The Singapore School of Villainy (2 page)

Annie walked up her driveway through a green tunnel, the branches of the trees entwined overhead. The white walls of her single-storey bungalow glowed pink, reflecting the dying embers of the sun. A single oriole, its yellow plumage looking like a sliver of sunlight, followed a crazy elliptical flight path across her garden. There was a warm moist smell in the air, the scent of freshly cut grass, mingled with frangipani blossoms and impending rain. Her gardener from India had been dismayed to find that she had a frangipani tree, covered in glossy ivory five-petalled flowers, in the garden. ‘A ver-ry bad tree,
tangachee
. Only for graveyards.' Annie had no patience with what she considered superstitious nonsense. She was more impressed that the gardener had spotted her South Indian paternal roots and addressed her as “little sister” in Tamil.

She kicked off her shoes and headed barefoot for the kitchen, sauntering through the living and dining rooms that were crowded with seasoned wood furniture. She could smell the musky, spicy odour of old teak – an aroma as invigorating as fresh coffee. The kitchen was bright, modern and filled with the latest gadgetry. Annie was unable to cook and unwilling to clean, but her kitchen was a shrine to the latest in expensive kitchen technology. She mixed herself a stiff gin and tonic, took the drink out to the veranda and collapsed into the solitary cushioned easy chair.

The strident note of a telephone penetrated her doze. She fished her mobile out of her bag, flipped it open reluctantly and held it to an unadorned ear.

‘Hello.'

A gruff voice said, ‘Annie, is that you?'

Her reply, ‘Yes, Pa,' was drowned out by a paroxysm of coughing. Her father had been a three-packet-a-day man for forty years and there were moments when he was too hoarse to speak. But he would still light up.

‘Pa, can you hear me? How are you?'

‘Good, good. How about you?'

‘Fine – tough day at work.'

‘You work too hard. When are they going to make you a partner?'

‘They did. Six months ago. I called and told you.'

‘Well done!'

She waited for the inevitable.

‘Annie, I need a small favour.'

‘I'm
not
giving you any more money.'

‘I just need a few thousand. You know I hate to ask!'

‘Hate to ask? Since when?'

‘I'll pay you back. This is my big chance.' Her father sounded husky with nervous expectation. He continued, his voice hesitant, ‘Or we could use some of the other money?'

Annie was adamant. ‘Absolutely not!'

She couldn't believe he had even suggested such a thing. Her grip on the phone was so tight that her palm was moist with sweat. How could her father do it? Come to her time and again for money. Always convinced it was for the last time. His eternal optimism was too hard for her to fathom. She sighed. She was tired. Her back ached. She gave in.

‘How much do you need?'

‘Fourteen thousand…'

‘I'll send it tomorrow.'

‘Thank you. I'll pay you back this time, I promise.'

Annie snapped the phone shut. Her father did not call back. She had not expected him to – he had what he wanted. She settled back in the easy chair, trying to rediscover the state of blissful peace that had been so rudely interrupted. It was impossible. Memories of her father washed over her; him wagering the family income on his latest big idea; her mother begging him to stop – to think of his daughter; the bailiffs at the door to repossess their furniture, the car – they had even taken her mother's wedding ring once. She, Annie, had learnt to value money – to earn it and hoard it – but her father was still a gambler, thirty years on. She tried to calm down, to remember that she was a successful woman who had fought for and won her financial independence, but it was difficult. Every time she had a conversation with her father, her childhood insecurities resurfaced and she felt again like a small child cowering from the bailiffs behind her mother's long skirts.

Her mobile rang again and she groaned at the phone number flashing on the screen. It was the office. She remembered her conviction in the taxi that this high-flying corporate lifestyle suited her down to the ground – she was not so sure any more. She earned money only to hand it to her father like sweets to a spoilt child. And now someone was looking for her late on a Friday evening. She was really not in the mood for some imaginary crisis from a client who thought her charge-out rates meant that she was part-lawyer and part-nanny. Annie picked up the phone.

‘Yes?' she said curtly.

‘Annie, is that you?'

