The Ambassador's Wife (16 page)

He put Elizabeth Munson’s picture back in the file, closed it, and then pushed it away. The file slid across his nearly empty desk, teetered a moment at the edge, and then steadied. Tay stood up and walked over to the window. The rain clouds had thickened and spread. The entire city was now wrapped in a dull outlook that matched Tay’s own. He stared for a while at the Marriott’s preposterous-looking green and red roof off in the distance.

No, he had more than a package of papers. He had a place, a place that had witnessed every horror of Elizabeth Munson’s last moments on earth. He would go back to the Marriott and wring something out of it. He would beat on its goddamned walls and kick down its fucking doors until he found a way to make it give up what it knew.

He could make it speak to him. He was sure he could.

SIXTEEN

SERGEANT
Kang was driving when he and Tay left the Cantonment Complex fifteen minutes later.

As they crossed the Singapore River, Tay watched a small boat at the pier on Clarke Quay loading its customary cargo of camerawielding tourists. Why was it that tourists in Singapore were always so fat, he wondered? Did the skinny tourists all go somewhere else and leave Singapore with nothing but the fat ones? Or were all tourists everywhere fat? Tay had never really been anywhere as a tourist himself, so he couldn’t be sure. Nevertheless, the thought caused him to sit up a little straighter and suck in his own gut. He was going to have to get some exercise, he knew. Maybe lose a little weight. He really was.

“When do you expect to be finished with the surveillance tapes, Sergeant?”

“It won’t be much longer, sir. Tomorrow morning maybe. But I don’t think we’re going to find anything.”

“The woman must have walked into the hotel. She’s there somewhere.”

“There are two cameras at the front desk, but we know she didn’t register so those aren’t going to have anything. The other cameras in the lobby are all too high to identify anyone unless you already know how they’re dressed or unless you just get lucky and they look right up into a camera. The camera in the lift lobby would be our best bet since there’s only one set of lifts up to the tower, but it was cutting in and out. There’s not much there.”

“And that’s it? That’s all the surveillance the hotel has? Nothing at all up on the floors?”

“On some, sir, but not on others. Nothing on twenty-six. They say it’s an old system they’re replacing soon.”

Tay could only shake his head. “What about the interviews? Someone must have seen this woman coming into the hotel.”

“No one that we’ve found yet, sir. Like I said, if we get lucky…”

Kang stopped talking and gave a little half shrug.

“But you don’t think we’re going to get lucky.”

“No, sir. Nothing about this case looks like it’s going to bring anybody any luck, does it?”

They passed the old Hill Street police station just on the other side of the river. Tay had always thought it was a lovely structure, graceful and dignified. It stood only six floors high and the whole of its façade was decorated with banks of close-set wooden shutters painted in bright greens, golds, blues, and reds. The stories he had heard about the building were a lot less cheerful than the shutters. It had been the headquarters of the internal security forces during the communist insurgency campaigns of the fifties, the place where the interrogations were conducted. People had died there, a great many people if you believed the legends, and some said that in the night you could hear screams coming from deep inside the building. It wasn’t something he liked to dwell on.

“So,” Tay continued, “correct me if I’m wrong here. Elizabeth Munson was entirely invisible at the Marriott, both to the security cameras and the naked eye, until she turned up shot in the head, beaten, stripped, and posed on the king-sized bed in room 2608 last Tuesday afternoon. Have I got that right?”

“Yes, sir. Pretty much.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as absurd?”

“Not really, sir.” Kang shot Tay a quick glance to weigh his reaction. “She could have come into the hotel anytime after Monday morning since that was the last time housekeeping checked the room, and she wasn’t found until Tuesday afternoon. Do you know how many people go in and out of a hotel like that over a thirty-six hour period? Must be thousands, maybe tens of thousands. Like I said, we’d have to be lucky to find somebody who saw her andremembered her. She might even have gone in through the back and nobody would have seen her at all.”

“The back? The Marriott has a back entrance?”

“I meant the service lift, sir. She could have taken the service lift up the main tower and nobody would have seen her unless she just happened to have bumped into some member of the staff. There’s no camera in the service lift.”

