two hours.'
‘Sonia, we’re all glad to have you back. You’re genuinely the best,’ Rathod said.
‘If I’m right, that’s not the first time Cisplatin would have saved lives,’ Sonia said and laughed at her own joke.
Chapter Thirty-One
An hour ago, all of us were dead tired and were looking forward to hitting the bed as soon as possible. But the adrenaline racing through our system had woken us up. There was no way in the world we were going to sleep after what Dr Sonia had shared with us.
I sat in the conference room alone while Rathod had gone to the forensic department to get the list from Sonia of the possible places where Zakkal could be.
Bhalerao and Shukla walked in together.
‘I’ve asked two police officers to join us for back up,’ Bhalerao said. ‘They’re the same ones who had accompanied us to Blossoms. They are on night duty so both of them are fresh.’
‘Great, let’s keep this lean and get that bastard,’ Shukla said.
Rathod strode into the conference room, holding a bunch of papers in his hand. ‘There are three potential places in Shileshwar,’ he said. ‘After looking at these maps, I found that the entire area is sparsely populated. That’s good news for us.’
He sat at the table and spread out the papers in front of us. 'Dr Sonia told me that there are two ways in which Sino Pharma's waste material, containing the compounds she found, could get mixed with soil. The first, less likely way, is through air.'
Rathod pointed at a sheet of paper that had the map of Shileshwar, zoomed in near the Mula Mutha river bed. A large ‘X’ marked the Sino Pharma factory.
He continued. ‘If it’s through the air, then we’re looking at the northern part of the river.’ He pointed at a spot that was circled. ‘The area is about five acres in size. It’s mainly a farm.’
‘But I thought Dr Sonia found river silt in the samples. How does a farm qualify then?’ I said.
'Yes, that's right. I asked her the same question. At times, the farmers in the area take silt illegally from the river bed as it is highly fertile. There are many such farms in the area, but the one highlighted on the map is where the waste material from Sino Pharma can get dumped because of the wind and gust patterns.'
Once Rathod saw that I was satisfied, he continued. ‘I have got a satellite image of the farm. I’ve some more good news. There’s only one property constructed in that area. We can scan it in less than thirty minutes, even at night.’
He looked up from the map and eyed all of us. 'The other two areas are at the Mula Mutha river bed. Both are close to each other and have two pipelines that dump treated water from Sino Pharma into the river.' He pointed at both the places on the map. 'As you can see, both have flat terrain. Again, they are very sparsely populated as they are very close to the river bed. In fact, a total of three man-made houses lie in that area. Also, Dr Sonia told me that out of these three places, she believes we are more likely to find the place near the river beds. She based that on the moisture content found in the samples she examined.'
‘As per government data, what are these two structures near the river bed used for?’ I said.
‘One is a water tower. There’s a small house attached to it, which I presume is meant for the caretaker of the tower. The second is supposed to be a private house. It’s not exactly at the banks but slightly deeper inside.’
‘Do you think we need a backup of more than two police officers?’ Bhalerao said.
‘From what we know so far, Zakkal isn’t directly getting help from Nana Shirole but he’s hiring Shirole’s men independently. He might have some backup present at this place,’ Shukla said. ‘But we still don’t know what he has been using this place for.’
'The more I have thought about this, the more I'm convinced that Zakkal would not involve a third person for anything that is directly connected to his murders, especially not a gang member who can be bought out. He used Shirole's men as a decoy to throw us off. He used Kumar Singhal to set fire to my house. While both, especially the latter, are critical to his plan, they didn't involve anyone else taking part in his murders. Sonia told us that she thinks this place is directly related to the dead bodies. The women when they were alive or even the bodies are personal for Zakkal. There's no chance anyone else will be privy to them. Even the last time around, Zakkal told Ranjit about the women he had abducted only when Zakkal was arrested—at a time when Zakkal had no hope of escaping.'
‘Alright, let’s plan this out,’ Rathod said. ‘There are three possible locations, two of which are more likely to be the place that Zakkal’s been using.’
'Let's stake them out for fifteen minutes and check for activity at both places. We'll split into two teams to save time,' Shukla said.
‘They’re also close by so either team can reach the other in no time,’ Rathod said.
‘Let’s get going. The clock is ticking,’ Shukla said.
I checked the time just before we left the CID building.
It was two forty-five.
Twenty-one more hours to go before Zakkal would draw blood again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The rain picked up strength again while we drove to Shileshwar. We had split up in two cars. Rathod, the bald police officer named Shankar, and I were in Rathod’s car while the rest of the team was in Shukla’s car. We were going to check out the private property while Shukla and company were going to stake out the water tower and the house attached to it. We were also carrying night-vision goggles to aid us in staking out the places.
Shileshwar is a relatively unknown locality past the industrial belt outside Pune City. The city itself was growing in size so the industrial belt was expanding as well. There were studies about how Pune would merge with the megacity Mumbai in the coming decades.
Despite the rain, Rathod pushed hard on the accelerator and we reached Shileshwar at ten minutes past three. The roads got narrower as we exited the highway. Soon, with generous help from Google Maps, we were a hundred metres from the private property. From the road, we couldn’t see much because of the lush tree cover. Rathod pulled over in an area that had no streetlights. The rain had reduced considerably and was now a mere drizzle in the air.
Our night-vision goggles came in handy as we walked down the rest of the way. Even at night, when Shileshwar was asleep, I got the vibes of being in a small village. There were no tall buildings to be seen anywhere, the sky seemed to have a few more stars and the silence that bounced on the roads was deafening.
