Waiting for Venus - A Novel

by Robert Cooper

  ‘I do mind you saying so. Don’t change the subject. You academics are good at that. Let me make it brutally clear to you. You mixed the drug into tea you made for Fox and he drank it while eating his steak and kidney pie in your company. You gave what was left over to the dog while you waited for Fox to fall asleep – all of this after or during having seen off the unknown transvestite, if there was one. Then you followed through and lifted Fox into the noose. Leave the suicide of Agnes out of this. The only question is motive: did Fox ask you to help him kill himself or did you kill him to get the diamonds you knew he had.’

  ‘Diamonds? I knew nothing of any diamonds until Woolf told me at the house in Changi.’ I lie pretty well.

  ‘The Chins were home all the time like they both said in signed statements supported by their maid and had no idea what was going on. Each was each other’s alibi; you have none.’

  ‘But Agnes admitted they were both there. She said nobody intended to kill Bernard, just to send him to sleep for a bit in order for Chin to steal the manuscript, not diamonds.’

  ‘Whatever she admitted, she did so only to you, in your bed, at your urging, to please you. You knew it was being recorded, she did not. She said nothing to the police although she was questioned many times. You told her what to say knowing we’d eventually hear it. I’m sure she wanted to please you – not her husband. And what she said to you was within a few hours of killing herself. Chin’s wife talked to you, in secret and in your bed, but not to the police; Chin implicates her openly to the police, not to you – get the difference? We are here to examine your role in the death of Fox, not the account of Chin’s wife as given to you. And as for that famous manuscript you academics pretend is a motive for Chin to kill Fox, who’s to say you didn’t simply take it after you had hanged Fox and you kept it hidden until an opportune moment to suggest Chin stole it – if Fox ever wrote it and didn’t simply make some comments on a manuscript written, as Chin says, by Chin.’ At that point Ong stands up sharply, looking like an exclamation mark that has made its point. He opens a drawer in the desk and holds up a pair of panties.

  ‘These were on your pillow. They belonged to Agnes. They are situational evidence. She was panty-less when hanged. A police search found her knickers on your pillow.’ I know they were not on my pillow, they were in my locked desk drawer, but I say nothing, Ong is trying to trap me.

  ‘I’m now in charge of investigating the deaths of Fox and Agnes, so everything leading up to their deaths – including your part in Agnes’s theatrical confession – is relevant to my investigation of you. Now I’m going outside for a time. I’ll have some tea sent in for you. You’ll need to make a written statement before leaving here. There’s a pad and a blunt pencil beside you if it will help you work things out. When I come back, I want to hear a different story. Ring the bell if you need the toilet.’

  Well. Ong didn’t waste any time pulling me in. He must have sent Madhu to get me the minute Super Wong handed him the cases. Or maybe that’s the way Wong and Ong arranged it between themselves; good cop, bad cop.

  I sit alone in an unfriendly room. It’s introspection time. How far was I involved in Bernard’s death? I must admit to myself that Bernard’s death didn’t come as a complete surprise. I spent the whole evening with Bernard the day before he died. We talked about suicide. Bernard was not suicidal. But I’m not sure what suicidal looks like, although Bernard never had Agnes’s mood swings. We talked a lot about friendship. I was a bit embarrassed when Bernard said he loved and trusted me. He asked me – I thought it one of those questions academics play with – if, should he ever decide to kill himself and request my assistance, would I give it, holding his hand as his lights went out. I said I would.

  When I saw Bernard after lunch the next day, he was happy, not suicidal – although perhaps some suicides are happy, I’ve no idea. Then the diamonds came out in front of Li Fang – although I’m certainly not going into that with Ong.

  Was I so blotto on the night Bernard died that I visited him without being aware of it? I don’t think so. But then I wasn’t aware either that he visited me, left a bag of notebooks and a dog collar, dropped the diamonds and took off with the transvestite. So, my not being aware of something doesn’t mean it never happened.

