Waiting for Venus - A Novel

by Robert Cooper

  A grey, long-tailed cat runs in front of Wong’s car. I see Wong at the wheel. Swerve left, he’ll hit us. He swerves right. His headlights flash across the fight. Wong brakes. Chin folds over the bonnet of the police car. I hear his face smack the glass and I hear a crack. Chin’s neck or the windscreen or both, I don’t know. Madhu is once again first on the scene, conveniently with Superintendent Wong at the wheel beside him.

  * * *

  A bloodied Barnaby trots like a victorious bull across the arena, jumps into our car and onto Venus’s lap. I see Chin slide slowly down the police car’s bonnet, I see three men in uniform jump from the other police car and I hear Wong yell ‘Call an ambulance’ as he crouches over Chin and puts his face close to Chin’s mouth. I also see Li Fang sweep Norsiah off her feet in a totally uncharacteristic expression of joy, the same grin on his face I’d seen at the dog stone. Mission accomplished; he’s got them all.

  ‘Venus,’ I say as she starts up. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ And as we pull away from the scene, it seems as good a time as any to see where we stand. ‘About those panties on my pillow …’

  ‘K called me to explain. They belonged to Agnes and he put them there as a joke when you were asleep – before I hit the shutters and woke you up. I’m sorry I flew into a rage without letting you explain. It won’t happen again … not ever … as long as the only panties on your pillow are mine. And, Tom, let’s celebrate with K another time. I’m taking you both home. My home. We need to nurse Barnaby’s wounds and … I want the three of us to be together for ever and ever.’

  Barnaby sneezes. I gulp. Venus speaks.

  ‘What was that you said about Chin wanting Barnaby’s collar?’

  ‘Oh, I was thinking of something in the PS of Bernard’s letter. Düsseldorf stole the letter and must have shown it to Chin. Although, now I can think straight, he didn’t show the PS Bernard wrote.’

  ‘Düsseldorf? PS? Two PSs? Not following you at all. The collar. Why would Chin want it?’

  ‘I’ll explain later. You’re driving, Venus; it can keep.’

  Venus pulls over at the Bukit Timah entrance as an ambulance rushes in, stops and fingers Barnaby’s collar. ‘There, Tom. Now I’m not driving. This collar … it’s awfully big and lumpy. And this lock looks like it belongs on a chastity belt.’

  ‘Yes, doesn’t it, Venus. Bit odd wearing a chastity belt around the neck. That’s Barnaby for you.’

  Venus gives me one of those looks. ‘You’re going to tell me aren’t you, Tom?’

  ‘It’s a bit of a story, Venus. I’m not sure where to begin.’

  ‘Well, it’s early, so start at the beginning and I’ll try to stay awake until the end.’

  ‘You remember Von Führer Düsseldorf and Nagasaki?’

  ‘Nope, never heard of them.’

  ‘Never mind them then, we’ll just skip World War II and the Emergency.’

  ‘Might be better.’

  ‘Yes, probably. You see, Bernard left me a letter to read after his death.’

  ‘I know. I was there.’

  ‘Yes, you were, but you didn’t read the letter or Bernard’s PS.’

  ‘Okay, you’ve got me. What did it say?’

  ‘It said Bernard had a small fortune in diamonds. He had sewn them into a big tubular guard dog collar with a secure lock and put it on Barnaby. On the night he died, Bernard came to my place with the diamonds and the dog collar. He was awake but heavily sedated. I never saw him. He dropped the dog collar and K picked it up and put it on my kitchen counter top, then K helped him back to his house.’

  ‘Why would Bernard have a fortune in diamonds?’

  ‘Well, during World War II …’

  ‘Let’s keep World War II for later.’

  ‘Well, Von Führer Düsseldorf …’

  ‘Keep him for later, too. So, Bernard had a fortune in diamonds. Why bring them to you?’

  ‘He was afraid of Von …’

  ‘He’s for breakfast. So, you find the collar and put it on Barnaby?’

  ‘You found it, not me, and you said I should put it on Barnaby. You remember how difficult it was to fasten the collar? That collar is the one in the PS to Bernard’s letter.’

  ‘Which you didn’t show to the superintendent?’

