The Hour Before Dawn

by Sara MacDonald

  ‘Where are we going? Can we go home?’ Nikki asked.

  ‘We can’t go home, darling. All our things have to be packed up and Ah Heng has to go and look after a new family. I have to go back to hand our house back to the army and Grandpa thought we might all go and have a last little holiday in Malaya…’

  ‘Where we used to go with Daddy?’

  ‘Yes, in one of the rest houses in Port Dickson.’

  ‘With the round baths, where the water comes out of a big plug and goes all over the floor?’

  ‘That’s right. Does that sound like a good idea?’

  ‘With Grandpa and Grandma, or just us?’ Saffie was unsure she wanted them to come. On the other hand, it might feel safer.

  ‘I like just us,’ Nikki said quietly. But she could not help wondering if her mother was going to be like she was now or like she had mostly been since they got back to England. Would she see and hear them like she did tonight? Or would she go back to a place where they could not reach her, when sometimes she looked as if she didn’t know them any more? As if she had gone somewhere else and forgotten all about them.

  ‘Of course they are coming with us, darlings. But after the holiday we’re going to find a little house together, just us three. OK?’

  Saffie could feel her heart swelling with a strange sad happiness because Mummy was holding them and for the first time the dark felt safe again.

  ‘You will stay with us all the time? You won’t ever go away and leave us in this house on our own, will you? You won’t leave us even for a minute?’ Nikki asked breathlessly.

  Fleur bent to her and kissed the top of her head with sudden passion and then did the same to Saffie. ‘My silly little peapods, of course I won’t leave you. There is just the three of us now and we’ll stick together always, won’t we?’

  Nikki smiled and curled in for sleep. ‘Yes.’

  Saffie could feel her mother’s body going slack as she fell asleep. After a moment she whispered, ‘Nikki?’ but no one answered. Nikki too was asleep.

  Lying in the dark, Fleur’s breath moving her fingers like the quiver of leaves, Saffie heard a fox bark suddenly out in the garden. It was a primeval sound that made her heart jump. She squeezed her eyes tight shut, wanting to sleep too. She thought it was the loneliest sound she had ever heard.

  The train slowed and stopped at a junction. Fleur smelt betel nut and curry powder and the musty smell of live chickens carried in cages. She felt a nudge and a fat smiling Malay woman with a child was holding out her bottle of water. Fleur took it gratefully, drank and then handed it back. The woman shook her head, showing her she had another bottle. ‘You keep. You keep.’

  Fleur thanked her and leant back and closed her eyes.

  After the funeral she had flown back to Singapore with the twins and Peter and Laura There was an army memorial service and a quarter to hand over…and then…And then I let it happen. I let my child die for one selfish craving for oblivion.

  The train shunted forward again. It seemed to stop at every single station. Fleur sat up and looked out. The day was ending. The carriages were emptying. People were leaving the train in droves now.

  The Malay woman and her child had gone. They were still travelling inland. Her heart jumped; she must be on the wrong train. Oh God, where was she going? She shook with jetlag and tiredness.

  A large Indian with a purple turban was watching her with gentle eyes.

  Fleur lent forward. ‘I think I’m on the wrong train.’

  The Indian smiled. ‘I was wondering, Madam. You are on what we call the Jungle Railway all the way to Kota Bharu. Mostly workers travel this line. The journey from Singapore takes fourteen hours, no less! Where is it you are wanting to be?’

  ‘Seremban. I must get off there for Port Dickson.’ Fleur fought panic.

  ‘Well, Madam, the next stop is Mentakab. Here you must get off immediately for the next stop is Jerentut. There is nothing in between. I am afraid there will be no train back to Gemas tonight. This is where you must return to catch the train to Seremban.’

  He watched Fleur’s face. ‘Madam, do not worry. Mentakab is where I alight. I will show you to the best place in Mentakab to stay and then in the morning you will catch a train back to Gemas and there change for Seremban. All will be well. Do not be afraid. I fear you are a little unwell.’

