Doosra: The Other One

by Vish Dhamija

  'Never downloaded anything he sent you?'

  'No.' Jatin could visualise Mr Handlebar shaking a no.

  'Not even once?'

  'Not that I can think of at this moment, why do you want to know that?'

  'How about the initial contract? How did they get exchanged?'

  'Now I remember, he had sent it via email that I downloaded and signed, scanned and put in the DRAFTS folder.'

  Downloaded an attachment. Job done.

  The malware, in Jatin's opinion, already sat on Mr Raja's computer and the moment the mysterious client wanted, he could fire it and destroy everything on the machine. Disconnecting Mr Raja's computer could help only if the police got to it before the geek — whoever he was — came to know of police pursuing the investigation. And since they did not require cracking Raja's password they didn't require plugging the same into online diagnostics to make the geek aware of a new IP address.'

  'Mr Raja, is your computer switched on now?'

  'No.'

  'I'm coming right away. Please do not switch on your machine for anything till I get there.'

  'Why? Tell me something.'

  'I'll be there in as much time it takes me to get from Crawford Market to Lokhandwala. Just do not switch on the computer, is that clear?'

  'OK, Mr Jatin I won't only because you've been a long-term buddy, not because I'm afraid of the police or your DCP. I know my rights...'

  'Whatever. See you as soon as I can.' Jatin disconnected rather than listening to Handlebar's diatribe about being subjected to such inhuman torture as not being allowed switch on his computer.

  ***

  'I am confident the same malware is sitting on Mr Raja's computer,' Jatin informed Rita who now sat in her office looking at the red Belgian investigation file again, 'I've spoken to him, and am now rushing to his place with one of our IT guys to see what we can retrieve.' He gave a succinct account of his telephonic tête-à-tête with his old buddy Handlebar, and how he had surmised that the malware might have been installed on the machine.

  'Good work, Jatin. Say hello to your buddy, tell him I really love his moustache.' Jatin, she knew, would mine as much information from Mr Raja as possible in a friendly fashion. Perhaps more than Vikram and she did in their visit.

  Rita sat thinking after Jatin left.

  What if the killer knew about their visit to Handlebar the day before? Wouldn't a guy this wicked already know that? There seemed little point in getting her knickers in a twist if the damage was already done. There would surely be other ways to get to these criminals. She closed the file. It was six in the evening. The sun was down, the dusk was up when the driver picked her up and drove her home.

  There are times when you need to talk to someone, talk aloud and let the sound of your words resonate what you think. Rita had always believed that talking her thoughts aloud made her aware of what she'd missed. But she didn't have anyone, which irked her. Gone were the days where she could come back home and discuss cases with Karan, her ex who dropped her for an opportunity in the US. To be fair, that was his calling like this was hers. They were only compatible to a point, but she missed him. He had a patient ear — he never provoked, solicited more info, questioned or answered the questions she posed to herself.

  It was August, the night was clammy. Rita had had her dinner and changed into her short nightshirt. She didn't see the need to wear anything else. There was no one who could have a view into her bedroom from the window where she sat with her feet up unless someone was watching her with binoculars and then, she smiled, the guy deserved to see her legs. What had she to hide anyway — her legs were shapely and shaved.

  Jim Beam had been her only other friend. He, too, didn't answer, never interrupted the train of thought; just fuelled her imagination and kept her awake and kept her alert till she had had too many. But this evening she decided to give Jim a wide berth. It was time to think. Leave behind all that they had thought of, hypothesised so far. She wanted to concentrate on what might have happened. To add together whatever she knew, whatever she had heard from the Belgian detective, and read in the file, and all that she and the team had seen and collected so far. Then re-add it. The trick was not to eliminate anything till she was absolutely certain that it was phoney or irrelevant, but all the while keeping in mind that she might not know if something was irrelevant till she had all that she required. No rush. Haste makes waste, cliché, but factual. No conclusion was better than a false one. No conclusion would keep her running. False conclusion would halt the progress.

