The inspector thought that Jasper’s receding hairline had more grey in it than the first time they had met. He wondered again what led men to commit crimes when the physical and mental consequences were too much for the frailty of the human body and spirit. With Chelsea, at least he had been able to understand why she might have turned to murder as a solution. She must have felt there was no other option to keep her kids away from Alan Lee. But the inspector could not see what might have driven Jasper to such an act.
The inspector waited for Jasper to speak. He was used to these moments. The quiet had a pregnant quality, like a city just before dawn, teetering on the edge of a noisy awakening. Singh had been in innumerable interviews with prisoners as they sat silently pondering what truths to tell and what lies to invent. Eventually, they would make up their minds and start to speak, uttering carefully honed exculpatory sentences that they had played in their minds over and over again in the long days and nights in their cells, clinging to the hope that one of the words would be the ‘Open Sesame’ that got them out of jail.
The act of speaking, the release from silence, invariably meant that the prisoner would say too much, give something away, let slip an honest truth in the midst of the self-justification. Inspector Singh, like a fine piano-tuner, could listen to these verbal outpourings and pick up those hints of expression or emotion that were off-key and those that rang true. And so he waited for Jasper Lee to open his mouth, and a door to the truth, at the same time.
‘There is someone to see you, ma’am. He says it’s urgent.’ The maid managed, in the great tradition of household workers, to convey far more than she said in words. Looking up at her, Chelsea could tell, from the slight emphasis on the word ‘someone’, that she did not know and did not approve of the guest who was waiting to see her employer. From the hint of a raised eyebrow she knew that her helper did not believe for a second that the matter on which he wanted to see her was urgent. Nevertheless, the maid knew better than to substitute her own judgement for that of Chelsea’s, especially in these difficult times. She stood waiting for instructions.
Chelsea got out of the easy chair she had been lying in to read court papers. She went to the window and parted the curtains slightly. A short, overweight Chinese man stood at the entrance holding a file.
She said, ‘Let him in.’
The man was sweaty. The few strands of hair he had left were arranged carefully across his scalp. His eyes had disappeared so far into the rolls of fat on his face that only two small, black pinpricks remained. Despite all this, he managed to convey, through a puffed chest and a big smile, that he was pleased with himself.
Chelsea said, ‘Good morning, Mr Chan. What can I do for you?’
‘Nothing, nothing! But I can do something for you, yes, yes.’
Chelsea waited politely.
‘You remember you ask me to investigate your husband Alan Lee? Find out what he was up to . . . about other women and things?’
The maid, having made a tactical decision to dust the next room, heard this and nodded her head wisely. A private investigator – that made sense.
Chelsea said, ‘Yes, of course I remember – but you might not have heard that my husband is dead. So, if this is about your fees, please send me your bill for the hours you worked.’
Mr Chan had one very long nail on his left hand. It curled. He used it carefully to pick his nose. He said, ‘I know Mr Alan is dead. I found out some things – I was going to pass them to you – but you also went to jail.’
Meeting with silence, the private investigator became garrulous. He realised that the tactics he used to provoke reminisces from cheating husbands were now being used on him. It did not stop him talking. He said, ‘When you come out of jail, I thought better to pass you the file. You can read it. Always good for the wife to know everything. I know Mr Alan dead . . .’ The man wiped his brow with a short shirt sleeve and got to the point. ‘My bill is on top.’
Chelsea nodded, keen to get rid of this gross little man. She said, ‘All right, I will look at the file. If the information is useful, I will send you a cheque.’
‘Cash, please.’
She raised an eyebrow.
‘Otherwise, my wife will take the money.’
Chelsea nodded abruptly. Mr Chan understood that he was being dismissed and walked out of the door, smiling broadly. He did not doubt he would get his money.
The widow watched him go. She felt another blast of anger at her dead husband for putting her in a position where she had been forced to consort with lowlifes in an effort to dig up some dirt that she could use in the custody hearings.
Mr Chan had not been the only one she had hired – and a few of them had come back with enough information for her to prove adultery. She remembered how she was so absolutely sure that she was going to win custody of the children and put the whole unhappy history of her marriage to Alan Lee behind her. And then he had dropped his bombshell. He was Moslem, so were the kids – he should have custody. Chelsea Liew, surrounded by uncertainty, fear and doubt, was convinced of just one thing at that moment in time – Alan Lee had deserved to die.
It was not apparent that the man was Caucasian. He was burnt nut brown by the sun. This was not a superficial tan but deeply embedded into his skin which was leathery and lined like cured animal skin. His hair was unkempt, streaked with grey, greasy and tied back with a length of twine. His clothes were worn through with makeshift patches over the knees. It was only when he looked up – as he did now at the policeman behind the desk – that his piercing blue eyes gave his race away.
The accent was pure Queen’s as well – England not Brooklyn. ‘These people are being terrorised and I want to know what you are going to do about it.’
The policeman said, ‘I will report to the senior officer when he comes in – for now you fill in the incident report. That is our procedure.’
‘I tell you that the weakest members of your society are being hounded off their land and this is your response?’
