The Singapore School of Villainy (18 page)

‘Release Quentin…'

‘Well, you heard the man – let it never be said that Inspector Singh did not follow the instructions of his
superior
officers to the letter!' Singh enunciated the word “superior” with enormous faux respect and then giggled like a schoolboy.

The corporal's face betrayed his confusion. Singh appeared to take pity on his young sidekick because he explained, ‘Look, for different reasons entirely, I have no desire to hang Quentin Holbrooke for drug trafficking. That's not my job or my inclination. We'll let him go. He's at the end of his tether. Let's see whether he ties a noose in it again – for the murder this time.'

Fong pulled himself together with a conscious effort. ‘Who did you want to ask for help with the insider dealing matter, sir?'

‘Inspector Mohammed of the Malaysian police. We worked together on a recent case. A man of great ability, unimpeachable principles and,' he continued almost admiringly, ‘an impeccable wardrobe.'

Fong's only encounter with the Malaysian police had been as a boy when his father had been pulled over for speeding on the road to Kuala Lumpur. ‘
Nak settle, ke?
' the Malaysian cop had asked, pen poised threateningly over the traffic ticket. Fong's father had pulled out a fifty
ringgit
note and slipped it to the policeman. Fong had cowered in the back seat of the car for the rest of the journey, convinced that the long arm of the law would soon yank them off to prison.

Inspector Singh must have had a very different experience with the Malaysian police force if he was prepared to ask them for help.

However, when they got him on the speaker phone, Inspector Mohammed sounded suspicious rather than pleased to hear from his Singaporean colleague. ‘Singh, to what do I owe this dubious pleasure?' His expensive education was clearly audible in each syllable he uttered.

The Sikh inspector chuckled. ‘Just trying to maintain friendly relations between the police forces of our two countries…'

It was Mohammed's turn to laugh. ‘Yes, I still wake up sweating from your last effort to forge a bond between nations.'

Fong could not help smiling at this. It did not surprise him that Inspector Singh had stepped on a few toes on his Malaysian case. He had the biggest metaphorical feet of any policeman he had met – perhaps the shiny white sneakers were actually meant as a warning.

Singh cut to the chase. ‘I've got a big case on my hands…'

‘I've been reading about it in the papers – some white expat got his head bashed in. Please don't tell me there's a Malaysian angle!'

‘Afraid so,' said Singh cheerfully.

Mohammed's sigh was audible despite the crackling line. ‘OK, what do you want?'

‘One of the suspects might have been illegally trading the shares of a Malaysian company – Trans-Malaya Bhd.'

‘Insider dealing?'

‘Yup.'

‘They'd need a brokerage account here…'

‘Almost certainly not in their own name,' said Singh.

‘Money trail?' asked the Malaysian inspector.

‘Not a dime. Whoever did it has the cash squirrelled away in some numbered Swiss account.'

‘You don't make it easy, do you?' commented Mohammed.

Singh was suddenly serious. ‘Neither do the murderers,' he said heavily.

Even thirty years of marriage to this dogmatic, opinionated woman had not prepared him for her latest effort to cause him maximum humiliation, thought Singh bitterly. He was livid and it showed in his drooping jowls and creased forehead. He was sitting at the dining table. A sumptuous spread of food was laid out before him. Almost unthinkably, in the face of such temptation, Inspector Singh had no appetite. This was not because he had taken a sudden dislike to his wife's cooking. It was the identity of his dinner companion that had taken the edge off his desire for food.

Across from him, a suspect in a murder investigation was tucking into his dinner and making polite small talk with his wife. He had asked Mrs Singh to inquire whether Jagdesh Singh was keeping secrets that her nosy relatives might be able to ferret out. Instead, Mrs Singh had invited him home for a meal. He shuddered to think what Superintendent Chen would say if he got wind of this cosy little dinner party.

Mrs Singh was ladling more
dahl
onto Jagdesh Singh's plate. His wife's hair was tied up in a bun, a strand of jasmine flowers threaded through it. The perfume of the flowers could not compete with the spicy scent of home cooking.

‘Some more
aloo
?' she asked, almost simpering over the simple question. It was not difficult to deduce that she had been bowled over by her good-looking guest.

Jagdesh nodded, his mouth too full to speak. His plum-coloured lips curved into a smile and Singh was forced to the conclusion that Jagdesh Singh reminded him of a Bollywood film star. Aquiline nose, olive skin, sparkling teeth and warm eyes – hadn't he just seen that combination on the television when his wife had been immersed in one of her innumerable DVDs?

Mrs Singh nodded approvingly at her guest's willingness to have seconds and ladled out a generous helping of the spicy potato and fenugreek dish while Singh pouted at the double standards. He was always being nagged to reduce his food consumption, not invited to have seconds – and no doubt thirds as well.

