Singapore Noir

by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

  “She’s already pregnant.” There was a rising rage in Simon’s voice. “There’s nothing you can do this time.”

  “Sir, what are you—” Natalia started.

  “Shut up!” Simon snapped. “I’m going to marry her and there’s nothing you can do about it, Pa.”

  The old man shot out of his wheelchair and his right hand curled around her neck. Her plate of rice fell to the floor, shattering. The man’s hands felt like sandpaper on her throat. Simon did not raise a hand to help.

  “You’re going to kill her too?” Simon’s hands then locked around his father’s right wrist. “Is that what you want?”

  Her fingers searched the table. She found a fork and quickly stabbed Simon’s father on the head. He did not let go, even as blood streamed down his gnarled face. She struck again with all the strength she could muster.

  This time, the force made him let go and Natalia jumped away. Simon shouted at his father in Hokkien. The old man crumpled to the floor, bleeding. Natalia dashed to the door and bolted out, ignoring Simon’s shouts.

  The security guard downstairs was reading a newspaper and didn’t even look up when she came out. She ran home in the rain. Then she dialed 999.

  * * *

  It was odd to read about the case in the newspaper, with Natalia as the star.

  The paper said that XueLing and Simon had been seeing each other. The old man, incensed over his son’s relationship with a “Chinese dog” and his desire to marry her, leaped out of his wheelchair and wrapped his hands around her throat. Unlike Natalia, she lost the struggle.

  Out of filial duty, Simon hadn’t reported his father. Instead, he hatched a plan. Dressing XueLing in red, he painted her nails and slipped her into the reservoir. He hoped she would return as a spirit and avenge her death.

  Natalia spotting him that morning had been his undoing. And so he’d hatched another clumsy plan, one that would silence her. But both father and son ended up in prison—both were expected to spend their remaining days there.

  That evening, Natalia headed to the reservoir, escaping her small room once again. The Chans would be back shortly, a distraction she now welcomed. In the last peaceful moments before they returned, however, she wended her way over to the water. Placing her hands together, she prayed—for XueLing, for her spirit, for the power of her red vengeance.

  MURDER ON ORCHARD ROAD

  BY NURY VITTACHI

  Orchard Road

  His New Year’s resolution was to give up murders. Murders were horrible, messy, smelly, difficult, heart-rending things. And not nearly as profitable as they used to be.

  “Red or white?” the waiter asked.

  “Tea,” C.F. Wong responded.

  The feng shui master sat at a table at the ballroom of the Raffles Hotel, thinking about the trajectory of his career. For many years, he’d been a geomancer specializing in scenes of crime. He had masterfully cornered the niche, aided by the fact that no one else wanted it. Which was not surprising. His competitors had conditioned themselves for years to recoil from anything that could even metaphorically be associated with death, from kitchen knives to broken bowls.

  So crime was Wong’s patch alone. Tenant murdered? The landlord would pay Wong to “do his feng shui thing,” to cleanse the place so it could be rented out again. Gang wars in your district? Wong would fix the bad vibes so that all the negative energy would move out of the area.

  But lately, his job had started to depress him. He began to realize what his young assistant meant when she said that murders were “real downers.” The dead body and the room in which it was found were often in a highly unpleasant condition. You spent your time in dark corners, breathing foul air, dealing with unhappy people, one of whom might be an actual killer.

  The money had compensated for that, but even this delight was seeping away. Property prices had risen so high in Singapore that people no longer shied away from renting places where horrible things had happened. Some tenants even sought them out for the discount from the market price. Thus, Wong’s share of the pie was shrinking daily.

  His rivals in geomancy preferred to work for stupid rich people, who would pay them vast sums for visiting their luxury homes. They worked in mansions, sipping silver tip tea and sitting on designer sofas as they spouted random platitudes about chi and the flying star school and the flow of good luck. And these days, they usually got paid more than he did.

  So Wong had decided to taste the easy life. Step one had been to muscle his way into the “designer” feng shui business, offering his services to event organizers.

