by A. M. Stuart
Now he was not so sure. They had to act and act fast.
The Webley was a good weapon but to be effective they had to be closer. He glanced at Musa and indicated they needed to move. Fortunately the ulu came right up to the campsite. They could be within ten yards and not be seen.
The noise and distraction from Paar and the Burmese man allowed Curran the opportunity for some whispered instructions to Musa, and on Curran’s signal, they crept forward, taking up positions on opposite sides of the camp.
FORTY-FIVE
Harriet squeezed her eyes shut, certain now that she would die, but the shot didn’t come. Her breath coming in short, frantic gasps, she opened her eyes again. She blinked. The revolver was aimed not at her but at the man who stood behind her.
Paar had seen it too. “What are you doing?” His voice wavered with incredulity.
“Unfortunately, Mrs. Gordon needs to stay alive but you, alas, are an encumbrance.”
“But . . . you can’t kill me . . . I . . .”
“Zaw!” Kent barked the order and the man complied without hesitation. Paar struggled in the man’s grip, protesting and whimpering as Zaw pushed him to his knees on the other side of Lawson. All his bravado gone, weeping and crying out in Dutch, Paar stared down into his grave, the grave he had dug.
John Lawson looked up. In the light of the fire, his face seemed calm and composed.
“Is this how it ends?” he inquired.
“You’re no fool, Lawson. You knew this would be how it ended for you,” Kent replied.
Kent turned to Harriet. “As for you, Mrs. Gordon. We need you alive to secure the return of the rubies. In a moment, we will be returning to that boat for a gentle moonlight sail around to Changi Beach, where your policeman friend will be waiting. Rubies and a sapphire for you. Simple.”
“And then?” Harriet ventured.
Kent glanced at Viktoria. “Viki and I have a boat waiting offshore to take us to pastures new.” He swung his attention back to the two men. “Stop that pathetic gibbering, Paar, or I will let Zaw slit your—”
A single gunshot rang out into the night and Zaw gave a gurgle before toppling forward into the freshly dug grave. For a moment the reverberation of the shot hung on the air before the jungle came alive with the shrieks of monkeys and the crash of undergrowth as the animals charged through the trees above them.
A second shot rang out from a different direction. Kent began firing wildly into the dark. Paar screamed and went down, curling up in a fetal position, still screaming.
Harriet kicked herself backward until her back was against a tree as two men in blessed, familiar khaki came into the circle of light. One tall, hatless Englishman and a slightly built Malay constable. Viktoria turned to run only to be brought up short by the constable. His size belied his strength and she struggled ineffectually in his arms as Kent turned and, moving with surprising speed for a large man, ran to the boat. The boat’s owner had already begun to push the vessel out into the water. Whatever Kent had paid him, it did not include the possibility of death.
Curran reached Kent with the ease of a born athlete, bringing him down with what Julian would applaud as the perfect rugby tackle. They fell into the river, locked together as the boat drifted away into the center of the river, its owner already hard at work with a paddle to escape the scene.
Even with the waning moon now high, Harriet found it hard to make out the two figures thrashing in the shallows. Kent had size and weight but Curran was younger and fitter, and it was Curran who rose from the river, like some sort of marine spirit, throwing back his head, sending sprays of water that sparkled in the moonlight as he hauled Kent to his feet, his arm twisted behind his back. Kent sagged at the knees, coughing and vomiting water.
Through all of this Paar lay curled up on the ground, his hands over his head, gibbering like a small, frightened child while Viktoria cursed and swore, kicking futilely at the constable who held her.
When Kent and Viktoria had been secured, Curran turned to look over the two wounded men, his service revolver still tightly clenched in his hand. For all his moans and cries, it looked like Paar had sustained only a flesh wound to the upper part of his right arm. Curran spared him little sympathy and trussed him up with the others. The three conspirators sat with their backs to the atap hut. Soaked and shivering, Kent glared at Curran, and Paar still sniveled. Only Viktoria Van Gelder held her chin high.
