Umbrella Man (9786167611204) (21 page)

“
National security?
Oh give me a
break, Goh. That doesn’t scare me. And uttering two magic words
doesn’t give you the authority to tell me what cases to
investigate.”

“Maybe not. But I
know
people who have
that authority. And they’re telling you not to take this one any
further. This meeting is just a courtesy to make certain you
understand that you have to comply.”

“Or what?”

Goh looked genuinely puzzled. “What do you
mean?”

“You said I have to comply. I asked what will
happen if I don’t comply.”

That brought a half smile to Goh’s face. Tay
wondered if the man had ever before encountered anyone who hadn’t
begun tugging on his forelock and vigorously yes-siring at the
barest suggestion of an order from ISD.

“Well, for starters, Tay, your career would
be pretty much over.”

“My
career
? Christ, Goh, is that the
best you can do? My father left me more money than I have any use
for. You can take my career and shove it up your ass, you smug
prick!”

A hugely discomforting thought suddenly
flashed across Tay’s mind. Although his suggestion to Goh might be
anatomically impossible, a very big piece of the case they were
screaming at each other about had in fact been shoved up the
corpse’s ass. Did ISD know about that? If they did, it would
explain who had jumped him at home and grabbed the ledgers he had
found in the safety deposit box. Christ, was there no limit to what
these people thought they could get away with?

“I’m not going to waste my morning arguing
with you, Tay. The case is closed and your investigation is over.
All I care about is making certain you understand that and are
going to comply.”

“And all I care about is what’s right. This
isn’t right. I’m not going to write off a murder case as a suicide
because some ISD weenie decides to label it a national security
matter and tells me to fuck off. I don’t work for you.”

“No, but we both work for the Ministry of
Home Affairs, and the minister himself has decided to close this
case as a suicide. By the way, did you know the minister doesn’t
much like you, Tay?”

“That’s okay. I don’t much like the minister
either.”

“Always the smart-ass, aren’t you? That’s
what everybody says about you, Tay. That you’re just a cranky, sour
old smart-ass with no respect for authority.”

Tay started to bite back at Goh again, but
decided not to bother. Besides, Tay figured, Goh pretty much had
him dead to rights there. How could he argue with a description
like that?

“Get out of here, Tay. Go see your boss.
He’ll tell you the same thing I’m telling you. This case is done.
Go do something useful. Maybe write some parking tickets.”

Tay stood up and left without another word,
closing the door quietly behind him. He thought about slamming it,
of course — who wouldn’t? — but he didn’t. He didn’t want to give
Goh the satisfaction.

TAY THOUGHT THERE must have been times in his
life when he had been angrier. But if someone had asked him right
then when those times were, he doubted he could have come up with
any.

Tay stormed past Rachel and burst into the
SAC’s office without knocking. The SAC was at his desk reading
something and making notes with a heavy gold fountain pen.

“Do you know about this?” Tay snapped.

When the SAC looked up, Tay’s first thought
was how tired he appeared. He looked even worse than he had a few
days ago, and that had been pretty bad. Tay was almost ashamed to
be adding to the man’s burdens. Almost.

“It looks like ISD has called you in,” the
SAC asked. “They told me they were going to.”

“Then you
do
know about this.”

The SAC paused and seemed to think about it,
although Tay didn’t see there was all that much to think about.
Very deliberately he capped the fountain pen, laid it on his desk
blotter exactly parallel to the document he had been reading, and
shifted his weight in his chair.

“Sit down, Sam.”

Tay took the straight chair closest to the
SAC’s desk.

“Of course, I know,” he said. “I didn’t get
to be the Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police by
not
knowing things like this.”

“You don’t look very upset about it.”

“You look upset enough for both of us,
Sam.”

Tay said nothing.

“Look, Sam, what good would it do for me to
be upset. It’s ISD. If they want the case, they’re going to take
it. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“They don’t want the case, sir. They want to
shut it down.”

“Shut it down? What are you talking
about?”

“They’re closing it as a suicide.”

The SAC’s jaw tightened. “That’s not what
they told me.”

“Well, sir, that’s what they told
me
.
They’re going to bury this.”

“Suicide?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They’ll never make that fly.”

“They will if we’re shut out. There won’t be
anybody left to ask questions about it.”

Tay could see from the look on the SAC’s face
that he was chewing that over. Eventually he leaned back and folded
his arms.

“Tell me what you’ve got on the murder,
Sam.”

So Tay told the SAC about their inability to
identify the dead man using any of the usual approaches. Then he
told him about the safety deposit box key and finding the ledgers
with his father’s initials on them inside the box. He even told the
SAC about how finding his father’s initials on the ledgers had led
him to discover the photograph of the dead man and his father
together over thirty-five years ago. Tay didn’t really like sharing
so much information, not when he had no idea yet what it all added
up to, but he figured he had nothing to lose anymore.

“Your father?” the SAC asked.
“Seriously?”

Tay nodded.

“So you think your father had some connection
to the dead man?”

“All I know for sure is they were
photographed together in Vietnam in 1975. And they looked pretty
friendly. So, yes, there’s at least
some
connection.”

“How do you know the photo was taken in
Vietnam in 1975?”

That raised a problem for Tay. Was he going
to tell the SAC about John August? No, that was a connection Tay
had always kept deeply buried, for both his sake and August’s, and
he was going to continue to keep it deeply buried. Besides, he was
pretty sure the SAC would prefer not to know. He wouldn’t be happy
to have specific knowledge that one of his detectives had been
consorting with an American spook, or worse, even if he suspected
it. But then how would he explain knowing the things August had
told him? Tay couldn’t think of a suitable evasion, so he went with
the simplest possible response.

“I’d rather not say, sir.”

The SAC grunted. “So all this has something
to do with your little spook buddy at the American embassy, does
it?”