‘I like a boy who has a good appetite,' Mrs Singh said, smiling at the hulking thirty-something lawyer as if he was a skinny ten-year-old who needed feeding up.

Singh's eyebrows almost met over the ridge of flesh that formed a hillock above his nose.

‘No, Aunty – my good appetite is my
problem
!' Jagdesh patted his belly fondly.

‘Nonsense! You are still young. You need your food.'

If you're lucky, thought Singh snidely, you can eat Indian sweetmeats until you're fifty and then struggle to tie your shoelaces. He didn't utter the thought out loud. He was determined to maintain a sullen silence.

His wife trotted to the kitchen and brought out a dish piled high with fresh chapattis.

‘If you marry
Chinese
, you won't get this sort of food,' she said.

She had apparently decided the moment was ripe to go on the attack.

Jagdesh grinned. His incisors were slightly longer than his other teeth and it gave his smile a devilish edge. Singh wondered how he had missed it before.

‘I'm sure a willing wife could learn how to cook. Maybe
you
could give her lessons.'

Singh suppressed a smirk. The young lawyer had his wife torn between her horror that he seemed to be confirming the family's suspicion that he had a Chinese girlfriend and her pleasure at the suggestion that her cooking was good enough to teach. His amusement turned to irritation when he noticed that his wife was now positively beaming at the compliment paid by this young scion of the extended family.

‘You musn't upset your parents, they have high hopes for you.'

Jagdesh laughed out loud. He said, his tone consoling, ‘I'm just joking, Aunty. I don't have a girlfriend. Too busy at work.'

Too busy at work indeed! He would have expected Jagdesh to be fending off the women with a broom, not too absorbed in his job to have a social life. Could anyone be that much of a workaholic? The taciturn policeman frowned. Had Jagdesh's so-called busy schedule included a window to bump off the boss? After all, he was sceptical that Quentin Holbrooke was a murderer, the insider dealing just didn't square with the account statements. He preferred not to believe that Maria Thompson had taken the ultimate step to ensure her financial security. Perhaps it
was
his good-looking young relative who was the culprit. But what possible reason could Jagdesh have had for killing Mark? So far, Singh acknowledged ruefully, his suspicions were based entirely on a gut feeling that the boy was keeping secrets and his exasperation at his wife's fawning behaviour. It was hardly conclusive of guilt. After all, Mark Thompson hadn't been on his case to settle down with a nice Sikh girl.

Unlike his wife, who was not pulling any punches. She said, ‘I know some really pretty Sikh girls who are very anxious to meet you. One of them is a doctor!'

It was her trump card, but perhaps played a little too early. Her expression was anxious as she scanned the face of the prospective groom. ‘
England
-qualified,' she added hurriedly in case he should think that the girl had her medical degree from one of the hundreds of Indian colleges offering dodgy degrees to the offspring of status-conscious Indians from all over the globe.

Jagdesh smiled sweetly at his hostess. ‘I would be very happy to meet her, Aunty.'

Despite his earlier determination to maintain an aggressive silence to indicate his disapproval of this enforced tête-à-tête, Singh could not stand the saccharine conversation between his wife – his own
wife
– and this murder suspect.

‘What are you afraid of?' he demanded.

Jagdesh looked at him in surprise, his masticating jaw slowing down but not stopping entirely.

He spoke with his mouth still half-full. ‘What do you mean, Uncle?'

Singh was distracted by the form of address. ‘
I'm
the inspector in charge of a murder investigation – and you're a suspect! So let's have less of this “uncle” nonsense.'

Jagdesh swallowed hard and coughed – one large hand covering his mouth. ‘I'm sorry, sir. I was just trying to be polite.'

‘You shouldn't be so rude to our visitor,' exclaimed Mrs Singh. ‘You heard what he said – he's just trying to be polite. Maybe you can learn some manners from him!'

Singh felt a sharp pain between his eyes. His wife was about to trigger a major headache with her wilful blindness to protocol. Not even he, the well-known maverick, could match her efforts to ignore appropriate conduct during a murder investigation.

He tried again. ‘What are you afraid of?'

Jagdesh pushed his plate away. Either he was finally full or he had suddenly lost his appetite. ‘I'm not afraid of anything, sir. I don't know what you're talking about.'

Singh nodded, as if he was taking his unwanted guest's assertion at face value. But he had been quick to note that Jagdesh's brown eyes had been gazing at the plastic table cloth when he had answered the question.

Mrs Singh was triumphant. ‘See – I
told
you he wasn't the murderer!'

