by A. M. Stuart
“A brothel keeper?” he managed at last, and sat back, his arms folded. “No, that is not right. Newbold told me she was the wife . . .” He trailed off. “Newbold?”
“Your wife has, as far as I can ascertain, enjoyed close relations with Oswald Newbold and Augustus Foster. Oh, by the way, that’s not his real name.”
“Close relations?” Van Gelder inquired in a shaky voice.
“Certainly close business relations,” Curran conceded.
Van Gelder ran a hand over his eyes. “What are you implying, Inspector? I cannot deny that Colonel Foster dines often at the Van Wijk and he and my wife are, what would you say, good nodding acquaintances. Nothing more. He invited us to parties at his beach villa on a couple of occasions . . .”
Curran almost jumped to his feet. With difficulty he controlled himself. “He has a beach villa? Where?”
Van Gelder scratched his chin. “It’s about four miles from the city, near Tanjong Katong. Very pretty spot.”
Curran stared at him. Tanjong Katong was a pleasant native village just off the Beach Road. Over the previous few years it had become a popular spot for beach villas and he himself had enjoyed some pleasant nights off at one of the newer hotels that had been built on the beach.
The carriage that had taken Harriet away from St. Tom’s had last been seen heading for Beach Road. He had no reports of it having passed through the village or any of the other villages along the road to the east of the island. If it had turned into one of the beach villas, that seemed a probable destination.
After extracting details of Kent’s villa, he left a protesting Van Gelder in his cell. On returning to the detectives’ office he found the clerk waiting for him, a piece of paper clutched in his hand, his eyes bright with excitement.
“Tuan, I have received a telephone call.” He gestured at the device on the wall in the main office. “It was the police post at Tanjong Katong. An English boy calling himself William Lawson has just been picked up in the village. They have him at the police post.”
FORTY
Curran didn’t wait for the motor vehicle. He wanted to be on the move and on the move fast and for that Leopold was a far better choice. Leaving orders for the others to meet him, he reached the police post at Tanjong Katong in just under half an hour, riding at a hard canter most of the way.
The village of Tanjong Katong had grown from being just a simple kampong. A row of shop houses now graced its main street but stringy chickens and mangy dogs still wandered across the rutted, muddy road. The police post, a simple two-room building with a primitive moat around it to catch the monsoonal rains, stood at the far end of town.
Curran swung himself off his horse and tethered the reins to the nearby hitching post. He strode into the little police station and found William Lawson sitting on the end of a desk, swinging his legs and drinking from a bottle of pop. The child was filthy, his school uniform torn and stained, and his stockings hung down around his scuffed boots.
The boy’s eyes brightened when he saw Curran. He set the bottle down and slid off the table and ran toward him, stopping short of throwing his arms around the policeman, a situation that would have completely discomposed Curran. He had little experience of children.
Instead he gave the boy’s damp and sweaty hand a hearty shake. “William, it’s good to see you. You had us worried. Are you hurt?”
The boy shook his head, belying the cuts and scratches on his arms and legs.
Curran perched on the edge of the desk and addressed the sergeant in Malay.
“Where did you find him?”
“Wandering along the side of the road. A passing chicken seller found him and brought him here. I recognized him at once from the description.”
“Good work,” Curran said, and turned to the boy. “Do you know where your father and Mrs. Gordon are?”
The boy nodded. “They’re in the big house down by the beach.”
“Who else is there?”
Lawson considered for a moment. “The nasty lady, the man calls her Vik, and the big man with the moustache. Then there is the man with the funny accent and the scary man.”
“Tell me about the man with the funny accent. What did he look like?”
“He has dark hair and spots on his face and he sweats a lot.”
Paar.
“And the scary man?”
Will shuddered. “He was the one who took me away. He never talks. They call him Zaw. He tied me up and put a blindfold on me so I couldn’t see where they took me.” He shivered. “I was very scared.”
“Can you tell me about this place?”
“I think it was near one of the quays—I could hear people shouting and I smelled the river. They took me up some stairs and put me in a horrible room.” The boy pulled a face. “It was dark and hot and it smelled funny . . .”
“Good boy. It was a godown on Clarke Quay and it was a bad place for you, Will.” A good thing the boy had been blindfolded. “What happened then?”
“The man with the funny accent came and took me away in a motor vehicle and when I got to the big house, they took off the blindfold and Mrs. Gordon and Papa were there.” His face screwed up. “They were being horrid to Papa. He’s hurt. I think he’s going to die.” Will’s composure began to crumple and a couple of large tears tracked their way through the dirt on his face, following the path of others before. Curran could only imagine what the child had been through in the last forty-eight hours.
Curran gave the boy a pat on the shoulder. “We’ll get him back. Just tell me what happened next.”
Will swallowed. “They locked me up with Mrs. Gordon. We tried to escape but the window wouldn’t open and then they told me I had to give you a message.”
Curran’s heart skipped a beat. “Do you have it?”