  If I did pop out to Bernard’s, as I’ve done so many times in the past that I could walk there blindfolded, I was back in my chair by the window when Düsseldorf came by around 10.00 – although Düsseldorf’s not much of an alibi now. And if I did visit Bernard on auto-pilot in a sort of sleep walk, why would I erase that visit from my memory? Was it because I had found him hanging from his fan? And did I then turn on the fan? No. I wouldn’t do that to Bernard, not even if he hanged himself, which I don’t believe he did.

  Ong’s right about one thing: there is no evidence that it was either Chin or Agnes other than the word of Chin and Agnes, and since both claim the other did it, they cancel each other out. What if neither of them did it? It would have to be Düsseldorf. But why? He wanted Bernard alive to reveal the location of the loot. If Düsseldorf did it, it would have been in that very short window of time between the transvestite leaving and his calling at my window in the most recognisable car in Singapore, in full view of Guild House and Li Fang. And if you have just murdered somebody, do you call at the neighbour’s and ask to use the phone to contact him? Maybe you do, if establishing an alibi.

  The only thing that makes sense to me is the second account given by Agnes, which she now can’t substantiate – if it wasn’t Chin, wasn’t Agnes, wasn’t Düsseldorf and wasn’t me, it was Li Fang. This is what I tell the bearer of a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits – the familiar figure of Madhu.

  ‘I see your point, Tom. But if it wasn’t anybody, it must have been suicide. I know Inspector Ong has already said this to you. The feeling here is Agnes’s story to you was just what you wanted to hear; after all, she was in your bed. She left a very evident calling card on her pillow – we know that because you said so on the bugged phone to K – and you kept those knickers. Maybe what Agnes said to you makes sense within the circumstantial evidence. But so does Chin’s account, now typed out and signed by him with Inspector Ong as witness; and given the suicide of Agnes, Chin’s account has more credibility.’

  ‘But whatever account makes more sense, I can’t see why I’m here. You know, don’t you Madhu, that I couldn’t ever hurt Bernard?’

  ‘Yes, Tom, I know you didn’t hurt Bernard. That’s not in question. But if Bernard had asked you, as his closest friend, to help him commit suicide, would you have helped him?’ Good grief, I think, was Bernard’s home bugged too?

  I realise then that Madhu is playing good cop. This is no doubt being recorded so I try to sound confident as I answer him. ‘No, Madhu, I’d have tried to stop him and called for help – if he had asked me.’

  ‘It’s all very odd,’ Madhu admits. ‘If Bernard didn’t hang himself, somebody hanged him and then turned on the fan. You didn’t find Bernard hanging and turn it on, Tom? That won’t be seen as a serious crime in itself. You might say you were so distraught you turned it on without thinking, apologise for the trouble caused and after a psychologist’s evaluation get off with a deferred sentence for defilement of a corpse and probation; keep your nose clean during probation and all reference is stricken from records. You’d keep your job.’

  I try not to pause too long before answering. ‘No, Madhu, I did not turn on the fan and I don’t know who did. I see no reason for my being here and no evidence at all to suggest I played any part in Bernard’s death. If Inspector Ong has anything more substantial than Agnes’s knickers to hold me here, he should come out with it.’

  ‘Tom. Things are more serious than you think. You can indeed be held here; there’s stuff you don’t yet know.’

  ‘Then, Madhu, now’s the time to tell me.’

  ‘Inspector Ong will do that. If anything comes into your mind, jot it down. I think the inspector’s hoping you come up wit
h something and we can close the case of Bernard’s death rather than link it to other things.’

  ‘Other things that I don’t yet know about and you’re not about to tell me. I have nothing new to tell you on the subject of Bernard’s hanging. I’m a teacher, not a detective.’

  ‘Right – and I’m the detective.’ Madhu is nice enough to say it with a smile, then leaves me to finish my cold tea.

  There is no clock on the wall and I never wear a watch. I stew for a bit; I suppose I’m being processed. Then Inspector Ong comes back and asks if I have any new thoughts. I say I haven’t. He goes through everything yet again and I give the same replies to the same questions. I begin to fidget. And I begin to feel annoyed. No doubt Ong can recognise the signs – I want out of the room. And no doubt when he thinks I am sufficiently primed, he sends in the bolt from the blue.

  ‘What about Li Fang and the gun?’

