Doosra (11 page)

They waited. They watched. An hour ticked away. As per the plan, Team One and Team Two cars that were parked in close proximity of the target residence dropped their passengers to keep vigil on foot, and swapped position. A car, however discreet, being parked at one place long enough always carried the risk of losing its anonymity.

Another hour and half passed by. No sign of Mr Honey Singh, but 8:30 was still a bit early in the morning for a weekend. The cars rotated again: back to their original positions. Surveillance is a game played with gold chips of patience. Everyone in the police knew that; the four teams knew that. The fourth team, the one stationed at the airport, would possibly have to just endure the entire weekend without any real activity, but they were trained to watch, and wait for further orders, and to wait in comfortable and not so comfortable places. Stilling in the car at the airport was a lot easier than some other situations they had been in.

The ten o'clock call between the teams raised the question: what if Honey Singh hadn't come home the night before the vigilance was set up? Just because his car was parked below his apartment didn't mean he couldn't have hitched a ride with some friend. Or his girlfriend. Nene ordered Team Three to drive into the complex, and circle Honey Singh's apartment block. Once they espied his white Honda Accord again, they were sent to Yari Road.

Even in the scanty weekend traffic, Team Three took almost an hour to get to Kitty Varghese's Yari Road apartment and return to base. The ASI who got down from the car made a rookie mistake. Although he didn't say who they were visiting, he flashed his card for the watchman to open the building gate. If Honey Singh was indeed Sishir Singh — and at this point in time the police had extremely meagre information to take that call, though they were following him without appropriate court order — the mere presence of police in his girlfriend's building might have raised an alarm if he came to know in some way. There wasn't any other activity reported by them after the visit. An ASI had gone up to her third floor apartment and knocked lightly on the door. Kitty had opened the door with the security chain on. He had asked if she knew Mr Hari Prasad's apartment — a random name, and she declined and he apologised. There were no signs that there was anyone else in the apartment.

It was a little before eleven o'clock when Team One noticed another surveillance car. It was straightforward to identify. A blemished Maruti Alto, in white with enough dents and rust to be lost in the background and not be obvious. But for the trained eyes it strained too hard to be inconspicuous and hence gave away its purpose. The driver was alone, and he was as conspicuous as a polar bear in a desert: hardly a decoy. A man so large it would appear that he had been put into the car and then inflated to fill up the interior. Handle bar moustache, cigarette in hand that was attached to a thick hirsute arm in a Madras check short sleeve shirt. There were other cars around, parked with occupants in them, but almost all of them had pairs talking and most left after fifteen or twenty minutes. Handlebar appeared languorous, but then, given his size, it was difficult to imagine him being any other way. He hung around doing nothing for far too long but, it was when he took out his binoculars and keenly focussed on the incoming traffic from Takshila that one ASI in Team One started to keep vigil on him. It would have been simple to walk up to him and ask, but they decided to call in Nene and gave the registration details of the car. Team One checked if he had a backup. None. And they had no idea who he was waiting for. They agreed that one lone man on a stakeout was sub-optimal effort. Maybe he wasn't being paid enough. Maybe the client merely wanted a cursory report. Maybe he had been trailing his quarry long enough to know something already, and had worked out where his target would go in or out from? Or simply feeling lucky: if you're alone you've got to work on probabilities. Maybe he wasn't in a rush; if he missed today he could catch his target tomorrow? Like slow cooking on a simmer setting. There were a million plus one possibilities.

Nene came back in ten minutes.

The car was registered to Mr Joginder Raja. Handlebar was Mr Raja. He had a professional specialised certification in private investigation. A detective of some sort, he worked out of his office, which was in his residential apartment in Lokhandwala Complex in Andheri West. The police surveillance team knew that one of the most common patrons of detectives in India were spouses spying on cheating partners. The report and photographs from a certified investigator came in handy in divorce proceedings. So Handlebar Raja was, most probably, following some affluent philanderer who lived in the area, Nene summarised.

Noon. Team One spotted the white Honda Accord. The target was eventually on the move. They relayed it to the others. Honey Singh drove out of the block and turned right on Mahakali Cave Road. Tailing someone was simple. Tailing someone without being caught out needed a bit of caution. You needed to leave a few vehicles between yourself and the target if you didn't want to arouse suspicion, and if you think the target has spotted you, you abandon the stakeout right away. However, Handlebar Raja didn't follow the tenet. He spotted Honey Singh's Accord the same time as Team One did, but immediately turned and got on to the road. A car had slipped in between, which, if he had a choice, he wouldn't have allowed.

So, Mr Handlebar Raja — the private investigator — was following Honey Singh too.

The radio wave between Team One and Nene crackled.

But why?

Nene asked them to keep an eye on both. It could have been a coincidence: Mr Joginder Raja had left in a rush for something else that might have appeared to be following their target.

Certainly possible.

But Handlebar was positively tailing Honey Singh. He was only one vehicle behind Honey's car and two cars ahead of Team One. Honey Singh drove towards Kitty's apartment, no doubt. The convoy travelled at a steady speed. Honey Singh didn't seem in any kind of a rush to get to his girlfriend's apartment. He didn't change lanes to overtake anyone. He didn't accelerate to lose someone following him. Either he didn't detect two cars following him or he didn't care.

Turning into Yari Road, Honey stopped outside Kitty's apartment complex. He got out and walked in rather than driving straight in. Perhaps there were no parking spaces for visitors. Handlebar kept going and overtook Honey Singh without evidently looking at his target and stopped at a vacant spot a few cars down. He didn't get out. Team One kept moving and left the location. Team Two rolled in and took over the post a few vacant spaces before Honey Singh's car. The watchman smiled when he saw Honey Singh. Apparently, the two knew each other, which was reasonable if Honey was a regular visitor.

