Authors: Vish Dhamija
'Good evening, sir,' Rita finally got through to
Sexy
on his unlisted home phone. 'Apologies, but it is an emergency, sir. Our suspects are on a flight leaving Mumbai in the next ten minutes. We need to stop the flight.' Rita gave him the details.
'Let me call in my debts. Call me as soon as you get there.'
***
C
HATRAPATI
S
HIVAJI
I
NTERNATIONAL
A
IRPORT
0050 H
OURS
The engines had started. The pilot had asked the flight personnel to take their seats.
That was when the call came in from Air-Traffic Control.
The Commissioner of Mumbai Police has no legal jurisdiction over Air-Traffic Control. But here's the thing: you do not say “no” to him under normal circumstances. And if that Police Commissioner is Sanjay Saxena you do not say “no” to him under any kind of circumstances. Or the next call will be from the Home Minister of the State.
Sexy
could press pause on Mumbai like you pressed pause on a film on your
Tata Sky
or your DVD player.
The Air-Traffic Control officer-in-charge had made all excuses not to stop an aircraft on the runway, as that would mean many subsequent flights would be delayed. He had begged.
Sorry, that is not an option:
was the response.
The pilot had protested vehemently, stifling the epithets he had in his throat. If they missed this take-off slot, he calculated, they might be put at the back of the queue.
Why, what's the problem?
He had asked, but he got no response. He was told to declare “technical glitch”, keep the doors locked and wait for further orders. Not negotiable.
0052 H
OURS
The police sirens were silenced before the approach. The local Assistant Superintendent of Police on the scene had asked his team to switch off the red beacons on the vehicles too. Three police vehicles were parked in front of the aircraft that only the pilots could see. Everyone waited till Rita and Nene followed by the other units arrived at the runway.
The time was 0117 hours. The police had enough evidence to make the arrests.
The Reason Behind The Reason
T
he police machinery took over. It took six officers and two advocates three days to break Honey Singh and Kitty Varghese.
DCP Rita Ferreira's theory was on the mark. They admitted to the earlier burglaries in Mumbai and Delhi, the multi-million Euro heist in Brussels, the culpable homicide of Ron Jogani and the ensuing hired killing of Veer Singh — another collateral damage. In fact it was while selling the diamonds stolen in Mumbai and Delhi that Honey Singh had discovered the intricacies of diamond buying from Brussels. He researched further to determine and shortlist five wholesale buyers. He set up a fake firm in Japan — website, PO Box, email IDs — and sent emails to these five key players inviting them to Japan for cheaper diamonds than they paid for the same quality in Brussels. One of the five was Ron Jogani. Jogani responded saying he was off to Brussels in the first week of April, but he would like to visit Japan in the later part of the year to have a look. That was it. That little correspondence was all it took Honey Singh to get into Ron Jogani's computer. From then on every email Jogani sent or received, every website he visited was tracked by Honey & Co.
The murder of Ron Jogani had sired the subsequent events, which propagated the despicability when Rita's team got involved and started knocking on their doors. The original idea was never to flee Mumbai or India. On the early bereavement of Honey's father Honey Singh and his mother had been fleeced of their inheritance by so-called family members. Honey Singh, deprived of the riches that were rightfully his, needed money so he could get back at them by anonymously buying back his father's business and reducing the others into a life of penury and penance: an equally nasty plan to wreck vengeance. And the means he wanted to use to achieve it further aggrandised what wasn't a noble end-goal at any rate. The whole yarn of Honey Singh clandestinely working on some software that could change the face of financial accounting and bring in millions was fabricated. He was good at what he did — computer maintenance and writing simple computer programmes — but he wasn't a genius as he claimed to be; he did not have any outstanding epochal ideas that no one else had thought of. The story was a façade to legitimise the money if he succeeded — and he had, to some extent, gotten away; well, almost — in pocketing the millions. To what else would he have attributed his sudden inheritance? It was all thought through. The idea of fleeing was recent, premature. The
Is
hadn't been dotted. When Rita & Co. increased the heat, he shortlisted the places he could get away to without having to return. Research told him that getting to the Cayman Islands appeared straight as a rifle shot and well within reach.
