Moonrise, Sunset

by Gopal Baratham

  I asked, “She went there with the supervisor, with Loong?”

  Mary grinned. “No, not with Loong. With him she went to the Meridien. The one in Changi, just ten minutes away from Nats. That’s where she and the Chinaman spent their afternoons.” She picked up a knife and began cutting the piece of meat before her into tiny squares.

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I know because I followed the bitch once or twice … when she was on the path of sinfulness. Followed her to find out what she was up to.”

  “Why?”

  Mary began fragmenting the squares of meat with her hands. “I followed her because I could see that she was after my Dom. I wanted to know where she went so I would know where to find her if she disappeared with him.”

  “But Dom wasn’t interested in Vanita. He ran away with Mee Li.”

  “But it was the Jezebel who put impure thoughts into his head. It was she who made him so difficult to control when I told him that he would have to wait till I was sure that God wanted us to do it before I’d let him.” She dusted crumbs of meat from her palms. “Oh, yes. I’m not blind. I saw everything that she was up to. The bitch used to look at him in that funny way. Up and down she would look at him. Up and down so he knew what was going through her head.” She nodded. “Yes. I’m sure that it was she who started him thinking bad thoughts. Once a man starts thinking dirty thoughts, there is nothing to stop him looking for ways to make them come true. It is in man’s nature.” She uplifted her eyes. “From the time he ate the apple. And once he starts thinking that way, he will find the girl who will give him what he wants. Girls like that Mee Li who ran away with Dom and is giving it to him even though they are not married.”

  She brushed the scraps of meat on to the floor. “Yes. If not for that bitch, my Dom would have been happy to wait till God told me I was ready.” Her manner brightened. “But I’m not worried. I tell myself that God takes care of things for me. I think it was His way of getting you and me together. Dom running away and the Jezebel getting killed. How Kum, He has kept me pure for you.”

  I ignored the pun like I did her outstretched hand and said, “I must get on with my work, Mary, and report to Loong that the sluice has been fixed.”

  My main function in Nats was to make sure that the food we supplied to aircraft was germ-free. A good part of my day was spent walking between the rows of preset girls, making sure that they followed exactly the rules prescribed for putting together the food trays, seeing that the air-vents were functioning and that the temperature in the room was right for the packaging of food. As I walked around, Vanita’s voice talked to me. It complained of how unfairly her memory was being treated. Told me why each of the people I had spoken to had reason to dislike her.

  “… that fairy Symons wanted you to be in his pants instead of mine.”

  “… and Loong. The last of the Ching-Chong Chinamen, with their upside down values. Liked to stick it here and there but ‘wife’s face must be preserved’. Sure I’d tell that dried-up prune what went on in the Meridien Hotel in the afternoons. Tell her how her man liked it and what she had to do to keep him in ‘honourable family home’. I could tell her but it wouldn’t do any good. She couldn’t do it any other way than on her back with her legs slightly parted and her head turned to one side. And as for exposing Loong … what fun would I get out of that?”

  “… and the Virgin Mary Lourdes. Oh-ho, that one really wanted you. She looked at your thin, clean body and thought that you wouldn’t make dirty sexual demands. If only she knew what you could get up to once you were under way.”

  Vanita continued to talk to me as I sat at my desk and sifted through the various items on it. I found the desire to talk back almost uncontrollable and struggled to prevent myself from speaking aloud.

  I was about to go on a further round of inspecting the food preparation area when the phone rang. It was Inspector D’Cruz.

  “I’d like to meet you to discuss a few things.”

  “Is this a request or is this something that I have to do?”

  “We have no evidence against you, nor do I think you are withholding information from the police. I am asking a favour…”

  “Forget it, D’Cruz. I don’t want to see you ever again or to be reminded of what you have done to me. Goodbye.”

  Before I could hang up he shouted, “Menon. There’s things I know about this business that you should know.”

  I put the receiver back to my ear. “What things, and why are they so important to me?”

