Aunty Lee's Delights (10 page)

“I blame SingTel,” Mark said. “I told them, sometimes messages don’t get through until hours later.”

“But actually answering their questions didn’t take so long,” Selina continued. “Yes, give me just a bit more rice, Nina—they wrote down all our answers in first person as though we wrote them down ourselves, and frankly speaking, their English isn’t very good. But I wasn’t going to sign my name on the statement until they got it right.”

“Sel gave them an English lesson,” Mark commented. “I said they should just have let us write our own statements, they could read them over, and that would be that.” Mark looked tired and more stressed than his wife. But then he had never liked confrontations.

“I did not,” Selina said. “But they said I was very helpful—that we were very helpful. They didn’t know about that woman coming to look for Laura that night.”

“Carla Saito didn’t come to look for Laura. She was trying to find Marianne Peters,” Aunty Lee pointed out.

“That’s not true. When she came in she was asking for Laura Kwee. Anyway, the police aren’t interested in Marianne. Marianne isn’t even missing, she’s away on holiday. That woman came in and asked for Laura Kwee. We all heard her. You heard her, didn’t you, Aunty Lee? Why didn’t you tell the police about her? They were very interested in how to get hold of her, so I told them I thought I heard her say she was staying at the Frangipani. I think they’re going to talk to her too.”

Something in the way Selina said this made Nina wonder what exactly she had told the police about Carla Saito. Aunty Lee could guess. She changed the subject.

“I wonder whether this is going to change the way people see Sentosa. It can’t be very good for the resort there.”

“I remember going to Sentosa during school holidays,” Mark said, surprising his stepmother. “I remember the mangrove swamps. Dad had a friend who was crazy about the mangrove swamps. Uncle Bian said they were like natural water filters. Can you imagine, he did his thesis on wave patterns in artificial mangrove swamps.”

Aunty Lee was uncharacteristically quiet during the meal. Nina recognized it as her analyzing mode; the one that appeared when she was trying to reverse engineer a dish or when she was trying to decide whether some variation in taste was good or bad.

“They refused to say if poor Laura was definitely murdered,” Mark said. “I asked if they had any leads or any suspects, but they wouldn’t say.” Talking about murder and suspects came naturally enough, thanks to forensic crime thrillers on cable television.

Selina usually put a damper on gruesome speculations, but now she said, “But you can see they think it is murder, don’t they? And the worst thing is—I think they took my phone because I may have been the last person Laura talked to!”

The concentration on Aunty Lee’s face grew deeper, if possible. She stared at the unfinished rice on her plate, but Nina knew she was really trying to untangle events. Nina could guess what was on Aunty Lee’s mind. Though SSS Salim had not told them how long Laura Kwee had been dead, it was clear that her body had been found before Selina received that last text from her. The same thought had occurred to Mark.

“If it wasn’t a SingTel glitch,” he said, “it might have been the murderer that sent you that message. Laura was already dead yesterday evening, you know. They said she’s probably been dead for at least a week.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Selina said. “They said they couldn’t be certain of the time of death. Anyway, the message was definitely from Laura. She signed off with that silly smiley face she always uses. The phone must have been out of range or something. You know how sometimes messages just don’t go through until hours after you send them?”

Aunty Lee looked up and saw Nina watching her. “You can clear my plate,” she said. “There are ways to track mobile phones these days, right? Go and ask that nice staff sergeant are they tracking Laura’s phone.”

“I am sure he is already doing that, ma’am.” Nina deftly cleared Aunty Lee’s half-eaten dinner plate. That there was food left over was an indication of how concerned Aunty Lee was. “Ma’am, don’t worry. The police will know what to do.”

After Mark and Selina left, Aunty Lee continued brooding.

“What is the matter, ma’am?”

“That message didn’t come from Laura. Whoever it was wanted to make people think Laura was still alive. What I’m worried about is why did the message mention Marianne—but no need to go into all that. Go and phone that nice staff sergeant or that handsome young assistant of his and tell him that you heard a phone ringing somewhere outside the shop but you could not find it.”

The excitement of giving a statement to the police was not all that was making Selina happy that night. Mark had finally read the piece in the
Island High Life
reviewing the recent wine dining at Aunty Lee’s Delights. “They don’t mention the wine at all,” Mark said, peeved, but Selina thought he should have been glad. After all, the writer of the article had not been impressed by Aunty Lee’s supposedly classy food—the anonymous reviewer made fun of the fact that dinner had been served on two-dollar Daiso plates. Selina had complained about those plates repeatedly, but Aunty Lee had done nothing, saying no one noticed such things. Well, that was no longer true.

“I tried to get her to read it because of the plates. But you know what she’s like. You should bring it up. She has to change those plates now if she doesn’t want to be a laughingstock.”

“Sel, you didn’t write that comment, did you?” Mark asked.

“Don’t be stupid, of course I didn’t. But print it out for me, okay? I want to show it to Aunty Lee. And make it large print. She won’t admit how bad her eyesight is and I suspect Nina only reads her what she wants to hear.”

She had to repeat this twice before Mark answered, and even then he only said, “Maybe.”

“What’s wrong with you? If you go on like that, people are going to suspect there was something going on between you and Laura Kwee!” It was not clear from her tone whether this was a joke or a threat.

Mark knew his wife. One of her rules of life was not to make threats she was not prepared to follow up on.

7

Putting Information Together

Over the next few days the grisly details about the body on Sentosa were released to the public via the press and the Internet. Aunty Lee read the papers herself repeatedly, with her magnifying glass, as though afraid Nina would miss something, and she asked Nina to start accounts with all the online news and gossip sites so that Aunty Lee was kept up-to-date with speculations and possible sightings.

