by Ovidia Yu
Discoveries and Cover-ups
Outside the hotel I had barely started on my way before I heard someone calling me.
‘Wait.’ Kenneth had followed me out onto North Bridge Road. ‘What are you after, really?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Don’t try to sell me that. What did Le Froy really send you to do? Are you supposed to kill Nicole the way she killed Victor? Or maybe you killed Victor! Maybe you’re some kind of female samurai!’
‘Are you mad?’ Either that or Kenneth also used mood-changing drugs. I was already sure Nicole did.
I had seen benzedrine inhalers in her bathroom. Dr Shankar wouldn’t stock them because he said people in America cracked the containers open to get at the drug-coated paper strips inside. They rolled them into tiny balls, which they swallowed with alcohol to give them energy. It was this energy charge that was addictive.
I pulled myself together and pushed aside my wild thoughts. One might think I’d been drugged myself.
‘Why else would Le Froy cancel the investigation and say it was a fever? And why is he starting up the whole business again with this poison story?’
I knew, but I had nothing to tell him. I could understand his confusion and frustration.
‘Victor was dead keen on blasting Le Froy with his stupid prank. Not just because he was the police but because he knew Le Froy’s name. He said he had heard it from his old man. Why? What’s your boss trying to cover up? You’re going to tell me the truth or I’ll beat it out of you.’ He grabbed my arm and started dragging me back towards the hotel. He was hurting me, and when I stumbled and almost fell he walked on, yanking me after him. But that wasn’t what frightened me most.
What frightened me was something in Kenneth’s face that told me he was frightened and out of control. Was he afraid that whoever had killed Victor Glossop had sent me to find out how much I knew? Or because someone knew he had killed Victor and sent me to try to get proof?
I caught hold of a lamp post with my free hand and hung on. ‘You’re mad!’ He might indeed be mad, but at that moment I was convinced Kenneth hadn’t killed Victor Glossop.
Just then a figure detached itself from the side of the hotel and put a hand on his shoulder. Kenneth whirled round, ready to lash out with his fists. He dropped them when he saw Chief Inspector Le Froy.
‘You! You killed Victor, didn’t you? For revenge against Victor’s family! Well, you’re not going to get away with it! I’m going to see to it that you don’t!’ Kenneth dashed away, going past the hotel without looking round.
‘He didn’t even say good morning,’ Le Froy observed, watching Kenneth’s retreating figure. I wondered whether he had set someone to tail him, but I couldn’t see anyone else running.
‘Are you all right? You stayed here all night.’
‘Nicole had trouble getting to sleep. I was just going to stay until she fell asleep, but I fell asleep too. She doesn’t like being alone, and she doesn’t like the hotel or Singapore. Wait! Where are we going? Weren’t you heading towards the hotel? If you want to see Nicole, she’s awake now.’
Le Froy was walking with me in the direction of the Detective Shack.
‘I got what I came for. I hear there was some disturbance at your table in the Farquhar restaurant last night.’
‘Who told you? Does my family – my uncle . . .’ I was worried. Singaporeans are passionate about food and gossip, so my forking an ang moh in a restaurant would spread far and fast if it got out.
‘A friend who happened to be there,’ Le Froy said. ‘He was impressed by how well you handled things.’
That made me stop in the middle of the five-foot way. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you already had someone planted at the hotel?’
Le Froy kept walking and I decided to worry about it after I’d had some sleep. I followed him and he let me catch up. My boss had sent someone to keep an eye on me at the hotel and come himself to collect me. I didn’t know whether to be irritated that he hadn’t trusted me or touched that he had been concerned.
But I had got one name for my efforts. ‘Sir, Nicole doesn’t remember, but it sounds like she may have killed the man named Eric Schumer in New York City.’
‘She “may have killed”?’
We already knew Radley Covington and Victor Glossop had been involved with Nicole and had died. We also knew Nicole had been seeing Eric Schumer, who had died in a car accident. But it was news that Nicole had been with Eric on the night of the accident.