“Why would she have done that?”

“Well, if you didn’t want to be seen, maybe—”

“Or if somebody else didn’t want you to be seen.”

Kang looked at Tay, the question of who might have wanted Elizabeth Munson to enter the hotel unseen hanging between them.

“Have you interviewed all the hotel staff?” Tay asked.

“Just the ones who worked on the twenty-sixth floor.”

“Interview all of them. Maybe somebody saw her in the service lift.”

“But, sir, hundreds of people work at the Marriott.”

“Then you better organize some men and get right to it.”

Kang grunted unhappily and they made they rest of the trip to the Marriott in silence.

A
quarter of an hour later they parked in the driveway right in front of the hotel’s main entrance and Kang fended off the doorman with his warrant card.

“What do you want to do first, sir?” Kang asked when the doorman was out of earshot.

Now that they were here, Tay wasn’t at all sure. What was the point of going over the suite again? It had been a week since the body was discovered. Not only would the suite have been thoroughly cleaned, for all he knew there might be guests in it by now.

My God, Tay thought, some unsuspecting Japanese banker might even now be lying on the very bed where Elizabeth Munson’s body had been so carefully posed, having no idea of the tortured spirit with whom he was sharing it. The thought gave Tay the creeps. He knew he would remember that the next time he himself checked into a hotel, went to a room, and closed the door behind him. How could anybody ever know what ghosts we were sharing our hotel rooms with?

“What was that security man’s name?” Tay asked.

“Keshar, sir. Ramesh Keshar.”

“Right. I’m going to talk to him. You talk to the manager and organize the staff interviews. Somebody saw her, Sergeant. We just have to find them.”

Tay told a young man at the concierge desk, more of a boy really, that Keshar was expecting him and asked the way to his office. Tay’s warrant card and his small lie impressed the boy sufficiently to extract the information without the boy feeling the need to telephone Keshar first, which had been the whole point of telling him that he had an appointment. Tay believed there was an advantage in arriving unexpectedly to talk to people, even, if possible, completely unannounced. Surprise sometimes spurred people to tell the truth, mostly because they didn’t have the time to think up a good lie.

Tay found Keshar’s office without difficulty, but Keshar wasn’t there. His secretary was as impressed by Tay’s warrant card as the boy at the concierge desk had been and paged her boss immediately. In a few minutes the security man hurried in a little out of breath.

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, Inspector. If you had called in advance, I would have been waiting for you.”

Tay searched Keshar’s words for a rebuke, but found none. The afternoon the body had been discovered, he had sensed in the security man’s manner real shock, even something like embarrassment that this could happen in Singapore. Perhaps it had only been corporate concern for the hotel’s image, but Tay didn’t think so. The more he thought about it now the more he wondered if Keshar might be his way in.

“Please, Inspector,” Keshar spread his arms as he settled in behind his desk, “tell me how I can help you.”

“So far we haven’t been able to determine when Mrs. Munson came into the hotel and whether or not she was with anyone when she did.”

“You haven’t found her on any of the surveillance tapes?”

Tay shook his head.

“That’s odd,” Keshar said. “And the staff interviews—”

“Nothing useful either, although I understand that so far we’ve only talked with those employees who actually worked on the twenty-sixth floor. Sergeant Kang is making arrangements now to interview the entire staff.”

“That’s a big job, Inspector.”

“That’s exactly what Sergeant Kang said.”

“Well…if you must. I’ll do whatever I can to help, of course.”

Tay studied Keshar for a moment. He was waiting expectantly, knowing full well Tay wasn’t there to pass the time of day. Tay decided to get straight to the point.

“Is there a way Mrs. Munson could have gotten into that room without showing up on the surveillance cameras?”

Keshar laced his fingers together over his belly.

“No, Inspector. None that I know of.”

“Is it possible there are ways you would not know of?”

Keshar smiled, but it was the smile of an accountant. Tay recognized it immediately.

“No.”

“How many lifts are there up to the tower other than the passenger lifts from the lobby?”

