My belt, shoes and handkerchief are returned. The super says nothing as we climb the stairs. Ong is nowhere in sight. Along the corridor to the foyer-entrance, people in uniform stand to one side as the superintendent passes. And out into the glorious full light of the sun and into the super’s nicely air-conditioned police car. Just the two of us.
‘Can I stand you a late lunch?’
I give Wong a what-is-this look and say, ‘My priority is shower, then Guild House for a beer and to see Li Fang; and I’m worried about Barnaby.’
‘You’ll find the Guild locked up. Li Fang is still detained. He had a gun in his room. It’s the same kind as Nagasaki used to frighten you, but this one has live ammunition inside. Li Fang denies any knowledge of it. But as only Li Fang has keys to his room or the drawer in which the gun was found, his claim the gun must have been planted on him won’t stand up.’ A pause and the super changes subject. ‘Actually, I wasn’t thinking of a restaurant lunch, it’s a bit late for that. How about I call and order some food delivered to your flat? That would give us time to talk – after your shower.’
‘Any chance of a steak and kidney pie?’ I say.
Wong picks up the car phone while driving and pushes numbers. He knows the number by heart, must be used to ordering deliveries.
‘And see if they have any kind of liver – no spices, just liver,’ I add, thinking of Barnaby, although maybe she’s still on her protracted war fast.
The super orders both, lots more, and apple pie with ice cream and gives my address. ‘Everything for three.’ Three? ‘Put it on my tab: Superintendent Wong. Oh, and deliver a crate of Tiger Beer at the same time – with a couple of bottles cold and a bag of ice.’ He hangs up and turns to me. ‘Will be at your door by the time we get there and you’ve had that shower.’ Sounds like the super is doing his best to make up for my time in the cell; I wonder why? As we drive into the university grounds and past the closed Guild House, I realise how much I’d missed my home terrain – and I’ve only been gone one night.
* * *
My front door is open with, surprise, Norsiah standing guard. Speaking Malay, I introduce her to the super as my cleaner. ‘We’ve met, Doctor Haddock.’ Wong surprises me by speaking passable Malay. They seem to be on friendly terms, odd that. I leave them chatting and get into the bathroom and under the shower.
I come out feeling comfortable. The food has arrived and Norsiah sets it out on the huge dining table I never use. There is a bucket of ice cubes and open bottles of cold Tiger. Norsiah serves onto three plates and takes a seat at the table, surprise number three. She has been in to clean mornings when I’m teaching but never invited herself to lunch. I suppose I should say something cousinly but Wong’s presence stops me.
Norsiah takes the initiative, passing me a frothy Tiger and raising her glass of water. ‘Welcome back, Cousin,’ she says in Malay. Surprise number four. Wong doesn’t turn a hair.
‘It’s good to be back. Have you seen Barnaby?’
‘In the kitchen eating liver. Keeping her strength up to fight the forces of darkness.’
‘It’s long overdue that we three sit down together,’ interrupts Wong. ‘I have a lot to say that might surprise you, Doctor Haddock. I hope neither of you mind if we continue in English – my Malay’s not what it used to be.’
‘Not at all, Superintendent,’ Norsiah replies fluently in English. I am stunned. The lady who puts the mop around can speak English!
‘You … you speak English?’ I eventually manage.
‘Of course,’ Norsiah replies in English. ‘I never needed English to wash your shirts. By the way, I hope you notice how spotless the place is. I took advantage of your absence to do a deep-clean. Now, would you prefer I call you Sepupu, Tom, or stick to Dok-tor Had-dock in Li Fang-speak?’
‘Sepupu would be nice,’ I say, using the Malay for cousin. ‘I’ve never been called that. Didn’t even know I had a sepupu until Bernard told me in his letter you were his daughter. Let’s continue to do what your father wanted for the moment and use it just between us and only when we are alone. Superintendent Wong excepted, of course.’
‘And I,’ the super adds, ‘will continue to call you Doctor Haddock.’
‘Good. I’ll call you Superintendent.’
‘Great. Nice to have that sorted as they say in England these days. Now, if you don’t mind my talking while we eat, let me begin the revelations.’
‘Please do.’
‘To start, I’d best revise the contextual picture you have of me. I asked you once why you thought this case merits the attention of a superintendent.’