‘She says she was too drunk to remember what happened. But he was run over by a car and she was driving that night.’
‘I might get on the wire to America and see what more information they have on Eric Schumer’s death,’ Le Froy said.
That would be putting the new office wire system to better use, I thought. Most of the time it received official reports from London on the situation in Europe. ‘Hopefully that will be more interesting than the tirades against Chancellor Hitler.’
‘Chancellor Hitler is just a businessman and an opportunist. Nobody takes him seriously,’ Le Froy said. ‘Of course, this is now just an informal enquiry. Nothing official and nothing to do with Victor Glossop’s death. That case remains closed. You don’t have to go back to the hotel. You needn’t have spent the night there.’
‘But what about the autopsy report on Victor’s death? Somebody poisoned him!’
‘The Glossops want it to remain an “accidental death”.’
I had been certain Victor Glossop’s wealthy family would do everything they could to find out what had happened to him. Wouldn’t any family? But while I was at the Farquhar Hotel, Governor McPherson had sent a message to say that, despite the autopsy results, the Glossops wanted the matter, and Victor, laid to rest as quickly as possible. And they wanted Victor buried quietly in Singapore.
They made no mention of Victor’s fiancée. As far as they were concerned, Nicole might not have existed.
‘They know he was poisoned and they want it covered up? Why? That doesn’t make sense, sir!’
‘The family may believe Victor antagonized someone enough to get himself killed,’ Le Froy said. ‘Digging up the dirt won’t bring him back and may cause them further embarrassment.’
‘But, sir, no matter what Victor did, it can’t have been as bad as murder! I can’t believe his own family doesn’t care that somebody killed him!’
My own family was full of stories about feckless sons and nephews who were always getting themselves disgraced, disowned and reinstated. But the whole clan would have been up in arms for revenge if anyone outside the family had hurt any of them.
‘His family may not think it was murder,’ Le Froy said.
‘What else could it have been? With all due respect, sir, remember Dr Leask’s official report.’
‘What if Victor knew he was taking poison?’ Le Froy’s quiet, reasonable voice cut into my thoughts. ‘As an accidental death, he can be buried in the Christian cemetery here. That’s what they want. As for Mrs Covington, she wasn’t Victor’s wife so she has neither the right nor the responsibility to make decisions.’
The official report didn’t give any information on how the poison had got into Victor Glossop’s system. There had been strychnine and brucine in the dead man’s system, Dr Leask said, but other than testing food samples from the hotel kitchen and nearby hawkers he could do little more. Dr Leask’s laboratory equipment and supplies were limited, not to mention his time.
Now, in the middle of the monsoon season, he and Dr Shankar were fully occupied in trying to stem outbreaks of cholera.
I couldn’t believe it. If I had had the chance to study medicine or chemistry or biology I would have done everything I could to find out what had killed a man practically on my doorstep. Instead these doctors had handed over their findings to Le Froy at the Detective Shack and gone off to save the lives of children who would probably die of something else next year.
Looking back now on how I
felt then, I know I was being unreasonable. After all, I was one of the children whose life had been saved by doctors like them. After surviving a deadly outbreak of some dreadful disease, Westerners thank their God and locals thank their gods, but no one thanks the humble, hard-working doctor who insisted on hands being washed and water being boiled.
But what about Victor Glossop? It was as though the man who had been so popular in life hadn’t mattered very much to anybody. Even the woman who was supposed to become Mrs Victor Glossop was more upset at the inconvenience to herself than at losing him. If someone had killed the man I was going to marry, I don’t know what I would have done, but I certainly wouldn’t have been sitting in a hotel room complaining of boredom.
‘Of course, they may want to investigate on their own,’ Sergeant Pillay said, when we got back to the Detective Shack. ‘Maybe they don’t trust us.’