  Think Rita.

  Albeit hypothetically, she adumbrated the sequence of events that could have led to the murder…

  She had a pen and writing pad to jot down what she could about the perpetrator:

  1. CONSUMMATE PLANNER

  2. IMPROVISATION ON THE RUN. SHARP

  3. PRECISE, ALMOST PERFECT EXECUTION

  4. CAREFUL. METICULOUS ESCAPE

  5. HE USED COMPUTERS AND BEAT COMPUTERS & NETWORKS

  Think Rita.

  Every scene had layers. Someone didn't just walk in from the street on a hunch, shoot Jogani and walked away with the diamonds. Every plan had layers; the plan, the contingency, should something go wrong like it did horribly, the escape route, the getaway.

  He's calm, she murmured. Even before the robbery he would have known that the whole incident could go wrong a hundred and one different ways due to a hundred and one unknown, unforeseen reasons. But he was confident that if a crisis occurred he could handle it, he wouldn't let the mission be compromised. And he handled it, didn't he? Certainly not from Jogani's perspective — turning the hotel room into the diamond merchant's sepulchre — but then crisis management hardly ever looked pretty anyway.

  He had timed Jogani's travel from his room to the front desk and back including the anticipated little fracas with the receptionist about the false alarm.

  He certainly hadn't expected Jogani not putting the diamonds in the safe in the room — why else would a new safe be bought and installed? — but fastening the damn steel reinforced briefcase to the water pipe with a bespoke handcuff instead that maybe couldn't be broken without a bullet.

  Importantly, somehow Mr Sishir Singh was forewarned that Ron Jogani was on the way back because he wasn't the one caught unaware in the en suite bathroom; star-crossed Jogani was the unfortunate one blind sided. Therefore, indubitably, there was a second person on the ground, watching and communicating somehow. Which also connoted that the gun could easily have been passed back to the supplier through this second person despite Sishir Singh having left the country with the diamonds.

  Given what she inferred now about the fastidious operation she wasn't inordinately surprised that the team was astute enough that the second and/or third person never got caught on the lift camera; the only one that the team missed and that was in operation in the elevator.

  And even if the other members of the group escaped all cameras, how was it possible that no one in the hotel saw them or spotted them either? Were they invisible? Yes they were. And how could someone be invisible unless he was part of the scenery? Like another ordinary car in a car park... who would spot it? That could only have happened if the other person or persons were hotel staff but the Belgian police file said they had investigated and interviewed all staff, and cleared them all. No one had quit the job in the three months preceding or succeeding the incident. So… so there was only one possible explanation. Someone was a fake member of staff. A laundry man? Housekeeping personnel? Big establishments provided that safe haven of anonymity. Not all members of staff knew each other, more so in a business like a hotel with three shifts. It would be virtually impossible to know all the other staff that worked here in rotating shifts. Then there could always be temporary staff, so why would an employee be concerned if they saw an unknown face in some sort of a hotel uniform in the corridors? They must see it every once in a while. Part of the scenery: inconspicuous, indistinguishable. How would they even remembe
r it after the incident if they did not find anything out of ordinary in the first instance? And one of those individuals carried the gun out after the murder. Entirely possible.

  Think Rita.

  No it wasn't one person's job to manipulate the hotel security cameras, the safe vault in the room, install cameras in the room, and tamper with the door lock. It needed help. Another pair of trusted hands and eyes, and lots more besides. But there was no evidence. Every definite fact, how much ever you believed it was, couldn't be proved. Not mathematically, and legally even less so. You couldn't go to court with I think so and so happened...

  There were missing pieces, but it was always the missing pieces that made puzzles, she recognised that. Years of police training and experience had taught her that answers were never served on a platter, least of all in a homicide investigation. She needed more information. More was good but the difficulty was to discern what fat to cut when you didn't know what was profitable and what was unavailing. But because there weren't enough number of hours in the day the detective had to make choices based on the preponderance or imbalance of evidence. Oh yes, of course, it could go wrong.

