The Singapore School of Villainy (8 page)

It was Annie's turn to be surprised. ‘He rang you? But he's just been here.'

‘Why? What did you tell him, what's going on?' Quentin's voice moved up an octave as he barked questions at her.

‘Nothing important,' she said, trying to calm her friend. ‘I just mentioned that you didn't have your keycard that evening.'

‘Jesus Christ, Annie!' Quentin exclaimed. ‘I didn't tell him about the key. Now he's going to think I've been lying to him.'

‘But why didn't you tell him?'

‘Because he would assume that the only reason I would claim to have lost my key would be to create some doubt…there's no way that some stranger picked up the key and killed Mark. Why the hell would they?'

‘You're reading too much into this, Quentin.'

‘Don't be so damned naïve!' he snapped and hung up.

 

Corporal Fong waited patiently in the lift lobby of his apartment tower block. A couple of small children were playing in a corner, kneeling down to roll their marbles. Loud whoops of laughter punctuated their game. Fong glanced up uneasily – flowerpots had been known to fall off balcony ledges, killing unwary people below.

The lift door slid open and he stepped in. A plastic bag of garbage in the corner emitted the rancid smell of garlic and rotting seafood. One of the residents had obviously been too lazy to ride down to dump the rubbish in the skip under the building and had left it neatly in the corner of the lift, hoping someone else would take it out. Fong usually did. Today he couldn't be bothered. He had already spent the whole day dancing to the inspector's tune. He would be damned if he did anyone else's dirty work.

He ran a frustrated hand through his neatly cut black hair, feeling the rigidity of the gelled strands. This was his first assignment and it was a complex case full of political under-tones as the privileged expatriate class found itself under investigation. There was plenty of room to shine. Unfortunately, the inspector appeared to believe he was good to shine shoes and not much else.

He had not been near a witness or a crime scene all day. Fong slammed his fist into his palm, an unexpectedly overt display of temper. When he was ordered to join the team investigating the murder of Mark Thompson, his head had been filled with dreams of glory. He had pictured himself nabbing a suspect as he made a desperate attempt to escape. The renowned Inspector Singh would have gripped his hand and pumped it up and down, almost teary with relief that Corporal Fong had saved the day – and his reputation. The reality had been far different. The senior policeman had hardly uttered two words to him. It was not an auspicious start to his career. He almost wished that he had been sent to the airports as a glorified security guard. At least there was less room for humiliation. And now the lard-bucket claimed that he knew who the murderer was, based on “human nature”. That was a likely story. He, Fong, would continue to rely on good old-fashioned evidence like fingerprints and CCTV tape, not on a fat man's unreliable understanding of the behaviour of murderers. Not that there was any hard evidence so far; the fingerprints at the scene of the crime were susceptible to a hundred innocent explanations, the searches of the lawyers' residences had turned up squat – no sign of the blood-stained, rolled-up T-shirt of Inspector Singh's fantasies – and they were still waiting for bank statements.

Fong let himself into his home, unlocking the iron grille and the wooden door irritably. It was not as if they had any possessions worth stealing. Home was a tiny two-bedroom subsidised Housing Development Board flat that he shared with his parents. His mother was watching a Cantonese serial on cable television. She guffawed loudly, her carefully primped and curled grey hair askew. She barely acknowledged his entrance.

His father lay on a thin mattress on the living room floor. He had been hurt in an industrial accident a couple of years before retirement and was paralysed from the neck down. Corporal Fong saw that the old man had not been moved that day. He went over to him and, smiling reassuringly, turned his father on his side. If he was too long in one position, he developed bed sores. His mother hardly bothered to care for his father these days. Any love she had borne for her husband had long since been destroyed by the enforced intimacy of that living room, where she stared at the television and he stared at the ceiling. She still spoon-fed the old man a thin soup twice a day but from the stains on his mouth and down his chin, even this was done impatiently. Fong sighed and wished once more that he had the money to hire a nurse and move them all into a larger place. As it stood, his small constabulary salary was barely enough to cover the essentials.

Quietly, he sat down next to his father. The old man blinked at him. His head reminded Fong of a newly hatched bird, bald and crinkled, big wet eyes staring at him in quiet misery. He wiped the old man's face with a wet towel and fluffed up his pillows.

 

Singh gently closed the file that had been waiting for him on his desk when he returned from his interview with Annie. He very much feared that this was not going to be one of those murders solved through the convenient discovery of some incontrovertible piece of evidence. So far, searches of the lawyers' homes had been disappointing. The office computers had yielded nothing of interest, not even the usual downloads of sport and porn – the firm's firewalls were the most effective money could buy and the lawyers had been well protected from their own unsavoury proclivities. It had always been a long shot, but Superintendent Chen would be disappointed.

