by A. M. Stuart
The world did not need John Lawson’s confession, particularly his son, who would live under its shadow for the rest of his life. He took a deep draw on the pipe. Those who had been present to hear it would keep their peace, of that he could be certain.
FIFTY
Harriet sat on the verandah of St. Thomas House, watching the rain fall on the leaves of the mango tree and letting her fingers play with the soft, sleeping head of the drowsing, purring kitten. The school gate squeaked and Julian, holding an umbrella large enough to cover both himself and William Lawson, came hurrying around the side of the house.
They dashed up the front steps and stopped in the shelter of the verandah. Julian shook out the umbrella and closed it, propping it against the rail.
“Are you wet, Will?” Harriet asked as the boy came forward and took the dozing Shashti from her lap.
The boy shook his head, snuggling the little cat up against his chin. Harriet looked up and caught Julian’s eye. Julian shook his head in silent answer to her question. Harriet swallowed. As agreed, it fell to her to break the news to the boy.
“Do be a dear and see if you can rustle us up some tea,” Harriet said to her brother.
“Are you sure . . . ?” Julian began uncertainly.
“Yes, quite sure.”
Alone with the boy, she indicated the seat beside her. “Will,” she began when he had sat down, “it’s about your father . . .”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Will said in a small, flat voice.
“Yes, he died this morning.”
Will cuddled Shashti tighter and the kitten let out a protesting mew.
“Reverend Edwards and I were with him,” Harriet said. “There was nothing the doctors could do.”
The boy bit his lip and his eyes welled with tears.
“It’s all right to cry,” Harriet said, wishing he would. “I don’t believe in any of this stiff-upper-lip nonsense and it’s only me and Shashti to see.”
Will’s rigid shoulders slumped and he looked up at her, the unshed tears brimming over and rolling down his cheeks. “Is it true what the other boys are saying? Was Papa a bad man?”
Of course, he would have to know one day but for now the fact that his father was a double murderer would be too much to bear. “Your father did some very foolish things, Will, but he did them out of love for you and your mother. He wanted what was best for you.”
Will’s head drooped and a large tear splashed onto Shashti’s brindled coat. Harriet slipped her arm around the unresisting child and drew him in to her. He crumpled, burying his face in her lap. She stroked his head as his shoulders heaved.
“I s’pose,” Will said at last in a voice muffled by Harriet’s skirt, “I’ll have to go to England now and live with Aunt Catherine.”
“No,” said Harriet. “That is, not unless you want to. How would it be if you came to live here with me and Reverend Edwards?”
Will raised his head and sat up. “Live at the school?”
“No, I mean live here at St. Thomas House with us and Shashti and Huo Jin and Lokman and Aziz . . . It’s not quite the same as a normal family but we would like to have you, and”—she hesitated, gathering her courage—“it is what your papa wanted.”
Will gave a hiccup and threw his arms around her waist, pressing his head against her stays.
“And I wouldn’t ever have to go to England?”
There was no money to send him to school in England, Harriet thought grimly. As it was, Julian had already pleaded a case of dire necessity to the school governors to grant Will a scholarship to stay on at St. Thomas. Any schooling beyond the age of eleven would have to be done through another local school but they would cross that bridge when they came to it.
She heard Julian’s footsteps. “Here I come with the tea,” he said, rather too loudly.
Will sat up and Harriet passed him her clean handkerchief. He wiped his nose and eyes and by the time Julian stepped out onto the verandah, Will was sitting bolt upright, his face flushed and tearstained but otherwise calm.
Julian cast a quick glance at Harriet. “How do you like your tea, Will?”
“With sugar, please,” the boy said. He looked up at Julian. “Is it true what Mrs. Gordon said? That I can live here with you?”
Julian nodded. “Yes, quite true, young man. I spoke with the school governors this morning and they have approved it. You’ll be a day student.”
Harriet saw the quick tightening of Julian’s lips. John Lawson’s estate would barely provide enough money to supplement the household costs. She would have to look for some paying clients, preferably ones who didn’t get themselves killed within twenty-four hours of their acquaintance.
A now-familiar horse turned in through the gate and Harriet waved to Robert Curran as he dismounted. Aziz came running out to take the horse and Curran joined them on the verandah, dripping water around his boots as he took off his rain slicker and hat.
“I always seem to arrive in a rainstorm,” he complained, running a hand through his hair.
“You do insist on arriving on horseback,” Harriet pointed out.
