Singapore Sling Shot (6 page)

Stepping a couple of paces to my right, I saw the ladder. It was one of those ones that had circular frames set at intervals down it to stop clumsy oafs falling off. Like the building below, it had originally been painted green, now it was mostly rust-coloured, however it looked strong enough to hold me. The only problem was the metal plate padlocked over the top where the ladder met the railing at the edge of the terrace. I figured that it would be easy enough to swing around the plate and get up to where I was standing. So now I had one possible means of getting myself into the fort through the back door.

Our guide was looking slightly nervous. Simone's attempts at distraction had worked to a point, but Wenn obviously took her guide role very seriously. Was I planning to jump? I could see that thought plainly reflected on her pretty face. If I did jump here it was broken limb territory only. I made a show of stubbing out my cigarette and joined them.

Now we had come down to the fire tower via a long open-topped tunnel, if you can call it a tunnel. It was more a very deep concrete trench with a mesh grill across the top. Going back, Wenn led us up a whole bunch of steps. We emerged on the hill above the control tower. Jungle fringed in on both sides of the long grassed spur that ran back into the fort complex. This would be the perfect place for a watcher to hide both from fort staff and the public. There was an old guy using a rake further along the spur towards the buildings. Beyond him the roadway curved on upward to more buildings, Fort Siloso Square my fort leaflet said. A few people were getting off the busy little tram up beyond that. Apart from these folks, there was no one else to be seen.

I didn't even try to spot anyone in the bush. Instead, I adjusted the pixel level on my camera to full out and took shots across the harbour. Then I made a show of posing the laughing Simone and Wenn close together and photographed them both with the water as a backdrop and with the road and fort buildings behind them. I used the widest lens setting so that I could obtain shots down both fringes of jungle. Maybe later, using a computer and the ten-plus megapixel images, we could pump things up and see if we could spot someone hiding amongst the foliage.

I continued to pose the girls and take photos as we meandered on through the various displays with their commentaries and that damned music. If it had really been as noisy back then, I think I would have preferred being in battle.

Eventually, having explored right up to the high point of the fort complex, we made our way down the wooden boardwalk to The QuarterMaster Store. Here I thanked our young guide for the tour and told her we would take in the surrender rooms by ourselves.

Access to the second level of the building was via stairs at either end. I led us to the right. An invalid lift was in operation. An elderly European man in a wheelchair was coming down. We waited while he was off-loaded by a guide and a middle-aged female companion. Perhaps a daughter! From the man's comments, I deduced he had been a prisoner here during the war. This must have been a bittersweet return for him. I just hoped his nightmares didn't come back to haunt him because of it. This place had been a living hell for so many—I'd learnt that for a fact this day.

I led Simone up the broad stairs to the double doors. I noted that there was a standard deadbolt fitted as I opened one wing of the door, ushering my twittering other half inside.

Alarm panel, smoke alarm and what I presumed were air-conditioner controls were to the right of the door, along with a fire extinguisher fixed to the wall. Large display boards and photographs covered the rest of the walls. To the front left were figures, wax figures. Gloating Japanese military in their green-brown uniforms, some sitting, others standing, looking down at four forlorn-looking Allied officers dressed in pale tropical kit. One of these officers was looking over his shoulder at me as if registering the intrusion.

A recorded voice began its recitation. Simone and I were the only people in this first room. The captions indicated that the tableaux represented the moment the Allies surrendered Singapore to the Japanese.

I used my camera. I posed with Simone in various spots and managed to capture virtually every inch of the room. I know Sami said I should focus on the Japanese surrender room, but if I was coming back here, I needed to know if there were any hidden mantraps. There didn't seem to be any cameras in operation, not visible ones anyway. If I was on camera, I wanted to appear simply as an over-enthusiastic tourist, so I babbled nonsense as I posed and reposed Simone.

The door behind us opened and a loud group of Europeans erupted into the room. I took Simone by the arm and we moved on.