This time her groan was heartfelt but silent.

‘Yes, it is.' She injected a measure of politeness into her voice. Mark Thompson was her boss, after all.

‘Are you back in Singapore?' he asked.

‘Just got in,' she replied, and then mentally kicked herself for wasting a gilt-edged opportunity to pretend she was out of town.

‘Come into the office for a meeting at half past eight,' Mark continued, unconscious of her reluctance or ignoring it.

‘What's it about, Mark?'

There was no answer. He had hung up.

Annie stared at her phone. Mark, for all his faults, was unfailingly polite. Something must have annoyed or upset him considerably. She really hoped it had nothing to do with her. She wondered whether to call him back – her hand hovered uncertainly over the dial.

 

Inspector Singh glanced covertly at his watch, the leather strap of which was embedded uncomfortably into his plump wrist. It did not keep time particularly well but it was sufficiently accurate for him to be quite certain that he was toast as far as his wife was concerned. It was late evening already. She had been adamant that he be on time to play Cupid to this unfortunate young man that she had invited for dinner at the behest of his interfering relations.

‘Are you listening to me?'

Singh glanced up, straightened his back – realised that this was a mistake as it only drew attention to his beer gut – and slumped back down. He said, ‘Of course, sir,' hoping he hadn't missed anything important. It was unlikely. This was his monthly “you're a disgrace to the Force” lecture – it was just unlucky that his superintendent had found a spare moment when he, Singh, had a dinner engagement.

‘You're a disgrace to the Force,' shouted his superior. His face, ordinarily the smooth calm mask of a career politician, was mottled with anger.

‘Yessir!' said Singh, who knew the routine.

The fact of the matter was that they couldn't get rid of him because of his success rate. Even in Singapore, where there was limited accountability for those at the high end of the food chain, there would be questions asked. The press, cowed as they were, liked him. He was splash of colour that was visible even in newsprint. He would have to screw up big time to give the Force an excuse to sack him. Being overweight, wearing white sneakers, smelling faintly of curry, beer and old-fashioned cologne – Old Spice in the bottle with the sailing ship – just wasn't enough.

He said again, ‘Yessir,' in case he had merely imagined the response rather than uttered it. He was finding that, as he grew older, the thought was not so much the father of the deed as in lieu of it.

‘Look at you!'

Singh refrained from pointing out that this was not possible without a mirror. Besides, the parts that offended his superiors – the excess weight, the white sneakers and the outline of a packet of cigarettes in his pocket –
were
visible to him.

‘I'd put you back in uniform – but we couldn't find one to fit you!'

Singh bit off a smile. This was a new line and actually quite a good one. The old man had probably thought of it in the shower. That would explain why he had been called in this particular evening. He knew Superintendent Chen all too well. His boss wouldn't want to waste such a pithy insult.

 

Music played quietly in the background, the soundtrack from Shah Rukh Khan's latest movie. A platter of vegetable samosas, smelling faintly of cardamom and cloves, sat on the front table. Mrs Singh intended them as a starter to whet the young man's appetite. She wandered into the kitchen and sniffed at the dishes she had painstakingly cooked for dinner that evening. She was quite sure that Jagdesh Singh, a young man far from his home in Delhi, would be missing his mother's cooking. A feast of curries and chutneys was hidden under food covers, ready to be served when Jagdesh arrived. She was convinced that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach. If she reminded him of the importance of good authentic home cooking, he was bound to see the value of a pretty Sikh girl. Certainly, he was that much less likely to hook up with some slip of a Chinese thing who would stuff him with greasy fried noodles every evening from the nearest hawker stall.

It was eight in the evening and her husband had not put in an appearance yet. At this rate, he would arrive
after
her guest – the height of bad manners. She would not put it past him to be intentionally tardy just because she had specifically asked him to turn up on time. He had a peculiar sense of humour and a complete disdain for the family and community obligations she took so seriously.