That was possible, of course. Kenneth Mulliner had made clear he didn’t trust us. I could only wonder what he had been telling Victor’s family in England.
Moving On
At the Detective Shack, we heard there had been a police raid the previous night on a meeting at the Keng Soo Clan Association. Based on information received, the anti-insurgent team had turned up fully armed with weapons and tear gas, expecting to find a cell of violent terrorists plotting to rise up against the government.
Instead they had found a group of old women and children making tangyuen for the Winter Solstice, wrapping sticky rice-flour dough around fillings and rolling it into soup balls.
Even so they had been suspicious. The old women had been let off with a warning after being detained overnight for questioning, and the tangyuen had been searched for hidden messages, but the glutinous rice-flour balls revealed only sweet bean paste, sesame peanut paste and candied tangerine peel in coconut cream.
They had decided to work together, the old ladies said, so that each household could have a variety of flavours.
The Detective and Intelligence Unit had not been involved with the raid.
Throughout the day Nicole sent a flurry of notes to me and to Le Froy, saying that she was bored to death and would prefer to be interrogated than ignored; if Le Froy came to tea or took her out to dinner, she would answer all his questions and put herself completely at his mercy. Alternatively, she wanted him to make me keep my ‘promise’ to take her to stay with my grandmother. She claimed that my grandmother (whose name she didn’t know) was very fond of her and had sent her several pressing invitations to go to stay.
Le Froy put her notes on his ‘to be answered’ pile and did not answer them. The case was closed, after all.
He set me to typing wire reports describing suspected smuggling routes with possible stopovers in Singapore. I could have told him how much these reports missed by concentrating only on road traffic passing over the causeway and sea traffic passing through Keppel Harbour. But as many of the people smuggling goods in and out of Singapore’s shallow coastal waters were probably working for my relations, I typed but said nothing.
At least it was work I could do with my brain half shut down. I just wanted to get through the day, go to bed and catch up on the sleep I had missed last night at the Farquhar Hotel. Parshanti was probably still there, but she was there by choice, not for work. As I would be, if I went back. I wasn’t sure I would. Much as I wanted to find out what had really happened to Victor Glossop – and all the other men in Nicole’s life – I wasn’t keen to run into Dr Covington again.
So, I wasn’t at all pleased to see him at the entrance of the Detective Shack in the late afternoon. A bandage pad was taped to the back of his hand where I had scratched him but there was no other sign of our encounter. Dr Covington’s eyes caught mine and he smiled wryly. He was red in the face and so painfully embarrassed that I almost felt sorry for him. Yet he still looked every inch the prosperous overfed American businessman.
‘I need to have a word with you, Miss Chen. I must apologize if you were offended last night.’
‘Oh, no, sir. I wasn’t offended,’ I lied automatically, backing away from him. But he continued over my feeble fib.
‘Right here, if you like. I could say I was drunk and don’t remember what I did. But that would be a big fib.’ He rubbed the bandage on his hand. ‘The fact of the matter is, I was drunk enough to forget I was a stranger in a strange land. I forgot it’s a different culture out here. In America no one would think twice of it. Back home all the women flirt with me. Married women throw themselves at me. When you’re a wealthy man in an important position, they let you do it – they expect you to do it. I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women and I meant no offence. In fact, the way I see it, if I didn’t flirt with you, I would be insulting you.’
‘That’s a handsome apology,’ Le Froy observed. He didn’t come out of his office, leaving me to handle things. ‘So, you think it’s right to grab women you find attractive, sir?’
I knew it was gracious to accept apologies, but my distaste at what had happened last night was still fresh. And it had left me so nervous that when Sergeant de Souza’s hand had brushed against my arm earlier – he had been reaching for the stack of files on my desk – I had been startled enough to hit him.
‘I find it hard to resist an attractive woman,’ Taylor Covington replied. ‘As I said, the ladies back home find it flattering. But I realize now that things are different here. And I saw your limp. You must have seen me with my own limp. It made me feel that we were somehow simpatico. I felt there was a bond between us.’
