For The Death Of Me ob-9

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘That’s a nice idea, Sam,’ I said, ‘but you’re right. We’re not going to the shops. I’ve been reading up and I want to go to a place called Sentosa.’

  ‘Sentosa?’ he exclaimed. ‘But it’s Sunday. It’ll be fuckin’ heavin’; it’s a family day.’

  ‘Nonetheless, it’s where I want to go, and I am the Mighty Oz. Besides, we might not get another chance.’

  Remember I told you about that cable car we saw when the limo driver gave us what passes for the grand tour? That’s how most people get to Sentosa. You can board it at Mount Faber, but Sammy reckoned it would be quieter at the ferry terminal, so we taxied there.

  There weren’t too many people around, but we still had to queue for a while as all of the punters were tourists and all of them had to have the various day-trip packages explained to them. Not us, though: Sammy simply walked up to the window and asked for three returns. The man behind the counter gazed at us gratefully as I paid; he looked knackered, even in his air-conditioned booth.

  We took the lift up to the boarding platform, showed our tickets to the attendant and jumped on to the first empty slow-moving car that came along. It swung us out into space and over two cruise liners, moored side by side. ‘I can never work out why people would want to pay money to get into a boat and sail round in circles,’ Dylan muttered; the Corona had not improved his mood.

  ‘I used to say that too,’ I shot back. ‘Now that I can afford it, and I’ve had a chance to cruise the Great Barrier Reef on Miles Grayson’s yacht, I’m not quite so sure. You can afford it now, Benny. Maybe your view will change.’

  He gave me a sour look. ‘Does having money cure seasickness? ’ he asked.

  I smiled at him, a little wickedly, I must confess. ‘If you get seasick how do you feel about cable cars swinging in the wind?’

  ‘Bastard! Do you think you could get on your mobile and ask the driver to hurry up?’

  Happily, we made it to the other side before the boy threw up, although Sammy didn’t take his eyes off him for the rest of the journey. He was first off, holding on to the guardrail to steady himself as he hit solid ground. The way out led us through a gift shop. Sammy, having started on the road that leads to male-pattern baldness, headed for the part that sold sun-hats. Mike was going to follow him, until I caught his sleeve.

  ‘I’m meeting someone here,’ I murmured in his ear. ‘Whatever I do, play along with it, and when we get to a certain point, steer our boy off to one side. You’ll know when we get there.’

  The prospect of doing something with a purpose seemed to sharpen him up in an instant. ‘Okay, but who are you meeting?’

  ‘Maddy January: she called me this morning. I’ll tell you more later, when I know myself. For now, follow my lead.’

  Sammy was back in only a minute, wearing a pale green hat with a Merlion crest. It matched Dylan’s complexion; if I had seen any Irn Bru on sale I’d have bought him a can. (For those of you who do not know, Irn Bru is one of two traditional Scottish hangover remedies. The other is more bevvy, but Mike had tried that and it didn’t seem to have done much good.)

  ‘Right, gentlemen,’ said our guide, with the air of a man who was beginning to wish he hadn’t talked himself into whatever he had talked himself into. ‘Where will it be? The aquarium?’

  Dylan glared at him. ‘They’ve got a big one in Monaco,’ I said. ‘Benny’s got fish up his arse.’

  ‘Did you ken that there’s a fish that does that? It swims up your arse, or even up your dick,’ Sammy volunteered, bewilderingly. ‘South American it is, called the canduri.’

  ‘I feel no better for knowing that,’ I told him sincerely.

  He chuckled. ‘Maybe no’, right enough, but don’t pish in the Amazon, that’s all Ah’m saying. How about lookin’ at Volcano World, then?’

  ‘I live a few hundred miles from a couple of real ones. No, Sam, when I was out on the river I met a girl who told me about a place called Fort Siloso. She said that anybody who comes to Singapore should see it.’

  ‘Siloso? Aye, okay. We’ll need to take the bus, though.’

  I bought a couple of Subways for the boys. . it occurred to me that a large sandwich might do both of them more good than harm. . and three bottles of water, then, when they had eaten, followed Sammy over to the stop. He led us on to a Blue Line bus, which dropped us close to the entrance to the fort, and the aquarium.