“Just one service lift.”

“Does it have a camera in it?” Tay asked.

Keshar smiled again. “I get the feeling you already know the answer to that, Inspector.”

“I thought it best to ask you anyway.”

“The service lift doesn’t have a camera, but you can’t access it without passing through at least one area covered by a camera.”

“How long has the camera in the main lift lobby been broken?”

“It’s not.”

“Sergeant Kang says it was cutting in and out during the days before Mrs. Munson’s body was found.”

The expression on Keshar’s face seemed to Tay to be one of genuine surprise.

“I really don’t see how that’s possible,” he said. “No one reported anything like that to me.”

“Can the camera be turned off and then back on again?”

Tay thought he saw a flicker of hesitation in Keshar’s eyes but, if there was, he covered it quickly and answered the question in a firm voice.

“There are local switches for some of the cameras, but they can only be activated by a master security card.” Keshar produced a blue-and-white plastic card from his jacket pocket. He held it up, rotating it in his fingers. It looked like a room key. “Each master security card opens every door in the hotel and allows the holder to control the parameters of all our security systems including the cameras.”

“How many people have them?”

“I have this one,” he said. “The general manager has one, and the executive assistant manager has one. The fourth is kept in my safe in case of emergency.”

“Then there are just four master security cards?”

“Yes. Four.”

“And if you have one of these cards, you can turn cameras on and off and go in or out of this building without being recorded on your surveillance system. Is that right?”

“Yes, sir. That’s right.”

“Then you or your general manager or…who else was it you said had a security card?”

“Mike Evans, the executive assistant manager.”

“Any one of the three of you could have taken Mrs. Munson to room 2608 without her appearing on a surveillance camera.”

“I suppose so, Inspector, but surely you don’t—”

Tay shook his head and waved Keshar into silence.

“Are you absolutely certain that no one else has access to a security card?”

There was that flicker in Keshar’s eyes again. This time Tay was sure of it.

“There is someone, isn’t there, Mr. Keshar?”

Keshar looked chagrined. “Am I that obvious?”

Tay said nothing.

“I really don’t see how it could be relevant to your investigation.”

Tay nodded encouragingly, but he still didn’t say anything.

“Look, it would probably get me into a lot of trouble if head office found out I’d told you. You can keep this just between us, can’t you?”

“I can’t promise you anything until I hear what you’re going to tell me.”

Keshar obviously didn’t care very much for Tay’s answer and it showed on his face, but he knew he had already said far too much to turn back now.

“About a year ago the man I report to at Marriott’s head office in the United States came to see me. He told me that I might get a call from someone at the American embassy here in Singapore and, if I did, I was to cooperate with the caller in any way he asked. I asked what that meant and was told I was to arrange off-the-books accommodations and confidential access to the hotel if I was requested by the embassy to do so.”

“And this was for anybody at the American embassy?”

“Oh no. Just for this one person.”

“Who was it?”

“Well…” Keshar hesitated. “I’m not sure I know.”

That answer didn’t make any sense to Tay and his puzzlement was no doubt evident to Keshar.

“What I mean to say, Inspector, is that I was given a man’s name, but I don’t think it’s a real person. I think it was just a name.”

“And what was this name?”

“Washington. Mr. Washington.”

“Does Mr. Washington have a first name?”

“Not that I was told.”

Tay mulled that over while Keshar watched him.

“Have you ever heard from Mr. Washington?” Tay asked after a few moments of silence.

“Yes, five or six times.”

“And what did he ask you to do?”

Keshar fidgeted for a moment and Tay, waiting patiently, let him.

“Each time he made the same request. He asked that two suites close to each other on an upper floor be closed off and that he have access to the suites for forty-eight hours.”

“So you gave him the fourth security card.”

“Yes, but he always returned it the following day.”

Keshar cleared his throat.

“Look, Inspector, I can see where you’re going with this, but it won’t do you any good. The fourth security card is in my safe right now and nobody has asked for it in at least six months. There is absolutely no chance that card was used when that poor woman came into the hotel and was murdered. None.”