The Betel Nut Tree Mystery

by Ovidia Yu

  I had been uncomfortable with the old Kenneth because he seemed so uncomfortable with himself. The British and the Americans are divided into social classes as much as we are. But their classes were not tied to professions and were much harder to understand. I had observed Kenneth Mulliner around the other ang mohs, how he deferred to Taylor and Nicole Covington, who treated him as someone of lowly birth destined to serve his betters.

  Which was exactly how Kenneth treated Le Froy, even though Dr Covington deferred to Le Froy as someone in authority and Nicole treated him as a man to flirt with. The Americans were confident they were worth more than anyone around them so they could afford to play social games.

  Le Froy didn’t care what his social position was as long as he didn’t have to fill it. But Kenneth was so sensitive to slights it was clear he felt he was on the lowest rung possible for an ang moh to be.

  But Kenneth was different now. He had been through public humiliation and he had survived.

  Parshanti started to protest that we were having lunch, I was not to turn this into a police interview, but Kenneth put a hand over hers, implying it was all right.

  ‘I’ll tell you, but you can’t say anything. Not even to your boss. I produce secret reports that I send back to the UK. The light travel pieces I write for the papers are just cover.’

  ‘Are you saying you are a spy?’

  ‘An investigative journalist.’

  I was distracted by his hand on Parshanti’s. And her obvious delight. Oh, Parshanti . . .

  Parshanti was pleasant-looking and intelligent. But she was half Asian. I was certain that a man like Kenneth Mulliner would never be serious about her. Even her own mother’s Scottish family kept the Shankars at a distance, and they were solid working-class people with no social pretensions whatsoever. I also knew that it was no use saying anything of the sort to Parshanti. If she wasn’t aware that this would come to nothing, it was because she didn’t want to be.

  ‘What’s wrong with your face?’ Parshanti asked me.

  ‘It’s my inscrutable look. I’m fading into the background by appearing Oriental and harmless.’

  ‘Please don’t. You look like you’re channelling the spirit of Dr Fu Manchu. Oriental but not harmless at all,’ Kenneth said.

  He and Parshanti laughed and even I had to smile. When I’m thinking about something I am deeply focused. Most people find depth in anything frightening. Not just in Singapore but in today’s world. In the thirties, with the Great War safely over and the Depression receding (or so we were told), many preferred to pick at the thoughts that float around on the surface. We were afraid of disturbing what lay beneath in case we stirred up more than we could handle. But that is like skimming the surface of a stock pot. You have to empty and scrub it every so often or you will soon have more muck than soup.

  ‘Look,’ Kenneth said, ‘I know you suspect me of killing Victor. I would, if I were you. And I know it’s no use my telling you I didn’t do it. But I didn’t. I’m telling you to look harder at that guy Harry Palin. He hardly knew Victor but he was running around doing all kinds of things for him. The only way I can explain it is that he’s in love with Nicole. He’s hoping that now, with Victor gone, he can move in on her. Look, I’m not the only one who thinks so. Nicole suggested it long before I said anything.’

  That I believed. Nicole thought every man who looked in her direction was interested in her and she didn’t mind helping the process along. Maybe she was right about most of them, but not Harry.

  ‘Has Harry Palin been round to see her?’ I was certain he hadn’t.

  ‘He’ll have to let things calm down first – he’s not stupid – but he will. Nicole says even before Victor died she saw Harry Palin staring longingly at her.’

  Harry might have been staring longingly, but I doubted it was Nicole he had been looking at.

  ‘Why are you so sure Harry killed Victor?’

  ‘I’m just saying he could have. I’m in the best position to see this because you all suspect me and I know I’m not guilty.’

  Everything Kenneth said about Harry could have been applied to himself. I knew he had been in love with Nicole even if he seemed to be backing away from her now. I realized I had not noticed him gazing longingly at her recently. He had not even been hanging around the last few times I’d seen her. I assumed she’d been angry with him and sent him away to suffer.

  Kenneth didn’t seem to be suffering.

  ‘Maybe Nicole has an evil side that kills men once she’s tired of them,’ Parshanti said it lightly, as a joke. No one laughed.