Lawson lay on the ground beside the grave, unmoving. Curran held up the lantern and crouched beside him. Lawson moved his head and groaned and Curran laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. The grim look on Curran’s face as he rose to his feet confirmed Harriet’s worst fears. Somewhere in the melee John Lawson had sustained a bullet wound.
Leaving Lawson, Curran finally turned to Harriet, crouching down before her, flicking a lock of wet hair out of his eyes. A smile caught at the corners of his mouth.
“My dear Mrs. Gordon,” he said. “That was a most unladylike act to perpetrate on a man. Remind me never to tangle with a suffragette.” The smile faded and he reached out, lightly brushing her cheek with his forefinger. She leaned her head against his chest and his arms circled her. For a long moment, time stood still and she knew she was safe.
“You’re wet,” she murmured.
He chuckled. “And you don’t smell very nice.”
“That is a rude thing to say, Inspector Curran.”
His lips quirked. “Tact was never my strong point.” He let her go and the policeman returned. “Turn around and let’s see to those ropes.”
She heard the click of a pocketknife and the blessed relief of freed hands. She shook her fingers and whimpered, as agonizing pins and needles marked the return of blood. Curran took her hands, chafing them in his own.
Lawson groaned and Curran released her hands, turning to look at the injured man.
“I know you’ve been through a lot but can you have a look at Lawson? I think he took one of the stray shots.”
As pleasant as it was to be sitting with her back against a tree, having her hands held by a handsome man who had just saved her life, Harriet pulled away and scrambled to her feet.
She knelt beside John Lawson, and Curran held up the lantern. The growing stain across the front of John Lawson’s shirt gleamed darkly wet in the light and told its own story. Curran was right: Lawson had been hit by one of the stray shots. However, he was conscious and raised his left hand, reaching out to Harriet. She took it, pressing it against her cheek.
“It’s all over, John,” she said. “We’ll get you to a hospital.”
“Will?” he gasped, his eyes seeking out Curran.
“He’s safe,” Curran said gruffly.
Lawson tried to speak again but Harriet put a finger to his lips. “Save your strength. Let me look at that wound.”
Curran crouched down beside Harriet and peeled back Lawson’s blood-soaked shirt, revealing a pistol wound to the abdomen. Harriet swallowed and her gaze met the policeman’s. They both knew a wound like this would most likely be fatal.
“Is there something we can use as a dressing?” Harriet asked.
“Your petticoat?” Curran suggested with a cocked eyebrow.
Harriet indicated the lifeless body of Zaw. “His sarong will do.”
She did what she could to stem the bleeding and make the dying man as comfortable as possible, and when she was done she sat with his head in her lap.
She looked up at Curran. “What now?”
Curran straightened and looked around at the campsite, illuminated by the fire and the waning moon; at the three prisoners on the ground, bound hand and foot; at the dead Burmese man and the dying Lawson.
“I need the rest of my men,” Curran said. He turned to the constable. “Musa, get back to the police post, bring my men and a stretcher for Mr. Lawson.”
The Malay constab
le snapped smartly to attention and saluted.
Curran waved a hand. “Just go.”
Harriet pushed her disordered hair back behind her ears and said with a heavy sigh, “I could really do with a decent cup of tea.”
Curran fished in a pocket and held out a battered leather hip flask. He unscrewed the lid.
“Will brandy do?”
Harriet took the flask. “It will do nicely, thank you.”
FORTY-SIX
Thursday, 17 March 1910
Curran returned home for a few hours’ rest, a bath, a shave and a change of clothing. Kent had managed to land some heavy blows to his ribs, and now that the crisis had passed, he ached in every muscle. He found Li An asleep in her chair, curled up like a small, elegant cat, her beautiful hair falling across her face, hiding the terrible scar. With fingers that shook, Curran brushed the dark tresses away and bent and kissed her ravaged cheek.
