For The Death Of Me ob-9

by Quintin Jardine

‘Don’ know.’

  ‘Who did she dive with?’

  ‘Don’ know either. She never tell me; Miz Maddy never tell me much, only ’bout Mr Tony.’

  ‘What did she tell you about him?’ Tan snapped at her, as if he was annoyed that he hadn’t extracted that piece of information.

  ‘Not so much tell, more ask. She ask me if I ever answer phone to women looking for Mr Tony.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I say once or twice woman call for him, young woman, Singaporean.’

  ‘Did she give a name?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Leave any messages?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did you tell Ms Maddy?’

  ‘That what I tell her, same as I tell you.’

  ‘When did she ask you this?’

  Somehow, the maid managed to shrug her face. ‘I don’ know,’ she mumbled. ‘A few times, maybe over last month, six weeks or so.’

  ‘And that’s why she tailed him with her camera,’ I said to Jimmy Tan, ‘and got herself into this fucking mess.’

  ‘Looks like,’ he agreed. ‘What you find back there? Anything to help you?’

  ‘Nothing. Tony’s cleaned the house pretty efficiently; don’t know why he needed a maid.’

  ‘You look at garbage?’

  ‘No.’

  He chuckled. ‘That why you actor not cop, Mr Blackstone. We always look in garbage.’

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘Go back and see, in kitchen.’

  We did as he said; what we’d overlooked was a green bin-bag. We unfastened the wire that closed it and peered inside. What we saw was a mess of wet ash and melted plastic. We resealed it and went back to Tan. ‘Lee had a fire,’ he told us. ‘She says that yesterday in the evening, before he went to meet you, he burned all his papers and Ms Maddy’s photographs in the shower in the second bathroom. She cleaned it this morning and was going to dump the bag down garbage chute when we come in.’

  ‘So what do you think, Jimmy?’ Dylan asked him.

  ‘I think she not a threat to Mr Blackstone’s brother-in-law any more. I think she maybe dead, and that Lee tried to get money from Mr Blackstone to help him go on run himself from Triads. Or maybe they run together. I don’t care: the photograph of the Triad top man doesn’t exist any more, so there nothing in this for me. The Triads can have them both, if they catch them. . and they usually do.’

  29

  Jimmy gave us a lift back into the city. He was going to take us to the hotel, but Dylan asked him to drop us in Orchard Road instead. The wise old guy knew where we were headed: he took us straight to the vehicle entrance at the back of Ngee Ann City.

  It’s quite a place, a bloody great edifice of red granite and marble, which has managed to attract some of the world’s leading names in consumer and luxury products. They look after the ladies too. We found the Philip Kingsley Trichological Centre on level five. It’s world-famous and its published client list includes Barbra Streisand, Cher and Mick Jagger; Maddy had been mixing in exalted company and, into the bargain, enjoying a lifestyle beyond the means of your average theatre-company director.

  It was a dead end, though. . or maybe that should be a split end. Philip Kingsley is not your average barber shop: it’s a highly specialised place, which focuses on the health of its customers’ hair rather than on cutting it into attractive shapes. It’s not a business where the ladies go for an hour’s chat under the dryer, and if they do, anything they say is treated with the confidentiality of the confessional. That’s more or less what they told us; the head trichologist didn’t even confirm that Maddy had been one of their clients. I wound up buying a stack of remoisturising products and telling them they could add my name to their celebrity client list, if they chose.

  We didn’t have time to shop, or I could have done some damage to my credit card. Instead, we found the taxi rank; we had interviewed and rejected four drivers before we found one who convinced us that he knew for sure where Cafe Narcosis was. (Note for Singaporean cabbies: knowing the address of the place to which you’re taking your passengers helps to reassure them.) He took us downtown past Clarke Quay and across the river, stopping almost at once in front of a building called Riverside Walk. ‘In there,’ he said. ‘Next to Friendly Waters.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Friendly Waters; they organise diving trips. Okay-lah? That seven dollar fifty.’

