For The Death Of Me (18 page)

‘That's who you asked for, Madeleine.'

‘You're alone?'

‘I have a couple of mates with me, but I've got rid of them.'

‘Good. I'm very sensitive about who sees me just now.'

‘Makes a change, from what Harvey told me.'

‘I'm sure. I'm sorry, Oz, but that man was the biggest disappointment of my life. A typical career-driven Edinburgh lawyer, and I was fool enough to think I could make him interesting. When I finally gave up, and looked elsewhere, he treated me like shit.'

‘You went off with another bloke, then tried to take him to the cleaners. He didn't let you. You should have done your homework, Maddy, before you took him on like that, in his home city, in his home courts. You were fucked from all directions, from the off.'

‘Maybe that's so, but I didn't leave myself entirely unprotected. I had intended to get even with the smug bastard, at a time when it would do him most harm.'

‘Had?'

‘My plans have changed. I need money, Oz, rather urgently. My partner and I have to leave Singapore.'

‘Who have you fucked this time?'

‘You don't want to know that.'

‘Too right I do.'

‘Look, we're in trouble, it doesn't matter what sort, but it's bad. We need cash, in a hurry. That's why I'm prepared to sell Harvey the thing he knows I've been holding over him.'

Things were changing fast. It looked as if the goods I'd come to get were being delivered into my hands. The only question seemed to be price. I decided to haggle. ‘Let me tell you something, some truth. I know what you're talking about. That's why I'm here. Harvey sent me to find you and get those negatives back. He asked me to be all nice and legal about it, as he would, since he's a nice and legal guy. But the thing is, I'm not. Understand this; my sister's involved in the situation, and if you do what you're planning to Harvey, just like you did to that poor bastard Wilde in Australia, she and her boys will be badly hurt too. Washing on from that, so will the rest of my family, my dad, even my kids. There's no way I'm going to let that happen, especially now that I've got you sitting here beside me. I'll do anything to protect them, and if that means eliminating you, so be it. From the sound of things there's a queue of volunteers for the job.'

I glanced at her: her tan had turned a very unhealthy colour. I grabbed the bag from her hand, resisting her feeble effort to prevent me, and opened it. Inside I found a purse, and one other item, an automatic pistol, a small-calibre, palm-size lady's weapon, but no joke at close quarters. There was nothing in the purse other than three hundred and ten Sing dollars and a Visa card, but there was a full magazine in the gun. I gave her the purse back and pocketed the pistol. ‘Oz,' she protested, ‘I need that.'

‘No, you don't. If a hard lady like you has been scared as badly as this, it's going to be no use to you against the people who have done it.'

Women always take me by surprise: my stepmother had done it big time a few days before, and my brother-in-law's ex did it again. She buried her face in her hands and began to cry. ‘In that case,' she sobbed, ‘do me a favour and shoot me now, because those people will probably do a lot worse.'

I said nothing for a while. I looked around, but we were still alone. I was pretty sure that Dylan would be watching us; suddenly I was glad of it.

‘What do you want?' I asked her.

She let out another couple of sobs, then pulled herself together. She whispered something, so quietly that I couldn't hear her. I told her so. ‘Fifty thousand US,' she repeated, a little louder.

‘And you give me?'

‘The negatives, and every print I have.'

‘You'd get ten thousand sterling, tops, from a Scottish tabloid,' I pointed out.

‘Money's never been my motivation, until now. But, like you said, it's not just Harvey who's involved.'

‘When?'

‘Tonight. It has to be tonight.'

‘Jesus, how am I going to get hold of fifty grand on a Sunday?'

She looked at me, with a tiny smile that I found amusing. ‘Oz, people like you can get hold of fifty grand any time.'

‘You have to believe that if you cross me on this I will help these people find you.'

‘Having listened to you, I do believe it. You really don't live up to your image, do you?'

‘Not a bit. Where do we complete?'

‘I'll come to your hotel.'

‘No fucking way, paparazzi hang around there. Pick somewhere less obvious.'

