ANTI-SOCIAL NETWORK (17 page)

For the rest of the afternoon and through most of the evening, Virkar scoped out the streets of Bora Bazaar, looking into every nook and cranny that seemed suspicious. His eyes grew tired of scanning the faces of most of the shopkeepers and many of the passers-by. Virkar tried his best to commit each face to memory to the point that he became quite familiar with many of the people who inhabited the bazaar’s teeming lanes. Unfortunately, through the entire exercise, Virkar didn’t come across anything that he felt had even a remote connection to the mystery man.

By 7.30 p.m., most of the shops had shut down and the crowd on the streets had thinned. As it was a typical Mumbai commercial area, it would soon transform into a ghost town. Virkar sat in a chai shop that was still open, facing the road and eyeing the few people passing by, sipping his first chai of the day. The sweet liquid flowed into his system, giving his body the energy that it sorely needed. Virkar had every intention of patrolling the streets of Bora Bazaar all night. In fact, he welcomed the emptying of the streets as he felt it would be easier for him to spot the mystery man should he come in contact with him.

The strains of the aarti being performed at the nearby Jain temple wafted into Virkar’s ears. As he downed the last few sips of his chai, the music soothed his tired brain. This, combined with the sugar rush from the chai, refreshed Virkar and elevated his mood enough for him to begin looking forward to his night’s vigil. Suddenly, a thought struck him. He slapped a twenty-rupee note on the sunmica tabletop of the chai shop and rushed out. A few quick strides later, he was standing outside the Jain temple. The aarti and the
mangal deevo
were in progress and Virkar could hear every note loud and clear. He pulled out his cell phone and dialled Richard’s number. A few rings later, Richard picked up.

‘Hello, Richard.’

From the other side, Richard replied, ‘I can’t hear what you are saying. The temple music or whatever that’s playing behind you is too loud.’

‘Hold on,’ Virkar replied and walked over to a spot about a hundred yards right of the temple. ‘Now can you hear me clearly?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Richard confirmed.

‘What about the aarti music? Can you hear that?’

‘Yes, faintly.’

Virkar now spoke in a measured tone. ‘Richard, I want you to go to Google maps for the Bora Bazaar area and mark a spot for me.’

‘Wha…what? I don’t get you.’ Richard was confused.

‘Just do as I say. Download the map and mark the New Badariya Guest House, approximately a hundred yards from the Jain temple.’ Saying this, Virkar walked back towards the temple and went approximately a hundred yards down to the opposite side. He now stood in front of a ramshackle office block past the post office. ‘Can you still hear the aarti?’

‘Yes. Again, it’s quite faint,’ Richard replied, wondering what all this was about.

‘Then mark the Dhotiwala building too.’

‘Inspector, I’ve done as you said. But why I am doing this? Please explain,’ Richard asked, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

‘Because of the aarti,’ replied Virkar, sounding triumphant.

‘Have you suddenly become religious?’ Richard asked.

‘No, my young friend. I already am,’ Virkar replied. ‘I just remembered that the same aarti was playing in the background when the mystery man was speaking to me that morning.’

Richard drew a sharp breath. ‘That means...’

‘Yes. That means our man’s adda is located somewhere within a hundred yards of this temple in any of the four directions.’

Richard was excited too. ‘So what are we going to do now?’ he asked.

‘I’ve done my bit. Now you’re going to do yours,’ said Virkar. ‘I want you to tap into all the working mobile phones in this area—there shouldn’t be too many during the night—and I want you to listen for keywords like “kill”, “photos”, “pics”, “nude”, etcetera.’

‘That’s a huge task,’ said Richard.

‘Then you’d better get started, shouldn’t you?’ said Virkar.