  I gave him ten and we stepped out into the rising heat. The early-morning cloud had gone: it was going to be seriously warm. I led the way up a few steps to the second level of the building; at the top, a sign faced us, ‘Friendly Waters Seasports Services’ with an arrow, pointing to a shop-front. ‘FW,’ I whispered.

  The place had a glass door, and this time I could see inside. It was small and crammed with dive gear. I tried the handle and stepped inside; when I say ‘small’ I mean that there wasn’t room for both Dylan and me. There was an equally cramped office to the right, with a Singaporean guy, in his thirties, sitting at a cluttered desk tapping away at a laptop keyboard.

  He looked up; dark hair, brown skin. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘You run this place?’

  ‘Yeah. My name’s Dave. How can I help? You want to book a trip?’

  ‘That depends. I’m looking for a friend, her name’s Maddy January, I can’t find her. I know she dives with you, so I’m starting here.’

  He nodded. ‘She does. Reason you can’t find her is she isn’t in Singapore. She’s on Aur.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Pulau Aur, off Mersing. It’s where we have our divers’ lodge. Maddy headed up there on her own last night; she came in around five and booked in for a week, said she’d drive straight up there and catch the supply boat on its way back from dropping off the weekend dive party. She was lucky: normally I’d have been with them and this place closed, but my buddy took this group up for me. She told me a man would be joining her, paid for him too, but I thought he was going up last night. You him?’

  When I nodded, his eyes narrowed a little, his face became a little less friendly. ‘Then you’ve got competition. Another guy ask after her this morning. What’s going on?’

  That was not the news I’d expected or wanted to hear. I fixed him with a stare. ‘Believe me, I’m the person she wants to see.’

  He looked a little harder, then the light came on. ‘Hey, you’re the guy in the movies; you tore up that creep Mai Bong last night. You’re in Straits Times this morning.’

  ‘How do I get to Mersing quickly?’ I asked.

  ‘You need to drive, I reckon.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘Little over hundred and fifty kilometres.’

  ‘And to Aur?’

  ‘You need to wait for a boat going out there, unless you charter. The islands are around sixty kilometre offshore.’

  ‘You got a map?’

  ‘Sure.’ He picked one up from the morass on the desk and handed it to me. ‘You going to dive?’

  ‘Only if I have to. Don’t worry, I’ve got my PADI advanced open water, and rescue.’

  ‘Okay then; we got stuff in the lodge you can hire if you need it.’ He reached out a hand; we shook. ‘On you go, enjoy and say hello to Maddy for me. You find the other guy, tell him not to take the piss from Davey again.’

  30

  We went back to the hotel and asked the concierge to rent us a car, as quickly as possible. For once Hertz tried harder than Avis and a Mondeo was delivered to the front door at one thirty. Mike insisted on driving; he said he’d done a police advanced driving course early in his service. That did nothing for my confidence, for I’ve seen some of those maniacs behind the wheel, but I didn’t argue the point because I preferred to navigate.

  We took the Seletar Expressway heading north. I had the knapsack with the money; I didn’t know what the police would say about that if they searched us at the border crossing, but if push came to shove I was prepared to use Jimmy Tan’s name
to get us through.

  As it happened, my British passport and Benny Luker’s US version got their respect, and opened the gateway for us, no problem. We crossed the causeway into Johor Baharu, then went east on Highway Three, heading for a place called Kota Tingii. It’s a fine old road, built by the British in the 1930s. Unfortunately they were so self-assured, or naive, in those days that they forgot to take the elementary precaution of mining the bridges, and the Japanese were able to use it to great effect in 1942.

  The drive was straightforward; the only exciting moments were provided by local nutters who seemed to think that a Proton is a racing car. We let them get on with it and arrived at Mersing jetty just before three thirty. We found a secure park for the Mondeo, then went in search of a vessel to take us to the islands. There were all sorts there, but none had a scheduled sailing.

  Finally we found a quayside office with a sign in English saying ‘Charter’. The boat on offer looked sleek and fast; it was a thirty-foot cruiser, extravagantly named Malay Goddess and modern, unlike most of those moored next to it, which resembled the river taxis in Singapore. I did a deal with the guy behind the counter, and paid him with Visa for twenty-four hours’ hire.