There was a cursory knock on the door and the superintendent marched in as if summoned telepathically by his thoughts. Singh decided immediately that he would buy himself a steel helmet to replace his turban if that was indeed the case.

‘Any developments yet?'

Singh scowled. He ignored the question and instead asked, his tone sharp, ‘Why did you agree to hold the interviews at the law offices?'

‘To keep the lawyers happy.'

‘We're looking for a murderer, not running a babysitting service!'

‘And when you find your murderer you can drag him or her back here with my blessing – in the meantime, I want those expats treated with kid gloves.'

Singh's lips formed a thin, stubborn line – he didn't like where this was going.

Superintendent Chen leaned forward, two hands splayed on Singh's desk. ‘Let me be crystal clear – I don't want complaints about police tactics circulating in the expat community. There's no point solving this murder if we drive these people away. Do you understand me, Singh?'

The inspector hesitated for a long moment and then nodded, a curt dip of his turban. If he wanted to stay on the case he would have to humour the higher-ups. And he most definitely wanted to stay on the case, not to preserve Singapore's reputation as a safe haven for wealthy foreigners but to find some justice for an unsuspecting old man who had been beaten to death at his desk.

Chen was prepared to appease his subordinate now that he sensed a victory. ‘Keep up the good work,' he said in ringing tones, as if he was addressing a parade ground filled with enthusiastic rookies instead of a solitary bad-tempered policeman, and hurried out of the room.

Annie arrived at the office early; she had lain awake half the night dreading the moment when she would have to step onto the premises again. She was out of bed before the sun had cast its light tendrils into her lush garden, sending the nightjars winging their way to bed and signalling to her cat that it was time to come home after a long night marauding through the neighbourhood.

She was the first to get in. Perhaps the rest had not suffered from her sense of nervous disquiet, she thought, although the last time she had seen the partners – when visiting the widow – they had all been exhibiting various degrees of tension.

Annie felt uneasy in the semi-darkness. She flicked on as many light switches as she could, bathing the office in fluorescent light. She was determined that no corner should remain shadowy and fearsome. After putting her briefcase in her own room, she went to the pantry to get a cup of coffee, and saw Mark's room at the end of the corridor. Memories of Mark washed over her; laughing, officious, dogmatic, drunk. Then – sprawled over his table, red blood staining his white hair like a cheap dye.

She made her way along the corridor. It was as deserted as it had been on the evening of the murder. She wondered whether Mark's office had been cleaned. She doubted that the police cleared up when they were done with their forensic analysis although they had informed the partners that their offices were no longer off-limits despite it having been three short days since the events of Friday. Like everything else in Singapore, efficiency was the paramount consideration. Presumably, however, this speedy approach did not extend to the actual murder inquiry. Inspector Singh, at least, seemed to have a painstaking approach to the investigation.

Annie felt her steps slowing as she approached the door. There was a terrible feeling of déjà vu in her every action. The doorknob to Mark's room was cool to the touch. The hairs on her arm jumped to attention. Annie stood stock still and took a full deep breath. She had to check, convince herself that the events of Friday night had been real.

Mark's room had been cleaned out. The original furniture was still there, but the books and files and other paraphernalia of practice had been cleared away. The contents that had made the office his own – the pictures of his two children building sandcastles on the beach, the still-life paintings that she had always disliked so heartily, even the stationery, including that blood-stained paperweight on his desk – were gone. The carpet bore no trace of blood. She could make out the faint outline where fresh squares of new carpet had replaced the old. Only a hint of disinfectant in the air suggested that the changes to the room were recent, that something as prosaic as hard scrubbing had gone into the transformation.

Her absorption in her surroundings kept her from hearing a firm light tread along the corridor. Someone came up silently behind her and grabbed her arm. Annie gave a convulsive shudder and swung round, lashing out with a closed fist.

Her wrist was caught in a firm grip. ‘Who are you?' the man asked sternly. ‘What are you doing in here?'

Not answering, Annie stared at the tall stranger, her eyes wide with sudden fright. She tried to pull free and was intimidated by the strength she sensed in the long thin fingers of her captor.

He released her abruptly, leaving Annie rubbing her wrist absently. His fingers had gripped her hard enough to bruise.

He spoke again, more gently this time, as he took in her pale face and expensive, conservative suit. ‘This room is off limits. Are you Mark's secretary?'

