A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder

by Shamini Flint

  None of the men said anything and Jasper’s face grew worried. ‘Has anything happened?’ he asked. ‘Is Chelsea all right?’

  It was Singh who responded. ‘Oh yes! She’s fine. Relieved to be out of here. The kids are OK too.’

  Jasper visibly relaxed. He said, ‘That’s great, I’m glad she’s recovering.’

  Singh said, as one musing aloud, ‘I would go as far as to say she’s happy.’

  ‘Oh? Why do you say that?’

  ‘It’s a great relief for her to be able to shack up with the boyfriend, I think. You know her better than I do – but she does not seem to be the sort who would want to hide a relationship.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Inspector Mohammad shifted in his seat slightly, his eyes fixed on the accused. Jasper did not notice. All his concentration was on the fat policeman from Singapore.

  ‘Ravi, of course,’ said the inspector, feigning surprise at Jasper’s ignorance.

  Shukor, watching the performance, felt almost sorry for Jasper Lee. He was no match for the Sikh policeman’s low cunning enhanced by his dramatic abilities.

  Jasper looked annoyed, like someone who suspected that the joke might be on him but could not quite put his finger on the punch line. He said, as coolly as he could, ‘Who is Ravi?’

  ‘Don’t you know? I thought you were bound to be in on the secret – seeing how close you and Chelsea are.’

  Jasper was not so lost to his agenda that he was ready to forget his lines. He said automatically, ‘We were not that close.’

  Shukor thought that they were both actors, the policeman and the accused, but they were playing parts from different scenes.

  Jasper asked with a valiant effort at a nonchalant tone, ‘She’s met someone, has she?’

  ‘More than that!’ exclaimed Singh. ‘She’s had a bit on the side all this while.’ His tone was deliciously gossipy. ‘What’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, eh?’ And to Shukor’s amazement, he winked at Jasper Lee.

  Jasper’s shock was palpable. Shukor could have reached out and touched it, kneaded it into shape – a permanent monument to a man surprised. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘You need me to spell it out? All this while she’s been playing little Miss Innocent, she’s had a tasty bit on the side.’ Singh stopped and appeared to think about his statement for a moment. Then he said, ‘Well, I may be being just a bit unfair. It does seem she really loves this guy. They’ve been inseparable since she got out.’

  Jasper had turned gallows pale. Shukor doubted he could look more deathly if he was swinging at the end of a rope.

  Jasper said, more to himself than anyone, ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Well, look at this then . . .’ And Inspector Singh slid Ravi’s love letter across the table to Jasper.

  It had turned the inspector’s stomach to read the lies that the boyfriend was willing to tell to get his hands on some of Chelsea’s money. It had a different effect on Jasper.

  He let the letter slide through numb fingers and said in a voice that was so thick and choked, it sounded like his tongue had inflated suddenly, ‘So what are you doing here anyway?’

  ‘We just wanted to ask you again why you killed Alan Lee.’

  Jasper didn’t answer. He stood up and said, ‘Can we do this another time please?’

  They left Jasper to his thoughts and walked out.

  ‘Why didn’t you ask him if he was sticking to his story?’ asked Shukor.

  ‘Too soon,’ said Singh, and Mohammad nodded his agreement. ‘In my experience, a mistake like he’s made – it will take a while for him to move from disbelief to denial and then, of course, to anger. I give it about twenty-four hours – and then he’ll be asking to see us.’

  A young uniformed policeman came up to them and muttered something to Inspector Mohammad. A vertical line appeared between the inspector’s eyebrows. The policeman handed a package over to him and, saluting smartly, retreated into the depths of officialdom from which he had come.

  Singh asked, ‘What is it?’

  ‘A tape from an informer. It might have a bearing on the Lee investigation apparently.’

  ‘Convenient!’ remarked Inspector Singh. ‘Any idea what it’s about?’

  ‘Not a clue. But we can find out.’

