Singapore Girl: An edge of your seat thriller that will have you hooked (An Ash Carter Thriller Book 2)

by Murray Bailey

  I was holding the folder from the hospital. The cover had damp patches but the contents were still dry. I took out the photograph of Monalisa Cardoso.

  He took it and I saw his hand shake slightly. The woman who had spoken glanced at it and then away.

  The old man said, “She is dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you kill her?”

  I was horrified. “No! I was trying to find her… well, I am trying to find the other girl.” I took the picture back. “I hoped this poor girl could help.”

  The old man narrowed his eyes, maybe assessing me.

  I took out my wallet and his eyes bulged before realizing I wasn’t about to hand him cash. I showed him the photograph.

  “This is the girl I’m looking for,” I said, pointing to Laura. “You saw three girls?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she one of the three you saw?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The old man exchanged words with the woman, who no longer appeared agitated.

  I said to her, “I really need to find this girl. Her name is Laura.”

  The woman’s accent was difficult to understand as she spoke. “They stayed here three days. Then a man came and they ran. They said they go to Penang. They very afraid of the man.”

  I nodded and pointed to Laura’s picture. “And she definitely wasn’t one of them?”

  “No.”

  “The men that came looking. They were like me, yes? White?”

  “Yes.”

  “Their vehicle… like mine?” I pointed to the Land Rover.

  “Yes, and the other. The van.”

  “Van? What colour was it?”

  “Blue.”

  “Dark blue?”

  “Yes.”

  Traffic passed every minute or so, I figured. On average. Sometimes two or three together, sometimes nothing for five minutes. I pointed to the road. “Have you seen the blue van today?”

  The man spoke to the others and I saw shaking heads.

  “No.”

  I realized it was a long shot but I also figured these people were so used to the traffic, maybe they didn’t take notice all the time.

  “Did you see a white ambulance go past in the last hour?”

  Again the question and the shaking heads.

  Hegarty and Bender’s ambulance had definitely passed here and they hadn’t noticed it.

  I finished my tea and thanked them. I was offered more eggs and found them pressed into my hands, unwilling to accept my refusal.

  The rain hadn’t eased, but I got back on the road and headed for the crossing.

  I jumped the queue as I approached Customs at the northern end of the causeway. Once at the front, a Customs guy jotted something down and waved me through.

  On the Singapore side, I pulled over to the guardhouse, shook off the rain and stepped inside.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  I recognized the sergeant before me. I’d seen him at Woodland’s crossing before.

  I said, “You were here on the morning the body was found, weren’t you, sergeant?”

  “And you are?”

  I showed him my government ID, but he already knew who I was.

  I said, “Any progress at your end? Any ideas on the blue meat wagon?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Have you seen a dark blue van or ambulance this afternoon?”

  He looked uncomfortable.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Sir, previously you were with Lieutenant Cole…”

  “And I’m working with the 200 Provost Company. What about the meat wagon or blue ambulance?”

  He shook his head.

  “All right, at least tell me about the timings. When the body was found… When did the crossing open and when was the body found exactly?”

  “Sir,” he said again, only this time there was confidence in his voice. “My orders are that this matter has been investigated and is closed. The RMP aren’t investigating anymore.”

  I said, “But I am.”

  “Well, sir… Respectfully, you will need to take that up with Major Vernon.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Still feeling frustrated, I arrived at Alexandra Hospital, where my bedraggled state drew disapproving glances. It had stopped raining but I looked like I’d just stepped out of the sea.

  When I could get the receptionist to acknowledge me, I discovered that Doctor Thobhani wasn’t available. I left Monalisa Cardoso’s damp folder with a brief note and asked that it be passed along.

  Before leaving, I confirmed that the ambulance had been and gone. Hegarty and Bender were now in the morgue.

  I felt like confronting Major Vernon. After all, Gillman Barracks was but a stone’s throw away. However, based on the looks I’d been given, I decided to go home and bathe and change.

  By the time I arrived at Gillman I was feeling refreshed and more calm. I left the Land Rover with the motor transport boys and apologized for its condition: missing the back seat and cover, and soaked through.

  As I walked into the office, I could feel the sombre mood. The air seemed heavier, thicker than usual.

  The duty clerk walked me to Vernon’s door, knocked and walked away.

  The major stood by the window with his back to me. “What the hell do you think you were doing, Carter?”

  “Doing my job.”

  He turned and glared at me. “And now a man is dead. One of my men is dead and it’s your fault.”

  I said, “We found the source of the illegal alcohol and drugs. Sergeant Hegarty is a hero and I recommend him for a commendation.”

  Vernon’s jaw rippled with tension. “One, you aren’t an MP anymore so your recommendation means nothing. And two, Sergeant Hegarty was acting against orders. If he wasn’t dead he would be looking at a charge right now.”

  I shook my head. “His last orders were to act as my driver.”

  “That was over a week ago!”

  “The orders weren’t revoked and my understanding is—”

  “I don’t give a bloody damn”—he was shouting now and leaning towards me, hands on the desk—“about your understanding!”