Kitty Varghese was a complicit accomplice in all the crimes. She wasn't indoctrinated, she didn't need to be. She was equally guilty. She was a runaway from a Catholic seminary because she didn't want to waste her life by becoming a holy sister. She looked extra-terrestrial in the environment: far too attractive to be of any assistance to God or His worshippers. If anything, she believed, she would only be a distraction to men if she stayed there. She hadn't broken off with Veer Singh because of what she had admitted to Rita: that Veer Singh did not accept her modelling career was nonsense. Honey Singh was the man who had a precarious plan. The risk was so enthralling it paled all worries, all consequences. She relished cheap thrills a little too much for her own good. Running from the seminary and getting away with it once had given her the confidence and the impetus to up the stakes. It engendered a false fortitude. Aware that her modelling career would expire with her youth, the diamond larcenies, the threat of getting caught only pushed the adrenaline higher. Risqué that she was, men always went out of their way to succour. Like the guy who told her how old and grand the building was of Zaveri Jewellers; it even had a glass dome on top. Like the guy who helped her hire a motorcycle in Germany without too many questions or papers...
They could have left the game after the first burglary or the second. Hadn't they made enough dough? The murder wasn't planned, and it could have been very much avoided. Honey Singh could have apologised to Ron Jogani, given some hogwash how he accidentally entered the wrong room, blamed the hotel clerk or locks and keys, gotten away. Maybe he could have merely shown the gun to Jogani to shut-him up and run away without the diamonds. Maybe Jogani wouldn't have reported it. Of course, no one will ever know what
could
have happened. The fact was that Honey Singh couldn't control himself: when the stakes are that high people do unprecedented things. And that, precisely, is the problem with avarice. No one always wins. No one always loses. The art is to win more than you lose. Or, at least, stop playing when it's a zero-sum. Then leave the table. But when you start descending into the darkness of evil you see no reason, you stop nowhere or at nothing. In their lust for more, most people make sure they lose everything they've already got. That's how the Devil plays; he always blinds you and suspends you in some fifth dimension where everything sounds like a lament. There is no restitution.
The plan of concocting the theory of a duplicate, and establishing a specious spoor to implicate Veer Singh was Kitty's idea to save her Honey by zeroing in on the private detective, Mr Raja — the dingbat, as she referred to him — was hired to follow Honey Singh so in case someone came asking they would think:
poor Honey Singh.
The lie worked for some time before it decalcified.
***
The money — most of it unspent yet — was recovered from four separate anonymous offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands. No diamonds.
Kitty Varghese got six years for being a willing accomplice to the break-ins and thefts. Honey Singh admitted under oath, that Kitty Varghese was never an accomplice in either of the two murders. The judge still saw her as an “accessory after the event": she should have reported the heinous crimes, but she didn't. Six years was too harsh for burglary, too little for murder, people thought. The media hawks got new material to deliberate for weeks.
Honey Singh committed suicide, two months after he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
As expected, Mrs Lucky Singh was distraught. She had no idea her son had a deep-rooted hatred of her in-laws for fleecing her when she, herself, had long been over the grudge.
***
There are times when you know what's happened is correct, but it's tragic nevertheless. Sad, Rita thought. Two mislaid souls. It would have been akin to explaining the laws of gravity to a couple of potatoes falling from a skyscraper. Too complex. And now, perhaps too late.
Rita fixed herself a Jim Beam, put on Jimi Hendrix:
Castles made of sand
came alive reminding her that all such castles fell into the sea eventually. One quick drink later, Mr Ash Mattel and his chintzy witticisms surfaced in her thoughts. She poured another drink, braced herself for a barrage of innuendos and called Ash.
'Tell me you're wearing stilettos and nothing else...' He didn't disappoint.
She smiled.
A Note to Readers
T
he idea of Doosra came to me immediately after finishing Bhendi Bazaar, but as I was occupied by another project I let it float and take shape in my mind for a while longer. Doosra is the second DCP Rita Ferreira case. Although it has references to Bhendi Bazaar, it isn't exactly a sequel — it is very much a standalone story.
A lot of people helped me write Doosra, and it would be impossible to list all of them. As usual my wife and biggest critic, Nidhi, was the first reader. After reading half the manuscript she told me that the story lacked zing; it needed some more action. And hence I deliberated, altered some parts and added new dimensions to make the story come alive. Thank you Nidhi.
As an author I get very defensive of all the words I put in the first draft of my manuscript but my editor, Debz Hobbs-Wyatt knows how to sharpen it and make it an entertaining story. Thank you Debz.
My friend Patrick Whittick took a look at the final document and ironed out the errors in language, pointed out inconsistencies in the plot, and provided a few valuable suggestions, which I incorporated. Thank you Patrick.
And finally, a big thanks to my publishers Rumour Books India Team for giving me the opportunity to bring my work to you all.
I hope you enjoy reading Doosra as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Vish Dhamija
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