  The men walked purposefully towards a room with audio-visual equipment. Mohammad led the way, walking with long-limbed elegance. Shukor padded silently in his wake. Singh lumbered after them. A study in physical contrasts, they looked like a procession that was not just walking along a corridor but up the evolutionary chain as well. But, despite appearances, it would have been a brave man who bet against Inspector Singh if it came down to the survival of the fittest.

  Mohammad opened the package and handed the disc to Shukor, who organised the equipment efficiently. The three men sat down and the whole episode at the night club unfolded before them. The wealthy Alan Lee, just a few weeks before his death, his plaything and the irate young man shunted aside.

  Shukor felt it was like an MTV rock video with the repetitive bass, the strobe lights and the excessively beautiful woman.

  Singh, from an older generation, was reminded more of silent movies with their painted dolls and exaggerated acting.

  It was left to Mohammad to say something and he did. ‘Jasper hasn’t even changed his mind yet and new suspects are crawling out of the woodwork.’

  ‘Maybe that woman had some reason to be jealous?’ suggested Shukor.

  ‘Yes, although more likely that young man had a surge of testosterone,’ was the Malaysian inspector’s response. ‘We need to find out who he is.’

  Singh said unexpectedly, ‘Oh no we don’t!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Inspector Mohammad testily. ‘You’re convinced he’s innocent? Leave me some suspects, for God’s sake.’

  Singh grinned, baring his small, even teeth, stained with nicotine and coffee. ‘No, I don’t know that he didn’t do it. But I do know who that young man is. I met him only last week.’

  The other two turned to him, the inspector in surprise, the sergeant, who was beginning to see the Singapore policeman as omniscient, in expectation.

  ‘That there,’ said Inspector Singh laconically, ‘is Marcus Lee – the murdered man’s son.’

  Twenty-four hours later, Jasper Lee asked to see Inspector Mohammad. Mohammad summoned Singh and they set off for the cells. There was no talk now about Singh returning to Singapore. Although there was no official reason for him to stay, not unless Chelsea was rearrested, he was too involved.

  Mohammad had changed his tune. He treated the inspector from Singapore as an ally in a hunt for the truth, not an adversary in a battle for kudos. Singh admired him for it but did not expect it to last past their next dispute over culpability. Still, it was much more pleasant doing investigative work with the authority of a police department behind him. Singh, the maverick, had suddenly been made aware that the bureaucracy he despised served a very useful purpose. It gave him power and access, without which no amount of investigative acumen was of any use.

  Jasper Lee was a pale imitation of the man he had been a mere twenty-four hours earlier. His thinness was cadaverous. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair lank. Singh thought he looked like someone he had seen recently and was debating whether it was a resemblance to his nephew, Marcus, that he perceived or the other brother, Kian Min. It came to him with some shock. Jasper Lee looked like Alan Lee – as he had seen him in the morgue, three weeks dead and waiting to be buried. Up until he had heard about Ravi, Jasper had been waiting for certain death with dignity – now he looked like it had caught up with him.

  Singh flicked on the tape recorder and said with cruel humour, ‘You asked to see us? Decided why you killed Alan yet?’

  Jasper sat sullenly. He had called them in, but his heart still shrank from what he intended to do. The policemen saw the doubt and anxiety flit across his face. And also the disappointment. Jasp
er Lee had screwed up the courage to be a hero – and had only managed to land the part of the fool.

  Singh sensed it was partly a reluctance to admit that his great sacrifice was a mistake. This was a man who had been branded a failure by his father, his brothers and his peers. He was vilified as being weak, unable to carry things through, lacking the hard head needed to make intelligent business judgements. Jasper Lee had chosen his moment to confront his secret fear – that these accusations had more than a grain of truth in them. He must have felt secretly proud – proud of his capacity for self-sacrifice, proud of his courage in the face of death, proud of his ability to take a decision of principle and stick to it. And it had all been for nothing – merely vindicating the family view that he was a gullible idiot.

  Singh said almost gently to the tortured man, ‘It’s not too late, you know.’

  Jasper looked up at him and there were tears in his eyes. Mohammad shifted uncomfortably. He was of the old school – grown men didn’t cry and boys shouldn’t. Singh was from the same generation. But to him, tears were an honest reflection of emotion. And honesty led a policeman like him to the truth.

