Till Human Voices Wake Us: Last Part: Page 175 - Page 53

Originally posted by: zooni20

But aanya I didn't say he murder all of them maybe vickram was there to kill her but he heard mal comin so he ran away leaving her behind!! Mal maybe came there visiting her but saw vickram pic at her table or maybe she found it herself and came to confront her but at the point when she saw Anjali down there she realised if she kill her no one would suspect her!!!that's why maan stated that the killer fulfill his wish in this mal murder!!!
Hmmm this is another reason for vickram to kill Anjali!!!

Originally posted by: -pixie-

Maan has MPD too 😲😕🤔

ps: ok I swear on all that is holy...I am not high!

pps: Sookie, sorry for spamming!

Originally posted by: esquisse

you better be located in a dark room lit up only by the table lamp and the flickering light of your computer screen..and writing away furiously...things that attempts to mess up our theories further and mislead us wrong leads...and extraneous information...and useless cues...and while you are at it..very close to being done with the next update!! UPDATE please SOOKIE!!

Chapter 17:

"Who reported the crime Satya?" Maan asked coming out of reverie.

"The woman is Mal's house help. She comes in the morning every day and does chores for Mal. She came in she saw that the door was unlocked. Without thinking further, she barged in and then saw the blood around her. She freaked out and ran to the neighbors. They called us," Satya replied.

"And Deshmukh's surveillance confirmed that Geet was working through the night and was still at work, actually," Satya added. Maan nodded at that.

Somehow bringing Geet to police station and give her the news of her best friend's death didn't bode well with him. The woman had lost two people in less than a week's time and she probably didn't have anywhere to go given how death seemed to follow her wherever she went. But that didn't mean that he didn't suspect her.

"Deshmukh?" Satya said looking at the uniformed figure entering the house. His customary "Jai Hind" was returned by his two seniors.

"Sir, my officers placed Mal under surveillance yesterday and since we don't have lot of data to compare to, we technically cannot say if whatever she did was routine or was it out of order," Deshmukh said. Maan was aware of this shortcoming but it was something he had to do. Maan nodded to continue.

"She went to work in the morning at ten and she didn't get out of her workplace till about seven. She took a cab straight home. The surveillance was round the clock. My men were sitting in a van half a block away. They didn't see anyone come or go through the entrance. Before I came in I surveyed the area with my team. The killer could have come from neighboring apartment complex sir. You see these apartments complexes share what they call as a 'soft spot' which are nothing but narrow passages between the two complexes. They are built to ease the movement between two compounds. So the killer could have come from there," Deshmukh stated.

Maan had already guessed that kind of probability given how the killer was practically unseen by their team.

"Sir, I may have a lead on the apartment from where Anjali's photos were taken. I am going there first and en route I will talk to the sub-inspector from the police station who handled Sasha's case before. Maybe he knows something about it," Deshmukh saluted and left the apartment. Maan and Satya were silent for several moments.

"What are you thinking sir ji?" Satya asked.

"I am worried about this Satya," Maan pointed to the photo he had bagged as evidence.

-- 4:30 PM, Wednesday, Police Station –

"When did you get back and how did it go with Geet?" Maan asked Emily who entered his cabin.

Maan and Emily had picked up Geet from her workplace. They had broken the news to her at police station and she had broken down. They had watched helplessly as she tried to gather the last bit of sanity that she was holding on to after hearing about the death of Mal. Emily was with Geet till she had calmed down enough to talk. Geet had left for work on Tuesday afternoon and was at work since then. Her surveillance vouched for that and her alibi for the entire night was rock solid. Emily had discouraged Maan to interview Geet in the state she was in. At least they owed her the time for herself to mourn for her best friend's death in the way she wanted. Emily was truly worried about Geet's safety but there wasn't much they could do about it. Emily was surprised when Geet opted to go back to Anjali's apartment before she could find a new place for herself.

"People around me are dying Emily. I cannot afford to put anyone else in danger because of me," she had said. Emily had given her personal cellphone number to Geet to contact her whenever she wanted.

"I hate this job," Emily grunted and flopped down on the sofa. Maan walked around the room and handed her a bottle of cola. She nodded in appreciation and offered him a smile.

"This worries me," he handed Emily the photo of Geet with Mal's blood all over. "This photo is from Mal's house and the killer took it out of from its resting place and held it in his hands." He said.

"You think he came for her?" Emily asked sipping on cola. Satya entered Maan's cabin at that moment.

"I don't think so. There is something about Geet that fascinates him. It isn't in the way a man is fascinated by a woman but it's more primal, more fundamental."

"Where is the behavioral evidence for this sir ji?"

"In Anjali's crime scene he left a glass of hot chocolate and walnut cookies for her in her house. We profiled the crime scene to have had two killers and the second killer is the one who is fascinated with Geet. There is no concluding forensic evidence to prove this theory but in Mal's crime scene its bang on."

"You mean the second killer killed Mal beating the first killer this time?" Emily asked raising an eyebrow. "That's a fascinating theory," she said clearly not in agreement with Maan. She paused and looked at him again.

