Doosra (7 page)

'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 task, 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.'

H
oney 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.

T
he 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-inches 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.'