  ‘When will you be ready to leave? I asked him.

  ‘You leave any time you like, boss. It’s self-drive.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Dylan shouted. ‘What the fuck have you got us into?’

  The prospect didn’t faze me too much; I’m no sailor but, as I told you, I’ve cruised with Miles on his yacht, and taken my turn at the wheel. The owner gave me a run-down of the controls, and told me that reaching Aur was pretty easy, in daylight at least. All I had to do was cruise past Pulau Tioman, and it would be in sight, a large island with some smaller ones dotted around. Finding Tioman, he assured me, would be no problem.

  He was right: we could see it in the distance as soon as we cleared the harbour. It was bigger than I’d realised, though, and further away. The sea was choppy but not too bad; still, I made Mike lie down in the cabin to ward off any seasickness. Eventually he called up to me, ‘Ever seen South Pacific?’

  ‘Of course. It was my mum’s favourite.’

  ‘She’d have liked this, then. According to the magazine I’m reading, Tioman Island is what they used for Bali fucking Hai.’

  Fortified by that useless piece of information I cruised on, at three-quarter speed to conserve fuel. The guy had assured me that there would be enough to get us there and back, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  It took us three hours, but finally I found myself piloting the Goddess into a strait, towards the landing-stage on Pulau Aur where three boats were moored already. As our guide had said, there was another island, much smaller, on our left. . Sorry, on the port side. It had a jetty too, but it was deserted.

  I slung two fenders over the side and eased alongside, while a grateful Dylan tossed a rope to a lad on the quay. He tied us off, fore and after, I cut the engine and we scrambled ashore.

  ‘We’re looking for the Friendly Waters Lodge,’ I told the youngster. He was fresh-faced and looked about sixteen.

  ‘That’s me,’ he replied. ‘Or, at least, I work there. None of other guys around, though, and no divers. You only ones here.’ He peered into the boat. ‘Where your gear? You need hire?’

  ‘What about the lady? Ms January? She’s supposed to be here, or so Davey told us.’

  ‘No, she on Dayang, over there.’ He pointed to the smaller island. I looked across and saw, behind the landing, a silver-white beach, lined by tall coconut palms, and beyond a small wooden building, not much more than a hut. ‘I tell her she crazy; we don’t use it no more. There no water supply over there other than the rain, and toilets don’t work well, but she insist. So she take some food and water and I take her over in boat.’ He frowned across the water, then back at me. ‘Other man come looking for her earlier, in hire boat like you. I send him across, but he must have gone. Boat not there no more. Never saw him go.’

  Dylan and I exchanged glances. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Untie us,’ I told the boy. ‘We’re going across.’

  I fended the boat off then started the engine. The current was strong in the strait, flowing across us, but I leaned the cruiser into it, keeping the speed as steady as I could. When we reached the Dayang jetty, Dylan jumped ashore with the rope this time. ‘You know what we’re going to find here, don’t you?’ he murmured, as I joined him on the wooden walkway.

  ‘I fear that I do.’

  ‘Ever seen a headless woman?’

  ‘A couple of post-modernist sculptures, but never in the flesh, so to speak.’

  ‘It’s just as well oral sex is illegal in this part of the world.’

  ‘Wash your mouth out,’ I replied tersely.

  We walked up the jetty. There was a barbecue area in front of the old lodge, with a few tables and benches that hadn’t been oiled or varnished for a while. On one of the tables, there was a large blue plastic cool-box, big enough to hold a day’s supply of beer for two. . or something else. While Mike kept an eye on the lodge, I opened it, wincing as I raised the lid, but it contained only a few frozen blue blocks; I found that I was able to breathe again.

  Dylan slid a hand into his trouser pocket and produced the gun I’d taken from Madeleine. ‘What the. .’ I began.

  ‘So I lied,’ he said.

  The door of the lodge was barely open, no more than an inch. I don’t know what made me call out, ‘Maddy!’ but I did. Dylan gave me a sneering look, and pushed his way into the building, the tiny pistol held ready.

