The Girl in the Glass Case Page 7

  Then, two years after the killings began, Irshad got his first break in the investigation. He had submitted a request to his bosses for a resource-intensive undertaking—matching DNA evidence from every ‘missing person’ in the last year to every ‘gift’ he had received from the Clipper. The request had been denied. He was asking for far too many resources, it was inefficient and a shot in the dark, they told him. But with mounting media coverage, pressure from the local government and his constant nagging, the police brass eventually came around. With no dead bodies, no trace evidence and no suspects, they had to take their chances, no matter the inefficiency. Irshad was given the go-ahead.

  The next challenge was getting consent and collecting DNA evidence from the families of the male adults who had gone missing in Bhopal. The NCRB provided a list of more than 4000 missing and unrecovered males over the last two years. It took Irshad and his team several months to contact the families of the missing. Not every family agreed. And even when they consented, it was hard to find objects that still contained the DNA of the missing men.

  Then, two years and seven months after the first kill, Irshad got his first DNA match. Then another. After a month, he had four confirmed DNA matches out of the ten murders up until then. Initially, it seemed like none of the four matches had anything in common. A diamond merchant from Surat, a college senior from Pune, an activist from Kolkata and a textile mill owner from Madurai. Then, it struck him—they were all out-of-towners, visitors to Bhopal. Irshad was pumped. He was going to find and bury the Clipper, the bastard.

  Irshad shook his head. He never found the Clipper. Never found that positive energy again. Forty kills later, the Clipper was still at large.

  Irshad chugged large gulps of Old Monk and turned to a new section of the case file marked ‘Hypothesis’ on a Post-it. At the top of the page, circled, were two words, ‘Sex Trafficking?’ These words were scored out. Alongside, also circled, he had written the words, ‘Vengeful Woman?’

  During the investigation of all DNA-matched victims, it became clear that a woman was involved. This was confirmed by the make-up and, in a few instances, women’s clothing left behind with the belongings of the deceased in their hotel rooms. In some of the cases, the hotel staff also confirmed sightings of women going in or coming out of the victim’s room. Prostitutes, Irshad inferred. Expected of out-of-town men. Why not dabble in some guilty pleasures, some fun in a strange place, away from their spouses and families? No one would know. But a prostitute in every case was just too much of a coincidence. Irshad didn’t believe in coincidence.

  Every action by the Clipper screamed serial killer—playing a game, toying with out-of-town men. But a female serial killer? It was hard to fathom since 90 per cent of all serial killers were males. However, it fit the killer’s actions. Maybe a woman who had been wronged, now out for revenge? Ripping the very thing off her victims that had traumatized her in the first place. And taunting the police with the ‘gift’. Maybe the police fudged her case? Maybe the police didn’t come to her rescue when she needed saving or justice? It made sense. The theory fit. So, Irshad had stuck with his theory.

  But nothing connected the evidence or the theory to the killer. The Clipper was a ghost. Forty kills and the police still didn’t have a suspect. They still didn’t know how the killer contacted the victims. No mobile phones were recovered. Even online browsing histories recovered remotely from the victims’ phones by the cyber-crime department threw no light. Nothing out of the ordinary. It was like the Clipper had telepathic or psychic ability, communicating directly with the minds of the victims, in secret, untraceable.

  He took another swig of the burning, brown liquid.

  Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Irshad gulped down the liquid.

  ‘Wait!’ he shouted.

  He grabbed the bottle of rum and threw it inside the drawer. He sat as straight as an ironing board. He blinked his ruddy eyes a few times, wide awake.

  ‘Come in!’ he said.

  The door opened. The peon from the reception downstairs thrust his head through the door.

  ‘Yes?’ said Irshad.

  ‘Sir, a package has arrived for you.’

  Irshad sat still. His heart thumped. His head pounded from inside.

  The peon entered and produced a parcel—a shoebox—wrapped in a newspaper. The wrapping was neat and tidy, like one would wrap a birthday gift.

  Irshad gulped. Case number forty-one. He knew the wrapping was this morning’s newspaper without looking at the date. He also knew that there would be no fingerprints on the package.

