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'Now...?'

  'In any investigation Mrs Suri, the first thirty-six hours are considered the most crucial, so if you’re ready...' Vikram was prepared with his omnipresent notebook.

  Rinika nodded.

  'Do you know anyone who would have wanted Mr Suri killed?' Silence. Tears. Headshake. No.

  'Anyone who would gain anything by his death?'

  'No.'

  'How long had you two been married?'

  'Three years, but we've known each other for five.'

  'Any kids?' Vikram knew the answer, but he gathered some non-murder conversation might be conducive.

  'One daughter. We just had a baby three months back. He was so excited, we made plans. He had been very busy these past few months...involved in the public listing of the company he worked for. This was the final phase, he had promised, “we would take a break after this” but…’ she mumbled lost in a world of her own, and appeared on the brink of breaking down again when the tea arrived. She hadn't asked for the tea but the aroma of roadside tea got her. Thank Lord. Questioning recently bereaved close ones was regarded as the second worst task a police officer performed; the first one was to inform them about the tragedy and watch — first the disbelief, followed by acceptance of the tragedy, before losing emotional control. The triptych of emotions remained unchanged, only the degree of spectacle varied. Vikram watched Rinika captivated by the tea. Anything to distract from the loss, he surmised.

  The doctrine of wife, partner, girlfriend, boyfriend as first or prime suspect was obviously betraying here. However hard he tried, Vikram couldn't envisage this domesticated housewife, who had a three-month-old child, killing the father of her daughter in such cold blood. He waited till she finished her tea. 'Mrs Suri, was your husband seeing another woman?'

  'No way.'

  'Please reflect on the question, Mrs Suri. I am not saying he definitely had an extramarital affair, but did you ever, even for a minute, think about such a thing?

  'Not at all. He was a doting husband, he didn't as much as look at other women, forget having any affair. Please don't malign Samir...' Rinika's voice faded, as she took out another tissue from her handbag. The optical sprinklers looked ready for another spray.

  'We need to be sure of everything, Mrs Suri.'

  This was proving to be futile. This woman could not be a suspect Vikram reasoned and closed his yellow pad.

  'When can I have Samir back?' She was mindful of not calling it a body yet. Given the circumstances, denial was a fairly common occurrence. Deliberate non-acceptance of facts.

  'Only a couple of days, you don't have to stay in Mumbai any more than you want to.'

  Commissioner of Mumbai Police Sanjay Saxena — Sexy, as he was referred to in absentia — was a politician in uniform. He looked more like a suave villain from some flick of the Black & White era than a policeman. Tall. Lean. Salt and pepper — more salt than pepper — hair. A chain smoker, he always had a cigarette between his fingers or fumes rising from the ashtray. Forever in mufti, and at all times dressed like he was to leave for an appointment with the Prime Minister in the next ten minutes. He wasn't the sharpest tool in Crawford Market. But he was ambitious and he did better than others. Promotions came in time. And one couldn't undermine his efforts to please those above him in the hierarchy and other significant people in the political world. Though he was exceedingly well entrenched in golf, he had initially only taken up the sport because influential people favoured it. He was well connected, they said. A Doon School product, he had all the right ingredients to be the face of Mumbai Police. His large office too was a display of his political ambitions. Pictures with the Who's Who of political, film and sporting worlds adorned the walls. The awards and accolades embellished the space. Some men merely attracted fortune; Sexy was more than that — he was a Neodymium magnet.

  The Executive Assistant to the Chief Minister, who was supposed to meet Samir Suri, must have lost a significant amount in kickbacks considering the big fuss he kicked up. Vinay Joshi and Rita were urgently called to the Commissioner’s Office for an update.

  'I've been indomitably following the reports on the two recent murders in Mumbai.' Sexy leaned back in his throne, looked at the cigarette in his hand; the tableau only lacked a cognac snifter. Grapevine was that Sexy's grammar teacher, at school, had worked hard on his adjectives, adverbs and lexicon, which he used gratuitously and indomitably.

  'We're on the case, DCP Ferreira is in charge.' Joshi passed the baton.

  'Yes sir. The team is working 24/7 on this one. We've increased the task force to 14, including me, only this morning after the second murder —'

  'Is there any intrinsic connection between these two murders?'