  ‘Not too late?’ asked Jasper. ‘I’m afraid you’re quite, quite wrong. It was too late twenty years ago.’

  ‘Too late to have her – not too late to save your life,’ urged Mohammad.

  ‘Save it for what?’

  ‘For the things you care about,’ said Singh.

  ‘I was going to sacrifice it for the thing I care about.’

  ‘We know,’ said Mohammad gently.

  Jasper looked at them and saw from their sympathetic expressions that they did know. It made it that much easier for him to put his errors into words.

  He said carefully, looking down at the floor, noticing that it was bare cement and hard and cold and grey like the world as it appeared to him, ‘I did not kill my brother, Alan Lee.’

  ‘Why did you confess?’

  ‘I wanted to protect Chelsea. I was afraid she would be convicted of the murder.’

  ‘Can you tell us why you wanted to protect her?’

  ‘I love her. I’ve loved her since the day I met her, twenty years ago, at my brother’s wedding.’

  ‘So what changed your mind?’

  Jasper struggled to articulate his reasoning. He said, ‘I’m not sure, really. I tried to protect her because I loved her. I knew I couldn’t have her, not if I was going to end up in here. But to find out she had a boyfriend all along . . . I thought she was alone, you see. That she needed me. Had no one else.’

  ‘Why were you so sure that she killed Alan?’

  The question penetrated the daze. He said in a sharper tone, ‘I am not sure! But you seemed ready to hang her.’

  ‘Do you know anything that made you suspect that she’d done it?’

  ‘Where the smoking gun is, you mean? Look, I’ve decided I don’t want to swing for Chelsea. Her boyfriend can do that if he wants. But that does not mean I plan to help you hang her!’

  This flash of spirit quickly died down and Jasper slumped back into his chair. He said, ‘What now?’

  ‘I guess we let you go,’ said Inspector Mohammad. ‘But don’t go too far.’

  Singh tapped the Malay policeman on the shoulder and nodded in the direction of the door. ‘I need a quick word,’ he said.

  The two men walked out and Mohammad said impatiently, ‘What is it? Do you want me to thank you?’

  ‘No, no. Don’t let him go yet.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t let him go yet!’

  ‘Why not? Weren’t you the one who couldn’t bear Chelsea Liew spending one hour more than she had to in prison?’

  Inspector Singh brushed aside his previous position with a quick gesture. ‘Look, you don’t think Chelsea did it, do you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Mohammad cautiously.

  ‘At least you agree that there are a few suspects floating around?’ He ticked them off on his fingers – ’Kian Min, Marcus Lee, Ravi, that woman who might have been scorned.’

  ‘And Chelsea Liew.’

  ‘All right, and Chelsea.’

  Mohammad said, ‘I am willing to accept that we have a few suspects, yes. So what?’

  ‘Let’s keep Jasper here. The murderer, whichever one he is, will think he’s home and dry. He might make a mistake.’

  If Mohammad noticed the masculine pronoun for the murderer, he didn’t show it. Instead, he nodded. ‘That’s actually not a bad idea. We’ll try it.’

  The policemen walked back in to inform Jasper Lee that he would have to wait a little bit longer to get out. He didn’t seem to care.

  Sharifah looked out of the window. The day was so hot a shimmering haze was visible, as if the heat had warped the air. She was devastated by Chelsea’s visit. It was a terrible thing to have a conversation with the woman whose husband she had slept with. It was no use telling herself that if it was not her, it would have been somebody else. Because it hadn’t been someone else – it had been her. She thought of her parents, who had worked hard to bring her up to know right from wrong. She thought of Marcus, who had loved her and been completely destroyed by her betrayal of him, not just with anyone, but with the father he hated. She felt very, very ashamed. She wondered if she dared call Marcus. She looked at her mobile phone on the dining table. No, she could not call him. Not after what she had done. Thank God the uncle had killed Alan. If she had provoked Marcus to murder, she could not have lived with herself. Sharifah made up her mind. She would make amends as best as she could. The past was inviolable. But she would sell the flat bought in her name, as well as all the jewellery, and return the money to the Lee family – anonymously. She was not looking for public forgiveness, just personal redemption.