  ‘Just put it on the desk and leave,’ Irshad ordered.

  The peon did as he was told and left, closing the door behind him.

  Irshad removed the wrapping carefully, gently. He knew Dr D’Souza would not like him tampering with evidence. But after forty such instances, he knew the forensics would find no clues to go on. To hell with Dr D’Souza, he thought.

  It was an all-black shoebox. Irshad placed the box on the table gingerly and inhaled deeply. Every cell in his body wanted to run away, every pore perspired. His heart knocked like it was trapped inside a house on fire. But there was no escape.

  ‘Breathe,’ Irshad told himself and exhaled.

  He opened the package.

  Nestled inside, within a box lined with soft, black sponge, sprinkled with gold glitter, was a pair of cleanly shaved testicles.

  13

  Simone parked the Thar on the street outside her government-issued quarters at 7 a.m. She was tired, irritable, spent. Her eyelids heavy, her shoulders sore. A small and stubborn part of her wanted to go for a run to shake off the weariness. The rest of her wanted to snuggle up and sleep.

  She had spent the night at her desk writing the case report, researching about Ramesh and his dead son, devising theories, scratching out theories. At one point in the night, around 3 a.m., she had gone to the crime scene. Maybe they missed something, maybe a clue would miraculously appear, she had thought. But no luck. No clues.

  However, she came back with a question. A question that kept her up the rest of the night—why did the killer choose the infamous site of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy to display the dead kid? There was a connection there. Most definitely. But, what? Nothing in Ramesh’s history linked him to the tragedy—he had moved to Bhopal from a small village in Bihar nine years ago for work. Sure, his wife was a local and had been born with a birth defect because of the gas tragedy. How did it matter? The answer and sleep had eluded her. Except, now, sleep had come back with a vengeance. Unfortunately, not with the answers she was seeking.

  Simone opened the Thar door. She trudged out into the misty morning fog. The cold prickled her face, tried waking her up. Her body rebelled with a fresh dose of irritation. Bed. Sleep. That was what she needed. Not a wake-up shot in the arm.

  Simone locked the Thar and walked tiredly across the modest porch to the front door. A deep, intoxicating fragrance of tuberoses and jasmines uplifted her. She smiled. The little joys of life, she exhaled. Her grandma loved gardening, even if all they had was a tiny tract of land—as big as a regular-sized three-seater sofa—adjacent to the front porch, lining the brick wall that surrounded the house.

  Simone slipped into the house. She didn’t want to knock or ring the bell and disturb Grandma who was usually deep in meditation between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. daily without fail. Grandma was an ardent follower of and ‘teacher’ with the Art of Living foundation. Despite her age and escalating diabetes, she was the city coordinator for all Art of Living activities—social service, group meditations, teaching courses, discourses and satsangs. On some days, Simone felt that Grandma had a more active social life than she did. But then, a lifetime spent as the principal of the local army school still served Grandma well.

  Simone stepped into her room.

  ‘Simone bachu, is that you?’ Simone heard her grandma call from the adjacent room. Even though loud, her grandma sounded like a saint giving a sermon—calm and at peace.

  ‘Yes, Grandma!’ Simone shouted back; her voice shrill, irritable.

  ‘Come here, bachu,’ Grandma’s voice softened.

  Simone dropped her head in dismay. She wasn’t in the mood for conversation. Any conversation.

  Why? Why? Why can’t you keep meditating and let me be? thought Simone. She dragged her feet to the adjoining room.

  Grandma was reclining on the bed, dressed in all-white.

  ‘Good morning, bachu. Just got back home?’

  ‘Good morning,’ said Simone. She didn’t answer the question. Wasn’t it self-explanatory?

  ‘Shall I prepare breakfast?’ Grandma swung her feet off the bed to get up.

  ‘No, no. You meditate, Grandma. I’m too tired to eat. I’m just going to go to bed.’ Simone turned away to go to her room, considering the conversation closed.

  Grandma wasn’t finished. ‘Tch, tch!’ she clicked her tongue. ‘Simone, look at you! It’s like you don’t eat any more. That tall body needs nourishment. Who’ll marry you otherwise?’ Grandma got out of the bed. ‘Wait, I’ll prepare poha. It’ll take ten minutes. You eat and then sleep.’

