The Singapore School of Villainy

by Shamini Flint

  Now he said, ‘The partners of Hutchinson & Rice regret to announce the sudden death…’ He glanced round enquiringly, seeking input into his macabre task.

  A waiter sidled into the room with the late edition morning papers. He laid them gently on the table and then scurried out of the room.

  ‘EXPAT MURDERED!’ screamed the headline, and in only slightly smaller print below, ‘MAID (NOW SECOND WIFE) ACCUSES EX-WIFE OF MURDER!’

  Quentin’s voice reflected his bewilderment. ‘But Sarah Thompson isn’t even in the country.’

  ‘I’m afraid she is,’ confessed Stephen. ‘Sarah’s been staying with us. I didn’t mention it before because it might have embarrassed Mark.’

  ‘But we have to tell Inspector Singh!’ exclaimed Annie.

  ‘Not now, we don’t,’ said Jagdesh wryly, gesturing at the paper.

  Inspector Singh sat at a round Formica-topped table on the verandah of the old civil service club on Dempsey Road. His buttocks sank into the cushioned green faux leather seat. The day was picture perfect in the way that was possible only on a Saturday afternoon in the tropics – dappled sunshine, blue skies with streaks of wispy white clouds and snatches of birdsong. Only the low rumble of traffic from Holland Road suggested to the observant that they were in the middle of a metropolis.

  Inspector Singh had just tucked into a massive South Indian meal. A banana leaf, neatly folded in two, disguised the remnants of the senior policeman’s lunch. His young colleague did not appear to know that banana-leaf etiquette required that leaves be folded after meals.

  Singh noticed Corporal Fong glance at his watch and scan the restaurant quickly. He probably feared being spotted by someone senior in the force. Inspector Singh did not see an unsolved murder as a reason not to partake of an early and comprehensive lunch. Fragrant biryani rice, three varieties of vegetables – aubergine, sliced ladies fingers and spinach – a rich lentil gravy, deep-fried slices of the muscular tenggiri fish, mango pickle and crisp poppadums had been accompanied by a large bottle of icy cold beer. This would normally have left the older man with a feeling of languid contentment. But watching the young policeman pick at his food nervously had impaired his enjoyment considerably.

  The inspector knew that none of these sources of aggravation justified his dispensing with the services of the constable. The young man had come highly recommended, straight out of the police academy where he had topped his class. More often than not, he, Singh, had to make do with the dregs of the force – the smart graduates were too valuable to waste on murder investigations. They were needed for securities fraud, criminal breach of trust and other wrongdoings that made Inspector Singh sleepy just thinking about them. But, just for once, his bosses didn’t want him to fail. The murder of an expatriate in Singapore was a terrible blow to the carefully cultivated reputation of the island state. Singh remembered the dead man, sprawled across his desk, with a gaping head wound the size and shape of which had matched the paperweight on the desk. A paperweight that had blood, fragments of bone and hair stuck to its surface. It was an ugly case – the murderer had been angry and determined. Unfortunately the suspects were canny, wealthy lawyers who knew their rights all too well.

  Singh belched. This was no time for post-lunch self doubt. He made his way to the long sinks, washed his hands, rinsed his mouth and lumbered back to the table. His fingers were stained a faint yellow – traces of the turmeric that had coloured the curries. The policeman sat down heavily and ordered a glass of teh tarik.

  Corporal Fong, perhaps unaware that he had already incurred the displeasure of the other man, leaned forward earnestly and asked, ‘What do you think about this case, sir?’

  ‘What do I think about this case?’ Singh grinned complacently at the other man. ‘I think it is going to make or break careers…but more likely break them.’

  The remaining partners paid the necessary but awkward visit to the widow, opting to go together rather than have to deal with Maria individually. Even Reggie had decided to come along although Quentin was certain that he was motivated more by curiosity than by sympathy. He couldn’t imagine that there was a fragment of genuine feeling in Reggie Peters for the deceased or his family.

