(We didn’t tell Sammy afterwards, but we did sneak a look when we got back to the hotel. I left quickly, though: all we could see were long legs in black dresses, and I realised straight away that I could have got into serious trouble there. Normally that wouldn’t have stopped Dylan, but by then he was too dazed and confused to remember which name he was using, so he bailed out too.)
The melatonin did its stuff: I popped another couple and was asleep by one and awake by eight. The hotel gym opened early, so I went down there again and did a quick aerobic circuit topped off by some sets of serious weights, then swam a few widths of the circular pool, which was deserted, save for a couple of British Airways flight attendants in bikinis. I had just come out of the water and was towelling myself down when one of them came over and asked me to sign her trip schedule. I might as well have issued a press release, I thought.
It got worse. I was barely back in my room before the phone rang: a programme assistant from a local television station was put straight through by the hotel operator to ask me if I’d do a drop-in on a chat show at seven that evening. I lied again (I was becoming uncomfortably good at that) and told her I couldn’t be certain that I’d be in Singapore by then. She sounded so crestfallen that I gave in and agreed to do it. I figured that if it was general knowledge that I was on the island there was no point in trying to hide.
When I hung up, I noticed that a red light was flashing on the phone, signifying a message. I called it up, and heard Primavera; she’d phoned the night before when Dylan and I were out on the town.
‘Oz,’ she began, ‘I hope to God they’ve put me through to the right room. I’m at Dad’s and I’ve spoken to my sister and brother-in-law about the surprising development with Mr Luker. As you can imagine it came as a hell of a shock to them both, but I’ve managed to persuade him that Benny wasn’t personally involved in the difficulty they had and that the other man was almost completely responsible. They’re okay to go on with the project, on the basis that they don’t have to see Mr Luker at any time. Give me a call to confirm that you’ve received this, and get in touch with them whenever you can.’
It was better than I’d expected: I’d envisaged having to weigh in with Miles myself at the end of the day, to win him over. Prim had done a good job. I called her mobile to tell her as much. It was the middle of the night in Auchterarder, and it was switched off, so I left her a voice message saying, ‘Well done, Benny owes you one,’ and hung up. Then I rang Mike’s room to give him the good news, but when he answered he sounded like a Martian, so I told him I’d see him downstairs at midday, and went off to the club room for breakfast.
Once I had eaten, I picked up a map of the city centre. It told me that the Esplanade theatre complex was located in two hedgehog-shaped buildings I could see from the club windows. I asked the concierge, a pleasant girl whose name-tag said she was called Polly, whether they were easy to reach. She told me that there was a walkway which led straight there from more or less under the hotel.
I found it easily enough, at the foot of the escalator leading to the City Hall MRT station. (The MRT is Singapore’s subway; it is to the London Underground as the classic Cadillac in the Monaco motor museum is to the nearby East German Trabant.) The walkway turned out to be a shopping mall. I hadn’t sussed this out at that time, but Sing is a very, very serious retail place. Eventually I was glad that Susie didn’t make the trip, because there wouldn’t have been enough suitcases on the island to carry back the stuff she’d have bought.
It took me ten leisurely minutes to reach the Esplanade, and when I did I found that the walkway led me into an underground car park from which another escalator raised me up into a vast modern marble foyer.
Bear in mind that it was still well short of eleven on a Sunday morning, but there were other visitors, sightseers in the place, and there were two blue-suited receptionists on duty. One of them looked like an even further upmarket version of one of the tall Chinese waitresses we had seen briefly (at least I had seen them: Dylan’s eyes had been crossing by that time) in the New Asia the night before.
She approached me and welcomed me, with a smile that said she meant it, to the Theatres on the Bay. She gave me a rundown on some of their recent performances, including the Sadlers Wells ballet (Ali, my irreverent grocer pal in Edinburgh, used to call ballet ‘poofs’ football’, and may well still do so) and on some of their forthcoming attractions. She told me that the following night there would be a performance by the University of Florida Wind Symphony. You know me well enough by now to read my mind: I tried to keep the smile off my face, but I failed. We both wound up laughing; I liked this girl.