  The doorbell rang and she went to answer it nervously. She really hoped it was not Chelsea again.

  A Sikh man said, ‘We are the police. We want to ask you some questions about Alan Lee.’

  She let them in reluctantly, the fat man and his handsome Malay sidekick.

  Singh did not beat around the bush. He had decided early to be aggressive to the adulteress, convinced that only tough questioning would have an impact on a woman so bold as to have an affair with Alan Lee. When Sharifah opened the door and peered out fearfully, he realised at once she was not the scheming woman of his imagination but a pretty, young thing – a victim of Alan Lee. Despite this, he felt a sudden anger at the woman who had added to the misery facing Chelsea Liew as she tried to escape her abusive marriage and rescue her children from their father’s unhappy influence.

  He said abruptly, ‘We have good reason to suspect you killed Alan Lee.’

  ‘We were going to get married! Why would I kill him?’

  Sharifah was angry and frightened. Just as the door to the past was closing, this fat policeman had stuck his great foot in its dirty white shoe in the crack.

  Inspector Singh asked rudely, still infuriated at the role the young woman had played in the unfolding drama surrounding Alan Lee’s life and death, ‘Why in the world would a man like Alan Lee marry you? Here’s what really happened. He showered you with attention, got you into bed and then dumped you as he had done all the women before you. You got upset, got a gun, found a quiet moment and killed him.’

  Sharifah’s eyes were wide with shock. She was young and had never been confronted so aggressively before. Even Chelsea, who had better reason than most to hate her, had not raised her voice. She felt tears fill her eyes. ‘But he converted to Islam – he did that for me!’

  ‘You might have given him the idea, but he converted to get custody of the kids and spite his ex-wife.’

  ‘I don’t believe you!’

  Singh said in genuine disgust, ‘It’s naïve, stupid young women like you who make it possible for men like Alan to exploit and ruin them.’

  Sharifah said quietly, ‘I know I made a mistake, I see that now. But I didn’t kill him. At the time when he died, I still thought I l
oved him.’

  ‘I still thought I loved him,’ imitated Singh in an irritated tone. ‘If you were my daughter, I’d lock you in a room and not let you out until you developed some common sense.’

  ‘I’ve told you I didn’t kill him. Is there anything else I can help you with?’ asked Sharifah.

  Singh noted with approval that the young woman had some gumption. He wondered at Alan Lee. He had been attracted to strong, beautiful women, if Chelsea and Sharifah were anything to go by, but then was not content until he had beaten the spirit out of them.

  ‘Did Alan beat you?’ he asked abruptly.

  She flinched at the sudden change of tack but she said firmly, ‘No, of course not. Why would he do that? I told you – he loved me. He loved me very much. We were going to get married.’

  Singh knew she was lying. She was protesting too much. Rehearsing the arguments she had used to explain away the violence.

  ‘How often did he hit you?’

  ‘I’ve just told you, he didn’t!’

  ‘Just once, twice? Was it all flowers and apologies after that? What did he tell you – he was under pressure at work? The custody battle was going badly that day? He loved you so much he got jealous because you were talking to the postman? I bet you thought it was a compliment that he gave you a black eye!’

  Sharifah said in a subdued tone, ‘It was only the once. He slapped me. But he was really sorry about it.’

  ‘And you believed him?’ asked Shukor, speaking for the first time during the interview.

  She looked at him defiantly. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So let me get this straight,’ said the inspector. ‘He was much, much older than you, was going through a divorce where he was accused of adultery and brutality and was locked in a bitter custody battle for his kids. He had started to hit you – and yet you thought you were going to marry him and live happily ever after?’

  She nodded and said, ‘I guess it sounds unlikely.’

  Singh said, ‘All right then, let’s suppose I believe you . . . maybe you didn’t kill him.’

  Sharifah looked up at him quickly, hope dawning in her eyes. Was the door to the past to be allowed to close after all?