  The Indian accompanied Fleur off the train and took her in a taxi to a small guest house belonging to his sister. Very good and very clean. It wasn’t, but Fleur was grateful. She lay on the hard bed, stiff with anxiety, beyond tiredness, unable to sleep or shut her mind to the image she had seen in the paper. She was hardly aware of where she was.

  Early the next morning the Indian took her back to the station and made sure she got on the right train to Gemas. His sister had changed some of her Singapore dollars for her, and given her Malaysian ringgits.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I have so little money on me to thank you for your kindness.’

  He drew himself up with dignity. ‘Madam, I do not wish for payment for helping a lady in a foreign land.’ He smiled, ‘I hope soon the thing that troubles you will disappear.’

  ‘Terima kasih. Thank you.’

  ‘Sama-sama.’ He smiled. ‘You speak a little Malay?’

  ‘A very little. Selamat tinggal. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye, Madam and Selamat jalan to you. Do not forget Gemas. Change at Gemas.’

  The train drew out of the station taking Fleur backwards to Gemas, when all she wanted to do was travel forward to the sea. To reach the place where she could grieve silently and alone. Just for a moment to feel the warmth of a life lost. Just for a moment.

  TWELVE

  The name Montrose was niggling at James Mohktar as he drove home that night. It registered with him, seemed somehow familiar. It is an English name, he told himself, and you are bound to have heard it before. Yet as he lay beside his wife and listened to her even breathing in the dark, intuition told him it was important, this nebulous something he could not recall.

  He said to his inspector the next day, ‘Have you heard the name Montrose before?’

  Inspector Chan pursed his lips and thought about it. ‘No. Should I have done?’

  ‘I don’t know. Something I can’t remember. Annoying.’

  The phone rang and Chan picked it up. The day had started. Mohktar walked down the corridor to his office. He opened up his computer and then thought, How long ago did this missing woman live here? Twenty-eight years? Long before we were computerised. He would need to get someone to check the archives, find out how far back files were transferred onto disc and then search through old cases concerning Europeans or service personnel to see if that name came up. He got up again and went to find constables Ahmed and Singh.

  Detective Sergeant Mohktar had given the hotel permission to move Fleur’s belongings to our room. Her room was then cleaned and hoovered for the next guests; all trace of Fleur was extinguished.

  I woke before Jack and got up quietly so I did not disturb him. I bent over the small pool of my mother’s belongings. Two Chinese blouses beautifully folded, one red and one green. A length of batik. Presents for me? I opened the small overnight case again. Just her book, washing things, nightdress and underclothes. A white shirt, summer skirt and sandals.

  Fleur only had her handbag with her. No change of clothes and nothing to sleep in. Fear caught at me once more in the silent room. Fleur had so obviously meant to return to the hotel because she would never have gone anywhere without clean underclothes.

  Jack woke and sat up, fighting to get his bearings. He saw me sitting on the floor among Fleur’s belongings.

  ‘Come here.’ He held his arms open. I went over to him and he wrapped his arms around me. ‘Don’t think the worst. Don’t give up hope. I was thinking: do you think your mother might have had a sudden reaction to being back in Singapore? Do you think coming back triggered something unresolved? Could she be wandering about the city not knowing
what she is doing?’

  I sat up. ‘It’s possible. That could be it, Jack. She might still return here to the hotel.’

  The phone rang. It was DS Mohktar. He asked me if I was rested. He would like to see me in an hour if that was convenient. He had witness statements from other guests in the hotel that he would like to go through with me. They had circulated Fleur’s photograph to all city patrols and they were hopeful that something positive would come from this.

  Mohktar caught up with us in the breakfast lounge. Apparently an old couple Fleur had made conversation with had reappeared from three days in Kuala Lumpur. They had been on the same flight from Heathrow and also on the airport bus. They had talked briefly to Fleur in the hotel lift the night they arrived. She told them she was going out for an hour or so. They remembered distinctly because they told her to be careful, a woman on her own, and she had replied that Singapore was one of the safest places she knew. They had not seen her at breakfast the following day, but the honeymoon couple, now in Penang, had, although they had not spoken to her.

