The strike starts with a direct attack on the easiest target. David is told by the English Department Head he can resign and get one month’s pay or face the consequences of official dismissal, crime to be announced. David takes the money and comes to us crying.
K drives off in a rage to the VC to demand the reason for the attack on defenseless David. He is back within the hour, possibly for the first time ever lost for words. He shows us a letter the VC had all ready and waiting for him. The letter informs K that his contract will not be renewed on expiry in one month’s time. I am left unhassled. Nothing Chin does contravenes regulations and, while K would not go out quietly, I feel Chin might just get his way if he stops at this point. He does not.
The day after my two friends are hacked by Chin’s invisible parang, I receive a pre-publication copy of a weighty volume, courtesy of the Singapore University Press, with an invitation to contribute comments which might be used in the book’s launch the following week. A quick flick through the pages is enough. I snap shut The History of Singapore University by Harold Chin and call a war party.
Courtesy of Li Fang’s telephone and guessing it is bugged, I contact Venus, K and David. Meet me immediately at the flat. Come now, Barnaby has just given birth to twins.
* * *
K’s Mustang and Venus’s Starlet pull up outside as David arrives on foot. I open my front door to allow entry and close it immediately, turning the key in the lock. In spite of the strange disappearance of Düsseldorf and Nagasaki, I am still bait for the axis powers until Superintendent Wong decides otherwise. K whispers a reminder for me to turn off the light in the kitchen.
Toshi is appended behind David and K as if I might not notice him. Venus asks me where the twins are and I explain they are imaginary puppies; she says she’d still like to see them. Toshi with a bow hands me a tray of Japanese sweets and says congratulations. This gives me a twinge of conscience but not a strong enough twinge to soften my resolve to exclude him from the conspiracy about to happen. Tosh gives Barns a cuddle and the tart, who hasn’t even given birth to twins, rolls over for a post-natal nipple massage.
David stands rock still and confused. ‘Is there something bleeding awful wrong?’ he asks. Venus, K and Toshi cling to him in solidarity, all look at me as if I have cracked my eggshell.
‘I have certain communions to make which had best be retained twixt four bonces rather than five. Our council of this hour and endeavours on the morrow will embroil a profundity of Anglo-Saxon and must preclude perchance miscomprehensions. Thus, it be optimum to eschew the element of the rising hot cross bun.’
‘What on earth are you trying to say?’ Venus asks.
‘Yeh,’ adds David. ‘Why cancha talk proper?’
K is the only one to understand. ‘I think Haddock is asking if Toshi would be so kind as to make us something to eat in the kitchen. Right?’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘But there’s very little in the fridge. Two doubtful eggs and half a stale chapati.’
‘Never mind that, matey,’ David rejoins. ‘No need to go all Richard the Third on us. We don’t usually come here expecting a banquet. As long as you’ve got the beer in, don’t worry about the grub as long as Tosh is around. It just so happens our Tosh is now into the Japanese fast-food and steak and kidney pie delivery business. No-dirty-things-massage an optional extra. You now see in his hands a Yaohan bag full of goodies to celebrate Barnaby’s motherhood – I presume it was a miraculous birth as she’s neutered. Just let Tosh into the kitchen and see what comes out.’
‘Okay,’ I compromise. ‘But the kitchen door and shutters stay closed and locked.’ The last person I want poking his moustache around the door is Ra’mad; he will have seen my flat closed up, the familiar cars outside and the listening device switched off and his curiosity is surely aroused. ‘And Toshi, on no account, absolutely no account, turn on the light.’
‘Turn on the light?’
‘Yes. No. Do not turn light on. Very important. Understand?’
‘Tom Haddock,’ Venus butts in. ‘You have everything closed up and expect Toshi to cook in the dark? What on earth is wrong with you today?’
‘All right Toshi, open one shutter, but no electric light and no door.’
‘What?’ says Toshi.
K leads Toshi by the hand to the kitchen, opens one shutter, takes the key from the lock of the back door and shakes his head and hand at the light switch. Toshi seems happy enough, but it’s easy to tell the three musketeers see his exclusion as requiring an explanation. ‘This doesn’t sound much fun,’ David complains. ‘You banish Tosh to a darkened kitchen, yet you allow Barnaby to stay.’
