by Andrew Grant
I searched the bedroom from top to bottom, lifting carpets, looking for a safe and any other hiding places. I did the same in the bathroom. Nothing! The housekeeper had grabbed what she knew I would come looking for and made a run for it.
The room’s locks were many. Obviously, being the keeper of the royal household, Kaylin had ensured that no one could ever enter her little corner of paradise uninvited. I didn’t bother locking the door when I left.
I went into Sami’s office and tapped out his number. The only good thing about this situation was that K was not the one who had turned traitor. Lunch with Sami was still on.
“And what do you expect me to do about it?”
“Help me!”
“We had an agreement. You do as I ask and I make sure that your wildest fantasies are realised. Is that not what we agreed?”
“Yes, Mr Lu. I still want that, but now the man, this Mr Crewe, knows I helped with the bomb. He will kill me when he finds me.”
“Then don’t let him find you,” Thomas Lu replied, smiling his humourless smile. “Run, rabbit, run!” He hung up.
“The man in black,” he mused. “Mr Crewe. Perhaps it’s time I found out a little more about you.” Lu reached for his phone again.
“She had been in my household for three years,” Sami said. He paused and contemplated his next words for a moment. Then he sighed. “I have to tell you about Stanley’s other life for it to all make sense.”
“Other life?” I replied. Then I remembered he had hinted that there were some things about his stepbrother that troubled him.
“Other life,” Sami repeated. “On the surface, Stanley was a straight-laced family man with a loving wife, and he did love Helen. He loved his kids. He was a good businessman. Very talented, but he had what one could consider a problem.”
“Which was?”
“He was a sex maniac,” Sami said simply. I sat there stunned. “He had a whole other life beyond his office and home in Goodwood Hill.”
“Did his wife…did Helen know?”
“Most of it, yes. She tolerated his indiscretions providing they remained private. She loved him and he loved her, but Stanley just had to have constant sex.” Sami’s eyes met mine. Could I see myself reflected there and in his words? He didn’t dwell on it. “I own the penthouse but I have, until the last few weeks, never lived there. In fact, I had never even been inside it.”
“What?” I was absolutely stunned by his revelation.
“Previously when I came to Singapore, I used my secret apartment. Or if on business which involved Stanley, I stayed at his home. I bought the penthouse, but I let Stanley set it up. His furnishings, except for the study. He installed his people, including his frequent mistress.”
“Kaylin,” I added.
“Yes, Kaylin. She could do what she wanted on her own time, but she was at his beck and call. She hosted his private business dinners and gatherings.” Sami paused again and took a mouthful of his food.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered. I could see it all now.
“Until I walked into the penthouse and announced who I was, Kaylin had no idea I was Stanley’s brother. She had no idea.”
“That must have stunned her.”
“The fact Stanley had a brother stunned everyone, Lu included. But thinking back on Stanley’s last days and the situation with Lu, I wonder if at that point Kaylin was working with Lu against Stanley.”
“But she had everything,” I blurted out. “A beautiful apartment, a rich sponsor.”
“Sex,” Sami replied. “That appears to be what she wanted. You told me about the photographs and videos. She and Stanley had a lot of playmates. I’m not suggesting Lu was involved physically, certainly not with Stanley, but someone amongst the playmates was involved with Lu and Kaylin. Whatever Lu offered her, it possibly wasn’t money. Stanley was very generous when it came to money. Perhaps Lu offered her more sex?”
“Perhaps Kaylin was involved with Lu?”
“No. Lu is one hundred percent gay. But maybe a bi-lover, who knows? Even here, or maybe particularly here, these things flourish and it is a very closed, underground society. The male escorts are flouting the law. Getting caught is not a good option. They all know each other. Someone like Kaylin who, judging from what you said, swings both ways and is as hungry as she appears to be, would no doubt be very well known in those circles.”