‘I remember. Wasn’t it status? Bernard being a university dean, the vice-chancellor, media?’
‘That was my excuse. It’s the reason I gave the Commissioner and the VC. But I wanted to be involved – and not just because I didn’t want Ong messing things up.
‘Li Fang did call the police – but he did not call the emergency number; he called my home and spoke directly to me. He told me he had found Professor Fox dead in his home in what looked like suicide.’
‘But how did Li Fang get your home number? I doubt it’s in the phone book.’
‘It’s not,’ says Wong. ‘I gave it to him. I’d better explain from the beginning. For quite some years now, I’ve been quietly working with Li Fang and historian Bernard Fox and others on some of the outstanding questions from World War II and the Emergency period. Many scores were settled after the Japanese surrender. Some were revenge for crimes committed during the Japanese years, justified perhaps. Other crimes remain to be punished.
‘Our findings are strictly confidential. The reason for this project is to identify potential danger areas to individual survivors of more anarchic times, neutralise such dangers and bring to account crimes of the past that remain unresolved. One of the survivors was Bernard Fox, your uncle – don’t worry, your family relationship with the professor remains confidential. Another survivor is Harry Chin, or Chin Yao-Zu to use his birth name; but Chin is not a confidant of the project. His wife Agnes, on the other hand, unwittingly provided information on her husband and her husband’s contacts – people like Düsseldorf and Nagasaki. Her information came to us indirectly through your uncle – the professor was more successful than Woolf in extracting information from Agnes. Your uncle hoped to make her a confidant of the project – which by the way was why Woolf was out of circulation for so long looking for his transvestite, I couldn’t have him screwing things up between Agnes and Chin; I didn’t want her popping off to Ipoh indefinitely.’
With the superintendent’s words, much falls into place. ‘Is this why you have been personally overseeing the investigation of Bernard’s death?’ There’s no point in asking how he knows Bernard was my uncle; by now I wouldn’t be surprised if he knows the name of my childhood amah in Malacca. ‘You and Madhu, not Ong and Madhu.’
‘Yes. Madhu is not on our confidential project and neither is Ong. But Madhu’s a good policeman. You know I got him seconded onto the case? Madhu did a good, independent job – independent of Ong, that is. Madhu’s okay – but don’t go talking to him about this little chat. This stays between the three of us – although no secrets from Li Fang when you see him, which I hope is not too long.’
‘If you don’t mind my asking, Superintendent, why are you telling me now about a confidential project my uncle never mentioned to me?’
‘Because now your uncle is dead, you might help us with some earlier things in your life – your childhood in Malacca and your regular visits from England to your uncle in Malaysia and Singapore … yes, we are aware of them. You’ll notice I’m speaking openly with Norsiah present – she has given us invaluable information about the Emergency and the retaliatory attack by British soldiers on her village; you never know when such information might be useful to Singapore – or to the UK – and perhaps belatedly right some wrongs of the past.’
From what I’m hearing, I wish I’d had the chance to sit down with
Wong over a beer long ago. But is this secret project going to help my current situation much when there are still people like Ong around and a spade with my prints on it? Time to find out. ‘Of course I’ll help. But Inspector Ong accused me of burying Düsseldorf and Nagasaki, dumping their Citroën outside Chin’s door and being somehow involved with a gun found in Li Fang’s bedroom. And there was something about a spade. I rather suspect I’d still be in that cell had you not released me.’
‘Had I known you were there, I’d have sprung you earlier. Between the two of us – the three of us – there was no valid reason to detain you … other than the spade. There was nothing in the car to suggest your involvement. Chin’s wife is on record to have said Chin had taken sleeping pills and was fast asleep that night and there were no fingerprints on the car from you but plenty from Chin. And more importantly, if you remember, I had placed a police officer in Ra’mad’s flat to watch over you in case Düsseldorf tried anything before we got the recording equipment in place. That officer reported in writing that you were home and stayed home when we sent you back from Changi the evening of the explosion. Which means you have the best alibi possible – the word of a regular police constable set to watch you.’
‘Why didn’t I think of that yesterday?’ I reply. ‘That might have saved me from a night in a cell. After all, there’s nothing to connect me to what happened in the Botanic Gardens.’