The burst of early visitors had come to an end, so we were able to talk. She told me that her name was Marie Lin, and that she was an actress, supplementing her income by doing shifts in the complex. She was Singapore-born, but she had the ambition to leave the island and work either in Britain or America.
‘Not Australia?’ I asked her.
‘Fewer opportunities for Chinese people,’ she replied.
She hadn’t appeared to recognise me, so I told her that I was an actor too. She asked my name, and I gave her one of the cards I carry, with my personal contact details. She was a little embarrassed when she read it, but in an attractive way. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Blackstone,’ she said. ‘I should have. .’
‘I’ve had a long flight and a hard night in the Crazy Elephant,’ I replied. ‘My wife wouldn’t have recognised me this morning.’
I handed her another card and told her to note her mobile number on the back, then I had her write down Roscoe Brown’s address and invited her to drop him a line with my endorsement; I gave her another card to include with it as proof we’d actually met, to make sure that Roscoe’s secretary didn’t bin it.
I’m sure she must have wondered whether there would be strings attached. There weren’t, as it happened, and even if there had been, Marie Lin seemed like the sort of girl who’d have cut them off with a very sharp knife. In fact, I was thinking ahead: Blue Star Falling had a part for a Chinese girl and she looked as if she’d be perfect for it.
I reckoned that I could rely on her. ‘While I’m here,’ I said, ‘I’m trying to track someone down. Are you familiar with a theatre group called Heritage?’
‘I’ve worked with them,’ she told me, ‘not recently, but last year I had a part in one of their productions.’
Direct hit: well done, Oz. ‘Do you know the director, Tony Lee?’
‘No, I don’t. The man who was there then, he left or, rather, was fired by the Arts Ministry. But his replacement’s name is Lee Kan Tong.’
‘Yeah, but he was Tony Lee in London.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me. It’s quite usual for young Singaporeans to adopt English names; not just actors, all people. Me, I am Lin May Wee; you see why I change it for the stage.’
I smiled at her. ‘Nice one. Do you know where I could find Lee Kan Tong?’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Blackstone.’
‘Oz.’
She gave a little bow of acknowledgement. God, but she was attractive; I made a mental note not to tell Dylan about her. ‘I’m sorry, Oz. The Heritage Theatre Company had an office behind Boat Quay, but they moved early this year. I think it’s in Riverside Point now. It won’t be open today, though.’ That was a bit of a bugger: I wanted to pin down Maddy January as quickly as I could, and preferably that day.
‘I don’t suppose it will, Marie,’ I agreed. ‘Still, I can always take a run out there just to check where it is.’
‘Take a water taxi,’ she suggested.
‘What?’
‘A water taxi. You go out to the front of the building, past the open-air theatre and you’ll find a jetty. You talk to the man there and he’ll call you a boat.’ She paused. ‘Wait,’ she said, then turned to her colleague. I heard them speaking quietly in Chinese, then the other woman glanced at me and her brown eyes widened; she smiled and nodded.
‘I’ll tak
e you there,’ Marie announced. ‘Anna says you’re a VIP, so we have to look after you. She’s the front-of-house manager, so if she says it’s okay, it’s okay. Come on.’
She went behind her counter and picked something up. I assumed it was a handbag, but when I looked I saw that it was a collapsible umbrella. ‘Are we due a storm?’ I asked.
She smiled. ‘We don’t use umbrellas for rain here: usually it goes straight through them. This is for the sun.’
As it transpired, when we went outside, she found she didn’t need it. A layer of light cloud hung over the city, killing the glare that had welcomed the day: the humidity was full blast, though. There were several people waiting at the jetty on the esplanade, but Marie had a word with the man, I gave him ten dollars and, as if by magic, within three minutes a boat cruised towards us.