She awoke with a start, her fingers tightening around the hilt of the knife she always carried.
“It’s me,” he whispered, taking a step back before she lashed out with the vicious blade.
“Curran! Don’t do that,” she chided, uncurling from the chair.
She rose to her feet and wound her arms around his neck. It still lacked a few hours to daylight and he could not see her face in the dark but she smelled of frangipani and all that was good. He buried his face in her hair.
“It’s over,” he mumbled.
“The man with the painted face . . . you have found his killer?”
“I think so, but it can wait till morning. He’s not going anywhere. I need some sleep now.”
She slipped her hand into his and led him into the bedroom. He fell back on the bed and let her pull his boots off, her clever fingers working their magic on his tired, bruised body.
In the daylight, Li An lavished her attention on him, exclaiming over his injuries, however superficial, and refusing to let him out of the house without a decent meal. He arrived at South Bridge Road looking, even if he did not feel it, the cool, crisp, efficient police officer he needed to be.
He chose to interview Paar first. Fresh from the shock and horror of realizing that there really was no honor among thieves, the young man babbled out everything he knew, among tearful claims of being misled and expressions of remorse at his part in Visscher’s death.
Paar admitted to being seduced by Viktoria Van Gelder and he blamed her for leading him into a life of vice. His role had been bookkeeper to the VOC. The kidnapping of Will and his father and Harriet Gordon had dropped him right into the conspirators’ dark well of deceit and he realized he had to play along or he too would be dead. He had packed his bag in haste, realizing only after he got to the villa that he had forgotten the most important thing: the records of the transactions. He had suspected from that moment his life was forfeit.
Curran had little sympathy to spare for the boy’s self-loathing and tears. He considered that luring Visscher to his death at the godown on Clarke Quay had been particularly reprehensible, and despite Paar’s protestations that he had no notion that the conspirators would kill Visscher, it still made him an accessory to murder. He would hang if Curran had his way.
With the information from Paar, Curran turned his attention to Viktoria Van Gelder. Despite her unkempt appearance, she sat back in her chair, her arms crossed. Viktoria was no stranger to authority. She treated it with the contempt she felt it deserved and refused to answer his questions.
It didn’t matter. He had enough to hang her or at least send her to prison for a very long time for the kidnappings and attempted murders of John Lawson and Stefan Paar and possibly being an accessory to the murder of Hans Visscher.
“Let’s talk about the death of Oswald Newbold,” he began, and, to his surprise, provoked a reaction from the woman.
She rose to her feet and slammed her hands down on the table. “I had nothing to do with his murder.”
“Are you going to deny you intended to kill him?”
She shrugged. “It made little difference if he lived or died. We had the rubies and most of the profits from the sales of the other stones. We could have left Singapore and it would be too late for Newbold to do anything about it.”
“But you didn’t have the sapphire,” Curran pointed out.
Viktoria turned to a corner of the room and stood facing the wall, her arms wrapped around herself.
“No,” she admitted. “We didn’t have the sapphire but we knew its hiding place.”
She turned back to face him. Swinging her chair around, she straddled it like a man, leaning her arms on the chairback. With a weary gesture, she brushed the thick matted hair from her eyes.
“We sent Zaw to retrieve the sapphire that night. That was the conversation Visscher overheard. It didn’t matter, Newbold was dead when Zaw arrived and the sapphire was gone.”
“But the base of the statue was intact when I found it.”
“Zaw replaced it. He is . . . was very careful not to leave unnecessary evidence lying around. You may have discovered that little hiding place, Inspector, but I am guessing you did not check the other statues in Newbold’s home. That is where he hid the stones and that is how he smuggled them into Singapore.”
Curran nodded. He had already sent word to Clive Strong that all the statues in the house were to be brought into South Bridge Road.
“So the VOC was composed of Oswald Newbold; you, Viktoria Van Gelder; and Nils Cornilissen?”
