Doosra (17 page)

'You still there?'

'Yes.'

'Rita, if you're not comfortable it's OK, I understand. I can always cab it to your place.'

'Do I look like someone who cares what anyone thinks?' You know what Winston Churchill said?'

'He said a lot. What did he say about staying the night at a hotel?'

'Don't remember the exact words but it was something like “if you stopped and threw stones at every dog that barked you'd never get anywhere”, something like that.'

'I only said that as you gave me the silent treatment when I mentioned staying over…'

'Oh that? I was only contemplating how it would feel making love with an ocean view.' Did he think she was some ingénue who couldn't render one-liners like him? She could almost picture Ash blushing at her retort. 'Okay, I'll see you around eight-thirty then?'

'Yep.'

Rita had an hour before she left. She always kept a spare set of clothing. One in police force never knew what emergency could land at your desk and how long one had to stay away without visiting their residence to change. She closed her office door, lowered the blinds and quickly changed into a clean shirt and lingerie and put on the same jeans again. With her light cotton jacket on top to conceal the Smith & Wesson — she contemplated leaving the weapon behind, but decided against that. Who knew where she would be headed next if some new emergency surfaced in the middle of the night? — she was ready for the evening. It was still seven-thirty and there was no rush to leave, she only had to drive a little over three kilometres. Maybe fifteen minutes.

***

Mr Handlebar Raja was livid; he was worried and he was scared.

His PC had been returned to him the same evening, but he was still furious. He collected all the papers scattered on his desk, tamped them and shoved them into one of the drawers below and kicked it shut. He had told his wife a million times not to leave her papers dispersed but she never listened. Wonder what women of today thought of themselves? This would not have been tolerated in his father's time indeed. That fucking DSP. DCP, whatever, the bloody police woman. What did she think of herself? He hated her guts, coming up to his place and rapping him like he was some spoilt schoolboy. He finally switched on his computer and logged in.

He was worried. If his client — and at this point in time he only had the one — discovered that he had been collaborating with the police, the client might take the business away. Handlebar didn't want to lose a client who paid in advance, didn't fuss too much on what information was passed on, no unnecessary face-to-face meetings, no nonsense, none whatsoever. All he had to do was write up Honey Singh's movements throughout the day and submit.

He logged in to the email account and it showed that there was an unopened message in the
DRAFTS
folder, which was odd because he hadn't put anything there and his client hardly ever left messages for him; in fact after the initial exchange of contract, there had never been any message from the client. Only he left messages for the client and never heard back. Had some wiseass in the police put a message for his client? Oh God, no. He clicked on the message and his distress went up several notches.

“Who was following you around when you followed Honey Singh on Saturday? And why was that not mentioned in your weekly report? Remember, I am not a fan of substandard work. As this is your first mistake I'm tolerating this, which is against my credo. Do not, I repeat, do not serve me any more lemons. And if I ever find out that you are being cute with me in any way — do not forget I know where you and your wife live, I also know where your sons and their wives and your grandchildren live — the consequences will be dire, to say the least. Let this be your first and last warning.”

Handlebar felt sick to his stomach, his oesophagus pumped a gallon of acid upward, his heart burned, his mouth went dry like someone had soaked out the last drop of his saliva with a blotter. Involuntarily, his eyes welled with fright, and he could feel icy sweat racing down his thick spine. He was convinced he'd have a heart attack. He couldn't decide whether he should or should not respond to the note. There was no doubt in his mind that his client would know that he had read the note; there was little point in marking it as unread as he knew his client might have some way of finding out, and that might only further antagonise the enigmatic Mr Singh. And going by the terse warning he had just been served that was the last thing Handlebar wanted to do. Suddenly, everything he had so far deemed noble about his only client began to appear terrible. The guy's words expressed menace. He picked up his phone to dial DCP Ferreira, but stopped. What could she do? As a matter of fact, if he called her it was colluding with the police after he had been warned. What fucking mess had he got himself into? More importantly, what bothered him this minute was how could he get out of it?

Fifteen minutes passed, and when he was positive that the feeling of heart attack had also passed he
de novo
pondered what choices he had going forward. Supposing he made an excuse on medical grounds? But his client, he knew, was too sharp to let that go — he'd smell the sham straightaway. This wasn't some school where his truancy could be corroborated with a medical certificate from a general practitioner. And if the client didn't buy his poor-health excuse it was his family's life at risk. No, he couldn't get rid of the client, that much he was sure of. He also didn't dare make a police complaint regarding this threat despite it being explicit. The police wouldn't — and couldn't even if they wanted to — provide twenty-four/seven security to him and his extended family; his sons and their wives lived in different cities, both had children that went to school. It wasn't possible. And what would they be guarding them against? The enemy here was unidentified.

If he had to explain the incident — though his client hadn't asked for any explanation, but if it ever occurred again — he had no choice but to admit to his client that he had completely missed the goons following him follow Honey Singh, and eat humble pie made of unadulterated dung; he was still sceptical if he would mention that the goons were policemen and that the police had paid him a visit too.

But how could he, the best private investigator in Mumbai, have failed to spot a car that was tailing him? Handlebar had often preened at his genius, an effete self-professed best in business — and if
he
missed this how did his client find that out? Was it a random check that his client had conducted or was there another team that followed him around when he was on the job? Nah, one sole incident of him missing the police car following him was only just about acceptable to his pride, missing another person or people every day for three months? No way. So the smartass police tailing him had also failed to notice that there was someone else stalking them? Well police, in his mind, weren't immune to failures. It must have been a fucking convoy on Saturday then, he smiled for the first time since he had seen the email from his client.

