‘Of course. Venus visited him every Sunday. Ra’mad used to see her there.’
‘She visits the Home, yes.’
‘Siggy. Could you backtrack and explain what you meant by “the Richard thing is over”?’
‘What has Venus told you so far?’
‘That her husband Richard is in a coma at the Nursing Home and not expected to come out of it. I know she visits him every Sunday but that’s all I know. Whenever I try to get Venus to talk about her past, or even her present outside of the studio and you, she changes the subject.’
‘I bet she does. Don’t tell me you believed all that stuff.’
‘Nobody would make up a comatose husband.’
‘I think, if you don’t mind, Doctor Haddock, I’d rather Venus explain it to you.’
‘But is he dead or isn’t he?’
‘Since he never existed, he can’t be dead.’
‘Then who does Venus visit every Sunday? Is there another man I don’t know about? Is he called Richard?’
‘She visits her psychologist. Dr Lim, not Dr Richard – female. She never told you? You couldn’t read between the lines?’
‘I’m not great at reading between lines. You mean to say there never was a Richard? That Venus has no husband, comatose or not?’
‘I know Venus tells everybody she’s married and even wears a ring, but there is no husband and the ring is her mother’s. Her father and mother have been dead two years now. Venus has trouble accepting their death. That’s why she visits the psychologist every Sunday. You really had no idea?’
‘No. I thought it odd that Venus never talked about her parents or anything about her family.’
‘Venus never explained all those family pictures in her home?’
‘I’ve never been to her home. No idea where it is. What happened to her parents?’
‘Died two years back. Car crash. Venus was in the car at the time.’
‘Was Venus hurt?’
‘Physically, not at all. She walked away. Psychologically, though, she was a wreck.’
‘So, the sessions with the psychologist relate to survivor’s syndrome?’
‘Plus. Venus not only felt guilt at surviving, she felt guilty of killing her parents. You see, she was driving. Her father was in the passenger seat and her mother behind him. Her father was teaching her to drive. That’s why they were over there in Johor – it’s much easier to go for a spin without a proper licence in Malaysia. Had the accident happened here, there might have been more of an investigation. But everybody was busy getting the bodies back to Singapore, not in allocating blame. Not that anybody was to blame. Venus swerved to avoid somebody who’d stepped into the road but swerved the wrong way and into a lamppost. That lamppost took out both parents but left the driver’s side of the car untouched. Not Venus’s fault, but not anybody else’s fault; that’s been the problem. She never drove again until quite recently, when she got the evening newscaster slot and the Corporation gave her a loan to buy the Starlet, on condition she pass her test. She passed it just before you met her. Even now she’s a bit nervous about pedestrians on the road.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’ve noticed. It must be horrible for Venus, blaming herself for two years. Thanks for telling me, Siggy. It really helps. But what I don’t get is why she invented a husband.’
‘You’d probably need to ask the psychologist. Not that she’d tell you; patient confidentiality. I’ve known Venus since we were kids. We entered university at the same time and joined SBC the same day. If I were straight, no doubt we’d be married by now. I think I know Venus better than anybody. I’ve seen her use the Richard excuse with lots of guys before you. I think it just became a simple excuse that nobody argued with. She was very close to her parents and hasn’t been able to talk about them with anybody, not even me really.’
‘Does she talk much about me?’
Siggy laughs. ‘Too much. Practically every day. I think once she’d started to use the Richard excuse with you, she couldn’t easily get out of it. Nobody would want to talk about that tragic accident – or talk about why they’re seeing a psychologist. Richard-the-comatose was an excuse nobody questioned. Fortunately, Venus has grown out of it, I’m sure seeing you has helped. My guess is she’s ready for a relationship. But what do I know? I just record stuff on film, I don’t see into minds.’
‘Thanks, Siggy. I really mean that. I’ll wait for Venus to tell me.’
‘Yes, you must be good at waiting for Venus. Let her tell it her way, when she gets around to it. And don’t mention I’ve already told you anything more than what she said to tell you: she can’t come tonight and the Richard thing is over.’
