The Singapore School of Villainy (14 page)

Singh wiped his forehead with the back of his shirt sleeve. It came away damp. The humidity was causing his beard to drip perspiration at the point. Why in the world had he decided to walk home?

He continued to puff his way up a hill, abandoning the pavement with its scattered booby traps of dog turds to walk on the road. He could smell the tar as the sun beat down on the tarmac and spotted his home in the distance with relief. There was a flash of blue in the garden. It was Mrs Singh diligently watering the plants. If they were anywhere near as dehydrated as he was, they needed to be hosed down. Gardening was Mrs Singh's second great love, after cooking. The garden was festooned with flowering plants; bougainvilleas that matched her brightest caftans, blood-red hibiscus and drooping crabclaw-shaped heliconias.

He slipped his hand through the gate and shot the rusted bolt with some difficulty. His hand was stained crimson when he took it away. He remembered guiltily that his wife had been nagging him to oil it. Stooping over her precious daisies, Mrs Singh straightened up slowly when she saw her husband.

‘You'll have a heart attack if you walk up the hill in the hot sun,' she said, pulling off her knitted gardening gloves and dropping them at her feet.

Singh did not disagree – his chest was hurting. ‘Exercise!'

‘After beer, I suppose?'

The policeman mumbled a non-committal response. He sat down on the wooden swing, shut his eyes and rocked gently back and forth, trying to manufacture a breath of air to cool down.

‘Have you found the murderer yet?' asked his wife, showing somewhat more than her usual level of interest in his work.

Singh opened one eye and shook his head in response to her question.

‘Well, perhaps you should stop looking in the bottom of beer glasses. That boy has to go for his sister's wedding next week. He needs his passport back.'

‘Eh?'

‘Jagdesh has to go for his sister's wedding. He needs his passport!'

He might have guessed that the root of this newfound inquisitiveness about his job would involve a relative. Family matters were the only subjects of any real interest to his wife. ‘Not while he's a suspect in a murder investigation,' grunted Singh.

‘I don't dare go out of the house – it's so shameful that you are investigating one of
our
people. I don't know where to put my face.'

Singh scowled, his eyebrows almost meeting above his fleshy nose. His wife never seemed to know “where to put her face”. He wondered whether he dared suggest a paper bag and decided against it. She was not in a mood to appreciate humour.

‘
Everyone
is talking about it,' added Mrs Singh.

Singh knew who “everyone” was – her sisters and a bunch of other nosy Sikh relatives, all determined to do his job for him.

‘It would be a lot more embarrassing if I allowed a killer to catch a flight out of Singapore,' he pointed out.

‘Jagdesh Singh is
not
a killer!' Her hands were on her hips, the posture one of real indignation.

Singh remembered the way Jagdesh had been unable to meet his eyes when he had mentioned lawyers with secrets. ‘That boy is hiding something. Why don't you make yourself useful and find out what that might be instead of trying to get me kicked off the Force?'

 

Reggie Peters was tucking into a rare steak. It was an expensive hunk of meat, grain-fed and flown into Singapore from Australian pastures. Droplets of blood oozed every time he put pressure on it with his serrated knife or stabbed it with his fork. The blood mixed with the oil on his plate, creating a gory palette of colours. Ai Leen pushed her own plate away. She could not even stomach a salad, not in the company of this man that she despised and now feared as well.

‘Not hungry?' he asked, exposing a mouthful of half-chewed meat.

She was forced to admire his calm. They might as well be two colleagues having a casual dinner together, with none of the secrets and lies that underpinned their relationship. She glanced around the restaurant. It was nearly deserted on a mid-week night in the midst of a major recession, which was just as well. She did not think she could force a smile or manage any polite chit-chat with a passing acquaintance.

A flickering candle on each table threw bizarrely-shaped shadows on the walls, as if the creatures of hell were lying in wait. But Ai Leen knew that she was in a purgatory of her own making. She had sacrificed so much, given up so much – had it been worthwhile? She had the official badges of success within Singapore society, the three Cs – car, club and condominium – as well as her hard-won partnership. Was her self-respect too high a price to pay for success? She knew it was too late for regrets – too late to un-make the decisions that had led her to this place. She had to find a way to look to the future. And the first step was to sever the ties that bound her to this man. The very idea terrified her. She did not know what Reggie Peters was capable of doing but she feared the worst.

