She nodded her head in the direction of her husband, unable even to speak his name. “I thought I owed him everything, you see…”
“But you didn’t confess immediately?”
There was a hint of the old Sovann in her answer. “Inspector Singh seemed determined to protect me – I decided to give him a chance.”
Singh grimaced. An old fool, that’s what he was – but he had been right about Sovann’s innocence. “Why didn’t you tell her?” He addressed the question to the man who was sitting up against a stone wall now. “If you were so determined to save her from going to jail for murder, why didn’t you tell her about your past? God knows, she’s not protecting you now.”
The head drooped like a week-old flower. One open hand gestured at his wife. “I was weak. I didn’t want to lose her…didn’t want her to live with the knowledge of what I had done. I was hoping…that there was another way.”
Sovann Armstong turned to leave.
“Can’t you forgive me, honey? After all we’ve been through together?” Jeremy Armstrong asked the question of his wife but stared at the ground by his feet.
Singh watched the couple carefully. He was praying that this woman would find some previously untapped capacity for forgiveness.
Her words when she spoke were almost an echo of Menhay’s when Chhean had posed the same question hypothetically. “You weren’t on the ground during the bombings. The earth was flattened as if God’s fist had descended. The villages were burning. We children would scream when we heard the engine sounds, even before we saw the distant specks in the sky. My brother died – and my grandparents. That’s why we were refugees in Phnom Penh in the first place…before Pol Pot evacuated the cities and we marched towards death again.”
Her husband watched her walk slowly away from the little group. He made no further attempt to stop her. As she passed Inspector Singh, she paused. “I would have preferred not to know,” she said sadly. “I would have preferred to go to jail.”
He knew she meant it, knew it was true. “I’m so sorry,” said the inspector. “I did what I believed was right.”
She looked up and her gaze met and held his as powerfully as a magnet. “You aren’t the first person in Cambodia to believe that he knew best.”
♦
Singh awoke the next morning with a profound sense of dislocation. He lay in bed, noting the luxurious four-poster and the filmy white mosquito netting. He was under starched white bedding. His tummy bulged underneath like a snow-covered hill. He turned slowly and glanced over the side of the high bed. His white sneakers lay on the floor but he could feel that he still had his socks on – and his shirt, pants and belt. He thought as hard as he could although it hurt his head and slowly the recollection of a long evening at the Raffles Bar followed by the decision to take a room at the luxurious hotel for the night came back to him in drips and drabs. He lay back, his big head resting against the cool pillow. He remembered being certain he could fob off the cost of the hotel on the Singapore government or Adnan Muhammad. After all, hadn’t he solved their precious case? A memory of Sovann’s soft brown eyes looking at him with an almost unfathomable sadness came to him. “I would have preferred not to know,” she had said. “I would have preferred to go to jail.”
He deserved a real pat on the back for solving this one, thought Singh bitterly. It was no wonder that he had such a towering headache – he must have spent the best part of the night trying to drink away the memory of those eyes and those words.
He rose slowly, splashed cold water on his face, retied his turban which had unfurled enough to be used as a hangman’s rope and walked slowly downstairs. It was time to have a big breakfast to assuage the pain in his head, find Menhay, get back to Phnom Penh and then return to Singapore by hook or by crook. He was through with Cambodia. He had seen enough, done enough and destroyed enough. Only the company of his wife was sufficient punishment under the circumstances.
As he sat down to breakfast, ordered a large coffee and sniffed hopefully at the smell of fresh toast, the bellhop from the front door handed him a sealed envelope with his name on the front in the firm stroke he recognised as Menhay’s. The colonel had probably deserted him and headed back to Phnom Penh with his prisoner, decided Singh, with anticipatory annoyance. He pursed his lips and felt the tickle of his encroaching moustache. Coffee first, then Menhay’s excuses. He sipped the caffeine slowly, wishing there was a way he could imbibe it intravenously. He felt slightly better and tore open the envelope, surprised to find it was quite a long missive. What was this – a love letter from the colonel? He held it a foot away from his blunt nose and began to read.
“Dear Inspector Singh, I am sorry to write to you like this – I would have preferred to speak to you in person. But I was afraid you would try to stop me, persuade me that there are other, better ways. You would be wrong, of course, but I fear that apart of me would have been tempted.”
Singh reread the first paragraph in some puzzlement. What in the world was Menhay going on about? From this meandering opening, it sounded like the colonel had been hitting the bottle hard as well.
“You don’t have to worry about the Huon case. I have arranged for Armstrong to be escorted to Phnom Penh and charged with Huon’s murder. As for François Gaudin, I have given instructions for him to be released. If he has any sense he will take the first plane out of the country.”
Had Menhay resigned from the force? Why now in his hour of triumph?
“I am sure you feel guilty about revealing her husbands past as a B-52 bomber to Sovann Armstrong. Don’t be. It is the most important element of our job – that only the guilty should suffer for their crimes.”
Was that true? Singh pondered the question for a moment. It was good to know that the colonel was on his side although he still didn’t know why he had felt the need to write this Jane Austen-esque letter. What was wrong with using the telephone if he was on his way to Phnom Penh?
