The Singapore School of Villainy (25 page)

Looking around, Annie could see that she was not the only one who had not known about the alibi. David looked stunned.

The policeman's tone was deliberate. ‘I decided to keep Jagdesh's innocence a secret – to see what the murderer would do if he believed he was off the hook. And now we know…'

‘I don't understand,' muttered Annie in a barely audible voice.

‘The murderer decided that his purpose was best served by Jagdesh taking the secret of his own innocence to his grave.'

‘You mean…?'

‘I mean Jagdesh Singh was
murdered
.'

Annie stammered, ‘But…how?'

‘Pillow over the face,' said Singh succinctly, holding a pudgy hand against his mouth and nostrils to indicate the crude but effective method that had dispatched Jagdesh.

‘I need another drink,' whispered David.

Annie rose to her feet dutifully, her face a ghostly mask. She put the coffee machine on, trying to occupy her trembling hands – the inspector's words were a body blow greater than anything Quentin had inflicted on her. As she walked slowly back into the living room, she caught sight of her briefcase. Her exclamation of shock interrupted proceedings.

‘What is it?' snapped the inspector.

Annie could not believe she had forgotten the letter. There had been so much going on, so much unpleasantness to divulge and digest, it had gone clean out of her mind. With trembling fingers, she reached for the bag, opened the clasp and slipped the photocopy out.

 

Singh stretched out an impatient hand. ‘What is it, for God's sake?'

Annie handed the paper to the inspector without a word. Singh held it a couple of feet away – his long-sightedness affecting his ability to read and his patience. It was headed “Resignation Letter” and addressed to “The Partners, Singapore Office”. He read it out loud, taking in every word:

The inspector nodded his head. Many things were clearer now: the inexplicable friendship between Reggie and Ai Leen; their attempts to put up a united front; the recent distance between them where Ai Leen's body language – as she cringed from Reggie and flinched when he spoke – suggested genuine dread.

David said, ‘I don't believe it,' but his tone suggested he believed it all too well.

Singh demanded, ‘Where did you get this?'

Annie answered in a small voice, ‘My secretary found it at the printer. She made a copy and gave it to me.' She looked at their shocked faces and said, ‘I asked David to meet me here to tell him. But so much happened that…I forgot I had it!'

‘It's addressed to the partners. Why hasn't she delivered it?' Singh demanded.

David shrugged. ‘Perhaps she changed her mind. It's an inflammatory piece of work.'

Annie added, ‘She won't know we have a copy. My secretary put the original back as she found it.'

Inspector Singh smiled approvingly at this cunning. This unknown secretary was a smart cookie. He asked, ‘Do these allegations sound plausible?' He didn't doubt the contents of the letter for a moment – it was a piece of the puzzle that fitted very neatly into one of the holes in the case – but he was curious to see if the others were of the same mind.

Annie's affirmation was immediate.

David nodded too. He said, running a hand through his short hair so that the grey strands stood on end – ‘What a sorry mess!'

‘Jagdesh has an alibi. Does that make Reggie the killer?' It was Annie with the query.

Singh looked at her quizzically. It was curious that she was the first to point out the possibilities, the one most willing to accuse a fellow partner of murder. He remembered her reluctance in the early days of the investigation to make any accusations, her reticence so much in contrast to the other lawyers. He wondered what was at the root of the change of attitude.

David demanded impatiently, ‘Well, does it?'

The inspector squinted at them thoughtfully. ‘There are loose ends. How would Mark Thompson have found out about the two of them?'

David waved away the question with an impatient hand. ‘He could have seen them together, overheard them…we might never know exactly. My money's on Reggie.' He added quickly, ‘I certainly don't believe it was Quentin – he wouldn't commit a premeditated murder.'

Inspector Singh looked at him penetratingly. It was interesting that David was willing to exonerate the man who had just attacked a woman that he clearly cared about. Either he was a man of such profound integrity that he could separate his personal feelings from his assessment of the case, or he knew something he wasn't telling the police. Singh had taken a strong liking to the young man from London, but he doubted that he was capable of such a selfless analysis of the facts. This case was like a
kueh lapis
– layer upon layer of secrets and lies.