The private property had a knee-high compound wall around it. The main gate was broken and hung at an awkward angle. Shrubs and creepers had grown on both. I wondered how long it had been since anyone had stepped inside the house. I even heard a gentle sound of the Mula Mutha's water flowing on the other side of the house. The rain had provided it with some impetus. I imagined that the windows or balconies had a view of the riverfront. The water tower was about five minutes away by car and ten on foot. It was down the road we had taken and then a short trip towards the river.
We did not enter the compound, but instead got behind a big banyan tree on the road outside and watched the house. No lights were on. There was no sign of any movement inside either. It seemed like no one had entered the house for years. Through the night-vision goggles, it seemed like creepers had even grown on the house walls. The trees rustled ever so slightly and the odd drop of rain fell on us from the leaves above.
The minutes rolled by.
But nothing happened.
‘Any word from Shukla?’ I whispered.
‘I got a text from Bhalerao when they reached the water tower. But nothing after that,’ Rathod said and then checked the time. ‘We’ve been here for a little more than ten minutes. Let’s wait for five more.’
I wondered what we could expect to find inside. Finding Zakkal soundly asleep seemed too good to be true. Was Sudha Barve going to be there? Were we going to find more dead bodies? I was hoping this place would have the women that Zakkal had abducted, including Sudha Barve.
The minutes ticked by again. It was all the same. No movement, no sound. The night kept getting older.
The silence was shattered by Rathod’s buzzing phone. I saw ‘Bhalerao’s’ name flash on the screen before Rathod answered it. He grunted once and then put his phone back into his pant pocket.
‘They haven’t noticed anything either. It looks like both these places haven’t been lived in for a long time,’ Rathod said. ‘We need to go in. We’ll search the place and get out of there if we find nothing. They’re doing the same thing.’
I felt a sudden drop in my energy. I was hoping we would find something at one of these places. If we did, it was stuff that Zakkal had no intention of ever telling us.
‘Let’s go,’ Rathod said and led the way.
We walked slowly, careful not to step on twigs that might snap, or make a noise, alerting anyone around of our presence. We could easily step over the short compound wall. Within seconds, we were by the porch, staring at a locked door. From up close, it was clear that the house was in ruins. I thought about how this house might have been when it was newly constructed. Rathod beckoned with his hand that we should first circle the house before going inside. He had been in such situations many times before so I followed his every instruction.
The sound of flowing water grew louder as we went to the back of the house. It was only fifty feet away, beyond the compound wall at the back. The tense silence coupled with the flowing water made for an eerie soundtrack. From the compound wall, I could see the edge of the water tower against the crescent-shaped moon.
We got back to the front of the house and walked up the porch. There was a padlock on the main door. Shankar had some heavy-duty pliers with him. When their strength was exerted on the rusted padlock, nothing could stop it from breaking into two pieces.
We first heard the water. Little drops, falling in a puddle. One of the leaks was right above the door.
‘What the hell,’ Rathod spit out when the leaking water from the roof dripped on his forehead.
We stepped away quickly. The house smelt damp and dusty, like it had not been cleaned for many years. I got even more curious about its backstory. The living room had no furniture. Creepers and shrubs had found their way inside the house too.
‘I doubt this is the place,’ Rathod said.
We walked in further. The situation was even more grim in what once used to be the kitchen. Moss had grown all over the floor and walls.
‘Even if Zakkal doesn’t kill us here, we’ll probably die from a disease,’ I said.
‘This is certainly not the place we are looking for,’ Rathod said again.
Just as I was about to suggest getting out of there, Rathod’s phone started buzzing again.
In the silence, I could hear the voice across the line very crisply even though Rathod had not put the phone on speaker.
It was Bhalerao. He said, ‘Rathod, you need to come here. We’ve stumbled upon Zakkal’s killing field.’
As we ran out, I checked the time. Three forty-five.
Twenty more hours before Zakkal was going to murder another innocent woman.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Rathod stomped on the accelerator again. Either he was driving at warp speed or the thoughts in my mind were racing too fast to comprehend anything. Bhalerao’s words rang in
my mind. We’ve stumbled upon Zakkal’s killing field.
We pulled over behind Shukla’s car that was parked by the main road. It seemed like they had taken the shorter route through the trees to reach the water tower.
The tall police officer was standing guard outside the wired compound wall. We could see the water tower stand tall inside with the house next to it. The water tower must have been as tall as a five-storeyed building so the house looked minuscule next to it. It was actually not as small, and probably the size of a studio apartment in any busy city. It was rectangular in shape with the entrance at the breadth. We were entering the tower from its backyard. The river flowed on the other side.
Bhalerao was standing just outside the house. He beckoned us to come as we were running towards it. He held the door open for us.
I first noticed the meticulousness of every little detail of the house. Four white lights on each of the walls lit up the entire space. There was a small bed at the end farthest away from me. It had been made and had clean white sheets. A red rug was spread out close to the door. Two large identical closets occupied the walls on either side. Both ran through the length of the room. There were two ceiling fans at either end of the long space.
Then I realized how it was not like a normal house at all.
For starters, there were no windows inside. The place was also devoid of any walls. The ceiling and the floor were sparkling white.
The more I looked at it, the creepier it got.
There were six hooks just under the ceiling. A large plastic sheet was rolled up and kept against the cupboard to my right. A bucket with a broom and a ladder were next to it. There were some drops of red on the white wall near the bed.