“You must be wondering why I am going on like this” – bloody right, thought Singh – “and I will tell you although my heart is filled with shame. You will remember the eleven men – ex-Khmer Rouge – who were killed? I am afraid I was the one – I am the murderer of those men.”
Singh blinked rapidly a few times. His hands trembled but he kept reading.
“I believed that I was the hand of justice. Those men were living the lives of the innocent, growing old and looking forward to dying peacefully. And yet the blood of my family, my friends, my comrades and my countrymen was on their hands. I tried to apprehend them – and men like them – legally but government policy was not to charge Khmer Rouge excepting only those at the very top. I could not stand it.
“And yet, you must believe me, I tried not to act in anger. I sought my targets carefully and executed them without the guilt of revenge but with a strong sense of the necessity of my actions.
“But yesterday you told me that I had made a mistake. All these vigilantes kill the wrong man eventually, you said, and it seems that I was no exception. I called Chhean. She was quite certain that the killer had made an error. A simple case of mistaken identity and an innocent man died. Which makes me no better than the Khmer Rouge.
“I am sure you will understand that I must pay for this crime with my life.
“I think you will guess where I have gone. Do not try to follow me. It is too late now anyway.
“It has been a pleasure working with you, Inspector Singh. I leave in your good hands the decision of what to do with this letter.”
It was signed and dated by the colonel.
Focus on the salient point. Forget the fact that his fellow policeman and recent companion had just admitted to being a serial killer. Menhay expected him to guess where he had gone. Was this a last cry to be saved – like with so many would-be suicides? Singh glanced at the letter again. Except for the beginning, where Menhay had – understandably – struggled to get to the point, the letter did not have the tone of panic or regret of someo
ne seeking a reprieve. It was not a cry for help, it had been too emotionless for that. Singh winced. This was just practical information for the collection of the body – and a desire to leave his story with someone.
Singh’s mobile rang. It was Chhean. He answered hastily.
“Inspector, how are things? I heard that Jeremy Armstrong has been arrested.”
Singh could barely concentrate, his mind full of Menhay’s confession.
“Inspector, are you there?”
“How did you know – about Armstrong, I mean?”
“The colonel called me yesterday. He wanted some information on one of the victims of the serial killers. You know, the one where the killer got the wrong man, killed the farmer by mistake.”
Menhay had said as much in his letter.
“Did he say anything else?”
“What do you mean? Is something wrong?”
He obviously sounded as panicked as he felt. “Just think, Chhean – did the colonel say anything else, anything at all?”
Her voice was puzzled but she complied. “Nothing important, only that he might visit his village. It’s somewhere near Siem Reap.”
His village. But Menhay had said that his village had been abandoned after it was mined by the Khmer Rouge.
“I’ve always thought it would be a good way to go.” The colonel’s words came back to Singh. It made sense – the thought of his own suicide must have been on his mind when he made that remark to Singh.
“Chhean,” he said desperately. “I need you to find out exactly where Menhay’s village is and call me right back. Can you do that?”
“Of course,” she said, ever efficient. “But I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”
“I can’t explain now.” Could he ever explain? “Just do it.”
The inspector rose to his feet quickly and rushed to the door, shouting for a hotel limousine. He clutched the letter in a moist, urgent grip. There would be time enough to think of what to do with it after he tried to stop Menhay.
He urged the careful Cambodian driver to set off towards the Thai border in the direction of Poipet, praying that Chhean would call him back, noting that his phone battery was down to the last bar. He’d forgotten to charge it the previous evening, too intent on getting drunk, trying to forget the expression on Jeremy Armstrong’s face as his wife had walked away. In what seemed like hours but was only fifteen minutes by his watch, Chhean called back with the address. He passed the phone to the driver and listened to the exchange in Khmer, hoping that the battery would last long enough and that her directions were detailed and accurate, having no way of verifying the information himself.
“Do you know where to go?” he asked after his phone had been returned.
“Yes, no problem.”
Time flew and yet stood still as Singh stared out of the window, noted the storm clouds rolling in and tried to get his head around his friend’s confession. Menhay was the killer. The most honest man in the Cambodian police force was a mass murderer. He thought of the plain-speaking, hard-working, fundamentally decent colonel who had given him every opportunity, despite his personal reluctance, to prove Sovann innocent. Singh found his mind shying away from the thought that this man was a killer. Then he remembered the bloodshed in Cambodia’s past and what it had done to the psyche of the nation as well as to so many, many individuals. In a way, he supposed sadly, it was more of a surprise that many of these traumatised souls found a way to get on with all the little vicissitudes of life instead of lashing out against the injustices inflicted upon them.
