Moonrise, Sunset

by Gopal Baratham

  Oscar put down the shopping he was carrying and said, “I have news for you, Ozzie.” He poured himself some beer. “I’ve done my homework and have made the arrangements for tomorrow. I think we are on the verge of solving the murder that has bothered you for so long.”

  “You mean you know who killed my Tessie?”

  Oscar rocked his head from side to side. “Not know but maybe on the verge of knowing.”

  “I guess you know I spent the whole of last night rummaging among your old friends. Couldn’t turn up a thing. Your buddies are tight-arsed clams when it comes to giving information to a police officer.”

  Oscar laughed. “Heard whispers of your efforts.” He shook his finger at the inspector. “Join me for a drink tomorrow night and you will be a wiser man.”

  “Where?”

  “The Mitre Hotel. Used to be a lovely place but is now a little the worse for wear. Just like most of us.” He shot Ma a glance. “All except you, my flower, whose fragrance improves with the years.”

  “You are talking about that old place on Killiney Road?” asked D’Cruz.

  “The very one.” Oscar replied. “Meet there at six-thirty for a sundowner.”

  Ma put a hand on his shoulder. “How Kum goes with you.”

  “If he wishes,” said Oscar.

  I wanted to. Very much. And it was not just out of curiosity.

  I WAS A LITTLE anxious when Symons called me to his office the next morning. He would, by now, have discovered my role in the interest the anti-corruption squad was taking in him. Though I had come to dislike the man, it is distinctly uncomfortable to be cast in the role of a Judas. I delayed seeing him for as long as possible and dropped in just before lunch.

  “Finally plucked up the courage to see me have you, HK?” he said as soon as I walked in.

  “The CPIB were on to you anyway, Symons,” I countered.

  “I’m not going to argy-bargy with you, HK. All I can say is that I never showed you anything but loving kindness from the first day you came to Nats, and cannot say that I am not hurt by your disloyalty.” He affected a wounded look. “I am, however, pleased to inform you that we have not been found guilty of a felony, only a minor indiscretion for not following procedure to the letter of the law. A warning is all we received.”

  “I’m glad,” I said and meant it too, till I heard what he said next.

  “You may have some inkling as to the role your erstwhile lady-love played in all this.” He smiled sweetly. “I understand from various sources that you knew she was on to things.”

  “She guessed that things were not all hunky-dory…”

  “Oh, more than that, my dear fellow, more than that.”

  “She wasn’t on the take from you and Loong.” The strain in my voice must have been obvious. “I’m sure of that and you must be too.”

  “We didn’t pay her. That’s for sure, but there may have been others that did.”

  “I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

  “Don’t you, my dear boy. I did warn you, years ago, about the dangers of these mixed relationships but I guess you were too innocent to understand.”

  “Just come out and say what you are trying to say, Symons.”

  “If you must know,” — he sighed heavily — “we are dealing with quite big fish in the business world and big fish need decent bait. Just making a few bucks was not enough for some of them so we threw in some flesh as well.” He grinned at my discomfiture.

  “Loong said the girl was game and virtually insatiable.” He turned his nose up. “A condition, I understand, not uncommon among the female sex, as their orgasms have no proper point of termination. I don’t, as you will understand, speak from experience.” He laughed unpleasantly. “Loong suggested that we introduce her to our more important suppliers.”

  “And what was Vanita supposed to do?”

  “Tenderise their tougher portions and in the process find out what was in it for us, if we were prepared to overlook certain fine points in procedure.” He saw the look of pain on my face and added in a conciliatory voice, “She was not the only one of the preset girls who was on the game, you know.”

  “What do you mean ‘on the game’?” I shouted. “Are you trying to tell me that Vanita was a prostitute?”

  “Steady on, dear fellow,” he said, alarmed by my tone. “I’m not in a position to make judgemental statements about female sexual behaviour. I am simply stating the facts as objectively as I can.” His face became unnaturally solemn. “All I’m saying is that your girlfriend got more than love out of the liaisons we arranged for her.”

  “You mean she took money from these men?”