  ‘I said I don’t want to eat!’ Simone yelled.

  Grandma went quiet, her face expressionless, although Simone knew it was her ‘I’m disappointed in you’ look. It made Simone even more grouchy.

  ‘I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to get married. And I don’t want to have these conversations.’ Simone’s decibel level increased with each sentence until her voice rang through the house.

  Simone stormed out. She went into her room and slammed the door shut behind her. She choked back the lump in her throat. After removing her shoes, she slipped under the snug, cosy duvet.

  And, then the emotions she ha
d been fighting for so long came out of nowhere, swamping her, pinning her down and smothering her. She felt overwhelmed with the pressure to perform like her old self before the suspension. She resented her boss for not trusting her. She was cross with Zoya for being the better person. She regretted speaking like a cranky child with Grandma, the woman who had raised her and had provided for her. Probably the only person who ever loved her.

  Tears poured from the corners of her eyes. Her chest heaved and her lips trembled.

  Simone felt alone, broken, hurt. Exactly how she had felt the night her parents left her with Grandma and promised to return. They never did.

  14

  The shops were shuttered, the kiosks covered and padlocked. DB City Mall was mostly empty at 9.45 a.m. on a Wednesday.

  Varsha entered the mall and soaked in the emptiness of the shopping arcade. As expected, she thought. ‘Come girls,’ she said to her two daughters, nine and ten years old. ‘Let’s take the lift to the movie hall.’

  Frozen 2, the movie sequel to the global Disney phenomenon, had finally released over the weekend, after six excruciating years of waiting. It was all her daughters could talk about since the movie trailers first appeared a few months ago. Varsha was excited for her daughters and had promised them tickets for the first day, first show. But then she forgot to book the tickets on time—the bane of a housewife charged with doing everything for young kids and a good-for-nothing husband. The tickets had sold out within minutes. Her girls had cried for hours. ‘You promised,’ they had bawled. It broke Varsha’s heart.

  But, as luck would have it, she was presented with an opportunity to make it up to her daughters. With record crowds for the movie, Cinepolis at DB City Mall had added a 10 a.m. show. It meant her daughters had to skip school for a day. Varsha booked the tickets without thinking. Her daughters were doubly overjoyed—no school and the movie. Varsha was simply relieved.

  Mother and daughters took the elevator to the top floor. The quietness of the ground-floor arcade was replaced by the palpable bustle the instant they stepped out of the elevator. Varsha wasn’t the only parent who had made her kids skip school.

  A thin crowd of restless parents and children on tenterhooks was loitering in the lobby. A queue had formed at the popcorn counter, only one server catering to the morning show crowd. A mall cleaner was mopping the floor, releasing a gag-worthy smell of equal parts antiseptic and must.

  The mop cloth needs a change, Varsha thought.

  Another mall worker was moving gigantic plastic statues of the Frozen sisters, Elsa and Anna, to the centre of the lobby. Young girls and boys thronged the statues, wanting to take pictures.

  ‘Photo, photo!’ cried Varsha’s younger daughter, as she ran towards the exhibit, her elder sister in tow.

  Varsha wanted to scold her daughters and tell them to behave themselves in public. But she stopped herself and shook her head. Today was about them. She took out her phone to take pictures and walked over to the exhibit.

  In the seconds it took Varsha to walk twenty metres, complete mayhem broke out. Kids jostled each other. Parents scolded, not their own but others’ kids, asking them to get out of the frame, while they took sweet photos of their own children. A girl pushed another, who started crying and a shouting match erupted between the mothers. Fathers tried to intervene but were soon swept into the burgeoning flood of emotions.

  ‘Mom, there’s no space! They’re fighting!’ cried the younger daughter as Varsha joined her.

  ‘It’s okay, baby. We will wait for our turn,’ Varsha had to shout to make herself heard over the hubbub of fighting parents and crying kids.

  A security guard ran into the fray, requesting parents to step back and stop fighting.