T
he Milk Bar Cafeteria was a small restaurant that had a permanently makeshift look about it, perhaps because of the fact that it functioned out of a seven by thirty feet gali space between two adjoining buildings in Bora Bazaar. This kind of gali space between buildings was normally used as unofficial urinals for nearby shop workers and passers-by. But in the early ’70s, Shamsher Wahid, the enterprising owner of the Milk Bar, had spread a long strip of tarpaulin about eight feet above the ground and along the entire thirty-feet-long gali length. He had then placed some second-hand plastic tables and chairs that he had acquired from Chor Bazaar under the tarp. At far end of the gali, he had put in some wooden counters and a couple of gas burners and lo and behold, the gali space had been converted into the Milk Bar Cafeteria. The only thing new that Shamsher had invested in was a tin sign that hung above the entrance proudly proclaiming the name of the restaurant in English lettering. Over the past forty years or so, the tarpaulin had changed to cement sheets and the chairs and tables had changed to sunmica. Shamsher Wahid, too, had put on twenty to twenty-five kilos and now sat on a small counter right near the entrance of the Milk Bar staring at the passers-by and at each customer that came into his little gastronomic claim to fame.

As luck would have it, after speaking to Richard, Virkar walked towards the east from the Jain Mandir and stopped right in front of the Milk Bar’s entrance. Shamsher was just about to lock up the makeshift cast iron grill gates that served as the only security barrier for the cafeteria. He made the mistake of asking Virkar to move on. Virkar, in turn, demanded to see his ‘eating house’ license. Shamsher, in the manner that he dealt with these requests normally, extended a hundred-rupee note towards Virkar. From that moment on, he became Virkar’s whipping boy. Under the threat of booking him for trying to bribe a police officer and also for obstructing a police officer in his line of duty, Virkar not only got Shamsher to open up the restaurant, but also make him a fresh plate of chicken biryani. Shamsher, knowing when he was beaten, meekly went about following Virkar’s every order.

Just as he was about to finish his dinner, Virkar received a call from Richard. ‘Inspector, I’ve hacked into a program that allows me to monitor a phone even from a mobile location.’

‘What does that mean?’ Virkar asked, puzzled.

‘It means that I can monitor the mystery man’s phone from my laptop.’

Virkar lit up. ‘Then what are you doing in Khotachiwadi? Come here immediately. Head straight to the Milk Bar Cafeteréa near the Bora Bazaar fire station. My friend Shamsher, the owner of the place, has very kindly offered to let us use it as a base for our operations tonight.’ He cocked an eyebrow towards Shamsher, who looked like he was going to cry but nodded his head instead.

Twenty minutes later, Richard was digging into hot chicken biryani while Virkar was marvelling at the program on Richard’s laptop that not only monitored all the lines in use in the given area but also had the capability to phonetically recognize the words being said. Through mouthfuls of biryani, Richard explained that each time any of the specified words were spoken; it would show up in writing along with the phone number and its location on a map.

But it was only the next morning around 6 a.m. that Virkar suddenly saw the word ‘pic’ flashing on screen. He roused the sleeping Richard who immediately tapped some keys on the keyboard and a close-up of the area’s map popped up, revealing that the signal was coming from a building in Agiary Lane, about a hundred yards north from their current location. Virkar jumped to his feet and snapped up the laptop. He began to walk down the street towards Agiary Lane, with a semi-dazed Richard following close behind.

When they reached the Maneckji Seth Agiary, Virkar decided to use the shadows cast by the Agiary’s ornate architecture to conceal his and Richard’s presence. For almost fifteen minutes, they waited with bated breath as the signal flashed from somewhere in the buildings opposite them. Then, suddenly, the signal went off. In the semi-darkness, Virkar heard the first strains of the aarti starting up in the Jain temple behind them. Richard grew fidgety beside him but Virkar held his arm as a warning. It was now close to 6.30 a.m. and the first rays of the sun were beginning to invade the sky.

All of a sudden, Virkar saw the mystery man, now clean-shaven, appearing at the entrance of a building diagonally opposite their hiding place. He was carrying a leather shoulder bag and looked like a junior accountant who had pulled an all-nighter crunching numbers at his office. For a few moments, the mystery man stood at the entrance and looked up and down the street. Virkar and Richard squeezed as far back into the shadows as they could. A couple of seconds later, the mystery man turned and walked away from them towards P.M. Road.

‘Richard, you have to follow him,’ Virkar whispered urgently.

‘Me?’ Richard asked, taken aback.

‘Yes. I need to go and check if his servers are somewhere in this building. If they’re not here, then we have to continue following him till he leads us to them.’ Richard looked unsure and a little scared but Virkar squeezed his shoulders. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll only take fifteen-twenty minutes here. Keep your Bluetooth headphone on. I’ll call and catch up with you as soon as I am through.’

