A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder
Page 21
His secretary walked in quietly. He looked up, inquiring but also impatient.
She said, ‘I’ve just had a call, sir. Your nephew, Marcus Lee, has been in an accident. He might not survive.’
She watched him carefully but he gave no outward sign of having heard. She continued uncertainly, ‘I’m so sorry, sir. Is there anything you would like me to do?’
‘Do? No, you can go. Unless there’s anything else.’
She shook her head and walked out, closing the door with the faintest of clicks behind her. He really was a bastard.
Kian Min looked pleased. It looked like Marcus might not live to inherit after all. Perhaps one of Alan’s other sons was made of sterner stuff.
Chelsea was alone. The policemen had left. Singh had been reluctant to leave but unable to think of an excuse to hang around. Chelsea called home and explained to the other two boys that she would be late getting back. She sounded normal, cheerful. It was only after she hung up that she allowed herself the luxury of tears. But she quickly dried them. While Marcus was alive she would continue to be strong, even if the foundations of her strength were crumbling under the weight of events.
A shadow fell across her and she looked up. It was Sharifah. Her eyes were bloodshot and her hair was tied up under a scarf. She was dressed in a baju kurung but the top half and the bottom were from different pairs. Chelsea thought cynically that if she had set out to look as different as possible from the young woman in the morning’s papers she could not have succeeded better.
But then she saw the apprehension in the girl’s eyes and felt a wave of compassion wash over her. It had a cleansing effect. It soaked away the last of the ill feeling Chelsea had for this foolish girl.
Sharifah asked, ‘I heard on the radio. Is there any news?’
Chelsea shook her head. ‘He’s still in surgery. I haven’t spoken to a doctor yet.’
As if on cue, a doctor in green scrubs and a face mask walked out of the swing doors leading to the operating theatre.
He looked at the two women and inquired politely, as if they were acquaintances who had bumped into each other at an airport somewhere, ‘Marcus Lee’s family?’
Chelsea said, ‘I’m his mother. How is he? Tell me please!’
The doctor sighed, his thick glasses reflecting the bright lights and obscuring his eyes. ‘Well, he survived the surgery. It was touch and go.’
Again, Chelsea sifted through the words and latched on to those she wanted to hear. ‘He survived? He’s going to be all right?’
The surgeon shifted uncomfortably. He had been standing for a long time, bending over the broken body of a young man, trying to fix and rearrange, stitch and join. It was exhausting. His lower back ached, and his neck too, from the strain of the surgery. But he would rather have gone through the whole thing again than discuss a critical case with family.
He said, ‘It’s too early to tell. He has a lot of impact injuries, a ruptured spleen, collapsed lung, dislocated shoulder, a few broken bones, including all the fingers in his right hand.’
‘My God,’ said Sharifah in a hushed tone, the magnitude of Marcus’s injuries overwhelming her for a moment.
The doctor continued, ‘The only reason he survived the accident is that all the airbags in the car deployed on contact with the water. It just cushioned him enough – or the impact would have killed him on the spot.’
Chelsea looked at the blood on the green overalls of the surgeon and felt sick to the stomach. That was Marcus’s blood, all over this man. She could taste the bile in the back of her throat and it reminded her of the terrible morning sickness she had suffered when pregnant with Marcus. She had been so ill and yet so proud when he was born.
Chelsea looked up at the doctor and said, ‘There’s more, isn’t there?’
The doctor could not meet her eyes. He tried to look at her but then found himself gazing down at his blood-splattered shoes. He said, ‘There was also a blood clot in the front of his brain. We’ve removed it successfully. But I’m afraid, even if Marcus makes it through post-op, there might be . . . brain damage. It’s not unusual in this sort of case.’
‘When will you know?’
‘Not until he wakes up – which won’t be for several days, I’m afraid. We need to keep him heavily sedated or the shock will be too much for his body to handle.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Still in there.’ The doctor jerked his head backwards towards the operating theatre doors. ‘He’ll be back in the ICU, the intensive care unit, in a couple of hours if you want to see him.’
Sharifah bit her bottom lip to keep from screaming with the black, spinning horror of it all.
The doctor said warningly, ‘He’ll be unconscious and won’t look good. Don’t be too surprised and upset by that.’ And then perhaps recognising how facile it was to warn the mother of a probably brain-damaged kid that he might look a bit beat up, he raised a hand in a gesture of nervous leave taking and disappeared into the inner recesses of the hospital.
The three men were in the car on the way back to the police station. Each was lost in his own thoughts. There was complete quiet in the car except for the crackling of the police radio. Mohammad and Singh had been policemen for more than thirty years. Shukor was a rookie. But none of them had grown callous despite years of exposure to the least attractive aspects of human nature. It was both their strength and, at moments like these, when their judgement was clouded with sympathy, their weakness.
It was Singh who gave some expression to the conflict within. He said, ‘I really, really hope we can pin the murder on Kian Min . . . or Ravi.’