  After weeks of pitching, he had been hired to oversee the geomantic side of the arrangements at a major car racing event. This wasn’t Singapore’s famous Formula One race. This was a grudge-match-as-spectacle showdown between Emerson Brahms and Andreletti Nelson, who were among the world’s greatest racing champions. The men had long been archrivals, although it was hard to tell whether they really hated each other or were just media-savvy enough to know that finger-wagging and fist-thrusting attracted TV cameras.

  Wong had checked the feng shui of all the venues, including this gorgeously decorated pink-walled room at the luxurious hotel on Beach Road—an avenue at the heart of the urban district, many kilometers from the nearest beach. The only major negative he had found was a grotesque clash between the event date and the birthday of the main sponsor, a businessman named Lim Cheong Li. But that had been solved easily enough. Arrangements had been made for the official opening of the event to be led by a Buddhist abbot named Sin Sar. This man had the perfect birthday in terms of earth roots and heavenly pillars. His presence would ensure the event would not just go well, but be an unforgettable triumph.

  Wong had promised the abbot a big lunch and a small fee, and gave him strict instructions: “Don’t say anything. Don’t do anything. Just sit there. Pretend you don’t know English. When they give you a bell, just ring it. Then sit down and shut up. Shut up all the time. Got it?”

  The man had nodded, but not without an audible sigh. “I’m not stupid,” he said, in his oddly high singsong voice.

  Wong had responded with a fake smile. The man was not stupid. But he was an idiot, all the same.

  * * *

  The event opened smoothly. Wong sat at the staff table at the back and watched the VIPs take their places at the top table. Abbot Sin Sar sat down and smiled stupidly at everyone. He accepted a big glass of red wine and grinned.

  Wong started mentally counting his money. He had given them a big invoice and had inserted a 20 percent “contingency fee” for unexpected events. Now all he needed to do was to create some plausible difficulty which would enable him to write in the 20 percent surcharge. No way was he letting that get away from him. This was going to be a good day. He sat back in his chair and reached for his tea.

  Which was when someone tapped his shoulder.

  “C.F., gotta talk to you,” said a voice he knew meant trouble.

  “Go away,” he spat, without turning.

  “This is important.”

  “Go away. THIS is important.”

  “Alberto’s dad is freaking out,” said Joyce McQuinnie, his assistant, who was suddenly standing next to him. She was talking in a stage whisper, much too loud, catching the attention of others at the table. “He’s totally lost it. I dunno what to do.”

  Wong paused for a moment. Alberto Siu Keung, a small fat young man obsessed with food, was always in and out of trouble—but his dad was the wealthy recluse Sigmund Siu Keung, a client who paid every bill, however absurdly inflated, without ever examining any of them. “I call him back later.”

  “It’s urgent. He says Alberto’s been arrested for killing two people. He said that if you don’t handle this now, he’ll go off and find some lawyer to take his money instead.”

  Wong rose to his feet.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, the two of them were in the luxurious Marina Bay home of Sigmund Siu Keung, known as the hilltop
hermit because he almost never left his home, and had once lived on a hilltop.

  “My son has been arrested. You find him,” Keung said, sitting so far away from his guests that the conversation almost had to be shouted.

  “Where is he?”

  “In a place with a palm tree on the pavement,” said the nervous old man, thin but solid as he sat on a distant oversized armchair in his pajamas and dressing gown.

  This sounded like the beginning of a longer utterance, but turned out not to be.

  “Like, can you give us more details?” Joyce asked. “Like what street, what district, what area, what building, et cetera?”

  Keung looked annoyed. “How can I know that? I am agoraphobic. You can’t expect me to know these things. I don’t know anywhere.”

  “Can you call him? We need the address. He must have a mobile?”

  The old man seemed exasperated now. “If I could call him, I would. Whoever detained him turned off his phone. I saw the man snatch the phone out of his hand.”

  Wong was confused. “You saw him?”

  “He sends me Facetimes.”

