“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” said Santosh. “Let me know if anything new emerges.”
Chapter 10
SANTOSH LEFT MUBEEN’S lab and walked into Hari’s office. At thirty-five the youngest member of the team, Hari Padhi was Private’s technology geek. If you needed a cell tracing, you went to Hari. If you needed to know the precise speed and trajectory of a naked corpse falling from the twenty-first floor of a building, then you went to Hari.
He looked somewhat like a wrestler. His chest bulged out of his shirt and his arms were thick and muscular. It was evident that he spent a substantial amount of his free time working out at the gym. His gray matter was also in peak form.
He was seated at his desk, closely examining the video feed from the hotel’s camera. His workspace was fitted out with high-capacity microprocessors, surveillance equipment, GPS trackers, signal jammers, bug-sweep equipment, password-decryption software, and wiretap-detection systems. Also available to Hari was a full suite of ballistics equipment including microscopes with digital imaging capability, sensitive measuring equipment, and instrumentation to check and record surface temperature, projectile velocity, internal gun pressures, trigger characteristics, and lock time.
He was using an ultra-high-resolution monitor and a high-density time-lapse deck with a built-in time base corrector to forensically examine the video feed from the hotel.
“Any news for me?” asked Santosh.
“We checked the room for fingerprints. Most of them were of the victim or assorted members of hotel staff. I’ve also been looking at the CCTV, and we have a guy going in and out of the room.”
“Excellent,” said Santosh. “Let’s see him.”
Hari scooted to the place on the tape and they watched as a man first entered and then, forwarding the tape, left.
He wore a baseball cap, jeans, his hands thrust in the pockets of a jacket. Conscious of the cameras, his head down.
“Not much help, is it?” said Hari with a pained face.
Santosh looked at him. “Everything’s a help,” he said. He looked back at the screen where the man was freeze-framed as he left room 1121, certain he was looking at the killer.
Hari looked up and wordlessly scanned the footage to the point at which the baseball-cap-wearing visitor had been recorded leaving the room. “See this? The time stamp shows two minutes past nine on Sunday evening.”
“So?” asked Santosh.
“Now let’s scan back further to see when he went in,” said Hari and pressed the deck’s rewind button to take the footage back by eleven minutes. “Ah, here we are. See this? Eight fifty-one p.m.”
“Yes.”
“Nisha spoke to receptionists and the doormen. Nobody remembers seeing anyone matching this description enter or leave, nor does he turn up on any of the reception CCTV.”
“So he used a back entrance?” said Santosh.
“Sort of. There’s a separate entrance from the bar at the rear of the hotel. There’s no doorman, the reception area is set back, there’s far less chance of being seen. But … they do have CCTV.”
With a showman’s flourish Hari clicked on his laptop’s desktop and a new picture appeared. Once again it showed the same figure, baseball cap on, head down, hands in pockets. Once again there was no hint of any identifying features.
“He certainly knew what he was doing,” hissed Santosh. “He must have known the location of every single camera in the place.”
“It’s frustrating, isn’t it?” agreed Hari. “Except. The image from the rear entrance is a slightly higher resolution and something caught my eye. Here …” He clicked again. “Look at the shoes.”
Santosh peered at the screen, in particular at the shoes. Expensive-looking, polished black shoes with a distinctive buckle at the sides, they were incongruous set against the baseball cap and jacket.
He straightened, nodding with satisfaction. His phone was ringing and he delved in his jacket pocket for it, gesturing from Hari to the image on the screen.
“Find those shoes,” he said, his finger hovering over the call-accept button. It was Rupesh. “Find where they’re sold and who’s bought a pair.”
Hari nodded and looked pleased with himself as Santosh answered the call. “Yes?”
“There’s been another murder,” said Rupesh. “And guess what? The victim has a yellow scarf around her neck.”
Chapter 11
THANE, A NORTHEASTERN suburb of Mumbai, was home to several large housing cooperatives. The second body had been discovered in an apartment that was part of a gated community there.