Murder In Mumbai
Page 16
“No. No. We just drove away as fast as we could.”
As pathetic as the explanation sounded, Gaikwad knew he was telling the truth. He may have solved one crime—the burglaries—but his boss, DCP Khan, would not be happy to hear that a murderer was still at large. Of course, he could always charge him. No judge could fail to convict this man based on the evidence against him. He had already confessed to the burglaries; another charge, even if it was murder, wouldn’t really matter. With his own sense of right and wrong blurred, Gaikwad decided that the best thing he could do was keep the men under detention for another day and hope for a breakthrough in the murder. He could decide later what to do with him and his driver.
“OK. Slow down,” Gaikwad said. “And what have you been doing since that day?”
“Nothing,” he replied in a whisper. “Nothing.”
“No more burglaries?”
“There was one burglary, but all I could think about was the body. I tried to lie low. I told my partner to lie low. We made it a point not to be seen together in public—to act normally. I thought if we behaved normally, the police would stop paying attention. I went about my daily routine: I went to the gym, met with friends.”
“Are they accomplices, too?”
“No. They have no idea what I do. They think I’m living off the money my father left me.”
“What else did you do?”
“I used to go to clubs, meet girls. Things I used to enjoy. But I found I no longer enjoyed them. I felt I was being watched. I felt the end would come at any minute. But appearances had to be maintained. I had to continue doing what I always did.”
“What did you steal? Where from? How did you pick the houses?”
“It was easy. We went after executives or those with foreign connections. Areas like Bandra, Versova, Worli. They have plenty of toys. Xboxes, iPods, jewelry, computers—stuff that can fit in a bag. We watched a few buildings and then zeroed in on the ones where we could make out a pattern. Who left when. When they came home. It was easy.”
He sounded wistful in the knowledge that those days were over.
“And you sold the electronics?”
“Yes, but that was more for pocket money. The real prize was the laptops and PCs. We would extract data or remove the hard drive and send it to Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore. We have buyers there. They pay good money for that information. Credit card data, corporate information. That kind of stuff. The beauty of it is that by the time anyone complains of identity thefts, we’ve moved on to new people. And the credit card companies get left holding the bill. So, really, no one’s getting hurt.”
Gaikwad couldn’t help but think that this was the brave new frontier of crime.
“What were you afraid of being caught for? The murder or the thefts?”
“The murder, of course,” he replied. “I know you have an overstretched department. A few thefts you won’t bother. One murder—especially a foreigner—you’ll be on it. I expected the police to come knocking at the door. I read the paper diligently, scouring for details of that bloody red bag in the garbage dump. But there weren’t any—neither that nor any report on the burglaries. For a while, just a brief while, I breathed easily. I thought perhaps the police and the press were incompetent. But at other times, I became paranoid: Were you close to catching me and didn’t want any information made public that could tip me off?”
“So what did you do?”
“There was rationally no way for you to link me to the bag. I’d made no errors since taking the body. And I know my partner is reliable, too. But I found myself becoming paranoid. When people lingered too long at street corners, I thought they were cops. I felt I was being followed. I began to inspect the lampshades everyday, suspecting that you had wired the place. That’s when I decided: I would have to leave the country—alone. I wanted to tell him . . .”
“Who?”
“My partner.”
“OK.”
“But I lacked the courage. I felt I was betraying him. Leaving without saying good-bye only reinforced that. Yet, I had little choice. I could explain later. After all, he knew how to take care of himself. There was no reason to worry. Many years earlier, I had come up with a list that I had tucked away. It comprised the most important items I’d need if there ever were an emergency. I put together the items on the list: passport, underwear, socks, two suits, a folder with papers bearing pie charts and bar graphs, a laptop. To all outward appearances, I’d be an executive traveling overseas on a short, work-related trip. The passport was made out to another name just in case there was any trouble. I took it and drove to the airport.”
“And that’s where you got caught.”
“Yes,” the man said, again in a whisper.
It was this part of the operation that had given Gaikwad particular satisfaction. The man in the video had walked up to the immigration official, past whom every traveler has to walk at India’s international airport. The man behind the counter had looked at the assumed name on the man’s passport, Shankar Mahamurthi, and began speaking to him in Tamil. Despite his planning, the man did not know the language and panicked. His expression gave him away.
“Please stand aside,” the immigration official said. “Secondary screening.”
Soon another official appeared and took him to a room. He opened the door and entered. Two policemen were waiting inside.
“Mr. Pankaj Taneja,” one of them said.
The man in the video did not reply, but he could see the officer was holding a sketch with his own image on it.
“Good. Good. Now that we’ve met you, let us go back to the police station where your good friend, Dinesh, is waiting for you. We have some questions for you.”
* * *
On hearing his partner’s name, Taneja knew it was over.
From a vantage point across the street, the police had continued watching Taneja’s apartment after he’d left. They’d seen Dinesh visit the apartment and then, finding his partner gone, rush back to his own home. They could see he wanted to run, but he kept his nerve, even stopping to greet acquaintances on the street.
