The Ambassador's Wife (2 page)

Tay didn’t dislike Americans. Not as such. Not really. Some of his best friends…well, no, it wouldn’t be true to say that. Tay had to admit that there were a number of things he admired about Americans. Their self-assurance, their boldness, their generosity, their even-handedness, their easy manner, their willingness to take risks. Most of all, he admired their sense of absolute certainty that the world would step aside and make room for them wherever they went merely because they were Americans.

Neither any of those character traits nor that kind of self-confidence were commonly found in the Singaporean temperament so Tay’s experience in dealing with people like that was limited. Actually, to be entirely honest, Samuel Tay didn’t really understand the first thing about people like that. He supposed that was why Americans made him uneasy. They scratched him where he didn’t itch.

Tay ignored both Barwell and Evans and looked at the security man.

“You’re a local hire?” Tay asked him.

“Yes, sir, I am,” Keshar said. “Singaporean born and bred.”

Tay nodded at that. At least there was one person he could talk to here who wasn’t an American.

Sergeant Kang took out a notebook and turned to Barwell. “Did you discover the body?”

“Me? Oh, good Lord, no. Not me.”

“Then who was it, sir?”

“Someone from housekeeping, as I understand it.” The manager flicked his eyes to Keshar. “Is that right, Ramesh?”

“Yes, sir. She was running her regular room checks. When she found the body, she called me and I came right up.”

“Where is the maid now?” Tay asked Keshar.

“She’s a housekeeping supervisor,” the manager interrupted. “Not a maid.”

Tay kept his eyes on the security man and waited.

“Downstairs in my office,” the security man eventually replied when he saw that Tay intended to ignore the general manager until he did. “The poor woman is hysterical. I left her with my secretary.”

“Where did this…” Tay shot a quick glance at the manager, “housekeeping supervisor telephone you from?”

“Probably the service area. I’m not really sure. She certainly wouldn’t have stayed in there to call.” Keshar inclined his head toward the door to 2608 and Tay noticed he looked away from it when he did.

“You’ve been inside the room?” Tay asked.

“Just long enough to verify what the housekeeping supervisor told me. No longer than I had to.”

Tay finally shifted his eyes back to the manager. “You, sir?”

“No, no.” The man shook his head quickly and his pale skin seemed to grow even paler. “Jesus Christ, no. Not me.”

Tay found himself enjoying the manager’s discomfort and kept his eyes on him until the man glanced away. Only then did Tay turn his attention back to Keshar.

“What did you do when you went into the room?”

“I just rang the…it’s actually a one-bedroom suite, Inspector. Not an ordinary room. I rang the bell several times. When there was no answer, I let myself in with my security card.”

“And you could see the deceased from the doorway?”

“No, sir. She’s in the bedroom.”

“How could you be sure the woman was deceased? Did you check for vital signs?”

“There isn’t any doubt she’s dead, Inspector. Go in and see for yourself.” Keshar clamped his mouth shut and seemed to struggle for control.

“What did you do after you confirmed the presence of the deceased?”

“I got out of there, you can bet. I made sure the door was locked, then I went downstairs to Mr. Barwell’s office.”

“You didn’t just call him?”

“No, I went right down to his office. I guess I could have telephoned from somewhere, but that just didn’t seem like the right thing to do.”

“I called the police as soon as Ramesh told me about this, Inspector,” the manager cut in. “We waited for the officers at the concierge desk and then brought them directly up here.”

Tay continued ignoring the manager. “Who is the room registered to?” he asked the security man.

“They haven’t told you?”

“Told me what?”

“About the room. The registration.”

“No.”

“Ah, I see.” The security man hesitated, cleared his throat unnecessarily, and then he plunged ahead quickly. “There is none.”

“You’re saying you’ve lost the registration information for this room?”

“No, that wouldn’t be possible. I mean the suite isn’t registered to anyone. This suite is empty.”

Tay glanced toward the door to room 2608. “Apparently not.”

“Yes,” the security man nodded. “Apparently not.”

“When was it last occupied? At least as far as you know.”