I put my hand on Siggy’s shoulder as a sign of my thanks. He sees David and turns to him. I’m feeling much happier about so much; I must have a stupid smile on my face. It is chopped off by Agnes, her angry eyes burning into me from across the room.
As Agnes moves towards me with daggers in her eyes, I duck through the French windows into K’s garden. By doing so, I succeed only in removing both of us from the moderation of a crowded room.
29
Garden Talk
‘WHAT THE HELL does your bastard friend want before he leaves me alone? After that horrible business with the tape recorder, now this nonsense about me giving him a manuscript. I suppose if I deny it, K has everything set up to broadcast the tape right now.’
This is my chance to say I don’t know what you mean and hope to regain Agnes’s friendship. But I don’t think that fast. ‘It seems like a reasonable precaution,’ I answer.
Agnes’s clenched fist begins its swing towards my teeth but stops mid-air. The dull light from the house catches her pale face and white dress. She looks like a marble discus thrower frozen in mid-swing. The effort to control her temper brings tears to her eyes. I take her fist and lead her away from the windows, into the shadows of the trees. I’m about to deny any part in the recording incident when Agnes suddenly morphs from K’s tigress into my sweet lady of the orchids. She cries freely and stands with arms limp at her sides. I feel like saying there, there and other profound words of comfort. I place a hand on her shoulder. Agnes presses against me, sobbing. Each great sob throbs her breasts into my tummy. This is not at all in any plan.
‘You don’t really think I killed Bernard, do you Tom? Why would I? I loved the man.’ Agnes pauses, but not long enough for me to answer her questions or to consider what she means by loved. She continues in a little-girl hurt tone that I, a naïve beggar when it comes to what women are capable of, think sincere. ‘I know Harry and Bernard didn’t get along. But Bernard wouldn’t reject a wife because he doesn’t like her husband. I often took Bernard cakes and things and we often saw each other in his home. On the day he died, I had taken him a pie and we spent an hour chatting. Bernard was a tender man who understood me. I cried bitterly when I realised he was dead.’
‘Yes, I know,’ I say, finding nothing better to say. Venus is occupied with a freshly-dead imaginary husband, K is busy birthing a baby and here I am with Agnes in my arms. My hand slips from Agnes’s shoulder onto Agnes’s firm buttocks and I leave it there, palm down, for want of somewhere to put it or reason to move it from where it seems welcome. Agnes’s hair nestles under my chin just like Venus’s does, and like Venus she smells nice … and sexy.
‘You know?’ She asks.
‘I mean I know Bernard ate a pie before he died. The remains were found in his tummy. The only unknown is, if the sedative was in the pie, who put it there?’
Agnes stiffens a little only to relax and press deeper into me. ‘Tom, you know it wasn’t me, don’t you?’ I am only half listening. The other half is responding to the body pressed against me.
‘Yes,’ I find myself saying; I don’t want it to be Agnes. ‘It wasn’t you. But the drug was there. You told the police of course? About the pie, I mean.’
‘How could I, Tom? They might suspect me.’
‘It wasn’t you,’ I say
again, finding myself adding ‘Agnes’ and feeling her body-press reward. ‘And since it wasn’t you, Agnes, it must have been Chin.’
‘Yes, Tom, it was. I was not to know. I told Harry I was making a pie for Bernard. He put the drug inside without my knowledge. It was a sedative that I’d got from Ra’mad to use on the cats during a journey. The cats had slept like babies without it and I had no idea Harry had kept it. Harry told me later he only intended to send Bernard to sleep for a while so he could steal the manuscript – the one you stole back. He wanted that manuscript so badly. I still don’t know why.’