So much was clearer. It didn’t matter now; what had happened had happened. All we had to do was bring things to a close. We concentrated back on our food, for the moment at least. Sitting there in his makeup and garb, Sami looking as though he was in his eighties. He concentrated on working on a fish head. I’ve eaten them often, but they have never been quite the same delicacy for me that they are for many Asians. I had settled for a simple pork curry washed down with a Tiger beer. I had a bigger thing for pork now than I ever had. I stabbed at a piece of the tender meat and Sami and I sat chewing our respective meals in thoughtful silence for several minutes. Sami finally spoke.
“Sex worked both ways,” he suddenly said around a mouthful of food. “When I knew Lu had his damned foot in the Intella door, I decided to use his homosexuality to get an advantage. I found Michael through a gay friend. Michael joined the same agency that Lu obtains his treats from at my instigation, and through the agent, I manipulated things. Michael soon became Lu’s favourite and eventually his live-in lover. However, Lu has a prodigious libido, according to Michael, and often he would invite another boy or two from the agency to join them in a romp. So perhaps Kaylin was a member of the same agency or a client of the agency. Not that it matters damn now.”
“I guess.” I took a swig of my beer. “I imagine, and I’m not joking here, that the playmates get to know each other pretty well, and not in the obvious sense. They talk and gossip and connections other than the carnal ones are made.”
“Just like in real life,” Sami agreed. “Anyway, traitor identified; we have solved one problem and I have the solution to the other.”
“When do we go?”
“Saturday night.”
I did a mental check. It was Thursday. One full day to kill and then we could pay Mr Thomas Lu a visit. I decided to play devil’s advocate, a role that comes naturally to me.
“He has a not-so-small army covering his place. How do we— and I presume we’re talking you, me and probably K—get through them to Lu?”
“We don’t go through them,” Sami replied, chuckling. Given that it was in his old man voice, it sounded more like a cackle. He stood, leaving me sitting alone at a table covered in fish bones. “Thank you for inviting an old man to share a meal with you,” he said in Mandarin.
“My pleasure, Uncle,” I replied in the same tongue. Several of the old people sitting at a table next to ours looked at me with something approaching respect or puzzlement that I, an Anglo, spoke their old language so fluently.
I finished my beer as I watched Sami slowly wander off. He really was a most accomplished actor. As for my acting abilities? I guess as some director said of Clint Eastwood in his cowboy days: “He has two expressions, hat on and hat off.” That’s me. I’ve either got my scare face on or I haven’t. There’s not a lot in between, apart from my amnesiac episode, I guess.
I stood and made my way back out onto Smith Street and turned down New Bridge Road. I needed a walk. It had been a crazy day and it wasn’t over yet.
Thomas Lu was confused and more than a little concerned. He had well-paid people in a great many places. The name David Crewe pointed to an expatriate Australian living in Hong Kong. He was a businessman, import-export, involved with security systems. The company existed. Something, however, didn’t sit right for Lu. From what the housekeeper had said, this man did not appear to be a harmless businessman. He had been injured in the bomb blast, concussed and wandered off to Ubin in a daze. But he had survived there three days with an army looking for him. Then he had gone to them in the end.
Kaylin said he had been weari
ng a gun. Even in Thomas Lu’s murky world, legitimate businessmen did not wear guns.
Lu tapped a button on the computer keyboard in front of him. A face came into focus. It was an image taken by one of his people in the cemetery. It showed the dead woman’s mourners carrying the coffin from the hearse to the graveside. Lu used the mouse to isolate the figure of the tall man and enlarge it.
Although the image was grainy, the head and shoulders filled the screen. Thomas Lu sat and studied it. This was not the man the media said was David Crewe. This was another man altogether.
The man onscreen had his face to the camera. He was of indeterminable age. He could have been late twenties or he could have been fifty. He had medium-length fair hair, and a thick moustache of the same colour that extended to just below the corners of the hard-looking mouth. The chin was square and shaven. It was the eyes, however, that held Lu’s attention. They were cold and blue and they appeared to meet the camera with an unflinching directness that distance could not disguise. The eyes spelt “danger” in every way.