Curran pulled a face. “I told you, I despise that motor vehicle.”
Harriet smiled. “I rather like them. I must ask your Constable Tan how fast it goes. Huo Jin, another cup, please. Inspector Curran, you will join us for tea?”
Before she went on her errand, Huo Jin hesitated, her gaze on the boy.
“It true what the tuan says? Young master Will coming to live here? Long time since children in this house,” she said.
Will looked up at Harriet.
“Huo Jin, why don’t you take Will and show him his room?” Harriet suggested.
She waited until Huo Jin and Will had disappeared into the house, the unexpected sound of her normally surly servant’s happy chatter fading away.
“Someone is pleased with the new arrangement,” Julian said. “Who would have thought it?”
“Inspector Curran, tea to your preference, black, one sugar?” Harriet inquired, appropriating Julian’s cup.
Curran smiled. “We’ve obviously spent far too much time in each other’s company, Mrs. Gordon. Thank you, that is perfect.” He took the cup. “Lawson’s funeral will be tomorrow. You may like to know that I will be recommending to the coroner that Newbold’s death and that of his servant were brought about by person or persons unknown.”
Harriet stared at him. “But . . .”
Curran studiously stirred his tea. “Justice for Newbold and Nyan has been served. As far as I am concerned I heard nothing in that room except the feverish ravings of a dying man. Hardly evidential.”
Julian glanced at his sister and cleared his throat. “If I were to be asked, Inspector, I would have to concur, and anything said by Lawson to me in his dying moments will have the seal of the confessional. Harriet?”
“The man was delirious, out of his mind with pain and grief,” she said, adding, “How will you handle the newspapers?”
“Maddocks has the much bigger story about Kent and the VOC to keep him and his readers amused.” Curran took a sip of the tea and hefted a sigh. “How did the boy take it?”
Harriet shrugged. “As you would expect, but he does seem rather pleased with the idea of living here, with us.” She glanced at Julian.
“I wouldn’t want to live with my headmaster,” Julian said.
“Or me,” agreed Curran. “Terrifying man. His name was Ivor Bulley.”
“Really?” Harriet asked.
“On my honor,” Curran said. “Do you mind me asking about the finances?”
Julian set his cup down. “I’ve been to see the lawyers. Clive Strong—do you know him? It’s doubtful Lawson had much saved. There may be a bit of cash after the chattels at the plantation are sold up but nothing more. What he earned for his part in the ruby smu
ggling he gambled away in Chinatown.”
Harriet glanced at her brother. “Julian and I are agreed that as we are Will’s legal guardians it’s our responsibility to give him the sort of life he deserves.”
Julian reached out and put a hand on his sister’s arm. “I’m afraid, dear Harriet, you may have to continue with your work as a shorthand typist.”
Harriet rolled her eyes. “I shall just hope that my future clients won’t prove quite as troublesome as Sir Oswald Newbold.” Across the rim of her teacup, her gaze met that of Curran’s. His eyebrow quirked.
“I suspect, my dear Mrs. Gordon, that a quiet life is not to your taste,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I have a proposition for you. The Detective Branch is in sore need of a competent shorthand typist and I was wondering if you would be interested in such a position?”
Harriet’s mouth fell open. “But . . . but . . . I’m a woman,” she said.
“Yes, that was Cuscaden’s reaction too, but I persuaded him that you were absolutely reliable, thoroughly discreet and not at all squeamish. Three days a week, paid. If that would suit you?”
“Suit me? Oh, Curran . . .” Harriet had to restrain herself from leaping across the tea table to give the man a hug. “You are the answer to a prayer. Three days means I can still put in two days at the school to earn my keep here.”
“And no more villainous clients,” Julian said. “What a relief!”
“Good. That’s settled.” Curran stood up. “Start Monday and you will need to provide your own typewriter for the moment, until I can secure a more suitable machine.” He turned at the step and looked back at her. “And I warn you, I have atrocious handwriting.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In 1910 the Straits Settlements comprised three British colonies: Singapore, Malacca and Penang. Four other states on what is now the Malay Peninsula (Selangor, Perak, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang) agreed to form a federation under the protection and administration of the British government. The remaining five Malay states (Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis, and Terengganu) were also nominally under British “protection” but did not share the common institutions of the federated states. It is a matter of history that independence came after a bitter struggle to Malaya, or Malaysia, as it is now called, in 1957. Singapore separated from Malaysia in 1965.