Annie's frustrated exclamation dragged him back to the matter at hand. She said, ‘But there isn't any proof!'

The lawyers turned to the inspector, the final arbiter on whether it was possible to arrest Reggie.

Singh shook his head. ‘No, there is motive…but nothing to place him at the scene – either scene! I don't have enough for an arrest, let alone a prosecution.'

Maria Thompson looked at the accumulating bills on her dead husband's rosewood desk. She opened a smoothly sliding drawer and brushed them all in with a sweep of her arm. Unfortunately, out of sight was not out of mind. She had maintained the lifestyle she had shared with Mark when money had been no object. Her children deserved it – they had waited long enough in a Filipino village in the care of her ageing crone of a mother while she fought for a better life for them. But now money was short. The insurance people still refused to pay up on Mark's policy. Her acrylic talons dug into the palms of her hands. They were dragging their feet on the grounds that the murder was still unsolved.

She would have to sue the insurance company, involve more lawyers in her affairs, even though she was sick to death of the whole tribe. Her knee was bouncing up and down furiously as she thought about the time, effort and – most importantly – money a legal battle would cost. She had seen the blood-sucking attitude of these legal types up close. After all, her husband had been the senior partner at just such a firm of parasites. She'd be lucky if there were even a few Philippine
pesos
left after a court wrangle to get hold of the insurance money.

Well, perhaps the time had come to cash in one of her other chips, carefully preserved for just such a financial emergency as this.

 

Reggie Peters walked out of the meeting he had been chairing at the client's offices. It had lasted for hours and achieved nothing but he didn't really care, not while he charged by the hour anyway. He switched on his mobile and it beeped urgently, indicating missed calls. There were three, all from the same number, one that he did not recognise. He was on the verge of returning the calls and then thought better of it. It could wait till he was back at the office. He stepped out of the building. Immediately beads of sweat popped out along his upper lip like a translucent moustache. He dabbed a handkerchief on his brow and squinted at the sun. It was almost lunchtime and he was only a couple of blocks away from Republic Tower. He decided to walk. He had not gone five hundred yards before he regretted his decision. Reggie was not a fit man and he was starting to turn a mottled pink, the colour of cooked lobster. His fine sandy hair was damp against his scalp, the creeping baldness more noticeable. He had worn a suit to the meeting and although he had loosened his tie and was carrying the jacket, the scratchy wool made his legs and crotch itch.

Reggie wondered whether to duck into a nearby Starbucks for some respite. His ringing phone pre-empted the decision. Reggie hurried into the air-conditioned lobby of the nearest building and recovered his phone from the inside pocket of his jacket. He saw at a glance that it was the same person who had been trying to reach him earlier.

Ai Leen was at home alone. She lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling, unknowingly adopting Quentin's posture in a jail cell across town. She felt trapped, unable to decide what to do. Intimidated by Reggie the previous day, she had temporarily given up her plan of sending her resignation letter to the partnership. But she knew she would come about; she was just not sure how. She gripped the bedclothes tightly and repeated the last thought to herself. She dragged herself out of bed, showered, dressed and curled up in the sitting room armchair to watch a re-run of a chat show on daytime television. She realised once again, as if she needed reminding, that to work was as essential to her as breathing. She could not conceive of a life where she did not have an office to go to and work to lose herself in. It was just as well she had not committed herself to leaving Hutchinson & Rice by delivering that resignation letter. There would be other solutions.

A loud frantic knocking on the front door interrupted her train of thought. Ai Leen hurried to the entrance wondering who was making such a racket. Probably a meter reader, she thought with annoyance. Opening the heavy door a fraction, she saw that it was Reggie. She tried to slam it shut again, but he was too quick. A broad foot wedged the door open and, despite her putting her weight against it, he managed to get his shoulder and then his body into the apartment. She fell back, her hand instinctively groping for something to fend him off with. Her hand closed round a bunch of keys.

