The Betel Nut Tree Mystery

by Ovidia Yu

  ‘Chen Tai, I want you to listen now. Your son should not go to a meeting tomorrow night at the Keng Soo Clan Association,’ Le Froy said. ‘It would be even better if there is no meeting tomorrow night. But make sure your son stays at home tomorrow night.’

  Ah Ma sat quietly for a long moment. It was the first time I had seen my grandmother look vulnerable. And I knew Le Froy had made himself vulnerable too. If I repeated what I had just heard, he would be the one charged with treason.

  Finally, my grandmother spoke: ‘If my irresponsible granddaughter insists on working for strangers, she should learn a proper skill. There is a hairdresser in town willing to take her on as an apprentice.’

  ‘Ah Ma! I don’t want to be a hairdresser!’

  ‘He has a good business, doesn’t owe money and his wife died last year without children. And he has studied Chinese medicine and acupuncture. He can also teach her Japanese. These things may save her life one day.’ The same reason she gave for sending me to the mission school to learn English.

  ‘Japanese? Ah Ma!’

  ‘Oshima Yukimoto?’ Le Froy asked.

  ‘Tell me what bad things you know about that daikon-head,’ my grandmother commanded. When Le Froy shook his head, indicating he had nothing bad to say, she continued: ‘The choice is between learning Japanese and working for white people. You will never be accepted by white people. But if you can speak Japanese you will be safer.’

  ‘I have a job,’ I said. ‘I like it. I want to help the police solve a murder. Ah Ma, I am going to the Farquhar Hotel to guard the ang moh woman whose fiancé just died.’ ‘Guard’ and ‘watch’ are close enough in meaning. Ah Ma nodded. I was surprised she did not object.

  ‘I will do all I can to keep Su Lin safe,’ Le Froy said.

  ‘I know,’ Ah Ma said. ‘But I want to make sure that you understand what your responsibility is.’

  For one awful moment, I thought my grandmother was asking Le Froy to marry me.

  ‘Ah Ma! You can’t say such things! They don’t see things the same way!’

  Again, neither seemed to hear me. I felt as though I was shouting under water.

  Le Froy had not run away. And he still spoke with the friendly respect he reserved for my grandmother. ‘Please explain to me,’

  ‘You will be her sifu. If a master takes on an apprentice, the apprentice becomes part of the master’s family. I am asking you to take Su Lin into your family, as her sifu.’

  ‘Sifu’ might be translated as ‘master’ or ‘teacher’. But it was a term with many more connotations. You wouldn’t learn dressmaking or carpentry from a sifu. But if you entered religious orders or were studying the martial arts, ‘Sifu’ was how you would address your head monk or instructor. In Chinese and Japanese history, this was very often the same person. And the connotations were really closer to ‘master-father’ than ‘teacher’. In the old traditions, an apprentice was like a disciple, willing to kill for – or die for – his or her master.

  There was usually a formal discipleship ritual. Uncle Chen had taken on several apprentice-disciples in his shadow businesses, though he and Shen Shen ran their little sundries shop alone. They had been starving waifs who had since grown into skilled fighters and remained silently devoted to my uncle.

  Such a relationship with a family of local black-marketeers could hardly be something a government detective wanted, I thought. And I saw a flicker of something – not quite, but almost, alarm – in Le Froy’s eyes before he bowed his head to Ah Ma again. ‘I am honoured to be asked.’

  ‘And your answer?’ Chen Tai had not kept her position by being tactful. ‘You don’t think my granddaughter is worthy?’

  ‘This is a serious responsibility, not to be taken on lightly,’ Le Froy said. ‘I will think about it.’

  Ah Ma said, ‘People don’t change. If you can say yes or no in ten, twenty years’ time, you can say yes or no now.’

  ‘People change,’ Le Froy said. ‘People change all the time. Or we would all be savages living in mud huts instead of in houses like this.’ He looked around, drawing our eyes with him. ‘I know you didn’t want your granddaughter to work for me. Can you tell me what changed your mind?’

  ‘What is happening in China now will happen in Singapore if the Japanese are not stopped. If Su Lin is under your protection . . .’