  Maria Thompson was wearing unrelieved black, which contrasted dramatically with the paleness of her skin. She received their condolences with a hint of disbelief, a shrug of her shoulders conveying her thoughts more accurately than her formal words of acceptance. The uniformed maid brought them tea and they sipped it in the lounge, struggling to make any sort of small talk. Quentin wondered, wiping his streaming nose with a serviette, why the Thompsons felt the need to dress their help like an extra in a period television drama. Had Maria been trying to distinguish herself from her previous role? Or had she too worn a frilly apron and served tea with quiet decorum while the previous Mrs Thompson presided over the table? He cast a sidelong glance at Annie, his closest friend in the office, to see if she had noticed the incongruity. She was staring at the widow with a wooden expression.

  Maria Thompson was willing for Stephen to organise the funeral, once the coroner released the body, as long as it was held in Singapore. However, she was adamant that “the murderer” not be present.

  ‘She’s not the murderer, she’s the mother of his children, for God’s sake,’ said Stephen, his patience tried to breaking point. His personal friendship with Sarah Thompson was making the widow’s intransigence even harder to deal with.

  ‘She will try to kill me too, I know it. I have asked the police to watch her,’ was the uncompromising response.

  ‘We can hardly expect her to be grateful for our sympathy or advice. She knows how shocked everyone was at the marriage,’ pointed out Jagdesh when they had escaped the premises as soon as was decent and were standing outside, squinting in the bright sunshine on Tanglin Road.

  Annie slipped the sunglasses perched on her head onto her nose, waving away a curious butterfly with satiny black and green wings. ‘None of us were very supportive when she married Mark.’

  ‘What did she expect?’ snapped Ai Leen. ‘That we welcome a gold-digging slut with open arms?’ Her question was aggressive in both content and tone. Her hands were on her hips, her head thrust forward angrily on a slender neck. The designer emblem on her outsized sunglasses caught the light and twinkled like a miniature star.

  ‘I’ll bet she killed Mark,’ commented Reggie. ‘That woman would stop at nothing.’

  As usual, thought Quentin, Reggie had to have the last word. He had to admit, though, that the putty-faced, overweight banking partner had a point – pinning the murder on the widow would be the best solution for all the lawyers.

  Corporal Fong was an interesting shade of pale green. Perhaps, thought Singh, he should have warned the young man that the first thing on the agenda after lunch was the post-mortem at the Singapore General Hospital. On the other hand, this was probably the most effective introduction to a murder investigation for a corporal who was still wet behind the ears. After all, it was his opportunity to meet the victim.

  The unfortunate victim, Mark Thompson, lay naked on a steel table. There was a Y-shaped incision across his chest running down towards his abdomen. The initial external investigation had not revealed much except for the wound at the back of his head which the pathologist, Dr Maniam, had looked at with some awe and growled that he would leave for last.

  Singh looked at the pale white body of the senior partner. He seemed almost bloodless, the flesh flaccid and fatty. There was a sprinkling of grey hair on his chest and nether regions. The pathologist, with the help of his assistant, pulled back the skin, muscle and soft tissues and cut through each side of the rib cage with an electric saw that buzzed like a dentist’s drill. It caused Singh to run his tongue over his teeth nervously. He didn’t mind autopsies, but he was afraid of dentists. Singh peered at the heart and lungs and then stepped back as Dr Maniam, with some heaving and panting, started dragging organs out of the body. He cut through connecting tissue
with an instrument that looked like a long sharp bread knife. The pathologist muttered his observations out loud for the benefit of the tape recorder that was recording his findings. His assistant started weighing organs on a kitchen scale that reminded Singh of the ones used in wet markets by the chicken sellers. The inspector wrinkled his nose – the sweet cloying smell of raw meat put him in mind of the butcher where his wife bought mutton on the bone for her rich curries. Still, it was nothing compared to the stench that would be forthcoming when the stomach cavity and intestines were sliced open. Singh noted that the corporal had prudently retired to a far wall. He had escaped the sights, but the sounds and smells would pursue him to his safe haven.

