Crime Scene: Singapore

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Pearl is dead, Stella is dead. It’s quick. Too quick really.’

  Maria looked at Martin.

  ‘No more. Let’s finish it.’

  Martin nodded. Cyril let out a high-pitched scream and began to scramble along the floor. Martin went up to him and placed his foot on his back, holding him in place. Cyril’s legs and arms were flailing. He looked exactly like what he was. A squashed cockroach. Maria plunged the needle into his spine and he stopped moving.

  Chapter 10

  The disposal went according to plan. They worked through the night. The monsoon was obliging and poured down for hours, flushing the remains down the culvert and into the violently raging drain. It was enjoyable, the clinical removal of limbs and organs, and so easy. She particularly relished the cutting up of their sick, pathetic brains. Once she’d got the hang of it on stringy Stella, Pearl and Cyril were quick. When the light began to glow, it was done.

  They washed the bloody plastic sheets and their suits, cut them up into smaller pieces and put them into bags, washed and tied up the instruments for disposal, flushed the pits and holes with rainwater, filled them in and replaced the concrete slabs. The petrol canisters were emptied down an old drain and left by the door. The generator was sacrificed, pulled apart and packed into smaller plastic bags. The wheelbarrow was cleaned and left in a far corner of the building. The grinders were sluiced with rainwater, then sprinkled with earth and left to resume their rusty state. Everything was laid ready inside the door. Over the next few days, Maria’s job was to quietly dispose of every incriminating item in the factory.

  They left the factory and walked to the house. They were both stinking hot and in need of coffee and food but there was one more thing to do. They got out their fresh clothes and shampoo and both took a shower in the dirty bathroom, careful to flush away all traces of their passage. They wiped down the shower, poured bleach down the drain and packed their dirty goods in the sports bag. Then they put on fresh gloves and filled a fresh bag with some of the clothes from each bedroom. They found the Lims’ paperwork, their identity cards and passports. They found whatever money there was, not much, two cash cards and family photos. These went into the sports bag too.

  Maria took the holy water Martin had brought from the church where Flora was buried. Together they sprinkled it in her small room, the kitchen, the bedrooms, everywhere. To cleanse her spirit from every corner of this foul house. Then they went to the courtyard where the lofty branches of the trees floated against the morning sky. The rain had cleansed the world and the rays of the sun began to filter through the leaves. Maria and Martin sank to their knees and put their hands together in the Nunc Dimittis.

  ‘Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word;

  For my eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared for all peoples.’

  Martin locked the gate and they walked quickly away. On the main street, Martin gave the key to Maria.

  ‘Don’t go back. This is in case you need a place to hide. But don’t go back, Maria. Three days and you leave.’

  Maria kissed Martin and they hugged. He hailed a taxi, threw the two bags on the seat and was gone. Maria knew Martin would dispose of everything in Manila.

  Epilogue

  Getting rid of the stuff had been tiring and boring but had gone without a hitch. Twice a day she took a bag of plastic and bits of the generator and distributed them into dumpsters here and there. Random and unconnected bus stop rubbish bins were a favourite for the smaller surgical instruments which she’d crushed with the sledgehammer into unrecognizable metal. When she was done with the sledgehammer, she slipped into one of the disused industrial units and dropped it and the plastic canisters into a dark corner. The saw was a bit of a problem. In the end she decided it was fitting to drop it into one of the big reservoirs, along with the petrol tank of the generator. The kitchen chopper, cleaned with bleach, she simply left by the back door of the hawker centre which Neo and the Lims had frequented. The idea of food being prepared with it appealed to her.

  She gazed down as the plane swept along the south coast of Singapore, watching until it faded into blue haze. She touched the yellowing bruise on her cheek which was beginning to hurt. She opened her bag to get the tube of anaesthetic ointment and her fingers felt metal. She took out the key to the gate of the house on Tomb Lane. She’d never really looked at it before. It was old-fashioned, and the wide head and slender body had something of the look of a cross. It was fanciful, she knew, but it pleased her to think it.

