Cold Blooded Murders (11 page)

Sunny Ang: I didn’t badger: the
solicitor badgered.

Mr Francis Seow: On your instructions?

Sunny Ang: I gave instructions but he
did it by himself.

Ang admitted he went to five different
lawyers before Mr Lim of Lim and Lee advised him to take up civil proceedings.

Mr Francis Seow: Because of the
coroner’s failure to hold an inquiry for which you had hoped?

Sunny Ang: Yes.

Mr Francis Seow: Therefore you forced
the pace by taking up civil proceedings?

Sunny Ang: Yes.

Mr Francis Seow: In the meanwhile you
read up various aspects of insurance law?

Ang said he had made many trips to the High
Court Library to read up law, insurance law and other matters. He told crown
counsel he did not know that the insurance companies were going to resist his
probate action. “This motion you were taking out to presume Jenny’s death?”

“I did not know,” said Sunny Ang.

Ang told crown counsel that he knew papers
had been served on the companies but did not know that the companies intended
to contest the proceedings. He denied that he could short-circuit these
proceedings with a compromise plan.

Mr Francis Seow: Did you discuss this
compromise plan with any of your counsel?

Sunny Ang: Yes. But after the civil
proceedings started.

Mr Francis Seow: What was the
compromise plan?

Sunny Ang: We would settle for a lesser
amount, provided they did not contest the claim.

Ang denied he rang up Rutherford of Edward
Lumley and Company with the intention of discussing the compromise plan.

Mr Francis Seow: Do you recognize this
red book? (Handing it to Ang.)

Sunny Ang: Yes, it’s my diary, for
1964.

Mr Francis Seow: 27 May. You have a
note there: ‘Ring Rutherford’. Is that not so?

Sunny Ang: No. ‘Ring up Richard, good.’

His Lordship: Ring up Richard?

Sunny Ang: No, the letter ‘R’. It
stands for Richard, my brother.

His Lordship: Ring up?

Sunny Ang: Either ‘food’ or ‘good’.
There is an ‘R’ and a dash.

Mr Francis Seow: I suggest to you that
this is an abbreviation which you use for Rutherford? ‘R—ford’?

Sunny Ang: I do not think so.

Mr Francis Seow: Now, look at the entry
for 28 May, the next day. Isn’t there an entry to the effect: ‘Ring up
Rutherford’, which you spell ‘Ruth’d’?

Sunny Ang: No.

Mr Francis Seow: What is it then?

Sunny Ang: I don’t know. If I had
abbreviated Rutherford into, as you say, ‘R—ford’ I would have stuck to the
same one.

His Lordship: How do you abbreviate ‘Rutherford’?

Sunny Ang: I don’t abbreviate
‘Rutherford’.

His Lordship: In your diary do you
always write ‘Rutherford’ in full?

Sunny Ang: I don’t know. I never had
the opportunity to write it in the diary.

His Lordship. What do you say that
entry is then? Tell me. It is in your handwriting, in your diary. Tell me what
it is.

Sunny Ang: I wouldn’t know. Sometimes I
write things, and, for the life of me, I can’t say what they are.

His Lordship: Well, you had better try
now, for the life of you. What do you think that is?

Sunny Ang: I don’t know. Neither can I
say.

Mr Francis Seow: Now look at the entry
for 2 June 1964. Isn’t that ‘Ring up Rutherford’?

Sunny Ang: It isn’t.

Mr Francis Seow: To whom does that
refer?

Sunny Ang: To a friend of mine.

Mr Francis Seow: Who is that?

Sunny Ang: It is a girl.

His Lordship: What is her full name and
address?

Sunny Ang: She lives in Kuala Lumpur.

His Lordship: What is her full name?

Sunny Ang: Ruth Tan.

Mr Francis Seow: What is her address in
Kuala Lumpur?

Sunny Ang: I wouldn’t know.

Mr Francis Seow: What is her telephone
number?

Sunny Ang: I don’t know. But I know
where she lives.

Mr Francis Seow: Look at the entry for
4 June 1964. Is that not ‘Ring up Rutherford’?

Sunny Ang: It is ‘Ring up Ruth again’.

Mr Francis Seow: On one page is ‘Ring
up Ruth’. And on the opposite page ‘Ring up Ruth. Not in desk. Enroute to UK.’

His
Lordship: Doesn’t that suggest to you that is Mr Rutherford?

Sunny Ang: It does not.

His Lordship: What does it suggest?
That Ruth Tan has gone to UK for a holiday is that it?

Sunny Ang: I don’t know. It says ‘On
leave in the UK’.

His Lordship: You don’t know what the
diary means?

Mr Francis Seow: I put it to you that
it refers to Mr Rutherford who, you were told, was on leave in theUnited Kingdom?

Sunny Ang: No.

Sunny Ang, questioned about a telephone call
to McDougall, the then acting manager of Edward Lumley and Sons, who took over
while Rutherford was in the United Kingdom, denied he made the call or
suggested to McDougall that he was prepared to swear an affidavit that Jenny
was not a chicken farm proprietress if the company were prepared to settle for
less. “Right. What was this compromise plan of yours?” asked Mr Francis Seow.

“Just to settle for a lesser amount,” said
Sunny Ang.

Ang was asked to comment on the fitting of
washers to the tank, produced in court, which Ang said leaked on 27 August
1963, thus preventing him from going down to search for Jenny. He denied that
he had loosened it deliberately so that there would be a leak for Yusuf’s
benefit.

His Lordship: You saw Henderson fix the
washer into this tank and there was no leak at all?

Sunny Ang: Yes.

His Lordship: Using this improvised
washer which you made on the boat on the day in question?

Sunny Ang: Yes.

