The Singapore School of Villainy

by Shamini Flint

  Colonel Nathan picked up the phone on the second ring.

  ‘Sir, this is Corporal Fong of the Singapore Police. I just need to ask you a couple of questions.’

  ‘Is it about Annie? Is everything all right?’ The colonel’s voice was gravelly with concern.

  Fong was immediately reassuring. He had not meant to worry an old man. ‘Yes, sir, she’s absolutely fine. We understand from her testimony that she sends you money from time to time.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that? I’ve just been a bit unlucky with my investments, that’s all.’ His words were defensive but his tone was aggressive.

  Fong found himself babbling explanations. ‘We just need to tie up loose ends, sir. Nothing for you to worry about. It’s just a formality.’

  ‘What did Annie say? That I’m always asking for money? It’s not true, young man. I’ve asked for her help once or twice at most.’

  The corporal remembered that money had been telegraphed electronically to Bali at least three times that year. Colonel Nathan was understandably embarrassed to be seeking handouts from his only child. Fong shrugged. He didn’t see how it mattered. He looked after his parents too – he was just unfortunate not to be as well off as Annika Nathan. His contributions were inadequate to the need. Her efforts, although generous, had hardly left her a pauper.

  Annie’s father was still defiantly explaining his need for funds. ‘I was played out by a couple of business partners. It wasn’t my fault!’

  ‘Of course, sir. I am sure that Ms Nathan is happy to be of help,’ Fong said soothingly.

  Colonel Nathan snorted. ‘Anyway, I try and assist her too when I can. Sometimes she needs my help as well, you know. It’s not all a one-way street!’

  Fong shook his head, interrupted the other man with a hurried goodbye and hung up. He thought about his own situation and his inadequately cared-for paternal parent. Did all relationships between fathers and children have to be so fraught with difficulties?

  Across town, the police, equipped with the necessary warrants, were searching the Thompson residence. Maria had flounced out hours before, taking her children with her and complaining about harassment until she was out of earshot. The policemen were working painstakingly, leaving nothing to chance. So far they had found nothing. The senior officer at the scene was beginning to suspect that he had been sent on a wild goose chase. However, he had no intention of giving up or reporting failure. The idea of provoking the turbaned man’s noisy resentment was too unpleasant. If Inspector Singh believed there were anonymous letters to be found, he and his men would hunt for as long as it took. Besides, he agreed with Singh that the letters, if they really existed, would have been preserved by the late Mark Thompson. He would have wanted them in reserve to confront his new wife with the accusations contained therein. Hunting through Balestier Road brothels was just the opening salvo.

  The policeman took a book from the shelf, a thick volume on his own pet interest, the Pacific War, and rifled through the pages. A sheaf of letters fell out. Curiously, he picked them up and leafed through the first few. ‘Only a fool would marry a prostitute’ said the first, the words carefully typed and centred on the page. He had hit the jackpot – or found a can of worms. It was a good hiding place – he had to hand it to the dead man – as it was unlikely that his new Filipina wife read very much other than the glossy women’s magazines he had seen piled high on the living room coffee table. He beckoned to a uniform and gave him a few brief instructions. The young man, looking daunted, began to take books off the shelf, shaking them out one by one to see if anything else was hidden in the pages.

  Singh rose to his feet with difficulty, flexing his toes within his white sneakers. They felt hot and sweaty, bunched together uncomfortably. He wondered whether it was reason enough to hail a taxi but then a mental picture of his doctor’s long-suffering expression popped into his head. The man was more effective than a conscience, thought Singh. Perhaps he should walk the two blocks to his home. It might temper the effect of the beer on his health and weight, and reduce the severity of the lecture he would receive at his next medical check-up.

  He set out reluctantly, trying to keep within the intermittent shadows along the main road. The evening sun was slanting directly into his eyes and he blinked quickly, wishing that he had a pair of sunglasses. He made way for an Indonesian maid walking two barrel-chested Dobermans. It was typical of wealthy Singaporean dog owners to buy the largest and most expensive breed they could find and then leave it to the domestic help to feed and walk the dogs.