Le Froy was shaking his head, but this time he was the one who didn’t understand. It would be impossible for anyone who doesn’t have daily difficulties going up and down steps to understand.
‘Miss Chen, I wonder if you have heard of Joseph Pilates? He wrote a book a few years ago called Your Health: A Corrective System of Exercising and some incredible results have been documented. I never travel without a copy. I would like to give it to you as an apology gift.’ He held it out to me with his scarred hand. ‘Friends, Miss Chen? Can we forget our battle scars and start over?’
I reached out my hand a little awkwardly, remembering the hot damp of his palm last night. But, quick as a flash, Dr Covington flipped his wrist and curled his fingers into his sleeve, and before I knew it my fingers were clasped around the prettiest little bouquet of flowers.
They all laughed at my surprise, and Sergeant Pillay clapped. I laughed too – I couldn’t help it.
‘I am a keen amateur magician. I even put on some little shows on the ship with Junior as my assistant.’
I turned my attention to the flowers I was holding. They were delicately made of blue and white silk. ‘So pretty,’ I said, meaning it.
‘Please keep the book, but I’m afraid you’ll have to give the flowers back,’ Dr Covington said. ‘I’ll send some real ones over later.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, as I handed them back. I was referring to his apology, and I meant it.
‘It’s no excuse, but I am under enormous strain at the moment. I have lost a son, and my grandson his father. I thought we had left death behind us and then this happens. My grandson’s mother is . . .’ He paused to search for a word and I wondered if he was going to call her a murderess.
‘ . . . highly strung,’ Dr Covington finally said. ‘Understandable, of course, but hard on the boy.’
Le Froy said, ‘Did you do amateur shows in America? Your medical practice was in Georgia?’
‘I practise wherever I’m needed,’ Dr Covington said.
‘You’re very protective of your daughter-in-law, sir,’ Le Froy said.
‘My main concern is my grandson. I put up with Nicole’s nonsense and cover up her little episodes because keeping her sweet is the only way I can stay close to Junior.’
‘Little episodes, sir?’ Le Froy asked.
‘You may as well know. I had hoped to give her a fresh start away from home, but these things will come out. Especially if she’s not resol
ved to change herself. Nicole had an opium habit back in the US of A. She was one of those “opium vampires” – rich layabouts who fool around with cocaine and marijuana and opium in a country where decent men start lining up at midnight, hoping for a day’s work.
‘If you want the truth, my main purpose for booking this round-the-world trip was to wean her off the drug. In America, you can buy all the dope you want if you have the money. And if you look like Nicole, you don’t even need the money. I brought her to Germany, thinking Fascists live clean lives under the Führer. But she met Victor there. And Victor had his own nasty habits.’
‘Sir, are you saying Mrs Covington was a drug addict?’
I had already suspected this but I was shocked by how calmly Dr Covington had said it. I knew about drug addicts, of course. But the ones I knew were old men in smelly rooms, smoking themselves into forgetting chronic pain and debts.
‘Nicole needs constant entertainment and diversion, and the opium keeps her happy when the rest of us can’t keep up with her. She got my Radley hooked on the stuff. He was trying to drop it, quit the lifestyle. That’s why they were fighting so much, those last weeks. Between that and her drinking, maybe it isn’t surprising she doesn’t remember much.’
A drug addiction would certainly explain Nicole’s memory blanks and dramatic mood swings.
‘And Victor Glossop too? Do you know this for a fact?’
‘That was how Victor and Nicole met in Germany. One of those damned parties. And when I brought her to England, she got in touch with him and he introduced her to his party friends in London.’
That might explain why Victor Glossop’s family didn’t want an in-depth investigation and trial. They were afraid Victor’s past would come out. They might also believe his death was the result of an accidental overdose, if he had been a habitual user.
‘You’re very free with this information,’ Le Froy said.