Agnes takes over the dialogue and leaves me only to agree. And every agreement ties us closer together. ‘Harry has been a fool,’ Agnes understates. ‘He tried to get me involved. He knew I visited Bernard – his maid told him. He asked me to take the manuscript from Bernard’s desk during one of my visits. When Bernard popped into the loo or dozed off in his armchair, I was supposed to grab the manuscript and run for home. I wish I had; Bernard might still be alive. But I refused and told Harry that if he wanted the thing so badly, he would have to steal it himself. And he did. He went to Bernard’s house – he took my key without my knowing – found the manuscript on the desk and took it. He was back in a couple of minutes and if he had just acted normally, I’d have suspected nothing.’
‘But he was not normal … Agnes?’
‘Far from it. He came back with that precious manuscript all right but in such a state of panic I had to calm him down with a tranquilliser. Only then could I get any sense out of him. He said Bernard was slumped in his armchair and he thought he was dead. I told him he was talking nonsense. I needed to convince myself Bernard was all right. That’s why I went back with Harry to Bernard’s house. It must have been after 10 o’clock as I’d just been watching the news on TV. Bernard was slumped in his armchair just as Harry said. At first I thought he was asleep. I felt for his pulse but there was no sign of life. I wanted to call an ambulance from Bernard’s phone but Harry said it would do no good now and would just cause problems for us, since we’d have to explain what we were doing there. It was then he told me about putting the sedative in the pie. The remains of the pie were there on the floor by the desk. And Barnaby was knocked out at Bernard’s feet; I suppose she shared the meal with Bernard.’
‘But why didn’t you call the ambulance?’
‘I should have. But Harry was in such a state because he thought he had put too much sedative in the pie or that Ra’mad had given me poison by mistake. Neither of us was thinking straight. And Harry got me frightened. He said that anybody could have seen me going to Bernard’s house that afternoon carrying the pie. Our maid, who adores Harry but hates me, saw me go and Li Fang is always looking out from Guild House. The way Harry put it, it sounded certain the finger of suspicion would point at me not him, since I was the one who got the drug from Ra’mad. He said the best thing to do was to divert attention from the pie by taking away the remains and the plate and making Bernard’s death look like suicide. He got the tow rope from our car – which was stupid as it would tie the hanging to us, but at the time we weren’t thinking – and strung up a noose from the fan, then hoisted Bernard up into the noose. It looked so horrible. I was stunned. I couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything to stop it. Oh, it was horrible, Tom, horrible.’
‘Then Harry turned on the fan,’ I say, seeking a full explanation.
‘No, of course not,’ Agnes says. ‘Harry wanted to make it look like suicide. People don’t hang themselves then turn on the fan.’
So, I’m thinking: if Chin didn’t turn on the fan, if Agnes didn’t do it, and Bernard certainly didn’t do it, who turned it on and why?
‘Did you and Harry leave Bernard’s at the same time?’
‘I ran out first, it was so horrible. I was crying.’
‘Then Chin might have turned on the fan after you left?’
‘He was just behind me. He was very upset, too. But why would he do that?’
Agnes is troubled at the memory and I find myself looking down into wet eyes turned up to me with the appealing look Barnaby uses when she wants something, wet eyes that beg for help.
‘It was a terrible accident, that’s all. I believe you, of course I do, but the police might think differently. Perhaps it would help if you go away for a time. Why not visit your family in Ipoh? With Bernard’s manuscript now available, it’s not going to take the police long to see the author was Bernard, not Harry. Then they will have a motive. It could be hard for you to argue you were not an accomplice, before or after the fact. Just for keeping quiet, you might spend your life in prison.’
‘Oh, Tom, what should I do?’ She sounds like a little girl who has just dribbled chocolate ice cream down her dress and is afraid mummy will find out.
‘Distance yourself from Chin. Get out of Singapore and deny anything Chin says. And don’t worry about me giving you away.’
‘You wouldn’t Tom, would you? I know you wouldn’t. You know I couldn’t hurt anybody, don’t you?’ Agnes has moved me deeper into K’s garden and is just about as deep as she can be into me. She stretches up to kiss me. As I feel her lips touch mine, I freeze. Chin and Wong are walking towards us.
They stop just metres away, standing in the half-light, oblivious to what is happening in the shadows. Agnes and I stand embraced in silence like lovers turned to stone in Pompeii.