  Singh’s foot began to tap impatiently as the assistant, wrapped in green scrubs and a face mask, sliced organs thinly for a histology examination. He knew that it was necessary and a part of the standard autopsy procedure but he wasn’t particularly interested in the results. The cause of Mark Thompson’s death was evident to the naked eye – microscopic examinations of the bits and bobs Dr Maniam was extracting with such enthusiasm were superfluous. The head wound looked like a bloody open mouth screaming for attention – and perhaps justice.

  Dr Maniam glanced at Singh’s tapping foot and glared at the fat policeman. His eyebrows looked like two furry caterpillars facing off. His attention was drawn back to the body cavity as he extricated the liver. It was large and a pale orange colour. The pathologist hefted it up with one hand and held it out for Singh who wrinkled his nose but obediently took a step forward.

  ‘A bit of a drinker, I see!’ exclaimed the doctor proudly.

  Singh scowled. ‘So? Mark Thompson didn’t exactly die of alcohol poisoning, did he?’

  Dr Maniam’s annoyance was written on his face, but he turned to Mark Thompson’s head wound. ‘All right, I see you’re not going to be satisfied until I start looking at this mess.’ He used tweezers to extract fragments of bone from the wound, dropping each piece into a steel bowl.

  Singh held out a plastic evidence bag with the pewter tiger paperweight in it.

  ‘Fingerprints?’

  ‘Wiped,’ said Singh tersely.

  Dr Maniam took out the pewter statue with its marble base admiringly. ‘It’s really beautifully weighted to beat someone’s head in.’ He measured the base with a ruler and did the same for the head wound. He pointed at an indentation in the skull and held the makeshift weapon against it. It was a perfect fit.

  ‘I think I can confirm your murder weapon.’

  Singh nodded. ‘The bits of bone and hair on it are a bit of a giveaway too.’

  Dr Maniam’s nose hairs quivered but he opted to be amused rather than annoyed at this sarcasm. His guffaw caused Corporal Fong, still standing as far away as he could from proceedings, to look up and then turn away quickly. Singh supposed that the blood-splattered floor, overalls and table were a bit off-putting. It brought back memories of a crime drama on television where the pathologist had conducted the autopsy in a spotless dinner jacket before proceeding to a black tie dinner. Dr Maniam looked like he might have been on a killing spree himself.

  Singh snapped, ‘Is there anything you can tell me that I don’t already know?’

  ‘Well, any findings at this stage are preliminary…’

  ‘Give me something!’

  Dr Maniam sighed. ‘Well, the first blow would have knocked him unconscious if it didn’t kill him outright. He didn’t see it coming.’ The pathologist picked up one of Mark’s hands. ‘No defensive markings anywhere.’

  Singh was listening intently, his eyes focused on the doctor.

  ‘The murderer then delivered a series of frenzied blows – far in excess of what was needed to kill him.’

  ‘Hatred?’

  ‘Or panic,’ remarked Dr Maniam.

  ‘Blood?’

  The pathologist looked thoughtful. ‘Certainly on the hand holding the weapon, some on clothing perhaps. The back of the head doesn’t splatter that much. The first or second blow would have killed him so most of the damage was inflicted after death. Post-mortem injuries don’t bleed much either.’

  ‘He or she?’

  ‘Either – with a weapon like this. The blows could have been struck by a woman just as easily as a man.’ He held the paperweight to the wound, shifting it from hand to hand. ‘I would guess – but it’s no more than a best guess – that the killer was right-handed.’

  ‘Well, that narrows it down to about ninety per cent of the population,’ said Singh sarcastically.

  Dr Maniam chortled. ‘I don’t want to make your job too easy for you.’

  Five

  Singh sat down in the armchair reserved for his use in the living room. It creaked silently and enfolded him in its familiar embrace, contours snug to his ample frame. It was a relief to be home. It had been a long day and it was far from over – he had told young Fong to follow him back and brief him on any developments as policemen spread out across Singapore searching homes and examining hard drives. But he had felt an uncontrollable desire to escape from the precinct. It was the continual presence of Superintendent Chen that had driven him away. His boss had popped into his office every quarter hour to demand updates, and then looked disappointed that no firm leads had developed in the previous fifteen minutes. He, Inspector Singh, was not accustomed to being closely supervised as he went about his police business – and he didn’t like it.