  ‘Hail, Flora, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee,’ she said silently. She put the key back into the inner pocket and closed the zip.

  When the stewardess came, she smiled and ordered a Bloody Mary.

  Singapore-based DAWN FARHAM is the author of three historical novels set in Singapore, The Red Thread, The Shallow Seas and The Hills of Singapore, published by Monsoon Books, and an Asian-based children’s book, Fan Goes to Sea, published by Beanstalk Press, Kuala Lumpur. She is working on a crime fiction series set in Western Australia as well as several screenplays, for which she has received grants from the Singapore Film Commission. Website: www.dawnfarnham.com.

  ‘The First Time’ by Carolyn Camoens

  The aroma of lamb biryani crept up the stairs and lingered with the scent of cardamom, cloves and chillies, making the house feel warm even though the air-conditioning had chilled the house to near arctic temperatures.

  The laughter and clink of glasses had died down, but the music continued to serenade them. When she thought back to that night, she remembered how the kitchen bore the evidence of the evening’s activities—and its descent from civility. In a corner, soup bowls were stacked neatly on a tower of side plates, spoons resting in the bowl at the top of the pile. In the sink, dinner plates and cutlery lay where they had been dumped. The turn the evening had taken by dessert was clear, as the crystal glasses lay callously strewn over dinner dishes, the delicate stem of one snapped where it had borne the brunt of an empty bottle of champagne that had also been tossed into the sink. On the white counter, rings of red wine, from glasses that had been filled with the urgency of greed and impatience.

  The kitchen light went out and darkness veiled the chaos that would greet them in the morning. In the living room, a similar sort of disorder—glasses everywhere and bowls of muruku and papadum softening after hours of languishing in the open.

  From upstairs, she heard the music stop and, soon after, the sound of the living room door closing. He only did that on nights like this, when he wanted to deny the aftermath of the evening. Otherwise, he preferred to leave the door open. He believed that an open living room door was a constant sign that a home and the family who lived there welcomed guests. Good impressions meant the world to him, even when there was no one around to impress. Illusions were the order of the day.

  The sliver of light beneath the bedroom door dimmed slightly as he flicked a switch on the staircase landing.

  She ran her fingers through her hair, pulled the locks back into a ponytail and then changed her mind and shook them loose again. Tugging gently on the belt of her worn terry cloth robe, she undid the knot and shrugged out of it. The small pink flowers in the pattern were beginning to lose their colour and the sleeves were now a bit short for her. She relished the thought of crawling under the covers, anticipating the dreams she’d enjoy that night.

  Lying still, she waited for the warmth to fill her bed. She breathed deeply, taking in the rosemary, but also the cigarettes he smoked and the aftershave he wore too much of. Together the smells formed a slightly heady mix that she breathed in, wondering if all men wore the same scent. She would, over time, come to develop an elimination process based on the memory of this scent.

  Thinking back on the evening, she recalled the chatter and cheer. She later understood that they were actors and this was what they did best. They put on a play: a demonstration of unity so convincing they had everyone fooled. Sometimes, they even f
ooled themselves a little.

  She had often wondered why they put themselves through the charade. Later, she reasoned that they liked losing themselves in their own fantasy of bliss, even if it was just for an evening. In the morning though, the sun would throw light on reality: dirty dishes, broken glass and shattered dreams.

  She heard a click, and the corridor light was extinguished. She turned on her side and closed her eyes. All was still in the house that a mere hour ago was heaving with the energy of drunken revelry, licentiousness and the crude, hurried flirtation that happens as a party draws to its close.

  He did not falter—neither from all the drink nor from hesitation. He knew what he was doing when he turned the door knob and entered her room.

  She didn’t hear him come in, even though she had not been asleep for very long. His weight on the edge of her bed woke her and she turned as he reached out and touched her hair.