“He’s a cool customer, sir,” a constable had later told Gaikwad.
They gave Dinesh a few minutes before they knocked on his door. The hurried sounds from inside stopped. The silence was piercing. They knocked again. They could hear footsteps and then, after an eternity, the door opened.
“Yes?”
“Dinesh bhai?”
“Yes. Can I help you?”
“I’m with the police,” an officer said, showing him his badge. “Can we come in?”
“What is this regarding?” he tried to keep his voice calm, but was failing.
“It’s not a request, Dinesh bhai. Let us in.”
“I’ll tell you everything,” he said, the fear creeping into his voice. “I was just the driver.”
* * *
“Got all you want?” Gaikwad asked Jay when he’d finished both interviews.
“Do you think he did it?” he asked by way of reply.
“Off the record. No. Don’t mention the murder in your story—you’d be doing me a favor.”
“I’ll hold off on it for now, inspector. But you’ll have to give me dibs.”
The man was a vulture, Gaikwad thought. “OK.”
* * *
Jay Ganesh left the police station and walked up to his Premier Padmini parked a few blocks away. The sun was setting, and there was still no sign of the second rains. Jay was sweating by the time he reached his car. He reached down his pockets for the keys; they were stuck. He cursed himself and tugged at the key ring. That’s when he heard it—a click. He turned around and saw a metal object pointed at his head. He knew enough to know it was the barrel of a gun.
“Hand over the keys,” said a voice.
Jay did as he was told. Carjackings were unheard of in Mumbai, but he realized soon enough that this wasn’t a carjacking. He was blindfolded and pushed into the rear seat. The man with the gun took the seat next to him. Another person, who had not spoken, sat on the other side. A third person started the car and began driving.
Jay turned his head to see if he could discern anything through the blindfold, but it was dark and they had tied it tightly.
“Keep looking ahead, you fool,” said the man with the gun. “Someone wants to see you.”
Chapter 16
Jay could not tell how long he’d been in the car. The blindfold was disorienting. He could not tell where he was being taken. The men in the car did not speak. They ignored his questions. (“Where are we going?” “Who wants to see me?”) He did not know who they were. He tried to listen for familiar sounds that could give him a clue to where he was, but when he most needed it, Bombay’s sounds deserted him. There were two things, however, that Jay knew for certain: that they had spent much of the time in traffic, which meant they hadn’t gone far; and if the men had meant to do him harm, they would have done so already.
The car finally came to a halt. The doors opened and the man next to him pushed Jay out. Another grabbed him. He felt himself being escorted forward. Doors were opened and shut and only when he detected motion did Jay know that he was in an elevator. The men still said nothing. The elevator stopped. Again, he felt himself being pushed out.
“Wait here,” said one of the men, pushing Jay onto a couch. “Don’t try anything.”
Jay knew that he couldn’t try anything—some of his escorts were probably still with him. Besides, now that he’d come this far and had built up (misplaced?) bravado, he wasn’t about to leave without discovering who had arranged his abduction and why. He placed his hands upon the couch. It was fine leather, the kind found in luxurious hotel lobbies. But Jay knew it was unlikely he was in a hotel.
“Take that damn blindfold off,” said a voice. Pointedly, the words were spoken in English, as if the speaker wanted Jay to know he was dealing with much more than a petty thug. Jay felt stubby fingers prod at his eyes and whip the blindfold away. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the sudden brightness.
“Welcome, Mr. Ganesh. Sorry that our meeting had to be under such circumstances.”
Jay looked at the speaker and saw the hint of someone familiar.
“I’m Ram Iqbal, Chhota Mirchi’s son.”
Jay gauged the young man in front of him. Typically, Bombay’s underworld possessed both power and wealth, but sadly these two attributes did not translate into taste. Their clothes were both expensive and loud; their speech coarse—a pity because as anyone who knew them could attribute these were intelligent men; intelligent and ruthless. But the man in front of Jay was a different beast altogether. He spoke well. He was dressed in black trousers and a button-down white shirt: simple, but elegant. He looked more like a returning graduate student from America than a gangster’s son.
“What do you want with me?” Jay asked. “Or are you speaking for your father?”
Ram Iqbal examined Jay with amusement.
“You’ve been asking questions.”
“What kinds of questions?”
“Mr. Ganesh, please don’t insult my intelligence. You’ve come here as a guest and I intend to treat you as such.”
“You kidnap all your guests?”
“You were unlikely to have responded to an invitation.”
That was probably true, Jay thought.
“So are my questions of the wrong nature?”
“Shall we just say that while there’s nothing wrong with your questions per se, the assumptions you may be drawing from them could be erroneous.”
“And what assumptions am I drawing from them?”
The smile on Ram Iqbal’s face became serious.
“Mr. Ganesh, I know your work and respect it. You could either deal with me or with my father’s aides and their old ways. I personally don’t like it—find it too messy—but they swear it’s effective.”
