Doosra (25 page)

'Were you ever misidentified for Veer Singh or him for you by someone? Anyone? Ever?'

'No.'

'Not even in the dark?'

'Nope, never, at least not me. If he was even mistaken for me he never told me. But I cannot believe this. Why would he do this. sure, I mean we split up, but he was still a very close friend, we loved each other like siblings. Why would he do something that would hurt me, why would he let me down?'

'By definition only people whom you love or trust can let you down. Think about it. How can someone you don't know or never trusted let you down? And as far as betrayal of an old friend goes, worse things have happened, Mr Singh.'

'You can call me Honey.'

'No,' Rita smiled. 'Believe me I'm fine calling you Mr Singh.'

I wouldn't have minded if you were Sonny, but I won't be going around calling someone Honey? Sheesh!

'So you think he framed me or he is framing me?'

'Again... maybe, maybe not. We do not have sufficient evidence to conclude that.'

'Why would he have me followed then? If he wanted to frame me, he's accomplished the burglary and the diamonds and got away with it so far. What is in it for him to get me followed now?'

Rita knew she had to draw a line here. A perceived threat to Honey Singh's life may have prompted her to give him more details than she had originally set out to provide, but outlining her entire theory and conjecture wasn't in her agenda. She had no desire to spill the proverbial beans of past burglaries, and her hypothesis on future ones even if Honey Singh was the priest in the confession box.

'That's precisely what we are trying to establish, Mr Singh.'

Rita pondered asking Honey Singh about Kitty Varghese, but in the end dropped the idea. She had no intentions of cautioning the model. She didn't want Honey or Kitty to know that the police had uncovered a potential link between the murder in Brussels and other burglaries in India. There wasn't any evidence yet, just conjecture. Rita checked if Honey had ever been mistaken for anyone else, not just for Veer Singh. Nada. Was his identity ever stolen? No. Had he ever been a victim of something as simple as credit card fraud? Nope. She spent another hour combing for, well, anything but failed to get anything that could implicate Honey Singh or give her some kind of a clue to progress.

She looked at Vikram with eyebrows raised a bit:
have I've missed anything?
Vikram only shook his head a millimetre:
No.

OK, Mr Singh,' Rita stood up. 'We'll leave you to your work now. If you think of anything that might help us or anything unusual, please give us a call.' She gave her card to him. Vikram handed Honey Singh his card too. 'And what is the best number to get you on in case we need to speak?'

Honey opened the top drawer, took out two cards and handed them to both detectives. 'I always carry my mobile.' He pointed towards the iPhone on his desk.

Not a Blackberry like the guy in the elevator,
Rita observed.

Rita and Vikram took the elevator down and walked up to the Gypsy. There was only a pedestrian exit at the back of the building that led to the next office block, so Vikram needed all his driving skills to reverse the vehicle all the way out because people rushing into the voluntary prison didn't seem keen on extending any courtesies to those exiting.

'I find it hard to believe that Honey Singh does not know about being followed. He lied at first, and then he vaguely remembered sighting someone. If it were me someone was following for so long I would have even found out who, why, where, what? Wouldn't you be curious, ma'am?'

'If
I knew someone was following me, I would be. quite worried, actually. But he says he didn't even notice till we prompted him to think hard.'

The evening rush hour had started and it took Vikram over an hour to cross over from Bandra East to Bandra West to drop Rita off at her residence.

'Each day on the wrong track is also a day away from the right track,' Rita murmured before she said bye to Vikram.

M
r Joginder Raja aka Handlebar, the best intergalactic private investigator you could find, ladies and gentlemen, did not succeed in the challenge he had set himself. The gauntlet he had thrown of ferreting out his mystery client who had set him up to tail Honey Singh had only steered him into a spot of frustration. He realised that the technology his client used was far more secure than he had anticipated. The VPN walls showed every sign of being impenetrable. Moreover, the fear factor played with his nerves. The client had already warned him once. And that DCP woman had mentioned in conversation that there was a murder investigation that was associated with this, in some way. What if the client decided to carry out the threat against his family if, in some way, he established that Handlebar was taking shots at scrapping the VPN wall? And what for? Did he care who the client was in the end? The client had reprimanded him for not being diligent in the job that had been assigned to him, which, in itself, wasn't overstepping the mark. Like most people, after having vented his frustration on his own incompetence he justified his client's transgression and carried on. It was Friday and his next report was due the next day. Thankfully, the cops had left him alone so the client would have no more nuisances from someone tailing Handlebar tailing Honey Singh.

He had set out early this Friday morning to take his position but the front driver-side tyre had a puncture just outside Lokhandwala. Cursing his luck, he tried calling for help, but eventually gave up the doomed pursuit and changed the wheel himself. Conscious that he had lost a crucial forty-five minutes, and Honey Singh would have left his home for the office by now, he decided to drive straight to BKC. When he got to Bandra Kurla Complex he spotted Honey's car in the parking area. Assured that he had only missed the first leg of the chase, he drove further down into a private bank's car park and left the car. He sauntered back a few metres and placed his considerable haunches on a small plastic chair provided by a makeshift tea stall. He was careful to move his seat behind the vast trunk of the tree, ostensibly looking for shade but in reality looking for a spot where he had visibility of Honey Singh's building exit while he stayed concealed; he ordered a masala chai and a packet of Gold Flake Kings and sat down. It was his typical routine for last few months now. The tea vendor had a surplus of newspapers that kept him occupied for a few hours till lunch. His cover had not been blown so far and there was no cause for worry that it would be now. The quarry was too posh to visit this little outfit. Unless someone actually walked past the stall looking for him, he wouldn't be spotted. Even that smartass DCP with her police guy were there the day before and he noticed her looking out for someone, most probably him, but she had missed. She might have expected him in his car, but with him and his car separated even her hawk-eyed inspection had failed to detect him. He might have slipped once, but he was still the best investigator wasn't he? See how he blended in with the crowd here?

