I raised my voice, forced myself to intrude. “But you didn’t say…either of you, that you minded…had any objections to my going with Vanita.”
“Object is too strong a word, old chap. But we will not deny that we, your mother and I, had reservations about how hopelessly involved you were with a person that neither of us knew at all and, we suspected, you yourself not very well.” He stopped to busy himself with his drink.
Ma butted in, “I never thought it my duty to tell you who you should marry. I have always said to your uncle here, it’s How Kum that’s going to sleep with the girl, not me, so let him choose.” She looked down at the table and allowed her shoulders to slump forward on it. It was an attitude Ma assumed when she wanted sympathy. One didn’t need a psychic to guess what she was going to say. “Who am I to give advice about marriage anyway, after what the Malayalee rascal did to me.”
“Now, now, Lili,” said Oscar taking her head in his hands and turning her face towards his, “you mustn’t distress yourself by talking like that. The past’s over and done with. You always have me,” — it was almost an afterthought — “and How Kum at your side.”
At the coffee-shop in Joo Chiat, D’Cruz had told us what the murder weapon had been. I began to see a tiny corner of a picture then and what I saw was so ugly that I quickly put it out of my mind. Now I was being shown more of the canvas and what I saw was monstrous. It was true that I did not stick a knife into Vanita. I might as well have, for she was killed not because of anything she had done but because of her connection with me: the peculiar relationship that existed between Ma, Oscar and me, a relationship that was so tight and tangled that it would not permit another person entering it. Had my life not been what it was, hers would have been spared.
The possibility that Ma and Oscar were involved in Vanita’s death was not something that I could come to terms with. It was not one of the composites that I could put together to give a semblance of meaning to my life.
I stared at the picture, the unacceptable jigsaw that I had fashioned. I stared at it for a long while. Then suddenly I realised that there was something wrong with it: two wayward pieces that wouldn’t fall into place; pieces that refused to make the ugliness correct.
It was impossible for Oscar to have actually killed Vanita, Lip Bin and Esther. It was just imaginable that he could have hired someone to do the job for him. If he was using a hired killer, why on earth should he give him Ma’s kitchen knife with which to do the job?
Secondly, if Oscar arranged Vanita’s death, he would have done so as a testimony of his love for Ma and would certainly have told her about it so she could understand how far he was prepared to go on her account. Oscar was a knight, a flamboyant one. He was not the kind of knight who’d keep his lady unaware of the things he would do for her.
When I came in on Sunday morning, Ma was convinced that I had killed Vanita. She feared that, like my father, I had an uncontrollable temper and was given to violence. I was convinced that her reaction was genuine. Ma did not have the cunning for it to have been otherwise.
I relaxed and began to notice what was going on around me.
Oscar, who was spending an inordinately long time getting the proportions of his drink right, was finally satisfied with what he had in his glass, took a tiny sip of this and began speaking, “If there’s one thing that must be put properly in its place, dear boy, it is this. Whatever our misgivings about the suitability of the girl, Lili and I are awfully sorry that she is dead.” He took a large gulp of brandy and swirled this appreciatively round in his mouth before swallowing it. “And since the girlie was so dear to you, it behoves me to find out all I can about her death. I thought I’d sniff around the old places and see if the team have any idea what’s going on.”
“Do you really think, Uncle Oscar, that your friends would know anything about these killings?”
“Of course, dear fellow.” He leaned back in his chair and proceeded to tell us of the times his friends had been in possession of knowledge no one else had. Ma stared, or rather gazed at him, eyes shining, mouth open.
Oscar told us of murders which, but for the intercession of his cronies, the police would have written off as accidents. He told of drug-plants and treachery in high places. I knew most of his stories and did not interrupt him. I was again a little boy, safe in the heart of my family, cocooned from the world by the voice of my uncle Oscar.
More than an hour passed before Oscar said, “It’s like this, dear boy. You don’t see the world if you are too close to it. And its processes become invisible if you are actually a part of them. Now my friends, they like to remain distinct from things, keep their hands clear of the machinery. That’s why I look to them whenever I need perspective.”
The next morning Oscar had gone. Ma was subdued the way she always became when her man went “walkabout”.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. She poured out my coffee as always. “I’ll look after myself. You go ahead and do whatever you have to do.”
There was not much to do at Nats and Vanita’s ghost wouldn’t leave me alone. It is nice to have at your side someone that you love, but it is irritating beyond belief not to have some time to yourself. I could have screamed as she followed me down the rows of preset girls, leaned against the stacks of paper on my desk, bowed and let me pass ahead of her when I left my room. I knew why she was being persistent: I was not doing enough about finding her killer.
I was in my office apologising to her, mouthing words, my voice almost about to become audible, when Jafri phoned.
“Would you like to come round to the flat today? There’s something I want to talk to you about?”
“To do with Vanita?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll come straight from work…”
“Come for a cup of tea.”
