Doosra (28 page)

'Nope. It can't be random. Someone knew Honey Singh, at least cursorily, to plant his picture. How else would they find him to follow him?' Rita said.

'So if it was merely a picture plant why follow Honey Singh and spend cash on that?' Nene quizzed further.

'It could be that following Honey Singh was the only logical way to keep track if and when the police got involved and, if that was the motive, we sucked it in. They might only be following Honey Singh to follow us. On the two previous occasions — and my gut feel says they are connected — there was only robbery, no murder, and because it was domestic they would have known exactly which police station would investigate. They didn't need to leave phoney breadcrumbs and trick us to follow. That picture brought Victor to Mumbai and led us to Honey Singh. If that was the intention, it worked,' Rita reasoned on the fly.

'But the hotel and airline staff had recognised Sishir Singh when they were shown the picture?'

'Well, we know recognition across diverse human races is never absolute. If the guy who carried out the theft and murder even remotely resembled Honey Singh in shape, size, skin colour and hairstyle it could very well be an error. And therefore Honey Singh wasn't a random choice. You need to know the original to fake it. They knew that if anything went wrong they'd make Honey Singh their fall guy.' Rita thought about Veer Singh's description as she spoke.

'So how does Kitty fit into all this?'

'That, like so many other things, is a mystery—'

Jatin's mobile phone rang before Rita could finish.

'Joginder Raja,' Jatin saw the caller and announced and moved out of his chair to take the call. 'What?' he almost screamed, 'Wait a minute Joginder... let me put you on the speaker phone so we can all hear this.' He muted the call for a minute and said: 'Joginder Raja is on the line, says he saw Honey Singh's double yesterday.'

'What?'

'Joginder, you're on speakerphone now. I have DCP Rita Ferreira and Senior Inspectors Patil and Nene in the room with me. Tell us what you saw.'

The police quartet in the room was stunned as Handlebar Raja narrated the events of the previous day. He had seen two Honey Singhs — one nervously lurking around the office complex, the other driving out and then driving in with Kitty — in different outfits. No, there was no confusion, he was absolutely clear on that; he even had pictures of both on his phone. No, he couldn't follow either of them as it happened quite suddenly. Yes, it was the first time he had encountered the two of them together.

Handlebar sounded nervous but he also told them about the threat he had received from his mysterious client the week before for missing the police following him and Honey Singh.

'Are you saying your client spotted the police surveillance teams?' Rita asked. Not because she hadn't comprehended what Raja had just reported, but she expectantly looked at Nene: how had his competent police teams overlooked a tail?

'Yes madam, he said he has more than one person following Honey Singh—'

'You mean the other team has also been following Honey Singh for past few months?'

'I don't know that madam.'

'But you didn't ever see anyone following you?'

Handlebar remained silent.

Nene, reddened with embarrassment, got up and walked out of the room. The other three didn't ask. They knew Nene would blast the surveillance teams that had covered the patch the other weekend for overlooking a critical incident. With what Handlebar had just conveyed it seemed the tail was there for pretty much all day. It was unacceptable, even laughable, to miss such things after years of police training.

'Why didn't you tell this to any one of us for a week, Mr Raja?' Rita growled after Nene had left.

Handlebar justified his actions by referring to the threat to his family. He was frightened, and irrespective of how hollow the threat was, he wasn't willing to take the risk. He sounded highly strung and justifiably so.

Rita's temper calmed, albeit Handlebar had wasted a week of their time. Had the police known that they had missed being followed once they would have been extra cautious the next day. They wouldn't have missed the other person or people the second time around, certainly not if they had known about them. Talk about a wasted opportunity.

'I wanted to ask you what should I put in my weekly report today?'

'What do you mean?'

'Should I report that I spotted Honey Singh's duplicate?'

'No way.'

'But what if someone else saw it and they report it to my client? He would be all over me again, madam.'

