Umbrella Man (9786167611204) (29 page)

Tay hated the MRT. He couldn’t even remember
the last time he had ridden on it.

His shadows wouldn’t be expecting him
suddenly to join the crowds surging into the Raffles Place MRT
entrance, a little white pavilion in the center of the plaza that
looked vaguely Egyptian for some reason Tay had never been able to
work out.

Entering the MRT would break the surveillance
box they had around him, and the only alternatives left to them
would be either to let him go or form up behind him and follow him
in. Raffles Place was a mother of a station where two lines
crossed, either one of which could be ridden in two directions.
They would need a lot of people to cover him in there. If he was
lucky and could jump right onto a train, they would lose him.

And then they would have to explain to their
boss exactly how one rapidly aging and slightly overweight
policeman had given the slip to a whole squad of strapping young
ISD superheroes.

This might be fun.

***

Tay took the steps down two at a time. When
he got to the line of shiny, aluminum turnstiles guarding the
entrance to the platforms, he held his warrant card over his head,
planted his butt on top of the nearest one, and swung his legs over
the barrier. Some people looked at him, but no one said a word.
Singaporeans didn’t much like getting involved in things they
didn’t have to get involved in.

He took the first set of stairs he saw down
to a platform without pausing to check which train he would catch
there. He supposed it didn’t really matter.

When he emerged on the platform, he saw he
was
going to be lucky. A red and white train was just
sliding to a stop behind the stainless steel and glass doors that
walled the tracks off from the platform. The MRT was so
hermetically sealed the experience was more like getting on an
elevator that moved sideways than it was catching a train.

The long rank of doors rumbled open and Tay
joined the surge of passengers into the nearest car. Once inside,
he turned and watched the bottom of the staircase he had come down,
but there were too many people and they were moving too quickly for
him to decide if any of them might be following him.

It was no more than fifteen seconds before
the platform doors rumbled closed again, the train doors clicked
shut right behind them, and Tay’s train moved out of the station.
Were any of his followers fifteen seconds or less behind him? He
doubted it, but he couldn’t be sure.

***

The train glided in near silence into the
darkness of a tunnel and Tay looked up at the electronic map just
opposite where he was standing. It took him a minute, but finally
he worked out that he was on a Green Line train headed for City
Hall, another busy station. He could stay on the train there, or
even get off and take another Green Line train going in the
opposite direction and go right back to Raffles Place. He could
also change to the Red Line, of course. Tay’s eyes traced both
lines on the map and he thought about what he ought to do.

All at once he knew.

The train pulled into City Hall Station and
he allowed the crowds to carry him out the doors and across the
platform to where a Red Line train bound for Dhoby Ghaut was
waiting with its doors open. Thirty seconds later it was moving out
of the station. Tay could have gotten off at Dhoby Ghaut since that
station was only a short walk from his house in Emerald Hill, but
he didn’t. He stayed on the train there, and he stayed on it
through Somerset, Orchard, and Newton as well. He didn’t leave the
train until he reached the Novena station.

Tay rode the escalator up to ground level and
emerged under a long, rectangular green glass roof supported by
bright green tiled columns. He supposed somebody had chosen the
color in the hope it would make the station look more natural and
friendly, but it looked about as natural and friendly as the grass
in Raffles Place, which was to say not natural and friendly at all.
What it looked was really
green
.

Regardless, Tay wasn’t at the Novena station
to admire its color. He was there because it was just off Irrawaddy
Road. And about a quarter of a mile to the north was a large
compound of office buildings that were collectively identified with
the address 28 Irrawaddy Road. Taken together, those buildings
added up to a collection of glass and marble so humorless and
overblown it would have embarrassed Albert Speer. Those buildings
were where the Ministry of Home Affairs did whatever it did. It was
where the Internal Security Department’s offices were, and where
Tay could find Philip Goh.

Tay figured this was as good a time as any to
pay a friendly call on Mr. Goh. After all, where were his watchers
less likely to look for him than in their boss’s office?

He knew he was going to have a real
heart-to-heart with his new friend Phil eventually. And sometimes,
for the kind of heart-to-heart Tay really wanted to have, making a
surprise out of it was the best thing to do.

TAY’S WARRANT CARD passed him smoothly
through the security post and into the Ministry of Home Affairs
compound. He had no idea where Goh’s office was, and ISD’s
cultivated air of mystery meant Goh wasn’t going to be listed on a
convenient posted directory somewhere. Tay’s best idea was to head
to the conference room on the fourth floor of Block C where Goh had
hauled him to make his announcement that the Woodlands case was
being closed as a suicide. Surely Goh would have used a conference
room that was reasonably close to his office.

If Tay hadn’t already used up his modest
daily allotment of good fortune ditching his watchers, maybe he
would just run into Goh in a hallway somewhere. Or perhaps he would
stumble over somebody he could bully with his warrant card into
telling him where Goh’s office was. He had been winging it up to
now and things had worked out okay. Why not push his luck a little
further?

When Tay got to the fourth floor of Block C,
he found the conference room easily enough since it was right next
to the elevators. The door was standing open, and it was empty.
There was no sign on the wall giving him directions to Goh’s
office. Rats.

He went back into the hallway and looked in
both directions. He had no idea what to do next. The hallway told
him nothing. It was long and unremarkable. An institutional
linoleum floor of no discernible color, ceiling-mounted fluorescent
light fixtures every ten feet, and mahogany veneer doors lining
both sides, each sporting a black plastic rectangle about a foot
long with a single four-digit number on it. The hallway was
completely empty. There was no one in sight in either direction.
Tay’s plan simply to ask someone where Philip Goh’s office was
didn’t seem particularly sound anymore.