  I wanted to hear him say that the person who had killed Vanita had been found. I wanted that more than anything in the world. It wasn’t that I wished to see the killer hang. I was not out for revenge. I needed to know the killer’s identity for a different reason.

  Vanita had been someone I had searched for. When I finally found her, she had not simply become a part of my life. She was an integral part of the scheme of things. It would be impossible to reconstitute my life if I didn’t know who killed her … and why.

  I altered the tone of my voice and asked, “Have you discovered who the killer is?”

  “Not yet, Menon, but I will.” He paused. “What I wanted to talk about is something a little different,” he said before asking, “do you feel that the dead girl is still with you, talking to you, following you around?”

  Vanita’s presence became stronger than ever. Her ghost was sitting on my desk and jumped off it to get closer to the phone. I felt the air move as it did.

  “Well, sometimes,” I admitted. The ghost nodded vigorously. “I must say I find it difficult to think of her as dead.”

  “She won’t die, Menon. Not till we catch her murderer and hang the bastard. I know about these things, Menon. Believe you me, I know about them.”

  I remembered Jafri telling me about D’Cruz’s sister who had been raped and murdered. I asked, “What exactly do you want to chat about, D’Cruz?”

  “I need to talk with someone who knows the whole cast: the dead girl, her friends, enemies, family. Someone who was in touch with the whole goddamned shooting match.”

  “What makes you so sure that I didn’t kill Vanita as well as Esther Wong and her boyfriend?”

  He laughed. Knew I had taken the bait. “I know that you have doubts about this whole affair, Menon. Doubts so great that you sometimes aren’t sure if your arse is following behind you. You see me today and maybe I’ll be able to sort some of them out for you.”

  There are times in my life when I see things coming together, when the picture begins to make sense. Usually it is when the last few pieces begin to fall into place, only rarely when the first two pieces of the jigsaw fit. I knew, however, that I was now on the edge of a design.

  D’Cruz and I were so different. Opposites, natural enemies. It was impossible to make sense of us being friends, working together, unless at some point we could be of service to each other, some point at which the circumstances of Vanita’s death would lead to the resolution of problems the inspector faced.

  It was clear from what Jafri had said that the inspector was the person who was most qualified to solve Vanita’s murder. But, for the pattern to be complete, I would, in turn, have to do something for him. I couldn’t, for the life of me, imagine what this could be. I was not unduly bothered about it, however. I only had to wait and I would tell moonrise from sunset.

  “Where shall we meet?”

  “In the big coffee-shop in Katong near the Eastshore Hospital. You know the place?”

  It was funny that he should choose a rendezvous so close to where the murder had taken place, so near to where Vanita was going to live when we were married. I paused to listen to the goings-on in my head. I was aware that somewhere ahead of me fragments were falling into place. I didn’t as yet know what these were or how they would affect my life. But I would.

  “I know the coffee-shop,” I said. “At what time?”

  “About five-thirty,” he said, and added as an afterthought,
“There are things I will tell you which I want you to be tight-arsed about, Menon.”

  “Meaning you’re going to reveal high-tech police investigation techniques? I already know a lot about them, Inspector.”

  “Meaning I want it to be just you and me at this meeting.”

  I remembered the inspector’s piggy eyes, the oily skin, the room marked SIR. My confidence that the policeman and I were both part of a design disappeared. “I never want to be alone with you, D’Cruz. If we are to meet at all, I’ll come with a friend. My lawyer.”

  “Who? al-Misris?”

  I uh-ed into the mouthpiece and he said, “Good. I like old Jafri. We worked together for a bit when he was in the DPP’s office. He’s a good guy. Not like some of the other blokes there whose eyes are so fixed on promotion that they wouldn’t recognise the truth if it jumped up and licked their arseholes.”

  I called Jafri as soon as he hung up. He seemed only too happy to help, thought it was a good idea for me to be involved in the investigation. Vanita’s ghost, too, approved.

  I GOT TO the coffee-shop well before five-thirty. I was glad I was early.