‘I want out,' she said, trying to inject some authority into her voice.

A grin spread over his face. ‘I thought you might say that.'

‘It's too dangerous!' Despite her best efforts her voice had taken on a plaintive edge. She gritted her teeth. If she sounded like she was begging it would only empower this man. ‘We're in the middle of a murder investigation.'

Reggie popped another piece of meat into his mouth and chewed with evident relish. ‘Nothing doing,' he said, scraping a sliver of flesh stuck between his two front teeth out with a nail. He smirked at his co-worker. ‘A deal is a deal – you should know that. You're a
partner
at a law firm.'

Annie tossed and turned all night, sleeping only in snatches. It was a relief to hear the alarm and get out of bed. She set out on her morning bike ride, half an hour round the old abandoned cemetery ten minutes away from the house. The large semi-circular tombs were decorated with floral tiles and carvings, protected by grotesque gargoyles, parodies of frogs and lions. Black and white photos of the dead were glazed onto the headstones, the faces of neat men and prim women. The pictures were of the young but the dates indicated that this was the last vanity of the dead.

Undergrowth lapped the sides of the tombs and the narrow road through the cemetery. Huge trees spread out overhead. A macaque monkey, its tail hanging down in an inverted question mark and its offspring clinging to its belly, chattered to her earnestly. Today her morning ride was especially welcome, a temporary respite from the reality of a murder investigation – and her conflicting feelings over David Sheringham.

She had been determined at first to dislike him and to keep him at arm's length, probably for no better reason than that he had mistaken her for a secretary on their first encounter. Instead, she had felt a powerful attraction towards him that afternoon at the Raffles. But this was hardly the time – up to her neck in a murder investigation with that fat policeman prying into her life and work – for the distraction of a romantic entanglement.

She drifted back to the subject that was uppermost in her mind, the insider dealing. The law firm knew about it and it seemed Singh did too. They all believed that the culprit was a director from Trans-Malaya. But it was only a matter of time before Tan Sri Ibrahim became impatient and rang back to further expound his theory that the insider dealing at his company emanated from the firm of Hutchinson & Rice. A shudder ran through her slim frame and suddenly this peaceful place that she had grown to love felt shadowy and threatening. There was to be no forgetting, no respite, from the maelstrom of events and emotions triggered by the death of Mark Thompson.

Arriving at the office, Annie's first stop was the pantry. The tea lady had already been in and the coffee mugs piled high in the sink had been washed and put away. The surfaces were gleaming and the place smelt faintly of a lemony disinfectant. She put on the coffee percolator and watched it bubble and boil hypnotically, calmed by its heady aroma. The morning sun was streaming in through the window behind her, highlighting the hint of auburn that she had inherited from her mother.

‘I'll have some of that.'

Annie started. Reggie had strutted in. She had not heard the swing doors. He adjusted the length of the tie hanging over his shoulders and commenced tying a knot. It was a thin stripy affair – an old school tie of some sort.

‘Good morning, Reggie,' she said, deciding not to be explicit in her dislike of her fellow partner. She took the coffee jug from the percolator and poured a cupful into the proffered mug. ‘You're an early bird today.'

‘Couldn't sleep,' he confessed.

‘Me neither,' she said, feeling almost compassion for him; the murder investigation was taking its toll on all of them.

‘What's on the agenda today?' he asked.

‘More interviews, I suppose,' replied Annie.

The doors to the pantry swung open, Western style, and Inspector Singh swaggered in as if he was a tough cowboy making an entrance into a small-town saloon. Annie almost expected to see horse troughs and dust devils through the crazily swinging doors. Singh's hands were bunched in his trouser pockets and it caused the cloth to stretch taut across his belly. His zip had baulked at the last centimetre and was not completely done up. Perhaps that was why most fat men wore their trousers under their stomachs rather than over them, thought Annie.

‘Good,' said Singh. ‘You're here. I checked in your rooms but there was no one to be found. But if you want a lawyer, follow the smell of coffee!' He beamed cheerily at them, apparently pleased with his own deductive reasoning.

Reggie snapped, ‘What do you want, Inspector?'