‘You are foreigner – why you come here and shout at me? You do not understand the Malaysian way. These Penan are troublemakers. You should not believe everything they tell you.’
‘Tell me? I’ve seen the destruction with my own eyes. A pregnant woman died!’
‘I will report it, sir.’
‘You do that.’
The policeman watched the Englishman walk out the door, slamming it behind him. As if the exit was his cue, the senior officer, wearing a tan bush jacket with the gold frame of his reading glasses poking out of a pocket, appeared at the door to his office. He had been listening to proceedings quietly in his room. The two men looked at each other.
‘What should we do?’ asked the junior man. ‘If he calls the newspapers . . .’ He trailed off into silence.
They both knew the consequences. There was no need to spell it out and leave the words hanging like prophecies in the air.
‘He must not go to the newspapers. You know what to do.’
The senior policeman went back into his office and closed the door with exaggerated care.
The younger man sat quietly at his desk for a moment. He looked at the screen saver picture of his wife. She was smiling shyly at the camera – pretty, demure, deeply honest. She was pregnant with their first child now. He wondered if it was true that a Penan woman had lost her life. He wished that there was something he could do to rewind the clock. To crawl back up the slippery slope that had led him to this point. Be the husband and father his family deserved. It was too late. All he could do now was try and keep from being found out. Keep the family safe and happy in their ignorance. He unbuttoned his holster and slipped his revolver out. He had never used it except on the firing range. He checked that it was loaded, slipped it back into its case and walked out of the door onto the dusty street.
Rupert Winfield was staying at a Chinese lodging house in Kuching. It was a favourite haunt of backpackers. It was cheap and had in residence a loud-mouthed Chin
ese woman. She collected the rent, kept the place spotless, wore nylon floral dresses and fake pearls all day and in all weathers and cooked up cheap but tasty meals of fried rice in the café she ran on the ground floor for any of her guests who needed an inexpensive meal to go with their cheap room. She was known as Mrs Wong although in the many years that she had run her establishment, there had never been any sign of Mr Wong. She had a large notice board on one wall of her café and it was covered with photos and notes from the young men and women who had passed through her doors on their way to or from the Borneo interior. All were messages of thanks for a motherly outpost in a threatening world.
She was always proud to receive a new memento for her wall and the little ceremony with which she greeted an addition never varied. She would slit open the envelope, remove the picture or card, put it carefully on the table, cut out any return address, placing it in a box on her desk already filled with yellowing paper, walk down to her wall, examine it carefully, smile as one or two faces brought back an amusing memory, pin her new addition carefully in a vacant spot, take a step back to admire her handiwork and then sit down to a cup of coffee in a clear glass mug – stirring the thick layer of condensed milk at the bottom until it was thoroughly mixed with the jet black, bitter coffee on top.
A policeman walked into the café. He looked around carefully, searching for someone, and then walked out again. Mrs Wong, watching the street with the contented pleasure of a hardworking woman who knew this was a deserved interlude before she went back to iron-fresh sheets, could see him on the road, a dark silhouette against the bright sun. He tapped his foot impatiently, as if his body was annoyed at the indecisiveness of his mind. At last he came back in and walked over to the small desk that served as a reception for the hotel. It was unmanned and he looked around – seeking someone to attend to him. Mrs Wong waddled over. He looked at her and asked brusquely, ‘Mr Winfield – he stay here?’
She nodded.
‘Which room?’
‘Why you ask me that?’
‘None of your business!’ The young man’s hand caressed the butt of his gun for a second and she could see the beads of sweat on his hairline and upper lip.
He asked again, ‘Which room? I know he stay here.’
She said, ‘One, one, five.’
He made for the stairs.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Stay out of police business, old woman!’
She said mildly, ‘He is not in his room.’
This stopped him in his tracks. Mrs Wong nodded to the little pigeonholes behind her. His strained eyes found the slot marked ‘115’. A key was bundled into it.
‘Do you know when he will come back?’
‘Not sure.’ She shrugged, indicating that her rules were easy and her guests independent.
The policeman said firmly, ‘Don’t tell him that the police are looking for him. I will come back later.’
He did not go far. She could see him standing under the limited shade of a casuarina tree across the road, watching the entrance to the hotel. Occasionally, he would glance up and down the street. Mostly, he kept his eyes trained on her front door. She went back to her cup of coffee, grown cold in the interim, and made a face of disgust when she had a sip. She put it down, went to a cupboard, took out a mop and bucket, shouted in Cantonese to the staff that she would see to the bathrooms upstairs and started up the stairs. She could feel the eyes of the policeman on her back. As she reached the semi-cool darkness at the top of the stairs, out of sight of the road, she hastily put down the bucket and hurried to Room 117, tapping gently on the door. Rupert Winfield opened it, looking haggard and dishevelled. She looked past him into the room lit with a single, bright fluorescent tube. His clothes were scattered on the bed. An empty suitcase on the floor suggested that he was starting to pack.
She said, ‘You better hurry, lah. The police are looking for you.’