  “Oh dearie,” he said, flapping a hand playfully in my direction, “you are much too coarse. She didn’t charge by the hour and I don’t think that actual cash changed hands.”

  “But if she didn’t get money, what did she get out of it?”

  “There are things that can be converted into cash.”

  “Like expensive gifts?”

  “Like tips on the stock market and arrangements with banks to enable you to follow your fancy.”

  By the time I left Symons’ office, the picture was clear. The girls were introduced to chosen men whom they entertained. In the course of this they ascertained whether or not their “dates” were prepared to fall in with Symons’ and Loong’s schemes. The men rewarded the girls in ways they considered suitable.

  I spent the rest of the day thinking of Vanita in the arms of strangers, hard-faced men who made perverse and cruel sexual demands on her; men who were turned on by pain and humiliation. Images, ugly and wounding, entered my head in what appeared to be an unending stream. I spent so many hours scratching at the sore that, by the time I got home, it was numb from chafing.

  Ma was at a mahjong game and Oscar had left early for the Mitre, doubtless to get in a few quick ones before our appointment. This suited me just fine. I lay naked in bed and listened to Vanita’s tape. Beyond the point about her wanting to grow old with me, the voice changed. It became clearly more determined.

  “I know father wants to leave me everything but I don’t want that. I don’t want his fortune. I don’t want anybody’s fortune. How Kum has been asking me to marry him. I have been playing a little hard to get, but nobody can call me a cocktease. I know that I want to marry him but I want him to be sure too, so I am keeping him dangling for a bit. And there’s another thing.”

  There was a hiss and a short break, then Vanita started again.

  “I’m funny about money. I can get as much as I want from father but I don’t want it that way. I want to get it on my own. I don’t want father’s money because he hates How Kum. Hates him because he looks so Chinese. Sometimes I worry if he is planning to pay someone to hurt him. I go mad at the thought of anyone wanting to hurt my darling. I want to protect him with my body, keep it snugly around him, so no one can reach him and do him harm.”

  I remembered Vanita’s body lying on mine. I wanted to scream with grief. On that terrible night of the full moon, there were three murders. There should have been four but Vanita was lying on me, and I was spared simply because the murderer couldn’t reach me. I forced myself to go on listening.

  “I won’t take father’s money. I have a way of making some myself. Loong introduced me to the scheme. We get information for Loong and Symons when we entertain these guys. These fat cats don’t actually pay us money but fix it so we get new issues of stock, bank loans, tips on the market and even the horses which are going to win at Bukit Timah.

  “I will stop as soon as I have enough for the little house near East Coast Park. The one How Kum and I want, so we can come to the park when we tire of our beds. I can’t tell him about this now. I don’t think he will understand and I fear he will be terribly hurt. Whatever I do, I don’t want to hurt my darling. Maybe when we are very old I will tell him, and he will know how much I really love him.”

  This was followed by more endearments of the soppy s
choolgirl kind. It ended with a promise to record all her feelings in greater detail so we would have more to listen to when we grew old. When the voice stopped, there was an emptiness in the room which was unbearable. I wanted Vanita. Wanted her badly, ragingly. As I rewound the tape, I felt her in the room with me. I looked round and saw her on the far side of the bed. Her eyes were full of tears. She knew that only the touch and smell of her body could ease my pain. I put my head down on my pillow and wept noisily. An hour passed and I felt better. I was beginning to understand Vanita and, in time, would not be pained by what she had done. She had done it for me. I should be looking for a moonrise. I showered. I had an appointment with D’Cruz and Oscar.

  Killiney Road slopes gently upward from state-of-the-art Orchard Road towards River Valley Road where the houses have a dishevelled, old-fashioned look. I got off the MRT at Somerset, and walked up this narrow street which connects the present with what remains of the past. There were still a few old buildings along Killiney Road, dilapidated shop-houses, ancient coffee-shops, a bungalow built at the turn of the century with a walled garden surrounding it.