Mr Francis Seow: Can you explain why it
did not leak?

Sunny Ang: This is quite impertinent.
For the same reason as Mr Henderson would not be able to explain why his washer
leaked.

Mr Francis Seow: I’m asking you about
the particular washer, which was cut and improvised on the day you did not go
down into the sea, because you said that the tank leaked.

Sunny Ang: Yes.

Mr Francis Seow: Now, using that same
washer on the same tank and the same regulator, the tank leaked. Can you
explain why?

His Lordship: Apparently it leaked on
27 August 1963, but not two days ago.

Sunny Ang: Many—a few reasons.

His Lordship: Let’s have them.

Ang said the washer may not have been put in
properly that day. It might not have been clamped sufficiently tight. There
might have been dirt on the washer.

Replying to further questions by crown
counsel, Sunny Ang said he first met Jenny by accident near the coroner’s
court. He did not know her then. He agreed in response to cross-examination
that he had only known her three months before she disappeared. He told the
judge that it had taken him 15 years to become a good swimmer. He said he
taught Jenny to swim and skin-dive in a dozen lessons spread over two months.
She learned to scuba-dive at the same time. He was questioned by crown counsel
about the gloves.

Mr Francis Seow: Why is it necessary to
bring gloves along with you?

Sunny Ang: Because the coral is sharp.

Mr Francis Seow: This was an expedition
to collect coral?

Sunny Ang: Primarily.

Mr Francis Seow: And when Jenny went
down the second time was that with the object of collecting coral?

Sunny Ang: Not she alone. Both of us
would have done it together.

His Lordship: When she did go down the
second time, her intention was to collect coral?

Sunny Ang. Not her intention alone, my
Lord. Our intention was.

Mr Francis Seow: Her intention and your
intention were to collect coral?

Sunny Ang: Our collective intention
was.

His Lordship: Don’t be silly. I shall
lose my patience with you.

Mr Francis Seow: Jenny had gone down
first with that object?

Sunny Ang: Her object was to help me to
collect coral.

Mr Francis Seow: How?

Sunny Ang: Help to carry them.

Mr Francis Seow: From the bottom of the
sea?

Sunny Ang: Yes, after having chipped
them off. She was supposed to help: general help.

Mr Francis Seow: And it was necessary
to wear gloves for that?

Sunny Ang: Yes.

Mr Francis Seow: Did she wear gloves
when she went down the second time?

Sunny Ang: She did.

Mr Francis Seow: Do you recognize this
bag?

Sunny Ang: Yes.

Mr Francis Seow: It was left by you at
the Marine Police Station?

Mr Francis Seow: That is right.

Mr Francis Seow: What colour gloves did
Jenny wear when she went down?

Sunny Ang: I can’t remember.

Mr Francis Seow: Can you explain how
the two pairs of gloves are still here in the swimming bag? Would you care to
look at them? (Ang. smelt the gloves.)

Sunny Ang: I can’t explain.

His Lordship: She never wore any
gloves?

Sunny Ang: So far as I remember, she
did.

Mr Francis Seow: Please explain how
these two pairs of gloves are still in your swimming bag which you left in the
Marine Police Station.

Sunny Ang: Ask the police.

His Lordship: Don’t be impertinent.

Sunny Ang: I’m sorry.

Mr Francis Seow: I’m asking you.

Sunny Ang: I cannot explain.

Mr Francis Seow: Do you agree that those
two pairs of gloves are still very new? In fact they have not even touched
water?

Sunny Ang: That is why I smelt them,
yes.

Sunny Ang told crown counsel that he
did not know about Jenny’s unhappy past until about a month after he met her.

Mr Francis Seow: Would it be fair to
say that you were intimate with her in every sense of the word?

Sunny Ang: I refuse to answer the
question.

His Lordship: Why?

Sunny Ang: It is irrelevant.

His Lordship: You will answer the
question. You were on intimate terms with her in every sense of the term?

Sunny Ang: Yes.

He agreed that Sidney Kong was a close
friend, a confidante, a sort of adviser, with whom he had discussed the
compromise plan to settle for half the amount of one of the claims. Ang said he
was going to lend him $50,000 from the insurance money to invest in a housing
enterprise in the United Kingdom. (Kong left Singapore a week after Ang’s
arrest.)

Mr Francis Seow: I suggest to you that
this $50,000 is his cut of the proceeds?

Sunny Ang: He was going to pay me
interest of $500 a month.

Crown counsel questioned Sunny Ang in detail
about the car accident near Seremban. He said that when they got back to
Singapore he had $3. He gave Jenny $1 to see a doctor, and $1 for a taxi. The
last dollar he spent on a bus to go home.

His Lordship: Tell me, were you in love
with Jenny?

Sunny Ang: Yes.

His Lordship: Did you intend to marry
her?

Sunny Ang: Well, it was more a tacit
than an expressed understanding.

His Lordship: Did you intend to marry
her?

Sunny Ang: Yes, my Lord.

Mr Francis Seow: Do you know that
Jenny’s education was only of Standard Three level?

Sunny Ang: Yes.

Mr Francis Seow: She was not a
particularly bright girl, was she?

Sunny Ang: Oh, she was.

Mr Francis Seow: Very bright?

Sunny Ang: Not very bright. But she
learned things fast.

Mr Francis Seow: Under your expert
tuition?

Sunny Ang: Yes.

Mr Francis Seow: Would you describe her
as somewhat naïve?

Sunny Ang: No, I wouldn’t.

Mr Francis Seow: Simple?

Sunny Ang: She was simple. But not
naïve.

His Lordship: What do you understand by
‘naïve’?

Sunny Ang: Well, sort of believing
everything she is told.

Mr Francis Seow: Impressionable?