‘Barns can’t talk,’ I say.
‘And where are her babies?’ Venus lightens things up by playing the dumb beauty. At least, I think she’s playing.
I have, somehow, to inject an air of the serious into a group bonded by frivolity. ‘What I have to say must remain confidential. Just the four of us. No news on TV, Venus. No blabbing to your boyfriends, David. No crossed lines on the 5.30 express, K.’
‘Blimey,’ David whines. ‘’Oo elected the Generalissimo? Sounds worse than the girl guides. In case you’ve forgotten, we are your mates, squire. If you can’t trust us, who can you trust? Why not tell us what it’s all about and we can decide whether to hear it or not. I don’t like all this secrecy stuff. Gives me the creeps.’
K and Venus confirm their sentiments are with David. I’m getting a bit peeved at my allies. ‘If I’m a generalissimo, I can only say few generals in Asia would be stupid enough to hatch a conspiracy with a Japanese masseur in the kitchen.’
‘I think you might be wrong there,’ K cuts in. ‘I believe there is a fine tradition of Japanese masseurs present at plots going back before the Tokugawa Shogunate.’
‘That’s beside the point, K,’ I respond lamely.
‘Well, Haddock, how are we supposed to know what is on or beside the point if you don’t tell us what the point is?’
‘The point is … Chin,’ I say simply and loudly and find myself in silence. I raise the copy of the book and hold it before me like a tombstone. ‘The reason for my atypical behaviour: The History of Singapore University by Harold Chin. Title sounds familiar, doesn’t it? I have over the past two hours had a good look through this book. Much of the content bears the unmistakable imprint of Bernard. Look at it yourselves. Apart from Social knocked out of the title and some obvious editing, it’s written in the painstaking English of Bernard Fox. No way Chin could have written this book.’
I put the book on the dining table. K imperiously clips on his pince-nez and leads three heads into it. I allow them a few minutes to skim the pages and see the same disbelief on their faces I had experienced earlier.
K raises his face. ‘Continue,’ he says in authorisation and command. I do.
‘Bernard’s manuscript disappeared when Bernard was hanged. It was the only thing to disappear. I know Bernard himself feared its revelations might be unacceptable to some. The police haven’t found Bernard’s manuscript.’ Heads nod, eyes fixed in disbelief on Harry Chin’s name in large letters across an aerial view of the campus on the cover of the book. There are no interruptions and I continue. ‘I give you a hypothesis. Chin stole the manuscript and Bernard was killed in the process.’
‘I told you. I told you it was Chin.’
‘Yes, K, you did,’ I agree. ‘But you never said why.’
‘All right,’ says Venus. ‘If your hypothesis is correct, why would Chin so desperately want his name on this book? Desperate enough to kill for it?’
‘Why Chin would want his name on the book is clear enough,’ I answer the first of her questions. ‘It will make his reputation as an academic. Whether or not he would kill for it, I don’t know. But Chin had the opportunity and knew the tempting prize was there. He knew Bernard never discussed his work much before he published and he possibly knew from Agnes there was only one copy and where Bernard kept it. But why kill Bernard? Why
not just steal the manuscript? Bernard would have found it hard to argue that the book was his and not Chin’s. Chin could have let it be known that he was working on a history and changed a lot more of the text and the style than he has. He could have waited until the move to the new campus before publication. But Bernard’s death and Chin’s rise to acting dean offered a chance he could not resist. By publication now, Chin will be acclaimed and his position as dean confirmed. But why kill Bernard? I don’t know.’
‘Okay on everything you say,’ David comes in. ‘But why not just inform Super Wong and let the police handle the whys and what-nots?
K gives a snort and answers David. ‘Because, nincompoop, the original manuscript is missing. Chin would just deny any knowledge of any manuscript other than his own. Unless we find the original.’
‘But isn’t the original manuscript likely to have been destroyed already?’ Venus strikes a blow for logic.