  I had been in the office all day. A stroll, I felt, would do me good. It would let me brood about Vanita’s murder and think about my relationship with D’Cruz. It was just yesterday that the man was beating the shit out of me. The memory of that had to be removed, ugly pictures washed clean away. It needed something as big as the swing of the sea to do this: something that would rise, wash away the debris, smooth the sand. I would have to feel the tide, float naked in it, be washed in the current of events, as yet unknown, that was to carry the inspector and me towards a common destination. That was the only way I had of getting reconciled to what D’Cruz had done to me. That was the only way I had of capitalising on the unlikely conjunction of events that had brought us together.

  It would be easy enough to persuade myself of this. I believed that contrariness is what design and purpose are about. If this were not the case, what would be so wonderful about a tree that opposed gravity to reach for the sun, a salmon swimming upstream to spawn in its birthplace, people smiling at each other instead of snarling, making love when it would be more rewarding to make war?

  I began walking around. But, instead of dwelling on the connection between the policeman and myself, I looked around me and began thinking of other things.

  Joo Chiat is older than the rest of Katong. Here roads are narrow and winding. Houses are still made of wood and have swing-doors and verandahs. In Joo Chiat one could still find grandparents minding babies, women gossiping behind fences, children playing games of their invention in lanes in which it was still safe to do so.

  Vanita’s ghost joined me, its presence strong. So strong that once I reached out for her hand. I felt silly grabbing empty air and looked around me. No one noticed. On the verandahs overlooking the lane, the old dandled babies, housewives continued to gossip behind fences. I was glad. There were, perhaps, things which would never change. They would be my signposts, the marker-buoys around which a new course could be charted after the storm. I made my way back to the coffee-shop and D’Cruz.

  The inspector had a glass of beer in front of him. The bottle from which it had come was empty. He too had been early. D’Cruz was relaxed. Even likeable now. Perhaps it was the atmosphere of the coffee-shop. Downmarket and friendly: humanised by the smell of food, sweat and cigarette-smoke. Perhaps it was the mood into which I had worked myself.

  Jafri arrived the moment I did. We both ordered Cokes.

  D’Cruz lit a cigarette, looked at Jafri over a cloud of smoke, and said, “Will I be doing the talking or will you?”

  “You start, Ozzie. Begin, perhaps, by telling us how far you have got with the investigation.” His voice was firm as always. And comforting.

  “I’ll do my best,” the inspector replied. “For starters I’ll tell you about the other couple who, at the moment, are just a thorn up my arse.”

  “Are you telling us that the two crimes are not connected?”

  “Except that the same fucking weapon was used in both.”

  The hair on my neck began to bristle. Bits and pieces were coming together in my head. But the pattern was unacceptable, ugly in the extreme. I asked, “And what was this weapon?”

  “A common kitchen knife. The kind housewives use. In this case it was Prestige brand, stainless steel, made in Sheffield, England. The kind that my mother, God rest her soul, used to swear by.”

  And mine still does, I thought, rubbing my neck against my collar to reduce the tickle of hairs standing on end.

  “And I understand from How Kum that the murder weapon has been found. You confirm this, Ozzie?”

  “I sure can. In a garbage-bin near the spot where Tay Lip Bin and his fiancée, Esther Wong, found the Everlasting together. Believe you me, this Esther was sure one overheated lady.”

  Jafri smiled. “I am certain you can justify that statement, Ozzie.”

  “Sure as hell, I can,” the policeman retorted, drawing on his cigarette. “On the surface, our Miss Wong was a fire-breathing Christian Evangelist. But only on the surface.” He paused.

  “Go on, Ozzie,” said Jafri, the slightest impatience detectable in his voice.

  “I’ll start with the good lady’s blood group.” He nodded, pleased by the surprise on our faces. “Her blood type was B, rhesus positive. This is the commonest blood group found in Singapore. Her fiancé, the unfortunate Tay Lip Bin, also belonged to this blood group. The semen found in her vagina, however, came from a man who had type A rhesus positive blood.”