  A large board with red letters directed me to the Mitre Hotel. I followed the arrow which led to a tiny lane. At the end of the lane was a spacious pre-war house. This was surrounded by an enormous garden, the most outstanding feature of which was a row of traveller’s palms. I found Oscar and D’Cruz in the front room of the house. A faded sign on the wall assured me that this was the SALOON BAR. With Oscar and D’Cruz was an elderly man in a wheelchair. Both his legs had been amputated at the knee. Wooden pegs were attached to what remained of his lower limbs. They were too short to serve any purpose except to emphasise the fact that he was a double amputee.

  “You haven’t met Uncle Choo, have you?” Oscar said, “Though you, of course, know all about him.” I nodded and extended a hand. “My…” Oscar fumbled, “my step son, How Kum.”

  “Everyone who has heard of football has heard of Uncle Choo.”

  Choo looked at me suspiciously. “You think so, yah. You really think so?” I nodded. But this didn’t stop him from adding, “Sometimes I think the great days were for nobody.”

  Ozzie intervened. “Before we get the great man to regale us with the highlights of his career, let us get him to tell us about the murder he claims to know something about.”

  Suddenly all the lights went out. Power failures in Singapore are rare things and most places are not equipped to deal with them. The Mitre, however, perhaps because it had memories of a time when such things were common, was. Within minutes, a waiter supplied us with candles, assuring us as he did. “Don’t worry. Black-outs in the Orchard Road area don’t last for more than fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  Choo, unperturbed by the interruption, took up the conversation and said, “I keep telling you, policeman, that I won’t say anything, till you swear on whatever Gods you believe in that you won’t poke around and cause trouble.”

  “I’m a policeman, as you say. Then how can I not investigate if I have evidence of a crime?”

  “Ozzie,” said Oscar, pleading, “all Uncle asks is for an assurance. He says that, though a crime was committed, the criminal has been adequately punished. He wants your assurance that you won’t go upsetting innocent people with unnecessary investigations.” He nodded in the direction of the bar, and a young man came over with a tray of drinks. “Uncle has a witness who can tell you something you’ve been trying to find out these past fifteen years.”

  “If someone knows anything about how my Tessie died, he should have come forward fifteen years ago. If he didn’t do so, then the shit-eating bastard must be charged with being an accessory after the fact. That kind of turd could also be an accessory before the fact and, if so, is guilty of abetting a criminal by concealing an intended crime. Who knows,” he said darkly, “he may even have been an accomplice.”

  “You look here, mata-mata” said Choo, using the bazaar Malay term for policeman in an effort to bring D’Cruz down to earth, “if you want to be so smart, you go solve your own murder.” He laughed, and, as he did, his stumps waggled disconcertingly. “After all, you’ve had fifteen years to work things out.” He touched the sides of his wheelchair as though about to make a move. The inspector stood up to stop him.

  I had an idea. “Why not let Uncle Choo begin telling his story,” I suggested. “If at any point it looks like he is in danger of having been party to concealing a crime, I will warn him. He can then decide whether or not he wants to continue.”

  I was surprised when the coach turned to me. “You, young fella, have you heard of the twins, Linga and Loga?”

  I must have been about ten when the Indian twins Linga and Loga had first burst on the Singapore football scene. “L and L”, they were dubbed by the newspapers, who nevertheless went on to explain what their names meant. The linga was the symbol of Siva the Hindu god of destruction. He was also the God of Creation and linga was the Sanskrit word for phallus. Loga was a contraction of ullagam, the world. Not the universe but the normal, everyday place in which we found ourselves. Perhaps the newspapers had wished their game upon the lads, for the twins, identical in every other way, played vastly different brands of football.

  Both were inside forwards. Linga destroyed defenders, sending them scarpering hither and thither, and Loga, capitalising on the confusion, set about, in a practical workaday manner, creating goals. Linga was considered to be the genius; temperamental, inconsistent and yet capable of unbelievable brilliance. He turned games round in a matter of minutes but his performance was so variable that there was, from time to time, speculation as to whether or not he was on the take.