Well, everyone made mistakes, he finally acknowledged. But he had to be exceptionally vigilant in future. A fresh frisson of fear passed through his body. This must be serious if his mystery client made him follow a target and then hire another team to follow the same target.

He decided he would not send his client any response, as it made no sense in explaining himself or apologising at this point. He also decided he'd speak to DCP Rita Ferreira — or better still Jatin who was a little friendlier than that arrogant woman — and ask them not to follow Honey Singh, as that would jeopardise his business. Should he mention the threat? No, he decided, not for now. He didn't think it was needed, and that was Handlebar's first mistake. Had Rita Ferreira and Co. known there was another set of people following Honey Singh, perhaps they would have caught up with them and have known who Sishir Singh or Mr Raja's elusive client was.

Handlebar's second and even bigger mistake was that he decided to play James Bond and call the shots from then on. He concluded he had to get into the game wholeheartedly and expose the identity of his mystery client, after all.

But when you are a textbook idiot and your IQ was the same as the RPM of a long playing gramophone record and you want to fight a nameless, faceless opponent whose wicked genius is so off the charts that it has baffled the Interpol think tank, such resolution was not simply dangerous; it could be lethal. David and Goliath is a fable, and Santa Claus isn't real, but Mr Handlebar Joginder Raja was determined, overconfident and a lot unrealistic.

Pollyannaish
is the word
Sexy
would have used to describe Mr Handlebar Joginder Raja: unrealistically optimistic.

I
t was past dusk when Rita left the office; even the shadows were long gone. The night was black, the breeze cool. Stars shone and the night sky over the Arabian Sea was clear, but the sea was anything but quiet. The waves splashed against the rocks and the promenade hard enough to be audible, even with the windows in her white Jetta 1.4 petrol rolled up. Surely, the Germans took the Indian small-engine-fuel-economy penchant very seriously. However, the small 1.4 litre engine was nippy.

Rita was lost in her thoughts — the case, for once, taking a back seat. From the moment she had
re-met
Ash Mattel — decades after college — she was cognisant that there could be no long-term-forever-me-and-you relationship. The awkward part was that the transience had outlived her anticipation and was now beginning to accord a sense of permanence. Both of them had to move on, and she was aware that it had to culminate at some point, hopefully with civility. Love on separate continents wasn't feasible or advisable. When she wasn't prepared to give up her career for her first love — the one that breathes in you, the one who you dream of, that love, unfortunately, only happens once in a lifetime, all else is a beautiful compromise; didn't they repetitively say that? Why would she sacrifice her career now? She had for long played the joker in the circus of love. She fitted everywhere and nowhere. A poster girl for failed romances. She sounded like a bad case of Mills & Boons. She shook herself out of the disheartening thought. There wasn't any purpose in keeping the past alive unless you were a masochist.

Nevertheless, she believed in love; as much as she could with a twice-broken heart. Frighteningly, though it wasn't love, it felt special. She couldn't pinpoint how or why, like sometimes you can't. Most men couldn't close their eyes and explain purely in words how to tie a good knot around their necks; that didn't mean those men couldn't wear ties. That meant they couldn't describe it. It is a well-known fact that no one could really describe how it felt to have a sneeze or an orgasm; that didn't mean people didn't have either.

The Oberoi's is a legendary hotel. As she drove to it in the light traffic she wondered who were these conference organisers that had the wherewithal to spend that kind of moolah to fly guests from all over the world and then park their Armani-clad arses at The Oberoi. And if they, indeed, discussed criminal psychology sitting around the table with expensive pastries, sandwiches and coffees, why were the police never invited to these sessions? Maybe she could bring real life experience into these. Or maybe she could learn some new theory that could be practised.

She arrived at the hotel at nine minutes past eight. As anywhere else in Mumbai there seemed a competition for parking spaces. She was quite pleased when the valet took her car and gave her the token. She smiled at the doorman and briskly faded into the hotel crowd. The hotel staff was either busy or uninterested in a lady walking into the lobby. Why should they? It was a public place, albeit rights of admission reserved, but Rita didn't look like some street urchin or a hooker.

***

Ash was true to his word. He finished the dinner with the other conference guests, said his byes and goodnights and rushed out of the restaurant. Eight-thirty-seven. He rushed to the hotel lobby to check if Rita was waiting for him. Nope. He walked to the reception to check if he had had any visitor, any messages. Nada. He wandered in the lobby for a few minutes, his eyes glued to the entrance to catch a glimpse of Rita before she saw him. He gave up after ten minutes and decided to go up and wait in his room.

Out of the elevator he slid his card-key into the slit and opened the dark door.

'Hands up.'

He felt the cold barrel of a gun on his back, but he smiled; he didn't freak out or pass out with fear.

***

'Wowo-wo! How did you get in here?'

Ash wore a natural linen suit, open-collared white shirt and shiny tan shoes. He looked every bit ready to go out on a date. Or come to see her as it were.

'I turned on my charm, what do you think?' Rita lied. She had unscrupulously used her police badge, albeit not enforcing it but proving her credentials.

'Really? And they let you in?'

'Yes. I told them I'm your local Mumbai girlfriend.'

'Local Mumbai girlfriend?' Ash mused. 'As opposed to girlfriend from...?'