“Killer, not businessman,” Lu blurted. “You’re an assassin and you’re here because of the girl and because of me.” Thomas Lu fell back into his seat. This was the man who had saved Somsak’s life and almost caught the woman Kaylin. This man was exceptionally dangerous and he was smart, that much had already been proven. No matter what his real name was, the man called David Crewe would be looking for him.
“I need to find you first,” Lu said. Decision made, he again reached for his phone.
45
It was the morning of the next day. I was walking down Cairnhill Road and had decided to kill time by taking a constitutional the length of Orchard Road before meeting up with Sami.
We had—or rather I had—one day to kill before Thomas Lu met his maker. Perhaps his soul, if he had one, had come straight out of hell via FedEx the moment he was born. Maybe he had been doomed to stoke the devil’s furnace all his living days. Either way, I frankly couldn’t wait to do whatever Sami had in mind. The moment that was accomplished, I would be away—Thailand, Hong Kong, anywhere.
When you are being watched, you can feel the eyes. Sometimes they just stroke your senses and drift on. Those are the eyes of a professional; they don’t focus for more than a nano second, and unless your senses are particularly acute or you are trained in martial arts, you may not notice them. When you are being watched by an amateur or someone consumed with a passion, whether it be love, hate or anything in between, the eyes fix and literally burn holes in the air and your psyche.
It was the latter that I felt. It wasn’t the caress of a passing gaze. This was intense. I knew that I had a tail.
It was a few minutes to 09:30. There were a lot of people around and plenty of traffic. I had no idea where the watcher was. He or she could be in a building, on the footpath or in a vehicle. Probably not a vehicle, given the difficulty of trying to match a pedestrian’s pace while on wheels in heavy traffic. Anyone kerb crawling was going to get a going over from the traffic. Singapore drivers don’t take prisoners.
I was walking for the sake of it. Later, I would be meeting Sami for lunch. This time, we were going to eat at the Newton Circus Food hawker centre. If the tail stayed with me I would beg off the lunch and attempt to draw the watcher into a position where I could identify him and do whatever I needed to.
The point here, of course, is that I could be under observation from someone other than Lu’s people. I could have a bunch of special police or security types on my tail, or maybe someone from the old days. I had a lot of enemies in Asia, people who would happily dice me with a blunt knife and feed me to the sharks piece by piece.
How to draw the watcher out? On Orchard, I swung left. The locals and tourists were both out in force along the platinum retail mile. I slowed and made a pretence of window shopping, but decided that was too obvious. I just didn’t look like a shopper. Then I had an idea. It was 09:40, time for breakfast. I cut into the first café I saw. I quickly walked as deeply into it as I could and grabbed a seat.
Okay, it’s the oldest trick in the spy handbook, but it generally works. For a tail, losing sight of his or her quarry produces an often uncharacteristic knee-jerk moment of panic.
My tail was Asian, surprise, surprise! Tall, with long hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was wearing a crisp white blouse under a well-cut navy trouser suit. She looked every inch the businesswoman. It was the perfect cover. If a guy hadn’t chosen that exact same moment to pull the door of the café open, framing her in the doorway, she might have managed to remain anonymous.
I was sitting low in my seat with my cap and Ray Bans off. The menu covered most of my face. There was a waitress hovering at the next table that was positioned between the door and me. I had cover, while Miss Corporate Singapore stood there exposed in the open doorway. For a moment she stayed frozen, her eyes darting, trying for a fix. Had I slipped through the café and out the back? Was I inside, innocent, unaware and simply ordering breakfast? Or was I fully aware of her presence and watching?
I don’t think she saw me. The door closed and she moved on. I waited until she had passed across the front window, then I quickly stood and made my way back towards the toilets. I went past them and into the kitchen. There I found controlled chaos, as was normal in most restaurants at peak times. Startled waitresses and cooking staff looked at me as I entered.
“Back door?” I asked. One of the chefs pointed. I thanked him and went to the door he’d indicated. It opened into a narrow alleyway that ran parallel to Orchard Road. The alley was filled with crates, boxes and gas bottles. I let the door close and went to where the alley joined a wider service lane that cut back to the street. Peering around the corner, I met my shadow. She was actually standing at the end of the service way where it joined the footpath to Orchard. She was using her cellphone. Her back was to me. I waited.