However, he was concerned what that DCP Ferreira woman had visited Honey Singh for. He had thought about calling Jatin Singh to check but didn't follow through with his own plan, and now sitting here again, that troubled him. He made a mental note to check later when he would be in touch with them regarding this week's report to his client.

Boisterously slurping his tea and patting his vast moustache with his kerchief after every sip he settled down by 11:15 to read the news. He hadn't even finished his first cup of the day when he saw Honey Singh arrive wearing a powder blue T-shirt and dark denims — he was roughly six to seven hundred metres away but Handlebar was certain it was his target. The distance didn't compromise his vision or his ability to recognise his subject; he had tailed only one person in the last hundred days. Honey Singh was difficult to miss or mistake: there was not even an iota of doubt there. Heck, he even knew what temple Mrs Lucky Singh regularly went to. He even recognised the milkman who visited their apartment every morning. He could rattle off Kitty Varghese's vital statistics or her swimsuit size without blinking an eyelid. Not recognising the target was out of question. 700 metres? He could have recognised Honey Singh by his body odour now.

Seeing Honey Singh stealthily sneaking into his own building gave Handlebar a second wind. He upended his cup finishing the remaining tea and got up. Though he had a lighter in his pocket, he walked to the vendor under the pretext of asking for matches. He got a little over two metres closer but, when standing he had an even clearer view. It was indeed Honey Singh, but he had arrived in a taxi, which meant he had left his car in the office car park and then gone somewhere and was returning now. He had got dropped off a few paces before the gate, which surprised Handlebar. That was only first of the firsts: Honey Singh had never taken a taxi previously—since he had been watching. This was also the first instance when Honey Singh left the office and ventured out soon after arriving there. He normally stayed in the office all day; in all the time Handlebar had been watching him Honey Singh had left the office in the day only five times. On emergency client visits, when Handlebar guessed, something critical broke and there were no personnel to be sent immediately. However, to get to some place right away why would Honey Singh take a taxi, and not drive? Maybe his car had broken down, too, today?

He twisted the ends of his handlebar moustache in succession: right first, left next: always in that order. Taking out his Samsung phone he zoomed and snapped a picture.

And as if all that irregular activity wasn't enough Handlebar saw Honey Singh stop at the gate and surreptitiously glance around like he was looking for someone, something. Had he been warned of someone following him? That fuckin' DCP woman. Intestinal cramps ensued. What if Honey Singh wandered down to the tea stall and questioned him? More importantly, if his client even got a whiff of this, he would be fired instantaneously — no question about that. The greater problem would be if the client got to know that the police were in touch with Handlebar and the same police-fuckin'-woman was the one who had apprised Honey Singh of the surveillance, he better be prepared for severe repercussions. The client might not carry out what he had threatened to do to his extended family, but Handlebar didn't want an encounter with some rogues and a few broken bones in his body either. Who knew?

His thoughts returned to Honey. Where had he arrived from and what was he secreting or ensconcing himself from? Had Handlebar missed the police car that might already be in the car park? Had the police come again today? He might have missed it in the three minutes he had gone into the bank building to park his own car? Fuckety-fuck, he cursed under the breath. He had buried the fact that the police had visited him at home, and gotten away with it, and his client, presumably, was still ignorant of that. He had seen that DCP and her policeboy the day before, but he could easily mask that feigning ignorance: he didn't know the unmarked vehicle that arrived yesterday was the police's. And even if he knew how was he to know that with so many businesses in the building who did the police actually visit? But if that DCP woman was around again today, the client might get to know somehow.

Handlebar Raja's mind was going through hurdles, his thoughts jumping all over. What should he do should Honey came down to the tea stall? It wasn't proscribed to be at a roadside tea stall was it? Still, he couldn't think coherently for a few minutes till he was convinced Honey Singh had no plans to walk to the tea stall. He exhaled in relief when he saw Honey Singh walk into the building and disappear. He smiled at the vendor to diffuse his own stress. If the tea vendor didn't ask him
“what's wrong”
then everything in his visage should be right.

However, the relief was short-lived.

Less than five minutes later he saw Honey Singh drive out in his car with Kitty Varghese. They turned left as he exited the building and sped in Handlebar's direction and passed him seemingly unaware of his existence at the tea stall. Handlebar had no chance of following, as he knew by the time he would have got to his car, the couple would be out of sight. And then something occurred to him after Honey Singh's car was out of his vision. Honey Singh wasn't wearing the blue T-shirt. He couldn't see the jeans from the car window, but Honey Singh was now wearing a check shirt in red. Why did he change? Handlebar quickly snapped another picture and sat down to think. This was bizarre. Honey Singh was up to something. What? Why did he leave his office twice today? Earlier by taxi, this time driving his car. And changed his shirt? If Honey and/or Kitty had known they were being watched they didn't show it. The two young birds had blithely passed the tea vendor without slowing or looking. Having missed tailing the car carrying Honey and Kitty he ordered his second tea, lit up another Gold Flake and sat down. Handlebar had spent months at this location, another few hours couldn't hurt. He was certain Honey Singh hadn't left for the day, and would be back. It gave him time to ponder.