“OK. Fine,” Jay said, not relishing that prospect. “What do you want to know?”
“Why are you asking questions about Eagle?”
“I want to know why Vikram Hazra hired you.”
Iqbal laughed.
“What so funny?” Jay asked.
“Nothing. Go on.”
“I’m looking into the death of Liz Barton, the American CEO of Mohini Resources. Hazra wanted her out of the way. He hires you. She dies. Did he order her dead? Did you kill her?”
Ram Iqbal was silent, as if soaking in the magnitude of each word Jay had uttered, reveling in their implications. Finally, he smiled.
“Mr. Ganesh, let me tell you a story. Will you indulge me?”
“Do I look like I have a choice?” Jay replied, gesturing toward the cord used to bind his hands.
“True. But it’s a good story—and one that I hope will not only entertain but illuminate, much like what your newspaper claims to do.”
Jay could not help but think he was in the presence of a Bond villain. All that was missing was a life-sized aquarium with giant sharks. At any moment, he thought, at the press of a button, he would find himself swimming among them.
“Have you been to Asalfa Village, Mr. Ganesh?”
“I’ve ridden past it on the bus from Andheri Station.”
“Why didn’t you stop and get off?”
“It had a certain reputation. Area burned in the riots.”
“And what do you think of the place you’re in right now, Mr. Ganesh?”
Jay looked around him. The flat was tastefully furnished. He was on a high floor. The views from the balcony were expansive. It was difficult not to impress.
“Are we in Juhu?”
“You know the city well,” Iqbal replied, chuckling. “So, my father started off in Asalfa and we’re now in Juhu. What does that tell you?”
“That you like the beach?”
“Funny,” Iqbal said, not laughing. “Would you want to leave such an environment and live a life of risk? I’ll answer for you—no. My father had a heart attack last year. It was kept quiet. We have too many businesses and we don’t want the other gangs encroaching on our turf. But I had to return from America where I was studying computers. My father never wanted me to join this. So I decided to transition it into a more legitimate enterprise.
“Besides, there’s more money in ‘legal crimes’ like property development than ‘illegal crimes’ like extortion and murder.”
“So what did Hazra want with you?”
“He wanted us to keep an eye on her.”
“An eye?”
“He didn’t trust her. Thought she was selling out the company’s secrets to that Kabir Khurana.”
“And did she?”
“I can’t reveal the details of a confidential inquiry, Mr. Ganesh—it’s not like I work for a newspaper. We have standards.” Iqbal laughed at his own joke. He continued: “But she was spending an awful amount of time with him.”
“So Hazra didn’t order her dead?”
“Between you and me, he’s too meek for that. He just wanted surveillance. We did the job, gave him the results.”
“Why did he come back to see you?”
“After her death, he was spooked. He didn’t want any link to us. Of course, he didn’t count on you seeing him leave our offices.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“As I said, we’re trying to go legit. The more you look into our activities, the more it spooks potential clients. They want discretion—not the object of gutter press coverage.”
Jay couldn’t help but admit the logic to that reasoning.
“What now?” he said.
* * *
Inspector Vijay Gaikwad did not much believe in coincidences. At the start of this investigation, he would not have thought to tie together the burglaries with Barton’s murder. But the arrest of the two men had changed his mind. The men had without prompting confessed to disposing off the body in Mahim, but they were insistent they hadn’t killed her. His instinct told him they were telling the truth. He had to admit, though, that the case against them was strong. After all, who would believe their innocence when they had already confessed to a string of crimes and to the fact that one of them had been inside the dead woman’s apartment and was stupid enough to leave his fingerprints all over the crime scene? But the suspect had claimed that he had tripped and fallen over the body—one of the most absurd excuses he had ever heard from a criminal—and had feared that his fingerprints were all over the scene. Clumsy, true. But plausible? He had spoken to his boss, DCP Adnan Khan, about the investigation and his belief that they should proceed with the inquiry into the American woman’s killing. Khan was not happy. He was a result-oriented man, and each day they were without a result meant that he had to deflect the media’s queries about the case and had to assure the Western press that India was, in fact, safe for business. But Khan, despite his temptations to declare the case closed, decided to give Gaikwad another week.
* * *
“If by that time you don’t have anything,” he said, “we have to charge those two idiots.” Gaikwad did not like what he heard, but he realized Khan had few choices. Trouble was Gaikwad had fewer. Why was the man in the video, Pankaj Taneja, there in the first place? Taneja had told him it was for Liz Barton’s laptop, possibly her cell phone and other electronics. But those items, unlike the ones found from the other burglaries in a subsequent search of Taneja’s flat, had not been recovered. Where did they go? Gaikwad went over the notes from the interview with Taneja and Dinesh. All the men had spoken of was the effort to get the body in the bag out of the building. No mention of a laptop or any other electronics. He walked over to the holding cell and peered inside. Taneja was sitting on the cold, hard ground with his head buried between his raised knees. He looked up when he heard the cell door open.