Umbrella Man (9786167611204)

by Needham, Jake

  A progression like that, Tay knew, did not bode particularly well for his future.

  SIX

  THE NEXT MORNING Tay was in his office at the Police Cantonment Complex before seven. He had never been in his office at seven before and he was mildly surprised to see it looked pretty much the same as it did around ten when he ordinarily turned up.

  Actually, everything in the CID offices at the Cantonment Complex looked pretty much like it always did, and Tay couldn’t understand that either. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find. People running around and shouting, perhaps; telephones ringing everywhere, certainly; handheld radios crackling with static, maybe. But he found none of these things. The whole Cantonment Complex was quiet, almost sleepy. If Tay hadn’t known better, he would have sworn nothing of any interest to the police could possibly have occurred in Singapore in weeks, perhaps even in months.

  Sergeant Kang hadn’t arrived yet, and Tay wasn’t sure what he was going to do with himself until somebody brought him up to date on the state of the investigation into the bombings, so he headed straight upstairs to report to the Senior Assistant Commissioner who commanded CID. That was jumping the chain of command a little — the usual thing to do would have been to go first to his immediate superior, the Officer in Charge of the Special Investigation Section — but the OC wasn’t in his office and the sooner Tay announced to somebody he was ready to go back to work, the sooner he would be back at work tracking down the bombers.

  The SAC’s office was on sixteen, one floor above Tay’s. Too impatient to wait for the elevator, Tay took the stairs. The reception area was deserted so he walked straight to the inner door that led to the SAC’s office and knocked. He heard no response, so he knocked again and tried the door. When it opened, he leaned in and saw the SAC’s office was empty, too.

  What the hell was going on here?

  Tay thought about going back to his own office until everyone else turned up, but the only files he had been working on before the bombings were matters that now seemed utterly inconsequential. How could he waste time investigating a policeman who had presumably groped a schoolgirl on a bus or a hit and run that may or may not have involved a minor politician when the heart of the city’s tourist district lay in ruins and hundreds of dead bodies were piled up somewhere? It was unseemly.

  Not being able to think of anything more productive to do, Tay sat down in one of the blue upholstered chairs in the SAC’s reception area to wait. The chair was as uncomfortable as it looked and he shifted his weight around trying to find a way to sit that didn’t hurt something. He would really have liked a cigarette right then, but even the thought of smoking in police headquarters was about as alien to him as trying to imagine Sergeant Kang having sex. He looked at his watch and was just trying to make up his mind how long to wait when the SAC’s secretary came in.

  “Why, Inspector Tay, what are you doing here?” The young woman went to her desk and tucked her purse underneath it. “We thought you were in the hospital.”

  “They threw me out.”

  The woman looked puzzled, as well she might have.

  The SAC’s secretary was Malay, Tay was pretty sure of that, and he was desperately trying to remember her name, but nothing at all came to him. She looked awfully young, and she was certainly attractive — light brown skin and dark brown eyes sparkling under her long black bangs — but she hadn’t worked for the SAC very long and Tay simply couldn’t think of her name.

  When it became obvious Tay wasn’t going to say anything else, the woman sat down behind her desk and cleared her throat uncertainly. “Is he expecting you?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m ready to get to work. And when I came in there was nothing on my desk so I’m here to get my assignment.”

  It seemed to Tay the young woman looked decidedly uncomfortable at that, although he couldn’t imagine why.

  “We didn’t know you were available for duty again. We thought…well, we heard your injuries were pretty serious.”

  “They weren’t.”

  “Yes. Well…I can see that. I guess.”

  Tay was still trying to work out what this woman was so uncomfortable about when the SAC walked in.

  “Sam! What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were…”

  “They discharged me yesterday, sir,” Tay interrupted. “I’m ready to get back to work.”

  “Are you?”

  The SAC exchanged a look with his secretary. Tay could see the SAC looked uncomfortable now, too. What in the world was going on here?

  “Well…okay, Sam, come on in.” The SAC pointed to his office door as if Tay might not be certain where it was. “Hold my calls for a few minutes, Rachel.”

  Rachel?

  Tay was reasonably sure he had met the SAC’s secretary at least once or twice before — how could he not have? — but he didn’t think he had ever heard the name Rachel. Maybe he had never met this woman after all. Maybe he was thinking of somebody else altogether. Maybe he was just getting old and starting to have difficulty remembering things.

  ***

  Tay took a straight chair and Deputy Superintendent of Police Tan Kim Leng settled into the big leather chair behind his desk. Tay had always thought the SAC looked more like a professor at some not very prosperous college than he did a policeman. He was small and slim and altogether unremarkable in appearance. He habitually wore plain short-sleeved white shirts and dark wash-and-wear slacks and his glasses were generally askew, the frames heavy and black and inexpensive looking.

  The SAC flicked some imaginary dust off his desk blotter and cleared his throat. He swiveled the chair slightly left and then back to the right again. It squeaked softly in the silent office.

  Tay waited.

  “Are you sure you’re ready to go back to work, Sam?”

  “Yes, sir. Absolutely certain. I assume you need all the men you can get right now.”

