The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(28)
The snippet articles that stemmed from his interview might flush out information from someone in cahoots with the culprit or the disposal team. Many in Mumbai’s underworld combed the crime section of newspapers looking to sell intel in exchange for a slice of the not insignificant budget the Mumbai Police maintained for their informal sources.
Arnav’s gang of khabri scurried about in the alleyways of Mumbai like an infestation of rats. Not large rats, the ones the sanitation department employed an army of workers to kill, those intimidating bandicoots going about their business on Mumbai pavements with more conviction than some of its human inhabitants. His men were stealthier, but he hadn’t heard a peep out of them yet. A group of rats was called a mischief, Arnav had learned in school. He chafed for them to be true to their name.
Ali hadn’t managed to sneak into the garage for a picture of the black van. Nor had he sent in tips on that disposal contract. The small-time goon who had babbled about it had vanished. Rumor said he might not return. This fit in with Arnav’s theory that Rasool had taken the contract. He’d snuff out a tattletale in a snap. Ali must receive another reminder, and an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Arnav next checked the updates from Naik—two women missing from different zones of Mumbai, otherwise matching the victim’s approximate description, ruled out. Neither had a birthmark under the breast.
Arnav took a snapshot of the board with his phone, so he could refer to it even when far from office. He then turned the board to face the wall. Before he left, he must finish his pending reports, and notes for testimonies due in court.
His phone beeped: a message from Dr. Meshram asking if he could call. He dialed Meshram’s number.
“I need to apologize,” Dr. Meshram said.
In all the cases he’d handled so far with Arnav, Dr. Meshram had never made an apology.
“What’s the matter?”
“A new finding in the Versova case. It resembles an earring but with clamps on both sides. I’ll email you a picture.”
“Why didn’t we spot it earlier?”
“My regular assistant was on leave on the postmortem date. His replacement hired a daily temp as his helper. This man stole it from the body.”
“We were at the crime scene,” Arnav said. “We would’ve spotted it.”
“It was stuck under the body, the helper says, between the legs. He thought it was a fake stone, but it should be examined. Looks like a sapphire.”
A sapphire? This was curious. Arnav recalled that the murdered woman’s entire body was depilated. From his experience in other cases, this was a frequent practice in the porn and prostitution industry.
“How do we know it is from that particular body?”
“We hired that particular helper on that case alone. My temporary assistant saw the man with it today. You know how some of them are.”
The helpers touched the bodies no one in the police force would. They ferried cadavers within and outside the morgue, to crematoriums and burials, and occasionally assisted with positioning the bodies or machines during postmortems. They were either high or drunk most of the time, and often red-eyed. He didn’t blame them. To survive without training, and with minimal protection, the routine horrors of unclaimed bodies—decomposed, bombed, charred, run over—anyone would take to drink.
“Send me that picture,” Arnav said.
“Right away. It has an M scratched on one surface. Or it could be a W, depending.”
“Please make a note of that detail,” Arnav said. “Dr. Meshram, I’ll have to put this in my report to Senior Inspector Shinde.”
“I was hoping . . .”
Arnav softened his voice. “I’ll describe the details of the event, and make sure your temporary assistant and the helper are mentioned. I’ll not mark you for negligence, but that’s the best I can do.”
If he wanted Dr. Meshram to go out of his way for him on cases again, Arnav had to cut him a break. Relationships ran the police world, just like any other.
“Is there anything else”—Arnav weighed his words—“from any of the cold cases we sent to you for review?”
“I was about to come to that. The bones from the Dadar case. They have chips or marks on the shinbones, the tibia and the fibula. These are at the lower end, where they meet the talus to form the ankle joint. The device used might have been a saw, based on the shape of the marks.”
“This confirms that the foot was sawed off?”
“Yes.” There was a sound of pages being turned. “This case was from 2003. Whoever is cutting up these bodies may have . . . made progress with experience, kya, like a medical student. This time the cut was clean, through the joint. I’ll send you pictures.”
A Ravan who had improved with practice. Arnav huffed a sigh. Seven women over the years. There could be more—many of them never found. This Ravan was unlikely to stop unless the police nabbed him. Neither Mhatre nor Joshi seemed to realize that this case could be much bigger than Raman Raghav, who had bludgeoned dozens of slum dwellers to death many decades ago. That arrest had earned the police officer involved a President’s Medal and a promotion to the post of assistant commissioner of Mumbai Police.
More importantly, the killer might even now be stalking their next victim.
Arnav required a longer article, in bigger papers. An in-depth investigative feature about all the stalled investigations in an international newspaper could do the trick. A police corruption angle tied in, with Joshi in the crosshairs. He’d have to tell Shinde about the detailed feature, the jewelry, and most crucial—that Rasool probably owned the black van and had a contract with Taneja.