‘Well, there are your fingerprints all over the wooden handle of a spade found under a heavy rock. Quite amazing the spade survived the blast that made identification of the corpses so difficult.’ The super pauses dramatically. ‘Fortunately, Norsiah will sign a statement that explains the spade. It’s your spade, you intended to plant some flowers outside your windows when you moved in two years back – so of course it has your prints on it. Surely you remember?’
‘Er, two years ago … I must have forgotten.’
‘Easy to do. When Düsseldorf took Barnaby – when you were with me by the way – they also stole your spade. David Bent will no doubt back that up.’
‘Now I remember. My fingerprints on that spade and no fingerprints of mine on that mysterious gun.’
‘Not yours, no. Not Li Fang’s either, which is lucky for him. But the gun was found in Li Fang’s room following suspicions raised by Chin. Li Fang didn’t wipe it clean, so there are still prints from Düsseldorf and Nagasaki on it. It’s smothered with fingerprints. So far, they’ve only been tested against Düsseldorf, Nagasaki, you and Li Fang. We should know before long if there’s a match with anybody else fingerprinted following the professor’s death. By the way, that gun has an eight-bullet magazine and one of the bullets had been fired. That supports your story that Nagasaki shot Barnaby on the cricket pitch – the missing bullet must have passed through, as Ra’mad said.’
My mind is back at the rock. Düsseldorf fired a warning shot near me – just one – that bullet ricocheted off the rock and must be somewhere in the primary jungle … but the way evidence seems to be stacking up or made to stack up, I believe it could just as well be found on the cricket pitch … if need be.
‘Then I’m in the clear, but what about Li Fang? How does he explain that gun in his locked drawer?’
‘He can’t, that’s the problem. He says it must have been planted when he was not home; he simply leaves all his keys hanging on a nail by his door.’
Yes, I think there’s a nail by his door but I’ve never seen any keys on it. But right now, I’d swear I have.
‘Neither Düsseldorf nor Nagasaki could have planted it there – although their prints are on the gun and the bullets – since both were dead by then.’
‘Perhaps they gave the gun to somebody,’ I comment helpfully.
‘That’s possible,’ supports Norsiah. ‘I saw Chin going into Guild House when Li Fang was at the market. You were there making phone calls – maybe you saw Chin? Two witnesses are better than one – and I’m just a Malaysian guest-worker, not a university lecturer. You wouldn’t have seen him go into Li Fang’s room, you can’t see the door from the telephone, but you might have noticed him go past you?’
‘Now you mention it, I did.’ Until then, I’d always thought of memory as forged by the past, now I see how it can simply be forged. ‘Chin came in, which struck me as odd since he never enters Guild House. He was carrying a plastic bag in his hand. He left by the other side, the side that leads across campus to the VC’s house. Then Li Fang came back from the market.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ says Sepupu Norsiah. ‘He came back soon after Chin killed his wife.’
I choke on my beer.
37
The Dog Dun It
DAVID SAUNTERS through my door hand in hand with Toshi in a complete non-sequitur that leaves Norsiah’s dramatic declaration dangling in the air. ‘Bad pennies always turn up,’ I say.
‘Well, there’s a lovely greeting. Here Tosh and I are really worried about you and rush over as soon as we hear you’re in jug and find you drinking with Super-Fuzz.’
‘First time I’ve been called that,’ says the superintendent. ‘You can tell me later what it means, David. Get yourselves a drink. I have to make a call on the car phone. Okay, Doctor Haddock, if I get Madhu over here? He’s still in headquarters pushing forensics to come up with surprises from all those fingerprints. I’ll only be a minute.’
‘I’ll walk out with you, Superintendent.’
* * *
The super punches numbers on the car phone.
‘Madhu? Good. Anything new on the gun?’
I can hear Madhu answer. ‘You won’t believe it. Chin’s prints are clear as day.’
‘Marvellous. That lets Li Fang off the hook. Bring Li Fang over here right now – to Doctor Haddock’s flat. Jump in a taxi, don’t wait to requisition a vehicle. I’ll drive you home later. No uniform if you want to do justice to a crate of beer. Tell Ong I’ve cleared Li Fang’s release.’
‘Yes, Sir. But Li Fang’s in a cell under arrest and Ong wants to charge him.’