  “Well…” The SAC appeared to ponder. “We’re not really all that busy. You could take another couple of weeks if you like. It wouldn’t be a problem. Make sure you’re fit. Wouldn’t want to come back too soon, would you?”

  Tay wasn’t certain he had heard right.

  “Not busy?”

  The SAC shook his head.

  “You’ve arrested the bombers already?”

  “Well…no.”

  “Then I don’t understand.”

  “ISD’s doing most of the heavy lifting on that, Sam. We’re just…well, we’re acting in more of a support role.”

  The Internal Security Department. Those little pricks had already grabbed the most important case CID would ever have.

  “CID isn’t investigating the bombings at all, Chief?”

  “I didn’t say that. We’re helping out ISD, of course.”

  “Who are you looking at?”

  The SAC looked confused. “You mean at ISD?”

  Tay took a deep breath and tried again. “For the bombings, sir. Who are you looking at for the bombings?”

  “Oh, I see,” the SAC said. “ISD figures it’s Jemaah Islamiyah. I mean, who else could it be?”

  When the CIA had grabbed Hambali, the publicity-seeking leader of the Indonesian terrorist group, Jemaah Islamiyah, most people wrote JI off as a spent force, if it had ever been a force at all. Tay knew people who knew better. With Hambali out of the picture, his slot had quickly been filled by his brother, Rusman Gundawan, a man known for very little other than his all too appropriate nickname: Gun Gun.

  Gun Gun kept the organization going for a while and even moved it in some new and frightening directions. When the CIA got Gun Gun, too, he told them about a seventeen-member JI group called the Guraba Cell which had been trained in Karachi to undertake broad-based attacks all around the Pacific rim. The world was on alert for Arabs, not Asians, which allowed the all-Asian membership of the Guraba Cell to approach targets in ways other terrorists could only dream of. Gun Gun had insisted they were preparing for 9/11-style attacks on the Am
erican west coast, but a fair number of people believed then, and still believed, the real targets of the Guraba Cell were closer to home. Places like Jakarta, Bali, and…Singapore.

  “Do you have any firm evidence that points to JI, sir?”

  “Well…” The SAC scratched his necked and consulted the ceiling. “That would be mostly on ISD’s plate, Sam. We’re stuck with the less glamorous part of the investigation.”

  “Such as what?”

  The SAC cleared his throat and looked away, but he didn’t say anything.

  “It doesn’t really matter to me, sir. Just bring me up to speed on whatever it is you need and I’ll get right on it.”

  The SAC rubbed at his eyes and yawned. Tay finally registered how exhausted he looked. Red-rimmed eyes, sallow skin, sagging jowls. Tay could only imagine why.

  ***

  The SAC shifted his weight in his chair and studied a spot in the air that was about a foot above Tay’s head.

  “A call was referred to CID this morning,” he said. “A body at the Woodlands HDB Estate. I sent Danny Ong and Sergeant Lee. But I’ll bring them back and put them on something else. Why don’t you and Kang take it?”

  “A body, sir?”

  The SAC nodded.

  “At the Woodlands HDB Estate?”

  The SAC nodded again.

  “What’s that got to do with the bombings?”

  “Well…nothing, as far as I know. But I’ve got plenty of people on the bombings, Sam. ISD is calling the shots there anyway. You probably wouldn’t be very happy working with them.”

  “These bombings are the biggest case we’ve ever had in Singapore, sir.”

  The SAC said nothing.

  “This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to Singapore.”

  The SAC said nothing.

  “And you want me to investigate one dead body found about as far away from here as it’s possible to get and still be in the country? Are you out of your mind?”

  The SAC lifted his index finger and pointed it at Tay. “Watch it, Sam. I know you’ve just been through a major trauma, and generally I give you a lot of latitude because you’ve been around here so long, but I will not tolerate disrespect.”

  Tay was so angry he couldn’t contain himself. He stood up and pointed right back at the SAC.

  “Why are you doing this to me, Chief?”

  It’s not me, you idiot. It’s—” Abruptly, the SAC stopped talking and looked away. “You’ve made a lot of enemies, Sam.”

  “Who are you talking about, sir?”

  “This came straight from the Minister of Home Affairs. You’re not to have any part in this investigation.”

  “The minister? Why does he care about me one way or another?”

  “It’s not just him. He’s —” Again the SAC stopped talking. He stood up and turned until he was facing the windows with his back to Tay. Then he clasped his hands behind him. “It’s the Americans, too, Sam.”

  “What have the Americans got to do with this?”

  “We need their help with the forensics, and we need access to the intelligence they have. They’re all over this investigation. The American ambassador told the Minister of Home Affairs they didn’t want you involved in any way.”

  “He did?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the minister agreed to that?”

  “Yes. He did.”

  When Tay had led the investigation of the American woman whose nude body had been found at the Singapore Marriott, he knew he hadn’t made any friends at the American embassy, but he hadn’t thought that mattered very much. It was his job to solve crimes, not to make friends, certainly not out of a bunch of fat, overpaid American government employees. And he had solved that murder just like he had solved so many before, even when it was obvious a lot of people didn’t want him to solve it. He had figured the acrimony would blow over soon enough. Apparently he had been wrong.