  ‘I owe it to Victor’s family to find out what really happened to him,’ Kenneth said.

  ‘Because you were such good friends?’

  ‘Yes and no. I don’t know that we were good friends. Sometimes I didn’t even like him. But you may as well know that Victor’s family paid for all kinds of stuff for me to stick by Victor and let them know how he was doing.’

  ‘Like a spy?’ I asked. I remembered what he had said about being an investigative journalist and still didn’t believe it. I knew what journalists were like – my idol Henrietta Stackpole was adventurous and independent if you ignored her final compromise.

  At the same time Parshanti asked, ‘Like a bodyguard?’

  ‘More like a faithful dog.’ Kenneth gave a little laugh. ‘Well, it worked for me. I went to Oxford, thanks to them. And I would have got my degree, but then I had to leave with Victor when he was sent down for his stupid pranks.’

  ‘That’s terrible! Why did you have to leave too?’

  ‘How was I going to pay my fees, with Victor gone, not to mention come up with board and lodging? My father believed in education but, God help him, on a vicar’s stipend he didn’t earn enough to educate his sons. Given time, I might have been able to swing a scholarship, but Victor wanted to clear out so I had to run around doing his packing and getting our train tickets.’

  There was still the echo of a broken dream in his voice. It was easy for us to believe that being born white was enough to get you through life. But we see ourselves in contrast to those around us. For Kenneth, the contrast between him and the wealthy Victor must have been difficult.

  ‘He knew I wanted to stay in college. On the voyage out, when he tried to persuade me to tutor Junior so that he could have time alone with Nicole, he joked about how I had always dreamed of being an academic in Oxford. He knew that was what I wanted. More than anything. I would have loved it and my father would have been so proud. And Victor made sure it would never happen.’

  I would have taken any kind of deal with the devil, or worse, for a chance to study in Oxford. I knew there were four women’s colleges there: Lady Margaret Hall, Somerville, St Hugh’s and St Hilda’s. I also knew that it was an impossible dream, but if I ever managed to get a place, the man or woman who forced me to leave without my degree would earn (and deserve) my deepest hatred. For ever.

  ‘Didn’t you hate him?’

  Kenneth looked surprised. ‘I suppose. Sometimes. But what would have been the point? We were boyhood companions and I suppose we were friends. It was assumed that when Victor went into his family business I would be taken in along with him, gainfully occupied doing all his work for him. Guaranteed a job as long as he had one. I would have been a fool to give that up.’

  It was like Henrietta Stackpole sacrificing journalism for the financial security that came with her becoming Mrs Bantling.

  ‘Victor’s family was rich. They owned the distillery where most of the village worked. My father was the vicar of the local church. Very respectable, and all that. But he took to drink after Mother’s death. Not that enough people came to church to notice. It was tacitly understood that, as long as I kept their embarrassing son in order, my embarrassing father could go on living in the vicarage and singing maudlin songs in the graveyard behind it.’

  ‘What did you have to do for Victor?’

  ‘Stop him making too much of a fool of himself. Ca
ll the family lawyers when he did it anyway. And get him to sign necessary papers. He was on the company board, of course. He didn’t give a damn for the business, never attended meetings, but as a son of the family, he had to have his seat on the board.’

  ‘I’m sure Victor appreciated your sacrifice,’ Parshanti said.

  ‘I doubt he noticed. When you have people falling down to do things for you all your life, you take it for granted that they’re always going to do everything they can for you.’

  Like Nicole, I thought. But it didn’t always last.

  I left them chatting in the company of coffee and coconut ice creams because I wanted to find out if Corporal Wong had found the lipstick. If he had, I was going to get Dr Leask or Dr Shankar to test it for poison.

  Parshanti in Trouble

  The lipstick found in the dead prostitute’s room was mud-coloured with orange streaks. It reminded me a little of Junior’s homemade crayons. But the casing looked expensive. The removable cap was studded with coloured glass, as Nicole had described. I felt certain it was the lipstick that had gone missing from her room. But how had it ended up at Yap Pun Kai?

  Instead of giving it to Nicole I took the lipstick to Dr Leask. I had an idea I wasn’t ready to put forward, not till I knew whether there was anything in the lipstick. ‘I know you’re busy but this might be important.’