  He stepped off the pavement again. This time a Sri Lankan maid was walking the offspring of an expatriate family. She pushed a pram with a sleeping baby while clutching at the hand of a little blond red-faced boy who dragged his heels and whined about the heat.

  The diaspora of peoples who sold their possessions and paid middlemen exorbitant fees to come to Singapore looking for a better life mostly ended up slaving away “24/7”, as one of those lawyers might say. Singh decided he really couldn’t blame Maria Thompson for using any avenue, including sleeping with her employer, to escape the same fate. But had she killed him too?

  He glanced at the houses on either side of the street. When he had first moved into the neighbourhood, the area had been forested, with sweeping vistas of hills and valleys. Twenty years on, the horizon was invisible. Monstrous houses, three storeys high with attics and basements, covered car parking, swimming pools and koi ponds, all arranged with careful consideration for the feng shui elements, loomed large in every direction. Fong had told him about the magisterial residence of the Thwaites. He had seen the Thompson duplex with its tenth-floor private swimming pool and Annie’s colonial-era black and white bungalow. It was not difficult to imagine that one of the partners would resort to killing Mark Thompson to preserve such a lifestyle.

  Singh wiped his forehead with the back of his shirt sleeve. It came away damp. The humidity was causing his beard to drip perspiration at the point. Why in the world had he decided to walk home?

  He continued to puff his way up a hill, abandoning the pavement with its scattered booby traps of dog turds to walk on the road. He could smell the tar as the sun beat down on the tarmac and spotted his home in the distance with relief. There was a flash of blue in the garden. It was Mrs Singh diligently watering the plants. If they were anywhere near as dehydrated as he was, they needed to be hosed down. Gardening was Mrs Singh’s second great love, after cooking. The garden was festooned with flowering plants; bougainvilleas that matched her brightest caftans, blood-red hibiscus and drooping crabclaw-shaped heliconias.

  He slipped his hand through the gate and shot the rusted bolt with some difficulty. His hand was stained crimson when he took it away. He remembered guiltily that his wife had been nagging him to oil it. Stooping over her precious daisies, Mrs Singh straightened up slowly when she saw her husband.

  ‘You’ll have a heart attack if you walk up the hill in the hot sun,’ she said, pulling off her knitted gardening gloves and dropping them at her feet.

  Singh did not disagree – his chest was hurting. ‘Exercise!’

  ‘After beer, I suppose?’

  The policeman mumbled a non-committal response. He sat down on the wooden swing, shut his eyes and rocked gently back and forth, trying to manufacture a breath of air to cool down.

  ‘Have you found the murderer yet?’ asked his wife, showing somewhat more than her usual level of interest in his work.

  Singh opened one eye and shook his head in response to her question.

  ‘Well, perhaps you should stop looking in the bottom of beer glasses. That boy has to go for his sister’s wedding next week. He needs his passport back.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Jagdesh has to go for his sister’s wedding. He needs his passport!’

  He might have guessed that the root of this newfound inquisitiveness about his job would involve a relative. Family matters were the only subjects of any real interest to his wife. ‘Not
while he’s a suspect in a murder investigation,’ grunted Singh.

  ‘I don’t dare go out of the house – it’s so shameful that you are investigating one of our people. I don’t know where to put my face.’

  Singh scowled, his eyebrows almost meeting above his fleshy nose. His wife never seemed to know “where to put her face”. He wondered whether he dared suggest a paper bag and decided against it. She was not in a mood to appreciate humour.

  ‘Everyone is talking about it,’ added Mrs Singh.

  Singh knew who “everyone” was – her sisters and a bunch of other nosy Sikh relatives, all determined to do his job for him.

  ‘It would be a lot more embarrassing if I allowed a killer to catch a flight out of Singapore,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Jagdesh Singh is not a killer!’ Her hands were on her hips, the posture one of real indignation.

