Doosra: The Other One

by Vish Dhamija

But she was at a major disadvantage she realised. Most homicide investigations started with a dead body. Here they had a picture of one. She looked at the photographs of Ron Jogani's stiff again.

  Rita concluded that someone had followed Jogani to the hotel. It was mere gut feel: nothing to support it, nothing to dismiss. How else would someone have known about the diamonds, the precise hotel room number and the call that was made to Jogani in the middle of the night to get him out of the room? But from where — from somewhere local in Brussels, from Antwerp or did someone trail him all the way from India?

  And how had Ron Jogani — carrying diamonds worth millions missed being shadowed? Wouldn't he have taken due care not to divulge his plan? Maybe someone knew the itinerary. And how could someone know that? Every case, in Rita's experience, was a series of endless conundrums. Sometimes, all one needed was to untangle one element and, like the weakest link in the chain, the rest of the mystery was laid bare. Not always, but there was always a good probability.

  She was convinced someone evidently knew Jogani's itinerary. The question was: who? And how?

  Despite being aware that Sishir Singh was, in all probability, his nom de guerre, Rita logged into the central information database to look for Sishir Singh. Dozens of them in Mumbai but none — not a single one — had any conviction or police cases filed against them. They would have to loan this one out to snitches to snoop around. There existed — and always would remain — an ironic symbiosis between the police and criminals. Without criminals there would be no need for the police and without police the criminals wouldn't be in any kind of check. The mutualism didn't end there. Far from it. More often than not snitches were petty criminals at one time if not currently. Having been caught out or being on the police radar after a few warnings, some snitched for favours, some snitched to save their own skin, some others snitched for vendetta or jealously: to let police handle whom they weren't equipped to button down themselves. She went over to the scanner-cum-printer and took a few printouts of the candid shot of the alleged Mr Sishir Singh.

  Picking up her Blackberry, she walked around the desk to close the office door and called Senior Inspector Rajesh Nene. She knew she would have to speak to her superiors to engage Nene full time, but she didn't bother waiting for the approvals at this moment.

  Rajesh Nene sounded happy to hear from her.

  It was a quick conversation and Nene simply wanted a couple of hours before he came in with the list of best snitches for the task at hand.

  When Rita put the phone down she was confident Nene would be in her office before the two hours ran out.

  The case was all menacing and threatening her now. What with Sexy wanting an update in less than twenty-four hours after the team was briefed. But a threat can work two ways: it could either shut you down due to fear or it could concrete your resolve. Until only a few days ago when she had been asked to report at Mumbai, Rita had anticipated she'd need to make a few enquiries — it being a cold case of a homicide in a foreign land — but as she read the file and got to grips with the whole incident, the case had begun to get under her skin. She recognised she wasn't brought back in to nidificate and lay eggs; she was entrusted with a case that carried the national pride. Bring it on Sexy. She was ready.

  Vikram arrived before Jatin. He had bloodshot eyes that indicated to Rita that the man had been up all night and read each leaf in the copy he had made of Victor's colossal file. She could have asked him to write an exam and he would have passed. There was no question in Rita's mind that part of her success was due to the dedicated and loyal team she had.

  'I am confident you've read the file cover to cover,' Rita mused.

  'You're correct, ma'am.'

  'I have a meeting with Mr Sanjay Saxena first thing this morning. He wants an update.'

  'Already?' Vikram seemed as surprised as she was when Sexy had asked for it.

  She just rolled her eyes. 'He's the boss.'

  'Anything you need from me for the meeting?'

  'No, I guess it will only be a preliminary one with him to outline what we know so far and what chances we have in cracking an old case like this before he goes ahead and communicates to the powers that be.'

  'What time is the meeting?'

  'As soon as he's in.'

  'He's in. I saw his car when I came in.'

  'OK, here I go.' She got up and walked out from behind her desk, out of her office and towards the elevator.