  There was a body on the floor, all right, but it still had its head on its shoulders. As far as I could see, it still had most of its bits: hands (one held a long, sword-like knife), feet, dull blue eye staring into the wooden floor, and its penis, for there was a pool of urine beneath it. The hair was scorched just behind its left ear, by muzzle-flash, I guessed, and a single line of dried blood ran down its neck into a very small puddle. I keep saying ‘it’, and I suppose that technically I’m correct, but it had been a ‘he’.

  It had been Sammy Grant.

  31

  ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Panic would seem like a logical first step,’ said Dylan.

  ‘Let’s do that on board. But first, let’s get the fuck out of here.’ There was a gun on the floor beside Sammy’s body, another Beretta, the twin of the one Tony Lee had been carrying in the Next Page. I picked it up. It must have been loaded with soft-nosed ammo, for the opposite wall was a mess. I thought I saw another eye stuck there among the gore, but I didn’t investigate.

  We didn’t high-tail it. Dylan untied, I eased the Goddess away from the landing and steered her smoothly out of the strait and past the third tiny island, which seemed to be guarding the entrance.

  Then we high-nosed it: I opened the throttle, driving the twin propellers deep as they cut through the water and thrust us back towards Mersing.

  I had my fingers crossed all the way against two possibilities: the first and less serious that we would run out of fuel, the second and more likely that the kid on Aur would decide to go across to Dayang to investigate, and that we’d find the police waiting when we got back to port.

  Fortunately, the owner had been right about the tank capacity. Even more fortunately, the kid had not been inclined to do anything that wasn’t in his job description. We made it back to Mersing by eleven and moored the Goddess in her own empty berth. The charter office was closed, so we posted the keys through the letterbox and checked the Mondeo out of the car park.

  I overtook every fucking racing Proton we encountered on the road to Johor Baharu, and we made it back to the hotel just before one. The gun? That, and the tiny one Mike had been carrying, were at the bottom of the China Sea, or on their way there, depending on how deep it was at the point at which I’d watched Dylan throw them over the side.

  In the relative safety of my suite we started to think for the first time in several hours. The first thing we co
ntemplated was self-preservation. Jimmy Tan had given Dylan a number. ‘Day or night,’ he had said, so we took him at his word. Mike called him; I switched the phone to speaker mode as he answered.

  ‘Martin.’ His amplified voice sounded fresh, as if he had been awake. ‘What the fuck you call this time for?’

  ‘We’ve had a little trouble up in Malaysia. We got a lead to the woman and went looking for her, on an island called Aur, out past Bali fucking Hai, whatever its real name is. Someone got there before us, though.’

  ‘She dead this time, then?’

  ‘No, he is. She’s not dumb: she placed herself on a small island, in an old dive lodge, where she would see anyone approaching. When someone did show up, as soon as he stepped through the door she put one behind his ear, then took his boat and got out of there.’

  There was a long silence. . or almost a silence: music was playing somewhere in the background. ‘The dead guy,’ Tan finally said, ‘what about him?’

  ‘He was European, Scottish. He was a guy who latched himself on to Oz and me the night we arrived, and he’s been sort of following us around ever since. His name’s Sammy Grant; at least, that’s what he said it was. He was in the Next Page when we got there, when Tony Lee was killed. He seemed nervous about being there when your lot showed up; we actually told him to get out. He stabbed the guy, and we got him out of there. Sorry, Jimmy.’

  ‘No matter, he dead now; save me the trouble of hanging him.’

  ‘Fine, but the problem is that sooner rather than later someone’s going to find him. A couple of days and the fucking smell will drift over to the big island, suppose nobody goes over before then.’

  ‘We hear rumours,’ the superintendent said slowly, ‘about a Westerner that the Triads sometimes use for business like this, when a Chinese might stand out. Never find him, though. Sammy Grant, you say?’

  ‘Age late twenties, medium height, fair hair; he told us he worked as a dealer in the DRZ Bank.’

  ‘Then they got a vacancy. No worries, Martin: I have colleague in Kuala Lumpur. I explain to him and this boy be fish food.’