  Singh remembered the way Jagdesh had been unable to meet his eyes when he had mentioned lawyers with secrets. ‘That boy is hiding something. Why don’t you make yourself useful and find out what that might be instead of trying to get me kicked off the Force?’

  Reggie Peters was tucking into a rare steak. It was an expensive hunk of meat, grain-fed and flown into Singapore from Australian pastures. Droplets of blood oozed every time he put pressure on it with his serrated knife or stabbed it with his fork. The blood mixed with the oil on his plate, creating a gory palette of colours. Ai Leen pushed her own plate away. She could not even stomach a salad, not in the company of this man that she despised and now feared as well.

  ‘Not hungry?’ he asked, exposing a mouthful of half-chewed meat.

  She was forced to admire his calm. They might as well be two colleagues having a casual dinner together, with none of the secrets and lies that underpinned their relationship. She glanced around the restaurant. It was nearly deserted on a mid-week night in the midst of a major recession, which was just as well. She did not think she could force a smile or manage any polite chit-chat with a passing acquaintance.

  A flickering candle on each table threw bizarrely-shaped shadows on the walls, as if the creatures of hell were lying in wait. But Ai Leen knew that she was in a purgatory of her own making. She had sacrificed so much, given up so much – had it been worthwhile? She had the official badges of success within Singapore society, the three Cs – car, club and condominium – as well as her hard-won partnership. Was her self-respect too high a price to pay for success? She knew it was too late for regrets – too late to un-make the decisions that had led her to this place. She had to find a way to look to the future. And the first step was to sever the ties that bound her to this man. The very idea terrified her. She did not know what Reggie Peters was capable of doing but she feared the worst.

  ‘I want out,’ she said, trying to inject some authority into her voice.

  A grin spread over his face. ‘I thought you might say that.’

  ‘It’s too dangerous!’ Despite her best efforts her voice had taken on a plaintive edge. She gritted her teeth. If she sounded like she was begging it would only empower this man. ‘We’re in the middle of a murder investigation.’

  Reggie popped another piece of meat into his mouth and chewed with evident relish. ‘Nothing doing,’ he said, scraping a sliver of flesh stuck between his two front teeth out with a nail. He smirked at his co-worker. ‘A deal is a deal – you should know that. You’re a partner at a law firm.’

  Eleven

  Annie tossed and turned all night, sleeping only in snatches. It was a relief to hear the alarm and get out of bed. She set out on her morning bike ride, half an hour round the old abandoned cemetery ten minutes away from the house. The large semi-circular tombs were decorated with floral tiles and carvings, protected by grotesque gargoyles, parodies of frogs and lions. Black and white photos of the dead were glazed onto the headstones, the faces of neat men and prim women. The pictures were of the young but the dates indicated that this was the last vanity of the dead.

  Undergrowth lapped the sides of the tombs and the narrow road through the cemetery. Huge trees spread out overhead. A macaque monkey, its tail hanging down in an inverted question mark and its offspring clinging to its belly, chattered to her earnestly. Today her morning ride was especially welcome, a temporary respite from the reality of a murder investigation – and her conflicting feelings over David Sheringham.

  She had been determined at first to dislike him and to keep him at arm’s length, probably for no better reason than that he had mistaken her for a secretary on their first encounter. Instead, she had felt a powerful attraction towards him that afternoon at the Raffles. But this was hardly the time – up to her neck in a murder investigation with that fat policeman prying into her life and work – for the distraction of a romantic entanglement.

  She drifted back to the subject that was uppermost in her mind, the insider dealing. The law firm knew about it and it seemed Singh did too. They all believed that the culprit was a director from Trans-Malaya. But it was only a matter of time before Tan Sri Ibrahim became impatient and rang back to further expound his theory that the insider dealing at his company emanated from the firm of Hutchinson & Rice. A shudder ran through her slim frame and suddenly this peaceful place that she had grown to love felt shadowy and threatening. There was to be no forgetting, no respite, from the maelstrom of events and emotions triggered by the death of Mark Thompson.