  Rita was a Goan, Portuguese ancestry, born a Catholic, but she was a deist — she believed that God or the higher power did not intervene with the functioning of laws of nature. He wasn't there to get you the next promotion or invoke rainfalls or stop fires or accidents or murders or burglaries or to help catch the perpetrator or solve office politics or save you from Sexy's wrath or questions. That wasn't His role. She looked at her watch. It was nine when she walked into Sexy's opulent office and offered a proper salute.

  Sanjay Saxena, the Commissioner of Mumbai Police, of course, had asked her to see him this morning. Sexy, customarily, didn't ask for people to do something because he didn't need to; he just demanded what he wanted. He had been a right arse when Rita had taken up the case of Mumbai's first serial killer, and had shown no signs of warming up to a female IPS officer up until she cracked the tangled case. Since then, despite Rita's attempts to include her line manager, Sexy repeatedly disregarded the chain of command and involved her directly in cases that weren't even remotely connected to her. And he had, once again, asked her to see him without Joshi, her immediate supervisor.

  Sexy, like his several generations of forefathers, had been born with a complete set of silver crockery in his mouth. Educated at the prestigious Doon School, his English teacher had made him absorb the entire dictionary. Ergo, his communication was always peppered with some of the biggest words there were in the language; adjectives and adverbs he hurled at his subjects to forever stretch their vocabularies.

  'Hello DCP Ferreira, and welcome back.' Sexy didn't make any attempt to stand; he was in mufti; cerulean linen jacket and blue chinos, that were much darker blue than the jacket. White shirt. No tie, of course. Through the gap under his snooker table sized desk Rita saw that he wore tanned moccasins and no socks. He always looked like a stylish villain from Hollywood's bygone black and white era.

  'Good morning, sir,' Rita barely uttered, not knowing if she should be cheerful or not, considering she wasn't prepared to update him on the case at hand.

  'DCP Rita Ferreira, you are the foremost detective in the country today.'

  Where was this headed?

  'Please take a seat.'

  'Thank you, sir.'

  'DCP Ferreira, I'm sure you already aware that this case has national pride attached to it, and hence I specifically wanted you to take it up.'

  As Rita had anticipated it was no more than a customary pep talk.

  'Thank you for the confidence shown in me, sir.'

  'Is your consultation over?'

  Sexy was obviously referring to the therapy for the trauma that Rita had to undergo after the ugly shoot-out. The therapist had checked if the brain was still in its usual place. However, the question, and hence the episodic memory reminded Rita of it again.

  'Yes sir, I got the green light.'

  'Good, I forgot to ask that before I assigned you to this high-pressure case.'

  'I hope I don't fail you.'

  'Life is no more than a profit and loss statement: and profits and losses are always “as on” a date, a point in time since, the actual profit or loss can only be determined when the enterprise closes. So is with life. So you're a winner till you actually lose.'

  'What happens if you lose...?'

  'In the end?'

  'Yes.'

  'Why in the world do you care once the light goes out? You're gone, the game is over.'

  Philosophical Sexy, very philosophical!

  'Anything else, before I go?'

  'I appreciate it is a Sisyphean t
ask, and as I alluded to Mr Joshi before you were reinstated into the department, I'm convinced that you, and only you can disentangle this Gordian knot and bring the perpetrator to justice. On this case you report directly to me so you don't need to supplicate permission from ACP Joshi on anything. I'll be here if you require any succour with the bureaucracy. Should you require assistance from any of the uniformed force across the country and if they don't comply, just call me and I'll have those imbeciles on the run within minutes.'

  Territorial skirmishes just wilted and died in Sexy's presence. No one wanted to appear petty or dared go against him.

  'Thank you, sir,' she said, noting the unusual words used in the discourse.

  As she walked to her office she thought about the meeting. Sexy had, in as many words, made it amply clear that Joshi was out of the equation here. She made a note to let Joshi know. She might have to work with him again in the long run and she knew how the police machinery worked. Joshi was a fine and reasonable man, she was sure he'd understand and support her.