It was a long wooden craft, one of many on the river, with an open-sided cabin hung with red lights. The night before, from Clarke Quay, they’d all looked like floating brothels, but by day, this one at least was revealed as an ancient craft that must have seen and survived invasion, restoration and a million tourist bums in the sixty years since. Marie gave me the river tour as we went, past the statue of the Merlion, a mythical beast (which I suspect, although I can’t prove it, was invented by an advertising agency), the former GPO building, which is now the Fullerton Hotel, the bars and restaurants of old Boat Quay, bustling as they got ready to open for the day, and Clarke Quay itself, which, by the light of day, I saw was much newer and purpose-built.
Finally we pulled up at the Riverside Point jetty. The boatman had a simple approach: he didn’t tie up, he simply jammed the prow of the vessel into the landing-stage, and revved the engine to keep it steady as we jumped off.
We didn’t have far to walk. Riverside Point was a complex of offices and restaurants, which also seemed to be the temporary home of the Singapore History Museum. (It wasn’t very big, but I don’t suppose Singapore’s had a hell of a lot of history.) One of the restaurants included a micro-brewery. . something else Dylan would be avoiding; we stepped past it and into the foyer, looking for the usual list of tenants.
The Heritage Theatre Company was there, all right, one floor up. ‘Wait here, Marie,’ I told my escort. ‘I’ll go up, on the off-chance that there is somebody there.’ I confess that I hadn’t thought this through properly. I was supposed to be the guiding genius in the background with Mike doing the legwork, so what was I doing heading for an office where my presence might have tipped off Maddy, through her boyfriend, that I was looking for her? God knows, but I did it.
The office was in a narrow corridor lined with glass-walled suites. It was distinguishable from the rest by the posters which were plastered all over it, advertising performances past and some that were still to come. I couldn’t see inside, for the glass was opaque, but it appeared that Heritage had all the space on the left of the corridor as I walked down it.
A Chinese face beamed at me from the entrance door; it was on yet another poster, but this one carried only that smile and the name, ‘Lee Kan Tong, Director’. Other than that there was nothing, no list of office hours to say whether they were open or closed. What the hell? I thought, and turned the handle.
The door opened. Marie was right, nobody was there. . but somebody had been. The lay-out was simple: there were open-plan areas on either side of a single private office. Its door was gaping wide, and the room had been trashed. The place had been turned upside-down: desk drawers and filing cabinets lay open and their contents were all over the floor. The chair behind the desk was upside-down, as if someone had thrown it aside. Lee Kan Tong was either a very untidy human being, or he had a big problem. Whatever it was, I knew I shouldn’t be witnessing it.
‘Fuck!’ I whispered, and then I started behaving sensibly. I took off my T-shirt, used it to wipe the door handle very thoroughly after I’d closed it behind me, then put it back on and got the hell out of there.
Marie was waiting in the foyer, as I’d asked. ‘You’re right,’ I told her. ‘Office closed on Sundays.’
20
We walked out to Merchant Road, where I stopped a taxi, one with wheels this time. I dropped Marie back at the Esplanade, then told the driver to take me to the Stamford. I still had fifteen minutes before I was due to meet Sammy and Dylan, and I figured that a fresh shirt might be in order.
I was heading for the lift when the foyer concierge called out. ‘Excuse me, Mr Blackstone, I have a message for you, sir.’
As I walked over to him, I guessed it might be from Dylan, telling me that he was crashing out for the rest of the day. Could I have been more wrong? No.
‘A lady called, sir,’ he told me. ‘She asked to speak to you. I told her you were out, but that she could leave voice-mail. She said she had to speak with you in person, and she left this number, asking if you would call her back.’
He handed me a notelet bearing the hotel crest and a number; I glanced at it and saw it was local. ‘Did she say anything else?’
‘No, sir, only that it was urgent.’
Many things in my life seem urgent to the other people involved, but not to me. I thanked him and headed liftward. On the way up, I found myself wondering who it might be. Probably the girl from the television station; but she had left a message before, no problem, so why not this time? A journalist? Maybe, but wouldn’t she have left a name, or more likely called back every half-hour till she got a result?