  I returned his stare and counted to ten. “Why have you told the men at Woodlands Crossing that they can’t talk to me?”

  “This is no longer a military issue.”

  “But someone has been murdered.”

  “This is no longer a military issue,” he said again as though I hadn’t heard the first time, and his voice became patronizing. “You know yourself that we can’t waste our time on civilian cases.”

  “So you’ve handed the case over to the police? Which jurisdiction? Singapore? Johore?”

  Again he spoke with a mocking tone. “The body was on the causeway, not in Singapore. Not in Malaya. I can see that I need to spell it out: military jurisdiction. No one is interested.”

  “I’m interested.”

  He scoffed. “Get out, Carter. And don’t think you’ve heard the last of this. Secretary Coates will get a full report from me… and this time it won’t be so glowing.”

  I walked out and left his door wide open.

  Lieutenant Cole was waiting for me and accompanied me down the drive.

  I said, “I’ll write everything up for you.”

  “I heard Vernon refuse Hedge a commendation.”

  I nodded. “Any news on the meat wagon?”

  “It’s over, Ash. There’s no point—”

  “It’s not over. The start of this was the body. It led to the drugs and five military personnel dealing. And because of Hedge’s help it uncovered the source and stopped it.”

  Cole said nothing.

  I said, “It’s not over and I feel I owe it to Hedge.”

  We reached the barrier and he placed a hand on it.

  I looked back at the office and could feel Vernon watching us. “The body,” I said. “It was the start and yet seems unconnected. And Vernon thinks it�
�s unconnected.”

  I thought I heard Cole sigh. I turned and looked into his eyes. “What?”

  He shook his head. After a pause he signalled for the guard to raise the barrier. I walked under it. He stayed put but his next words stopped me in my tracks.

  “Oh, did you hear about the incident at Tebrau?”

  “No.”

  “A plane exploded after take-off. I think it was that pilot you were interested in.”

  “Jeevan?”

  “That’s the fellow.”

  I flagged down a taxi and left Cole watching as we sped away.

  Squadron Leader Kennedy was in his office, head in hands. He looked up as I entered and his weary eyes seemed to have aged ten years since I was last here.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “We don’t know, and I have never had anything like this happen on my watch before. Never.”

  Turner came in and shook my hand. He looked even more pale than the squadron leader. “Awful,” he said, “just awful.”

  “What happened?” I asked again.

  “He took off, got to about a thousand feet and it exploded. Poor bugger didn’t stand a chance.”

  “Anything flammable in the cargo?”

  “Nothing according to the manifest.”

  “Where was he headed?”

  “Seletar. It’s in the north-east.”

  “Fuel issue?”

  Kennedy said, “That’s all we can think of. But there were no problems in fuelling her. A blockage or leak maybe. We just don’t know.”

  Turner nodded. “And we’ve checked all of our Austers and there isn’t a problem.”

  “Just a freak accident,” Kennedy said, lowering his eyes. He seemed to switch off for a while, staring at the papers on his desk.

  “Just a goddamned freak.” Turner looked at me. “How did you get on… you know… questioning him?”

  “I didn’t get the chance,” I said, now regretting that I’d planned to catch him in Penang.

  “And how is your investigation going?”

  “We traced the source of the drugs. It was a Chinese gang operating in the jungle south of KL.”

  The squadron leader looked up from his desk again and reached out to shake my hand. “Good,” he said, though I don’t think he’d been listening. “If there’s anything more…”

  Turner added, “Just ask. Happy to help in any way.”

  Both men forced smiles as I left and I asked the taxi driver to take me to the camp at Ulu Tiram.

  The sun tried a final valiant effort to break through the clouds before giving up close to the treeline.

  “Drop me here,” I instructed the driver, and I signed a chitty so that he could reclaim the fare. Then I walked up the sandy track into the Kota Tinggi camp.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  There was a buzz in the canteen that made a welcome distraction from my solemn mood. Scott Stevenson sat opposite me and ate dinner.

  I’d told him what had happened, how we’d followed the Bedford into the jungle and been ambushed by the gang.

  “The boys didn’t know,” he said, fixing me with his one good eye so that I’d know he was being honest. “They really just made the switch. The Chinese took our lorry and we took the spare one back—and never with anything other than the hooch. Trust me.”

  “I do.”

  “And we never knew where their factory was. Each time it was a different meeting place.”

  I said, “How did Jeevan fit in, really?”

  Stevenson shook his head. “Seriously, he didn’t. I told you he’d been busted out of Fleet Air Arm and he didn’t really fit in. Partly that and partly because of his colour.”

  “Why was he busted out of Fleet Air Arm? You didn’t tell me that before.”

  “Something happened in Changi. He claimed he took the fall for someone else but wouldn’t say. I think he was partly afraid.”

  “And the other part?”

  “Money. I was suspicious he got paid off. Paid to keep quiet.”

  I ate in silence for a minute, processing the information.