I falter. Only a fool would leave evidence lying around. And only another fool would look for it after the police failed to find it. But anyway, I make out a case for the continued existence of Bernard’s original manuscript. ‘You might be right. Chin is no fool and there’s no reason to expect evidence to be handed to us on a plate. On the other hand, with Bernard dead there would be no rush to destroy the original, since Bernard wouldn’t be complaining about its loss. Chin could not have destroyed it immediately – there would be no point in stealing it just to destroy it. He probably didn’t dare even read it until the pressure let up. And when the heat was off enough to allow Chin to work at chopping out what he didn’t like in the original and retyping, he perhaps felt no need to destroy the manuscript. There was perhaps no reason for Chin to be unduly concerned even were the original manuscript discovered. Bernard never wasted time typing his name on pages and never made a copy. If the police were now to find Bernard’s manuscript, Chin could simply say it’s his original draft which he has since revised.’
‘So, what if we find the manuscript?’ K asks. ‘Wouldn’t the same apply? I mean we would have to go to the police, wouldn’t we?’
‘I have a feeling that if we find the manuscript, we will have Chin. Perhaps something very simple. Matching up the manuscript with Bernard’s typewriter for instance. Chin’s typewriter is unlikely to have a broken ‘m’ and a high ‘s’. That’s a job for the super. But I think it would be difficult, without a very good reason justifying a warrant, for the super to look for the manuscript in the place it’s most likely to be.’
‘Where’s that?’ Three speak as one.
‘Think.’ Time to prove what a clever dick I am. ‘Chin has just bumped off Bernard and stolen his script. The distance from Chin’s door to Bernard’s is fifty metres at most. Chin’s alibi says he was in bed with his wife. Where do you think he hid it?’
‘In his bed?’ David ventures.
‘Chin was not seen out that night; he didn’t take his car out. I think he hid it somewhere in his house.’
K looks at me over his pince-nez with begrudged recognition of my genius. ‘Brilliant, my boy. Precisely the conclusion I came to weeks ago but nobody would listen. So, what do we do now?’
‘We find it and we take it,’ I answer energetically as Toshi comes in with a plate of sushi. ‘We take it in the same manner Chin took it from Bernard.’
‘You’re not planning to string the geezer up, are you? I’m not quite into that.’
‘No, David. We find the manuscript in Chin’s house and we discredit Chin. Discredit Chin and we might all keep our jobs and get revenge for Bernard.’
‘What is re-ven-gey, David-san?’
K chimes in before David can explain, ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold.’
‘Ah,’ says Toshi, face alight with understanding, ‘like sushi.’
24
Agnes Squeals
K TELLS ME Agnes called him to reactivate their 5.30 liaisons and that after so long without him, she’ll be ‘gagging for it’. He then revamps his weird pre-orgasm theory that a woman can’t control what she is saying in the seconds before climax. He wants to install a tape recorder in the wardrobe of my back bedroom to register Agnes’s unguarded moments.
‘You sit in the wardrobe, Haddock, and try not to get too excited. You’ll be witness that nothing is fabricated. Agnes will admit she and Chin killed Bernard. We use the tape to blackmail her to get Bernard’s manuscript and there you are: the hard evidence we need.’
‘No way. I’m not doing that to Agnes. I like her. We are friends. I don’t believe she killed Bernard. If you imagine I’m going to sit in my own wardrobe watching you screw a confession out of Agnes, you don’t know her and you don’t know me.’
‘No need to get on your moral high horse; I’m doing this for Bernard. It will be all the same whether you witness it or not. All I’m doing is what we’ve been doing for ages, plus using my Uher. Recording normality; us anthropologists do it all the time. All this work on my part is to get that manuscript you think Chin’s hiding in his house. Better Agnes gets it for us than we smash our way through her house looking for it – which is your super plan. You can at least be a bit useful and take Barnaby for a walk for half an hour; I don’t want her scratching at the bedroom door throughout my farewell performance.’ And that’s what I do. I take Barnaby to sit on the Guild veranda.
At 5.30 precisely, the lithe legs of Agnes Chin resolutely jog past the veranda. Good firm strides that advance her directly into the center of a despicable plot about which I can pretend I have no part. I blame K for what happens.
