Doosra: The Other One

by Vish Dhamija

  'I'm really, really sorry ma'am,' he apologised again.

  'It's OK. I know your intentions were right, da'ddy.' Rita stretched out the daddy for effect.

  A paroxysm of hysterical laughter ensued.

  'Is there something we should know?' Jatin asked, looking at Nene.

  'Yes.' Rita gestured to Vikram to share the episode at Mrs Lucky Singh's apartment when she had presumed that Vikram was her brother or father.

  Humour at such times, when nothing seemed to be going your way, was a relief. A segue from the usual, routine morose life that police officers live and face every day.

  Jatin and Nene looked at Vikram and said in unison: 'Daddy.'

  'OK, so where were we?'

  'You were looking for a cigarette.'

  'No. Before that.'

  'Nene said that Honey Singh number two was the tail that our undercover guys missed.'

  'Thanks, yes. What's even weirder is how could our guys miss a tail that resembles their target? He should have been spotted from a mile off; the face should have registered as familiar.'

  'Maybe he was disguised.'

  'Wow. So first he gets plastic all over his face to look like Honey Singh and then he disguises it to not look the same?'

  'Only to follow Handlebar so that Handlebar doesn't know.'

  'That is possible, of course. But that, kind of, proves that Honey Singh number two has to be Handlebar's mystery client, which also means he knew Handlebar would see the double when the double appeared.'

  'So how is Veer Singh connected? He had to be, why else would he be murdered?'

  'Let's build on this hypothesis: our premise here is Honey Singh knows about his doppelgänger. They've managed to, somehow, carry out the burglaries; it's Jogani's murder that puts them under the lens. As one of you mentioned earlier, they get one of the Honey Singhs followed to see if the local police have picked up the scent. They further encourage the missing Veer Singh theory and that has worked to their advantage, because, let's admit it, we succumbed. By letting the doppelgänger be sighted by Handlebar in the hope that we'll think that it is definitely Veer Singh because that's who we thought was the duplicate — plastic-ed enough to look like his adversary Honey Singh, snooping around for something? Presto! All is worked out till they find out that the real Veer Singh is back in the country, and that could be disastrous to their plan. They couldn't let him meet us to be ruled out as the suspect? Once we saw him we'd know he wasn't a doppelgänger, right? Hence, they had to get him eliminated. The timing wasn't the best because, regrettably for them, he had already made the call to us before his death, which they might or might not be aware of at this moment. So, first things first, Nene please ask whoever is heading the investigation in Kerala to stop the police there from letting the names of the victims out to the media. If required we'll ask Commissioner Saxena to make the call.'

  'But if they are the ones who got Veer Singh killed, they would have already received the confirmation that the job has been done, wouldn't they?'

  'But they don't know that we know that. It's more about them believing that we are still in the dark, which might make them live in the false confidence that we're still chasing him. If Veer Singh's name is all over the papers they'll know that we have that info and we'll dig afresh. We have to act like we don't know about Veer Singh's murder — this is perhaps the only chance for us to be ahead in their game.'

  'Got it.' Nene walked out again to make the calls.

  He was back in five minutes to say that Kerala Police wasn't agreeable to keeping the double murder under wraps merely because Mumbai Police had requested it; there had been some bumpy incident in the past between the two constabularies.

  It so happened that five years earlier — a full quinquennium previously, if you let Sexy voice half a decade in his words — Mumbai Police had declined some insignificant request that had come from down south. And five years, albeit a long time, wasn't so far back in the past to have been forgotten by the police machinery. There was no reason for them to decline Rita's request but it was tit for tat politics.

  Those on the outside frequently call it a dirty game, but if you observed closely, hard politics is an extremely funny game. Friends in the daylight are vicious foes by night; foes today are friends tomorrow; bed partners change faster than the bed sheets; adversaries by day, lovers by night. Embittered today, mellowed tomorrow. Pawn guarded the queen, queen sacrificed the pawn. It was a relational kaleidoscope. However, all that could only work as long as you did not come between the lioness and her cub. The commissioner of Mumbai Police, Sanjay Saxena was furious when he was told that someone down south actually refused a request that had gone from his office. That too, on a case he was overseeing and which had an international agency involved. It took two calls and eleven minutes to the chief of Kerala Police and the local police superintendent called Nene back to apologise and retreat from the previous position. The local police there would only talk about the double murder but not disclose the identity of the victims to the media for now.

