Without a comment, Maxim took the rifle from me and then, with blistering speed, loaded, aimed and fired. From this distance the new hole appeared dead centre.
He grunted like it was an acceptable shot, but I could see he was pleased. He was happy with me and satisfied he’d proved himself my superior.
“Consider yourself hired.”
We walked back to the hotel. I said, “What if I don’t want the job?”
“You want the job.”
“What’s the pay?”
“Forty shillings and six pence a week.”
I didn’t comment. It was more than army pay but less than I’d been getting in my previous job.
“Food and lodgings?” I asked.
He inclined his head. “Of course. Now get your things and meet me outside.”
When I came down with my bag, Maxim was sitting in the passenger seat of a Land Rover. It was painted with a camouflage pattern and had Perak Protection stencilled on the side. He pointed and I climbed into the passenger seat.
We went north along Route One. When I tried to make conversation he put me in my place.
“Now you’re one of my men,” he said gruffly, “you treat me as the officer. You only speak when spoken to, got it?”
“Yes, sir,” I said with appropriate deference. That would be a nuisance. If I was to do the job that Edward Symes had commissioned me for, I needed to talk to people, and Maxim was my initial contact.
We reached the state town of Perak and Maxim went into a bank. He returned with a tin the size of a large book. It had a metal handle and lock. It didn’t look very secure but then I figured Maxim didn’t worry about such things.
From Perak we turned south-west on a road that took us through wetlands and along the route of the Kinta River.
On the outskirts of a town called Batu Gajah we parked by a long timber shed. The wood was shiplapped and I guessed it had once been a sawmill. There was another identical Land Rover parked outside.
The militia logo was painted on the side of the hut and I knew this would be home for at least a week, maybe two if Symes was right.
My first objective was to find out what had happened to a chap called Sid Wilding. He was the dead guy, the assessor sent to find out about the stolen money.
The Perak Protection Force had recently lost a soldier. I wondered whether this was my man, whether Wilding had gone undercover like me.
I soon learned this was something else altogether.
Singapore Girl_An edge of your seat thriller that will have you hooked Page 31