  The feng shui master looked blank.

  “It’s an app,” Joyce said. “No, wait. Never mind. You won’t know what that is.” She tried to think of the right way to describe it. “It’s like a video-phone thing? Like on Dick Tracy? You see someone’s face and they see yours? On the screen?”

  The geomancer said nothing.

  Keung explained: “Alberto was going to a job. He’s a food taster. Perfect job for him. I called him. He put me on Facetime, that’s a video-phone thing like this girl says. Says he has a job and can’t talk now. I don’t know anything else until an hour later, when he calls me again. This time he is frantic, worried. Before, the first time, he was outside, near a palm tree. Now he’s inside a building, all dark. Dad, he says, I’m being arrested. Get help. They say I poisoned two people. And then someone grabs his phone and it goes dead. So I called your office.”

  Wong nodded slowly. “So where is he? Where is he working? His job.”

  “I told you,” said Keung. “In a place with pavement out front and some palm trees.”

  “But that could be anywhere in Singapore.”

  “You are detectives. You find it.”

  Joyce leaned forward and gave the old tycoon her most winning smile. “Mr. Keung, we’d love to help. When Alberto was talking to you the first time, could you see where he was? Can you give us any details about the pavement, the trees, the buildings? What color were they, for example?”

  Keung thought for a moment. “The pavement was pavement-colored, sort of light-grayish, what else could it be? There was a building which was sort of darkish-brownish, or maybe gray. And the trees, well, they were tree-colored, of course—green leaves, gray trunk—what other color can trees be?”

  Wong stood up. “I have a very busy day today. We need to get this finished. We need a taxi. Find this place. You look around, tell us when we get there.”

  Keung was horrified. “No way. I have agoraphobia! You know that. I never leave this house. Nothing you say will make me go out that door.”

  * * *

  The sun was hidden by clouds as they drove through the central business district of Singapore. Sigmund Siu Keung lay down in the back of the car curled up in a fetal position, his hands over his face, still in pajamas and dressing gown. He swore under his breath.

  Wong sat next to the driver, his lips a tight line. The sports event seemed to be going okay. Maybe he didn’t need to be there. If he could help Keung with his son’s problem, he might be able to get an extra fee today. This could be good. Yet he didn’t feel celebratory. There were still too many variables.

  He turned around to stare at the old man huddled up on the backseat. Joyce, squashed against the door, was absently patting the shoulder of the hermit tycoon, as if he was some kind of large dog.

  “Mr. Keung?” she said. “Every time we get to a palm tree in front of a brownish building we’ll stop, and you sit up and take a look, okay?”

  Keung howled: “I am not going to open my eyes until you take me home again, you horrible bullies. I could sue you for kidnapping, do you realize that?”

  Finding the right spot turned out to be tricky, they discovered over the next twelve minutes. The problem was that Singapore appeared to consist entirely of palm trees, and every one of them had a brownish building in the near vicinity. The only helpful factor was that occasionally the pavement was pink, so those streets could be ignored.

  After several stops produced negative responses, Joyce tried to fish out more information. “Mr. Keung, can you remember anything else at all? Like sounds, were there any noises in the background?”

  “No,” the old man said. “Of course not. If there were I would have told you before.” Then his eyes shot open and he glanced at her. “Wait. Maybe.” He closed his eyes again. “There was a shhhhh sound. Like a tap, or water. Alberto raised his voice to speak over it. Probably a fountain behind him, or next to him.”

  “Good boy,” said Joyce, patting his head. “Okay, that gives us more to work with—a brownish building with palm trees and maybe a fountain in front.”

  The hermit rearranged himself so that his head was now on Joyce’s lap. She absentmindedly played with his hair.

  They traveled slowly down Orchard Road. They passed several places that seemed promising. And then Joyce jerked to attention and pointed out the window to her right. “There. Look,” she said. “That could be it.”