The second of the surrender rooms was a long room and we were the only living bodies in it. There was just the two of us amongst a couple of dozen wax mannequins. We stood at the entrance and I used my camera to grab a quick panoramic sequence. There was no telling if the people behind us were about to come charging in. They gave the appearance of being the sort of tourists who do five continents in three hours or less.

There were long tables on each side of the room and a pedestrian corridor down the middle. A low wooden railing on either side defined the boundary. I noted that there was an empty chair at the head of the table to my immediate right. A battered leather briefcase lay on the table in front of the empty seat. A long row of seated, uniformed Japanese and Allied military types stretched into near infinity. A naval officer in white was standing between the table and the pedestrian way on my right. There was a support pillar beside him and there was a transparent screen protecting his back from any groping hands, I presumed.

The other side of the room was almost a mirror image, except in this case the standing figure in front of the table was dressed in khaki. He also had a screen protecting his back. There didn't appear to be any cameras in this room either but I wasn't betting they weren't there. I'd check the images later. I was, however, prepared to bet there was some sort of proximity alarm system to prevent anyone looting anything from the display. It was probably just an infrared beam, like the others I'd seen placed around the various displays we'd just looked at.

So in case there was a keyhole camera or two at work, I again posed Simone strategically and took a whole bunch of shots. When the boisterous crowd from next door came in, it was time for us to bail out.

“Aquarium,” Simone said as we walked down the fort access road. I would have gladly settled for a drink, but yes, we were still in tourist mode and the aquarium was next on the agenda.

Before the entrance into the aquarium itself was a pool divided by a bridge. One side contained fishes of the finned variety. The other side of the pool had turtles and goldfish in it. Huge turtles, enormous things. We stopped for a moment to watch them. Very occasionally they stuck their heads up out of the water to breathe.

“Such old faces,” Simone commented, and I guess she was right. These things live to a great old age. Suddenly she squealed, grabbed my arm and pointed into the shadows at the far side of the pool.

There, at the bottom of the pool, was a body. It was black and almost lost in the shadows cast by the bridge leading into the aquarium. But it wasn't a dead body. It was very much alive. A plume of bubbles exploded to the surface. It was a diver in a wetsuit using what seemed like a giant pool vacuum cleaner.

“Housework,” I said to Simone, who breathed a huge sigh of relief. The mechanism of the pool cleaner was across the pool. It sat humming and spluttering as the diver worked. Some of the turtles were interested in the diver and his activities. He frequently had to push them away as he worked. None of them seemed to be trying to bite him; rather they were just bumping him with their shells. Given their size, some of these big bruisers would have had quite an impact. Even so, the guy just kept on cleaning.

We took the aquarium tour. I didn't particularly enjoy it. After my time spent crawling through a wrecked submarine on the bottom of the Andaman Sea, I wasn't as nearly as impressed as Simone was by the display, as good as it was. The sharks especially left me cold. I still had the vision of a giant Tiger shark steaming out of the blackness into the light from an underwater scooter's headlamp, and racing away with a diver clenched in its huge jaws. Believe me when I say that is the stuff of nightmares.

“Let's go get a drink,” I said as we emerged from the aquarium back into the sunlight. I felt a big cold shiver run down my spine and I momentarily forgot my companion of the moment was teetotal. Sharks can do that to one.

“Let's,” came the reply.

By mutual agreement, we ended up back at the Sky Tower bar on the Imbiah plateau. It was 16:20. A huge chunk of the day had been spent touring the fort and aquarium. Simone had orange juice and ice while I damaged a pint of the sponsor's brew.

“Did you get whatever it was you were after up at the fort?”

“I have absolutely no idea. I was flying blind,” I replied. “Sami wanted me to get an overview and see if I could spot any watchers. I got the former but didn't see the latter.”

“Are you a spy?”

The question came so totally out of the blue that I must have registered more than a little surprise. I shook my head and tried to laugh it away.

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

Simone looked at me thoughtfully, her head cocked a little to one side. It was a good look.

“I accidentally heard Mr Somsak talking to Stanley about his friend Daniel. He said that his friend—you—had consigned his boss to hell and no longer worked for the British Government. He said he hoped that you would come work with him.”