The call was short, very short. The woman flipped her phone and slipped it into the black bag she had slung over her shoulder. Judging by her body language, she was agitated. Had she reported to Lu that she had lost me, or had she been speaking to some other entity? My bet was she’d been talking to Thomas Lu; however, I needed to know one way or the other. The woman waited a few more minutes, standing watching the passing throng, then she made a decision and started back up Orchard, back the way she had come.
I ran to the corner. I was just in time to see a flash of blue entering the café I had just left. I gave her time to do a quick circuit and prepared to sprint back to my cover if she came back out and turned my way. She came out, but turned in the opposite direction and continued on up Orchard.
Now I had to do some big-time guesswork. Was she going back to her base, wherever that was? Was she going home? Was she going to throw herself under a bus? If I could just get her alone, I could find out who she was working for. If it was a government tail, I was busted and I’d be on the first flight out of the country, or more likely a fishing boat up the Straits. If she was working for Lu, maybe I could use her to my advantage. Either way, I needed to know who she was working for.
Miss Blue continued on ahead of me. Now with my jacket over my arm, my cap and glasses in my pocket, I was just a clean-shaven Anglo guy with a shaved head wearing a pair of Levi’s, battered cowboy boots and a white T-shirt bearing a Nike logo. Nothing obvious. I certainly didn’t look like the black-jacketed guy wearing dark glasses and a 501 baseball cap on his head that she had previously been following.
I had to take a chance. The MRT. Was she going to cross Orchard and go down the MRT? If so, was she going north or south? The pedestrian lights fifty metres up ahead changed and a flood of humanity started across the road. I did likewise. I lost sight of Miss Blue, but walked quickly at a pace just short of a jog. I sliced through the slower traffic, doing a good imitation of a knife through butter. I wanted to get in front of her if I could. Tailing someone from in front is a tough ask, but to the experts, it’s often the best way to do it. If you’re go
od enough! Thing was, I hadn’t done this for a long time. Was I still capable of pulling it off?
I turned into Orchard MRT station and slowed, letting the natural movement of the human flood carry me along. I hit the escalator and was soon in the bowels of the station. I stepped to one side and stopped in the main concourse as the continuous stream of people chose a turnstile and slapped down their entry cards before going even deeper into the complex.
After three minutes of loitering, I thought I’d misjudged Miss Blue’s intentions. I was about to give up and move on when I saw her approaching. Because she was relatively tall, she stood out above those around her. She was thirty metres away, fished her wallet out of her shoulder bag and pressed her ez-link card to the turnstile.
Moving quickly, I swiped my card too, went through the nearest gate and carried on down to the platforms below. Would she head north or south? I found a pillar and leaned against it, pulling out my cellphone and pretending to talk. A dozen people around me were also chatting on their phones.
Miss Blue arrived at the bottom of the escalator and turned for the left platform. She was heading back down the line. Would she get off at Somerset or stay onboard and maybe change at Dhoby Ghaut? The train was pulling in. I moved closer and waited. She went into the rear of the train. I went into the next section. A seat was vacant. I dropped into it ahead of an old Chinese lady. To her equally old friend, she scolded me in Mandarin. I let it slide. I was just a dumb, bad-mannered Anglo. Despite that, she said that the scars on my head looked bad. Thank you, Auntie, I thought as the train pulled away.
Over the top of the other passengers, I could just make out the top of Miss Blue’s head in the next carriage. She was standing. A minute or two later, we slowed to a stop at Somerset. Would she get off? For a moment, as the doors opened, I thought she was going to. I stood. No, instead she took a vacant seat. I went to sit down again, but the auntie who had scolded me had slipped behind me and was now sitting in that seat. I almost sat on her lap. She looked up at me and cackled. Her friend, who was still standing, congratulated her in Mandarin. This horse’s behind was too slow, it seemed!