  His personal life in many ways reflected his game. There were bouts of drinking, and he had been up for driving under the influence. He was involved in innumerable fights and an equal number of love affairs, one of which ended in a paternity suit. His brother, on the other hand, led a life of such rectitude that no one knew very much about him. It was said that Loga spent so much time looking after Linga that he had no time for a life of his own.

  I looked at Choo. “Of course I remember Loga and Linga.”

  D’Cruz leaned forward in his seat. “They lived quite near us in Katong. Then, I understand, they moved to upper Bukit Timah. I never got to know them myself, though the whole neighbourhood talked about the boys, especially about the wild one, Linga.” He smiled. “I was too busy those days getting bruises on my butt from senior officers kicking me around to get interested in neighbourhood heroes.”

  “Do you remember how Linga died?” the legless man asked.

  D’Cruz frowned. “I can’t say I do.” He shrugged. “For lots of reasons, my memory for that whole period is as buggered as a fairy’s bum.”

  I couldn’t understand the inspector’s lapse of memory. I was thirteen at the time, but Linga’s death was something so spectacular that no one in Singapore could have avoided knowing about it.

  Oscar explained. “I think, Ozzie, you were too involved with Tessie’s death to think of anything else.”

  “You don’t know about Linga’s death, policeman, but Uncle can throw light on the matter.”

  No sooner had he said this than the lights came on again. Choo applauded loudly, as though he had been responsible for the timing of the re-establishment of the power supply. Uncle Choo waited till another round of drinks had been served before he took up his story again.

  “At the time when Linga died, Uncle was head coach of the Singapore Football team and there was nothing about football or footballers that didn’t reach this.” He pointed at his ear. Choo said he had been worried because Linga had been playing badly for several months. The boy was also drinking heavily and the selectors were thinking of dropping him from the side. There was a further matter that worried the coach. The young man had suddenly severed relations with his many girlfriends and become celibate.

  “No good,” he said. “I tell boys that if they are used to girls, they must not stop. ‘No
good,’ I say to Linga. ‘Must not stop going with girls or you get too tense for football.’ ”

  Choo’s advice had, apparently, little effect on his star player. The coach communicated his worries to Loga. Linga’s twin was himself disturbed by his brother’s conduct. Apparently, Linga had decided that he would keep off women till he found the one woman who was meant for him. The twins were strict Hindus and their widowed mother was unfashionably traditional. That being the case, she would expect to choose her son’s wife. Linga didn’t go with this and was, much to his mother’s distress, looking for a bride himself. The conflict between mother and son made the drinking worse and Linga was clearly into drugs as well.

  A narrow-gauge railway links Singapore with Malaysia. The line runs northwards up Bukit Timah. Mostly the railway lies in a deep ravine. In places, however, it surfaces and one of these places was just behind the twins’ home. The night-mail bound for Kuala Lumpur leaves the station near the harbour at ten. It makes no stops till it reaches Johor Baru on the mainland of Malaysia. A drunken and heavily drugged Linga was lying on the track at the back of his home. The train amputated his legs as it made its way north. Though he had not died immediately, there was nothing to show that he had attempted to move or to save himself after he had been hit. It was difficult to believe that he was not awakened by the injury. There wasn’t enough alcohol or opium in his blood to make him that anaesthetised. Most people believed that Linga had committed suicide and, for reasons of his own, wanted to feel the pain of dying.

  “His legs,” Choo shouted, “cut off. Legs that could have taken him to Wembley or the World Cup.” He waved his stumps in disbelief.

  Ozzie, who had listened to the tale in silence, said, “What has the suicide of this football no-good got to do with my Tessie?”

  “You promise no problem and I bring somebody who will tell you.”

  “Why are you prepared to introduce this man to me now after keeping quiet all these years?” The inspector seemed genuinely puzzled.

  “Because Oscar good to Uncle. When,” he swept his palm over his stumps, “I lose legs, Oscar get best doctors to try to save maybe one. Oscar pay all medical bills. Oscar pay only because Uncle once-upon-a-time a good football coach. Now Oscar says he wants to know about murders, all murders, old and new. Uncle only knows about old things but Uncle will talk if no police trouble.”