The inspector appeared in no way put out by this rudeness. ‘Interviews, interviews…' he answered. ‘The hunt for the truth must proceed.'

‘My interview is scheduled for this afternoon,' said Reggie.

‘Now then, Mr Peters.' Singh was a parody of an English fictional policeman. ‘I'm sure you're the last person to want to delay our progress. Besides, Quentin Holbrooke hasn't come in yet and we wouldn't want Singapore's finest to be twiddling his thumbs, would we?'

Annie could not blame the inspector for the touch of sarcasm in his voice. Reggie had not been a model of cooperation.

‘This is unacceptable, Inspector!' Reggie blustered. ‘I have meetings this morning, urgent work to do.'

‘Nothing you have to do is more important than finding Mr Thompson's murderer,' replied the policeman, a hint of steel in his voice. Reggie looked as if he was going to argue but the inspector carried on, ‘I don't want to inconvenience you unnecessarily – you can have ten minutes to rearrange your schedule.'

Unable to think of any convincing excuse and not daring to refuse outright, Reggie turned away so hastily that hot coffee slopped over his hand. He walked out of the pantry, dabbing his hand with a handkerchief and struggling to maintain some dignity.

‘Do you think he'll come?' asked Annie, wondering what the policeman thought of his uncooperative witness.

‘Oh yes! He'll be exactly five minutes late to demonstrate that he is not pandering to the natives, but he won't dare push it a minute beyond that.'

‘And how do you feel about that?'

The inspector gave one of his unexpected belly laughs. ‘That's why I gave him ten minutes, and not fifteen.'

Annie watched the policeman stroll out of the pantry and down the corridor. She felt like a puppet on a string.

 

Fong was already in the interview room, flipping through some papers energetically. He glanced up as Singh came in, leapt to his feet and said, ‘Good morning, sir!'

Singh grunted a response and lowered himself carefully into his own chair, triceps bulging as he tried to prevent gravity taking over.

‘What's on the agenda today, sir?' asked Fong, unconsciously echoing Reggie's words from earlier.

‘We're having Reggie Peters in first.'

Fong looked at him, his expression puzzled. ‘He wasn't next on the list…'

‘In my experience, young man, a self-important bastard like Reggie Peters is best interviewed when his ego has taken a knock! I don't doubt that dancing to my tune is driving him mad – but he knows he has no choice.'

Fong swallowed a retort – dancing to the inspector's tune was driving him mad too but it was probably unwise to say so. Still, the fat man had a point. He was more likely to get information out of a man like Reggie Peters if he was off balance.

‘So, what do we know about Reggie Peters?' asked Singh thoughtfully, his attention already focused on his next witness.

His subordinate answered quickly. ‘Senior banking partner, wife, three kids – very successful at work but not very popular with his co-workers.'

‘Except for the poker-faced Ms Lim Ai Leen!'

‘I beg your pardon, sir?'

‘We need more information on this apparent chumminess between Reggie and Ai Leen,' explained Singh.

Fong shuffled through his papers until he found the reports from the policemen who had been detailed to tail the suspects. ‘They've been spending a lot of time together
since
the murder, sir.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘They've been spotted dining together a few times, at fairly out-of-the-way places.'

Singh reached for the desk phone, hit the speaker button and dialled Stephen Thwaites' extension.

The other man picked up with a brusque hello, the tone of a successful professional who believed that his time was worth money.

‘Singh here. A quick question – were Ai Leen and Reggie Peters on good terms before the murder?'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘You heard me,' snapped Singh impatiently. ‘Reggie and Ai Leen – chums, buddies, pals?'

Stephen's tone was wary but he answered the question. ‘I don't think so – not especially.'

‘They've been as thick as thieves since the murder.'

‘Really? I had no idea they were close friends.'

‘Friends?' snorted the inspector derisively. ‘Any relationship that springs up around a murder investigation is very suspicious to me.'

He slammed the phone down without the courtesy of a “goodbye”.

There was a tentative knock on the door.

‘Come,' growled the inspector.

Reggie walked in reluctantly, dragging his feet like a child in a supermarket.

‘I would like to place it on record that you have caused me and this legal firm great inconvenience by re-scheduling our meeting,' he said coldly. He had obviously rehearsed his opening line.

