by Vish Dhamija
'Like?'
'Like someone else following him?'
'No. Was someone…?' Raja looked crestfallen.
'Nope. Just wanted to know if your client might have other sources too.'
'I don't think so.'
'OK. We'll be in touch. Meanwhile, as we said, carry on as this meeting never took place.'
They gave their phone numbers to Raja and told him to get in touch if he noticed anything he thought worth reporting on Honey Singh or his client, Mr Singh.
It was 2:15 by the time they drove out of the building.
'Let's grab a bite, Vikram. My treat.'
'What would you like to eat, ma'am?'
'Someplace that'll be quick.'
'OK. What do you think about the whole thing?'
'You can't believe in everything that surrounds you, or everything that you hear or see or feel but you can't ignore everything either because, they say, everything originates for some reason. No smoke without fire, right? So someone — and in this particular case, the mysterious Mr Singh — must have enough conviction about something to hire a third person to investigate Honey Singh. Agree?'
'And he started the surveillance two days after Jogani's murder.'
'Bingo. Someone knows something surely.'
Nod.
'So what it is about Honey Singh that a secretive man wants to know?'
They had a quick bite at McDonald's and started back. The conversation was strictly professional and to the point. Both minds were dominated by the case.
'Do you think the mysterious client has got what he is looking for?' Rita was surprised. She hadn't intended the words to come out aloud; she was only mentally calculating.
'It's safe to assume he hasn't. Why else would he still be prompt enough to download info that handlebar is passing on?'
'What if it's some kind of a charade?'
'For who?'
'Don't know.'
Five PM. Sunday was practically over by the time they got to Rita's apartment.
'Should we call on Honey Singh tomorrow?' Vikram asked.
'Let's see what others have got for us over the weekend and then take the call. I'll see you tomorrow. And thanks for the ride.'
'You're welcome. Somehow, I can't believe Honey Singh hasn't spotted a Mr Raja following him for months. There could only be two possibilities: he is either visually impaired or mentally vacant?'
'There's a third one too Vikram.'
'What might that be?'
'Handlebar blends in so well.' Rita let out a laugh as she got out of the Gypsy.
***
Rita had an early dinner at seven-thirty.
The three-quarter ascending moon provided a nice glow, the breeze was still, not a sign of any cloud in the sky. The night was clear, dark, warm and silent — a total antipode of the night before. Rita sat on the rocking chair with her feet up on the footstool, in her bedroom looking out of her window. Jim Beam sat beside her on a table along with some post dinner cheese. 13th Floor Elevators' psychedelic rock played on the turntable at moderate volume giving Jim a warm boost; Rita's mind was engrossed in the case. All other thoughts, even amorous ones, gave a wide berth. What did they have till now? Sishir Singh resembled Honey Singh. A private eye who was hired by an anonymous man followed Honey Singh. It was like a chain of loose ends, it didn't matter which link you held on to. It shouldn't be impossible to trace where the anonymous client was accessing the DRAFTS folder? Obviously, they wouldn't confiscate Joginder Raja's computer, they wanted to ensure Raja carried on regardless of this meeting or anything that happened in the background. The client — whoever he was — shouldn't get suspicious. Finishing her small and only drink of the evening, Rita retired for the day.
Monday, research has proved, is the dreariest day for the human brain. It's more psychological than physical. The brain processes all that looms in the next five or six days and sends nerve signals to tranquilise, causing a dull, depressing sentiment. But having forgone the break, albeit not in the office, Rita had the added mix of adrenaline rush that usually dominates police officers when in the midst of an active homicide investigation.
Rita never missed breakfast for two reasons: one, it kickstarted her terrific metabolism; and secondly, when in the midst of an open investigation who knew when the next morsel would be served? Rita was in the office early to get paperwork out of the way before the rest of the team arrived and everyone got sucked into the investigation.
A new week. A fresh perspective.
The office was small. It had two visitor chars, and one additional that had been pulled in previously on Friday. Vikram arrived first.
'Good morning, ma'am.'
Nene and Jatin followed him. They closed the door, pulled in an additional chair and sat down.
Pleasantries exchanged, small talk over, it was time to get back to some fresh thinking, time to improve the plan. The last thing she wanted was to run a desultory investigation.
'Looking for Sishir Singh did any of you mention to the snitches about Interpol or homicide,' Rita started. She was still concerned about how the media had picked up the information.
Everyone looked at each other. Nope.
'So someone's done some digging after they got the gen. Try to find out who leaked the info to the newspapers.'
It was a known fact that the media picked up morbid stories by looking at bodies delivered to the morgue. Postmortem equated to unnatural death, which equated to a police case, which equated to a story. Thus, it was difficult for a murder case to stay hidden from them. Of course, the status of the person dead or the potential suspect list could decide how significant the story could be, and for how much it could sell. However, in this case there was no body, ergo it was apparent that someone had leaked the story to the press.
'Anyone could have... it will be a futile exercise,' Jatin said. And he wasn't wrong. They could waste hours rounding up each snitch to ask. It could almost become a parallel investigation by itself. And why would anyone admit easily?