"Because Mal is the first killer," Satya said.

"I know this is little farfetched but you may be on something here." Emily said emptying her satchel. "You remember how this morning you asked me to go through Mal's phone records for the days leading to her murder? I found an oddity in the records and it had escaped my mind as I went to pick up Geet and now…," she shuffled through papers and finally found what she was looking for. "Here it is." She said pointing to the circled row from an excel document print out. "It shows the GPS coordinates of a cellphone when there is an active transmission and the corresponding date." Emily said as Maan picked up the sheet and Satya looked over his shoulder.

"What am I looking at?" Maan asked.

"There was a call received from Mal's cellphone at around ten thirty on the night of Anjali's murder," Emily explained. "And the location points to Anjali's apartment," she finished quietly.

"Is it possible that someone picked it up from her and dropped it back before she realized she had missed it?" Satya asked his own theory sounding lame in his head.

"The person she spoke to was Geet Satya and while driving her back I casually asked her if she ever spoke to Mal on the night of Anjali's murder. Geet remembered making a call to Mal before she started conference call about some art show tickets. According to the record the call lasted for thirty seconds and Geet said that she spoke to Mal very briefly that night; probably less than a minute," Emily finished. The evidence was pointing to the obvious. But what motive did Mal have to kill Anjali? Besides the fact that Anjali cheated with Geet's boyfriend, there was no direct conflict between Mal and Anjali.

"Did the killer already know about this sir ji? He did leave a photo of Anjali and Sasha in the vase," Satya asked. Satya was right. The killer seemed to know a lot about these four women.

"Looks like he did. Emily, what was the message he left for the world this time?" Maan asked. Emily raised her eyebrows at this. "Few keys on laptop keypad had blood mark on it. It wasn't a splatter so I assumed he went ahead and typed out a message." Maan finished. Emily nodded. Before she could reply, Deshmukh, David and Vic entered the room.

Vic whistled when Satya summarized the entire discussion for their benefit. It looked as if they were going to pull another long day at work.

"The killer sticks to the same signature of updating Facebook profile. And this time it was – I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me." Emily recited from a printout. There was silence around the room as Deshmukh wrote down the line on murder board.

"Deshmukh what happened to the lead you were following this morning?" Maan asked.

"Sir, we didn't have to serve warrant for the owner of the apartment from where pictures of Anjali's affair were taken. The owner was annoyed with the tenant who had hired the small studio because the tenant had littered the whole place. It was rented out for six months and it was paid full in advance. There was a nominal contract made as per building policy and the address given there was that of a photo studio. The owner gave us the sketch of the man who had rented the place. Yesterday evening I went to the studio and found that the sketch matched the owner. Obviously he had been taking pictures of Anjali and her affairs. He was hired by a private detective agency," Deshmukh finished.

"What? What does private detective agency has got to do with Anjali now?" Satya exclaimed.

"Well after haggling with those people for most of the morning they finally gave out the case details after hearing that Mal is dead." Deshmukh said.

"Why?" Satya asked immediately.

"Because only then client confidentiality and all non-disclosure agreements get nullified; not legally of course but they are not liable anymore." Maan replied. Deshmukh nodded.

"Mal was their client. She asked them to keep an eye on her about eight months after Geet moved in," Deshmukh said looking at the murder board and his case notes. "She didn't trust Anjali so she asked the detective agency to report to her all Anjali's whereabouts. And when they reported about a plausible affair, she assigned them to collect evidence. They agreed and provided with the reports to Mal." Deshmukh explained.

"I need to see the complete report Deshmukh," Maan said.

"We need a warrant for that sir and I will get it and serve it tomorrow morning," he replied making a note of it.

"Any note on Sasha's candy-man?" Emily asked. Deshmukh shook his head.

"We may have to go back and interview Sasha's old friends who knew about her habit or ask Geet to give us a description about him." Deshmukh replied. Maan knew that in that line of business, two years was a very long time.

"Did we get a sketch of the imposter cop from Geet's college sir ji?" Satya asked remembering their excursion the day before.

"I spoke to the inspector and he said he can fax it by tomorrow noon. Something about Mr. Madan being busy and everything," Maan said.

"Maan, the killer's photo at Mal's crime scene had Anjali and Sasha in it. If there is culpable evidence that Mal killed Anjali, then is saying Mal killed Sasha also true? The killer chose specifically a picture of both Anjali and Sasha in it and wrote 'Murderer' across it. In previous accounts he mentioned exactly what those women were trying to hide or badly undo from their lives," David said. Maan shrugged. The conjuncture was obvious to everyone but there was no motive for both the cases and in Sasha's murder there wasn't anything that could be used against Mal.

"What's your verdict now Vic?"

"Mal was killed between ten and ten-thirty last night. There are three wounds that can be potentially fatal. The preliminary toxicology reports gave me negative for popular drugs. She didn't even have alcohol in the system. And get this, she was three months pregnant."

To be continued.

Absolutely brilliant!!! Outstanding!! Take a bow girl,you never fail to impress!