  “I’m sorry, Sam. My hands are tied.”

  Tay said nothing. He didn’t think the SAC looked all that sorry actually, but he decided he wouldn’t accomplish anything by saying so.

  “So what’s it going to be, Sam? Do you want to take a few weeks off. Or do you want me to assign you and Sergeant Kang to that body at the Woodlands HDB estate?

  SEVEN

  THE WOODLANDS HDB estate is on the far north edge of Singapore right up against the narrow Jahor Strait that separates Singapore from Malaysia. The jungle is so thick monkeys emerge from it and sit by the side of the road waiting to be fed.

  Singaporeans have an expression for those parts of their tiny island state that are like the Woodlands, places far removed from the tourist and financial districts most of the world recognizes. They call them the heartland. Tay had never liked the expression very much. He always thought it sounded patronizing.

  Tay looked out the window and thought about the distance between where they were going and where he lived. It took less than an hour to drive to the Woodlands from Emerald Hill, but it was really a lot further away than that.

  A government agency called the Housing Development Board has been relentlessly throwing up pre-planned, pre-packaged villages all over Singapore for as long as Tay could remember, and every one of them looks more or less the same. Identical apartment towers are designated by block numbers and clumped into groups with community facilities between them. Every estate has a mosque, a Chinese temple, a Christian church, a community club, a coffee shop, a mini-mart, and a school.

  Everything is immaculate. The buildings are all freshly painted and the landscaping is perfectly trimmed, mostly by Indian and Bangladeshi workers permitted into the country on short-term work visas to do the manual labor Singaporeans won’t do.

  Well planned and perfectly maintained, Tay thought the make-believe villages of the heartland had nearly everything, everything that is except a heart. They were storehouses for people, not real places where the daily messiness of bona fide human life was found. Tay hated them.

  ***

  Sergeant Kang turned off Woodlands Avenue at the Shell Station onto Woodlands Street. He followed it to Woodlands Drive, then turned into Woodlands Circle. A few hundred yards up, he pulled to the curb behind a blue and white fast response car parked at one of the apartment buildings.

  The building was about a dozen stories tall and looked absolutely identical in height, color, and design to all the other buildings Tay had seen from the car window over the last ten minutes. The concrete facade was painted in alternating colors of gray, yellow, and green, the color of each level having been chosen at what appeared to be random, but if the idea behind either the colors or the apparent randomness of their distribution was to try to make the buildings appear more cheerful, Tay thought that was stupid. It was laughably typical of what he would expect from the sort of people who seemed to plan everything in Singapore these days.

  “Where are we going?” he asked Sergeant Kang.

  “There, sir.”

  Kang pointed to the building closest to them. On the fourth level at the corner was a large sign that said 374. That was the block number of the building and Tay wondered if that meant there were at least 374 identical apartment buildings in the Woodlands. He certainly hoped not, but he knew it was at least possible.

  Tay got out of the car and stood for a moment waiting for Sergeant Kang to lock up. They were parked in a circle surrounded by eight identical high-rise buildings. There were half a dozen cars and a few motorcycles parked on the street, but there was no sign of human activity anywhere. No music on the breeze, no conversation in the distance, no flashes of movement. The place was as barren and sterile as anywhere Tay could ever remember being. If it hadn’t been for the laundry drying on a few of the metal poles extending horizontally above each balcony, Tay would have wondered if anyone lived here at all.

  If the heartland has a heartland, he thought, this is it.

  ***

  Two uniformed patrolmen were waiting outside the door to the seven
th floor apartment. One had a notebook and pen and appeared to have been allotted the responsibility of maintaining a list of everyone attending the scene. That couldn’t have been a very difficult task since Tay heard no sound from beyond the doorway to indicate anyone else was there. The other patrolman had an even easier job. His role was to keep the curious away from the crime scene, but since the hallway contained not another soul, curious or otherwise, he didn’t have anything to do either.

  Tay reminded himself they didn’t actually know yet whether this was a crime scene at all. Perhaps some poor bastard had simply arrived at the end of his allotted time on earth exactly as everyone eventually did. He supposed he would find out soon enough.

  “Who discovered the body?” Tay addressed the question to the air about halfway between the two patrolmen and allowed himself a moment of private speculation as to which would respond.

  “Two kids, sir.”

  It was the one on the left holding the notebook who answered his question. Tay had guessed wrong.

  “Kids?”

  “Yes, sir. They live down there.” The patrolman point at another apartment near the end of the hall. “They said they were playing out here and found the door open. So they went in. Their mother called us when they told her what they’d found.”

  “They just went in?”

  The patrolman shrugged. “Kids. What can you do?”

  “Have you interviewed the mother?” Kang asked.

  “Yes, sir. She phoned it in after her kids told her what they’d found. She hasn’t been in the apartment.”

  “Does she know who lives here?”

  The patrolman glanced at his notebook. “She says it’s owned by a man named Ching Wo Hin. He’s eighty-three.”