'Could we try to find out which reporter got it first and work backwards from his or her contact to some snitch please? Might be a long chain but it will help. We'll probably have to hold a press conference to calm down the media.'
Fortunately, the coverage didn't have much detail, it was a small column of news, but it would certainly invite the attention of anyone who was looking. Sishir Singh or whatever his name was would be looking. No doubt about that.
'OK. What have we got? Nene, you go first.'
Nene detailed to the group the events of Saturday. They had tailed Honey Singh and found a guy already tailing him. A private eye, Joginder Raja.
'I know Joginder Raja!' Jatin interjected.
'You know him?'
'He helped us in an old case, years back. He must be forthcoming.'
'He wasn't initially, but he did comply.' Rita rolled her eyes; she remembered having to be a strict matron to get him to give out intelligence.
'Watch out guys, our boss is ruthless,' Vikram said, bowing his head towards Rita.
'She doesn't look it.'
'Deception is a bonus in investigation.'
'What is this guys? A college ragging session?'
The room went quiet.
'Ha-ha. That was just a phoney glimpse of my ruthlessness. No offence taken.'
As they had already broached the subject of Joginder Raja it was logical segue into their visit to his place, which Rita updated the team with.
'We need Raja's computer. Maybe we can trace where the other recipient is accessing emails? The IP address?'
'He'll obviously be using a VPN... Virtual Private Network that masks the IP.'
'Nevertheless, it's worth checking. Jatin, I shall leave that to you.'
'Yes, of course, ma'am.'
Nene didn't have anything to add. To be fair, nothing much was expected. The snitches weren't cops who could snoop around to find more details on Honey Singh. And what was the likelihood that they w
ould have produced another Sishir Singh lookalike?
'We'll meet in the Operations Room after lunch.'
***
Bad news came in after lunch.
Jatin Singh had spent hours on Jogani's computer. Cracking the password, though challenging, hadn't been the deal breaker.
'It is something like I hadn't seen before, only read about it in fiction. The moment I got access into his computer I could see that everything — Jogani's files, cache, history, everything started deleting itself like some weird virus had immediately take over. The tech whiz kids tried everything to halt it but failed.'
Rita, Vikram and Nene looked at him, then at each other flitting their eyes, trying to grapple with what Jatin had just relayed. They understood computers. They understood viruses. But this was beyond the realm of an everyday computer user.
'What happened then?'
'Within minutes the entire computer was wiped clean, back to factory settings.'
'Hold on. Last time you said you had figured out that Jogani's computer hadn't been used since he left for Belgium, correct...?
'Yes, ma'am.'
'Why did this not happen then?'
'The IT folks hadn't connected it to the Internet then. They just used the machine offline. But to crack the password, we had to go online to use the hacking software. The software worked, but as soon as the machine came to life, it died.'
'Did you try again?'
'Yes. But it started with the black and green screen asking me to load the operating system all over again.'
'Some form of malware, then?' Vikram asked.
'You know about them?' Rita asked Jatin.
'There are a few decent computer cleaning software packages available of course, but most of them normally require manual intervention.'
'Could someone not do it remotely?'
'Of course, it can be customised to operate remotely but the person who installed it there in the first place needed to have had access to Jogani's computer at some point.'
'Which isn't impossible. There is every reason to believe that the murderer knew Jogani to have known his itinerary.'
'Or—' Jatin's eyes went up, he appeared to be consulting with his memory; something he'd heard somewhere.
'Or?'
'The person might not have had access to Jogani's computer physically. All the person needed to do is somehow get Jogani to open an attachment through an email, which if Jogani opened it, could install whatever malware was sent across.'
'So how did it trigger just when you got access to it?'
'The malware was already on the computer, no doubt about that. I'm only hypothesising here so please bear with me, treat my words as if I'm thinking aloud, OK?' Jatin stopped.
'OK. What do you think happened?'
'I strongly believe that the person who remotely installed this malware into Jogani's computer somehow knew Jogani wouldn't be accessing his own computer anymore, so all he needed was to activate something to activate the malware. However, that would not have been possible while the computer was switched off and disconnected from the Internet. But when I connected it to the web, the virus fired up instantaneously.'
'And the said virus can clean up everything, render a computer useless?'
'That depends on the virus used, which, as I mentioned, would be impossible to determine now as the machine is back to its factory settings.'
'Which also means Jogani's ex-wife hadn't even bothered to as much as switch on the computer after she moved into his house, which gives me a feeling that she's kosher. She's not involved in the murder otherwise, I'm sure, she would almost certainly have looked up for details on diamonds, bank accounts, whatever. Let's still keep a vigil on her, but we should not burn too many resources there.'
'Some of it was beyond me. I kept wondering if I had done something rather stupid to have got us in this predicament.' Jatin unlocked his mouth again. He had appeared petrified when he had elucidated to the group on what could possibly have occurred.
Rita applauded. 'I didn't realise you could be that good with computers. Thank you for the deduction of this entire sordid episode.' Rita stretched her hand out.
