Free Doosra by Vish Dhamija Page A

yet?'
    'Once, yes, but I'm not into computers or diamonds, so I had no reason to rifle through. Happy to let you guys in to search the place, whenever.'
    Was there any point in sealing the place now before the team combed the place, bearing in mind that the chain of evidence had already been breached?
    'I have some equipment in the car, Jatin.' Rita turned to Jatin who had been sitting quietly jotting notes on his pad all this while. He immediately got up.
    'I'll get it.'
    'We shall seal the office, at least.' She turned to Anita. 'Anything you remember after we go please call us immediately. The team that comes for the office search will also go through the whole house, just in case there's something that can provide us with any clue… hope you are OK with that?'
    Nod.
    'And I'd like to speak with whoever was living with Mr Jogani before he left for Brussels, whoever worked here.'
    'Most of the people here are the ones who worked for him even before I walked out on Ron, they've been around for years and, if you ask me, none of them could have been involved.'
    'I wasn't thinking about that, I wanted to know about people who visited Mr Jogani here, people who visited Mr Jogani in the last six months or so.'
    'Oh, that? Of course. When would you want to do that?'
    'I'll ask someone to organise that tomorrow.'
    'I'm home, so no problem.'
    'And please don't ask them anything about what we've talked about today. I don't want these people to be prepared.'
    'Sure.'
    Jatin, in the meantime, had fetched the police tape and sealed the office.
    Before leaving Rita asked Jatin to leave a card in case Anita wanted to get in touch. As they walked out of the Jogani residence Rita wondered where her tête-à-tête, with the gold digging wife left her: nowhere. She might as well have spent time looking for UFOs. Could they possibly find something in Jogani's office so late into the investigation? Doubtful. But it was worth a try. And it was the procedure.
    It was six. The sun had still not finished its shift, and the sky was still bright. Was there anything that they could accomplish now? They had given themselves two tasks for the day: Jogani's residence and office and his ex-wife. And they had struck both the proverbial birds with one stone.
    'I have a request, ma'am,' Jatin said as they sat in the vehicle. 'I'd like to lead this search, and look into Jogani's computer.'
    'Since when have you become a computer geek?'
    'Always was, ma'am.'
    'Great, let's see what we find.'
    The mouse-sized guard gave them a salute as they drove out of the Jolly Maker building complex. As the motor wafted away, Rita looked at the city. Mumbai wasn't so big geographically, but it was extremely complicated. It was a corporate metropolis. The corporation was India and the challenge with India Corporate — Rita compared it to her Goa — was that everyone was someone or at least pretended to be someone. Maybe Guinness should have recorded the city with the highest VIP to common man population. She smiled.

S eventeen. It took the best part of the day for Vikram and Rajesh Nene to contact a total of seventeen snitches between them. Seventeen police informers were not enough to cover every inch of Mumbai, but they had their own sources. It was like fuelling a fire in a maze; the flame would certainly find its way. Someone, somewhere always knew something. It wasn't funny how many cases had been cracked because someone squeaked, or sold out, or blabbered after a drunken night, or toasted to boast regarding the booty, or felt chicaned enough to report with an intention to relay the info. Endless possibilities. Unvarying result. It eventually seeped through to someone who could trade it for a favour or pay off a debt. The seventeen copies of Sishir Singh's grainy candid-shot would be reproduced umpteen times and travel into the corners of Mumbai that did not even feature on Google maps. Lane and dusty by-lanes that even Mumbai Police could not find, forget carrying