There were nods of agreement from the rest. They could relate to that.
It was Mohammad who acted the spoiler this time round. ‘It could be the kid.’
‘Because he tried to kill himself?’ Shukor was the one who asked the question, glancing into his rearview mirror to see how Inspector Singh reacted to the suggestion.
Singh said in a depressed tone, low and gravelly and barely audible, ‘It is suggestive. We let Jasper go. Marcus drives his car off a bridge.’
Shukor was the unexpected source of adamant disagreement with his superiors. ‘That need not be the reason, sir. He could have been driven to it by today’s papers.’
‘Really?’ asked Inspector Mohammad sceptically. ‘He gets a bit embarrassed and he tries to kill himself? Would you do that?’
Shukor was defensive but firm. ‘I might if I were seventeen, sir.’
He could see the other two men consciously try and remember what it was like to be seventeen. It was not such a long journey for Shukor. He could easily recall the sensitivity and the insecurity of a seventeen-year-old. For sure, he thought, he might have tried to kill himself – been at least tempted – if he had found himself in such a public mess as Marcus had done.
Singh had managed the act of travelling back into his own past. He remembered the thin, young cricket player who had been humiliated because he’d been wrongly accused of ball tampering once. He had felt ready to die, his embarrassment was so overwhelming. Perhaps it was unfair to assume that Marcus had killed his father on the evidence of one attempted suicide only.
Mohammad’s time machine was working less well. He said doubtfully, ‘You might have a point. But I think there was every chance that he guessed we’d come looking for him once we released Jasper – and tried to find a way out.’
Twenty
When he saw on the news that Jasper had been released, Rupert called him. They agreed to meet at the hotel lobby. They almost didn’t recognise each other although it was no more than a week since Rupert had visited Jasper in prison. Jasper, who had been cheerful and relaxed, was crushed and tired, still wearing the same clothes he had gone to see Chelsea in the previous day. Rupert Winfield, who had spent a good part of the last five years living the life of a nomad in the jungle, was conspicuously well-kempt, only his golden brown tan looked too deep to be of the sun-bed variety.
The latter said, as he sipped his frothy hot drink with the slowly melting sprinkle of chocolate, ‘I swear, Jasper, the only thing between me and perfect happiness in the jungle was a coffee machine.’
Jasper said ruefully, ‘I felt the same way about prison.’
‘What was that about, anyway?’
‘If it’s all right with you, Rupert, I’d prefer not to talk about it.’
Rupert nodded his understanding.
He changed the subject with a forced casualness that would not have fooled most people. But he was talking to a man so lost in a mental maze of his own creation, it passed unnoticed. ‘I was just wondering about the office set-up at Lee Timber,’ he said.
‘Oh? Why?’
‘You remember you mentioned that Alan had never been the brains behind the company – it was your dad and, when he died, your other brother, Kian Min?’
‘Yes, Alan was just a figurehead – he was too busy playing around and beating his wife to have time for business.’
It was Jasper’s turn to ask, ‘Are you still disappointed that Alan is dead?’
‘It sounds like he deserved a bullet,’ said Rupert and then glanced quickly at Jasper to see if he found such strong sentiment misplaced. Rupert was finding it harder to control his emotions than he had expected. He was making mistakes.
Jasper shrugged. ‘That’s why the police are having such a tough time. People were queuing up to have a go at him.’
‘Well, you know why I was so upset. I wanted to make sure he paid for what he did – evicting the Penan, causing the death of that woman. I had big plans to confront him, force him to acknowledge what he had done.’
‘I suppose he did pay for what he did,’ said Jasper.
Rupert nodded a half-hearted acknowledgement of the correctness of what Jasper had said. Alan had, after all, been gunned down on the street where he lived.
Jasper grinned at the other man, affectionate but mocking. ‘I know, I know – it’s not the same unless you get to shoot him yourself!’
He was surprised to see how badly Rupert took his attempt at humour.
‘That’s not right, Jasper.’ He was stuttering. ‘Th-that’s not r-right. Why would you say such a thing?’
‘Damn it! Give me a break, Rupert. I’ve been in jail for ages. I was just trying to be funny. God knows, I don’t feel like being funny. My brother is dead, his wife thinks I’m a fool, my nephew is in hospital, Kian Min is making sure that the Lee legacy is safe, Lee Timber continues to destroy everything I’ve sought to preserve . . . ’
He buried his face in his hands and Rupert patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.
‘I’m sorry, mate. I’m just a bit touchy myself.’
There was no response from Jasper, so he continued hesitantly, ‘I’m going to see Kian Min. I’ve an appointment next week.’
Jasper looked up, sipped his coffee and grimaced. ‘I need something much stronger than that.’ He waved a waitress over and ordered whiskies for both of them. He looked at his companion and said, ‘What are you hoping to achieve?’
Rupert shook his head. ‘I have no idea. I just want to explain what’s going on in Borneo.’