  It was crowded with kids as we walked past; from out of nowhere a sudden pang hit me. I wondered what Susie, Janet, Tom and Jonathan were doing at that moment. I realised at once that they’d be sleeping, but it didn’t help. I wanted to be home with them, and the thought made me determined that I was not going to let the first Mrs January jerk me around. I was ready to scare those pictures out of her, and I reckoned I could do that too, if it came to it.

  As Sammy bought three tickets with the fifty-dollar note I gave him, I glanced at my watch: it showed that it had gone quarter to two. The norm of the place seemed to be that we waited for a tram to take us up what looked like a fairly steep hill. . not unnatural: you’d expect a fort to be on a hill-top. The attendant told us that one had just left and that we’d have to wait fifteen minutes. I thanked him for the tip and started walking. Sammy and Dylan both looked slightly aghast, but they fell in behind me.

  Yellow footsteps showed the way: they led us to the guardhouse, with uniformed wax figures. . and, for some reason, a wax whippet. . and the first of what turned out to be a series of voice presentations, then up a twisting path towards a gun emplacement, and a progression of displays, in which a character called Sergeant Major Cooper talked us through the perils of life as a nineteenth-century soldier, cook, tailor and coolie. (I don’t know why they gave the poor sods that name, they must have been anything but.)

  By the time we’d come through it all, it was five past two. We stepped into the open air, past a mock-up of a cannon being fired. We were near the top of the hill; I looked ahead and saw a child’s swing, and a play suspension bridge.

  ‘I’m going for a seat over there,’ I announced. ‘You guys go on, and I’ll catch you up later.’

  ‘We’ll wait wi’ you,’ said Sammy.

  ‘No, just do like I say. I want to phone my wife: my dad’s been ill, and I need to check on him.’

  ‘Come on,’ Benny barked. ‘It’s fucking baking out here. There’s buildings over there and I want to get under cover.’ He headed off in that direction, our friend slouching along behind him.

  I mounted the last slope and stepped out on to the flat area of the playground. I saw a bench, but no sign of a woman, or anyone else for that matter. I wondered if I had been set up; if so, there was nothing I could do but sit it out and see what happened.

  I had barely lowered myself on to the bench when I heard a sound, a creaking from the play bridge. I turned: it was swaying from side to side under the weight of a woman who was walking across it, clutching the guardrope in one hand and a small bag in the other. Not a great weight, I guessed. She was tall and slim, with shoulder-length auburn hair that shone and shimmered as she moved; her crowning glory and no mistake. She looked to be around forty, but she had kept her figure. I could tell that because it was on show, in close-fitting pedal-pushers and a sleeveless shirt, tailored to hold her breasts high. Twenty years on, it wasn’t hard to understand what Harvey, and all those guys since, had seen in her.

  She skipped off the bridge walked the few steps across to my bench and sat beside me. ‘Oz,’ she murmured.

  ‘That’s who you asked for, Madeleine.’

  ‘You’re alone?’

  ‘I have a couple of mates with me, but I’ve got rid of them.’

  ‘Good. I’m very sensitive about who sees me just now.’

  ‘Makes a change, from what Harvey told me.’

  ‘I’m sure. I’m sorry, Oz, but that man was the biggest disappointment of my life. A typical career-driven Edinburgh lawyer, and I was fool enough to think I could make him interesting. When I
finally gave up, and looked elsewhere, he treated me like shit.’

  ‘You went off with another bloke, then tried to take him to the cleaners. He didn’t let you. You should have done your homework, Maddy, before you took him on like that, in his home city, in his home courts. You were fucked from all directions, from the off.’

  ‘Maybe that’s so, but I didn’t leave myself entirely unprotected. I had intended to get even with the smug bastard, at a time when it would do him most harm.’

  ‘Had?’

  ‘My plans have changed. I need money, Oz, rather urgently. My partner and I have to leave Singapore.’

  ‘Who have you fucked this time?’

  ‘You don’t want to know that.’

  ‘Too right I do.’