  ***

  'OK, here's the plan,' Rita started when they reconvened after an hour. 'I want all the trees shaken, forests brought down if need be but I want to know the whereabouts of this second Honey Singh. Ideally,' she stalled for a minute, organised her thoughts and continued, 'we should put a totally different set of informants on the ground... ones we didn't use last time around. Give them the same candid-shot from the elevator we originally received from Victor — not the ones of Honey Singh number one that we've collected from various sources — and let them go hunting. Let's see where the second search leads us. We might get lucky.'

  Nene and Jatin nodded. Vikram, in his usual manner, noted it down.

  'Nene, I want you to handle that please.'

  'Yes ma'am.'

  'Please ensure to select the guys who wouldn't speak to any media bodies. We don't want this to leak to them. If they find out we are searching for the same person a second time, it will cause more damage than last time.'

  'Got that ma'am. It won't happen again.'

  'Thank you Nene. And Jatin, I want the entire buildings in the vicinity — at least the apartment complexes Lucky Singh and Kitty Varghese live in — canvassed. Our guys should meet every single male personally before eliminating him from the enquiry. The duplicate has to be somewhere close enough to be undetectable for so long. We have to find him.'

  'Yes ma'am.'

  As Ash had elucidated, murder investigations were never simple. Rita sat evaluating after the guys had left — unless the killer was caught in the act or it was witnessed by someone or the killer had left his calling card behind in the way of clues or a piece of him: hair, blood, semen, prints, skin residue or some DNA that could be decoded — this case rattled her in an altogether dissimilar manner. She still wasn't getting that feeling that she was on the right track. The Ron Jogani murder case dossier had gotten even heavier now. The Kerala Police Department could run their enquiry into Veer Singh's murder however they deemed appropriate and deduce whatever inference they regarded as pertinent, Rita couldn't care less. She was all but convinced that it was linked to her case.

  Nevertheless there was still a smidgen of apprehension, which was expected given that there were still so many unknowns. Was Ron Jogani's murder indeed a burglary related homicide and then Veer Singh's assassination carried out only to cover up the tracks? Or was it something else altogether, something a lot more sinister that she and the team had overlooked or disregarded and that might come back to bite them? Whatever it was, it now looked unlikely that it was some vendetta-avenger-picking-a-bone thing as they had previously thought after meeting Kitty Varghese and discovering that Miss Kitty had had a short fling with Veer Singh.

  Thankfully the news of Interpol and Mumbai Police looking for a killer locally had slid from the front pages, first into the local pages consuming far less column centimetres than it had threatened to initially, then completely failing to make any news whatsoever.


  The truth is that the media and police force are two alpha males that never got along. They, at best, politely tolerate each other, and that is how it should be: one's negatives highlighted and checked by the other. The truth, also, is that the media conferences added nothing. Yes, the public had a right to know, but not hear everything over loudspeakers or in bold highlighted text. And the public didn't need to know something if no harm was to come to them, did they? Why scare the living daylights out of the common man who was already carrying the load of an uncomfortable existence in most cases?

  Sexy, Rita knew, would have carefully choreographed the press conference and fed the scribes his manicured vocabulary. Or possibly he served them a generous dose of superglue in the only press conference they had managed to organise and they went quiet. Maybe, due to the cold shoulder given by the police, the sources of stories and alleged expert views on this murder had dried up or perhaps the media had lost interest. They had shut up. And that reminded her she hadn't submitted the weekly log for Sexy for the week. It was Saturday today, and it was long overdue.

  Rita realised she had been cinching her jaw so long that it ached, like she had being chewing gum for a few hours till Nene called her to say that a new set of informants had been corralled and briefed with the candid-shot of Sishir Singh / Honey Singh from the elevator. He was expecting some results in a day or two.