The few facts were unpleasant. Laura Kwee’s body had been found wrapped in a plastic bag. Her body might have been in the seawater for up to a week—or more. It was hard to say exactly. She had died of suffocation and traces of drugs had been found in her system.

This last information had not come from the newspapers. It was not for nothing that Aunty Lee had been married to a man who had donated enough money to the Singapore General Hospital (where the postmortem was performed) to have a wing of that institution named after him. Aunty Lee had made a few social calls, asked a few curious questions . . . and been told the drug found in Laura Kwee’s system was ketamine.

Nina had looked up the details for her. “ ‘Ketamine is used as an anesthetic for both humans and animals,’ ” she read off her iPad. “ ‘These days it is used more on animals, and in America and Australia, veterinary clinics get broken into for their supplies. It is banned in Singapore but still surfaces occasionally as “Vitamin K” or “Kit Kat.” It is more commonly found in Hong Kong, the United States, and Australia, where it is the drug of choice at dance parties or raves because it produces a state of dreamy intoxication that lasts for an hour or less.’ ”

“An hour or less,” Aunty Lee repeated. “That is better than getting drunk, right? Why is it banned here when they still allow people to get drunk and drive cars? Are there side effects? Does it cause cancer?”

“There are other bad effects, ma’am. It can cause memory problems and it can make some people react aggressively or violently.”

“Again no different from people going and getting drunk, what!”

Nina speed-read on. Facts were facts but she didn’t like the conclusion Aunty Lee was drawing so far. It was not safe in Singapore for anyone—even old ladies—who thought drugs were not dangerous. Though in Aunty Lee’s case, she was more likely to have trouble with the authorities than with addiction.

“ ‘It is dangerous because you can feel drunk even if you have not touched any alcohol. You may lose your sense of time and identity and think you are having out-of-body experiences. People use it as a date-rape drug because it is very fast acting. People have said the last thing they remember is having a drink, then everything after that is blurry.’ ”

“Still doesn’t sound so different from people getting drunk,” Aunty Lee said stubbornly. “You should hear some of the things people say when they have been drinking too much. Not only the men. The women, maybe because they are less used to drinking in public, can be much, much worse!”

Nina shook her head. She had real work to do—there was always something that needed to be done in the house or in the shop. People who came in and said how beautifully organized everything was did not realize that maintaining things in the right places, functioning and dust-free, was a full-time nonstop job. And that was before factoring in a busybody old lady who was always bringing home strange things and stranger people just because they had caught her interest. Not for the first time Nina thought wistfully of a nursing job where her off time was hers alone. But she knew she would not leave the café if she were given the chance. Even if Singapore was not home to her, Aunty Lee was definitely family.

Nina slid one of the cutlery drawers off its rails and carried it into the living room. This was where she usually took care of noncooking chores because while she worked she could answer Aunty Lee’s questions and read her anything required.

“Would you take this Vitamin K or Kit Kat?” Auntie Lee asked suddenly.

“No, ma’am. Of course not. I’m not crazy. These things are bad for you.”

“Why do you think Laura Kwee took it, then? She didn’t drink much. She wasn’t even used to wine. You remember how she behaved at the first dinner?”

Of course Nina remembered. Laura Kwee had tasted all the wine in all her glasses before realizing Mark meant to walk the guests through the samples one by one. Seated between Mycroft Peters and Harry Sullivan, Laura had chattered to both of them till, rebuffed by Mycroft, who fixed his attention firmly on Mark (Mycroft took wine seriously—but then Mycroft took most things seriously), she had focused on Harry, who, himself, was leaning across to whisper to Marianne, who was seated on his other side. Laura had reminded Nina of a schoolgirl trying to get a boy’s attention. She had waved to Nina and asked her to top up her glasses. Nina got no direction from Mark or Selina, who were deliberately ignoring Laura. Laura, getting impatient, waved two of her already empty glasses in the air. She knew she was not drunk. After all, Mark had assured her that people never got drunk at wine tastings. She was just slightly tipsy and feeling daring and sophisticated . . .

“Do you remember what Laura said to Marianne that night?” Aunty Lee’s thoughts had obviously run along the same lines as Nina’s. “Something about her supposed holiday plans? And I could see Marianne was quite cross with her. Do you know what she was talking about?”

Nina had no idea. All she remembered was Aunty Lee calling her to the pantry and passing her a bottle of red wine to top up Laura’s glasses.

“The same in all the glasses?” Nina had been concerned. Mark had been very particular earlier about not getting his special wines and the sequence of glasses mixed up. What Aunty Lee handed her was one of the bottles kept in the kitchen for adding body to soups and sauces.

“She won’t be able to tell the difference.”

In retrospect, it had probably been a bad idea. But at the time their only concern had been to keep Laura satisfied and quiet. Instead she had gone on giggling and whispering, rolling her eyes when Mark glared and Selina shushed her. Laura had definitely not been used to wine. Selina had been so furious with the woman that Nina would not have been surprised if Laura had been banned from all future wine dining events. But apparently Laura had apologized abjectly, offered to help at future wine tastings (for free), and been forgiven.

Laura Kwee had not struck Aunty Lee as the sort of person to experiment with drugs. In her thirties, she had been a secondary school teacher until she gave it up for a career in arts management. She had probably hoped that the change would lead to meeting exciting people and becoming or marrying an arts impresario, but so far her life had plodded on without any sign of taking off.

Laura Kwee had always seemed a safe, responsible, rather dull woman to Nina. Overly concerned with what other people thought of her perhaps. And overly disappointed with how little most did. Several times she had tried to get Nina to tell her what Aunty Lee and Mark “really” thought of her. It had been easy for Nina to say honestly that she had never heard Laura’s name mentioned.