She frowned. ‘There's a place called the Next Page on Mohamed Sultan; it's a pub where the actors hang out. It would be natural for you to go there, and it'll be safe for me because there are plenty of people around. I'll be in one of the private booths at the back. Be there at seven.'

‘I can't: I'm on telly, remember.'

‘Damn! So you are. Make it nine, in that case. It'll still be busy then.'

‘Okay, but, Maddy, I repeat, don't even think of pulling a fast one on me.'

‘Don't worry. I won't.'

I gave her a last stare, to make her a true believer. She made as if to stand, but I put a hand on her thigh to stop her. ‘Tell me, in case I have to explain it to Harvey. What the fuck have you done to get in trouble this bad?'

‘I told you, you don't want to know.'

‘I bloody do: now tell me.'

‘I've been stupid, more stupid than I've ever been in all my stupid life. I've been hoist by my own thingie . . .'

‘Sounds agonising.'

‘You know, by my own whatchacallit.'

‘Petard?'

‘That's the word. It all began when Tony and I had been here for a few months. I began to notice gaps in his diary, periods when I didn't know where he was. I'm a bit of a control freak where my men are concerned, so I asked him. He got evasive, gave me general answers about business. I'd been down that road with Sandy, so I decided to deal with it the same way.'

‘You mean . . .'

She was hurried, anxious: she cut me off. ‘I followed him, with my camera. I've studied photography, and I'm very good at it, as Harvey will have told you. I trailed him to an address in Chinatown, just off Pagoda Street, a first-floor flat. I found a vantage-point across the road, I used a telephoto lens and I saw him in a room, in his shirt, with another man. I thought, Fuck me, this one's gay too! and I hit the motor drive.' She chewed her lip.

‘Let me guess,' I said. ‘You tried to put the black on Tony and he's turned very nasty.'

‘No, not like you mean anyway. He found out, but not that way. I made a huge mistake. To get best quality I use film, not digital, for serious stuff. I hadn't set up my own darkroom facilities here, so I had it developed commercially, in a shop right there in Chinatown. Oz, those Triads are everywhere. The guy who developed the film must have run off another set of prints, and handed them on to the man Tony met.'

In a flash, I saw why she was scared. ‘You mean the other man was a Triad?' I asked her.

‘Not any old gangster: he's the leader of the whole Singapore organisation. And there's more. I never suspected it for a moment, but Tony's a Triad member himself. A couple of days ago, he came home and he went berserk; he'd been shown the photographs, and told me he knew everything, that the film had been handed in for processing by a dark-haired Western woman, and where. Well, he went crazy at me. He told me he's been in the organisation since he was in his teens. He went to London because of it, and his move back to Singapore was engineered by them as a sort of promotion. He didn't tell me how they work, only that they're an old-established network, and that you'll find them in Chinese communities across the world. Tony says that the Triads as a society are compulsively secretive, and so brutal they make the Mafia look like Amnesty International. In their areas they control everything, drugs, protection, prostitution, you name it. The Singapore government's been at war with them for decades. They've hanged some of them, they've caned others half to death, but they still haven't won. The organisation's still there.'

Nothing she said surprised me. I'd heard of the Triads; many a film production company's had to buy their cooperation, especially in Canada. ‘Yes,' I murmured. ‘You really are in the shit.'

‘And how! The man at the top has decided I'm a government spy: he's ordered Tony to kill me.'

‘And does Tony plan to? Are you hiding from him?'

‘No. He loves me; we're getting off the island together, as fast as we can. That's why we need the money. Tony's playing for time. He has me hiding out with a friend in the theatre company, and he's told the leader that he's carried out his orders and that I'm dead.'

‘Does the guy believe him?'

‘We don't know for sure. He said that he did, but that others might not, so he wants to see my head. Tony told him that he'd buried my body out on the nature reserve. He told him, tough, to dig me up.'

‘I don't think he's convinced anybody,' I told her. ‘I went to Tony's office this morning; it had been turned upside-down. Would you bet that whoever did it wasn't looking for your film?'

