Singapore Sling Shot (34 page)

It was a few minutes to 09:00. I'd showered and shaved and was dressed in my gear designed to scare the shit out of everyone. Wearing all black is one thing, but for this occasion, I added the shoulder holster under the lightweight leather jacket. The butt of the Browning showed clearly. I left my suite ready to go hunting bear.

Quong was in the apartment foyer. He was sitting at the desk. As always, an MP5 rested on the desk. Sami, it appeared, bought these by the tonne as well as the Brownings. We exchanged greetings in Thai and I entered Sami's office.

That damn Samurai warrior statue, as with its twin back in Bangkok, made my heart lurch. It really was so fucking realistic. I skirted around the other end of the desk, keeping as far away from it as I could. Logic told me to treat it as some sort of oversized transformer or game piece.

That really didn't work. Something about that ancient blade with its razor edge negated that theory. Any kid's toy with that damn thing attached was a weapon of war in any language. Seated behind the desk, I ran through my options. Who should I summon first? My initial thought was that I had to start at the beginning. Kaylin had taken Sami's call and delayed for two hours before acting on it. Or at least appearing to act upon it.

There was an intercom consul in the drawer to the right of the desk. Various locations were named, as were individuals. I pressed the button bearing the label “Kaylin”, presuming it was connected to her room. There was a long delay before a sleepy voice answered. I glanced at my watch. It was 09:05. I told her I needed to see her in Sami's office and hung up.

Five minutes after the call, the housekeeper appeared. She was dishevelled. Her hair was a hairdresser's nightmare. She was wearing a bathrobe and slippers. Her face was puffy. It looked as if she had slept in her makeup. She didn't look so great this morning.

“Sorry to wake you,” I said cheerfully as she came up to the desk. “Please sit down.” She sat with a flash of shapely legs. Was she working me before she even knew what I wanted?

“It's okay. Today is my day off.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't realise.”

“You weren't to know. What did you want to see me about?”

I smiled my meat-eating smile and gave her the stare. It generally worked on people, but on her, I don't think so. She matched me stare for stare.

“When Mr Somsak phoned you from Thailand when Simone died, you waited almost two hours before phoning the funeral home. Why so long?” Now the housekeeper blinked and I saw a flash of fear or panic cross her features.

“I was shocked. I went and was sick,” she said. “I was upset, very upset. I knew Simone well. She was a friend.”

“Okay,” I conceded. “How did you choose the funeral home? Mr Somsak didn't tell you to use Sacred Dream.”

“I didn't choose the funeral home. I was so upset, I asked Paul to do as Mr Somsak asked. He phoned the funeral people, not me.” Kaylin started crying. There was a box of tissues on a side table. I reached over and retrieved it, placing it on the desk in front of her. The cynic in me well recognised that tears are a woman's number-two defence after attack. Kaylin had gone straight there, side-stepping the former. Maybe she was telling the truth.

“I'm sorry,” I said softly. “I have to ask the questions because there are too many unanswered ones out there. Go and enjoy the rest of your day off.” I know it sounded absurd, but what else could I say?

Kaylin stood, her face buried in tissues. Again there was a flash of legs and then she was gone. She used her legs well. The movement had been far from accidental. Despite seeming to be so upset, she was in control.

“That went fucking well,” I muttered sarcastically to myself as I selected the button on the intercom for Paul. If Kaylin was telling the truth, Paul was very much in the hot seat. He was at the office door within a matter of seconds. Dressed in a pair of dark trousers, white shirt and tie, he looked every inch the accountant he was, and nothing like the traitor he might indeed be. Again, I didn't beat about the proverbial bush.

“Were you at Simone's funeral?” I asked. Above all else, I wanted to know the answer to that question.

“I was at the cathedral service,” he replied, “but Mr Somsak asked me to stay here rather than go to the cemetery. There was an important call he was expecting and he asked that I be here for that.”

That sounded perfectly logical and, of course, it would be easy to verify, so I moved on. I could see Paul's eyes moving between my face and the butt of the automatic under my arm. He was used to taking people down with a balance sheet and not a gun, I guess.