They had arrived. Singh looked out over the small collection of dilapidated huts and the surrounding fields, uneven muddy ground with patches of grass and moss, flat as a pancake and decorated with the tall spindly sugar palms. Despite the quietude of the day, the true nature of the place was revealed in the signposts: grinning skulls and crossbones against weather-faded red backgrounds with the words ‘Danger!! Mines!!’ written in Khmer and English. Singh felt a shiver run down his spine like a drop of cold water. It was the double exclamation marks, with their slightly comic overtones, when juxtaposed against the reality of the round metal objects of death scattered through Cambodia, which brought home the horror to the fat policeman. He remembered Som, the landmine victim, and felt his heart clench like an angry fist. He needed to find Menhay.
There was hardly anyone about – it was still early in the morning. The figures in the distance appeared to be those poor creatures that made a living from selling the metals of unexploded mines and other ordnance. Some of them were on their bellies with metal detectors held out in front of them. The sheer awflilness was overwhelming to the Sikh inspector and he put a hand over his eyes for a moment. When he looked up again, he spotted the squat shape of Colonel Menhay in the distance.
“Hey! Colonel! Wait,” he shouted as he hurried in his direction, jogging and then suddenly, as he sensed time growing short, running as fast as he could towards the distant figure who was silhouetted in black as the rain clouds shut out the sun. He closed the distance and fell silent, suddenly convinced that the colonel would expedite his plans if he realised Singh was almost upon him. The inspector still gripped the letter in a sweaty fist – just as well, it was not something for the eyes of an inquisitive driver.
He didn’t make much noise, just the sound of sneakers on the dusty path and his breath coming in puffs like a steam engine, so it must have been some sixth sense that caused the colonel to turn around and look in his direction. As Singh drew closer he realised that Menhay was already fifty metres into the fields, no longer on the relative safety of the well-trodden trail along the perimeter.
“Menhay, stop!” he shouted.
“You shouldn’t have come here, Singh.”
“Let’s talk about it – work something out.” Singh’s hands were on his knees as his heart thumped against the walls of his chest like a battering ram. At this rate, he would die before the colonel, thought Singh in disgust.
“There is nothing further to say or do. I am not unhappy at this ending. It is fitting.” He took a few steps backwards, his wary eyes still fixed on the policeman from Singapore.
The rain began to fall, large individual drops splashing down with intent. Could raindrops set off landmines? Singh wondered, looking nervously about him. Presumably not, otherwise there wouldn’t still be so many littered throughout the countryside. The colonel took another few steps into the field and Singh a few tentative steps forward as if he was tied to the other man with an invisible string.
“Maybe Chhean was wrong – maybe you only killed Khmer Rouge.”
Menhay actually laughed. “Is Chhean ever wrong?”
“Please, Menhay. There has to be another way.”
Menhay shouted to be heard against the encroaching storm. “Go back, Singh! It’s over.” He turned and started walking rapidly into the distance. Singh hovered on the edge indecisively for a few long moments and then took off at a run after the colonel.
He had closed to within twenty metres – felt that he could grab Menhay by the shoulder, look him in the eye, talk to him and then very carefully make his way back to safety – when the colonel was lost in the bright yellow-orange light and dark grey cloud of a violent detonation. Singh saw the ground explode and contract in an instant, saw his friend disintegrate into a red haze, felt the noise impact his eardrums like a blunt instrument and then the shrapnel reached him like flying knives. As he fell to the ground and felt his fingers loosen, his last conscious thought as the blackness descended was that the letter would be lost too, just like the man.
Epilogue
Singh came to in a bright white room and he blinked and his eyes teared against the light. He looked around and saw faces that seemed familiar although he did not know them, could not place them. It reminded him of a family wedding – the impossibility of remembering the names and O-level results of all his young relatives to the grave disapproval of his wife. The thought of his wife caused the head to swiv
el around again and this time he saw her.
“Where am I?” he asked, pleased that the words came out clearly from a mouth that seemed filled with cotton wool.
“Singapore GH,” she replied tersely, referring to the Singapore General Hospital.
“You were medivac-ed out,” stated a thin voice that contrived to annoy Singh despite his condition. He didn’t have to turn his head again to recognise the dulcet tones of Superintendent Chen. “It was very expensive,” he continued, implying that if it had been his choice, he would have left Singh in the tender hands of the Cambodian medical profession.
Singh ignored him and fixed his attention on the other person in the room.
“Chhean,” he whispered.
“The UN sent me with you as an escort since you were so unwell,” she replied.
“Another ‘odd job’?”
She smiled but did not answer.
“You should thank her,” interjected the superintendent. “If she hadn’t insisted that the police track you to that village, it would have been too late to save you.”
“I realised when I was looking for the colonel’s address that the area was mined,” she explained. “I tried to call you back but your phone was dead.”
The recent past was coming back to him, bright flashes of individual images, as if he was a child looking into a kaleidoscope. He saw Menhay turn away from him. He was shouting as loud as he could although the sound was distant and tinny. And then the explosion.
“The colonel?” he asked.
“Dead,” said the superintendent. “Blown to smithereens. The Cambodians and the UN want to know why he decided to go for a walk in a minefield. I want to know why you went with him.”
Singh touched his face and realised he was wrapped in bandages. He felt his head. It was swathed in cloth. “Turban?” he asked suspiciously.
A Deadly Cambodian Crime Spree Page 25