  Dr Leask promised he would try but I sliced off a quarter-inch with a nail file and folded it into a handkerchief to see if I could get Parshanti’s father to do some tests too.

  When I reached Shankar and Sons that evening I heard loud voices inside. The right and proper thing would have been to walk away. If people were welcome to stick their noses in they would have been fighting on the street, not behind closed doors. But the door, though shut, was not locked. If someone was making trouble for Parshanti’s family I couldn’t walk away.

  I pushed it open cautiously, wincing at the usual jangle but there was no one at the pharmacy and photographic services counter that occupied the front premises. There was a wonderful smell, though: Mrs Shankar must have been baking. I didn’t sense any intruders, but that didn’t mean anything. I was the outsider there.

  I stepped through the open doorway to Mrs Shankar’s sewing room.

  ‘So, where were you?’

  I almost didn’t recognize Mrs Shankar’s voice. Mrs Shankar talks, laughs and shouts at a good volume but I had never heard that tone before. Even with nothing on my conscience (or nothing Parshanti’s mother could take issue with), she was frightening. My first instinct was to back out and pretend I had never been there.

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Shankar?’

  Mrs Shankar is normally the most good-natured of women. If I hadn’t already had far too many relations I might have thought of her as a substitute mother – she tried to feed me and dress me up with every chance she got. But today her expression reminded me of the flaming dragon statue outside the Buddhist temple. And it was not just the rage on her face: her red hair was wild, escaping from the bun at the back of her head. And she was waving her arms, a wooden spatula in one hand.

  When she turned and fixed her eyes on me I wanted to run away.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Su Lin,’ Mrs Shankar said. ‘Come back another time. Parshanti is busy now.’

  But I couldn’t go. I had seen the object of her wrath. Parshanti was sitting on a chair against the wall. Dr Shankar was standing next to her. I couldn’t tell whether he was involved in the attack or a fellow victim of his wife’s wrath.

  Parshanti gave me a panicked, pleading look. I knew she was not asking for my help. She wanted me to leave without saying anything that might get her into more trouble. I immediately guessed what the trouble was.

  ‘Parshanti, I’m sorry.’ I couldn’t leave my friend in this mess, no matter what she might have done.

  ‘Su, get out!’ Parshanti said. ‘This has nothing to do with you! Will you just please leave?’

  Her wanting me gone immediately convinced her parents that I knew what was going on, which gave me far more credit than I was due.

  ‘Come in, Su Lin,’ Mrs Shankar said quickly. ‘Close the shop door behind you. Bolt it. And tell us everything. It’s no use you making up stories. We know everything!’

  I went to stand next to Parshanti, who was on her feet now, looking furious and frightened.

  Dr Shankar went to his wife’s side. ‘Do you know what Parshanti was doing yesterday afternoon?’ he asked me gently. ‘Over at the hotel? All afternoon and evening?’

  ‘They found out about the magazines?’ I asked Parshanti, in a loud whisper. She looked at me blankly.

  I turned to her parents. ‘The magazines, old issues, are at the Detective Shack. Sorry, Dr Shankar, Mrs Shankar. We were very careful. We didn’t damage anything. We were copying dress patterns when people said there had been another accident at the hotel and we went to see. We forgot and didn’t bring them back. I’m so very sorry. We didn’t mean to steal them. I’ll go and get them all at once.’

  Parshanti spent hours poring over old issues of unsold fashion magazines. I considered this a monumental waste of time, but she claimed she was learning about society and culture . . . and, of course, clothes. She was not supposed to take the magazines out of the shop, and they were not supposed to have been read if they were to be collected by the distributor to be pulped. But she often brought a couple with her when she came to the Detective Shack to wait for me. As a result, there were indeed unpaid-for magazines at the Detective Shack. I wasn’t exactly lying so much as shifting the truth on the time line.

  Parshanti stared at me. Her mouth hung open. It was as though my story had hit her on the head and stunned her. Please, please, please don’t say something stupid, I tried to tell her.