* * *
Half an hour later, she jogs back, red and furious. She doesn’t glance in my direction but turns straight into her garden. I wait another 10 minutes just in case K’s plan has worked and she reappears carrying the manuscript, but she doesn’t and I return to the flat; K has showered and is sitting drinking my beer on the back room bed. The wardrobe doors are open and the two large spools of the Uher beckon. ‘Well …?’ I ask.
‘Well! I’m just about to listen to what we got. You’re welcome to join me – unless it would offend your high moral principles, of course.’
‘Okay, let’s hear it,’ I say. After all, the dastardly deed can’t be undone and, let’s face it, I am curious.
‘Better get yourself a beer. I’m not stopping the machine and it’s an all-action show.’ I do and sit beside him on the bed. K pushes play.
I hear Agnes pant into the bedroom. Hot and sweaty, as K would say, ‘gagging for it’. She turns the fan on full. I hear the wardrobe door flicker on its hinges and am glad I’m not inside witnessing Agnes strip to reveal the neat, firm and powerful body I so often imagine.
‘I’ve missed you terribly,’ Agnes moans.
‘Ha ha ha, I bet you did.’ K’s laugh makes the needle on the Uher jump. ‘Then it’s a double package for you today. And as a treat, you can choose both of them.’
‘Oh, Percy, you naughty boy. I’m going to punish you for going away and leaving me. Do it again and I’ll bite you right off and gobble you up.’ Percy? I might learn more about K from this recording than I will about the manuscript.
‘Well, what’s on today’s menu?’ K asks. Neither of them seems interested in old-fashioned foreplay. Theirs is scheduled adultery. Each has a spouse and dinner waiting at home.
‘Sixty-niner and doggie.’ Agnes orders rapidly, like a businesswoman who must have lunch but does not have time to consider the menu.
A long silence. So much for the chance of letting confidences slip; both mouths must be full. The needle on the recorder registers only the constant revolutions of the overhead fan. Five minutes in and I’m pouring myself another beer when Agnes must have let Percy slip. I hear her squealing, leading up to a piercing scream that sends the Uher needle flying to the top of its scale. Well, I think, thank god that’s all over. Far from gushing confidences, Agnes spoke no words at all. ‘Just wait a bit,’ K reassures me.
I hear Agnes drink water like a horse filling up betwe
en gallops. She speaks as I have never heard her – the tone of a commanding foreman ordering a navvy to reposition the pile-driver. ‘Now, stoke my fire. Quick. Woof, woof.’ Woof, woof?
With her mouth free, Agnes is no more spontaneously informative than with it full. ‘Don’t stop,’ seems to be the limit of her coital vocabulary. ‘Faster.’ I begin to think we might have got more out of her by kidnapping and ransoming her favourite orchid, the pathetic survivor that Bernard gave her. Why is Bernard suddenly in my mind? Did his afternoon rests include the occasional tryst with Agnes? No, he must be back because he’s disturbed at what’s happening.
‘Agnes, what are you going to do when I’m gone? Be a bit frustrating, no?’
‘Talk after,’ gasps Agnes. ‘Don’t stop.’
‘With me gone, your love life will be over. You know that, don’t you? Is that why Harry’s kicking me out?’
Groan. ‘No.’ Groan. ‘He just hates you.’ Groan. Well, Agnes tells the truth there. A long pause presumably filled with action I don’t want to imagine.
‘Now he’s acting dean he thinks he’s God. Can’t we pull him down a bit?’
‘Damn it. Keep moving.’
More pauses broken only by Agnes’s cries of faster. ‘Talk now, Agnes. How can we bring Chin down and keep me in a job?’
‘You mean – gasp – groan – lose the dean position?’
‘Would it kill Harry not to get it?’
Groan. ‘Fuck him.’ Gasp. ‘It would bring me down …’ Groan. ‘I’d be just another … university wife.’
‘Is that so bad?’
‘Ask your wife!’
Reference to K’s wife is the spur K needs. I can almost see his sneer. ‘Better than a charge of murder, no?’
‘Murder?’ Agnes gasps the word.
‘Wong’s been confiding in Haddock. The two of them are great buddies. It seems you – you not Harry – asked Ra’mad for poison. The poison that killed Bernard.’
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