  Stevenson said, “What was the link to the headless body?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked at me surprised. “But I thought…”

  “Precisely.” I then told him about the blue van and blue ambulance and my visit to the Kuala Lumpur hospital.” It was good to talk it through, although I was still no closer to making sense of it.

  He said, “Aren’t you suspicious that the meat wagon and the ambulance might be one and the same?”

  “Absolutely! I don’t like coincidences.”

  “Why would a private hospital send an ambulance to collect that girl?”

  I finished my meal and set down the cutlery. “I don’t know,” I said, but my mind was whirring.

  He said, “If the meat wagon was actually an ambulance, then…”

  “Customs definitely said meat wagon… but not butcher’s van. Wouldn’t that be the usual expression? Meat wagon sounds like a vehicle that you wouldn’t expect meat in.”

  “Like an ambulance.”

  I shook my head, “But then they’d have said ambulance and the old man in the jungle said blue van not ambulance.” The girl was somehow connected to the body on the causeway, that’s what my back brain was processing. But how?

  The last vestiges of the sunset left a purple glow in the west. I hitched a ride in a troop carrier back to Orchard Road, where they turned right towards Tanglin Barracks. I hailed a trishaw and headed for Alexandra Hospital.

  This time, the good doctor was available, although he apologized that he only had a minute.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said.

  I hadn’t thought of Hegarty as my friend before, but Thobhani was right. There weren’t many people I thought of as friends but likely lad Hegarty should be counted among them.

  “He died instantly,” I said. “So we can be thankful for small mercies.”

  “Indeed, but you aren’t here to talk about him, no?”

  “The girl. Did you get a chance to look at her file?”

  “She was malnourished and severely underweight but died of typhoid. Who was she?”

  I knew he didn’t mean her name, so I said, “I don’t know. I think she’s important but…”

  “Important to what?”

  “Connected somehow to the body on the causeway.” I shook my head. “Do you know of any private ambulances that are dark blue?”

  “No, but then I can’t say I know of any private hospitals. Then again I’m army, and like most army men I keep my head down and do my job.”

  “That’s kind of what Major Vernon wants.”

  “I get it,” he said.

  I, on the other hand, didn’t get it. Investigation was in my blood. I was no longer RMP but I would always be a detective. Surely Vernon should feel the same way? Then again, he was never Special Investigations Branch, so maybe he didn’t. Maybe he really thought the job was about keeping the regular soldiers in line. The difference between us, the difference between regular police and a detective.

  I switched back to Monalisa Cardoso and said, “What about poisoning? Apparently the girl kept talking about a poison flower.”

  He shook his head. “There’s nothing in the file… Without a full autopsy I couldn’t…”

  I nodded. Of course not. But he hadn’t finished.

  “But there’s something else. I don’t know if it’s relevant, and it’s not in the notes… which doesn’t surprise me. It’s sensitive and I think some hospitals have a policy on being discreet.”

  A nurse called him and he said he had to go.

  I gripped his arm. “Quickly. What is it?”

  “From the photographs,” he said. “A young girl like that… it could be put down to early... you know… activity but I think it was worse.”

  The nurse called him again, concern in her voice.

  “Doc, what are you saying?”

  “Ear
ly sexual activity. But I think it’s more likely sexual abuse,” he said, turning to run. “I’d bet my meagre pay packet on it.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  I considered telling Jane but then dismissed the idea. She’d put two and two together. Anyone would. Monalisa was being abused, Monalisa and Laura were transferred to Johor Bahru and so Laura was being abused. I thought back to my meeting with the doctor at the KL hospital. He had seemed awkward. He’d wanted to tell me but maybe policy or decency had prevented him.

  By the morning, I’d decided to say nothing. But that isn’t the same as doing nothing. Ordinarily Hegarty would have driven me, and I thought of him as I travelled in the back of a taxi.

  The adoption centre in Johor Bahru was just opening as I arrived. Miss Liang stood at the door and I could see worry on her face.

  Without preamble, I said, “Where’s Petersen?”

  She walked into her office and sat behind the desk, like she wanted a defensive barrier between us.

  Her face was set firm now. “I told you before that I don’t know. He left this place in a mess.”

  “Monalisa Cardoso…” I said, leaning over the table.

  She moved back. “Not a name I know.”

  “Why not? She was also transferred here from Penang.”

  “We can go through the books—like we did for that other girl.”

  “Laura van Loon.”

  Miss Laing masked it well, but her eyes told me she had remembered the name before I said it.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “Tell me what’s going on. Tell me about the girls.”

  “I’m not telling you anything. You work for Andrew Yipp. You know what’s going on at the hospital.”

  One of Sun Tzu’s sayings came to mind: attack is the secret of defence. I thought about what Lady Hage-Dando had said.

  “The sale of babies,” I said, like I knew.

  She just looked at me with hard eyes. Her diminutive body seemed to expand, like she wanted a confrontation.

  I said, “Tell me.”

  “Ask Andrew Yipp.”

  A long silence between us told me I was getting no more on the subject so I switched back. “The girls were transferred here,” I said, as though I knew this too. “Where did they go?”