However, as far as my characters are concerned, that is all in the future and this story is set within the Straits Settlements—specifically the strategically important island of Singapore—in the years before the First World War.
Re-creating a colonial Singapore, long since disappeared under a thoroughly modern city, was not possible without access to the National Archives of Singapore. I drew heavily on the digitized back editions of the Straits Times. It was in a 1905 edition of the Straits Times that I first saw the advertisement that inspired Harriet Gordon. These wonderful newspapers, filled with news of new arrivals, house auctions, sales, typewriter repairs and musical evenings at the Hotel Van Wijk, kept me occupied for hours. The opening of the Anderson Bridge on March 12, 1910, was the highlight of the year and I have used the newspaper account to record that particular scene.
The fun, as always, is blending fact and fiction, and I’m happy to report that while the Hotel Van Wijk, famous for its tiffin curries and ice creams (and the Austrian Ladies’ brass band), was a very real institution on Stamford Road, it was not, as far as I know, ever staffed by a murderous gang of jewel thieves.
At the time of the story the Straits Settlements Police Force was presided over by the very real Inspector General W. A. “Tim” Cuscaden, who was a great innovator in techniques of investigation. The magnificent Central Police Station on South Bridge Road and the law courts it faced were, tragically, pulled down in the 1970s and exist only in photographs.
A Straits Settlements Police Force Detective Branch had been formed in the late nineteenth century. However, I confess to being an author and making things up! The Detective Branch as I envision it, including Curran and his staff, is entirely fictional.
Likewise St. Tom’s school and staff are also fictional, although schools of this sort existed throughout the colonies with boys (and girls) packed off to boarding schools in England as soon as they turned eleven (or earlier), as I would have been had my parents remained in Africa. It was unlikely they saw their parents again throughout their entire secondary schooling. In an odd coincidence, however, long after I had named and situated my fictional St. Thomas Church of England Preparatory School for English Boys on River Valley Road, I glanced at a map and there was a real street called St. Thomas Walk running off River Valley Road. It was meant to be.
I also invented the Explorers and Geographers Club, but the Singapore Cricket Club, with its magnificent club house on the Padang, is still alive and well.
Speaking of fictional characters, I’d like to give some context behind Curran and Li An’s relationship. I want to be clear that Curran and Li An share a complex relationship borne of a mutual need and respect for each other. There is no implication intended that this is any sort of unequal relationship. Theirs is a genuine love affair cloaked in the veneer of what would be seen as acceptable to the society they inhabit.
Batavia, which is mentioned several times, was the capital of the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) and was roughly where modern-day Jakarta is situated. Like the British, Dutch colonization of the area did not end until after World War II.
I have drawn, consciously and unconsciously, on my own father’s reminiscences. He served in the British army and was stationed in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia (or Malaya, as it was then) for some time during the Malayan Emergency of the 1950s. “Satu empat jalan” (one for the road) was one of his favorite phrases. At one point in his schooling, Dad had a headmaster called Ivor Bulley. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and poor Mr. Bulley (who was, by all accounts, a very nice man) has finally achieved immortality.
A. M. Stuart
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Singapore Sapphire could not have been written without the assistance and encouragement of a number of people, beginning with the ANZA Writers Group, which I belonged to during my three years in Singapore. I want to mention in particular Julie Vellacott, who beta read the final story and provided invaluable feedback.
I would also like to acknowledge my current writers group, the Saturday Ladies Bridge Club (particularly Ebony and Carol, who also beta read Singapore Sapphire). As a group they have walked the road with me and have been there to ply me with tea and sympathy during Harriet’s long journey to publication.
Many friends have helped along the way, providing beta reads, information and general encouragement, and I would like to mention in particular Michelle, Kandy, Carla and Ryan.
A huge thank-you to my agent, Kevan Lyon, and my Berkley editor, Michelle Vega, who believed in Harriet!
Finally, and in no way least, my husband, David, to whom this book is dedicated. I am blessed to have a life partner who loves Harriet and Robert and is more than happy to go on research trips with me, critique with his red pen and brainstorm mad plot ideas.
Helen Beardsley Photographer
Born in Africa, author A. M. Stuart has traveled extensively and has lived in Kenya, Singapore and Australia. She is the author of the Guardians of the Crown historical romance series published by Harlequin Australia, and her books have been nominated for multiple international awards.
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