Chelsea opened the file the private investigator had given her. There was a note on the top with the name and address of a woman, ‘Sharifah Abdul Rahman, #04-04, Rose Condominium, Ampang’. It was stapled to the investigator’s bill for two thousand ringgit. Her eyebrows went up. Mr Chan must be convinced of the value of the information he had provided and expected her to be willing to pay handsomely for it.
The only other thing in the file was a CD. Chelsea held it in her hand, watching as the light caught the gleaming surface. Did she really want to see what was on this recording? Presumably, it was yet more evidence of Alan’s adultery. She had always known and never needed proof. The courts had required evidence, so she had found it for them. None of it mattered any more now that Alan was dead. Reluctantly, Chelsea decided that she could not ignore it. It might contain something as simple as Alan tucking into a plate of char siew – roast pork – after his so-called conversion to Islam. It might eventually be good evidence, assuming one of the courts would actually look into the matter, that religion was purely a matter of convenience for Alan Lee.
She ran up the carpeted stairs lightly and soundlessly. She went into the spare bedroom and locked the door. There was a television and DVD player, rarely used, in there. The state of her marriage had not allowed for many guests. Steeling herself, she slipped the CD in, grabbed the remote controls and perched on the edge of the bed.
The images had been shot on a recording device with fairly low resolution – a mobile phone, Chelsea decided. She had no difficulty recognising her husband as he sat on a bar stool watching the dancers at a club. Chelsea could not tell if it was because of the quality of the recording but the air seemed smoky. Flashing lights in many colours punctuated the scene and she could almost smell the perspiring dancers. The sound was largely muffled but Chelsea could make out the persistent beat of loud music. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. Alan had been so pathetic, going clubbing to places where the average age was twenty years younger than him. She continued to watch, wondering if all there was on the tape was Alan sipping a cocktail.
A young woman walked up to Alan. She was exquisite. Tall and thin, with beautifully made-up features, she strode into the shot like a model. With a start, Chelsea realised that the woman bore a strong resemblance, in height and style, to herself. Alan had not seen her as she walked up to him. He was concentrating on the dancers. She slipped a long, thin arm around his neck and he swivelled on his stool. Standing over him, she leaned down and kissed him full on the mouth. It was a smooth, sensuous action – even on a phone recording. Alan responded by standing up and folding the woman in his arms. Chelsea felt her stomach muscles clench. Knowing your husband was adulterous and watching him were two different things. Public displays of affection – or lust, thought Chelsea dismissively – were not common in Malaysia. A few people had turned to look at the couple kissing so uninhibitedly. This was Sharifah, whose address was in the file, she supposed. The screen went blank. She wondered why Mr Chan thought she would be willing to pay two thousand ringgit for what he had provided.
The camera came back on. Perhaps he had been trying to conserve the battery. A young man had marched up to the couple. He was slim, dressed in black with short, dark hair. He grabbed the woman by the arm and yanked her away from Alan. She turned in surprise, and then seeing who it was, took a step backwards and said something – it was impossible to hear over the music. It was obvious that she knew the young man. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her – not roughly, almost pleadingly. It was clear to Chelsea what had happened. Alan had stolen this girl from the young man and he was desperate to win her back. Seeing the woman’s face for the first time, Chelsea realised that despite her dress and make-up she was very young. She was not in Alan’s usual style at all. He liked his women to be practised. No doubt she had been swept off her feet by an older man with money who knew how to be charming. Chelsea could almost feel sorry for the girl.
Alan had grown tired of the young man’s impassioned pleading because he grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away from the girl. The gir
l put out a hand, a gesture of sympathy, an apology – it might even have been a sign that she knew deep down that her affections lay with him. Alan must have recognised the possibility because he put both hands on the stranger and shoved. The boy stumbled backwards, found his balance and would have charged forward to attack Alan if the girl had not stepped between them. She shook her head at the young man. He said something and she shook her head again, more firmly this time. The boy raised an angry finger – pointing at Alan over the girl’s shoulder. Chelsea could just make out the words, ‘I won’t let you get away with this!’
And then he turned and almost ran away from the couple. But not before he had looked directly into Mr Chan’s camera.
Chelsea collapsed backwards onto the bed. She buried her face in a pillow.
Eleven
‘I killed him.’
The inspector said testily, ‘Yes, yes! I’ve heard this part before. I am asking you why!’
‘His job . . . his business.’
‘You wanted his business?’ There was no disguising the puzzlement in the inspector’s voice. ‘But I thought you walked away from all that. Chelsea told me that you had no interest in money matters.’
Jasper said impatiently, ‘Not to get his business, to stop Alan running it!’
‘Why?’
‘Everything he has ever done is illegal and destructive.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘The family business is logging – my father was the original timber magnate. He built an empire cutting down trees from coast to coast.’
The inspector nodded to indicate that he knew the potted history of the Lee family.
‘Alan was expanding operations to Borneo. That is where the best logging is – most of the old-growth hard wood on the peninsula is long gone. What is left is on nature reserves and fairly well-policed.’
‘I still don’t know what you’re driving at.’
‘He was logging illegally. Destroying the rainforest ecosystems. Driving species to extinction. Hounding the indigenous tribes and chasing them off the land they have used for thousands of years.’
A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder Page 9