As we were halfway out, we passed the guy in the turban. He turned and raised a hand.
“Someone should take a look at that,” he said in a gruff voice that belied his young looks.
“What?” Hegarty asked, bringing the Land Rover to a rolling stop.
“The engine.” His tone sounded a bit off and I wondered why he seemed concerned. “We could tune it for you.”
Hegarty grumbled, “It’s fine.”
The soldier looked at me, patted the door and smiled.
I was still wondering about the strange young man when Hegarty stopped beside the road, hidden from the BVD entrance.
He turned around and held out a piece of paper.
“That kid slipped me this note.”
EIGHT
The note said, Check out Ulu Tiram.
“What’s Ulu Tiram?” I asked.
Cole said, “It’s a wild goose chase, that’s what it is. We should go back—”
“Seriously, Jim, what is Ulu Tiram?”
“A town. It’s a place where some of the soldiers go for R and R. It’s not far from the jungle, if you’re into nature, and bars and girls if you’re into something else.”
Hegarty said, “There’s also some sort of base north of there with the jungle training guys.”
I hadn’t heard of either place. “How far from here?” I asked.
Hegarty shrugged. “Maybe five miles. Isn’t it worth going back in and questioning the kid?”
I noticed he directed this at me. “No,” I said. “He’d just clam up. There’s a reason why he gave us the note. He heard us talking to the sergeant. If it was all right to talk, he would have.”
Cole nodded. “I agree. We pick him up now and we might never find out what he knows. Let’s investigate this village.”
We came to the split in the road. Right to Route Three and then north to the village. Left was the airfield.
I said, “Transportation is a key requirement for a drugs operation, right?”
Cole looked at me. “Right.”
“Let’s take a look at this airfield.”
“The note said Ulu Tiram.”
“We aren’t in any kind of rush. We may as well do this now since we’re already here.”
“Fine,” he said after a pause. “Let’s pay the FTC a visit.”
Hegarty turned left and we headed down the road beside the runway. Close up we could see that it wasn’t an airfield at all. It was a proper runway that had once been tarred. Poor upkeep meant weeds pushed up along its whole length.
The buildings had offices and common rooms. The largest had RAF written above the door and a sign beside it. This was the squadron leader’s office.
Hegarty parked outside and Cole knocked on the door.
A clerk invited us in and moments later we were being introduced to Squadron Leader Alex Kennedy. Unlike all of the RAF men I’d ever met, Kennedy wasn’t young or slim or bright-eyed. Maybe he had once been all of those. Too long behind a desk, too long at this base, I supposed. However, despite his weary eyes, he gave me a big smile and a firm handshake.
“Welcome to the 656 Squadron, Tebrau airfield,” he said.
After introductions, Cole said, “What is this place? FTC specifically, I mean.”
Kennedy looked at the lieutenant askance, as though he should know, and then smiled. “MPs. Well I guess you don’t normally come across us. FTC stands for Flight Training Corps. We train pilots.”
“Out here?”
“Jungle flying isn’t the same as flying back in Blighty. Easy to get lost over the central regions in particular. Unless you’re trained, one bit of jungle looks like another. Plus, the Highlands suffer from a lot of fog. Anyway, we’re mostly about recon and surveillance.” He looked from Cole to me and back. “So how can I help you, gentlemen?”
Cole provided limited information, only that we were following up a lead about drugs.
I came straight out with it: “Could your planes be involved at all?”
Kennedy laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“Ever seen an Auster T7? Great little plane, for the job it does.”
I was no expert on planes and had to admit I didn’t know what one was.
“Come on, let’s walk,” Kennedy said.
He was out of the door and striding towards the hangars. The others followed almost as quickly but I trailed slightly behind because of my leg.
The first hangar had no doors and we went inside.
“There you go,” Kennedy said. “The illustrious T7.”
In fact, there were two in the hangar.
“They have a de Havilland Gipsy Major 7 engine. 145 horses and a larger prop than wartime Austers. And external non-retractable aerofoil flaps.” His tone said he wasn’t really impressed. I figured 145 horsepower wasn’t much for a plane.
I was looking at a small, over-wing monoplane. But the most important thing was the obvious lack of cargo space.
Kennedy said, “Two seats and twin controls.”
I said, “So not ideal for running drugs.”
“Not only that, but all the flight logs have to be filed. No way could anyone be diverting to pick up and drop drugs.”
“Anything else?” Cole asked after circling the nearest plane.
Kennedy smiled. “Well we have four of these, but let me show you what else.” He took us into the next hangar past two more T7s and then into the next. This one had a single plane. Although it was like no aeroplane I’d ever seen before. The first thing I noticed was that it had no wings. Then I spotted a giant propeller above the fuselage. I doubted it could fly.
“Avro Rota autogyro,” Kennedy said. “We just have a couple of pilots who can really fly this funny thing. But it’s the future, at least something like it. You don’t need a hundred-yard strip to take off and land. These things can land in a jungle clearing.”
Cole said, “The future?”
