by Ian Hamilton
“That’s a very good start. How do you know she’s there now?”
“I spoke to her.” he said. “Don’t worry, I was careful. I told her I was talking to an old friend of her father’s when her name came up and spiked my curiosity. I told her I had some money I needed to launder and asked if she’s still in the business. She said no, so then I asked her what she’s doing to make money these days. She said her father left the family in a comfortable situation and she’s looking after her mother and her aunt. I asked if they’re still living in the family home in Emerald Hill. She said they are, and that she’s moved in with them.”
“I take it that Emerald Hill is a neighbourhood in Singapore,” Ava said.
“It is. That’s where a lot of the Peranakan — the Straits Chinese — live,” he said. “I told you that Simon was Hokkienese, but he married a Peranakan and moved to Emerald Hill to make her happy.”
“I have never heard the name Peranakan.”
“It is a mixture of Chinese and Malay. When the Chinese traders started coming here, they married local women. That’s what their offspring have been called ever since.”
“How would Jasmine regard herself, as Peranakan or Hokkienese?”
“Probably as a Singaporean. The new generation don’t like the old terms.”
“Well, whatever she calls herself, are you confident I’ll find her at that address?”
“She had no reason to lie to me.”
“Is the Emerald Hill address on the list I gave to you?”
“Yes.”
“How about the other phone numbers and addresses I gave you to check? Are they still valid?”
“I tried her business line and got a recording. I went to the Jewellery Circle office, but no one answered. When I called her personal line, she answered.”
Ava made some notes. “I do wish you’d gone to the house in Emerald Hill.”
“I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. If you want I’ll go later today, but I’m not sure it’s the smartest move. Jasmine isn’t stupid. A phone call and a visit from me on the same day after years of being out of touch would look suspicious.”
“You’re right,” Ava said, realizing that Tommy was smarter than Uncle had intimated. “Can you at least check the housing records to see if her mother is actually a registered occupant?”
“I looked at the city directory, and the mother and aunt are both listed.”
“Well, if Jasmine isn’t there, perhaps they can direct me to her.”
“I suggest you go carefully. When they were younger, the aunt was married to a loan shark and managed his accounts, and Jasmine’s mother was the brains behind Simon Yip. I don’t imagine either of them has slowed down that much.”
“That’s good advice. Do you have anything more on Jasmine?”
Tiu hesitated, then said, “I had trouble finding anyone who knew much about her. After her father died, there was no reason for us to stay in contact with her. I did manage to track down the wife of one of our guys who’d had coffee with her a few times.”
“What did the wife say?”
“She said Jasmine has never been married, has no kids, and never mentioned a boyfriend or girlfriend,” Tiu said. “She said Jasmine talked mainly about her business. Evidently she was thinking about opening some jewellery stores, but the wife doesn’t think anything came of it.”
“So she has no personal attachments that you know of beside her mother and aunt.”
“That’s what I was told.”
“Does she have business partners?”
“None that I could find, and the company listing for Jewellery Circle has only her name on it.”
“What about friends?”
“I don’t know, and neither did the wife. I’d be surprised if there were many. Jasmine was always close to her family. She didn’t have time for much else.”
“Does she have any brothers or sisters?”
“No.”
“So the entire immediate family is Jasmine, her mother, and the aunt?”
“The aunt has two daughters. Jasmine was tight with them.”
“What do you know about them?”
“I heard one of them married a Chinese guy. I don’t know anything about the other.”
“When you say a Chinese guy, do you mean he’s Hokkien from Singapore or something else?”
“He’s from China. That’s all I know.”
“Do you recall the girls’ names?”
“The family name is Lam, and I remember one was called Essie, because it’s a strange name.”
Ava checked her notes again. “Did you run a credit check on Jasmine? I know you said her father left the family in a comfortable situation.”
“I was saving that for last,” Tiu said, his voice rising. “The house is in both her and her mother’s names. It’s worth at least ten million Singapore dollars — about seven million U.S. dollars. It has no mortgage and there’s a credit line of five hundred thousand attached to it that’s never been used. The taxes run to about fifteen thousand a year, and Jasmine has paid them for at least the past five years.”
“That’s quite an asset.”
“Real estate values in Singapore are insane. Ten million isn’t even that high,” Tiu said. “I’m more impressed by her credit score and the car she drives. For someone with a reported income in the last two years of less than one hundred thousand, she’s living a large life.”
“Tell me about the car.”
“Do you know anything about buying a car in Singapore?”
“No.”
“Well, it isn’t easy. The government wants to restrict the number of cars on the road, so it controls how many can be bought by issuing certificates of entitlement. You can’t buy a car in Singapore without one, and even then it only lasts for ten years. The certificates are issued twice a month in varying numbers and auctioned off. I paid almost fifty thousand dollars for the one I bought last year,” Tiu said.
“You mean you paid fifty thousand dollars just for the right to buy a car?”