  ‘Yes, I didn’t. Instead, I forged a different PS knowing that Von Führer …’

  ‘Breakfast …’

  ‘Well, that’s it, Venus, give or take World War II, the Emergency, a Nazi emissary and his Japanese torturer-executioner boyfriend. I’ve kept Barnaby’s collar on Barnaby.’

  ‘So, over breakfast you can tell me all about World War II, then we’ll have a look inside this collar and maybe go for a chat with Super Wong …’

  ‘A late breakfast, Venus?’

  ‘Yes, I think a very late breakfast.’ Venus starts the car again. ‘Let’s go home, Tom.’

  And so we do.

  * * *

  And after dabbing Barnaby with iodine, and after my being suitably impressed with Venus’s home and garden, and after my carefully examining the bank of family pictures in which Lee Kuan Yew is standing cheek to cheek with Venus’s father in Cambridge, a bank in which there is no deposit by Richard, and after a night that is the polar opposite of my night before – and that’s all I’ll say about it – and during that very late breakfast, with Barnaby’s collar Exhibit A on the table between marmalade and tea pot, just as we are entering WWII, the phone rings. ‘Now you know why I never got a phone,’ I say as Venus picks up the receiver, says uh huh and puts a hand over the mouthpiece. I’m sitting there, waiting for her to say It’s Richard.

  38

  A Nice Cup of Tea

  ‘IT’S SUPERINTENDENT Wong calling from outside on his car phone. Can he see you here and now?’

  ‘Tell him I’ll call him later,’ I say.

  Venus uncovers the mouthpiece. ‘I’ll open the door, Superintendent. Just a moment.’ Well, it’s her door. I don’t relish the old being dragged into the new, but whatever it is will taste better over a cup of tea with Wong than cold porridge with Ong.

  ‘Superintendent Wong! What a nice surprise.’ Venus speaking, not me.

  The super kicks off shoes at the door and takes a seat at the breakfast table. Casual dress. Barnaby’s collar is in front of him. Venus takes an extra cup from the dresser and says Darjeeling as she pours. Looks like it’s to be a Courtesy-is-our-Way-of-Life consultation, not a grilled-Haddock interrogation.

  ‘Apologies for disturbing you at home – I’d like this to be as informal as possible.’

  ‘Should I leave you two alone, Superintendent?’ asks Venus diplomatically, clearly loath to do just that.

  ‘I’d prefer you stay. I have a favour to ask of both of you and an invitation to extend. But I’m here informally and confidentially – nothing I say should be repeated in any form by either of you.’

  ‘Okay, we promise.’ Venus again speaks for us both. The irresistible scent of raw news no doubt tickling her feelers.

  Wong sips his tea. ‘Good tea,’ he says. We wait. Another long sip. ‘Very good tea.’ You said that twice. You’ve got all of our attention.

  The brief tea-sipping silence is broken with a casually dropped bomb. ‘I thought you’d like to know Chin died in the ambulance on the way to hospital. He got very talkative lying in the road with a broken neck. I had to put my ear right next to his mouth to get what he was saying, so I’m sure only I heard. He seemed to think I was his god judging him; he voluntarily confessed to killing both Professor Fox and his wife, Agnes. He said he was proud of what he had done and regretted only not doing it earlier in life and asked to be rewarded for honourable action.’ I am taken back to Norsiah’s interrupted Chin killed his wife – if ever a statement begged instant elucidation, it’s that one; but David and Toshi walked in just then, Chin’s fingerprints were found on the gun, K turned up wanting a party and Chin’s neck got broken. But elucidation of the killing of Agnes can wait a bit longer, Bernard’
s death came first and comes first in my order of priorities.

  ‘When you say Chin killed Bernard, do you mean accidentally? That he put too much of the sedative into Bernard’s last meal? I thought the coroner had decided the amount Bernard had taken wouldn’t normally kill him, but did so because of his heart condition?’

  ‘No. The death was no accident; the coroner’s statement was amended when Bernard’s doctor was brought in – quietly – he thought Bernard would have woken up eventually with little chance of heart failure, and the fuller autopsy confirmed that. Chin knew what he was doing. When lying in the road, he said he had meant only to send Bernard to sleep in order to steal that manuscript. But when Agnes told him Fox was dead, he checked the body himself. He knew better than Agnes where to find a very faint pulse and found it at the professor’s neck. Instead of calling an ambulance, he told Agnes that Bernard was indeed dead, and that they should make it look like suicide to avoid suspicion. He got the rope from his car as Agnes told you, made a noose, tied it to the fan, then, with the help of Agnes, lifted the victim up into the noose. Professor Fox died by hanging – the coroner corrected the initial finding but I didn’t make the cause of death public; I didn’t want to alert the killer.’