At this question, Annie recovered some of her equilibrium. She frowned at the man, parallel lines of irritation running along her forehead.

‘I think the proper question is, who the hell are you and what are you doing in this office?' She shot out the questions like a machine gun firing on automatic.

‘I'm sorry. I should have introduced myself – David Sheringham.' His reply was measured and she noted that his voice was an even tenor, fluid and soothing.

Although she gave no hint of it, Annie recognised his name. David Sheringham was the law firm's troubleshooter. Based in London, he was a partner with a thriving banking practice. He was also always first on the scene if there was trouble in the offing within Hutchinson & Rice. Angry clients, potential litigation, misbehaving partners, any hint of fraud or impropriety – if it affected the firm's interests, David was sent out to solve the problem.

‘I didn't know
murder
was within your remit,' Annie said pointedly.

‘Only where the suspects include the entire partnership of an office,' he replied. Only a slight curl of thin lips gave away his surprise that she knew who he was.

‘So London is concerned that one of us will turn out to be a murderer and has sent you to investigate,' said Annie matter-of-factly.

David shrugged.

Annie was not sure whether he was shrugging off the accusation or acknowledging its accuracy. It was an elegant gesture, and perfectly obfuscatory. A memory of the policeman in charge of the investigation hopped, fully-formed and fat, into her mind. She wondered what the two men would make of each other. Both of them were, in their completely different ways, thoroughly intimidating.

 

Ching, Annie's excruciatingly cheerful secretary, called out, ‘Phone, line two for you.'

Annie picked up the phone as a welcome distraction from her unnerving encounter with David Sheringham. ‘Hello, Hutchinson & Rice, Annie Nathan speaking.'

‘Annie! I am glad to reach you. I was wondering why I got no feedback from Mr Thompson. Maybe you can tell me?'

The voice was familiar but she couldn't place it. ‘I'm afraid I don't know who this is,' she said apologetically.

‘Tan Sri. Tan Sri Ibrahim,' the man at the other end replied in his heavy Malay accent.

Tan Sri was an honorary title bestowed in Malaysia. It was a rare honour and indicated that the bearer was a senior figure in political or business circles. Annie recognised the name immediately. It was the Managing Director of Trans-Malaya, the target company in her Malaysian takeover deal.

‘Tan Sri! Of course. I'm so sorry – I should have realised it was you.'

The response was cheerful. ‘No problem. I'm calling because I haven't heard anything from Mark. I spoke to him last Friday to explain my concerns.'

He paused for a moment while Annie tried to make sense of his rambling tale. ‘I wasn't making any accusations, but, you know, certain quarters drew my attention to the problem.' He continued, ‘I have been calling his mobile phone. I just got back from Redang. My family and I were away for the weekend. My son is a very keen diver.' The Tan Sri, met with silence from Annie, was becoming garrulous.

Annie found her voice. ‘Tan Sri, I'm sorry to have to inform you that Mr Thompson is no longer with us.'

‘He's gone back to London?'

‘No, I mean Mark's dead!'

‘Dead!
Ya' Allah!
When did this happen?'

‘Last Friday.'

The old man's voice was filled with genuine regret. ‘I didn't mean to cause him stress – although it is a serious matter.'

‘I'm afraid that Mark did not have a chance to discuss the issues you raised with me, Tan Sri. Perhaps you could fill me in?'

The Tan Sri hesitated. ‘I called him because I thought it would be better to discuss it with a
senior
person at your firm. Is there anyone else who has taken over?'

‘I am the most senior person on the file now, Tan Sri,' Annie answered resolutely.

The Tan Sri did not take much convincing. ‘You see, my analysts have told me that the share price of Trans-Malaya has been spiking from time to time in the last few months. It has always coincided with some important disclosure about the takeover. Someone has been insider dealing – you know, using his insider knowledge to trade the shares of the company. This is illegal in Malaysia.'

‘And most places, Tan Sri,' said Annie automatically, her mind racing.

The Tan Sri had not finished with his revelations. ‘Obviously, I was concerned by this,' he said. ‘Insider dealing is not unheard of in Malaysia, but I will not have it in my company.'

Annie pictured the Tan Sri – a soft-spoken, elderly man with snowy white hair and a wrinkled brown face – one of “nature's gentlemen”. Her first impression that he was an honest man had been correct.

‘What did you do, Tan Sri?' asked Annie politely, still unsure where he was going with this lengthy explanation.

‘Well, I had my senior staff carefully investigated. There was no sign that they were involved.'

‘What are you trying to say, Tan Sri?' A cold fist had wrapped itself around her heart.