“Yeah, and it doesn’t end there. Once I buy the car, I’m obliged to pay an excise duty of twenty percent, a sales tax of seven percent, and an additional registration fee,” he said, then paused for effect. “Jasmine bought a BMW 7 Series sedan six months ago. Its list price was close to two hundred thousand dollars, but by the time she’d paid for the certificate of entitlement and all the other duties, taxes, and fees, that car would have cost her almost half a million dollars. She paid it all in full.”
“Which bank did she use?”
“I don’t know, but it’s unlikely it was the Jewellery Circle account. Its average balance hasn’t been higher than fifty thousand for a few years.”
“Did she buy the car from a dealer in Singapore? I know the government is unlikely to tell you how she paid, but maybe you could persuade the dealer.”
“I thought of that. There are only two BMW dealerships in Singapore. I’ll get to them when I can. I’m sorry, but it might not be today.”
“When you can will be just fine, and I’ll pay for the information, if that helps.”
“There’s no need for you to do that. I’ll check it off as another favour repaid to Xu,” Tiu said.
“Well, Tommy,” Ava said as she looked at her notes, “what began as a rather discouraging report certainly picked up steam. Thank you for all this.”
“I’ll phone you in the next day or two after I finish with the car dealers.”
“If you don’t reach me right away, leave a message. I could be on a plane.”
“A plane to Singapore?”
“I think that’s possible, but it’s not certain,” she said, deciding to keep it vague.
“Well, if you do come, let me know.”
“Will do.”
Ava sat quie
tly at the desk for several minutes after talking to Tommy Tiu. He hadn’t given her as much information as she would like, but his confirmation of Jasmine Yip’s home address, and his assertion that she was currently in Singapore, were important first steps. There was also the potential that the car dealership could help identify a personal account attached to Yip.
The main question in her mind now was how fast she could get to Singapore. Despite her vagueness with Tiu, the instant he said that Jasmine Yip was there, Ava had made up her mind to go. She checked the time. She could try to catch that morning’s Singapore Air flight or spend the day in Amsterdam and leave on the KLM evening flight.
Nothing will be gained by spending the day in Amsterdam. If I hustle I can get the Singapore Air flight, she thought, and headed to the bedroom to pack.
(19)
For the second time in three days, Ava arrived in a foreign city just as the sun was coming up.
Over the years, she had been through Singapore many times, most often seeing only the airport as she caught a connecting flight. But she had stayed in the city a couple of times, and, although she couldn’t claim to know it very well, her memories of it were vivid. Foremost was the weather. Singapore sat almost directly on the equator and had year-round summer, with daytime highs around twenty-seven degrees and lows that rarely went below twenty-four degrees. What’s worse, it rained almost two hundred days a year in Singapore, which left the air perpetually heavy and humid. The weather contributed to the city’s many lush and beautiful public gardens but made it uncomfortable for anyone who wanted to walk around in them.
Another thing she’d noticed on her trips to the city of six million was how clean and organized it was. There was none of the chaos and crowding that were common in cities such as Bangkok, Manila, Jakarta, and even Hong Kong. For more than fifty years Singapore had been run by politicians who were intent on keeping things orderly and open for business. Limiting the number of cars on the city’s streets was only one example of the many regulations that in other places might be considered authoritarian. In Singapore they were simply practical steps taken by the People’s Action Party to make the city the most modern in Asia. From what Ava had read recently, they might already have achieved that goal.
Despite its modernity — or maybe because of it — Uncle had hated the city. Ava had been surprised that he hadn’t derided it more in her dream the night before. He had gone there three times that Ava knew of, once with her and twice on his own to meet colleagues. On all three occasions he was delighted to get back to Hong Kong. “That place has no soul,” he had said whenever Singapore was mentioned. “It is a place contrived and constructed by bureaucrats. They want nothing old, nothing flawed. Everything has to be new and shiny.”
Ava didn’t completely share that view. While it was true the government seemed to overdo it at times, there was something to be said for a city in Asia of that size that actually functioned smoothly, absent the visible slums and poverty that were so conspicuous elsewhere.
“The Mandarin Oriental in Marina Square,” she said as she got into a taxi at the airport. “How long will the drive take?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
Ava had booked a suite at the Mandarin before leaving Amsterdam. The hotel was in the heart of the Central Business District, close to Marina Bay, and only fifteen minutes away from Jasmine Yip’s house in Emerald Hill.
The twelve-hour flight from Amsterdam had been uneventful. Singapore Air’s service, as always, was impeccable, and Ava had taken advantage of the champagne and several fine white wines on offer. She’d tried to sleep and might have dozed off a couple of times, but she wasn’t really tired, and her head kept replaying the conversation with Tommy Tiu. What she couldn’t understand was how Jasmine Yip and Malcolm Muir had ever connected. And how had Yip generated so much profit from the Harvest Investment Fund money, and where did that profit eventually land? Was it flowing back to Muir? If so, where was the bank account?
Her phone rang and she saw Fai’s number. “Hey, sweetheart,” Ava said. “You’re up very early.”
“We start shooting at eight and the set is an hour’s drive out of the city. My ride will be here in a few minutes, but I wanted to hear your voice,” Fai said. “I was tracking your flight but I didn’t know if you’d cleared Customs yet.”