“Not for some time. A week or so?” The security man glanced at the manager, who nodded. “Something like that. I can get you the exact date.”

“And the name and address of the last occupant.”

“Yes, Inspector, of course.”

Tay pursed his lips and thought for a moment while everyone waited in respectful silence.

“Sergeant, put patrolmen at all the lifts. The stairs, too. No one except our people on this floor until I tell you otherwise.”

“Inspector,” the manager spoke up, “there are nine guests staying on this level and they will have to—”

“Yes, we’ll need a list of them along with all their registration information. Also a list of everyone else who has checked out but may have stayed on this floor any time within the past week.”

“Naturally, Inspector. But as for the guests who are on this floor now—”

“You’ll have to make other arrangements for them. Sergeant Kang will get a patrolman to accompany each of them back into their rooms to retrieve their personal belongings as soon as possible.”

“I see.”

The manager didn’t see, of course, but he was smart enough to recognize there was no point in arguing with Tay.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Tay said. “If you will wait downstairs in your offices, either Sergeant Kang or I will be down shortly to talk to you further.”

Keshar looked for a moment as if he was about to say something else, but then he merely nodded. The manager, however, was less reticent.

“I am completely at your service, Inspector, as are all the members of my staff,” he said in his most sincere voice. “This is a terrible thing. Terrible. And we want to do everything we can to help you bring whoever did this horrible thing to justice. Of course, at the same time, we naturally would prefer that the hotel’s involvement in this unpleasantness be kept to the absolute minimum and we hope you will do your best to help us to accomplish that end.”

Tay hardly thought it worth the effort to point out that a hotel with a murdered woman lying in a presumably unoccupied suite was about as involved in unpleasantness as it was ever going to get. Instead, he just held out his hand to Keshar.

“May I have your passkey, please?”

“Of course, Inspector.”

The security man fished a plastic card out of his pocket and handed it to Tay, who turned it over several times and examined it with evident curiosity.

“We have electronic locks rather than mechanical ones, Inspector. The way they work is—”

“I know how they work,” Tay interrupted. “I’m a policeman, not an idiot.”

Keshar looked embarrassed. “I didn’t mean…”

Tay waved him into silence and turned to the patrolman standing in the room’s doorway.

“Take these men downstairs, Officer. Then stay with the maid who found the body until either Sergeant Kang or I come down to interview her. Make certain she doesn’t talk to anyone until then.”

“Yes, sir.” The patrolman saluted and spread his arms as if to herd the three men away.

“Now wait, Inspector.” The manager stood his ground for a moment. “I really do think we ought—”

“Thank you for your cooperation, sir. Someone will talk with you downstairs. Please return to your office now.”

The manager puffed out his cheeks and bounced on his toes for a moment. He looked as if he might be about to say something else, but then he just gave a little shrug and allowed the patrolman to shoo him away along with the other two men.

Sergeant Kang followed them to the elevators and watched until the door closed; then he organized the other patrolmen on the scene to seal off the floor. When he returned to 2608, Tay was standing in the corridor exactly where Kang had left him. Kang would have sworn that Tay had never moved a muscle the whole time he was gone, and perhaps he hadn’t.

“Right, sir. The floor is closed off. Anything else?”

Tay took a deep breath and tugged at his right earlobe. He said nothing.

The Forensic Management Branch would have been dispatched by now, Kang knew. Perhaps their van full of equipment was even in the driveway twenty-six floors below.

“Do you want to go in now, sir, or wait for FMB?”

When Tay still said nothing, Sergeant Kang shifted his weight from one foot to another and waited. The silence stretched on with no end in sight and eventually Kang spoke again.

“I think, sir, that we might—”

“I don’t give a shit what you think, Sergeant,” Tay snapped. Almost as soon as the words were out Tay wiped an open hand across his face and sighed heavily.

“I’m sorry, Robbie.”

“It’s all right, sir.”

“No, it’s not. I’m sorry. Really.”

“Not to worry, sir.”

“Is the boss here yet?”

“Not yet, sir. But I’m sure he will be shortly.”

Tay nodded several times, apparently more to himself than to Kang, then rubbed absentmindedly at his face again.