  Welcome to the cynical world of a cop, she smiled.

  Her mind segued into how all investigations began. All crimes could be unravelled with three dimensions: motive was always the starting point — why does someone do something so gruesome at all? Second came means — was the person equipped to do it? And third, did the person have the opportunity? If diamonds were the motive then the motive stood solid for more than half the world's population: who wouldn't have wanted them? However, the cause and effect relationship between money and murder, she knew, worked both ways. Money could get you killed. Killing could make you money.

  With Mumbai being the entrepôt of Jogani's stolen diamonds and one of them having turned up again in Belgium, it was fair to assume that at least some of the diamonds had been sold and converted into cash. There was a mismatch was between the value of the diamonds and Honey Singh's lifestyle — the only apparent suspect they had so far. It didn't add up. However, she reckoned, in today's time and day it didn't have to. For most people money was merely a number. On the computer or mobile. You didn't need to horde stacks of cash under or in the mattress. It could be stashed in an anonymous offshore account somewhere. Switzerland? How could they have access to accounts? The Swiss were from a different planet altogether. They wouldn't part with the details even for Interpol. Not for homicide. For acts of terrorism maybe but not in the case of a lone dead Indian jeweller. Ergo, looking for someone with a recent inheritance would be a complete waste of time. She considered it for a moment and then she struck it: that line of enquiry couldn't lead to the blooded hands.

  Somewhere on the street below a dog barked. It was followed by a series of barks by others. Maybe they were communicating something, maybe they were simply saying goodnight to each other. However, it broke Rita's deliberation. She had been sitting and reflecting on the case for over three hours now, and had only construed a possible sequence of events; she hadn't hatched any new eggs. She hadn't realised that the record player had stopped hours ago while she had been engrossed in her thoughts.

  Just as she planned to switch off for the day her phone rang. The caller ID displayed: Ash Mattel. The trouble these days was that there was no way to determine the geographical location where the caller was when the caller ID popped up on the screen of the recipient. Rita's Pavlovian conditioning compelled her to glance at the clock and calculate the time difference between India and the UK, as Ash resided there. Midnight in Mumbai would be seven-thirty the prior evening in London. Why would he call her at midnight unless something was burning?

  'What makes the great Dr Mattel call a lowly Indian police officer at this hour?'

  'Ha-ha. It isn't a doctor calling a police officer. It's a patient calling a doctor. I'm the one in pain here, gorgeous.'

  'What pain might that be?'

  'Almost a heart attack.'

  In spite of all new mobile phones fitted with condenser microphones to cut down backdrop noise, Rita's trained ears could pick up a fair number of voices, broken syllables and murmurs, and even some announcements over a loudspeaker in the milieu that conveyed to her that Ash was in a public place. The ground noise wasn't clear enough for her to discern what it was: maybe a hospital, maybe a railway station? Or an airport?

  'Where has your flight landed?' she gambled.

  'You are not just a pretty face, Rita. You're a smart cookie. How did you guess I was at an airport?'

  Her gamble had paid off. And then she caught something in Hindi in the ambience and she knew he was somewhere in India, most likely Mumbai.

  'Oh, I even know you're in Mumbai. Do you want me to recite your flight number now?'

  'Oh my-my, someone's a Sherlock.'

  'And what brings you to Mumbai? I thought you were scheduled for next month?'

  'I couldn't wait to see you. What are you wearing? Feel free not to answer that, I'll just imagine.'

  That was Ash Mattel: he was criminal psychologist by profession, master of cheesy chat-up lines. They had romped a few times, but there wasn't anything romantic between them, just two consenting adults. And even though Rita despised his tacky one-liners in the beginning she had become accustomed to them later when she realised he only did it to tease though one couldn't whisk away the licentious thoughts they kindled or the further conversations they provoked. Ash was quite unique. If you Googled images of criminal psychologists Ash's persona would be the last to feature — if at all — after all the Einstein lookalikes. Ash was tall, balding, with a face like a deeply tanned Bill Murray. Not good looking but attractive to women nevertheless. Additionally, he was a charmer in person when it came to words that mattered; he could charm the feathers off a peacock in the mating season. He was recently divorced when he met Rita; the first time after a decade and Rita had still been licking her wounds since her break-up with her boyfriend a few years back. It was lust at first sight.