Will fished inside his trouser pocket and produced a crumpled piece of paper. Curran took it and smoothed it out on the desk. To judge from the neat, rounded writing, the note had been written by a woman. Viktoria Van Gelder, he surmised.
It read simply, Bring the stones to Changi Beach at midnight. ALL THE STONES.
Changi Beach? The note was vague in the extreme. Changi Beach was over ten miles to the east. Why Changi?
“Mr. Curran?”
The boy’s voice brought him back and he looked down at the woebegone face.
“You did well, Will.”
“Did I?” The boy’s lower lip began to tremble.
“One last question: What can you tell me about this house?”
“It had big gates with lions on the gateposts,” Will said. “I think it belonged to the big man.”
Curran smiled and thanked the boy. He turned to the local police constable. “Are you married?”
The man nodded and smiled. He looked prosperous and well fed, the sort with a good wife to ensure he never went hungry.
“Take the boy to your house and ask your wife to look after him until we come and collect him. He needs food and rest.”
“Yes, tuan.” The police sergeant beamed at Will and said in English, “My Humaira is the best cook in the village.”
Curran pulled on his riding gloves. “Tell my men, when they arrive, that I have gone to the house of tuan Foster. They have the details.”
The man nodded. “You want me or one of my men to come with you, tuan?”
Curran shook his head. “No, I will go alone.”
* * *
* * *
Curran had no trouble locating the house. A pair of fine gateposts surmounted by rampant lions brazenly fronted onto a narrow side road that led off the main Katong Road just before the village. He had ridden straight past the turnoff.
He dismounted and led Leopold down a long driveway toward the beach and an elegant, isolated seaside villa, out of sight and sound of the main road. Stopping well short of the house, h
e tethered Leopold in a grove of palm trees and drew his service revolver.
He made his way around to the back of the house under the cover of the undergrowth and secreted himself behind a hedge. No smoke came from the kitchen chimney and he heard no servants. Tightening his grip on the revolver, he entered the servants’ area. The kitchen showed signs of recent use—a picnic hamper and an open packet of digestive biscuits, already overrun with ants, provided an incongruous note to the seriousness of the situation.
He searched the kitchen and laundry and the little rooms that served as servants’ quarters. In one room he found evidence of recent occupation, a sleeping mat and a nearly empty jug of water. Several bent and broken hairpins littered the floor beneath the high window, indicating that a woman, most likely Harriet, had been incarcerated here. He picked up one of the pins and looked up at the window, allowing himself a smile at the evident scratch marks around the catch. Harriet Gordon was not a woman to sit meekly by while her fate was decided.
The back door leading into the house was shut but unlocked. He opened it slowly, relieved that it moved easily on oiled hinges. With every nerve tensed, he stepped into the cool hallway. At each door he stopped and checked the rooms beyond before coming out into a spacious living room with long French windows opening onto a terrace overlooking the beach. A half-eaten platter of biscuits, the same as the ones he had found in the kitchen, had been placed in the middle of the table, along with five empty ginger ale bottles.
He swore aloud. He had missed them, but by how long?
A motor vehicle grated to a halt in the courtyard and Curran abandoned his reconnaissance. Moving silently to the front of the house, a quick glance through the glass-paneled door confirmed the arrival of the Detective Branch motor vehicle. He threw the front door open to admit Singh and Greaves. Greaves carried his black leather case with the fingerprinting powders. After the hours he had already spent in the godown, the young man looked drained.
“We’re too late,” Curran said. “We’ve missed them. Now we need to know how they are traveling. Search the house.”
He led them into the main room and Greaves set to work.
“Someone was hurt,” Singh said, indicating a bowl of bloodied water and soiled dressings on the table beside a dining chair. Severed cords lay on the floor around the chair.
Blood and ropes—someone had been tied up for a considerable time. Lawson?
Curran walked over to the doors leading out onto the terrace. As he stepped forward into the doorway, something under his foot crunched. He stooped and picked up a long, decorative hairpin, its glass end now turned to dust under his boot. Had Harriet left him a clue?
As he stood contemplating the pin and its significance, Constable Tan confirmed he had found horses and a carriage in the stables, the carriage matching the description of the one that had taken Harriet away.
“What about a motor vehicle?”
The constable nodded. “A red motor vehicle is there too.”
Curran inspected the stables and carriage house, ordered Greaves to dust the carriage and motor for fingerprints and gave orders for the horses to be taken back to the Tanjong Katong police post.
There was only one other way they could have left the building, and Harriet’s discarded hairpin had pointed in that direction . . . the sea.
Back at the house he traced a path from the terrace to the beach. Scuffed footprints in the otherwise pristine sand indicated that a sizable party of people had passed that way only recently. The footprints ended at the water’s edge and a long scrape showed a boat had been drawn up on the sand.
“They’ve gone by boat,” he said to Singh and Tan as they joined him.
Singh looked up and down the beach. “Not a big boat. It would be riding low in the water. They cannot have gone far.”
“Given their note, I can only presume somewhere near Changi,” Curran said.