The only door that had anything on it other
than a number was one that said MEN, which seemed obvious enough
even here in the heartland of ISD, so Tay went in to buy some time
to think about his problem. He was just stepping up to the wash
basins when his gaze fell on a framed poster about three feet
square hanging at eye level between the two the sinks. The poster
set out in detail nine steps necessary to wash your hands
correctly. Each step was helpfully illustrated with a picture of a
pair of disembodied hands following the poster’s instructions to
the letter.

Tay didn’t think there was anything about
Singapore that could stupefy him anymore, but this came close.
Instructions for washing your hands? Nine separate steps? Each of
them illustrated in detail just in case the instructions might be
too complex for some people to follow?

Sometimes, Tay thought, when you lived in
Singapore, all you could do was shake your head and hope for the
best.

***

Tay stepped back into the hallway. He still
didn’t have the first idea how to find Philip Goh, but at least now
he had a near perfect understanding of how to wash his hands.

A low
ding
announced the arrival of an
elevator and when the doors opened three women stepped out. They
were all on the young side and each clutched a wallet in one hand
as if they had all gone to lunch together and didn’t want to carry
their purses. Two of the women turned to the left, but the other
turned right and walked directly toward Tay. He was pleased to note
she was easily the youngest, most attractive, and best dressed of
the three.

Tay stepped to one side of the hallway and
waited for her to pass. As she did, she turned her head, looked
directly at Tay, and tossed out a dazzling smile. Tay returned it
as well as he could, but he had never been all that good with
smiles, dazzling or otherwise.

He knew this was probably the best shot he
was going to get, so he fished out his warrant card and held it
up.

“Excuse me, miss?”

She turned immediately and took half a step
toward him, almost as if she had been waiting for him to speak.
When her eyes fell on Tay’s warrant card, her smile
disappeared.

“I’m Inspector Tay from CID. I have an
appointment with Philip Goh, but I’ve forgotten his office number.
Could you direct me?”

Tay watched the woman’s eyes run through the
calculation women generally made when a strange man spoke to
them.

Was this man really asking for directions, or
was he just hitting on her and using his question as an excuse to
start a conversation? So how should she respond? Should she ignore
him altogether? Should she give him the directions he was asking
for and leave it at that? Or should she take his question as an
invitation to a conversation and do her best to help one
develop?

Tay saw her eyes register the name and rank
on his warrant card. Then he saw in them the look of a decision
being made.

“I know you, don’t I?” she asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Your name sounds familiar. Do you work out
of Phoenix Park or the Cantonment Complex?”

“I’m at the Cantonment Complex.”

“I used to work over there. Are you sure we
haven’t met?”

Normally Tay wouldn’t have been adverse to a
little harmless flirtation. He wasn’t very good at flirtation,
harmless or otherwise, but he was usually willing to give it a
shot. Still, this was hardly the best possible time, and who knew
who this woman really was or who she worked for? For all Tay knew
she might be one of the ISD personnel who had been keeping him
under surveillance. The timing and circumstances were just too
lousy to take a chance.

“I’m sure we haven’t, miss. Do you know where
Philip Goh’s office is?”

Tay could see a flicker of hurt in the
woman’s eyes at his rebuff. They were very nice eyes indeed, and he
felt a little ashamed of himself.

“Room 4316,” she said pointing over his
shoulder. “About halfway down the hall on the right.”

Then without another word she pivoted and
walked away. Tay couldn’t help but notice she didn’t look back.

***

Room 4316 was about thirty feet past the
conference room where Tay had met Goh the last time he was here. It
was a door that looked exactly like all the other doors on the
hall. Did that mean Goh was discreet? Or did it just mean he was
insignificant.

Tay opened the door and walked in without
knocking.

The office was much larger than Tay had
expected and looked at a glance to be expensively and carefully
furnished. Insignificance probably wasn’t the right explanation for
the nondescript door after all.

Goh was sitting at a large desk on the left
with his feet up on it, legs crossed at the ankles. He was reading
something clipped into a thick file open on his lap.

“Surprise,” Tay said as he made himself
comfortable in one of the two chairs in front of Goh’s desk.

He noticed Goh’s scar looked redder and more
prominent than it had the last time he had seen him. Maybe Goh’s
scar would even turn out to be like an indicator light on an oven
by which he could read the temperature inside without getting his
hand burned. Wouldn’t that be handy?

“How the fuck did you get in here?”

“Through the gate, up the elevator, down the
hall. The usual way.”

“Does anybody actually find your wiseass shit
amusing, Tay?”

“I never asked. You think I ought to?”

Goh closed the file he was reading and swung
his feet to the floor.

“Mine?” Tay asked, pointing at the thick
file.

“You’re not nearly this important. You file’s
only got about six pieces of paper in it. And there’s a picture of
Mickey Mouse on the cover.”

Goh opened a drawer, put the file inside,
then closed it. Tay was disappointed. He had assumed Goh would just
drop the file on top of his desk and he wanted a glimpse of the
name on the tab. He was still halfway convinced it would turn out
to be his.

“What do you want, Tay?”

“I’m here to tell you I’m giving you a
one-time pass. Just this once, we’ll forget this happened. But fuck
with me again, and I’m coming down on you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I saw your people, Goh. Don’t bother lying
about it. The only thing I don’t understand is why you have me
under surveillance. Can you explain it to me? Maybe we can work
something out that will save us both a lot of trouble.”

Goh just shook his head and said nothing.

“Your goons were working so hard following me
all over town that I thought I’d make their lives easier and go
somewhere they wouldn’t have any trouble locating me. If a
middle-aged policeman can shake ISD’s finest…well, I think you need
to reconsider your training program, don’t you?”

“You’re delusional, Tay. Why would ISD waste
manpower following you?”

That was exactly the question Tay had been
asking himself, of course, and he still didn’t have any answer to
it.