I was still pondering when I got to my suite. I chose a Coke from the mini-bar, popped it and took it into the bathroom, where I had a quick shower. By that time I had almost forgotten about the call: my mind was back at Riverside Point, wondering who had given Lee Kan Tong’s office such a duffing up. My best guess was a theatre rival, looking to blag a copy of a script that Heritage held; these things happen in the arts world, although we’d never admit it to outsiders.
The note was still on my table as I pulled on a dry T-SHIRT, this one advertising Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville in Las Vegas. I had half a mind not to bother about the woman, just to head downstairs and out with the lads. Fortunately, or not (you decide later), the other half made me pick it up and dial the number.
‘Yes? Who’s speaking?’ The voice on the other end was female all right, but not Singaporean. . at least, not Asian. It was mature, not a youngster, but not old either; my age maybe. It was also clearly agitated.
‘This is Oz Blackstone. I have a message asking me to call you. Assuming I have the right number, who are you?’
The woman sighed, and I could have sworn it was with relief. ‘Oz,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m so glad you called me back. God, you don’t know how glad.’
‘I’m glad you’re glad, but who the hell are you?’
‘We’ve never met,’ she replied, seemingly determined not to answer my straight question, ‘but we have something in common. My ex-husband is your brother-in-law. My name’s Madeleine January, and I need to see you.’
Everywhere’s a village, I thought. Four million inhabitants or not it’s still a fucking village. I paused, just to give myself some thinking time. ‘Are you, indeed?’ I replied at last. ‘How did you know I was here?’
‘I heard a trailer for tonight’s Mai Bong Show on local telly. They said you were on it.’
‘No, I meant how did you know I was in this hotel?’ My master plan had been hit right on the head. I decided to stall her until I could come up with another.
‘I called around. You weren’t in Raffles, and you weren’t in the Fullerton; this was third choice.’
‘Remind me to chastise my secretary for booking me in downmarket,’ I murmured. I had Plan B: it was, let her make the running. ‘Since you know I’m on air this evening, you must realise that I’m pretty busy.’
‘I appreciate that, but this really is very urgent. Can we meet?’
‘When?’
‘Two o’clock.’
I let her hang on for a few seconds. Finally I sighed. ‘Okay, if you insist;
but be clear, I’m only doing this because of the Harvey connection. Where?’
‘There’s an island called Sentosa, near the port, with lots of attractions on it. One of them’s a place called Fort Siloso. Go there and then follow the yellow route till you get to the children’s playground at the top. I’ll be there. Make sure you get there just after two. I want to be sure I’m there before you.’
‘Okay, but why the drama? I’m on holiday, remember.’
‘I’ll explain later. Just be there, Oz. It’ll be worth it to Harvey in the long run, I assure you.’ She hung up.
21
I stood in the window for a while, staring out at Singapore and thinking as I sipped my can of warm Coke. Maybe, just maybe, there wasn’t going to be a need for all the subterfuge I’d planned; maybe Mike’s air fare had been a waste of money.
I called his suite, but there was no answer. I checked my watch; it was ten past midday.
He and Sammy Grant were waiting for me. They were sitting in the foyer bar; each of them looked the worse for wear, and they appeared to be chewing, rather than drinking, two Corona beers.
‘Where have you been?’ Dylan moaned. ‘Pumping iron in that fucking gym again?’
‘That was a while ago. I’ve been on the river since then.’
‘Have a beer, then, and work it off.’
‘Don’t be disgusting, Benny.’ I thought it politic to remind him that we were travelling under his new name, just in case he had forgotten; I had also decided to keep him in the dark about Prim’s good news. That could wait for a while. ‘You know I never drink before lunch.’ I clapped my hands together and looked enthusiastic.
Sammy jumped to his feet; Dylan seemed to slither to his. That’s the only way I can describe it. ‘Okay,’ our new friend began, ‘I thought I’d take us to Orchard Road. Ah know you guys won’t usually do the shops on a stag trip, but there’s a place up there called the Lucky Plaza. It’s just fuckin’ magic; you’ll get every sort of fake you can imagine. There’s even a wee tailor’s shop there called Armani.’
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