  And for all the frippery, the flowery language, and the initial resentment he had shown towards her, even Sexy wasn't a bad guy, she realised. If nothing else Sexy was known to be overzealously protective of people who were loyal to him. Plus, she now knew it was a Sisyphean task and, also, there was something called a Gordian knot, which wasn't in everyone's remit to disentangle.

  ***

  Conscious that nothing consequential had been done on the case in the past twenty-four hours, Rita found the number and called Victor. He was at a meeting over tea at the Belgian Embassy. Rita apologised for the delay, but he wasn't irked. If the Belgian Police hadn't caught the murderer in over three months, he hadn't expected an overnight arrest. He was polite. Rita updated him that a taskforce had been put in place with her as the lead, and that the Indian Police was taking the case seriously.

  Victor, with regret in his voice, told Rita that due to some crisis he had to return to Brussels earlier than scheduled, but he would be available twenty-four/seven as he had promised.

  'We'll be in touch soon, Victor. Have a safe flight.'

  Honey Singh. Yes, Honey was his name and he was a six-feet-three hunk of a male and as good looking as they come. Long straight black hair — a bit of salt had prematurely commenced appearing — swept back or tied up in a small ponytail, muscled body of an athlete that he was when he was at college. A mona-Sikh, for which his mother never forgave him; an apostate is what she called him — traitor to the faith for getting his turban cut. But she loved him. Loved him more than most mothers love their thirty-one-year old son and a son who revered his mother — a mama's boy totally — he lived with her. Still apparently single, he was dating an upcoming model that his mother wasn't acquainted with although his friends and co-workers were aware of his clandestine relationship and the confidentiality they were expected to maintain when dealing with Mrs Lucky Singh. Occasionally he arranged surreptitious sleepovers or weekend getaways with his guy-friends — at least that is what Mrs Lucky Singh was told. She was a virago in a loving sort of way, an archetypal doting Punjabi mother of a single fatherless child. The concern was genuine, overwhelming, even suffocating at times. Honey's dad was an industrialist who had passed away when he was four, and the business partners — mainly distant cousins — cunningly cut off Mrs Lucky Singh and her son from the business and the money. From a lavish bungalow in Ludhiana, the duo managed to cash in on Honey's dad's life insurance and bought a two-bedroom apartment in Andheri East, in which they currently resided. The interiors were a lingering vestige of old money, all but gone now. Honey had started working a few years back and modest prosperity had gradually started finding its way back into the household. His mother wasn't impressed with him starting a computer repair store; she had expected him to work for some multinational corporation after his degree in electronic engineering, and not become a computer mechanic, as she told everyone.

  'You're a computer engineer, Honey. Why do you want to repair godforsaken broken computers?'

  'I want to be my own boss, and I love being my own boss, an entrepreneur like Dad.'

  'You are no longer a kid...'

  In her view, her once shining son had turned out to be anything but.

  But she still loved him.

  ***

  It was on the day he completed graduation that Honey Singh, much to the chagrin of his doting mother, had got his tresses cut.

  In every locality there resided an auntie who kids were scared of and loved at the same time: scared because they knew they dare not mess with her and loved her because she is the only person who could save them from their mother's wrath when they had fucked up. Mrs Lucky Singh was that auntie and Titu — the neighbourhood barber who cut Honey's hair — had, albeit unintentionally, messed with her son. The poor chap owned a small shop outside Takshila, the apartment complex where Honey Singh resided, and had no inkling that he'd have to deal with Mrs Lucky Singh. After facing her virulent rage — yes, he was slapped on the face, inside his own shop with other customers as witnesses — he decided to give up his tonsorial career. He was so embarrassed and so much in shock that he disappeared from the locality to set up shop elsewhere.

  What Honey Singh never disclosed to Mrs Lucky Singh was that instead of opening another barbershop, Titu was a full time employee in his small and growing business.