  Venus is clearly bursting with questions. ‘But, why would Chin want the professor dead? He’d got the manuscript.’

  ‘A matter of honour. Chin thought he was avenging his father.’

  ‘I’m lost,’ says Venus.

  ‘It’s as I was trying to explain,’ I come in. ‘Their house guest, Von Düsseldorf, had told Chin that Bernard killed Chin’s father by hanging back in 1945.’

  ‘Sorry I interrupted,’ says Venus. ‘Please go on, Superintendent.’

  ‘That’s it, really,’ Wong says calmly. ‘Revenge is a strong motive. Chin knew his father had been hanged and suddenly had the chance to take revenge.’

  ‘So,’ I say, ‘Chin deliberately murdered Bernard. That, I can believe. But why would he turn on the fan? That surely would give the game away? Suicides don’t turn on the fan after they hang themselves.’

  ‘He didn’t turn it on.’

  ‘Agnes did?’

  ‘I think you know better than that, Doctor Haddock. It was Li Fang.’

  ‘Indeed, I had guessed. If it wasn’t Chin, Li Fang was the only one who had the opportunity. But why do it, why turn on the fan? He loved Bernard.’

  ‘Precisely because he loved Bernard. I did, too. Bernard was my friend, as well as my best informant on things past. Neither of us believed Bernard would take his own life … or at least we had difficulty believing it.’

  ‘But, why turn on the fan?’

  ‘Because I told him to do so. The unexplained turning of the fan ruled out an easy conclusion of suicide. And it helped me argue that the case merited the close attention of a superintendent. I couldn’t risk Ong handling the case. So, when Li Fang called me that night, I told him to turn on the fan before telling Madhu.’

  Wong drains his tea; Venus refills his cup. ‘And Agnes?’ she asks.

  ‘On the morning Agnes died, Norsiah was just back from Perak. She came back in the middle of the night. Li Fang told her about the professor’s death and she was very upset. She slept in Bernard’s servant’s room and was awakened by a noise at the professor’s back door. She looked out and saw Chin pull the police tapes off the back door, open it with a key and carry his unconscious wife across the threshold. He had a length of blue nylon rope sticking out his back pocket. Fifteen minutes later, she saw Chin leave alone.

  ‘She immediately went to see Li Fang but he was away at the market. She waited, saw you, Doctor Haddock, come in, make some calls and go and sit outside Fox’s front door with Barnaby. Then you suddenly crossed the road with news that the professor’s fan was turning; Li Fang called me but mentioned only the sound of the fan turning. Only when Li Fang was arrested did Norsiah come to see me.’ So, I think, there’s the awaited sequitur to Chin killed his wife.

  ‘The last time we talked about Agnes, Superintendent, you set out very convincingly the reasons for considering her death suicide. You also said then that she deliberately left clues pointing to murder rather than copycat suicide: the shoes at the sealed front door, dropping the backdoor key between Bernard’s and Chin’s houses, the upright chair and turning on the fan. You made the point that the clues too evidently pointed to Chin as her murderer and you explained how she drank sedative, let the fan turn the noose around her neck until she passed out and fell off the chair. Now you seem to think Chin killed her – the only witness being Norsiah, very tired after a long trip back from Perak and disturbed after hearing of Bernard’s death. And Norsiah saw Chin carry Agnes into Bernard’s house, not the hanging. If Chin were still alive, he might question why Norsiah failed to report what she had seen much earlier and called you only after Li Fang was detained.’ I think I’ve been rather clever, so I pour myself another cup of tea.

  ‘He might but he didn’t get the chance – and he chose to tell me he did it. Had Norsiah come forward earlier it would have been her word – an aboriginal Malaysian guest-worker cleaner – against the word of Chin, a wealthy Singaporean university somebody. Norsiah was indeed disturbed at the time she witnessed Chin enter Fox’s house. This, and her fear of Chin, accounts fully, in my view, for her delay in coming forward with the information. My earlier acceptance of the suicide verdict was wrong. We all make mistakes.’