  'Hold your imagination please. You admitted you only remembered me because you saw me in a bikini back in college.'

  'Yes-o-yes! A small black one, if I remember correctly. Do you still have that?'

  'What?'

  'Just kidding. Anyway, you're right. I was scheduled to come for a conference in September, but that particular one got canned and they wanted me to join this one in lieu of another participant, so here I am. My flight has just landed in Mumbai. How're you doing? I hope I didn't wake you up at this unearthly hour?'

  'I was about to switch off, just reading a case file.'

  'Anything I can help with?'

  'Maybe, though I might have to keep the names off, but two brains are better than one.'

  'So are two bodies—' Ash's effortlessly slipped into his amorous tone once again.

  'Can you never be serious for the complete length of any conversation, Ash?' Rita sometimes wondered why she even bothered with him. It wasn't like there was a shortage of men. But she knew well that there were insufficient interesting men; then the old camaraderie always worked well.

  'Of course. We have a formal dinner tomorrow evening, but I should be free afterwards if you want to work late night.'

  'OK, I'll keep the evening free. Why don't you give me a call tomorrow and we'll take it from there. Where are you staying?'

  'The Oberoi's at Marine Drive.'

  'That's fine. Give me a call by lunchtime. Good night.'

  'You too, have a good night's sleep. I might not let you sleep at all tomorrow.'

  The case slipped into oblivion as Rita switched off the light and passionate thoughts slipped into her consciousness unannounced. She had a warm feeling when she closed her eyes and within seconds she drifted into the abyss of sleep.

  By late morning Rita's team, working with uniformed Mumbai Police in various locations, had run all the canvassing and come up empty. Anita Jogani and every single person she had been in touch with in the past one year had bee
n checked out and cleared. The entire Jogani household staff — which alternated as his office staff — and their connections had been sussed and absolved. Ron Jogani's close social coterie had been examined, their alibis checked and their names struck off the suspect register. Rita and team had no doubt whatsoever that the killer had known Jogani; the question was how? How well had Jogani known the killer that he had divulged his plan?

  'His travel agent must surely have known the detailed plan, maybe even the hotel Jogani was staying in?' Rita, coffee in hand, once again voiced the first new question in the Operations Room.

  Vikram jotted it down.

  'Anything from Mr Joginder Raja's computer, Jatin?' Rita asked, though Jatin's countenance displayed nothing of consequence was mined whatsoever.

  'Obviously, we were careful to disconnect his PC before running the tests. As expected Joginder Raja's mysterious client uses VPN, and guess whose IP address comes up when we dug in?'

  It was a rhetorical question. Rita glanced at Vikram. Vikram glanced at Nene. No one asked or took a shot at answering. They waited Jatin out.

  'His own.'

  'Is that possible?'

  'Well, the so-called client has masked his own ID and diverted the log-in such that it bounced off somewhere in Hong Kong and then redirects such that it appears that our Mr Raja is the only one who accesses that email account. We also tried to check where the email account was created, but the person masterminding the whole operation had been careful to mask the IP right from the beginning. A kind of dead-end.'

  'Could it be that Mr Raja has prevaricated that he has some client when he's the one who follows Honey Singh, reports it and then reads it?' Nene wasn't serious, but nothing was ever impossible.

  'You haven't met him Nene, or you wouldn't have given him so much credit. This is the same Mr Raja who missed your team following him following Honey Singh this Saturday,' Vikram explained.

  'Really? He missed all three cars?'

  'Vikram is being harsh on Mr Raja. I think the guys you sent on the task were real good.' Rita gestured a thumbs-up.