  Maybe they'd get lucky this time around?

  Every circle had to close at some point.

  It was panic, then anger, then frustration before despair for Handlebar. He sweated like a pig in a swamp even though the air-conditioning in the room was set to eighteen. He had logged into the account to check if his client had read the message he had left in the DRAFTS folder. His client had read and deleted his update from the previous evening, but there was a message waiting for him. People know when they are guilt-ridden; he knew he was guilty of acting as advised by the police and omitting the mention of discovering the second Honey Singh. If his client had somehow been versed about that from another source —if the past record was any indicator, he was convinced the news would have been transmitted to the client — it wouldn't be easy to explain this time around. In his report he had, in his defence, told his client that he had been delayed in setting up the surveillance the other day as he had had a flat tyre while he was on his way to Honey Singh's office, which was partly true. If Handlebar had been the only one on the job and some team hadn't been keeping a watch on him, it was a good enough reason to exonerate oneself. He was late for a valid reason, and hence missed the other Honey Singh. However, the occurrence of two Honey Singhs had happened much later and the other team might also have conveyed the time of the event and the fact that they had seen him beholding and photographing the two Honey Singhs. He decided to procrastinate. If he didn't open the client's message, maybe the client might assume that he hadn't seen it yet, and not take some drastic action straightaway. Maybe he should call the police. Weren't they the ones who got him in this mess in the first place? Had they not come along at his door, things would have been as simple and pleasant as they were before, so it was only right that they should be the ones taking the brunt now.

  ***

  The room was dark. Curtains drawn purposefully to prevent any light coming in, like someone wanted to call it night when it was day.

  It's time to pack up and run,' Honey Singh — or someone who looked like him — was on the phone almost whispering into the mouthpiece.

  There was crackling from the other side. The person on the other line said something.

  I know I said that, but I didn't know the local police would come so close so soon... yes, Veer's dead and that is a major concern now, as nothing can be blamed on him any longer. We didn't think it through, and we don't have another fall guy.' The voice diminuendoed as the conversation went on.

  The line crackled again.

  'We need a getaway plan before it all blows up...'

  Crackle.

  '...no you listen to me. I have covered all bases till now but it will get increasingly difficult to hold for very long especially if the police come around with a search warrant—'

  Crackle.

  'Yes, everything is encrypted, but it's not some Morse code, and even that damn code got broken in the end. Remember they have brains in Interpol. If the police get hold of all our computers we are in deep shit. You don't know what we've missed and what they might find.'

  Another long crackle.

  'How can I destroy everything? Torch my office?' The testiness was palpable in the voice now.

  Crackle again.

  OK, let's see how this week pans out. I'm booking tickets for as early as possible. Pack light and pack only what you cannot do without. Ciao for now.'

  ***

  Rita sat in her office post lunch ruminating on all the theories they had conjured up so far and a few other new ones passing through her tired brain. There is always, they said, a reason behind the reason. She didn't know which one yet, but one of Honey Singhs seemed to have some implicit reason to action the stakeout by Handlebar on the other after Ron Jogani's murder in the Brussels hotel. If the police had a photograph — which they must have figured a day later from the news — it was not beyond an average brain to cotton on that the police would come to the door sooner or later. Like her team had voiced, the reason behind that might have been to know when and which department of the police and their subsequent movements? Crime Branch, that she was part of, wasn't the primary response unit so they were the last entity the murderers would have anticipated. But once Interpol got involved it actually merited Sexy giving the case to her rather than to some local constabulary, since one didn't know which bailiwick to hand the case over to. Hell, they still didn't know where to look. Perhaps the previous diamond burglaries might have gone undetected — as they looked unrelated on the surface — if one uniformed police station was appointed to the job. Unfortunately for the offenders the case being handed over to crime branch wasn't a good thing; crime branch came with more resources than a local police station and with all the powers that the Commissioner of Mumbai Police could put behind it.

  However, there was still something eating Rita up: if only one Honey Singh went to Brussels who assisted him in Brussels?

  She debated in her mind.