“Nils? No. Guess again, Inspector.”
In the light of day, it became clear. “Kent . . . Charles Kent. He was C. The VOC. Viktoria, Oswald and Charles.”
“Newbold’s little joke because of the Dutch connection.” Viktoria’s mouth curled in a humorless smile. “This is a plan long in the making, Inspector. Nils comes from a long line of thieves and swindlers. A perfect match for my daughter. I set him up with a reputable business as an antiquities dealer and he had a talent for it—looting the Orient of its treasures made a nice sideline for him. It also made him useful as a fence for certain objects that came into my possession. Newbold thought he was running the operation but the reality was we used him.”
“And Cornilissen’s brother, the gems dealer?”
“He really does have a brother in the gems industry.” She smiled. “Another useful contact.”
The reach of this woman stretched far and wide, Curran considered. He thought of the insignia of the VOC—the V really did control the operation with Oswald Newbold and Charles Kent as her creatures.
“And what did you plan to do once you had the last of the stones?”
“Kent and I planned to quietly slip away from Singapore. There are good opportunities in Argentina for enterprising people with our talents. Nils would gradually filter the rubies onto the market and we would get the money. A fine plan until some fool killed Newbold, and you and that interfering woman started poking around in our business.”
“Tell me about your relationship with Charles Kent.”
“What do you think, Curran? If you have done your homework, you will know that Charles Kent is as venal as I.”
So Curran had discovered from his contacts in Rangoon. The only other survivor of Newbold’s expedition into northern Burma, Kent had been implicated in a massacre of villagers in the newly annexed northern provinces and left the army. He had stayed on in Burma, outwardly respectable but strongly suspected by the authorities of being behind several opium dens and gambling establishments in Rangoon and Mandalay.
Some three years ago he had vanished from Rangoon, only, it seemed, to reappear as Colonel Augustus Foster in Singapore. The real Colonel Foster, a perfectly respectable but little-known explorer, after whom a river had been named, had disappeared on an exploration in Africa some ten years earlier.
“Did Newbold know about your relationship with Kent?”
>
She shook her head. “As far as Newbold was concerned, Kent was just a friend, nothing more. The two of them were running illegal businesses in Rangoon. Newbold was a thief and a murderer too. The men who did not return from that initial exploration all died at his hand.”
Curran pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. “We will talk again, Mrs. Van Gelder.”
She looked up at him and for a fleeting moment her face softened. “My husband . . . Van Gelder . . . does he know?”
Curran nodded. “Yes, he knows.”
He had released Van Gelder that morning, a sad, broken man. “Not my Viktoria,” he had said repeatedly, as if trying to convince himself.
Curran strode out of the room, leaving Viktoria Van Gelder to consider the failure of her plans.
Kent was another matter. This was personal. He had considered Kent, or Foster as he had known him, a friend and felt the same sense of betrayal as any of Kent’s Singapore friends would when the truth came out about his history.
He spent a long moment studying the man in front of him.
Kent bore little resemblance to the dapper member of the Explorers Club and stalwart of the Singapore Cricket Club. His linen suit was crumpled and stained, his face blurred with graying bristle and he smelled rank. However, he still retained his upright bearing, and the gaze that met Curran’s bore no trace of fear . . . or regret.
“VOC,” Curran said, “stood for the names Viktoria, Oswald and Charles. How did you know Oswald Newbold?”
“We were at Sandhurst together,” Kent replied. “He was an odious little reptile then. What do they say, Curran? Birds of a feather?” He paused, a muscle twitching in his cheek. “Speaking of which, did I ever tell you I knew your father? He was an ensign in the South Sussex when I was with them on the northern frontiers.”
Curran’s blood ran cold. “My father has nothing to do with this affair,” he said stiffly. “He’s been dead nearly thirty years.”
A humorless smile played around Kent’s eyes. “Is he?”