 

Later that night, across town, in a bar in Chinatown, a tall man perched on a red leather barstool polished smooth over the years. The bartender leaned over and tipped the last of a bottle of Chivas Regal into his nearly empty whisky tumbler. He held it up to show the man that the bottle was empty and received a nod of acknowledgement from him. The quiet, brooding sort, thought the barman idly. But he had a big man's capacity for liquor. He had drunk steadily through a whole bottle of whisky. The only telltale signs were a redness around the eyes and a slight unsteadiness when he reached for his glass.

‘Can I get you something to eat?' he asked.

The big man shook his head, turning his bleary gaze to the barman. ‘No, I've had dinner – thank you.'

The heavy front door of the bar was pushed open and the red lanterns that were strung across the streets were briefly visible. A waft of hot exhaust-laden air accompanied a young Chinese man onto the premises. He stood at the entrance, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dimness within. He was dressed in black, a body-hugging short-sleeved shirt with oversized shiny ebony buttons all down the front, leather trousers and soft leather ankle boots with silver buckles. He had dressed in black to lend himself an air of sophistication, but his youth shone through. He must have suspected as much, because he nervously ran a hand through his thick spiky hair. After looking around the bar carefully, the corners of which were lost in velvety darkness, he sat down on a stool next to the tall man sipping his Chivas absent-mindedly and put his elbows on the bar. He had tanned, sinewy, hairless arms and his nails were clean and well manicured.

‘What'll it be?' the barman asked him.

‘Same thing as him,' he said, nodding at the glass of the man perched on the stool next to him. His request drew a bleary glance from his neighbour and the Chinese man smiled at him in a friendly but tentative fashion. On receiving no response, he looked away and sipped his whisky while idly playing with the beer mat in front of him. A large brown hand took hold of his in a gentle but firm clasp. The young man glanced up at Jagdesh Singh and this time his smile was wide and confident.

 

The mobile by Singh's bed rang. Mrs Singh didn't hear it. She had a pillow over her head to drown out her husband's constant snoring.

For a few semi-conscious seconds, his hand sought his alarm clock. Then the inspector answered the phone groggily, making a silent promise that if the call was not important he would have the badge of the policeman who had woken him. He hoped it was Corporal Fong. However, after listening to the caller for a few seconds, he grew alert and sleep slipped from him like a blanket falling to the floor.

‘No! Not yet. Wait for me. I'll be there as soon as I can!' He was almost shouting. His wife stirred by his side and he moderated his tone. He really,
really
didn't want to have to tell her about the latest developments in his case.

 

The apartment building was concrete, steel and glass. It towered above the older blocks around it, most of them empty and slated for destruction. Singh was outside a heavy door on the tenth floor. He had two uniforms with him, both of them looking nervous but excited. Singh did not share their energy or their enthusiasm. He knew he would be much happier remaining in complete blissful ignorance of what he suspected lay behind the door.

Sergeant Chung, who clearly thought of himself as some sort of action man after his altercation with the drug dealer, said, ‘Do you want me to break down the door, sir?'

Singh looked pained. ‘Don't be ridiculous.'

‘But we suspect the commission of an offence! We can go in…'

Singh had never fully understood the expression about not teaching one's grandmother to suck eggs but he was damned if he was going to be lectured in the small hours of the morning by some adrenaline-charged rookie. He muttered, ‘That's why I've asked the security guard for the spare key.'

Sergeant Chung looked crestfallen. Perhaps, thought Singh, he should have let the young fool break a leg trying to smash his way through the heavy door.

An elderly man who walked with a limp and was dressed in a uniform festooned in epaulettes and shiny buttons arrived in the elevator. He held a large bunch of keys, one silver key pinched between a sweaty thumb and forefinger. ‘I bring you the master keys. But I very worried about what the residents will say. Sure they will be very angry.'

‘This is police business,' said Singh brusquely.

The old man, having recorded his disapproval of their conduct, slipped the key into the door and turned it silently. He looked inquiringly at the police. The inspector waved him away.

Sergeant Chung pulled out his gun with a flourish.

‘Put that away, you young idiot! What do you think is going on in there exactly?'

‘We should be prepared for anything, sir!'

‘I'm
not
prepared to get shot in the back by you,' growled Singh.

Chung slipped his gun back into its holster, his mouth slack with disappointment.

The inspector raised a stubby finger to his lips, took a deep breath and opened the door slowly.

The room was empty and in semi-darkness. The dim light came from a single floor lamp. A thin strip of yellow light was visible under a closed door at the other end of the hall. Singh led the way, moving with unexpectedly light feet for such a superficially clumsy figure. He turned the handle and flung the door open.

Two heads popped out from under the crumpled bedclothes. One belonged to a handsome, youthful Chinese man with dishevelled spiky hair whose mouth formed an “o” of surprise. The other man was the inspector's nephew a few times removed, Jagdesh Singh.

Inspector Singh leaned back against the doorpost, hands hanging limply by his sides. His murder investigation had just turned into a gay bedroom farce.