‘Fong, you heard the man – record his inconvenience please,' said Singh cheerfully.

Corporal Fong started typing hastily. He was terrified at Reggie's opening gambit, imagining a complaint making its way up the ranks until he had a black mark recorded against him in his personnel file. Inspector Singh didn't seem to care – probably his file was so thick with complaints already that one more wouldn't make a difference.

Despite the inflammatory beginning, the interview was low key. The inspector was docile and Reggie, his point made, was striving to appear cooperative. He had known Mark Thompson for many years but the collegial relationship had never developed into a real friendship. ‘We had nothing in common, really,' explained Reggie Peters. ‘Our wives never really hit it off. And once he married Maria – well, that was the end of it…'

When Fong tuned back in, Reggie was discussing his whereabouts during the murder. ‘I was at home. The children had gone to bed. My wife was out at a hen night. I didn't actually speak to Mark but I found a message on my answer phone. Ai Leen rang me – she said she'd got a call too, asked me what it was about.'

He looked the inspector directly in the eye. ‘I had no idea. I offered her a lift. We were running late so Ai Leen rang the office and had a brief chat with Jagdesh. He didn't mention the murder.'

The inspector, having allowed Reggie Peters to carry on uninterrupted, scratched his nose and asked, ‘So who do
you
think did it then?'

Reggie seemed surprised by the question but forbore from making a spontaneous accusation.

‘I don't know,' he said, carefully smoothing the remaining strands of hair across his almost bald pate. ‘I just can't understand who would want to do such a thing. I mean, it's…
outrageous
!'

‘Well, that's one way of putting it,' muttered Inspector Singh.

Fong looked at the inspector curiously. He had expected fireworks, sensing the inspector's antipathy towards this witness. But he supposed Singh had no evidence of wrong-doing on the part of Reggie. His alibi was tenuous but so were most of their alibis. Even Reggie and Ai Leen were not alibis for each other. Either of them could have come into the office, killed Mark and still been in time to meet the other before setting out once more.

‘Will that be all?' asked Reggie.

Singh nodded and the lawyer almost strutted out of the room. No doubt he thought that the interview had been so restrained because of his formal complaint at the beginning. Fong wondered if, contrary to what he had thought earlier, the senior policeman had been unsettled by Reggie Peters' threats. He hoped not. He didn't want to think of the infallible Inspector Singh as being susceptible to intimidation.

‘Why didn't you ask him about Ai Leen, sir?' asked Fong tentatively.

‘Always better to save questions about relationships for the female half,' explained Singh smugly. ‘They're the ones who like to talk about their feelings the most – just look at those women's magazines!'

 

‘You've been spending a lot of time with Mr Peters of late.'

Singh's remark was more a statement than a question.

Ai Leen was caught off guard. She straightened her light-blue skirt over her knees, twisted a plain platinum ring on her wedding finger, and asked, ‘What do you mean?'

The inspector made a show of fishing around his desk for a piece of paper, found it and looked at it carefully, holding it a couple of feet away from himself. The senior policeman was getting long-sighted, noted Fong. He really needed to get himself a pair of those reading glasses. He hoped it wasn't misplaced vanity that prevented the inspector from correcting his eyesight.

Singh read out in a dry voice all the occasions in the past week when Ai Leen and Reggie had been spotted together. It was a long list and Ai Leen's dismay at the detail the police had of her assignations with Reggie was obvious despite the obscuring quality of a thick layer of make-up. There was fear in her almond-shaped eyes, visible in the expanding pupils, as she listened to the policeman.

Ai Leen swallowed hard but did her best to sound nonchalant. ‘What does it matter? We're friends.'

‘Quite a new friendship, I understand.'

If looks could kill, Singh would have been prostrate on the floor. Fong had rarely seen such a vicious expression on the face of any individual. Ai Leen was clearly wondering who had told the inspector about her previously distant relationship with Reggie. The corporal sensed that this was a vindictive woman and she would want her revenge against the whistleblower. The senior policeman had now made enemies of his last two suspects. From his expression, Singh wasn't bothered. If anything, there was a smugness radiating from the inspector. Fong guessed, with unexpected perspicuity, that Singh would love to set these lawyers at each other's throats. It was probably his best chance of breaking through their well-constructed defenses.