  His wife darted into the room, her hair drawn severely back from her face. It gave her face the tautness of a facelift. She placed a mug of sweet, milky tea at her husband’s elbow. He grunted an acknowledgement but paid her no heed beyond that. However, ignoring his wife had never been an effective method of shutting her up and it wasn’t this evening either. She was still harping on a single subject. ‘I cooked five dishes – I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you weren’t coming home!’

  Had he fled one nagging creature only to run into the orbit of another, wondered Singh. ‘I was called out for a murder. I completely forgot about dinner – I told you that,’ he replied, with an air of great patience.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you murder these people yourself – just so you can be late to come home!’

  Singh guffawed loudly, his belly vibrating with humour.

  Mrs Singh had the grace to look sheepish. ‘I’ve been reading about your case in the newspapers – some expat got killed!’

  He nodded his large head thoughtfully and said, the closest he had ever come to confiding in his wife, ‘It might be a difficult one to solve. Too many lawyers involved.’

  ‘It’s in the Straits Times that you’re in charge. I won’t know where to hide my face if you don’t find the killer.’ Once again, his wife’s priority was the possibility of personal embarrassment. If Singh was seeking sympathy, he had obviously come to the wrong place.

  The fat man stretched and felt a pain between his shoulder blades as his muscles did his bidding reluctantly.

  ‘Anyway, everyone knows who did it.’

  Singh raised an eyebrow.

  Mrs Singh’s long nose was wrinkled with disapproval. ‘It was the maid!’

  ‘The second wife, you mean?’

  ‘Of course – who else?’

  Singh dragged himself into an upright position. He ran his tongue over the front of his teeth, feeling the plaque build-up. He was aggravated by his wife’s – and the press’s and the public’s – willingness to immediately pin the murder on the widow, purely, as far he could see, on the grounds that she had previously been the domestic help.

  ‘There’s no evidence that she murdered him!’

  ‘She stole a husband, right? I’m sure she could kill one also.’

  Singh eyed his wife, almost admiring her ability to draw conclusions from unrelated facts. He knew he was going to regret what he was about to say but he couldn’t resist the temptation. ‘I have a few other suspects.’

  She shrugged her bony soldiers and her caftan fluttered like a sail in a mild s
ea breeze.

  ‘Including Jagdesh Singh!’ the policeman continued.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know – your no-show dinner guest who needs a wife. I met him at the crime scene. He’s a partner at that law firm – and they’re all suspects!’

  ‘You’re being silly. He would never be mixed up in something like this!’

  ‘You’ve never met him. How could you possibly know that?’

  ‘He’s a good boy from a good family – our people would never kill anyone.’

  Give me time, thought the inspector, glaring at his wife.

  He gulped his tea in order to avoid escalating the argument and was pleased to hear the doorbell ring, its tone that of an old-fashioned telephone.

  Mrs Singh peeped out from behind a curtain and said, ‘For you.’

  ‘How do you know?’ he asked, moved by curiosity.

  She answered disdainfully, ‘Chinese,’ and left the room.

  The inspector was forced to acknowledge yet again that his wife would make an excellent detective. Perhaps he should take her conviction that Maria Thompson was the killer seriously. It was true that, despite living in multi-racial Singapore, for someone of his generation, a Chinese visitor would almost definitely have to be a work connection.

  It was Corporal Fong, diligently following the inspector home to report on his various assignments. Inspector Singh listened as he delivered a summary of his report in an admirably brief manner. There was nothing in it to surprise the inspector but he had to go through the motions and cover the angles. ‘To sum up, nothing in the register at the front desk, no cards issued for that floor except to the partners…so one of them killed him…or Mr Thompson escorted his killer up.’