“The night Sami phoned with the news of Simone's death, Kaylin took the call. What happened then?”

“She went off to her room in tears. I asked if there was anything I could do, if there were any instructions from Mr Somsak, but she just rushed into her room. She didn't come out for maybe an hour and a half. I knocked several times but she didn't open the door.”

“When she did come out, what happened?”

“She gave me a piece of paper with the phone number for the funeral parlour on it and asked me to contact them. She said that Mr Somsak had asked that we use these people. She said she would make arrangements for Simone's sister to fly in if I would make the funeral arrangements.”

“So you phoned Sacred Dream Funeral Home?”

“Yes; and they did the rest.”

“Thank you, Paul,” I said standing. Now I knew exactly who the traitor was. I quickly left the office with the bewildered accountant trailing in my wake.

“Don't let Kaylin leave,” I snapped at Quong as I hit the foyer.

“She's just gone!”

“Shit!” I fished out my key and stabbed the elevator button. I pulled the Browning out of the shoulder holster and lobbed it to Quong.

“How long ago?”

“Two minutes.”

“Has she got a car?” I directed the question at Paul, who was standing there like a spare prick at a wedding.

“No,” he replied, “she can't drive.”

“Small mercies,” I snarled, launching myself into the lift, fitting the key and sending the car down to the ground foyer.

Kaylin was running for her life and she knew it. She had double-crossed Sami Somsak and now his killer friend was on her tail. She crossed the apartment foyer at a run. All she carried was one small bag. A tracksuit had replaced her dressing gown and her slippers had been traded for sneakers, but her hair was still a wild mess.

“My mother is ill,” she called, sobbing to Quong who was watching her from his desk. “She may die.” Kaylin entered the elevator with her key and feverishly fumbled to insert it. Eventually her trembling fingers guided it home. She stabbed the button for the foyer and breathed a long sigh of relief as the car started towards the ground.

The doorman barely had time to open the large double doors before the housekeeper was through and out onto the street. She started running down the footpath, frantically looking for a cab. Rush hour was over, but the traffic was still heavy.

Nothing was supposed to have gone this way. Sami Somsak and his immediate people were supposed to be dead. She, they, had never anticipated that the plot on his life would fail or that someone would come looking for answers. Thomas Lu had insisted she remain at Somsak's apartment and she had agreed because the rewards were great. That had been a huge mistake.

There was a cab. She waved, but it pulled up short and another woman got in. Kaylin screamed in anguish. She looked back up the street and then she saw the figure in black arrive on the footpath. He turned first the other way and now towards her, and he started running.

Another taxi pulled up. The housekeeper threw herself into it. “Changi Village,” she gasped. It was the first thing that came to mind, probably because it was as far away from here as she could get. The taxi pulled away from the kerb and swept past the running man, who partially stepped onto the road to block it. The driver swerved and cursed, but carried on.

Kaylin turned in her seat. The last thing she saw was the man in black holding out one hand, the index finger extended pointing directly at her face, his thumb raised for a moment and then it snapped down.

“Oh my God,” she whimpered. She knew that if she and the man in black ever met again, she was dead.

44

I arrived back in the penthouse like a tornado. I was fuming. I should have instructed Quong not to let anyone leave. Of course, the traitor could have been him in the first place, and that would have alerted him—a semi-automatic pistol is no match for an MP5.

I retrieved my Browning and holstered it as I carried on into the apartment. The staff rooms were to the left of the main corridor. I stormed down the side passage. It wasn't hard to spot Kaylin's room. The door was wide open. One of her slippers was on the floor in the doorway.

Inside, her room looked as if a hurricane had blown it apart. I was in a force ten mood. So close, yet so damned far!

There were clothes scattered all around the room, but worse still were the pictures on the wall—they would have made a madam blush. Hard-core, total hard-core, large photographs of men on men, women on women and everything in between. There was a big flat screen television with DVD player and sound system. There was an image on the screen, but the sound had been turned off.