  'They were both murdered in an identical manner sir.' Rita — judging Sexy hadn't been through the case files though he had apparently said he had — gave a succinct account.

  'Have we concretised the motive?'

  Concretised? Was that even a word? Must have been derived from concrete, Rita quickly worked out and only then Sexy’s question annoyed her. You aren't listening Commissioner, she wanted to bang her fist on the table. Forget pinning down the motive, we don't even have a plausible one as yet. 'That's the worrying part, sir. Up till now we haven't been able to figure out any motive for the two murders.'

  'No one gets murdered without a reason, no one murders without a reason. Surely, there has to be a compelling motive, some persuasive grounds to kill not one, but two men.'

  Well said Sexy, well said.

  'Two identical murders in such a short span without apparent motive make me think it could be a serial killer,' Joshi butted in.

  'That is so Kafkaesque.' Sexy could have said unrealistic, but Kafkaesque demonstrated his lexicon. Pompous prick. 'Serial killer is a western concept, a developed world's disease, we don't have serial killers in this country.'

  'I would like to differ sir. From Thug Behram, who was sentenced to death for 931 murders in 1840, to the Stoneman in recent times, we've had our own share of serial killers,' Rita slipped in politely.

  Sexy was clearly not amused. Brought up in an ossified bureaucracy, he didn't like being tutored by someone several ranks junior to him. He had never done that when he was junior. What did this girl know? 'I wouldn't take more of your precious time, DCP Ferreira. Keep on top of the case and keep Mr Joshi updated at all times.' He smiled, and looked at the door. It was obvious the meeting was over. At least for Rita. A salute and she tiptoed out of the king's suite.

  Sexy waited for the door to close. If his eyes had feet, they would have followed Rita out of the room to check if she wasn't standing outside to listen to what he had to say next. But he was confident she wouldn't dare.

  'Mr Joshi, are you utterly certain DCP Rita can cope with this kind of a grotesque double-murder investigation? We can easily give her some undemanding posting like… traffic.'

  'Oh no, no, no, sir. She is very competent and loves challenges. She's done homicide cases in Pune.'

  The Commissioner looked unconvinced, but did not insist. 'You should give the press a briefing tomorrow. And keep my office appraised of any new breakthrough.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  Inspectors Akhil Mathur and Ravi Mathur — the two envoys from Crime Branch, Mumbai — arrived at Nehru Place in New Delhi five minutes before 5 p.m. Despite the surname, the two weren't related. In fact, they couldn't have been more dissimilar. One was short, the other was tall, one was bald, the other was not; one was from the south of the country, the other from the north. Akhil was known as takla (bald) Mathur; Ravi was called chota (short) Mathur. So much for political correctness in India: diversity was enjoyment, even for the diverse, it was not muted to sound appropriate.

  The Delhi Police had instructed Samir Suri's office to wait for the two detectives from Mumbai. Mathur & Mathur went around questioning the key people in the workplace, but nothing seemed out of keeping. Samir's co-workers largely agreed on their opinions regarding the guy. Most were convi
nced he was a role model, a leader and a family man. A few disagreed — two women to be precise. One was a junior girl in the sales department who broke down telling her woeful tale of how Samir had harassed her, threatened to ruin her career till she agreed to sleep with him. The agreement had been for one night, but Samir kept coming back under various pretexts. The second girl, the receptionist, didn't come forward till someone disclosed the information of her trysts with Samir to takla Mathur. When questioned, she agreed, though she admitted she hadn't required any coercion to sleep with the guy. Although neither of these two women had travelled to Mumbai, their mobile phones were scanned, and the mobile companies contacted, to check if either had called someone in Mumbai to get rid of Samir. Nada.

  Samir's desk phone still had the list of last ten numbers dialled. Not a single call made to any Mumbai number. Strange, someone in Mumbai knew Samir was travelling to Mumbai. All ten numbers were redialled, checked and eliminated from the enquiry. Delhi Police had acquired the entire telephone list from telephone exchange, but it was worthless. As Samir's office phones had a PBX, it was impossible to identify who made which call. With over 120 people working in the same premises, it would be unworkable. Mathur & Mathur requested Delhi Police to filter the lists and send all Mumbai telephone numbers to the crime squad as soon as prudent. Samir's office was thoroughly searched. Nothing.

