The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(20)
Arnav watched Dr. Meshram use a pair of tweezers to remove a fiber from behind the victim’s thighs.
“What is it?” Arnav leaned closer for a look.
“Nylon thread.”
Arnav examined the thread: white, and slightly thicker than human hair. Meshram eased it into an evidence bag.
“This is quite similar to the body near Aksa, right?” Arnav said.
“Yes. Other than the fact that it has not been buried. Same person or persons could be responsible, kya?”
“What else can you tell so far?”
“The wounds on the body were made over a period of time. Several look like they’re more than a day or two old. And the body has been bled out.”
“How did you get that?”
“There is no postmortem lividity that I can see. A few hours after death, the blood pools to the portion of the body touching the ground, and we see dark stains. No such stains, so not enough blood in the body.”
“The cause of death?”
“Not sure in this light. The cuts on the throat, wrists, and ankles appear surgical, so the victim was either dead or unconscious—wasn’t moving or struggling. No bruising around the amputation sites, which could mean that the heart had stopped by that time. Hard to be sure without a proper examination.”
“What age was the victim? Approximate height and weight?”
An age range would help narrow down potential matches in missing persons complaints. This woman went missing some time ago, so any reports filed in the last two months could be a match.
“Between twenty and forty years old, and about five feet, five inches tall. I’ll need to examine the bones. With no skull or teeth, this will take a while.”
“That may have prompted the decapitation—hiding the victim’s identity,” Arnav said. He must organize a meeting with Taneja. Rattle the cage a bit and see what turned up. If the same culprit was responsible for all the deaths, and three of the bodies were found at a site Taneja had recently won in a court case, he held useful information, at the very least. And if Mhatre continued to go easy on Taneja, Arnav could employ the media. A well-placed article in a paper like Mumbai Drishtikon could make it difficult to ignore this case, especially if they found out that a similar murder had taken place recently.
“My seniors won’t begrudge me time spent on this case now.” Dr. Meshram broke into Arnav’s thoughts. “Once you talk about an active serial killer, they all sit up and take notice. Not a good look, kya?”
“Check for sequins. If we find blue sequins on the body or in the suitcase, we’ll have a stronger case.”
“Yes. Sequins are plastic. Plastic will not decompose for a hundred years. The bodies we dug up near Aksa are not holding up, though. We don’t have the facilities to store them properly, and there’s no viscera in the condition for further analysis.”
“This one?”
“I’ll be able to extract the viscera and send it to the forensic laboratory at Kalina. We’ll find out about any drug reactions or poisoning.”
“If we can connect the Aksa cases to this victim, we could apply the same conclusions to all the bodies. Find a common thread. Maybe even a motive.”
“Whoever did this,” said Meshram as he glanced up from the suitcase, “not right in the head, kya?”
As Arnav neared the Versova jetty, traffic sounds pierced the rustling quiet of the mangroves. Loudspeakers bellowed the last few scenes of the Ramleela play, building up to the crescendo of Ravan’s destruction, Dussehra’s climactic episode. A much smaller Ravan in this Muslim-dominated area, but he would burn the same as the one at Chowpatty. Somewhere in the city a real-life Ravan prowled, kidnapping women, torturing and killing them.
At a recent event organized by the state’s Mangrove Cell, the scientist had said that the mangroves acted as nurseries for fish, birds, and a million small animals. It was also a place where the decomposition of the dead made new life—the fringe between life and death, salt water and sweet. Death itself was an edge, and this woman had been pushed across. Was she, too, doomed to roam the jungles at night, stopping passersby for a lift? She had good reason to be furious at the world and exact bloody vengeance. Arnav dialed Ali as he drove down the allegedly haunted Madh-Marve Road back toward Malwani Police Station, a part of him terrified yet waiting for the distressed woman to bar his way and hitch a ride.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ARNAV
At Dr. Meshram’s office beside the Bhagwati Hospital morgue, Arnav and Shinde refused an offer of tea. The office in which they sat was damp, a leaky refrigerator grumbling away in a corner on top of a frayed carpet, the walls bare other than a lone picture of the maverick, saffron-clad right-wing leader in his trademark sunglasses, worshipped by all of Mumbai.
Arnav watched the fidgety Shinde, who had not yet been cleared to report for active duty, four days after he was injured. Shinde had no use for rest.
The inspector Shinde had assigned to the Versova case had taken a leave of absence following a death in the family, so he had let Arnav take the lead on the case.
After a few minutes of waiting, Dr. Meshram peered in through the door, in his white overcoat, surgical cap, and gloves, his usual cheerful demeanor faded with exhaustion.
“I know you’d asked to be present at this one,” Meshram said before Shinde could speak, “but my assistant had . . . uh . . . already prepped the body, so I had to go ahead.”