  The waiter on this eighth-floor breakfast lounge had served her coffee and croissants and one of the porters had seen her go out that morning by the main entrance, cheerful and seeming fine. She had asked him the way to the Botanical Gardens. One of Mohktar’s constables was down in the gardens now, making inquiries with the staff.

  ‘So, Miss Montrose, your mother was not in a distressed state when she left the hotel that morning. The porter says she seemed happy. He described your mother very well and was able to give us a good description of what she was wearing. He particularly remembers her because she spoke a little Malay and he was impressed…’

  Mohktar’s phone rang, and as he answered it I thought that I would like to speak to the people my mother had fleeting contact with. He was listening intently to the person on the other end of the phone and his eyes, watching me, changed suddenly as he fired questions in rapid Chinese. When he came off the phone he was silent and Jack reached for my hand as if he too expected bad news.

  DS Mohktar continued staring at us, his expression unreadable.

  ‘Constable Ahmed is on his way here. He has some information for me. Also, I understand that a girl serving in the café in the gardens thinks she might have served your mother, at about twelve thirty, before her shift ended. The woman talked to her about how the gardens had looked many years ago, and appeared normal and relaxed…So, if we assume that your mother was going to return to the hotel in time for her flight bus to Singapore airport, whatever happened occurred after twelve thirty p.m…Lah?’

  At that moment an Indian policeman walked into the room. He held a file of papers in his hand and he glanced at me curiously as he placed the foolscap in front of Mohktar.

  Mohktar read without expression for five minutes or so and the tension felt unbearable. Jack held on to my hand, but despite the air-conditioning my hand in his grew slippery with anxiety. Eventually Mohktar looked up. He smoothed the first piece of paper for a moment as if gathering his thoughts then he met my eyes and said quietly, ‘You did not think to tell me, Miss Montrose, that your father was killed here in Singapore in a helicopter accident in 1976?’

  My throat felt dry. I suddenly saw how relevant to Fleur’s disappearance that accident we had all watched a lifetime ago must seem to the detective.

  I looked at him. ‘I’m sorry. It was so long ago and my mother has had another life since then and another marriage. I don’t think her disappearance now is connected to my father’s accident, really I don’t…’

  But I was shaking because I knew what other memories might have been invoked and I did not want to talk about them. I did not want to conjure them up from the darkness inside me. I did not want to voice and make commonplace what was just one more case to these policemen, not a monstrous thing they carried round inside them like a wound.

  Jack stirred uneasily and the two policemen did not take their eyes from my face. James Mohktar leant forward suddenly.

  ‘Miss Montrose, you had a sister, did you not?’

  I nodded and Jack moved imperceptibly closer.

  ‘Five weeks after your father was killed your sister went missing from the government rest houses in Port Dickson. She was never found, was she?’

  How quiet the room was now, and the air-conditioning made my bare arms cold. I shivered. I looked down at my hands. At the small eternity ring Jack had given me instead of a wedding band.

  ‘Her name was Saffie.’ The ring glinted as I spread my fingers. ‘We were five. We never knew what happened to her. We had to leave her here. We had to leave her behind when we left…No one could find her. Not your police. Not the military police. Nor the detectives they sent from England. She was never found…my twin.’

  There was silence. Then Sergeant Mohktar said gently, ‘I am very sorry, Miss Montrose. I am so very sorry.’ He rubbed his forefinger along his top lip as if he was suddenly missing a moustache and he fiddled with the papers in front of him. ‘You must agree that the death of your father and sister and your mother’s sudden disappearance are most likely to be connected?’

  His mobile rang again and, sighing, he answered it. He swung round and said something to his constable in rapid Malay. Then he got to his feet. ‘Please excuse…We will be back in a few moments…’ He clicked his fingers at the waiter. ‘Bring more coffee here…cold drinks…Lah!’ And swiftly the two policemen left the room.

  Jack turned me to face him. I felt icily and strangely calm. ‘They know something, Jack.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. His face was pale too and I suddenly thought how awful this would have been if I had come alone, without him. If I was about to be told that something dreadful had happened to Fleur I would have heard it alone. All my family would be gone; all gone in this one country, as if Singapore held some awful thrall and threat for us.