Richard still seemed reluctant but he stepped out of the shadows and began to follow the mystery man, keeping his manner as casual as possible. Virkar watched him go and after Richard had turned off Agiary lane, he detached himself from the shadows and entered the building from which the mystery man had just exited.

A
ltamash Chambers, a three-storeyed building, had been built in 1933 and although was now a mere shadow of its old self, still somehow managed to stand upright. Even though the corridors of its three floors were lined with thick wooden poles that functioned as support columns, its rickety eighty-year-old wooden staircase had managed to survive the vagaries of the building’s populace. But age had made sure that the stair boards creaked even under the lightest of weights. Virkar, in his hurry, had not realized how loud the sound of the creaky staircase might be, a fact he found out as soon as his foot hit the first stair. He flinched and immediately slowed down, but the damage was already done.

‘
Kaun aahe?
’ a guttural voice called out from under the stairs. Virkar looked through the wooden slats of the stairs and saw a man in shorts and a vest sitting on a thin mattress that probably functioned as his bed. The tiny space around him was crammed with articles, indicating that the space was the man’s home.

‘Police.
Baher ye
,’ said Virkar, inflecting his voice with the kind of authority that demands immediate compliance. Within a few seconds, the man under the stairs had scrambled out and was standing in front of Virkar. He took one look at Virkar and realized that he needn’t ask him for any credentials. On the contrary, he volunteered, ‘I’m Vitthal, the watchman, saheb. How can I help you?’ His voice was much softer now.

‘The man who left just now. Where’s his room?’ Virkar asked urgently.

‘Which man, saheb? I didn’t see anyone,’ said Vitthal.

‘You were probably sleeping.’ Virkar was irritated. Vitthal opened his mouth to speak but Virkar cut him off. ‘Look, this man has got either a room or office space in this building. He’s about medium height and medium built. He had a beard a few days back but is now clean-shaven.’

Vitthal looked completed nonplussed. ‘Saheb, I’ve not seen anyone matching that description and no one lives in this building. They’re all offices.’

Virkar grew thoughtful. He realized that the mystery man had been smart enough to use the space sparingly, making sure that his comings and goings went unnoticed.
He knows how to cover his tracks well
, thought Virkar. ‘How long have you been the watchman here?’ he asked out loud.

‘For the past twenty-five years and not one robbery has taken place in the time,’ replied Vitthal, sounding defensive.

‘You know the owner of each and every office?’

‘I think so.’

‘Come with me,’ said Virkar as he strode up the stairs, unmindful of the creaks this time. On the first floor, he stood at the front of the first office at the head of the stairs. ‘R. Chandiramani, Chartered Accountant’ read the sign. ‘Tell me about this office,’ Virkar demanded.

Vitthal shrugged. ‘This office belongs to Ramesh bhai who lives in Bhuleshwar. He is an accountant, as you can see on the board. He comes in the morning at 10 a.m. and leaves at 6 p.m. every day except Sunday.’

Virkar nodded and walked to the door of the next office: ‘Seabird Maritime Services’. Virkar pointed to the sign and Vitthal raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you going to ask me about each and every office in this building?’

‘Yes. So hurry up. We don’t have much time.’

It was only after about twenty minutes, when they had reached the far corner of the second floor, that Virkar had something of a breakthrough. Vitthal and he stood in front of an old wooden door that seemed to an original part of the eighty-year-old building. In fact, the padlock that hung from the heavy cast-iron latch also seemed to belong to that era.

‘This office had not been used for the past fifteen years or so, but now some computer company has hired it and uses it as its godown.’

‘Which computer company?’ Virkar asked.

Vitthal scratched his head. ‘Saheb, this is one of those offices I don’t know much about. About six months ago, some computers were stocked over here. But I can safely tell you that no one has been inside since then.’

Virkar bent down and examined the padlock. In the darkness of the corridor, he could hardly see anything. He switched on his cell phone and shone its light on the latch. His keen eyes spotted a few miniscule scratches near the keyhole. On closer examination, he realized that the scratches were fresh. His heart now pounding fast with excitement, Virkar pressed his ear to the wooden door. His ears picked up an almost imperceptible whirring sound from inside the room. He got up and turned to the watchman. ‘Go get a iron
saliya
or a thick rod.’