  Arriving at the office, Annie’s first stop was the pantry. The tea lady had already been in and the coffee mugs piled high in the sink had been washed and put away. The surfaces were gleaming and the place smelt faintly of a lemony disinfectant. She put on the coffee percolator and watched it bubble and boil hypnotically, calmed by its heady aroma. The morning sun was streaming in through the window behind her, highlighting the hint of auburn that she had inherited from her mother.

  ‘I’ll have some of that.’

  Annie started. Reggie had strutted in. She had not heard the swing doors. He adjusted the length of the tie hanging over his shoulders and commenced tying a knot. It was a thin stripy affair – an old school tie of some sort.

  ‘Good morning, Reggie,’ she said, deciding not to be explicit in her dislike of her fellow partner. She took the coffee jug from the percolator and poured a cupful into the proffered mug. ‘You’re an early bird today.’

  ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ he confessed.

  ‘Me neither,’ she said, feeling almost compassion for him; the murder investigation was taking its toll on all of them.

  ‘What’s on the agenda today?’ he asked.

  ‘More interviews, I suppose,’ replied Annie.

  The doors to the pantry swung open, Western style, and Inspector Singh swaggered in as if he was a tough cowboy making an entrance into a small-town saloon. Annie almost expected to see horse troughs and dust devils through the crazily swinging doors. Singh’s hands were bunched in his trouser pockets and it caused the cloth to stretch taut across his belly. His zip had baulked at the last centimetre and was not completely done up. Perhaps that was why most fat men wore their trousers under their stomachs rather than over them, thought Annie.

  ‘Good,’ said Singh. ‘You’re here. I checked in your rooms but there was no one to be found. But if you want a lawyer, follow the smell of coffee!’ He beamed cheerily at them, apparently pleased with his own deductive reasoning.

  Reggie snapped, ‘What do you want, Inspector?’

  The inspector appeared in no way put out by this rudeness. ‘Interviews, interviews…’ he answered. ‘The hunt for the truth must proceed.’

  ‘My interview is scheduled for this afternoon,’ said Reggie.

  ‘Now then, Mr Peters.’ Singh was a parody of an English fictional policeman. ‘I’m sure you’re the last person to want to delay our progress. Besides, Quentin Holbrooke hasn’t come in yet and we wouldn’t want Singapore’s finest to be twiddling his thumbs, would we?’

  Annie could not blame the inspector for the touch of sarcasm in his voice. Re
ggie had not been a model of cooperation.

  ‘This is unacceptable, Inspector!’ Reggie blustered. ‘I have meetings this morning, urgent work to do.’

  ‘Nothing you have to do is more important than finding Mr Thompson’s murderer,’ replied the policeman, a hint of steel in his voice. Reggie looked as if he was going to argue but the inspector carried on, ‘I don’t want to inconvenience you unnecessarily – you can have ten minutes to rearrange your schedule.’

  Unable to think of any convincing excuse and not daring to refuse outright, Reggie turned away so hastily that hot coffee slopped over his hand. He walked out of the pantry, dabbing his hand with a handkerchief and struggling to maintain some dignity.

  ‘Do you think he’ll come?’ asked Annie, wondering what the policeman thought of his uncooperative witness.

  ‘Oh yes! He’ll be exactly five minutes late to demonstrate that he is not pandering to the natives, but he won’t dare push it a minute beyond that.’

  ‘And how do you feel about that?’

  The inspector gave one of his unexpected belly laughs. ‘That’s why I gave him ten minutes, and not fifteen.’

  Annie watched the policeman stroll out of the pantry and down the corridor. She felt like a puppet on a string.

  Fong was already in the interview room, flipping through some papers energetically. He glanced up as Singh came in, leapt to his feet and said, ‘Good morning, sir!’

  Singh grunted a response and lowered himself carefully into his own chair, triceps bulging as he tried to prevent gravity taking over.

  ‘What’s on the agenda today, sir?’ asked Fong, unconsciously echoing Reggie’s words from earlier.

  ‘We’re having Reggie Peters in first.’