As I watched, I saw Kaylin's image fill the screen, all of her, every inch, in full living colour. She and her three playmates. Two males and another female were indulging themselves in a good old-fashioned orgy.

I ignored the moving pictures and started looking for any paperwork, a cellphone, anything that could help track her down when she landed, wherever she landed. It appeared Kaylin had a fetish, or maybe several. Drawers revealed a range of sexual appliances that could have stocked a full-fledged sex supermarket. I had absolutely no idea what the hell some of them were used for.

There was no diary, no address book, no cellphone, nothing but hundreds of DVDs and sexual playthings. The big walk-in wardrobe was full of clothes, shoes, boots and costumes. From Heidi to Catwoman with crotchless latex trousers, they were all there along with whips and restraints and every other bell and whistle you could think of.

I searched the bedroom from top to bottom, lifting carpets, looking for a safe and any other hiding places. I did the same in the bathroom. Nothing! The housekeeper had grabbed what she knew I would come looking for and made a run for it.

The room's locks were many. Obviously, being the keeper of the royal household, Kaylin had ensured that no one could ever enter her little corner of paradise uninvited. I didn't bother locking the door when I left.

I went into Sami's office and tapped out his number. The only good thing about this situation was that K was not the one who had turned traitor. Lunch with Sami was still on.

“And what do you expect me to do about it?”

“Help me!”

“We had an agreement. You do as I ask and I make sure that your wildest fantasies are realised. Is that not what we agreed?”

“Yes, Mr Lu. I still want that, but now the man, this Mr Crewe, knows I helped with the bomb. He will kill me when he finds me.”

“Then don't let him find you,” Thomas Lu replied, smiling his humourless smile. “Run, rabbit, run!” He hung up.

“The man in black,” he mused. “Mr Crewe. Perhaps it's time I found out a little more about you.” Lu reached for his phone again.

“She had been in my household for three years,” Sami said. He paused and contemplated his next words for a moment. Then he sighed. “I have to tell you about Stanley's other life for it to all make sense.”

“Other life?” I replied. Then I remembered he had hinted that there were some things about his stepbrother that troubled him.

“Other life,” Sami repeated. “On the surface, Stanley was a straight-laced family man with a loving wife, and he did love Helen. He loved his kids. He was a good businessman. Very talented, but he had what one could consider a problem.”

“Which was?”

“He was a sex maniac,” Sami said simply. I sat there stunned. “He had a whole other life beyond his office and home in Goodwood Hill.”

“Did his wife…did Helen know?”

“Most of it, yes. She tolerated his indiscretions providing they remained private. She loved him and he loved her, but Stanley just had to have constant sex.” Sami's eyes met mine. Could I see myself reflected there and in his words? He didn't dwell on it. “I own the penthouse but I have, until the last few weeks, never lived there. In fact, I had never even been inside it.”

“What?” I was absolutely stunned by his revelation.

“Previously when I came to Singapore, I used my secret apartment. Or if on business which involved Stanley, I stayed at his home. I bought the penthouse, but I let Stanley set it up. His furnishings, except for the study. He installed his people, including his frequent mistress.”

“Kaylin,” I added.

“Yes, Kaylin. She could do what she wanted on her own time, but she was at his beck and call. She hosted his private business dinners and gatherings.” Sami paused again and took a mouthful of his food.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered. I could see it all now.

“Until I walked into the penthouse and announced who I was, Kaylin had no idea I was Stanley's brother. She had no idea.”

“That must have stunned her.”

“The fact Stanley had a brother stunned everyone, Lu included. But thinking back on Stanley's last days and the situation with Lu, I wonder if at that point Kaylin was working with Lu against Stanley.”

“But she had everything,” I blurted out. “A beautiful apartment, a rich sponsor.”

“Sex,” Sami replied. “That appears to be what she wanted. You told me about the photographs and videos. She and Stanley had a lot of playmates. I'm not suggesting Lu was involved physically, certainly not with Stanley, but someone amongst the playmates was involved with Lu and Kaylin. Whatever Lu offered her, it possibly wasn't money. Stanley was very generous when it came to money. Perhaps Lu offered her more sex?”