“I don’t have a spook buddy at the American
embassy, sir.”

Tay didn’t want to flat out lie to the SAC,
but he told himself that wasn’t really a lie. John August certainly
didn’t work at the American embassy, and the truth was he didn’t
even know for sure August was a spook.

“Look, Sam, I have to know—”

“There are things you
don’t
want to
know, sir. This is one of them.”

The SAC looked away and scratched
unnecessarily at his neck. He didn’t get to be Senior Assistant
Commissioner of Police by asking the wrong questions, Tay knew, and
he was willing to bet the SAC would let this go.

He did.

“Where are those ledger sheets now” he asked
instead.

“They were stolen.”

“Stolen?”

Then Tay told the SAC about the man who
forced his way into his house, knocked him out, and took the
sheets.

“You’re not saying you think—”

“Not exactly, sir.” Tay hesitated. “But…who
else could it have been?”

“You really think ISD sent somebody to your
house to mug you and steal evidence in a murder case?”

Tay said nothing.

After a moment the SAC pushed back from his
desk and rubbed at his eyes with both hands. “Oh boy,” he
muttered.

“Look, sir, now that I know who the dead man
is—”

“You know who he is? I thought you said you
hadn’t been able to ID him.”

“No, sir, I said…”

Tay stopped and thought about it. He couldn’t
actually remember what he
had
said. That was one of the
reasons he hated lying to people. It was less a matter of moral
compunctions than simply having a lousy memory.

“Is this another one of those things you
don’t want to tell me?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, sir,
it’s just that—”

“You think I’d be better off not
knowing.”

“Something like that. Yes, sir.”

The SAC stared at a spot on the wall
somewhere above Tay’s head and said nothing.

“Why would ISD want to shut us out and close
this case?” he asked after a minute or two had passed in
silence.

“Because there’s something there they don’t
want us to find.”

“And I’m sure you have a theory as to what
that might be, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir. There may be a connection between
the dead man at the Woodlands and the bombings.”

“And
is
there a connection?”

Tay hesitated. He wasn’t sure exactly how to
answer that. His instincts told him there was — and then there was
the matter of his mother’s ghost also saying there was, but he
certainly wasn’t about to mention
that
— yet he knew he
didn’t have any hard evidence so Tay chose his words carefully.

“I don’t know for sure there’s a connection,
sir. I certainly have no evidence of it.”

“Do you think there might be?”

“It’s possible, sir.”

The SAC nodded and considered that. “So it’s
your theory that ISD thinks if we keep pushing on this case it will
lead us to something that might embarrass them. Something to do
with the bombings. Is that about the size of it?”

“I think it is, sir.”

That was a gesture common in conversation in
Singapore, one Tay had seen repeated a thousand times, and he saw
it again now. It was a curious idiosyncrasy Tay called the
Singapore Swivel. When discussions arrived at a point where one
party thought he was expressing an opinion he shouldn’t, that party
would abruptly go off the record. His voice would lower to a
whisper and his head would slowly swivel — left, center, right,
center — scanning his location to see who else might be within
earshot. The gesture was automatic, even when you thought you were
speaking in private. You never knew
who
was listening in
Singapore.

“Well,” the SAC mumbled, “then, if I were
you, I’d probably keep pushing the investigation until I got to the
bottom of it.”

Tay wasn’t sure he had heard right.

“I’m sorry, sir. What?”

“I said if I were you, Sam, I’d probably keep
pushing the investigation. But I’m not you, am I? You’ll have to
decide for yourself what the right thing to do is. Whatever you
decide, just make certain you don’t tell me anything I don’t want
to know.”

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
Tay asked himself
standing in the hallway outside the SAC’s office.

Had his boss really just given him a wink and
a nod and told him he was free to continue the investigation
regardless of what ISD was demanding?

It occurred to Tay he might be getting in way
over his head here. So he did what he usually did when he thought
he might be over his head. He went straight to his office, closed
the door, and called John August. He got no answer, of course, but
then the number he had for August never answered. So he sat and
waited for August to call him back.

John August knew more than he had told him.
Tay had no doubt about that.

He was less certain he could persuade August
to tell him what that was, but he had to try. Even if he took the
SAC’s wink as a sort of tacit form of approval to continue the
Woodlands investigation, it was clear he would be working without a
net if he did, and working without a net meant his options would be
limited. And if ISD got wind he was still chasing the case, he
didn’t know what would happen. He just knew it would be bad.

After two hours of waiting for August, Tay
had had enough. He went down to the pool office and checked out a
car. He drew another Volvo V70, this one a depressing shade of
green. He made sure it was full of gas, and then headed for
August’s little nest behind the Polo Shop in JB.

The Woodlands checkpoint was jammed and
backup stretched for what looked to Tay like half a mile. He pulled
onto the shoulder and cut around the line all the way to the front.
Normally he would be embarrassed about pulling rank so
conspicuously, but this was not one of those days. He held out his
warrant card at the young officer controlling traffic and snapped,
“Police emergency!”

Twenty minutes later he was through both the
Singaporean and Malaysian checkpoints. He drove about half a mile
and pulled into a Shell station where he could park off to one side
and watch the passing traffic.

Was he being followed? It was probably a
little paranoid of him even to let the thought cross his mind, but
now that it had crossed his mind he figured it was worth a few
minutes to see if it could be true. If someone had been behind him,
the traffic at the Woodlands checkpoint would either have stopped
them or they would have had to show themselves and provide
identification to jump the line the same way he had.

After seeing nothing suspicious for ten
minutes, Tay felt stupid. He was just glad no one had been around
to catch him sitting there watching the road. He started the Volvo
and made for the Premium Outlet Center at the highest speed he
could without attracting any unwanted attention.