He walked down to the water’s edge, letting the benign water lap at his boots as he twirled Harriet’s hairpin in his fingers. The sun had already begun to dip and it would be dark within a couple of hours.
Why Changi? There were plenty of small islands off that part of the coast that could hide a small coastal trader and give easy access to the Straits of Johor and escape. Whatever their plans, he could be fairly certain they did not include Harriet or John Lawson.
“Tuan?” Tan’s voice jerked him from his reverie. “We are awaiting your orders.”
“I want the three of you to return to South Bridge Road and bring the stones and reinforcements to Changi Village,” Curran said. “All the police outposts along the east coast need to be notified to keep an eye out for a native fishing vessel behaving suspiciously. It’s carrying at least five people as well as the fisherman so it will be low in the water. We will liaise at the Changi police post at 2200 hours.”
“What are you doing, sir?” Singh inquired.
“I’ll take my horse and go on to Changi.”
Singh nodded. “You have a revolver and ammunition?”
Curran nodded back and patted his holster.
Singh regarded him for a long moment. “You will be careful? It would be tiresome to have to deal with a new inspector.”
Curran put a hand on Singh’s shoulder. “If it were up to me, you would be the next inspector. Now, get going.”
Turning on his heel Curran strode back through the house to retrieve Leopold.
FORTY-ONE
Harriet sat with her back to the atap wall of a rough fishing hut. It smelled of rotting vegetation and fish and she could feel insects running down her back, even if they didn’t really exist. The dank, heavy smell of mangroves and the high humidity made her think they must be on a river, rather than on the beach. Any semblance of hope she may have been holding on to had vanished and she let her head hang in exhaustion and despair.
It had probably been late afternoon when they had arrived at this secluded spot but she had no way to check her watch. Paar had left her hands secured behind her back and her feet tied. Her clothes, soaked through with the refuse from the fishing boat, still felt damp and stank. At least they had removed the noisome gag but she could still taste the revolting fabric and she was desperate for something to drink. Every muscle in her body hurt and she had a pounding headache.
Lawson, similarly bound and slumped against the wall across from her, was in a bad way. It didn’t take wounds long to turn septic in this climate and the knife wound to his arm had been untreated, beyond Harriet’s rudimentary attention, for forty-eight hours at least.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, tossing his head and causing the atap walls to rustle. “So sorry.”
Harriet didn’t respond. He must have repeated the apology several times in the last hour. Forgiveness took energy and she had none left.
It had long gone dark and a lantern’s glow permeated the gaps in the atap walls, casting a faint illumination on Lawson’s sweating face. The thunk of a metal shovel in dirt sent a shiver up her spine and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to block the noise, which had cut through the buzz of the jungle for most of the previous hour.
They’re digging our graves, she thought. I’m going to die here. No one will ever find my body. My mother will say I told you so . . .
At the thought of her mother, a sob rose in her throat.
Lawson spoke again, “Mrs. Gordon . . .”
She turned her head away and fought down the tears.
“Harriet?”
John Lawson’s voice sounded husky and weak. She wanted to be angry with this man but could not find it in her heart. She could feel only pity.
“Yes, John.”
“I keep thinking how angry Annie would be with me.”
“Why?”
“I’ve broken all the promises I made to her.”
“If you are looking for forgiveness, John, y
ou need to ask my brother.”
“I wanted to keep Will safe. Give him a future.” He paused and drew a labored breath. “You’re fortunate.”
“In what way?”
“You have no children.”
Harriet gave a choking sob. “There you’re very wrong. We have more in common than you think, John. My son, if he had lived, would be nearly the same age as Will now, and every time I see Will, I think of Thomas. Don’t talk to me about the responsibility a parent owes a child. If you cared about Will, you never would have got yourself tied up in this business.”
“I had no choice,” he whimpered.
“Of course you did. We all have choices and now your son is suffering for your own poor judgment. I’m suffering for it.”
“Oh, God. I’m sorry, Harriet.”
“Stop apologizing!”
A long pause before he said in a quiet tone, “Can I ask how your son died?”
Harriet swallowed back the tears. If the circumstances had been anything other than what they were, she would never have said a word about her son, but now, as these were possibly her last few hours on earth, she felt the need to talk.
“Typhus. It took my husband and my son within days of each other. I survived.”
John Lawson sighed deeply. “Harriet—”
“If you apologize one more time, I will . . . I will . . .” Harriet drew her knees up and lowered her head, letting the tears fall onto her filthy skirt. She couldn’t even wipe her nose.
“My, you two are surprisingly conversational.” Viktoria Van Gelder pushed aside the ragged curtain that served as a door. She gave a harsh laugh. “If you believe in God, you best make peace with him now.”
Harriet raised her head. “Are you going to kill us?”
Viktoria shrugged. “That depends on how cooperative your friends in the Straits Settlements Police are feeling.” She pulled out a man’s pocket watch and peered at it, squinting in the gloom. “Still some hours until midnight. We made good time to get here.”