***

Nene bristled. His first reflex was to drive down to Yari Road, pull Mr Handlebar out of his car and ask him questions. However, following Honey Singh, in and of itself, was hardly a crime. Handlebar could be following Honey Singh for any number of reasons. Maybe Honey's own girlfriend had put the tail on him. But it was quite a coincidence and police rule number one was to discount any and all coincidences. What was the bloody detective after? He thought about updating Rita but didn't. It was best to keep focus on Honey Singh for at least twenty-four hours, and if that detective featured in the surveillance so be it. He decided to wait till Sunday morning till he had some logs to take to Rita.

***

Rita had slept for ten hours before waking up to the shrieking morning alarm. If she had her way she would have picked up and thrown the clock so hard that it shattered the windowpane and landed on the ground floor. She realised she had only been in Mumbai a few days. A part of her whispered she should pack her stuff, drive to the airport and board the next flight to Goa.
Sexy
could chase his tail. Or blame Joshi. Let the two of them manage the circus. Or whatever. But she couldn't. The rational mind reminded her she wasn't in this for a game. This is what she was made for. This was her calling. There had been a murder and the culprits had escaped the arms of the law. The wrong had to be righted.

The morning sun was mild. The overhyped cool Arabian Sea breeze was on strike again it seemed. Sishir Singh — whoever he was — was still missing. You could run. You could also hide. But for how long? Could anyone escape forever? Statistics would suggest yes. However statistics had a limitation; they only had the past for reference.

Nature is obstinate; it doesn't stand modifications. You cannot tame the wind. You cannot force a river to flow one way or the other. The stream flows in the path it finds depending on the slope, the grooves, the tide. If you asked snitches to dig up information for you, you should to be prepared to part with something in return. What you do not know is where the information they gather for you might get passed on to. Informers worked for police out of fear, for protection. They had a stomach to feed. The other set of people who actually paid them for the information was the media and hence, it was reasonable to assume that someone would have whispered it to an enthusiastic media body. Not all snitches would do that, but all it requires is one poisoned arrow.

Rita woke up Sunday morning to the headlines in the national dailies:

“P
OLICE
H
UNT
F
OR
A M
URDERER
.”

“I
NTERPOL
A
FTER
K
ILLER
I
N
M
UMBAI
.”

Nowhere was it mentioned that it was just one of the many possibilities they were exploring. The fact that the murderer was still in Mumbai or India was in itself unverified. But scribes have made press reporting an art, and why wouldn't they? The whole purpose was to sell paper or TRP or ad space on the web. If truncating a crucial part from the headline garnered higher revenue so be it. Lack of knowledge or information never deflated the speculation or sales. The press, Rita knew from experience, would have a grand time with the story, and hence the time and effort put in.

From an angle it seemed pointless to tail the suspect anymore. If the suspect — Honey Singh or anyone else — had been presumptuous that he was safe, there was a chance he'd become reckless and err. Many criminals were apprehended only when they got comfortable and let their guard down. That opportunity had, indeed, perished. However, Honey Singh only looked like Sishir Singh, nothing more. She called Nene at seven and asked him to carry on with the surveillance. That's when Nene updated her about Raja.

'That's weird.'

'Yes ma'am.'

'We need to get to this quickly... get all details of Mr Raja. We need to pay him a visit. Find a way to stop him from stepping out today, we want him at his office... say at eleven?'

'I'll make sure he is at his office-cum-residence today.'

'And no point in me getting to the office, could you analyse all the logs and ask Vikram to pick me up from my residence by 9:30 please? I'll be ready.'

'Certainly, ma'am.'

R
ita lived in Sheesh Mahal, a 1950s apartment block on St Andrews Road in Bandra, close to the posh Pali Hill. The building was hoisted on pillars to accommodate a car park on the ground floor, the apartments were from the first floor onwards. The monstrous concrete pillars — to counter the gradient in the plot of land — resembled kangaroo legs: short in front and long hind legs. The lopsided building only emphasised the quaintness that was Mumbai. Nothing was straight. Nothing was perfect. Everything was individualist yet charming in its own fashion.

Like any other apartment that was over half a century old, the façade was sad and dilapidated — Mumbai monsoon, the sea close by, the moisture in the air had all taken their toll, but the interiors of most of the apartments, however, were totally in contrast with the exteriors. It wasn't Cuffe Parade, but it was still was one of the most desired, most prosperous suburbs of Mumbai. Rita had bought a fourth floor 2BHK apartment — a Two-Bedroom-Hall-Kitchen — in the beginning of the new millennium; she had gladly sold two of her ancestral properties in Goa and invested the money in this. She hadn't spent a lot, like some others in the building, on the interiors. It was sparsely furnished, giving lots of room to her: minimalist was how she put it. No clutter. Everything there was there for a purpose. Books. Turntable. Records. Lamps. Jim Beam. One photograph in the whole apartment: her parents' wedding picture at the St. Michael Archangel Church near Benaulim Beach.

The only noticeable feature being that she had got one of the longer walls of the rectangular living room, the Hall, painted in blue, which made it stand out from the other three walls that were in cream. It was a comfortable place. She kept most of the hall seating on the floor with lots of cushions thrown around to give it a cosy look.

Ten hours and thirty-three minutes after the observation teams saw Honey Singh return to his residence at Takshila, Vikram was at Rita's apartment to pick her up, as Nene wanted to run the stake out for another day. They were to drive to Lokhandwala to speak to Mr Handlebar Raja.