She screamed, ‘What do you want? Get out, get out, I tell you!'

Reggie was breathing heavily and his eyes were bloodshot. He put a hand on the door to support himself. She could smell him, dried sweat and the musky scent of fear.

She repeated, ‘What do you want?'

He said, ‘I got a call…from Maria.' He looked at her almost pleadingly.

Ai Leen's body was rigid with tension but she said in a puzzled tone, ‘Maria? What does she want?'

‘She says she saw me that night.'

‘What night?'

‘The night of the murder. She says she saw me at the office!'

‘I don't understand.'

The only sound was Reggie's wheezing, rasping breath.

Reggie said again, enunciating his words, ‘She wants money, or she will go to the police.' He continued, almost pleading for understanding, ‘But I wasn't there!'

Ai Leen ignored this latter part as irrelevant and said, ‘It's not my problem.'

Reggie put a hand over his eyes. He said, ‘She knows about
us
.'

There was a silence as Ai Leen absorbed the implications of what he had said. She asked in an unnaturally calm voice, absent-mindedly replacing the keys on the table, ‘How much does she want?'

‘A million US dollars.'

 

‘Well, where is he?'

Sometimes he felt like the babysitter of a bad-tempered child, not the sidekick of the most successful murder investigator on the force, thought Corporal Fong. He answered patiently, adopting the firm but kind voice of a nursery school teacher, ‘He left the office for a meeting a couple of hours ago – he hasn't returned yet.'

‘I finally have enough evidence to lean on that smug bastard and you can't find him?'

Corporal Fong wondered whether to be leaned on by Inspector Singh would constitute the sort of enhanced interrogation techniques so beloved of the intelligence services of so-called civilised nations. He said smartly, a young man in control of events, ‘Sergeant Chung is waiting at the office and Sergeant Hassan is parked outside his home, sir! We'll find Reggie Peters soon enough.'

‘What about Quentin Holbrooke?'

‘I released him.' Fong did not sound pleased at the outcome but he supposed that they had no choice. Annie had been adamant that she would not testify against Quentin about the attack and David Sheringham had agreed with her. The lawyers were protecting one of their own. Still, it was only a matter of time before the superintendent had Holbrooke re-arrested and charged with drug trafficking.

He added, remembering the exhausted regretful young man whom he had put in a taxi that morning, ‘I don't think he'll go looking for trouble again.'

‘That fellow doesn't have to look, trouble follows him around like a pet dog.'

Fong refrained from commenting on this flight of fancy.

‘All right,' said Singh grumpily. ‘Let's go round and have a chat with Maria Thompson in the meantime.'

 

Maria opened the front door herself. She was, as always, perfectly turned out, dressed in a pair of designer jeans, a silk shirt and open-toed stilettos. The toenails peeping out from her shoes, her fingernails and her lipstick were an identical shade of crimson. Ai Leen had to admire the woman's confidence. She had used her looks to trap herself a wealthy husband. And when that well had run dry, Maria had turned to another source of income with the sort of dogged single-mindedness that she, Ai Leen, had shown in pursuing her own goals.

Ai Leen walked confidently into the room, following hard on the heels of Maria. She was calm and collected, a well-dressed woman paying a social visit to an acquaintance. She gave no outward sign that the nature of their errand was unusual in any way. Her footsteps in low-heeled court shoes were muffled in the thick carpeting. Except for the hum of the air conditioning, the place was silent and oppressive.

Reggie stumbled in after them. He was perspiring heavily. His stentorian breathing was audible to Ai Leen even though they were a few metres apart. Ai Leen shut her eyes briefly. She felt nauseous at the sudden memory of their hasty couplings, his clumsy hands on her body. She did not know, could not understand, how she had ever allowed such a thing to come to pass but she was determined that, after this day, Reggie Peters would never dare to approach her again.