  Mrs Shankar was quicker. ‘You were copying fashion magazines with Su Lin? Why didn’t you just say so?’ Mrs Shankar’s voice caught, in what sounded like a sob. ‘Oh, you silly, silly girl. I’m so furious with you. Furious! Why didn’t you just say so?’ Her voice was thick with tears and her native Scots burr rolled through the r of ‘furious’. Except she was relieved, not furious.

  She put her arms around her tall, dark, beloved daughter and squeezed her hard, rubbing her face into the material of Parshanti’s dress. ‘And I haven’t even got you a drink! You have to forgive me, Su Lin. Too much excitement. Not good for an old woman like me.

  ‘A message came from a woman at the Farquhar Hotel. She said she wanted to warn us that our girl was hanging around with a young man in his hotel room at the Farquhar yesterday, with the doors locked, and pretending not to be there when people knocked. She wanted to warn us, she said, that he was ruining our girl.’ Mrs Shankar moaned, and hugged Parshanti again.

  ‘Who was the message from?’

  ‘She didn’t sign the note but I could see from the handwriting it was a woman. Not a very educated woman. Nasty, lying troublemaker. I shouldn’t have paid any attention except for this silly bairn refusing to say where she was all day.’

  I didn’t need a name. Nicole, miffed that Kenneth had abandoned her, had sent the note to make trouble for Parshanti.

  When Mrs Shankar left the room, Dr Shankar shook his head. ‘You shouldn’t worry your mother like that.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ Parshanti said sullenly.

  ‘I didn’t know you were interested in fashion magazines, Su Lin?’ Dr Shankar said to me.

  ‘She’s my friend,’ Parshanti said. ‘She was just helping me.’

  Dr Shankar smiled a sad, sweet smile. He looked as though he couldn’t decide whether I had helped or was betraying them. I didn’t know either.

  ‘Yes, she is and she was,’ he said. ‘We must talk about this, but another time. Don’t worry about bringing the magazines back, Su Lin. You can keep them. On the house.’ He gave me a ceremonial bow as he disappeared after his wife. He had not believed me, I thought. He knew I had lied for his daughter. I felt bad. But at least Mrs Shankar wasn’t raging any more.
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  Parshanti took a deep breath and flopped back into the chair.

  ‘I’ve never seen your mother so angry before,’ I said to her.

  ‘Of course you have. Remember when we went to try to catch fish in the river after school and fell in and lost our shoes? And we went and hid until our clothes dried, but in the meantime somebody came and told Mam that a crocodile had been seen with a girl’s leg in its mouth? When we got back I thought she was going to kill us for not being eaten by crocodiles!’

  I remembered very well. The ‘leg’ in the river turned out to be one of my shoes caught on a branch. My grandmother had been furious too.

  We both laughed. We must have been about seven years old. We had just started school and could not understand why everyone was making such a fuss about shoes. Years later, a man wandered too close to a female crocodile guarding her nest, had a leg torn off and bled to death. I understood their panic.

  It made me wonder if Parshanti’s parents were overreacting now . . . or whether we were the ones who didn’t know the danger of crocodiles in the river we were climbing into.

  ‘Thank you, Su,’ Parshanti said, ‘but it would have been all right. Kenneth is going to come to talk to them.’

  And that would make things better? I wondered if Mrs Shankar’s rage had driven her to hit her daughter on the head.

  I lowered my voice, keeping an eye on the door to the back of the shop. ‘Are you both crazy? That will just make things worse!’

  ‘You don’t trust Kenneth yet,’ Parshanti said, ‘but you will. I promise you will. You trust me, don’t you? I’m telling you Kenneth Mulliner has a good heart.’

  I recognized her tone and wanted to moan, ‘Not again!’

  Ever since we were twelve or thirteen years old, Parshanti had been falling in love with out-of-reach men. Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant and Clark Gable were all names that had been passionately scribbled into her secret notebooks. At least, she thought it was a big secret but I suspect her mother and the mission-school teachers were well aware of it. She never did more than dream and draw sketches of them . . . occasionally she drew herself by their sides and added ‘Mr and Mrs’ in front of their names. I occasionally appeared as a bridesmaid or helping with the four or five children that appeared.