  I am tired, fed up and annoyed but now I am simply lost for words. Ong opens a manila folder and takes out a picture. ‘Li Fang’s here right now. Picked him up the same time as you. We made a thorough search of his room at Guild House and found this gun nicely wrapped up in a locked drawer; Li Fang is the only one with a key to his room and that drawer. It’s an unusual weapon, can’t be many like it in Singapore: World War II German Luger handgun. Ever seen it before?’

  Suddenly I am out of the investigation of Bernard’s death into the stoning of Düsseldorf and Nagasaki. Clear as day, my mind comes up with an image of Li Fang sitting at the stone with a gun in his hand, this gun. ‘I don’t know much about guns. It looks like the gun a Japanese called Nagasaki used to shoot my dog. Superintendent Wong showed it to me. It only fires caps not bullets.’

  ‘Whatever you saw was not this gun. This is no replica, it’s a working 9 mm Luger with an eight-bullet magazine. It’s illegal to have this in your home in Singapore.’

  ‘I don’t have any gun anywhere. I wouldn’t know how to use one.’

  ‘But you know how to drive a car?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Doctor Chin happened to look out his window at night and saw you arrive at his gate in a vintage Citroën car. You got out, posted the keys in his box and walked away, leaving the car outside the gate. Why did you do that?’

  He’s bluffing. Had Chin reported seeing me at that time I’d have been pulled in then not now. He must be bluffing. But he’s not bluffing about the gun …

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I didn’t do anything. I’ve seen the car around. Impossible to miss. If Chin told you that, he’s lying. Why didn’t he report it back then, if he saw me?’

  ‘Back when? I just said at night.’ So he did! So he did! I’d better be more careful. I remember Li Fang’s parting words on that night: this never happened.

  ‘No idea back when since I wasn’t there. Maybe back last night?’

  ‘Back on the night Düsseldorf and Nagasaki disappeared. We found their bodies, of course. You thought they’d remain under that stone forever? Both were in bits from the explosion of World War II ammunition under the rock; explosions in a contained space are very messy. It’s the explosion what gives us precise timing, several people heard it. It’s the explosion that Chin says woke him up; you must have heard it yourself.’

  I realise then he’s bluffing. I had heard the explosion as I reached my back door, not when I was in the car. But I say nothing.

  ‘Chin made the report about you and that car the very next day. It’s on file. He made it to the team in Guild House when they interviewed him about the car. The car was not immediately linked to the disappearance of Von Düsseldorf – not until identification of his body, which took some time.’

  ‘Then maybe, Inspector, if the German’s car was parked outside Chin’s house not my flat and he was staying with Chin, Chin killed Düsseldorf as well as his wife and the professor.’

  ‘You are not cooperative. Your friend Li Fang is more intelligent. He says he took the gun from Düsseldorf and kept it hidden. He is ready to make a full confession that implicates you.’

  ‘I want to use a toilet,’ I say.

  ‘There’s one in the cell.’ Ong replies and calls, ‘Constable’ – just like that, calls into the air and the door opens and a uniformed constable comes in and takes my arm. Ong follows me out. ‘I’ll speak to you again. Meanwhile, you might focus on the shovel found buried alongside Düsseldorf’s body. And why it is covered with your fingerprints.’

  * * *

  I am led down two flights of stairs to what must be a basement and into a barred cell; the door locks behind me. ‘Toilet in the corner,’ the constable says, pointing to a hole in the floor. The cement floor is furnished with only a sleeping mat. This can’t be happening. But it is.

  I sit on the floor. It’s either that or pace back and forth like Steve McQueen in Papillon. There’s a light on outside the cell but no windows. The air is stale and hot. I have no idea when the door will open and I’ll be taken to Ong again. I know there is such a thing as habeas corpus in Singapore, but I never armed myself with the details. The walls are grey, my mood is black. There is absolutely nothing to fasten my mind on. It is silent. No sign of life.

  Since I’m sitting cross-legged anyway, I pass the time trying to get back into meditation. I used to enjoy it – for twenty minutes. I don’t want to do it for twenty years. It’s when I’m just getting off somewhere other than a concrete cell that a man in overalls arrives and pushes a bowl of rice porridge through a slot in the bars, hands me a beaker and says just one word, ‘Water’.