He glanced at her, his hangdog expression pleading with her to take the lead in their discussion with Maria. She threw him a contemptuous look, noting with disgust that perspiration had caused his remaining strands of hair to stick to his scalp like congealed noodles at the bottom of an unwashed bowl.

Maria indicated with a gesture that they were to sit down and they both did, sinking into the sofa until their knees were slightly higher than their waists. Reggie put the briefcase he was carrying down by his feet but Ai Leen kept her capacious handbag on her lap.

‘I don't understand why you bring her,' said Maria, nodding scornfully at Ai Leen, her remarks directed at Reggie.

Ai Leen showed no sign that she had heard the contempt in Maria's voice. Her face was the frigid mask she reserved for clients and colleagues although her grip on her bag tightened convulsively and the knuckles showed white with tension.

Reggie cleared his throat – he was struggling to get words out. ‘I need to talk to you.'

Maria said rudely, her natural assertiveness putting in an appearance, ‘I have nothing to say to you. I have said it all. Now I want the cash – all of it!'

‘Look, Maria, we brought the money.' Reggie gestured to the briefcase at his feet and then wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers.

‘Then you can go. I do not want to see your ugly face any more.'

Reggie said, his voice guttural with trepidation, ‘But I need to talk to you. I just don't understand. Why are you saying you saw me at the office? I wasn't there. I didn't kill Mark!'

‘Of course you killed him – both of you – to keep your
dirty
little secret.' Maria spat the words at them in disgust.

A woman who had prostituted herself for advancement was capable of deriding others for using the same tactic, thought Ai Leen. She said conversationally, ‘Actually, Reggie is right. He didn't kill Mark.'

‘How do you know? Was it you?' demanded Maria.

Ai Leen wondered whether the woman standing across from her was really stupid enough or greedy enough to blackmail someone she believed capable of murder. How could Maria imagine that she, Ai Leen, would ever allow herself to be the victim of such a ploy? Well, it was time to bring this charade to an end. She had no intention of falling into the clutches of Maria Thompson. She knew full well that if they succumbed to her attempt to extricate funds from them, it would never end. Women like Maria, once they had sunk their red-painted acrylic talons into you, never let go.

‘We're not going to pay you, Maria. Neither of us was near the office and neither of us killed Mark.'

Maria spat on the ground at their feet and they all watched, as if hypnotised, as the white froth sank into the plush carpet, leaving a small dark stain. She said, ‘Of course you will pay. Otherwise, I will tell everyone, the partners, the police, the newspapers, about your little arrangement.'

Ai Leen rose to her feet with difficulty, reached into her bag and almost casually pulled out a serviceable looking handgun. Her tone was even – she might have been extracting a legal document from the bag. ‘Even if I have to kill you, Maria, we are
not
going to pay.'

‘My God, Ai Leen. What are you doing?'

Reggie's voice was a hoarse wheeze and she could hear the breath rattling in his chest. The shock had brought on his asthma. Perhaps he would do them all a favour and die of natural causes.

Her lips twisted, more spasm than smile. ‘Saving us some money,' she answered.

Maria had remained silent. She was staring at the dark circle of the gun barrel, her mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. Now, she took an instinctive step backwards.

Ai Leen's gun arm was outstretched. The weapon was heavier than she had realised and she gripped it a little tighter to keep it steady. The handle was cool to the touch. Her index finger, curled around the trigger, was rigid with tension.

‘What are you saying?' demanded Reggie. Spittle had gathered in the corners of his dry mouth. ‘We brought the money. We should just pay and get out of here.'

Ai Leen rounded on Maria, her voice showing the strain now. ‘How did you find out about Reggie and me? Did Mark tell you? How did
he
know?'

‘He overheard you talking on the phone to Reggie,' whispered Maria.

Ai Leen shrugged and brought up the other arm so that the gun was held between her two hands. ‘It was bad enough to be unable to escape from this bastard. I certainly don't plan to let
you
milk me for the rest of my life.'