“Search and rescue is what it’s all about. Our role is changing. Less training in surveillance and more operational. A couple of months ago one of the lads rescued the wife of the main bandit leader down here—a district committee member, no less. Took her to hospital.” He shrugged and shook his head. “Sometimes I think the world has gone crazy. It’s all because of this new hearts and minds thing.”
He walked us around it and kept talking. “The latest incarnation has been developed apparently. They’re calling them helicopters.”
“It means spiral wing,” I said, “Like Da Vinci’s invention.”
“You got it. Some of the first ones are being shipped here to us—little old us—here in Malaya. We’ll switch to training pilots to fly those new things.”
This was getting diverted. Although interesting, I realized we were just an audience for the squadron leader. This wasn’t helping our investigation.
“Any other planes?” Cole asked, looking towards the next hangar door.”
“There’s another Auster that the humanitarian aid unit use—”
“Who?”
He laughed. “You know, the sick, lame and lazy squad. No good for anything else. So… they have an Auster for running aid goods back and forth, but you’ll be amazed at what else there is here.” Kennedy strode off again and this time took us outside and across to bigger, older hangars. The door creaked open and we stepped inside.
I saw nothing but ghostly outlines until he hit a light switch.
It was like a museum. Before me was a row of old planes, but something was off. These weren’t British and yet they were painted in RAF colours.
“Japanese,” the squadron leader said. “This used to be a Jap airfield in the war. This is where they were all brought at the end of the war with the intention of taking them back to Blighty. Some made it. Most didn’t. I don’t know why. Maybe the cost. They were just left here to be scrapped. But as you can see, we’ve not had the heart. There are four more of these units with as many planes in each.”
I said, “Can they
fly?”
“A couple of us have been in out in the Dinah.” He pointed to one of the smallest planes: a sleek twin prop with low-set wings. It was a few feet longer than the Auster, with a canopy in the middle of the fuselage.
We walked along its length and Kennedy ran his hand under the nose.
“Proper name is the Mitsubishi Ki-46, and it was used for reconnaissance. Awesome machine. I’d love to fly it officially… we both would… but politics forbids.”
He continued to lead us around and spoke like a museum curator relaying facts about the various planes. I was vaguely intrigued but the details passed over my head. Cole seemed more interested.
When I could get a word in, I said, “The other side of this is whether you have anyone missing.”
Kennedy stopped and looked at me and I realized this little tour had brought life back to his weary eyes.
He said, “Who’s missing?”
“We don’t know,” Cole said, and then explained about the body.
Kennedy led us through the hangar’s pedestrian door and outside.
“Squadron Leader?” I prompted.
“There are only thirty of us—me, six pilots and the rest are engineers.” He shook his head. “Every single one accounted for, thank God. It’s not one of my men.”
“What do you know of the BVD?” I asked, walking faster than I was comfortable with.
Thankfully, he stopped. He said, “They’re on our site.”
“You’re not happy about it?”
He shrugged and started walking again back to the office. “They’ve been here a couple of years. The RAF have been here since the end of the war. It just feels a bit of an imposition. Why on my airfield?”
“Are they a problem?”
“Just the noise and the traffic. It’s totally changed the dynamic. And, if we are expanding with search and rescue, they’ll be in the way.”
Since the helicopters didn’t need the runway, it struck me that Kennedy’s argument was flawed.
Cole said, “We understand that they had someone disappear a while ago.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Kennedy said. “But we keep ourselves very separate and I try to ignore them.” He opened his door and gave us the original friendly smile. “If I can ever be of further assistance, please feel free to visit again.”
Back in the jeep, Cole said, “Waste of time.”
“Maybe.” I watched the road and the ditches and the tall grass and thought about what Kennedy had said. I wondered if his information might come in useful later.
NINE
It wasn’t five miles, it was more like eight.
Hegarty said, “Know the origin of the phrase ‘wild goose chase’?”
“Trying to chase geese?” Cole suggested.
“It was an old English horse race where the lead horse followed a complicated route.”
“Sounds like a funny sort of race,” I said.
Hegarty shrugged. “But there you have it.”
We passed a World War Two pillbox, half consumed by undergrowth, before rounding another hillock. The village appeared out of nowhere. Tall grass and then a strip of shops and bars that seemed out of place and too modern. One called Sin Sin was the most prominent.
Hegarty laughed. “No need to guess what they sell there!”
He drove to the end of the strip and noted there weren’t many soldiers in sight. A couple stared at us long and hard, the MP markings possibly flagging us as “trouble”.
Following Cole’s instructions, Hegarty turned around and parked at the end of the strip.
We walked back along the shopfronts and looked in. Local shopkeepers looked back, first expectantly and then with caution. Were they worried about us? MPs normally prevented trouble and yet I definitely saw concern on a few Malay faces.
The first place that had any customers was called The Coke Café. Inside, there were five young soldiers drinking Coke. They may have been drinking beer for all the raucous noise they made.
There wasn’t much space inside so I waited on the street. Cole and Hegarty approached the group, who immediately fell silent.