‘You think he doesn’t know? He’d have ordered the attacks himself.’
Rupert looked at Jasper, his blue eyes glowing with a curious intensity. ‘You really believe that?’
‘Of course! But how are you going to get in anyway? Kian Min is not stupid enough to let a Penan sympathiser into his office to harangue him.’
Rupert fingered his suit. ‘What do you think this is? I’m not laki Penan any more, I’m Jonathan Hayward, representing the European Commission. I want to buy bio-fuels to meet European Union emissions targets.’
‘I wondered at the new look. Jungle metrosexual, I thought of calling it.’
Rupert laughed but then asked with sudden, absolute seriousness, ‘But can it work?’
‘It’s a good plan,’ acknowledged Jasper reluctantly. ‘Kian Min’s greatest weakness is his greed. I like it. You give him hell!’
‘I plan to,’ said Rupert. ‘I certainly plan to.’
He drained his whisky in one gulp, feeling the warmth descend until he had a literal fire in his belly.
‘There’s one more thing . . .’ Rupert reached into his pocket and took out a sealed envelope. ‘Can you hang on to this? Open it if . . . you’ll know when to open it if it becomes necessary.’
Jasper looked at him quizzically. ‘What is this? Your last will and testament? Kian Min is not going to shoot you in the middle of his office in downtown Kuala Lumpur!’
Rupert leaned back in his chair. ‘Better safe than sorry and all that.’
Chelsea Liew developed a routine. Get the boys ready for school and send them on their way with cheery smiles and reassurances about the condition of their older brother. Have a quick breakfast, or perhaps a sandwich in the car, and head for the intensive care unit. Sit down in the chair next to her son, talk to him, read to him or be lost in her own scattered thoughts. Head back in time to meet the younger boys when they got home from school. Spend the afternoon with them while Jasper or Sharifah took over at the hospital. It tore her apart to be away from Marcus but she felt that she had to provide the younger kids with a semblance of normality. If she disappeared from their lives again, it might be too much for them so soon after the death of their father, her incarceration in jail and the hospitalisation of Marcus. So she played Lego and did puzzles and listened to their tales of school and helped them on the monkey bars and with their homework – and all the while she hung on to her mobile with a sweaty palm and worried about Marcus.
When the boys sat down to dinner she would go back to the hospital and spend a fitful night in a hard chair – mostly awake but occasionally chased across a dreamscape by her worst nightmares. In the morning, she would make sure she was home again before the boys realised she had spent the night away.
That was the routine. It was punctuated with hushed telephone confrontations with lawyers, her eyes restlessly peering back into the ward, as her legal team warned her that developments were not good, she was not getting anywhere in the courts. She had urgent, difficult conversations with all the specialists that she brought in for second and third and fourth opinions of Marcus’s case – elderly types proceeding on instinct born of experience and young swots quoting the latest medical research. None of them could reassure her that Marcus would be all right. None of them, despite much humming and hawing, could suggest a different or better course of treatment than to keep him asleep, let his body rest and recover from the trauma of his injuries and cross their fingers that there would be no permanent brain damage. Her schedule was interrupted by the moments of blind panic when a machine would bleep or she would suddenly fear that Marcus’s deep sleep had slipped over the border into perpetual night without her noticing.
The sight of him no longer upset her as much as it had. She was accustomed to the bandages and the tubes to help him breathe, to collect his urine, to intravenously feed him drugs and food and whatever else the nurses in their starched white uniforms took into their heads to add to those soft clear plastic bags of liquid hanging from metal poles. The bruises peeking out from behind bandages, like a canvas of modern art, were slowly moving through the colour charts, red and raw, then blue and purple and, eventually, orange like the rising sun. Some of the swelling had gone down too – she could see that when dressings were changed. The long centipedes of stitches crawling across Marcus’s body were no longer traversing their individual fleshy hills of swollen tissue. He was actually getting better. His young body was fighting for his life – ignoring the desire for death that had caused him to drive his car off a bridge in the first place.
But Chelsea still had to worry about the state of his mind. Although she dreaded his waking up still resolute in his desire to put an end to his troubled existence
, she was much more afraid that he would recover consciousness and be unable to form a desire whether to live or to die, a human vegetable, with no capacity for decision making.
Through it all, Sharifah was her companion and Jasper was her support. If she had time to think thoughts that were not related to the welfare of her children she might have appreciated the irony – but her thoughts, like a candle spluttering under a ceiling fan, pulled in one direction and then another but, never straying from the wick, were tethered to a single spot.
The women grew thinner but Jasper gained weight. Chelsea and Sharifah were barely able to swallow morsels of food, their stomachs were so shrivelled and twisted with anxiety. But Jasper, who would not have admitted it to anyone in the world, was happy. He had never previously been able to be of service to the woman he loved. His big attempt had backfired. He had, in the clutches of a monster of jealousy, recanted his confession. But now, finally, he was of real use to her.