Jesus, this woman: the thought ran through my mind that maybe I should just shoot her. Easier all round. ‘So,' I hissed at her furiously, ‘this deadly, ruthless international terror organisation thinks you're a government spy, and you've set up a meeting with me, in a public place. Thanks a fucking bunch. Why didn't you just put a chip in a fucking android or something and send it to my hotel? “Help me, Obi-Wan Blackstone. Only you can save me!” Come to think of it, you even look a bit like Carrie Fisher, minus the daft hairstyle. Well, I have news for you, dear, I'm not Obi-Wan, I'm Darth Vader. Now, please, fuck off. I'll see you at nine tonight.'

22

When I thought about it, I realised that if these Triads had followed Maddy to our meeting-place, I'd have found her on the other side of the bridge, minus her head. Not that that improved my mood a hell of a lot.

Even Sammy could see that something was wrong when I caught up with him and Mike, although he said nothing. We saw it through to the end of the Siloso tour, then caught the cable car back to the mainland. We picked up a taxi at the terminal and headed back to the hotel, where I left the other two with the excuse that I had to speak to the telly people about the night's events.

In reality, I went to my room to speak to a man about fifty thousand US dollars. Maddy had been right: people like me can always get their hands on cash at any time. I called American Express, found someone senior enough to make big decisions and told him what I wanted. He guaranteed that the money would be at the Stamford by five o'clock.

After that I really did have to speak to the television people; the show's assistant producer told me that they would send a limo for me at six, and that I had been slotted in as the first item, after the presenter Mai Bong's warm-up. He said that the questioning wouldn't be difficult, ‘just the usual stuff'. I grimaced at that: the day I'd had . . . so far . . . and here I was, giving some interviewer I didn't know a blank cheque.

In my experience there are two kinds of talk-show host, those who ask intelligent questions and convey an interest in their guests, and those who see them as a wall off which they can bounce their own sparkling personalities. I hoped that Mai Bong wasn't one of those, otherwise it might be an interesting ride.

I checked my watch for the umpteenth time that day. I had one and a half hours to wait until the money arrived, but at least it was late enough to call home without having Susie slaughter me.

She sounded so pleased to hear me that it moved my homesickness up several notches. ‘How's the quest?' she asked.

‘With a bit of luck, it'll be over tonight. I've located the woman, and she's willing to deal: the pics for fifty thousand US.'

‘That's not too bad: Harvey can afford that, no problem.'

‘Not as well as I can, though. It'll be a present for my sister.'

She laughed. ‘Sometimes you can be too nice for your own good.'

‘That's not what Maddy January thinks: she's had to choose whether I'm bluffing or whether she should be really scared of me. Happily she's made the right choice.'

‘What's she like? A bit of a bitch, like Harvey says?'

‘No, that's probably an understatement. She's a thoroughly dangerous woman, but this time she's bitten off way too big a mouthful. Shit!' I had just remembered that I still had her gun in my pocket. I didn't need to read the tourist guide to know that the locals would take a pretty dim view if they found it.

‘What?' Susie asked.

‘Nothing. I nearly dropped a drink, that's all.'

‘Speaking of drink,' she retorted, ‘how's that long glass of water you're travelling with?'

‘Better now than he was this morning. We had a couple last night. I worked them off; he didn't.'

‘What are you doing tonight?'

I told her about the short-notice television show. ‘After that I'm meeting Maddy to close on our deal. All being well, we're on the first available plane out of here, and home on Tuesday.'

‘All had better be well. Oz, once you've paid her off, is there any chance Harvey will ever hear from her again?'

‘Very little, I would say. She'll probably be off the island before we are.' I asked her about my dad; she said that he was doing so well they were letting him home the following day, with nursing support from his local medical practice. It was the first good news I'd had in Singapore. I told my wife I loved her and hung up, then helped myself to that drink I'd pretended to spill, a half-bottle of a pretty decent Aussie chardonnay.