‘The only other people with the necessary information about the takeover are from Hutchinson & Rice. I think – and I told Mr Thompson – that one of your lawyers is insider dealing, and must have made a lot of money doing so.'

Annie stared at her phone as if it was a hooded cobra poised to strike. The police would be quick to deduce that the insider would have had a cast-iron reason to kill Mark. Annie's mind played over the various possibilities. Each time her thoughts led to the same inevitable conclusion. Inspector Singh would soon discover that there were only two people on the file, aside from Mark, who had access to the information at the root of the insider dealing. Quentin Holbrooke was one of them. She was the other.

Singh sat in a generously proportioned chair at the head of a polished table. An intern in a short skirt walked in with a cup of coffee and a couple of cookies. He decided he liked the quiet, respectful tone the law firm had adopted. He understood now why most of his colleagues preferred dealing with white collar crime. He would wager they were always treated like royalty by suspects. He, Singh, was more accustomed to standing knee deep in a monsoon drain peering at a bloated corpse or looking at the broken body of some domestic worker who had fallen to her death cleaning the external windows of an apartment block.

A door opened and Quentin and Jagdesh walked in. It was clear that they had not expected the policeman to be ensconced in the room. The blood drained from Quentin's face – it reminded Singh of the way he drained the dregs from the bottom of a beer glass. Jagdesh nodded a greeting, a concession to family ties perhaps.

Annie was the next lawyer to make her way into the room. She was pale and her movements were jerky. Singh rested his chin in his palm and gazed at her curiously. This was a different woman from the confident creature who had welcomed him to her house the previous day. Quentin made his way around the table to where Annie was standing and gave her a tight hug which she returned. Singh perked up – was there something between them? Understanding the relationships between suspects was always crucial to a murder investigation. He noticed that David Sheringham, who had slipped into the room while he was staring at Annie, was watching them too, his expression thoughtful.

Reggie and Ai Leen marched in next, breaking off their low conversation as they discovered the other occupants. Ai Leen was dressed in her favourite pastel. Today her shade of choice was a delicate pink. Despite her air of quiet reserve, there was something about the Chinese Singaporean female partner that suggested a tenuous control over her emotions. The veins in her neck were taut and prominent. She clasped and unclasped her hands in her lap as if debating an appeal for relief from some deity.

People took seats round the conference table. Jagdesh and Quentin flanked Annie on one side and Reggie and Ai Leen were on the other. Singh wondered if these were battle lines. He could understand the younger lawyers sticking together. But he was puzzled by the apparent closeness of Ai Leen and Reggie – from what little he had seen of them they did not appear to have anything in common. Singh wrinkled his nose. He had a tendency to read too much into innocuous circumstances at the beginning of an investigation.

Stephen strode into the room with the confidence of a senior partner. The desultory conversation between the lawyers petered out.

‘This meeting has been called to discuss the assistance we can provide to the police.' Stephen's deep voice managed to sound threatening.

‘We've done all we can. What else do they want?' It was Reggie, quick to anger at the idea of further interaction with the police.

Stephen ignored him. ‘Inspector Singh is here to outline what he requires of us. Inspector?'

Singh saw Reggie run his finger around his collar. He suppressed a smirk. It served him right. The lawyer's attitude was appalling, varying as it did between hostility and servility. He knew the type all too well; the expatriate who had become accustomed to being treated with groveling respect by natives of every stripe in Singapore – whether shopkeepers, bank tellers or waiters – and now expected it as his due. Well, Reggie Peters was in for a nasty surprise if he expected Inspector Singh of the Singapore police to
kowtow
to him.

‘As you know, my team and I are currently investigating the murder of Mark Thompson,' began the inspector. ‘Death was the result of several blows to the head on Friday between seven and nine p.m. The actual cause of death was either an extensive skull fracture pushing fragments of bone into the brain or internal bleeding between the skull and the dura mater, the membrane covering the brain.'

The inspector paused to let the import of his words sink in. The lawyers were pale – the details of death were too much for them.

‘Suspects…,' Singh rotated his big head a hundred and eighty degrees to take in the full complement of partners, ‘…would ordinarily be required to present themselves at the police station for questioning.'

Reggie's brow was gleaming with a thin sheen of perspiration despite the cool of the air-conditioned room.

‘However, I have been instructed—' the inspector paused. ‘I have been asked to conduct this investigation—' again he paused, biting on his plump lower lip, apparently at a loss for the best form of words ‘—in a more “user-friendly” way. There are a number of reasons for this, one of them being that this case has attracted a great deal of media interest, including the foreign press.'