  Le Froy nodded. ‘I will do everything I can to keep her safe.’

  ‘Train her to keep herself safe. And another thing. There’s a new ang moh man asking questions in town.’ Ah Ma raised her hand as she spoke and the doors to the main hall were closed from the outside. ‘This man went to your uncle’s shop, Su Lin, and asked if he put you in the police to warn him of police checks. He also accused your uncle of passing the police information on his rivals.’

  ‘Uncle Chen told you that?’

  ‘No,’ my grandmother said. ‘Your useless uncle tells me nothing, these days. My friend happened to be passing by and told me.’

  The rift between Chen Tai and Small Boss Chen was more serious than I ‘d known. And Ah Ma was spying on my uncle.

  Spies

  ‘It must have been Victor Glossop,’ I said. ‘If he was going around town with questions and blackmail, someone must have decided to get rid of him.’

  If he had still been alive, I would have given Mr Glossop a good slap for sneaking about. But someone had done worse. I only hoped Uncle Chen hadn’t had Victor killed.

  And if he had, I hoped we wouldn’t be able to prove it.

  ‘What did Small Boss Chen say to him?’ Le Froy asked.

  ‘My son said, “No speak English.” The man also asked other people about protection money. How much they pay the police to stay away. He asked if Su Lin is our payment to you for favours or your hostage.’

  Le Froy nodded ‘Do you know if this ang moh man was from England or America? Or Australia?’

  ‘How would I know? Ang mohs all look the same, what!’ My grandmother’s face was bland and innocent.

  ‘Can you make sure your son is not at the meeting tomorrow night?’

  Ah Ma shrugged expansively, waving her hands as though shooing the words away, like geese. ‘What can I do? My only son never comes to see me now. He is angry with me. Well, I am angry with him!’

  This was new. Despite huge family fights over the years, this was the first time I had known Ah Ma to mention one to an outsider.

  ‘I am sorry to hear that,’ Le Froy said politely.

  Ah Ma went further: ‘My daughter-in-law is worried that my son is having an affair with a flower of the night.’

  ‘Of course he isn’t,’ I said. If Uncle Chen wanted to have an affair with a prostitute he knew how to cover his tracks so that Shen Shen would never find out.

  ‘He has been taking money and Shen Shen thinks he wants to take a second wife. I don’t know what he is doing with the money.’

  It was a plausible justification for missing money, and established my grandmother’s ignorance in the matter.

  That done, Ah Ma fixed her eyes on Le Froy. ‘Is my son working for you? Spying for you against his own people?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I didn’t think so, but you understand I have to ask. People close to the ground, like you and me, we know trouble is coming. We are hiding like rats and cockroaches. The king is too far away in England to know what is happening here. I am an old woman and even my son keeps secrets from me. If anything happens to me, I want you to look after my granddaughter.’

  ‘I will do my best, Chen Tai.’

  ‘Your source of information must have made a mistake,’ Ah Ma said. ‘There will be no meeting tomorrow night at the Keng Soo Clan Association.’

  ‘I am sorry for my mistake, Chen Tai.’

  Ah Ma smiled. It was a small smile, but genuine. I saw how much she trusted and respected my ang moh boss. Trusted him more than her own people to keep me safe.

  All this time, when I’d thought I was striking out for myself by insisting on stayi
ng at school and working with the Detective Unit, had I been following my grandmother’s plan? This raised other questions. I knew I had not been planted to pass police information to my grandmother, but in the Detective Shack I had heard stories about the underside of the Chen family businesses.

  ‘Ah Ma, do you take protection money?’

  Ah Ma opened her mouth, rolled her eyes and wailed, ‘How can you say such things to me? My own granddaughter thinks I am a crook and a criminal! Aiyoh, to be accused of such things in my old age!’

  I had not spent years watching Ah Ma play mahjong for nothing. Winning those games had been as much about showmanship as gambling skills.

  ‘What terrible thing did I do to be punished like that?’

  I suspected it was for Le Froy’s benefit. He watched, diplomatically silent but without surprise. I waited.

