The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(19)

“Yes, sir.”

Shinde was on the right track. After the Mumbai terrorist attacks, many CCTVs watched each main road.

“Get everyone to check the surroundings,” Shinde added, “for clues related to the suitcase, or the body, which can help identify the victim.”

“We’ll comb the area, sir.”

The constables dispersed, and Shinde leaned back, his face briefly contorted with pain. “Tell me.”

“The suspect in this investigation could be connected to the Aksa case.”

“You’re saying your cold cases might turn warm now, but cold cases are career self-sabotage, Avi. I don’t need to tell you that. Focus on the cases piling up on your desk. No dearth of murdered women in Mumbai.”

The second senior inspector with the advice to focus on recent murders. Arnav was tempted to scoff at Shinde, but that wouldn’t help.

“I could assist on this case. You’ll take a few days to heal, and that gap could be crucial. You can lead again once you’re better, end of this week.”

“Let me think about it. If it points to Rasool . . .”

“I mean only to help,” Arnav said. “If we make an arrest and Rasool is behind it all, he’s yours.”

“All right, I’ll drop a note to your Mhatre.”

“Who is coming in for forensics?”

“Meshram.” Shinde grimaced, and shifted his injured arm.

Made sense. Dr. Meshram took care of the cases from this area: Malwani, Malad, and Versova.

“That’s good. He’s the one who found the other bodies at Aksa.” Arnav watched his friend flinch when his arm touched the bike handle. “How are you feeling? Do you have your painkillers on you?”

“No,” Shinde said. “You killed my arm with your mad bike trip, you khajoor.”

Khajoor. A casual, harmless Mumbai slang word that Shinde used when he was feeling particularly salty. Khajoor meant dates, the fruit, but it also meant you were stupid and you knew it. Arnav hadn’t realized how bad Shinde’s arm hurt until now.

“You want one of your men to drive you home in their jeep? I’ll finish up and make a report—if you tell your constables.”

“When my inspector gets here,” Shinde said, “if he gets here, he will be the lead. That’s protocol. You understand that?”

“Yes.”

Arnav could not lose this investigation. This killer had been active all this time: killing women, decapitating them, and getting their bodies buried—keeping their heads, arms, and feet. What monster did that? Why?

“You can help, the way you’ve been threatening to do all evening. I’m going back home. Don’t screw this up. You hear me?”

After Shinde left, Arnav flicked on his flashlight and set off on the dirt path in one direction, then another, hoping and fearing that he’d come face-to-face with a woman’s severed head any moment. Amid the night alive with mosquitoes, mating bullfrogs, and other, perhaps more sinister denizens of the mangrove, Tara’s laughing face rose in his mind, unbidden. Before banishing it, he sent up a wish. Wherever she was, let her be warm and safe, far away from dark places.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN


ARNAV

Exactly four days after Arnav had slipped on a pair of gloves to examine the crime scene next to Aksa beach, he watched another dead body, surrounded by the mangroves this time, light up with the flashes from Dr. Meshram’s camera. Not a body, he corrected himself—a woman. The killer had spent quite some time with her, given the extent of bruising, the slashes on her arms, and the decapitation.

“What time did they halt the van?” He turned to the constable.

“At 7:35 p.m., sir.”

“Was this your routine checkpoint?”

“No, sir. We only set that checkpoint because of a drug squad alert.”

“The suspects didn’t know or they wouldn’t have taken this route.”

Arnav asked the constable to flick open a map on his phone. They peered at it together.

“The men were driving down the STP road from this direction.” He pointed out the road they were standing on in the map. “So they might have picked up the body from somewhere nearby—you need an isolated place to do this.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll look out for any derelict buildings.”

“If we abandon this location now, the killers might come back to retrieve evidence. Post four men overnight, and make sure no one enters this area.”

Assigning overnight duty to Shinde’s constables in a mangrove forest near a road believed to be haunted wouldn’t make Arnav popular, but he saw no choice. Locating other body parts could help identify the woman.

Dr. Meshram and his assistant were not able to lift the dead body from the suitcase on their own, and asked for help. The constables came forward, but Arnav waved them off, asking them to prepare a manned post for the night. The body was heavy, and it had stiffened. Based on his experience with scores of postmortems, Arnav knew this meant death had occurred more than four hours ago. The stumps where the head and the limbs had been severed had turned dark. The breasts remained in the posture the body had lain in, and once turned over, the body didn’t lie flat. One of the newer constables retched.

Arnav used his forearm to wipe sweat off his forehead. Mumbai humidity was bad enough, but in this stretch of jungle, it was a blanket of wet clamminess.