“It is most unlike Sami to let someone overhear him,” I replied, taking a gulp of beer while I searched for a response.

“I was in my office next to Stanley's. The intercom suddenly came on. I couldn't help hearing what he said. Stanley had put his briefcase on his desk and it had jammed the talk button on the console down. I immediately went through and told him, of course.”

“Of course,” I replied, matching her grin for grin. I do believe she would have done just that. “So how come you call Stanley by his first name and Sami, Mr Somsak?” I was trying to move the conversation away from where it had been heading.

“I worked for Stanley for five years. He told me the first morning to call him that. I've only ever seen Mr Somsak a dozen times. He never asked me to call him by his Christian name.”

“Call him Sami,” I replied. “Everyone does.”

“Maybe,” Simone countered. Then she fixed her big blue eyes on mine. She hadn't forgotten her original question, despite my rather feeble attempt to distract her. “I think you are a spy or a secret agent, or you were one.”

“Imagination and the wrong end of the stick, my good lady. I'm a security consultant, nothing more, nothing less.” I learned a long time ago that if you're going to lie, stay within earshot of the truth. It's easier that way. I finished my Carlsberg and waved the waitress over. I could have decided that the day was done and found a cab or grabbed the cable car across to the mainland, but that would have indicated she had been right and anyway, I was enjoying her company so why rush things?

“Is seduction on your agenda?”

For probably the first time in my life, I was absolutely speechless. Simone lowered her glass. Her big blue eyes stayed locked on mine. They were like blue laser beams.

“I'm just asking because, if it is, I'll need to organise my sitter for my children.”

“Would you like it to be on the agenda?” I asked. My throat was dry despite having just bathed it in Mr Carlsberg's best lager.

“Very much indeed. I don't have a boyfriend and casual sex is not my thing, even if the opportunity arises. We have people in common, so that makes us definitely not casual, and anyway, it appears we are man and wife.” Simone held up her left hand. On her ring finger was a gold band. I hadn't noticed it before. When she played a role, she certainly played it for real.

“So we are,” I replied. All of my earlier thoughts about being Mr Virtuous went right out the window. Hell, I was helping a lady in distress, or something.

The waitress arrived as Simone flipped open her cellphone to call her sitter. I forewent another beer and called for the bill. I paid for our drinks and we went in search of a taxi.

7

Being the imperfect gentleman I am, all I will say about the night I spent with the beautiful Simone DeLue is that it was spectacular. She admitted at some stage that she hadn't had sex for more than a year. It showed. Her enthusiasm bordered on the psychotic. Eventually things calmed down and moved on from her lonely, animal lust to another place. Later still, mutually exhausted, we ended up in the huge spa bathtub.

Room service delivered a bottle of Moet and glasses. Yes, Simone drank some of it. Not much to be sure, but lying there amongst the bubbles she let the yeasty golden velvet of the champagne tickle her senses.

Simone DeLue left my room very, very, late. Or was that very early? The phraseology always confuses me. Whatever, it was 03:30 when we said goodnight.

“Will I see you again?”

“I hope so, but no promises.”

“I hope so too. Take care, Mr Spy!”

With that she was gone without a backward look. I closed the door and locked it. How different this night had been from my escapades of the past few months. Sex for sex's sake, especially when you're an addict like I am, is a totally empty experience, beyond the physical at least. This had been good sex. It had meaning of sorts. We had connected throughout the day. Dare I say it? We'd had genuine fun as we'd play-acted our roles as Mr and Mrs Ed from Perth. Big kids, I guess, but it had been fun none the less, and fun is something I haven't experienced much over the years. It was another day when I didn't have to kill anyone, and that can't be bad.

But as for the sex Simone and I had just shared, that had been quite wonderful. The thing is that, since quitting Thailand, sex for me had been bar, pick-up, home and bed. Several girls had been on a repeat loop but after a couple of weeks I moved on. Variety is supposedly the spice of life. How about we replace that cliché with another claim. How about “Variety is the flat grey sludge of boring repetition”?