Singapore 52

by Bailey, Murray

  I stepped over, let him yell for a few more minutes and then turned the key.

  “Jesus!” he said laughing nervously. “Is that part of your—”

  He did a double take as he realized it was me in the doorway rather than his date.

  “Captain Carter?”

  I said nothing.

  He said, “Thank goodness you came. Did you hear me calling? I was trapped.”

  A punch to the solar plexus shut him up and he crumpled to the floor, gasping.

  I said, “I should have realized I was missing the obvious.”

  Pantelis just looked at me.

  “You were driving the car that night,” I said, “not Sergeant Cooke.”

  He said nothing.

  “Your MT guy said he’d had to clean up the car. Then he told me about the bodywork but he’d been talking about the interior. There had been blood hadn’t there?”

  Pantelis looked away.

  “The gash on your head,” I said. “You did that in the crash. Head wounds bleed a lot and you made a mess inside the car. That’s what the MT guy was telling me.”

  “Yes, I was driving. It was an accident. I knew he’d been following me. I wanted to scare him.”

  “By forcing him off the road at speed?”

  “It was just a nudge. I didn’t mean—”

  I said, “You killed him whether it was deliberate or not. Though I think the court will say it was deliberate. Tom knew or suspected what you were up to. You didn’t just want to scare him. You wanted to shut him up.”

  A smile flickered at the corner of Pantelis’s mouth.

  “What?”

  “Commander Alldritt already knows about the accident.”

  “He knows you killed Tom Silverman?”

  Pantelis said nothing.

  I took out his gun, the one I’d knocked from his hand five nights ago. I pressed it against his forehead, hard. His eyes went wild with fear. Then he took a shuddering breath and tried to sound calm.

  “You’re not going to shoot me.”

  “Let’s find out,” I said. “Start talking. Tell me everything you know about what was going on.”

  “Cooke and I had been trading for months. We used his girlfriend at House of Tokyo.”

  I crouched in front of him and looked him in the eye. “So you sold the M1s to Cooke and he traded through his girlfriend Tai Tai.” I emphasized girlfriend to watch for a reaction. He was good because he stared back at me with dead-eyes.

  “Yes.”

  I punched him on the nose; just a light tap but enough to cause blood to trickle.

  “Stop lying,” I said. “You first lied about Cooke taking the navy car and running my friend off the road. Now you’re lying about him dealing with Tai Tai. You were in contact with her—you were her boyfriend or had been.” I knew he hadn’t killed her because Rahman had, but Pantelis didn’t know that so I asked, “Did you kill her to stop her talking?”

  “No, no, I swear I didn’t.”

  “OK so who did you trade with? Tai Tai or Cooke?”

  “Cooke. He was trading with Tai Tai.” I knew that was another lie but saved it for later. I stayed quiet and let Pantelis fill the space like a liar often will. Embellish your story and make it more convincing.

  He said, “I’d traded with Will for almost two years. All sorts of stuff but I think he panicked over the guns… even though they were decommissioned.”

  I said nothing

  “He had second thoughts about the guns but it was too late by then. He came to me for more money. He wanted to run away.”

  “We’ll come back to that,” I said pretending for the moment that I bought his story. “So how did the big Japanese security guy fit in?”

  “Aiko. I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “He was also a trader though mostly drugs she said. He had underworld connections so we didn’t want to deal with him. Anyway, I think he wanted a cut.”

  “Did you know who the buyer of your rifles was?”

  “Not the end one, no.”

  “Did you care?”

  He wiped away the blood and seemed to be regaining his confidence. “They were duds.”

  “But the buyer paid three hundred pounds. It doesn’t sound like he knew they were duds. Or maybe he thought he could recommission them?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You were selling guns and didn’t care who was buying?”

  He said nothing.

  “Let’s go back to Cooke. What happened to him?”

  He looked up at me as though he wanted to speak but his mouth wasn’t working.

  “Tell me,” I said. “What do you think happened?”

  “Will wanted out. I gave him some money from the deal. He had travel documents. I think he was going to Shanghai or Hong Kong or somewhere.”

  “His kitbag was found near Woodland’s Crossing. Do you think he was going to Malaya first?”