  I leant against him. ‘Jack,’ I said. ‘Jack…’ But I could not find the words to tell him I loved him…that if he had not insisted on coming I would be here now on my own.

  Perhaps he knew, because he met my eyes and said, ‘Nik, we’ll meet whatever’s happened together. I’m sure your mother wouldn’t do anything foolish, whatever memories Singapore invoked. She wouldn’t do that to the daughter she loves.’

  I held his eyes and I knew what he said was true. I thought of the two silk blouses lying beautifully wrapped in our room. They were not the act of a woman swamped by memories, but of a woman full of love and anticipation; a woman who was about to become a grandmother.

  Then I had another thought. ‘Jack!’ I clutched him. ‘It isn’t Singapore City that holds ghosts…’

  But I did not have time to finish for Sergeant Mohktar came back, his face grave, and sat down again opposite us. I saw that he was not quite sure how to begin. Then he said slowly, ‘We think it possible that your mother might have gone over the causeway into Malaysia, Miss Montrose…’

  ‘To Port Dickson?’

  ‘Yes.’ He stared at me. ‘It is where your sister…’

  ‘Disappeared; most probably died,’ I finished for him.

  DS Mohktar was holding a newspaper and he turned it nervously in his hands. ‘Miss Montrose, we think your mother might have seen this article in The Straits Times. The waitress in the Gardens confirmed she saw her reading a newspaper.’

  ‘What is it?’ I reached out my hand for it, but the Detective Sergeant would not let me have it.

  ‘Miss Montrose. A few days ago a workman discovered a shallow grave in Port Dickson on the edge of the jungle near where the old government rest houses used to be. It contained…the bones of a small child.’

  I took the newspaper gently from Mohktar and I looked down at the page he had been holding. I saw a crime scene. I saw ticker tape and policemen. I saw people in white disposable overalls crouching near a small shallow grave. I saw the headlines that Fleur, turning a page, must have seen.

  SMALL BODY FOUND IN SHALLOW GRAVE

  THIRTEEN

 
; Fleur had been watching the changing skyline without realising they were nearing Seremban and what had once been familiar territory. She had thought as they neared the coast that she would recognise the contours and shape of the land. She knew that the west coast would be dramatically changed and commercialised; that it would have expanded out of all proportion to her time here twenty-eight years ago, but she could not, somehow, make the leap from the place that still lay in her head.

  When the train reached Seremban, Fleur got out and stood on the platform. She shivered with tiredness in the hot morning sun, an English woman without luggage.

  It was a tiny station on the edge of town. Taxi drivers lounged by their cars ready to swoop. Fleur felt relieved that she had thought to change her money to Malaysian ringgits in Mentakab. She walked out into the blazing sun and straight into a waiting taxi. As soon as they reached the town she asked to get out. She was stiff with sitting and wanted to walk. She found herself in a dusty road full of small shops where Indian stall holders lolled in doorways calling out to her, their wares spilling out onto the pavement.

  As Fleur turned a corner she saw the bus station and a bus with Port Dickson written on the front. She stopped, undecided. She felt thirsty and unwell and realised she could not go on without sleep. She went into a store with a fridge full of cold drinks and bought one. Then she walked on, still ignoring the persistent shopkeepers.

  She went into the first small hotel she came to and asked for a room. A Chinese woman eyed her curiously, took a key from behind her and showed her into a spotless room with a shower. It had no view except a high wall with a narrow row of houses behind it, crowded and leaning together like bad teeth. The room would have been claustrophobic for any length of time.

  The woman told her she must fill in a form with her name and passport number and Fleur asked if she could sleep first, indicating tiredness by placing both hands against her cheek. The woman nodded and asked her if she wanted tea.

  When it came the woman had placed thin pieces of bread and butter on a plate and the kindness brought tears to Fleur’s eyes. She showered, washed out her underclothes and placed them in the sun over the window ledge. She climbed into the cool bed, the noise of the air-conditioner masking the sounds from outside, and lay on her back feeling dislocated.