  ‘Look, we’re in trouble, it doesn’t matter what sort, but it’s bad. We need cash, in a hurry. That’s why I’m prepared to sell Harvey the thing he knows I’ve been holding over him.’

  Things were changing fast. It looked as if the goods I’d come to get were being delivered into my hands. The only question seemed to be price. I decided to haggle. ‘Let me tell you something, some truth. I know what you’re talking about. That’s why I’m here. Harvey sent me to find you and get those negatives back. He asked me to be all nice and legal about it, as he would, since he’s a nice and legal guy. But the thing is, I’m not. Understand this; my sister’s involved in the situation, and if you do what you’re planning to Harvey, just like you did to that poor bastard Wilde in Australia, she and her boys will be badly hurt too. Washing on from that, so will the rest of my family, my dad, even my kids. There’s no way I’m going to let that happen, especially now that I’ve got you sitting here beside me. I’ll do anything to protect them, and if that means eliminating you, so be it. From the sound of things there’s a queue of volunteers for the job.’

  I glanced at her: her tan had turned a very unhealthy colour. I grabbed the bag from her hand, resisting her feeble effort to prevent me, and opened it. Inside I found a purse, and one other item, an automatic pistol, a small-calibre, palm-size lady’s weapon, but no joke at close quarters. There was nothing in the purse other than three hundred and ten Sing dollars and a Visa card, but there was a full magazine in the gun. I gave her the purse back and pocketed the pistol. ‘Oz,’ she protested, ‘I need that.’

  ‘No, you don’t. If a hard lady like you has been scared as badly as this, it’s going to be no use to you against the people who have done it.’

  Women always take me by surprise: my stepmother had done it big time a few days before, and my brother-in-law’s ex did it again. She buried her face in her hands and began to cry. ‘In that case,’ she sobbed, ‘do me a favour and shoot me now, because those people will probably do a lot worse.’

  I said nothing for a while. I looked around, but we were still alone. I was pretty sure that Dylan would be watching us; suddenly I was glad of it.

  ‘What do you want?’ I asked her.

  She let out another couple of sobs, then pulled herself together. She whispered something, so quietly that I couldn’t hear her. I told her so. ‘Fifty thousand US,’ she repeated, a little louder.

  ‘And you give me?’

  ‘The negatives, and every print I have.’

  ‘You’d get ten thousand sterling, tops, from a Scottish tabloid,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Money’s never been my motivation, until now. But, like you said, it’s not just Harvey who’s involved.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tonight. It has to be tonight.’

  ‘Jesus, how am I going to get hold of fifty grand on a Sunday?’

  She looked at me, with a tiny smile that I found amusing. ‘Oz, people like you can get hold of fifty grand any time.’

  ‘You have to believe that if you cross me on this I will help these people find you.’

  ‘Having listened to you, I do believe it. You really don’t live up to your image, do you?’

  ‘Not a bit. Where do we complete?’

  ‘I’ll come to your hotel.’

  ‘No fucking way, paparazzi hang around there. Pick somewhere less obvious.’

  She frowned. ‘There’s a place called the Next Page on Mohamed Sultan; it’s a pub where the actors hang out. It would be natural for you to go there, and it’ll be safe for me because there are plenty of people around. I’ll be in one of the private booths at the back. Be there at seven.’

  ‘I can’t: I’m on telly, remember.’

  ‘Damn! So you are. Make it nine, in that case. It’ll still be busy then.’

  ‘Okay, but, Maddy, I repeat, don’t even think of pulling a fast one on me.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I won’t.’

  I gave her a last stare, to make her a true believer. She made as if to stand, but I put a hand on her thigh to stop her. ‘Tell me, in case I have to explain it to Harvey. What the fuck have you done to get in trouble this bad?’

  ‘I told you, you don’t want to know.’

  ‘I bloody do: now tell me.’

  ‘I’ve been stupid, more stupid than I’ve ever been in all my stupid life. I’ve been hoist by my own thingie. .’

  ‘Sounds agonising.’

  ‘You know, by my own whatchacallit.’

  ‘Petard?’