Zainah was alone when I got to the apartment. I was not sure what Zainah did with her time but she seemed to spend a good deal of it on her own. Normally she was bubbly, flirtatious, finding excuses to make body contact. Today she was subdued, distant. She poured tea in silence, said nothing as she walked across the room to fiddle with an ornament on a book-shelf.
“What’s the matter, Zainah?” She put down the figurine she was holding and stared at the wall. I walked across, touched her hand. “Tell me, Zainah.”
“It’s Jafri, How Kum.”
She took my hands and put them on her shoulders; leaned on me, not heavily but enough. Zainah smelled of soap and talcum: an infant after a bath. Her body felt boneless, like a baby’s. Cuddly too, I thought. I became conscious of my breathing.
“What’s Jafri been up to?”
“He’s not been up to anything with me. He works late and I’m alone every night…”
“He’s got a new law practice, Zainah.” Her body was soft. Vanita was dead. I was only half-joking when I said, “If Jafri’s too busy with the practice, I’ll take care of you.”
“Maybe he’s busy with the practice. Maybe with other things.” She gave a tiny sob and shuddered. Then her body seemed to collapse, needed me to hold it against mine lest it fall.
“Come on Zainah,” I said. The thought of Jafri womanising was absurd. Which man could want something else when he could come home to this? “Jafri’s not that kind of man.”
“You say that, How Kum, but you don’t know Jafri nowadays. He’s not the same like the man you know. Not the same like the man I married.
“The Jafri I married was a brave man. So confident also. First he works in Deputy Prosecutor’s office. He wants to use the law to bring criminals to justice. Then he becomes defence lawyer. He works from other side of law: finds justice for accused persons. But he is still the same Jafri. Still thinking of good and bad, still believing in justice.”
I let my arms drop to the small of her back so I could hold her more easily and asked, “But that hasn’t changed, has it?”
“Yes. That has changed also.” She sniffed slightly. “Now Jafri says there is n
o good or bad, no guilty or innocent. He says he don’t know why people commit crimes. Maybe they cannot help it. Jafri don’t need justice any more. Also, he don’t need his wife.”
“But that’s unbelievable. Jafri has always had definite views of what was right and what was wrong. It’s impossible for him…”
“Not nowadays, How Kum. He says that maybe there’s no innocent and no guilty. After your girlfriend’s murder and the two other murders he is more sure of this…”
“What has Vanita’s death got to do with Jafri’s state of mind?”
“He tells me that nobody is going to catch the killer because we are all looking for the wrong sort of person.”
I suspect I had tightened my grip on Zainah. The messages reaching me became confused. The softness of her body produced a familiar ache in a familiar place. But the voice inside me was saying something different. Something more important. I responded to the voice. “I don’t understand this, Zainah. Jafri seemed to approve of what the inspector was doing and encouraged me to cooperate with him.”
She leaned back slightly and looked into my face. “Yah,” she said. “Jafri talks this way sometimes and that way sometimes. But I know what he thinks. He says that D’Cruz is too…” she searched for the unfamiliar word her husband had used, “…too crusading, too angry in his approach. Jafri says that the inspector will never find the killer as long as he uses this kind of method.”
I moved away so our bodies no longer touched. “If the inspector can’t find the killer, who can?”
“Jafri doesn’t know but he says that newer criminological techniques will have to be used.”
We heard a key in the lock. My arm was still round his wife’s waist when Jafri entered. Zainah and I were at one end of the room and our tea at the other. Jafri didn’t seem to notice anything untoward about this. He walked across, touched his wife’s cheek, then my shoulder. As he did I smelled aftershave. Being collected at all times is an infuriating trait in most people. Now, more than ever, was I grateful that Jafri possessed such a quality.
“Tea for my tired husband?” Zainah asked, leaning her cheek against his arm.
He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled deeply. I missed Vanita more than ever as I made my way back to the sofa.
Zainah produced brightly coloured cakes, fragrant with lemon-grass and tacky with glutinous rice. I found it difficult to talk as I ate.
Jafri had no such problem. “I have spent a good deal of time talking things over with the inspector and we have come to certain conclusions.” He smiled. “Some held mutually, others individually.
“There are essentially two ways of looking at these crimes. They could be the work of a psychopath, a mass murderer. D’Cruz has rejected that possibility…”
“Why?” I still harboured the tiniest of hopes that we had been included in somebody else’s tragedy.
“Because the man has gone through some forty years of police records and claims that, outside of race riots, there have been no mass murders in Singapore. Our killers he told me are rational men, men with motives. Their motives may be crazy, but they are not.”
“You agree with the inspector, Jafri?”
“I’m not sure what I agree with.” Zainah looked at him anxiously and he chose his words carefully. “I was brought up to believe in good and evil, crime and punishment. All these years I saw things as black or white separated by the narrowest band of grey. Now the band of grey seems to have expanded so much that everything seems to be one or other shade of grey. So much so that I am having to revise my views on innocence and guilt.”
“Meaning?”
“There may be persons with certain genes which determine their attitudes…”
It was Zainah who spoke, her voice shrill with disbelief. “Are you saying that there are people born to be killers?”