  Honey's office was in Bandra Kurla Complex for obvious reasons: with rapid expansion in the past decade, the corporate houses needed someone to support the day-to-day running of their computers, mainframes, networks, and it was much more economical to outsource maintenance to smaller firms than run their own army of in-house engineers. Honey Singh was charming enough to procure annual maintenance contracts, and he delivered results. Once he got his foot in a company, the competition had little chance when the contract was up for renewal. His back office comprised of six cubicles, three rooms — the largest one being en suite with living arrangement where he occasionally slept and on other occasions romped with his model girlfriend Kitty Varghese. It was housed in the top floors of just another one of the ubiquitous glass buildings, as there wasn't any requirement to spend money on premium office space on the ground floor: it wasn't a retail operation and clients never visited him. He had a twelve-member team that was perpetually on the move fire fighting at client locations. Something virtually broke every day at some office. The staff came in only when they required expensive parts, salaries or something that needed expert advice, help or guidance from their guru. The only other person who attended the office daily — he actually lived in the third room on the premises — was Titu, the barber turned confidante. He was Mister office boy, deliveryman, telephone operator, receptionist, all rolled in one. And he was loyal to Honey Singh like a mastiff.

  Preternaturally brilliant at computer programming, Honey remained locked in his office for most of the day. He told everyone he was currently working on some accounting software package that if he succeeded in programming, he'd patent and sell for millions around the world. Initially, everyone believed him, but as weeks, and then months passed, everyone — his clients, even some employees — thought he was just delusional. Only two people believed in him: Kitty and Titu.

  With his good breeding and reasonable bread earning skills, Honey Singh's life was sweet, and fun, and looked promising. Even without the new programme that he was working on, current business showed potential, and he was still only twenty-nine.

  ***

  But there was a glitch.

  The strikingly handsome man caught on the camera in the elevator of the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Brussels, the night Ron Jogani was murdered, had an uncanny resemblance to Honey Singh.

  The team sat around the table in the Operations Room after lunch. Jatin had, once again, been given charge of the room, and he had, yet again, been spectacular in covering all the minutiae he could dig out from Victor's file. The local investigation file being pulled together on Ron Jogani's murder was also now two-in
ches thick. The walls were plastered with scene of crime photographs, pictures of Ron Jogani, a list of his close associates, details of his ex-wife — the one who had refused to have anything to do with him or his corpse — blueprint of the hotel Jogani was murdered in and maps of the streets surrounding the Crowne Plaza hotel. Rita acknowledged that Jatin must have laboured throughout the day to come up with all the important info. It was good to note that just one anserine incident hadn't damped his investigative spirit.

  Rita, Vikram and Jatin sat reading the reports again, sipping coffees when Nene arrived.

  Senior Inspector Rajesh Nene: a local from Mumbai, Nene was the most experienced Inspector in the crime branch. He was nearing fifty now, but he refused to lose his youthfulness or agility. He had forgone all promotions and stayed in Mumbai — family obligations — and hence knew all the dugouts and farragoes of crime and criminals. A full, curly, raven-dyed mane — not a strand of grey — sat on top of his five-feet-eleven frame that was terminally unbowed. Like some other cynics in the Mumbai Police, even he wasn't pleased when DCP Rita Ferreira had taken charge of the crime squad, but he had put his ego on the shelf, and now, having worked with her, he was a loyalist too.

  It was time to get to work.

  Rita narrated briefly her meeting with Sexy, emphasising how important the case was and spent the best part of an hour briefing the three.

  'Don't risk writing off the intelligence of the perpetrators. They're clever, they're smart, and they think on their feet. They have the ability to optimise their plans as they go along if the circumstances change. Remember they were there only to steal the diamonds but improvised and ended up killing the subject because the situation demanded it. This is a homicide investigation and everything is important until proved otherwise. Capture everything, every minute detail and run it by your colleagues before you discard it. If you need anything — back up, vehicle, technical support, or just cooperation with other departments you can call me anytime twenty-four/seven.'