'Let us think. We'll come back to you in a couple of hours. Meanwhile, send us the pictures you took of the two Honey Singhs.'

'OK, madam.'

'Thank you Mr Raja.' Rita pressed the red button on Jatin's phone.

***

Jatin's phone beeped. Handlebar had texted the two pictures. Jatin opened them, had a close look at them and shook his head in disbelief before passing on his phone to Rita. She did the same and passed it to Vikram. The three sat dumbfounded.

Doppelgänger: a ghostly double of a living person. Honey Singh had a doppelgänger, and that changed everything. Their entire search, their analysis, their conjectures, their theories, all seemed redundant. When a paradigm shifts everything goes back to zero, isn't that what they say?

'He can't be real,' Rita finally broke the silence.

'You think Handlebar has made up a story?'

'I wouldn't award him such high marks on ingenuity. One possibility could be that someone coached him, which should be simple to figure out though. Jatin, call Mr Raja and tell him not to delete the photographs, then I want you to go over to his apartment immediately and see the date and time stamp on the photographs he's just sent. Take someone along who's good with technology, who can determine if the photographs were actually taken when and where he says, and not imported into his phone or Photoshopped. That should be enough to corroborate his story.'

Jatin nodded.

'And before you leave give these pictures to the print lab, they should be able to clean and enlarge them. Thanks.'

'What is the other possibility, ma'am?' Vikram asked after Jatin left the room. 'You said, one possibility could be that Handlebar Raja was faking it…'

'I can't believe it's possible to have an indistinguishable double from two different sets of parents. Isn't it a biological impossibility? I doubt if history has any such recorded occurrence. If Handlebar truly saw two Honey Singhs as he described, then someone's used a lot of plastic to make himself look like Honey Singh.'

'There aren't many plastic surgeons in Mumbai. We can check.'

'I thought about it before but I am pretty sure the surgery wasn't done here in Mumbai, Vikram. Or if was, then it's not on the registers.'

Vikram acquiesced with a nod. 'What do you think we let Mr Raja write to his client?'

'I think we should not mention the double, at least not this week. Ask Nene to put his best guys on surveillance of Honey Singh and Handlebar. Our guys shouldn't miss anything this time. I want to know if any fucking leaf is red or orange when it should be green or yellow. And I need one plainclothes team to watch Handlebar and his wife — twenty-four/seven security, without letting them know or anyone spotting our guys. Let there be no mistake this time.'

Rita sat ruminating long after everyone else had left. Would Honey Singh number two reveal himself if he was Handlebar's client? That didn't make sense because he would know he'd be discovered and, being in the vicinity of the real Honey Singh, he'd be distinguished too. However, what could be the worst consequence of him being espied by Handlebar — Handlebar will write a report and tell him about it? And if the second set of comedians to spy on Honey Singh were also on his payroll they too would report the same sighting to him. At best they would report that Handlebar saw him too. Big fucking deal that. So the second Honey Singh didn't have anything to lose by revealing himself if he was certain that no one but the people he remunerated were on the lookout. Most investigative puzzles were perplexing because they had missing pieces; this one was mystifying with an additional piece. How did that fit in? In her mind, Rita went through the whole story Handlebar Raja had relayed. Step by step.

Honey Singh number two had arrived at the scene when Honey Singh number one was still in the office, and he went in. Where did he go? He must have hidden somewhere outside the complex till he saw the other one leave? But how did he know that the real Honey Singh would leave the office at the time and day he went there? That didn't need too much explanation: if Honey Singh number two was actually Handlebar's mystery client then Rita and the police department were already aware of his technical capability. All appointments these days were in people's online diaries. If Honey Singh's diary was kept
au courant
the info could not have stayed veiled, not for someone who could penetrate a hotel's security networks and manipulate surveillance cameras. The thing that baffled Rita was what was so important that the duplicate Honey Singh required from the real one's office? Couldn't he have sent someone else? Or did he trust no one? Whatever it was it must be important and urgent. Like, maybe, planting a bug in the office, which only he was adept at? And how did the duplicate Honey Singh enter into the office? Wasn't Titu, the guard dog-cum-receptionist there? If he was he must have surely noticed Honey Singh return earlier than expected and in changed clothing? Indeed, that would have been a giveaway. It was worth checking Titu's schedule for the day too.