  I look inside the beaker, it’s empty. ‘It’s empty,’ I say.

  ‘Tap,’ says the man, pointing over at the corner toilet and the tap beside it.

  I ask him the time. ‘Six o’clock,’ he says, adding, ‘evening’. Then turns and goes.

  I eat the worst rice porridge ever and sip tap water, I notice a small camera mounted on the ceiling outside the cell pointed at me. From its corner position it must see every inch of the cell, every inch of me. No way to get to it; ceiling’s too high. Right now, I’d love to be standing in my bathroom, twice the size of this cell, cold water flowing over me. I’m sweaty. My shirt sticks to me. I take it off and put it the only place to put it, on the floor. A mosquito buzzes in my ear.

  This, I suppose, is all to soften me up. Would I like thirty years like this for the murder of Düsseldorf or would I admit to turning on a fan and get probation for eighteen months? Li Fang must be here, too, somewhere. I don’t believe he would ever tell what happened in the Botanic Gardens. It would take more than a few nights in a cell to break him. If Madhu mentions this to Tambiah, I’m sure my time here will be limited; but maybe Madhu thinks I’m still drinking tea upstairs.

  What to do for the best? What would Li Fang advise? I bet he’d advise silence. Tell them nothing. It never happened. But would the advice of Li Fang be all that useful? He kept a loaded Luger in a locked drawer in his bedroom instead of ditching it; pretty damn stupid. If things don’t look good for me, they look really grim for him. All they’ve got against me is a shovel in a grave with two dead men – a shovel with my fingerprints on it.

  Let’s think of something to take my mind off all this. Let’s think of Venus. But all that comes to mind are her last angry words on the phone: ‘I hope you’ll be happy in your little-red-heart panties.’ Then that definitive click.

  Think of Barnaby. Chin might be braining her right now and I won’t know until I find her body in the drainage ditch if I get out of here.

  I lie down facing away from the light and camera. Close my eyes and will myself to sleep away this huge waste of time. God, this mat is as thin as paper. My hip hurts. Try the other side. That damn light. On my back. On my front. It’s a long night. A very long night. I see Inspector Ong’s face in the grey wall and hate it. I know I must retain control. I’ll say nothing next time, whatever he says, however long I spend in here. Nothing.

  And as I’m drifting, I h
ear a noise at the bars. ‘Bowl!’ It’s the porridge man. I poke my bowl through the hole.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Six … morning.’ And off he goes. Will I stay here until ‘six … evening’? Well, nothing I can do about it – and if I can’t do nothing well, can I do anything well? Look on the bright side; this is my chance to practice doing nothing. They took my belt when I came in. So, I can’t hang myself from the bars. They even took my shoes. I suppose I could hit my head against the wall until somebody comes. But Ong might enjoy watching.

  Nothing and nothingness. I wonder if Richard felt like this trapped inside his body. But Richard, I remember, existed only in the mind of Venus. She made him. She never had a husband; she just has a psychologist. And I believed her, everything she said. It all seemed real to me at the time. I wonder how real it seemed to Venus? What future can we possibly have if I believe every untruth she says? But did Venus imagine Richard, or did I imagine that she imagined him? After all, she told me he’s dead, not that he never existed. Can I believe what Siggy told me? Did he really tell me or did I imagine he told me? Questions inside questions inside questions. Am I imagining all of this?

  And as I sit there on the concrete, eyes closed, a pair of little-red-heart knickers floating within my mind’s blur, I hear a familiar voice.

  36

  The Project

  ‘DOCTOR HADDOCK.’

  Standing on the other side of the bars in civvies is Superintendent Wong. Come to gloat? I don’t stand up. ‘Open the door,’ he orders. I see on his watch it’s 2 o’clock – four hours more to porridge. ‘I didn’t know you were here,’ he offers. In explanation or apology? Isn’t he in charge of all this? Doesn’t he know who’s in his cells? ‘I’ll take you home,’ he adds. I don’t jump for joy or say thank you – in case we get to the street and Ong leaps out to say ha ha, fooled you.