“Singapore might have the most efficient airport in Asia. I’m already in a taxi headed for the hotel. I was going to call you when I got there.”
“You didn’t tell me in your message how long you think you’ll be there.”
“That’s because I have no idea. It could be a day or two, it could be longer. And depending on what I find, I could be off from here to some place like Chengdu.”
“Why Chengdu?”
“The money that was stolen from Mr. Gregory and the other investors has made its way through several bank accounts. I think one might be there,” Ava said. “When you start chasing money, you can’t predict where it will finally land.”
“So you’re making progress?”
“Well, I know a lot more than I did a few days ago, but there’s no clear end in sight yet,” Ava said. “But tell me, how are you doing? How is the shoot? Is Andy Gao as good to work with as you expected?”
“Andy is a real professional, and the shoot couldn’t be going any better,” Fai said. “I can’t imagine not finishing on schedule.”
“Now that I’m in Asia, I’m only a few hours away from you. Do you get any time off?”
“We’re shooting six days a week, and when we’re not on set, Andy has us rehearsing scenes at the hotel for the next week’s shoot,” said Fai. “I’d love to see you, but I wouldn’t have much time.”
“And it sounds like I might be a distraction.”
“Not to me.”
“Anyway, it’s premature for me to talk about visiting when I have no idea how much longer it will take to resolve this Harvest Investment Fund mess,” Ava said. “But at least now we’re in the same time zone.”
“It’s nice to hear your voice. I miss you terribly.”
“Me too.”
Fai paused and then said. “Ava, have you talked to Chen?”
“I have. Chen is going to stall Lau Lau until we can figure out how to proceed,” Ava said. “I also spoke to my lawyer. She’s trying to create a legal wall between the finance money and me. I’ve been persuaded it’s the wise thing to do.”
“I’m glad you’re listening to the lawyer.”
“Fai, I’m listening to all of you, and no one’s opinion is more important to me than yours.”
“I have something to confess,” Fai said suddenly.
Ava felt an immediate sense of alarm.
“I gave Lau Lau’s script to Andy. Chen and I may believe it’s great, but I was wondering what a director with Andy’s experience would think.”
“And?”
“He thinks it’s fantastic. He said that however good Lau Lau was as a director, his greatest strength is as a scriptwriter,” Fai said. “I told him there isn’t any contract in place but if the film is ever made, Lau Lau will direct. He asked if Lau Lau’s health is sound enough for him to see a project like this through to the end. I told him I don’t know but that he deserves the chance. Then he asked me which role I would play. When I said the mother, he told me that would be a mistake. He said it’s typecasting, and he thinks I should take the role of the army general who opposes government intervention and becomes a secret witness to its horrors. He said it’s a stronger role.”
“He could be right. In fact, as I think about it now, it is a stronger role.”
“Well, we’ll see what Lau Lau thinks — assuming we get to a point where he’ll be making that kind of decision,” Fai said. “And Ava, in case you’re concerned, I didn’t tell Andy how the script came to be written or anything else about your involvement.”
“I wasn�
�t concerned, but you were right to be cautious, so thank you.”
“Ah, my room phone just rang,” Fai said abruptly. “I’ve got to get going or I’ll miss my ride to the set.”
“Love you. I’ll talk to you tonight.”
“Love you too.”
Ava ended the call and looked out the cab window at the skyline of central Singapore. It had been several years since her last trip to the city. Then the most interesting sight had been the Singapore Flyer, a gigantic Ferris wheel that provided a bird’s-eye view of Singapore’s main island and some of the sixty-two smaller islets that comprised the city. Now the Flyer looked tiny in comparison with the Marina Bay Sands building complex. “The Sands looks spectacular,” she said to the taxi driver.
He turned his head towards her and smiled. “People come from all over the world to see it.”
The Sands consisted of three fifty-storey side-by-side buildings that housed an enormous casino, several theatres, famous gourmet restaurants, a museum, a convention centre, luxury shops, and an ice-skating rink. But what made it truly spectacular was the terrace that ran straight across the top of the three buildings for almost three hundred metres and then cantilevered into nothing but air for another seventy metres.
“The buildings were almost completed last time I was here, but the terrace hadn’t been constructed. I wonder if the architect was inspired by Stonehenge in England, where large slabs of stone sit on top of pillars,” she said to the driver.
“I’ve never been to England, so I don’t know about Stonehenge,” he said. “And we don’t actually refer to it as a terrace. It’s called SkyPark. It has gardens on it, a jogging trail, and restaurants, and at the very end of the overhang is the world’s largest infinity pool. The park can accommodate almost four thousand people at one time.”
“You could be a tour guide,” she said, smiling.
“I’m proud of my city, and I’m always pleased to share information about it.”
“What do you know about Emerald Hill?”
“That’s the old Peranakan Chinese neighbourhood. It is quite central, near Orchard Road. I’ve taken tourists there to see the architecture. One of them called it Chinese baroque, though I’m not sure what that means. It’s also a historic conservation area, and there aren’t many of those in Singapore. Our normal operating style is to rip down anything remotely old and build anew.”