“It’s not quite like that. I am saying that given a certain inborn disposition, external circumstances may trigger off a chain of responses over which the individual has no control. It would be wrong to punish such people for doing things they cannot help themselves doing.”
I was not unfamiliar with that kind of thinking. The sharpness in my voice reflected only my surprise at Jafri’s choosing to give it credence. “How come we’ve no record of such killers till now, Jafri?”
“The genes for this type of person must have been present in our community as they have been in all human communities. However, we have not seen this form of killing in Singapore because the conditions didn’t exist to activate this kind of killer.”
“What’s happened to bring him out of the woodwork now?” I tried to control it but my voice was still shriller than I wished. “What’s changed?”
I recognised the look on Jafri’s face. I had seen it in debates at school, while he was prosecuting in the courts. Sometimes even in the course of trivial argument. It was a look of triumph, only slightly concealed. “Everything, How Kum. Everything.” He smiled. “Aren’t you always telling me that there is nothing left of the old Singapore, the island that Oscar tells you stories about? Houses are different, streets are different, ways have changed. People nowadays simply have no connection with the past. They have lost their sense of community, they no longer share common values. They cannot connect reward with a good deed or punishment with a bad one. They are angry, frustrated and confused.”
Zainah interrupted, “When I’m angry and frustrated I don’t go out and kill just anybody. I know who’s to blame and I want to kill him.”
She shot her husband a sidelong look, accusing but deeply affectionate.
I wished some woman would look at me like that. Jafri didn’t seem to notice it or to take his wife’s point. He continued. “We live in a pressure-cooker world. We are offered all sorts of technological goodies but we have to fight each other for them. Under these conditions those with inappropriate gene-complexions will find difficulty expressing themselves. Their pent-up desires, their aggressions, have one outlet: murder.” He paused. “I feel that we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg. There will be more murders like this. Mark my words. This is the price we pay for development.”
“Assuming you are right,” I asked, “how do we go about finding this killer?”
Jafri looked miserable and his face tended to collapse. “I don’t know. The phenomenon is new to Singapore and I don’t think anyone in the country really knows what to do. We just have to play along with the routine stuff and hope for the best.” He shrugged and shook his head. “And thus far routine investigations have not led us anywhere. As things stand the situation looks pretty hopeless. Unless the killer does it again we will have no way of finding out who he is. And even if he kills again our chances of catching him don’t seem all that bright.”
“What does D’Cruz say about your theories?”
“Ozzie, as you have seen, is an old-fashioned policeman. He sees all crimes as having motives. He sees the investigator as the person who builds a bridge between the motive and the crime. He cannot understand or accept motiveless crimes.”
“But you have made your views clear to him?”
Jafri was embarrassed. “Ozzie is an obstinate man. Not the kind of person who will alter his views without very good reason…”
“Are you saying, Jafri, that you have not told D’Cruz what you feel about things?”
“I have intimated to him that this may not be the kind of crime he is used to investigating but he seems only to be capable of following his own line of thought.”
“What does he suggest we do to find the killer?”
“He wants you to get more involved with the investigation.”
“Me?”
“You remember what he told you about Vanita not being able to die properly till her killer was found and your being the one who would benefit most from finding the killer. Well he now believes that you not only have the motivation but also the ability to do so.”
“Who on earth gave him that impression?”
“I d
id,” said Jafri, forcing a grin on to his face.
Once again I felt I was being used to shape a design which I could not as yet visualise: I was a needle moving in and out of a fabric which did not, as yet, have even the outline of a tapestry on it.
This didn’t stop me asking, “You told him I could help with the investigation, Jafri? Why?”
“Because I believe he’s right.” The grin had faded. “I told Ozzie about your mystical abilities. How you feel visions and taste the words on other people’s tongues…”
“How do you know that?”
He smiled slightly. “I’ve known you from school, How Kum. I don’t exactly know what’s going on in your head but I know when something is. And you have an ability that I envy terribly.”
“What’s that?”
“You seem to be able to see things before they happen, seem to know how the pieces are going to fall.” He was quick to add, “I don’t mean that you possess any supernatural power.” He looked at Zainah, “God knows I don’t believe in that sort of rubbish. But I think you have a way of looking at the world differently from the rest of us. You latch on to tiny signs and from them deduce what’s going to happen. I suspect that you don’t do this consciously.”
“D’Cruz agrees with this?”
“Ozzie says he knows what I mean. He believes that you will, more likely than not, see things opposite to the way he does and because of this wants very much for you to be with him in this case.”
I understood. Too well, I understood. There is a contrariness about design. There are not many people who from dabs of paint on a canvas, steel wires sticking out of concrete blocks, blobs and flourishes confined between five ruled lines can see a painting, look up at a skyscraper, hear a symphony. The inspector and I had quite different natures, even looked as though we did not belong to the same species. Yet we were drawn together, found need for each other. I saw purpose in this alliance of contradiction.
Moonrise, Sunset Page 11