  “Yes,” he said like he was thinking, and I reckoned he was pretending to work it out, pretending we were a team solving this.

  “So who shot him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  That was a lie. I said, “I think he came to you for help.”

  Pantelis said nothing.

  “I think he was afraid and you were the only one he could turn to.”

  “I was afraid too.”

  “You drove him up to Woodlands Crossing. Maybe you planned to take him across to Malaya, help him escape.”

  His eyes said he was smarter than that and I knew then that I was right. Pantelis had tricked the sergeant. He’d wanted the guards at the crossing to see Cooke and never had any intention of taking him to Malaya.

  I said, “You took Cooke into the jungle and shot him. You snagged his bag in the water so we’d find it. You hoped a stone would weigh him down so he’d never resurface but in case he did you hoped the guards would think bandits shot him across the Straits. That hasn’t happened before and it would have been a remarkable and lucky shot.”

  Pantelis said nothing.

  “But you made a mistake.”

  I saw surprise, perhaps disbelief in his eyes then. I said, “You should have checked his bag more thoroughly. You found his papers and you added the travel documents. You probably put in the money too, to convince us that he was the dealer. It must have been hard to throw away fifty pounds like that but the gun deal alone netted three hundred pounds. That didn’t make sense to me. He would have all his money with him and yet it was only fifty pounds.”

  Pantelis said nothing although I could see I was right.

  “And there was Tai Tai’s letter. You removed the first page because that letter was to you. You’d been her lover at some time not him.”

  He shook his head unconvincingly. “And that was allegedly my mistake?”

  “No. You didn’t find the notebook. The one he’d obtained that proved the trade. My theory is that you had been trading with Cooke and Cooke dealt with Aiko. I think Aiko got the evidence and one or both of them was trying to blackmail you or maybe Cooke was just protecting himself, I don’t care. But what I do know is that the notebook wasn’t his. It was Tai Tai’s. She was left-handed, he was not. She was your partner in the gun trade, not him.”

  Pantelis swallowed but didn’t comment.

  I said, “You killed him and dumped his body in the water.”

  Pantelis looked at me with cold eyes. “You can’t prove any of this.”

  “I can prove you were the driver the night Tom Silverman was killed.”

  His little smile flickered again.

  “You killed Sergeant Cooke.”

  “Like I say, where’s your proof?”

  “I can prove you’ve been trading on the black market.”

  “Really?” he said practically smirking now. “All you have are codes in a book. Link those to the guns? That’s circumstantial. I’ll deny it.”

  “But I know the truth.”

  “And who are you?” he sai
d and started to stand. Suddenly he was full of self-confidence. “You’ll report me to Commander Alldritt. He’ll thank you and file it away.”

  “Why?”

  Pantelis was standing now. He looked up and his eyes were shining. He knew he’d get away with this.

  “Because Alldritt doesn’t want any trouble.”

  “But he’s got plenty of trouble,” I said.

  Pantelis looked confused.

  “Working out why you disappeared,” I said.

  “What?”

  I had talked enough. I shot him between the eyes, walked out of the warehouse and let the Rochor River swallow Pantelis’s revolver.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  An hour later, a taxi dropped me at the foot of Mount Faber, the place where Su Ling and I had had our first date and talked about the stars. As I climbed the path through the trees, I recalled her stories of romance and mystery. An overcast sky seemed fitting tonight.

  The path opened up and I continued to the crest where we had lain in the grass, where I had fallen asleep with my head in her lap.

  The lights of Singapore city were just as bright, just as energetic, as if they were declaring their indifference: life-goes-on. Get over it.

  A movement of shadows told me someone was coming up the far side of the hill. And then I saw her outline distinctly, her elegant walk. Su Ling.

  She came within four feet and stopped. There was no kiss or handshake but I didn’t expect one. When she spoke her tone was less harsh than the day before but there was still no warmth.

  “You wanted to see me,” she said.

  “Can you ever forgive me?”

  “For wanting to meet me here?”

  “For not trusting you.”

  She didn’t respond immediately and I wished I could have seen the colour of her eyes although my heart knew they were green for me now.

  “You have already apologized,” she said then paused. “Maybe you have no need to apologize. I am Eurasian, but my family is Chinese. My loyalty is, and will always be, to my family. Do you understand what I’m saying, Captain?”