  While the shouting match continued in the centre of the lobby, Varsha noticed that the same mall worker—dressed in blue overalls, face covered with a bandana and black sunglasses—brought two more exhibits from the back and placed them in a corner. Two dolls. These were much smaller. Elsa and Anna encased in glass.

  Varsha grabbed her daughters’ hands. ‘Come on, girls,’ she whispered, ‘let’s take pictures with those.’ She pointed to the glass exhibits.

  Her daughters jumped up in glee.

  ‘Yes!’ said one.

  ‘Hurry, hurry!’ said the other.

  They rushed over. None of them noticed the mall worker who left through the emergency exit.

  ‘Wow! The dolls look so real. Just like the wax museum we visited in London!’ said the elder daughter.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Varsha ignored her. ‘Come on, quick. One of you stand next to Elsa and the other next to Anna,’ she said, aware of other parents starting to queue up behind her.

  Her daughters complied.

  ‘Smile!’ said Varsha seconds before zooming in to get a closer shot.

  First, it was only a feeling. She looked up, and then, back at her camera.

  ‘Mom, what are you doing? Take the photo!’ said her elder daughter.

  Varsha was entranced. She squinted at the camera, zoomed in and focused on the encased figurines. The feeling of dread crept up her legs like a python closing in on its prey. Suddenly, it hit her. The news from yesterday. Then, in a light-bulb moment, her heart squeezed tight. And before she could stop herself, a loud, piercing scream burst from her.

  ‘Mom! What happened?’ her daughters screamed in tandem and ran towards her.

  A hush fell over the entire lobby. Parents stopped squabbling. The popcorn server looked over. The security guard rushed over.

  ‘What happened?’ asked the security guard.

  Varsha pointed a finger at the glass exhibits, one hand covering her mouth to force back another scream. ‘Those . . . those dolls.’ She kept pointing to the encased figurines. Her hand quivered, the finger rocked in place, like a pendulum.

  ‘The Doll Maker!’ she screamed.

  In the pandemonium that followed, nobody noticed the mall worker walking out of the emergency exit. Except the security cameras.

  15

  Ranveer was giddy like a kid. There was a spring in his step, a flutter in his heart and a song on his lips. His hand was twitching, more from the anticipation than the anxiety he felt before each conquest, each kill.

  He looked up at the cuckoo clock, crafted by the artisans of the Black Forest in Germany, hanging on the living room wall. Twenty minutes until the afternoon news. He had sent a wrapped gift to his old friend, superintendent Hussain, early this morning. By afternoon, the media would have lapped up the story. Even if they hadn’t, just to be on the safe side, Ranveer had sent anonymous notes to all major news reporters in the city. The Clipper has clipped again—said the notes.

  A flutter went up his chest. He loved this feeling—the excitement, the build-up, the suspense—before the Clipper was revealed to the world again, his infamy clouding their television sets, his reputation buttered, his ego massaged. He was the Clipper. The fame was his. His alone. It had been so for nine years. He had come to love it all—the adulation, the respect, the praise that the media, representatives of the common people, showered on him. Sometimes, during sleepless nights, he would question whether it was purely the pleasure of killing or the irresistible pull of fame that ignited his passions. Both—he concluded.

  Ranveer placed the glass of wine on the side table and sat back in his La-Z-Boy recliner. He pushed a button on the electronic panel hidden beneath the armrest and almost immediately, soft rotors started massaging his back, moving up and down his spine. He closed his eyes, moaning with pleasure. He was reminded of Cleopatra—how she had moaned last night, her fragrance, how she had charmed him with slow, measured moves in the bed, her silky, hairless skin, and how she had begged for more. He had given in to her requests, generously and magnanimously, like a benevolent king. Before he clipped her, of course.

  Ranveer’s eyes flew open. Blood rushed to his groin. He inhaled deeply to calm down his palpitating heart. He plucked the glass of red wine from the side table. He took a sip, twirled it in his mouth, gargled and swallowed. The smooth, zesty liquid shimmied down his throat. It was a Sangiovese-based, vintage Chianti from Tuscany, aged ten years. His favourite.