  ‘When you get older, you will understand how business is done. I am tired now. Thank you for coming. Su Lin, you must help me to my room.’ Ah Ma brought the interview to a close.

  My grandmother had a houseful of relatives and servants to help her and she never displayed any kind of weakness in front of an outsider, especially not a foreign devil like Le Froy. I suddenly saw her through a stranger’s eyes. She was not just getting older – she was already old.

  ‘Please excuse us,’ I said to Le Froy, who nodded and pulled out his pipe. He would not smoke in my grandmother’s presence: this was his way of telling me not to hurry.

  I’d thought Ah Ma wanted to justify offering me to the Japanese man. I had quite a few things to say to her on the subject myself. But once we were in her private room with the door shut, she said, ‘Your uncle Chen is angry with me. He will be angrier when he finds out there will be no meeting tomorrow night. In fact, that there will be no more meetings.’

  ‘Uncle Chen is always angry about something.’

  ‘Angry men do stupid things, trust the wrong people. Your chief inspector did us a great favour. But even he is not safe.’

  Ah Ma’s old bedchamber had not changed. The padded step stool I had once sat on to read my school books aloud to her still stood by the high bed. And the thin mattress I had slept on for so many years was still rolled up in the corner. I had assumed my grandmother made me sleep in her room in case she needed anything in the night. Now I saw it was possible she had wanted to keep me close – and safe.

  ‘The other ang mohs are saying things about your chief inspector. Saying that he is a criminal. That if he did not come out here he would have been sent to prison for killing his wife.’

  ‘What?’ Yet I had been half expecting something like this.

  ‘He is trying to warn them about the Japanese spies here,’ Ah Ma went on. ‘He is worried about the people here. He wants to bring in more military, more ships to protect us. His own people don’t want to spend money on us so they are not happy with him. They tried to send him home, give him a promotion into retirement, but he wouldn’t go. He is part of Singapore already. That is why they are trying to make trouble for him. Stupid people like to believe stupid things. I want you to go and see your uncle. Tell him I let you apprentice to the ang moh policeman.’

  ‘You asked Le Froy to be my sifu to show people you trust him?’

  Ah Ma snorted. ‘If I did not trust him you would not be working for him. Any fool can see that. You should go now. Don’t keep your boss waiting.’

  Ah Ma gave me packages of soy-sauce braised eggs, duck and a thick slab of char siew to bring to Uncle Chen. She might be angry with him, but he was still her son and he and his household must be fed. ‘Tell him I want to see him soon,’ Ah Ma said. ‘And there is a box of dried sausage and dried mushrooms for you.’

  My grandmother might think she had everything worked out and settled. But Le Froy was a foreigner. And he hadn’t given her an answer on my apprenticeship.

  When I hurried back to where he was waiting, I didn’t know for sure whether I would be leaving with him or seeing him off.

  Moving On

  ‘I’m so sorry, sir!’

  ‘Your grandmother is worried about you.’

  ‘She’s always worried about something.’

  Le Froy went round to the driver’s side of the car. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had driven off without me, but I wrestled open the passenger door and plonked myself inside. British gentleman that he was, he couldn’t throw a crippled girl out of his car.

  I wondered if Uncle Chen was now on his suspect list for the murder. If Victor Glossop had gone to the shop asking questions, could Uncle Chen have had him killed? I didn’t have anything to do with that side of the family ‘business’, but I knew it existed. And if I could think it, Le Froy would be thinking it too.

  But I had to deal with a more urgent matter first. Le Froy had not given my grandmother an answer. Once we were back at the Detective Shack, he might tell me to clear my desk and wish me luck in my apprenticeship, marriage (an accepted way to save on pay and board for an apprentice) and Japanese studies. ‘You know what my grandmother is like. You don’t have to take her seriously.’

  ‘Anyone with any sense would take Chen Tai seriously, don’t you think?’ Le Froy was looking out of the window as he reversed down the driveway and I couldn’t see his face.