I could see Cole speaking and occasionally the men would answer. Short and perfunctory, providing minimal information, I figured.
Cole and Hegarty came out.
“Nothing. Let’s keep going.”
We continued past a grocer’s and then a camera shop with a Kodak sign outside. This really was the modern world! Then we came to a decent-sized bar containing a group of squaddies, a few locals drinking beer and a soldier on his own.
Cole and Hegarty headed for the squaddies. I walked to the bar. The solitary man had a three bottles of Tiger Beer lined up in front of him. I ordered a bottle from the bar and, when he returned my nod, I walked over to his table.
It only took a second to realize he was drunk and barely able to string two words together. I managed to establish he was a corporal from a camp he referred to as Holland Road.
I asked if he knew where I could get drugs, but he was no help. I left my beer on his table.
Outside, Cole said he’d also drawn a blank, and we walked towards the most prominent bar on the strip: Sin Sin. When we passed a butcher’s shop, I hesitated.
Hedge said, “Hungry, boss?”
I shook my head. It wasn’t food I was thinking of. The meat shop had given me an idea.
Cole led the way into Sin Sin. Inside, the lighting was appropriately dim and a stage suggested entertainment. However there was no sign of the immorality promised by the name. There were two Malay barmen, who looked like they could take care of themselves. On either side of the room were two groups of squaddies. I counted seven to the right and six in the one on my left. They chatted among themselves and showed no interest in me or the other man who sat alone at a table. He was RAF.
This time I decided to hold back.
“Get anywhere?” I asked as they came out a few minutes later. I could tell by Cole’s face that he hadn’t.
“I’m getting nothing,” he said. “I really think this is a waste of time.”
“What do you want to do?”
Cole checked his watch. “I’m going to get back, just in case there’s any news either from Doctor Thobhani or witnesses.”
I said, “Check the last ten, maybe twenty vehicles that went across the causeway. We saw Customs on the JB side. They check everything, don’t they?”
“Thoroughly.”
“Look for a vehicle that could have carried a naked, headless body without arousing suspicion.”
Hedge laughed, thinking I was joking. I wasn’t.
“Like a butcher’s van,” I said.
Cole raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Aren’t you coming with us?”
“I’ll stay here. Maybe I’ll get better results as a civilian. Maybe something will happen later on.”
Hegarty laughed again. “Oh it will! The boys back there said Sin Sin puts on quite a show at night. You’ll have to wait until after nine though.”
Cole said, “You’re sure?”
“Yes. I’ll root around here and find my own way to the hotel.”
“I’ll come back and pick you up,” Hegarty said.
I glanced down the road hoping to see a taxi. I didn’t. “I’ll work something out.”
Hegarty gave me the address of the King George Hotel in Johor Bahru and we agreed they would pick me up in the morning. We’d travel back to the BVD and question the Indian kid who slipped us the note.
“Let me have my bag as you pass,” I said.
“We can drop it off,” Cole said. “Not far out of the way and easier for you.”
I thanked him and watched them walk up the road and get in the Land Rover. When they approached in the jeep I put my hand out to stop them.
Cole was in the passenger side and leaned towards me. “Changed your mind?”
I shook my head. “The butcher’s van. You’re looking for three men. At least three.”
“Why three?�
��
“A driver and two others.”
“Why?”
“The driver is obvious. The body was placed. Deliberately. It would have been difficult to handle. It was dark. It would need two men. And it wouldn’t be the driver because if he stopped too long it would have aroused suspicion. So he kept going. There were probably three in the van at the Malay Customs check and only a driver on the Singapore side. The other two could have walked off in either direction.”
Cole nodded and they drove away. I wanted to delay returning to the bar so I strolled to the butcher’s. Inside, I could see carcasses hanging from meat hooks at the back. I went inside. There were two Malays. Men. Probably father and son. Probably owner and future owner.
I asked if they had a van.
They understood me. The younger man told me they didn’t have anything other than a couple of bicycles. He offered to show me, but I declined.
He said they didn’t need a van because all their meat was delivered. He gave me the name of the firm in Kuala Lumpur.
“That’s a long way. How do they keep the meat fresh?”
“Ice,” he said.
I thanked them and walked back and entered Sin Sin.
The pilot was still eating. He glanced up, registered my entrance and returned to his meal.
I ordered a beer and headed for his table.
“Mind if I join you, mate?” I asked, trying to sound casual, just one of the lads.
He assessed me for a second before inclining his head. “Of course. Providing you don’t mind if I finish my meal.”
We sat in silence while he ate and I sipped my beer. Eventually he set down his cutlery and held out his hand.
“Flight Lieutenant Robin Turner.”
I told him my name.
“Well, Ash Carter, if you’re thinking about eating here, be careful. Unless you’re used to it, you’ll probably get the trots.”
I waited a beat and then lowered my voice. “Know where I can get any drugs?”
“Why did you pick me?”
“Because you’re on your own, which I figured meant you were more likely to talk to me.”
Singapore Girl: An edge of your seat thriller that will have you hooked (An Ash Carter Thriller Book 2) Page 4