“Okay, Sergeant,” he said after a few moments of silence. “Let’s find out what we’ve got.”

“Right, sir.”

Tay slid the security man’s card into the slot in the lock with two fingers, taking care not to touch the mechanism. A tiny light above the slot switched from red to green and there was an audible click. Using only the knuckles of his left hand, Tay pushed at the door to 2608.

It swung open without a sound.

THREE

TAY’S
first impression, however incongruous it might have seemed when he thought about it later, was of the view. It was dazzling.

The drapes in the living room were open and the suite’s big windows offered an unobstructed panorama all the way south to the Straits of Singapore. Hundreds of cargo ships rode at anchor on a glassy smooth sea, each waiting its turn to enter the Pasir Panjang Terminal which was presumably the largest container port in the world. Tay had never really been certain whether it really was the largest in the world or whether that was just local boasting, but then he had never really cared much either.

Off to the right, the towers of the financial district marked the entrance to the Singapore River where, in simpler times, wharves had lined the banks and fleets of flat-bottomed barges called bumboats had ferried cargos of rice, rubber, and tin to ships moored out in the Straits. Somewhere along the way the bumboats had been swapped for steel containers and the wharves for cranes and the traffic had started running in the other direction. Instead of taking out rice, rubber, and tin, cargo ships calling in Singapore now brought in Sony PlayStations, Samsung flat screen TVs, and Apple iPhones. That, Tay supposed, was what people meant when they talked about progress.

In front of the windows was an L-shaped seating area with a couch and a chair, both upholstered in some kind of nubby, darkgreen fabric. There were also two side tables, two lamps with heavy brass bases, and a coffee table with a thick, oval-shaped glass top. On the right was a light-colored wooden desk that matched the end tables, and on the left was a large cabinet with a television set inside it, an old-fashioned-looking model with its cables coiled haphazardly into a corner. The furniture was tired-looking and didn’t really seem to fit the room. The carpet was worn and had several burns and stains as well as a big wrinkle across it. The drapes were made of some kind of heavy, neutral-colored fabric and looked as if they could use a good cleaning.

The whole effect, Tay thought, was slightly shabby. Certainly not what he would have expected a suite in a five-star hotel to look like, but then he supposed he really hadn’t seen all that many suites in five-star hotels, so what did he know? After all, he reminded himself this was just a Marriott, not the Four Seasons. Maybe the hotels where everyday business travelers stayed always looked like this.

Without stepping into the room Tay squatted and examined the carpet. He placed his hand flat against it. It was dry to the touch and when he lifted his hand and sniffed his palm there was no odor. He raised his eyes and scanned the room. It looked normal enough. No furniture shoved around, no tables tipped over, nothing pushed to the floor.

Tay raised his head and tasted the air. It was cold. Someone had set the air-conditioning very low. And there was death in it. The rancid, raw meat odor of blood mixed with the stink of urine and feces. It was a smell like no other he had ever known.

When Tay stood up, his knees creaked loudly. Sergeant Kang was behind him and Tay wondered to himself if Kang had heard. Yes, of course he’d heard, but then what difference did it make? Would Robbie be surprised that he was starting to creak at the joints? Would he somehow be disappointed in Tay for starting to turn into an old man? No, of course he wouldn’t. What a lot of nonsense it was even to think about it.

Tay handed Kang the security card he had used to open the door. “Return this when you go downstairs please, Sergeant.”

Kang nodded quickly, a single jerk of his head, and slipped the card into his shirt pocket.

Across the living room a door was ajar. Tay assumed it led to the bedroom where the security man said he had found the body. Watching carefully where he placed his feet, he crossed the suite.

The door was a little more than half open, but the room beyond was dark and Tay could make out almost nothing inside. He nudged the door with his elbow and in the light from the living room window saw a light switch to the right of the door. He used the side of his hand to flip it up and two bedside lamps flared to life.

Tay looked away. If he had not, he knew he would have vomited then and there.

It was worse than he expected. Much worse. Later he would say it was the worst he had ever seen, and he thought he had seen more than any man should have to see.