  ‘About business, maybe, but not about people. She’s old-fashioned. She doesn’t know that modern people don’t take on apprentices. And you should turn the car around rather than backing down the driveway,’ I couldn’t help adding. That was why there was a circular driveway, after all. ‘What if you run into another car coming in?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Le Froy said, with a slight grunt, as he manoeuvred the gear lever.

  ‘But you might have done,’ I said, even as the gardener’s boys, who had stood on the road in front of the gates to watch for traffic, waved to us and ran to close the gates. They had been guiding him down the driveway and gleefully scrabbled for the coins he tossed them. ‘You’re spoiling them. They’re paid to do that for visitors.’

  ‘You are very like your grandmother, you know.’ Le Froy kept his eyes on the road. ‘Knowing you can’t control all the big things makes you try to control the small things even more tightly. You don’t like the idea of being an apprentice?’

  ‘I – I didn’t say that.’ In fact, I had already come to think of myself as his apprentice. Part of me was upset that my grandmother might somehow have sensed that.

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to call me “Sifu”, if that’s what you’re worried about. I think she just wanted to show she still trusts me.’

  ‘Yes! She wants to show the public she still trusts you!’ I was so relieved he got it.

  ‘And not just the public. But a connection with a “colonial dog” like me might not be a good thing here if war breaks out. Not for you or for your family.’

  ‘If war breaks out here? Do you really think it will?’ Looking back, I still can’t believe how blindly naive I was.

  Le Froy stopped and we watched a bullock cart trundle slowly in front of the car. As the rich odour of healthy cow dung wafted over us, a promise of fat vegetables to come, I read impatience in his forefinger tapping the wheel. Only a fool would toot a horn at a water buffalo but Le Froy wanted to.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’

  ‘If Victor Glossop asked Small Boss Chen questions that made him uncomfortable—’

  ‘If Uncle Chen killed Victor Glossop, he wouldn’t have warned my grandmother about him,’ I said quickly. ‘Mr Glossop might have asked other people questions too. I would like to find out who else he talked to, and why. I have an idea.’

  Le Froy eased the car into motion.

  ‘I suspect Victor Glossop might have been writing the Pip’s Squeaks column,’ I said. ‘“Pip” seemed to know so much about Nicole Covington and the whirlwind wedding plans that he had to be involved.’

  ‘If he was, do you think Nicole Covington knew?’

  Stepping outside my own story, I saw where Le Froy’s thoughts were goin
g. What if Nicole Covington had found out Victor had been using her to get information for his gossip articles? Or what if his nosing around had unearthed something really damning, a secret that made it worth killing him to keep it hidden? The possibility both frightened and appealed to me.

  ‘Let me know if the damned Pipsqueak publishes anything else.’

  He was wondering if the articles would die with Victor Glossop, I thought.

  But he still hadn’t told me what he was going to say to Ah Ma’s apprenticeship proposal.

  I wasn’t angry with my grandmother any more. Despite all her grumbling I knew she was secretly proud of me. After all, I was her creation. When my father, her eldest and favourite son, had died, it was she who, against all advice, had refused to send me and the bad luck I carried away from the family home. Ah Ma had taught me practical arithmetic and business, taking me with her to collect rent on her properties, watching as I calculated percentages without an abacus. I suspect she was even pleased I was working in the Detective Unit. Of course, she would never tempt Fate and the gods by saying so.

  ‘You don’t have to take me as your apprentice,’ I said.

  ‘Because your grandmother has already trained you?’

  ‘You didn’t tell her I was going to work for Dr Covington at the Farquhar Hotel.’

  ‘Because you’re not.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You’ll be there, but as a representative of the Detective Unit.’

  ‘I’ll never find out anything if everybody knows that.’

  ‘Let me worry about the investigation. I want you to keep an eye on Nicole Covington and the boy.’

  We had to slow down to a crawl where some workers were trying to unclog a roadside drain just outside town. The water had flooded out, pooling several inches deep on the road.

  One of the workers paused and spat a glob of reddish-brown betel in the direction of the car. Le Froy swore amicably at him, and the man grinned, saluting, before turning back to his work. Ah Ma was right. Le Froy had adapted to Singapore.