  But how could they be certain only one Honey Singh went to Brussels?

  The other one did not have a passport.

  Big fucking deal!

  He could have one under an alias. Just like the second Honey Singh — who she was confident — wasn't known as Sishir Singh in real life. There was no one following either of the Honey Singhs before the incident so if he had gone out of the country for a few days who would have known?

  Kitty Varghese wouldn't tell. That is, if she knew. She was out of the country so maybe she had no idea really.

  Mrs Lucky Singh might not even know. Her son didn't have to say he was not coming home for a couple of days. He could have called regularly.

  What about the phone records? And emails from his Blackberry?

  That was hardly enigmatic to comprehend. For someone who could penetrate hotel networks, destroy Jogani's computer remotely, mask his IP address such that even the trained police technicians couldn't infiltrate it, how formidable would it be to run some code to manipulate the geolocation of his Blackberry such that it was routed through India even while he was abroad?

  Simple as ABC.

  And if some camera did catch Honey Singh, no one would even question which one of them was captured simply because two Honey Singhs were neither expected nor imagined nor acknowledged. Bloody dazzling.

  Sad part: Honey Singh and the crew were now acquainted with who was looking for them in Mumbai. Not just that, they were more than sufficiently aware that the police were asking questions about Veer Singh, which had spelt more than the proverbial doom for the poor guy. Veer Singh may or may not have opened some door to the mystery, but his murder had practically c
onvinced Rita that Honey Singh and/or Kitty Varghese were involved. If Kitty Varghese was at all involved, Honey Singh was in it too. However, the converse wasn't a certainly: Kitty Varghese might just be a bystander in the game unless she had been assisting the concealment of the second Honey Singh. Possible, even probable; it was too soon to rule out either way.

  Jaded and exhausted thrashing theories, Rita decided to call Ash. She had totally forgotten that he was in town, and in her bed, when she had left him in the morning.

  Ash was chomping on chop-suey when Rita called. He told her he had been in the apartment all day, listening to music. Mumbai was blessed with room service for everything. One phone call and most of the groceries and meals could be delivered to your doorstep within minutes and without any delivery cost. Rita's refrigerator had a lot of menus and shop cards and he had called for some beer and a Chinese take-away.

  'I was feeling guilty at having left you behind...'

  'I guess you'll have to make up for it tonight.'

  Here cometh the cheesy onslaught.

  'Ash, I'm in the office.' Despite anticipating some prurient comment, she nevertheless blushed.

  'That's precisely why I said you'll have to make up for it tonight, not now DCP Miss Hottie.'

  'I wanted to run some things by you.'

  'Shoot.'

  Rita gave him a summary of what had happened since the morning. Their conviction that the two Honey Singhs were known to each other, that their undercover was actually stalked by the Honey Singh lookalike, the dumping of Veer Singh and the surmise that Honey Singh number two was the mysterious client of Handlebar.

  'Too many suppositions in the surmise my girl. You have no evidence. It all sounds like a highly enthusiastic exercise in speculation. Even if he's guilty he'll walk away, believe me. You need veridical evidence not conjectures at this late stage.'

  'What do you mean?'

  Ash was right in some way, but…

  'Without any evidence, you can join the dots in any warped constellation your mind directs you to. A million minds could provide a million and one hunches. Don't get me wrong. I know you are correct up to a level as even I found it ridiculous to believe that everyone and their dog missed being tailed — unless, of course, it was done by someone invisible — remember? So if it was actually the doppelgänger following your guys he would have taken excessive precaution, maybe he didn't follow them all the way. Just saw everyone leave after one another and extrapolated the rest. But you need to have data to support it. Imagine taking your hypothesis to court. Honey Singh, from what you've told me, has a rock solid alibi — he doesn't have a passport on record, he's configured his phones to seem they were in Mumbai when he called or answered them or emailed with the device. To top that he has a doppelgänger that only Mr Handlebar has seen, and who, in my opinion — based on what you've told me about him — would have less than zero credibility in court. The whole thing will sound like Don Quixote's fanciful dream. You see what I mean?'