And if Honey Singh number two wasn't Handlebar's mystery client, who was? And how would he react to this new dimension? That is, if this was a new dimension for him. Maybe he already knew about the existence of the doppelgänger, and the whole thing was only set up for evidentiary purposes and maybe the surveillance on Honey Singh would now be terminated? Rita wasn't pleased. There were too many
maybes
here. Moreover, they had stopped Handlebar from reporting the existence of the duplicate. If the second surveillance guys hadn't spotted the doppelgänger, the client would still not be in the know. And if they had seen the duplicate and reported what repercussions could that have on Handlebar for censoring that info? Maybe dire?

She was contented she had placed Mrs and Mr Handlebar under security. Nevertheless the thorn that still hurt was who was the anonymous client? And what did he want?

She segued back to Handlebar's story. Didn't he say that the duplicate Honey Singh was there before the real one left? Where was he hiding? That was easy. One could find a million plus places to lose oneself in a crowd of people. What if — a thought jumped out with a start and came right upfront into her mind — what if Honey Singh knew about his replica and the Honey Singh number two and instead of hiding, had gone to the office to meet him?

The phone rang and axed the thought. She looked at the display. The call had been routed through the switchboard. 'DCP Rita Ferreira.'

'Hello DCP Ferreira,' said the male voice. 'Finally, after going through the whole series of checks, I did get connected to you.'

'And why are you looking for me, if I may ask?'

'It's you who are looking for me, DCP Ferreira, not me. One of my friends called up to say they had been contacted by one of your people asking about me.'

'And you are…?'

'Veer Singh.'

Rita looked at the display again. The call routed through switchboard should have been clocked there. The whereabouts shouldn't be impossible to trace. 'Yes Mr Singh, we are. Who told you?'

'Doesn't matter, does it? You wanted to speak to me and I called. Why bother the person who made your task easier? How may I be of help?'

'Fair enough. Mr Singh, we need to speak to you, meet you as soon as possible.'

'What for? Am I in any kind of trouble?'

'Not at all, it's an enquiry and it's best we meet. I'll explain.'

'I'm not in town, DCP Ferreira, could I not answer your questions on the phone?'

I need to see you.

'Where are you Mr Singh?'

'Away, but you are in luck. I was planning to visit Mumbai so why don't I come and see you on Monday? That's the best I can do.'

'That's great. I didn't know you were in India.'

'I've been back for quite some time now.'

'Should we say Monday morning at my office?'

'My flight only gets there around lunch. I'll give you a call as soon as I land if you give me your direct line — it will save me the bother of going through the whole hoopla again.'

Rita gave him the number.

And that pushed her mind into hitherto unknown conjectures. The man they had been looking for since almost the beginning of this investigation had called up to say he wanted to come down to see her. On his own. There was some catch here, had to be. She immediately called the switchboard to check where the call had come from. It seemed Veer Singh had called from a mobile with a concealed caller ID. No sweat, there were other ways, she knew. Mobile calls are anonymous for ordinary citizens. The police, working with any mobile operator could find the true caller ID using the nearest mobile tower. It wasn't instantaneous; it was difficult, it wasn't impossible. She called Nene, briefed him on the call and asked him to find the number and even triangulate the location of Veer Singh, if he was, as he said, in India. It was a matter of hours. She decided that she wouldn't wait for Veer Singh to turn up on Monday, she'd get him picked up as soon as they knew where he was.

It was a little over seven in the evening now. Ash's flight was scheduled to land in Mumbai at 8:55. There seemed little point in hanging around in the office till late. She decided she'd rather go home and relax.