  Singapore’s overbright sun chose that moment to peek out from behind the clouds and shoot a laser death-ray into the car—and right through Keung’s eyelids. He groaned and curled himself up more tightly. “I want to go home,” he whined, cupping both hands over his face. “I’m an agoraphobic. I could have a heart attack. Then you two would be locked up for murder.”

  “Like your son,” growled Wong.

  “There, there,” said Joyce, patting the old man’s head again. “If this is the right place, we won’t have to drive around anymore. Just open your eyes and have a look. It’ll only take a second.” She spoke in the tone of a kindergarten teacher coaxing a recalcitrant child to do something. “I’ll say, Three, two, one, and then you jump up and take a look. Then you can put your head down again. Three. Two. One. Up you go!”

  She grabbed his shoulders and heaved him upward.

  They had stopped in front of Ngee Ann City, a shopping mall on Orchard Road. It had dark brown walls. There was a wide expense of gray pavement in front of it, a small fountain, and several palm trees. Joyce wound the window down so they could hear the fountain.

  “Yes, that’s it. Go inside and find him. Can I go home now?” Keung closed his eyes and lowered his head back into Joyce’s lap.

  Wong told the driver to move ahead slightly, where some construction was underway. The line of trees and stone buttresses preventing drivers from parking on the pavement was interrupted by a pile of pipes. The car edged onto the pavement just behind a road work sign.

  The geomancer scanned the scene. “Wait here,” he told the others. “I go see.”

  It didn’t take long to find the right place. Two police officers were hurrying into the building. Recognizing one of them, Wong followed.

  * * *

  The case was open-and-shut, said Detective Inspector Jonathan Shek, who was given to using ancient clichés from crime movies. As they moved up the escalator, the officer explained that it was a special day for the victims: “Today is Lap-ki and Hester Wu’s annual dinner. I think we all knew it was only a matter of time before that little tradition turned dark.”

  Wong nodded.

  The Wus were a “colorful” couple often described as “known to the police.” Lap-ki Wu had moved to Singapore from Southern China forty years ago as an industrious young man. There, he met a pretty actress called Hester Lum. They had married and enjoyed an astonishing run of luck on the shadier side of the business world. They moved five times in their fi
rst two years, upgrading each time. By their second decade together, he was an influential property developer, his land bank boasting holdings in several prime areas.

  But their relationship had been increasingly fiery, and they eventually learned to hate each other. Divorce was the obvious option—until they got the idea, probably planted by one of Wong’s colleagues in the feng shui industry, that doing so would ruin their luck. The pair was led to believe that their legendary good fortune would instantly vanish. So they separated, but did not divorce—and agreed to meet once a year for a token dinner, which they had been advised was the least they could do to keep the luck alive.

  As the years had gone by, each became convinced that if they died, the other would have somehow “won.” So they started to fear poisoning. Thus, they agreed to take turns organizing the food at the annual dinner, and an independent consultant provided a taster: this year, it was the young gourmand Alberto Siu Keung, who had actually taken a course in this unusual skill.

  As the two men marched toward the restaurant, Shek said: “I’ve had a full report from my men at the scene. Alberto Siu Keung tasted all the food, pronounced it clean, and watched it be taken into the room where Mr. and Mrs. Wu were having their annual dinner. The couple ate it, and seemed to be getting along reasonably well—in that they were stabbing their steaks, not each other. But after about ten or twelve minutes of eating, or so Alberto says, something went wrong. Lap-ki Wu started groaning and rubbing his stomach. Then whatever it was hit Hester Wu, and she started moaning too. The husband fell forward into his meal, spilling the drinks and smashing a glass. Mrs. Wu dropped her cutlery and her glass and slumped off the chair onto the floor. My man arrived just before the ambulance. He thought one or both of them had already stopped breathing. Extremely powerful poison.”

  Wong put his hand on the police officer’s upper arm. “Wait. So each one expects the other to be the killer. But both get killed at once?”

  “Yes. And the obvious candidate is the food taster, who we understand has been in and out of trouble all his life.”

  “Except he didn’t do it.”