Wong and Chin speak in Mandarin and I can understand practically nothing at the time. Their entire conversation is retold to me in English by Agnes later that night. Then, she goes into such detail, she almost condemns herself.
* * *
‘So, I hope you see now,’ Chin says to Wong. ‘That manuscript in there is evidence of nothing. It contains some things which Internal Security decided should not be made public – so I cut them out. It’s an old draft I passed to Bernard Fox for his review – he is a historian after all – and he was kind enough to return it to me with his comments on it. All the notes you see there are his comments, in his handwriting. I had no idea my wife gave my original manuscript to Woolf. She knows my handwriting and knows the comments are not mine. It’s as if she wants to raise suspicion against me.’
‘And the typeface, Doctor Chin. Why did you use Fox’s typewriter instead of the one in your study?’
‘I did use my electric typewriter for later drafts. But I have only recently obtained it and I used my old manual for the first draft. I gave that old typewriter to Bernard Fox at the time he gave me back my manuscript. A sort of payment if you like. Bernard needed a better typewriter than the old portable he had.’
‘Very generous of you, Doctor Chin. That explains a lot. As for the manuscript itself, I shall hold onto it for the time being. I have no idea why your wife gave it to Woolf and I shall ask them both. It might be a genuine mistake – perhaps your wife was just trying to be helpful – but it might be something more serious. There have been attempts to link the manuscript and the death of Professor Fox. To put things bluntly, it has been suggested you put sedative in a pie, gave it to Bernard Fox to eat and when he was asleep, stole the manuscript and hanged him from the fan. Somebody did it. Who?’
‘I have asked myself the same question many times, Superintendent. I should have talked to you before about this, but I kept telling myself it could not be true. The point is my wife has been behaving strangely for some time. Often disappears for hours on end, telling me she is going to visit someone or go shopping or something. Then I find out she has not been where she swears she was. I have suggested she see a doctor, maybe get some counseling or even psychiatric advice, but she doesn’t listen. She resented all the time I spent on this book. I used to write at night, so perhaps I have been guilty of neglect.’
At this point, Agnes gags and I put my hand over her mouth.
‘That’s none of my business, Doctor Chin,’ the superintendent responds. ‘I suppose many marriages go through troubled patches.’
‘That’s what I’ve been telling myse
lf. But Agnes does some strange things. On the day of Fox’s death, for example, I found her baking something. It’s unusual for her even to enter the kitchen. I asked if she was becoming interested in cooking and she practically forced me out the door. The maid does most of our cooking; she told me later that Agnes had baked a pie for Bernard Fox. Agnes used to drop in on Bernard from time to time. Quite often, actually. I don’t think there was anything between them: Bernard was old enough to be her father. But if there was, perhaps their relationship might suggest a motive? Anyway, that afternoon she spent an hour with Bernard, according to my maid. She went out again that evening. I remember it was just after the 10 o’clock news. She told me she needed a walk and to be alone. She wasn’t gone long, maybe twenty minutes. She came back with the pie dish.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me all this earlier?’
‘I suppose I wanted to protect her. When you discovered sedative traces inside the body, I remembered that Agnes had got sedatives from Ra’mad some time ago. It was supposed to be harmless, just something to sedate our cats during a trip to Ipoh. We never used it on the trip and on return I put it away on top of a cupboard in the kitchen and thought no more about it until you mentioned the stuff. Then I checked and found it gone. Agnes must have put it in the pie she gave to Bernard.’
‘Sedating Professor Fox is one thing, lifting an unconscious man is another. How could a woman lift a man up and hang him from the fan?’
‘My wife, Superintendent, is a very strong woman. Jogs every evening. Press ups each morning. She completed military training and intended to make a career in the army until we got married. Physically, she is stronger than me. Mentally, I think she has problems. At times Agnes is like two different people with two different minds. Surely no normal person would drug a man, make a noose from her husband’s tow rope, hang the man from the fan, then turn on the fan?’
Waiting for Venus - A Novel Page 24