  I think I did. She was telling me that she worked for Yipp and would have betrayed me for him.

  She said, “But I did have feelings for you. I just…”

  I wanted to reach out to her then, to hold her, but I sensed it wasn’t what she wanted. I had something I needed Yipp to do but in that moment, I realized that she had something she needed to tell me.

  “It’s all right,” I said. And then because I couldn’t think of anything appropriate I continued: “Tell your uncle that Secretary Coates means to entrap him.”

  “He knows this.”

  “Tell him that there is a mess in his warehouse near Kallang and he needs to clean it up before the police arrive tomorrow morning.”

  She looked at me long and hard and I felt a frisson of guilt for using her to cover what I’d done to Pantelis.

  When she spoke, it wasn’t about the warehouse, it was about what had been on her mind; why I think she had stopped mid-sentence before.

  “Madam Butterfly is not a single woman,” she began quietly. “It is an informal group that you would probably call self-support. They… they have all been betrayed by men. By army men.”

  I said nothing as she paused again. There suddenly seemed to be an unusual chill wind blowing off the sea. I stuck my hands in my pockets and waited.

  “These women grew up without their fathers because those men did not take responsibility for what they had done.”

  “You aren’t talking about me.”

  “No,” she said and her voice was stronger. “This is not about you. This is about girls abandoned by their soldier lovers and their children who had to grow up mixed race without their white father.”

  And then I understood this was about her. Her father hadn’t been around. Maybe Captain Keith was a made up name just like her story of dancing for him was imagined.

  I said, “Captain Keith…”

  “My mother never knew his last name.” She paused and her stance seemed to soften. “So you see, I could not tell you who it was because of my sympathies with them.”

  I nodded but said nothing.

  “Are you going to do anything with this information.”

  “No.”

  She started to pull off the wrist band. “I want you to have this.”

  “As a reminder of you?”

  “Something like that.”

  She handed it to me and for a second our fingers touched. There was no spark or energy like I’d felt the first time. I resisted an urge to raise the material to my nose and breathe in her scent. Instead I just stuck it in my pocket.

  “Goodbye, my brave captain,” she said and this time offered her hand.

  The shake was formal and deliberate, rotating her wrist more than an up and down motion. She wanted me to see something and watched my eyes for the realization. Then she turned and walked swiftly away, down the hill, in the direction of the city.

  I stood for a moment and thought about the implication of what I had seen. On her right wrist was a tattoo. It had been covered by the wristband and then it was exposed: a tiny delicate butterfly.

  I stood still, looking at the spot where she had been. The urge to run after her was strong, but I waited until it had passed.

  Then I turned and walked slowly down the path and kept walking. I followed the coast road past Keppel, through Fullerton Square, over the bridge past the Government buildings, past the Padang, back to Raffles Hotel.

  I’d planned to have one more night in Singapore. But as I walked, as I breathed in the ever-changing air, I decided to stay. For a while anyway.

  THE END

  Acknowledgements

  I was brought up on stories from my father’s time as an MP in Singapore and so, when I first decided to write crime-thrillers, this was naturally the first one to try. Unfortunately my early efforts weren’t good enough and I’m grateful to everyone from the Authonomy writers’ community who helped me learn my trade, especially if you recall critiquing chapters of The Jin Deception. Also thank you for voting it to the top of the charts and to Harper Collins for the subsequent professional critique. Of course the biggest thanks must go to my father, who not only inspired me with his stories but has also been a thorough editor. He accompanied me on one of the research trips to Singapore—and had to put up with staying at the sumptuous Goodwood Park Hotel. On that trip we fortuitously met Ian Johnson (Capt) and he has been exceptionally helpful in filling in gaps about the military and political situation of the period. I would also like to give a shout out for the men who served at Gillman Barracks and the team at RedCap70. You’ll know I’ve taken some liberties, but hopefully you’ll forgive me.

  Thank you to my official editor Debz Hobbs-Wyatt and my unofficial one, Pete Tonkin. As always your insights were invaluable. Finally, to my wife, Kerry: Thank you for your support, enthusiasm for 52, and looking forward to Singapore Girl.

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