  Facing him, blinking to focus, she felt him stroke her forehead, pushing the hair from her face. Then he bent down and kissed her just above the bridge of her nose. Brandy and cigars—another illusion among many the evening had presented. Those luxuries were strictly reserved for performance nights, but the audience would never know from his generosity. That was part of his clever guise of abundance.

  He stroked her hairline, occasionally twirling a soft lock around his fingers. She looked into his eyes and when, for the first time, she saw right through him, she knew. He had looked at her many times before, stroked her face and hair too, but something was different now.

  Suddenly, the warmth of the bed she had sought earlier became too stifling and she started to breathe a little harder. She could feel the heat rise from her skin, lifting the strawberry scent of the soap she used into the air.

  Then it happened. Holding her face with one hand, he rested his weight on the other and leaned down and kissed her lips … softly first, then passionately. She closed her eyes. It was instinctive, like everything else that was to follow. It seemed like her senses began to shut down, and it occurred to her that she now understood how silence could be deafening.

  He stroked her neck, her shoulders and the top of her arm, all the while kissing her. Then he pulled the duvet back. She lay still as his hands roamed over her body. The skin on his hands was dry and calloused, scratching her soft skin. Then he put his hands under her small arms and lifted her, whispering to her to sit up. When she did, he undid the small teddy bear-shaped buttons on her pyjama top. She heard him say she was beautiful as his lips brushed her ears. Then he sat back and looked at her for a moment before touching her. She jolted, partly from the iciness of his finger against her nipple, but mostly from the growing realisation of what was happening.

  He stroked her and kissed her and gently lay her down again. Beneath a veil of cold on her skin, she burned with a fever she had never known. As he reached down and touched the edge of the cotton knickers, light-headedness overcame her and her head seemed to float in her pillow cloud. They slipped off too easily and then everything was fragmented; fingers, strokes, touches.

  As she felt his hand pry her legs apart, her head fell to the right and she opened her eyes for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. Past the flicker of the candle flame and out the window, her eyes strained to focus on the branch of a tree she climbed as a child.

  Once, she had reached out the window and tried to pluck a mango straight off the tree. She remembered inching forward, standing on the very tips of her toes. She didn’t want that mango. Not that badly. She just didn’t know anyone else who could reach out of their bedroom window and pluck a mango off their very own tree. And she had to have that experience. But it continued to elude her. The mangoes always grew on the other side of the tree.

  She later recalled feeling the same way that night—as the episode unfolded. It was like she was standing on the tips of her toes, trying not to fall over, reaching out for something wonderful that was just beyond her grasp.

  He was panting as he moved inside her, making the sound he makes when, occasionally, the casserole was just right. It was a moan, which didn’t properly describe either pain or pleasure.

  The feeling that had started in her stomach was now lumped in her throat and escaped suddenly with a gasp. But that didn’t surprise her half as much as the tears that ran freely down her cheeks.

  She felt cheated by her body as waves of pleasure pushed past the pain to flow through her. And feeling drunk and dizzy, she tried to concentrate on behaving as she thought she should in the situation, but the situation was without precedent, and her emotions refused to be fettered.

  Worse, in that most private of places, a feeling took seed and started to grow. She knew she was on the brink of something explosive, and desperately tried to stifle it. But it manifested itself like a spirit that had possessed her and completely taken over. Just beneath the pleasure, a thick layer of fear, disgust and incomprehension rose to the surface and erupted in a pained but muted sob, which teetered dangerously on the edge of nausea.

  She glanced at him briefly. His eyes were closed. She quickly looked upwards and away, focusing on the luminous stars on her ceiling. He had put them there so she would always sleep under a blanket of stars. She blinked through the tears, trying desperately to focus on the stars—but they wouldn’t shine for her, not that night. Her head began to spin wildly and just as she started to raise her hands to his chest, he jumped to his feet.