  ‘That’s the word. It all began when Tony and I had been here for a few months. I began to notice gaps in his diary, periods when I didn’t know where he was. I’m a bit of a control freak where my men are concerned, so I asked him. He got evasive, gave me general answers about business. I’d been down that road with Sandy, so I decided to deal with it the same way.’

  ‘You mean. .’

  She was hurried, anxious: she cut me off. ‘I followed him, with my camera. I’ve studied photography, and I’m very good at it, as Harvey will have told you. I trailed him to an address in Chinatown, just off Pagoda Street, a first-floor flat. I found a vantage-point across the road, I used a telephoto lens and I saw him in a room, in his shirt, with another man. I thought, Fuck me, this one’s gay too! and I hit the motor drive.’ She chewed her lip.

  ‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘You tried to put the black on Tony and he’s turned very nasty.’

  ‘No, not like you mean anyway. He found out, but not that way. I made a huge mistake. To get best quality I use film, not digital, for serious stuff. I hadn’t set up my own darkroom facilities here, so I had it developed commercially, in a shop right there in Chinatown. Oz, those Triads are everywhere. The guy who developed the film must have run off another set of prints, and handed them on to the man Tony met.’

  In a flash, I saw why she was scared. ‘You mean the other man was a Triad?’ I asked her.

  ‘Not any old gangster: he’s the leader of the whole Singapore organisation. And there’s more. I never suspected it for a moment, but Tony’s a Triad member himself. A couple of days ago, he came home and he went berserk; he’d been shown the photographs, and told me he knew everything, that the film had been handed in for processing by a dark-haired Western woman, and where. Well, he went crazy at me. He told me he’s been in the organisation since he was in his teens. He went to London because of it, and his move back to Singapore was engineered by them as a sort of promotion. He didn’t tell me how they work, only that they’re an old-established network, and that you’ll find them in Chinese communities across the world. Tony says that the Triads as a society are compulsively secretive, and so brutal they make the Mafia look like Amnesty International. In their areas they control everything, drugs, protection, prostitution, you name it. The Singapore government’s been at war with them for decades. They’ve hanged some of them, they’ve caned others half to death, but they still haven’t won. The organisation’s still there.’

  Nothing she said surprised me. I’d heard of the Triads; many a film production company’s had to buy their cooperation, especially in Canada. ‘Yes,’ I murmured. ‘You really are in the shit.’

  ‘And how! The man at the top has decided I’m a government spy:
he’s ordered Tony to kill me.’

  ‘And does Tony plan to? Are you hiding from him?’

  ‘No. He loves me; we’re getting off the island together, as fast as we can. That’s why we need the money. Tony’s playing for time. He has me hiding out with a friend in the theatre company, and he’s told the leader that he’s carried out his orders and that I’m dead.’

  ‘Does the guy believe him?’

  ‘We don’t know for sure. He said that he did, but that others might not, so he wants to see my head. Tony told him that he’d buried my body out on the nature reserve. He told him, tough, to dig me up.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s convinced anybody,’ I told her. ‘I went to Tony’s office this morning; it had been turned upside-down. Would you bet that whoever did it wasn’t looking for your film?’

  Jesus, this woman: the thought ran through my mind that maybe I should just shoot her. Easier all round. ‘So,’ I hissed at her furiously, ‘this deadly, ruthless international terror organisation thinks you’re a government spy, and you’ve set up a meeting with me, in a public place. Thanks a fucking bunch. Why didn’t you just put a chip in a fucking android or something and send it to my hotel? “Help me, Obi-Wan Blackstone. Only you can save me!” Come to think of it, you even look a bit like Carrie Fisher, minus the daft hairstyle. Well, I have news for you, dear, I’m not Obi-Wan, I’m Darth Vader. Now, please, fuck off. I’ll see you at nine tonight.’

  22

  When I thought about it, I realised that if these Triads had followed Maddy to our meeting-place, I’d have found her on the other side of the bridge, minus her head. Not that that improved my mood a hell of a lot.

  Even Sammy could see that something was wrong when I caught up with him and Mike, although he said nothing. We saw it through to the end of the Siloso tour, then caught the cable car back to the mainland. We picked up a taxi at the terminal and headed back to the hotel, where I left the other two with the excuse that I had to speak to the telly people about the night’s events.