'Thanks ma'am.' His voice filled with pride.
'Where does this get us?' Rita asked when they settled back after the brief bonhomie and handshakes.
'Dead-end. We're looking at someone who can hack into virtually anything, someone who can ruin a computer and network within minutes.'
For a few moments Rita pondered if there were nerds — real computer geeks and not those depicted on television — in the real world. And if there were did they look different?
'How very optimistic of you, Jatin.' Vikram's words brought Rita back into the conversation.
'I'd prefer to be called a realist here, Vikram.'
'OK, let's go over some missing facts together.' Rita brought the conversation back to the investigation. More positivity was required than realism to solve the problem. 'We know there was a gun involved. A Glock 19, it's a small gun. Men call it lady's' gun. That small. It can do the job. Easy to fire. Easy to conceal, and super-efficient.'
'Why didn't the Belgian police find it?'
'Good question. It's been bothering me since the day I first read the report. My gut feel is that the gun wasn't brought to the scene to be fired. It was only intended to scare Jogani or be used in dire circumstances like it eventually was. If the burglar had intended to kill to rob the diamonds it was easy to shoot Jogani and take the diamonds. Why arrange the whole charade of changing the safe in the hotel room, modifying the door lock, placing cameras to spy his movements in the room.' Rita looked around; everyone seemed to be agreeing; or not disagreeing, at least.
'So what happened to the Glock after the murder? The perpetrator couldn't have flown back to Delhi with it in his pocket. He either returned it to someone in Brussels or simply dropped it somewhere. And he obviously didn't drop it negligently or the Belgian police would have found it. Unless it is now in the river bed being admired by some fish?' Vikram chipped in.
'If he had a gun, he knew he had to return it whether he fired it or not, right?' Rita didn't wait for a response. 'So it was definitely prearranged for the gun to be returned to whoever. Maybe he met someone at the airport or left it somewhere for collection before the Belgian police even commenced the search.'
'So there was more than one person involved.'
'A minimum of two — there had to be some collusion somewhere close to the location. Might be Brussels. Might be elsewhere. It could well be that the second person stayed out of the hotel the whole time, but collected and returned the gun and other items, and then flew back on some other flight after a few days. Or flew to somewhere else before returning to India. Anything's possible.'
'Wouldn't it have been impossible to enter and exit the hotel several times without being seen or heard? He would have left some kind of a trail behind?' Nene was surprised.
'He certainly moved like an invisible shadow. No one saw or heard the second or third person, no camera picked them up anywhere.'
'Or maybe the second person never returned. Maybe he was a local given the local knowledge and sourcing of illegal stuff.'
'Indeed, that cannot be ruled out at this stage.' Rita shook her head like she was dislodging some idea that was forming. 'No. It seems unlikely to me that the murderer involved someone abroad. Too much risk, unless, of course, the supplier wasn't involved in the whole planning, but only supplied or rented out the gun. And, after the murder, he couldn't just walk into the police station and admit he supplied an unlicensed, illegal firearm to a foreigner and it was used in a homicide. Obviously, the gun was unregistered or the Belgian police would have traced it back to the owner. However, we know the perpetrators carried out a lot of work on the premises, so that makes me certain the second and/or third person was actively involved.'
The three men nodded again. The hypothetical wasn't wrong.
The investigation reached another stale
mate. Silence filled the room for a full two minutes. Not a good sign.
'Someone in this whole operation is indeed a computer geek,' Rita started. 'They need to be to work the hotel's camera network.'
'And as much as I understand computers — and correct me if I'm wrong — the computer geek didn't even need to be physically present in Brussels to help.' Jatin looked at Rita to supplement his surmise.
'I think you're right. As long as the person had the detailed plan he could have sat at home and played with the hotel network, which again confirms there were more than two people: two on site, one playing with the computer network.'
'And how does one get a detailed plan of a hotel layout without being in Brussels?' Vikram asked.
'There are many ways. The hotel plans maybe on the Internet. More likely, someone was paid to survey the place without divulging the reason.'
'Hmm…'
'Honey Singh is a computer programmer.' Nene smiled as he mentioned it. His countenance showed he knew that everyone else had also done the maths.
Everyone reflected on it for a few silent seconds.
'Which is worrying. It seems too obvious to find precisely what we're looking for. We find the guy who resembles the suspect, and who is also a geek and who shares the same family name. And an unknown person is having him followed.' Then Rita went quiet.
'Maybe someone is setting Honey Singh up.'
'Maybe you're right, Nene. If Honey Singh isn't the perpetrator we might have to get him out from under this too.'
***
Jatin split and called Mr Raja. He didn't have to do much of an introduction, as he already knew him from their previous interaction, and Rita and Vikram having only met him the day before. He quickly got to the point that had been worrying him since Jogani's computer had buckled.
'Mr Raja, you said your mystery client had initially contacted you over the phone.'
'Yes correct.'
'And since then all you do is write an email, save it as draft and he logs in to read it, and downloads and/or deletes the same?'
'Correct again.'
'So there has never been any real email exchange between the two of you?'
'Never.'