‘I’ll call Ong now. He’ll have to send men here to arrest Chin.’
The super hangs up and calls on the car radio, not the phone. ‘Ong. Wong here. Chin’s prints are all over that gun and Li Fang’s aren’t. So, release Li Fang now and send two men to arrest Chin right away. No reason to hold Li Fang. Expect to charge Chin before the day’s out … What with? Murder of his wife, that’s what … there’s a witness … Tell Madhu to take Li Fang back to Guild House … No, don’t you come too. And, Ong, you’d better apologise to him – we don’t want bad publicity for wrongful detention of two university staff. Do it now and you’ll get points for arresting a suspected murderer – keep Li Fang any longer and Tambiah will be raising hell. You got that? Good.’ Wong hangs up.
As we return to the beer, I’m awfully glad the super is on our side.
* * *
By the time Madhu arrives in a taxi with Li Fang, the sun is setting. The mood around the beer table is almost that of schoolboys together – Wong included. Norsiah is not drinking but seems doubly happy to see Li Fang.
As if to celebrate Li Fang’s release, claxon bursts hit us in waves as K’s Mustang skids to a halt inches from the super’s car; behind it a little red Starlet shyly pulls up.
We all rush out into a darkening evening. Venus is all warmth and smiles; I hope it means I’m forgiven for panties on my pillow and not that Richard has come to life. K gives me an embarrassing man hug.
‘Now what?’ comes from above our heads. Ra’mad is on his balcony.
K calls to him. ‘I’m a father, Ra’mad, will you not celebrate with me?’
‘Boy or girl?’ Ra’mad asks.
‘A beautiful girl.’
‘In that case, I’m coming down. A daughter might teach you something.’
* * *
‘And now,’ says K, ‘let’s wet baby bottom, lah,’
‘Where’s the baby?’ I ask.
‘With its mother, of course.’
‘Metaphorically,’ K says. ‘Where to for a champagne fun-evening? My shout.’
There is ready agreement that baby’s metaphorical bum is best wet in Bugis Street. I jump in beside Venus. This is the first time we are together for ages. ‘You can kiss me, Tom.’ I do, long. Tooting and cheering from behind. ‘But where’s Barnaby?’
As we pull away, Venus turns on her headlights and they fall on the locked and sealed door of Uncle Bernard’s home. Barnaby is not there. Three policemen are sitting in their car outside Chin’s garden gate, watching a duel between an ex-acting dean armed with a sharpened golf club and a street dog named Barnaby armed with her teeth.
Chin stands outside his gate in a do-or-die pose, a golf club raised like a baseball bat waiting to connect with Barnaby’s head. Our car’s full beam dazzles him. Barnaby seizes the moment and draws blood from Chin’s thigh. Chin jumps back. Barnaby dances like a butterfly and stings like a bee … until she yelps – Chin has landed a hard blow. ‘Venus, stop. That maniac could kill Barns. I’ve got to help her.’
‘Tom, be careful. Chin’s dangerous.’
‘He’s after the collar.’
I leap from the car but K’s Mustang is racing towards me and I can’t cross the road to Barnaby’s aid. Two sets of headlights now cone the contest like WWII searchlights fixing on a clumsy bomber tormented by a sprightly Spitfire. Jumping Barnaby taunts Chin to strike; he strikes and misses, strikes and misses, and strikes and hits, then brings the head of the club down with all his force onto a bloodied Barnaby. I hear the crack from across the road. Stunned, she lies where she falls.
I see him raise the club again, murder in his eyes, Barnaby helpless on the ground. Chin reverses the club and drives the spear down towards Barnaby’s heart. K speeds past. I run forward but jump back again immediately, Wong’s car is coming on fast – very fast. I can’t get across to help Barns. The spear plunges down.
Norsiah smashes into Chin’s back. The spear point sparks the road’s surface harmlessly. She hammers Chin with her fists. Barnaby is up – I wince as she sinks teeth into Chin’s groin. After that, it’s clear my help is not needed. Barnaby tortures Chin’s flesh. Norsiah claws at Chin’s eyes. Lost in a piranha whirlpool, Chin spins like a top onto the road, hopelessly jabbing the club around him.
Waiting for Venus - A Novel Page 29