  She didn’t hear him leave, just as she hadn’t heard him come in. She turned back on her side, pulling the blanket up and around her. That was the first time.

  She spent the next few minutes making sure her world hadn’t really caved in around her. She looked up. The ceiling was still there, luminous stars and all. The walls hadn’t exploded and she wondered how that could be in the wake of the terrible thing that had just happened within them. The mango tree stood firm just outside the window, where it had always been. Even the moon was in its place. The world was mocking her it seemed, telling her that her pain meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. She might have been knocked off the axis of her own existence, but everything else remained unshaken, unmoved even. Was this what it meant to be inconsequential?

  The question would haunt her all her years. Life would always be to her a party she had not been invited to. But for now, she closed her eyes to lock the world out and retreat into her dreams.

  Sleep came quickly, and when she would wake in the morning, she wouldn’t remember the details. But she could never forget the sound of her mother’s footsteps walking towards her door, pausing briefly just outside it—long enough, she was sure, to hear the moans and sobs—and then walking away again. She was only twelve when she learnt about betrayal.

  And it would take her thirty years to find the voice with which to shatter all the carefully assembled illusions of their life. Some would call her selfish for doing so. She would wonder about the ones who remained silent. Were they hiding similar scars? Or did they just understand that it was her truth and she had every right to reclaim a part of herself stolen all those years ago.

  CAROLYN CAMOENS is a full-time PR consultant and part-time radio presenter. In addition to writing in her professional capacity, she has also written for film and theatre. Her short story The First Time was part of the programme for the Singapore Writers’ Festival 2009. Its publication in this anthology marks a milestone for her as a writer.

  ‘Unnatural Causes’ by Richard Lord

  What you should really know right up top about the private eye business is that you probably know nothing about it. All those cheap novels, those classic films you’ve seen about private eyes … forget it. OK, I’m hooked on them myself, but they provide about as much useful information on this business as Cinderella gives you about the shoe industry.

  I say all this because I myself happen to be a private eye. And let me confess something here that I never would have confessed to a client: I myself really know so little about the business. And I had b
een doing it quite successfully for fourteen years. But the last few months of my career taught me as much as the previous fourteen years. Then again, six months ago, I didn’t know how little I knew. As superficially successful as I was.

  Actually, it’s not too hard to be successful as a private eye in Singapore if you’re smart as hell, got a pretty sharp eye and a bit of street smarts. That’s check, check, check for me; not that I like to brag all that much. But it’s hard not to when you’re as clever as I am.

  Truth is, being a private eye in Singapore is nowhere near as difficult or as dangerous as it is in many places. The level and scope of crime is much milder here, which makes detective work in the Lion City a more easy-going affair.

  A good example: one steady source of income for us is what I sometimes call ‘the club-scrub detail’. What it is, I have these ongoing contracts with a number of clubs, bars and restaurants. The owners of these places get worried that their employees are cheating them by skimming some of the cream off the top. So we go in there for the scrub once a month, sometimes more often if an owner is suddenly worried there’s a big skimming operation going on.

  What we do is we go in and sit at the bar near the cash register. Our people will order a drink, then pay for it. Then we casually glance over at the cash register as the purchase is being rung up and see if the employee is skimming.

  Here’s how the skim works: you order a beer that costs, let’s say, $12. You then give the person at the bar $20. He or she rings it up, then gives you, the customer, $8 back. So where’s the crime? Simple: the amount the employee actually rings up is not $12, but let’s say $6. That means that the employee will pocket the $6 difference and the employer will have no idea that he’s been cheated. The customer gets all the change due him back, so he’s not upset or complaining. In fact, the vast majority of customers have no idea what just went down, as they weren’t watching. But it’s our job to watch, and then to report the employee for cheating. In fact, we watch as closely as we can, trying to determine whether the employee is doing the same thing with all the customers that evening. Which he probably is.