  “So it wasn’t the fiancé’s semen,” I said, my voice rising.

  “Good sir,” said the inspector turning on me, “one is humbled by your deductive genius.” He applauded silently. “The semen certainly didn’t come from the fiancé but where the cum came from we may never know. And there is more.” He sipped his beer. “The good revivalist lady was four months pregnant…”

  “Well, she was engaged…” I began.

  “Too true. And, pregnancy is hunky-dory if not mandatory in the about-to-be-married in the mind-boggling horseshit that passes for morality today. Yes, all would be fine except for one thing. The baby Esther was carrying was blood type O. So it couldn’t have belonged either to the fiancé or to the bloke who had just screwed her. Our pathologist tells me that there were more blood groups floating around in our Esther than you would find in a middle-sized blood-bank.”

  I wanted to throw back my head and clap my hands. Laugh, not with amusement but with relief. There would be no need to rearrange my life. No need to start piecing together a fresh design. I was not obliged to find Vanita’s murderer, not obliged to understand how her killing fitted into the scheme of things. She had been a victim in a shootout, a casualty in a blood-bath brought about by the promiscuous Esther. If one is hit by a meteorite, there is no compulsion to believe that God threw it.

  “So you think the killings came about as a result of this Esther Wong’s complex sex life,” I said.

  “Not for a moment. In fact, I wouldn’t bet a prawn’s head-shit on it.”

  I was silent, relief wiped out.

  Jafri spoke. “Let me get this straight, Ozzie. You tell us that this Esther person spread her favours around a bit. That she was engaged to be married, was pregnant by someone other than her fiancé and that she had had sexual relations with some third person not long before she was killed. Despite this complex and, might I say, unsavoury sexual scenario you have painted, you do not believe that Esther was the murderer’s prime target. What, may I ask, makes you so sure that this woman, with her devious sexual arrangements, was not the murderer’s prime object? And why are you so confident that How Kum’s Vanita was not killed simply to confuse us as to what the motive for these murders truly was?”

  Thank God for Jafri, I thought.

  D’Cruz said, “I don’t think Esther or Lip Bin were the object of the exercise. They were killed after Vanita Sundram.”
Our faces must have told him that this emphasis on something that was so obvious impressed neither Jafri nor me and he explained. “No murderer, however dimwitted, kills the decoy first then the person he is really after. That would be putting the fart before the arse.” He laughed.

  Neither Jafri nor I joined him and he went on. “Let us start by assuming that there is a motive for the killings. In ninety-nine out of a hundred cases, murder is not a mindless business but has a definite purpose.

  “We have been able to establish no connection between Miss Sundram and the engaged couple. It is therefore safe to conclude that the bloke was either after the Sundram girl or the couple. He could have been just after either Esther or Lip Bin but, when it came to it, had to kill both. In that case, as I have said, Esther and boyfriend would have been killed first.

  “Most murders are purposeful acts and murderers tend to be economical in their killing. They might, if they have to kill again and again, become indiscriminate. That’s usually because they have panicked. When this happens, we have the phenomenon of the mad dog who kills for the slightest of reasons: fear of discovery, the belief that another murder would throw the police off his trail and, sometimes, just to prove to himself how powerful he is. When he reaches this point, I think, a murderer has some inner need to kill and finds all sorts of reasons for doing so.”

  I knew nothing about the minds of murderers. But what D’Cruz said made sense. Yet I found myself saying, “It still seems to me that, with a person like this Esther, things like jealousy, revenge…”

  “Listen — you,” snapped D’Cruz. “I know that, more than you want God doling justice from on high, you wish your girlie’s death to be some kind of accident. Then you can let it go. No need for looking into the killer’s motive, no need to try to understand how someone could hate her enough to want to kill her, no need to make big changes in your life.”

  I was impressed by his intuition; even more by the fact that our minds seemed to be following the same path.