  ‘That’s magnanimous of you,’ comes in Venus. ‘But I can’t see why I can’t report all this. Chin’s dead and it is a good story.’

  ‘You can – once our explanation of the death of Chin is officially accepted.’

  ‘Is there any question about how Chin died, Superintendent? We were all there and saw it.’

  ‘Exactly. That’s why I am here. The three police constables sent to arrest Chin were sitting in their car and also saw everything close up. They told Ong I was driving very fast and erratically as if drunk. The campus speed limit is fifteen kilometres.’

  ‘Do limits apply to police vehicles?’ I throw in.

  ‘Not those on urgent official duty. Madhu and I were in plain clothes and were not on duty, so strictly speaking we were driving an official vehicle for personal reasons. The vehicle was therefore my responsibility.’

  ‘Well,’ says Venus, quickly grasping the situation. ‘I was on that road and right opposite Chin’s gate and I would say you were doing a maximum of fifteen. Isn’t that so, Tom?’

  ‘Absolutely. You were crawling along. It was K before you who was going like a rocket.’

  ‘And you’d be prepared to sign an official statement that Chin’s death was an accident?’

  ‘The death of Chin was accidental,’ I say without hesitation. ‘He ran out into the road chasing one of his cats and … bang.’

  ‘That’s about it, Doctor Haddock.’

  Venus adds, ‘And I’m sure Li Fang and Norsiah will make similar statements. We’ll all say the same thing.’

  ‘Thanks,’ says Wong. ‘You realise I can’t investigate the death myself since I was driving. Please make statements along those lines to Inspector Ong at headquarters. Four independent statements should do it; four to three, if it comes to it. We rely on eyewitness reports to establish the truth in accidents.’

  Bernard comes into my mind, smiling, and says depends what you mean by truth.

  ‘We’ll go along immediately. Can’t have anybody suggesting extra-judicial killing by the police.’ Venus makes her broadest smile. ‘You know what TV journalists are like. It would be easy for one to pop in a question to the Commissioner as to why two policemen, one very senior, off duty, out of uniform and well over the alcohol limit had they been tested, were speeding along a quiet campus road after dark in an official police vehicle when a university head of department in front of his own house got killed.’

  ‘Quite. Of course, no such questions will be, as you say, popped in.’

  ‘Not unless somebody suggests a certain b
iting dog be put down as required by law.’

  ‘Dog? I saw no dog,’ Wong corrects with a straight face. ‘That was a cat in the road. Presumably, Chin ran across the road to get it. And Chin would still be alive and well, if in a police cell facing a murder charge, if Ong had sent officers to arrest him earlier.’

  ‘Chin ran straight out. No way you could have avoided him. That’s presumably okay to report on the news tonight? After we make statements, of course.’

  ‘Of course, Mrs Goh.’

  ‘Miss Goh, Superintendent.’

  Wong looks confused. Venus holds up her ring finger, no ring, and her right hand with her mother’s wedding ring on it. ‘Excuse me, Miss Goh. I’m one of those people who mix up left and right.’

  ‘A lot of people do, Superintendent.’

  ‘Good to have that sorted,’ I say. ‘We’ll be happy to give Inspector Ong his statements. But since things seem to be wrapping up nicely, what I don’t get is why Chin would kill his wife just then.’

  ‘You mean motive? Three come readily to mind. Firstly, the affair between Agnes and Woolf – a crime of passion. Secondly, Chin had been publicly humiliated the evening before when Agnes drove off in his car leaving him stranded and the brunt of jokes. And thirdly, to remove the possibility of his wife attesting as to his role in the death of Professor Fox.’

  ‘Adds up,’ I agree. ‘But why get all that sedative from Ra’mad if Agnes hadn’t intended to kill herself?’

  ‘She told Ra’mad she was going to Ipoh with Chin’s cats. I thought at the time this was her excuse to get the drug but now it seems she intended just that. It looks like Chin surprised his wife preparing to leave.’

  ‘But didn’t Chin have the perfect alibi because he was with the VC?’

  ‘He was. The VC saw Chin at 8.00, but Chin had not made an appointment and the VC was in another meeting so asked Chin to wait outside his office an hour. Chin went home and found Agnes preparing to leave in his car, did the deed, then returned to the VC’s office, short-cutting through Guild House – presumably dropping off a gun into Li Fang’s bedroom on the way.’