  The disreputable Delhi Police — who, it was said, could make a corpse confess and a dead man dance — couldn’t bring in a single suspect. They had procured a search warrant and rummaged Samir's house in Vasant Kunj. Still no lead.

  Rita got the reports from Delhi, transcript of Vikram’s interview with the deceased’s widow, initial tidings from S/I Nene from the autopsy suite and Jatin's brief preliminary synopsis from forensic laboratory — the detailed reports were to follow. The murders of Lele and Suri, and hence the reports, mimicked each other. She looked at the clock and saw that it was close to midnight. The day had literally flown away. She paged her driver to bring the car around from the parking. It was well past midnight when she arrived at her Sheesh Mahal. It had been an extraordinarily long day that had started at five in the morning and lasted nineteen hours.

  As she got out of the lift car, she was, she realised, extremely tired. Exhausted. Exhaustion didn’t necessarily mean satisfaction. On the contrary, the feeling of exhaustion was a sign of dissatisfaction; when she was satisfied, she was seldom exhausted, she knew.

  Jim looked at her, begging to be picked. Not tonight Jim, I’m drained.

  NINE

  2007

  The phone call could have waited till Rita got to office, but who could blame Vikram for excess adrenaline since he had received intelligence from Juhu Police a couple of hours before. On his part he had tried hard to fight the impulse of calling his boss the minute he got the news, which was quarter past four in the morning. Any more waiting was proving to be an exceedingly uphill task that threatened his sanity.

  Rita peeked at the bedside clock. 6:35. This better be good.

  'Good morning ma'am.' Vikram sounded excited, like a schoolboy who wanted to share his marks sheet with his mum.

  Vikram at this hour could mean one of the two discoveries: another corpse or the killer. Or at least a lead. But the tone wasn't grave enough for either.

  'Good morning Vikram,' Rita tongued, rubbing her eyes and mentally working out that she'd had five hours of wholesome sleep. The body felt so much better than the night before.

  'Sorry to bother you so early, but I thought you'd like to hear this one. Juhu police got the guest list of all previous guests who had stayed in the hotel room that Samir Suri had checked in since the deep-cleaning over the weekend. The police have questioned the two guests, both males. Both were single occupants, and have confirmed, beyond any doubt, that they did not carry any lipstick into the room. Nor did they have any women visiting them who could have dropped the same. So, our killer goofed up on this occasion.'

  'Any lead from the Forensics? Did they find any prints on the lipstick or anything else?'

  'No ma'am, nothing whatsoever. Everything has been wiped clean.'

  'Wiped clean,' Rita repeated. 'Including the lipstick?'

  'Including the lipstick.'

  'Not having enough prints, or too many, or smudged ones, for identification is one thing, but prints having been wiped off is a different story. Can you imagine our perp inadvertently dropped the lipstick after erasing all evidence?’

  'Yes. I mean no...' Vikram figured his yes, in fact, implied that he could imagine. 'Something tells me it's not accidental. It doesn't seem like miscue, it's deliberate. Our killer is hell-bent on hoodwinking us, wants us to believe it's a woman.'

  'Why would anyone do that?'

  'Don't know. Can't think of anything concrete at the moment, but the tableau — both the victims naked in bed as though they were waiting for a fuck, both mercilessly gashed in the groin, and then this premeditated slip-up. Doesn't sound right. As I said, I can't put my finger on it though. Any results from the hotel's CCTV?'

  'The hotel doesn't have many; the cameras are only in the bars and the car park, and Samir Suri did not go near either and nothing caught on camera seemed suspicious or loitering.'

  Both were silent. Rita racked her brain on how to move the case forward; Vikram waited for further instructions.

  'Any results from the pipes that the forensic team took from the bathroom in the hotel?' Rita could hear Vikram sifting through papers.

  'No. Not even any skin residue like last time. No hair, no fluid, nothing.'

  'He plans ahead, gives himself enough time to obliterate any evidence after the act...but why is he doing it?'

  Vikram responded with silence.

  'Vikram, I am quite convinced it's the same killer now. Are you?'

  'A hundred per cent ma'am.'