Besides, he seemed to think that the entire police force would collapse without his efforts – or at the very least that half a dozen murderers would elude justice for every hour he was not at work. She shuddered. When she had married Singh, he had been a junior policeman with a bright future. He had been smart, fit and ambitious. She had imagined him as the commissioner of police, attending functions at the
Istana
, the palace residence of the President – wife by his side, of course. Instead, Singh had been assigned to his first murder case and never looked back. He had abandoned his bright future to devote his life to the business of hunting down killers. It was all so sordid. People didn't get killed without good reason. She, Mrs Singh, didn't condone murder, of course. But there was no doubt in her mind that the victims were at least partly to blame. One just didn't see that sort of excessive behaviour in good families. As far as she was aware, there had never been a murder in the Sikh community in Singapore – unless you counted that time when Balwant Singh reversed over his wife in their driveway. But he had been eighty and as blind as a bat. She had to assume that he hadn't meant to do it.

She gripped the table edge with work-roughened knuckles. She could not understand her husband's fascination for death. It was very peculiar, and quite unhealthy. It meant that he fraternised with some very odd people and his chances of progress within the force had been hamstrung. Murder was not a path to promotion, that much had been evident as her husband slowly crawled his way to the rank of inspector.

She thought of this young unmarried man, Jagdesh Singh, who was coming for dinner: young, handsome – if his probably prejudiced mother was to be believed – with a lucrative career. She devoutly hoped that he would not disappoint the Sikh wife she would eventually find for him.

The phone rang, its shrill tone penetrating her melancholy contemplation of the untouched dinner spread, and she answered it with a curt “hello”.

‘Aunty, I'm very sorry but something has come up at work. I can't make it tonight.'

‘Who is this?' She knew full well but the young man was being presumptuous.

‘It's me, Jagdesh – Jagdesh Singh. I was supposed to come for dinner but now I've been called back to the office.'

She liked his voice. It was rich and deep with the lilting cadences of a North Indian – so much more pleasing to her ears than the rolling “r”s of the South Indian. She liked that he called her “Aunty”. She wasn't his aunt, of course. They were distant relatives by marriage. But she couldn't stand these modern manners where men and women young enough to be her children addressed her by her first name. It was so rude – it felt like a slap in the face every single time.

She said, ‘OK. Another time then.'

‘Thank you, Aunty. I'm really sorry.'

Mrs Singh replaced the receiver. There was no need for further chit-chat. She didn't like spending time on the phone unless it was to gossip to one of her three sisters about the shortcomings of her husband.

Mrs Singh spooned some long-grained
basmati
rice onto a plate. She added tiny helpings of each dish – there was a reason she was stick thin – but she did want to sample her cooking and make certain she hadn't lost the skill for which she was justly famed. She sat down at the table and, unfazed by the plastic table cloth that so bothered her husband, tucked in.

 

Quentin Holbrooke pulled into his reserved parking lot in the brightly-lit basement of Republic Tower in a black four-wheel-drive vehicle. He was a youngish man of medium height, with grey-speckled hair and protuberant pale blue eyes in a thin face. He smelt strongly of expensive men's aftershave. He noticed his colleague, Annie Nathan, pull into the adjoining lot in her convertible BMW.

‘What are you doing here?' Annie asked. Quentin hardly ever allowed work to interfere with his Friday night pub-crawls along the old warehouses-turned-trendy-nightspots of Clarke Quay.

‘I got a call from Mark. Do you know what it's about?'

‘Haven't the foggiest.'

‘Not my idea of the way to spend a Friday evening!'

Annie nodded her agreement, her bangs escaping a plain black hairclip and falling over her eyes.

He noticed that his colleague looked tired – her eyes were buried deep in dark hollows and her golden skin was sallow. Her hair, usually worn loose and curling past her shoulders, was drawn back in a tight, damp bun. She must have hurried to get to the meeting on time.

They made their way to the lift lobby together. She walked with long, even, mannish strides. He matched her pace but had a curious rolling gait, feet splayed and legs slightly bowed, that seemed more appropriate for a ship deck. In the lobby, Quentin hunted for his swipe card amongst the array of gold and platinum credit cards in his wallet.