  'Then there has to be some connection between the two victims, irrespective of the fact that they resided in different cities, had different lifestyles, different socio-economic- demographic-fuck-whatever. Get someone to check the backgrounds thoroughly. Did they know each other, share any common interest or hobby? Did they ever holiday at the same destination, take the same flight, attend the same exhibition, show, anything? Did they ever use the same hawala broker or did Lele ever broker a hawala transaction for Samir Suri?'

  Rita could picture Vikram scribbling copiously. The case had shown little progress so far, and she knew what she was asking for would burn innumerable man-hours and might prove to be utterly useless. But everything else done hitherto had been equally inconsequential, unprofitable. When it was murder, even minor misses had the potential to get blown out of proportion. History could account for a litany of such dissected cases having led to ruined careers. Her instincts warned her of the consequences of ignoring trivial, even futile, clues; some ombudsman might come knocking doors later; who knew? How did one determine inconsequential clues from real ones in any case? Gut feel? The characteristic "yes ma'am" from the other end suggested the end of jotting.

  'Please ask the team to contact me on phone. I shall be a bit late to office today,' Rita informed before disengaging. She poured water in the cafetiere and switched on her laptop. She recognised there was a dearth of intelligence available on serial killers in the department. Her department. In living memory, the last time Mumbai Police had ever apprehended a serial killer was, probably, never. There was no one in the current flock to look to for advice.

  Everything from now on would have to be theory then. Thank the Lord for Google.

  The search "serial killers" generated over 7.5 million results, more pages than she could read in a lifetime. There was so much material available on the web that one could do a doctorate thesis on serial killers without stepping out of the house. Ted Bundy. Andrei Chikatilo. Javed Iqbal. Fred West. Harold Shipman. Albert DeSalvo - The Boston Strangler. Almost every country had a listing of serial killers. Including India, China Hong Kong and Japan. Even Pakistan. How did that prat Se
xy proclaim that serial killers were a disease of the West? Smart arse.

  Rita read through the top ten killers, their crimes, their MO, what gave them away, how they were arrested. It wasn't news to her that a serial killer's crimes were not necessarily short-lived. On the contrary, they could be long drawn out with, sometimes months between loathsome dispatches. And that they generally, as a rule, plotted and acted alone, which made it virtually impossible for snitches to sniff them out; since they seldom exchanged information or ideas, there wasn't an opportunity for a leak. Lone wolves were acknowledged to be the most dangerous. She was convinced that the next kill was impending, almost definite.

  But when?

  And who would be the next victim? Rita closed the web window taking in that it was turning into an endless drill. Plus the coffee was long over; only the dregs remained in the cup. She looked at the time on the laptop. Ten past nine. She switched off the computer, turned on the cafetiere once again and called the Ops Room. No response. Worrying. Did the team not realise the seriousness and urgency? Exasperated after trying a few times, she called Jatin on his mobile.

  'Where are you?'

  'Good morning ma'am. We are in the Ops Room, Inspectors Milind Anand, Rajesh Nene and I. We're allocating the tasks Vikram gave us following your instructions this morning.'

  'Why is no one taking the call?'

  'Where?'

  'In the Ops Room?'

  Jatin picked up the landline. 'Shit, it's dead. Sorry, we've got so used to the mobiles ma'am, no one bothered to check.'

  'Ah, OK...make a complaint to the telephone department and ask them to ensure it’s fixed today — that's the only listed phone in the room, what if someone wanted to call to give us some info?' Yeah right! What's the frigging probability of that Rita, she could hear her wits mutter even as she mouthed the words. 'I'll be there in an hour. None of you need wait for me, carry on with the jobs. Ask everyone to keep in touch.' Rita disconnected the line and paged her driver to be ready in twenty minutes.

  Milind was about to leave the Ops Room when Rita arrived to find the walls plastered with even more scene of crime photographs, forensic and autopsy reports, addresses, maps, et al, of both the murder victims. The whiteboard was filled with key numbers, contacts, messages, and other critical info that outlined the likeness in the two murders. The arrangement denoted that everyone had now agreed that the two murders were the same case file. Four hundred documented interviews in eight box files lay on the table. Milind handed her the comprehensive manuscripts received so far, and also passed on the message that Mr Joshi wanted to see Rita in his office at eleven.