Umbrella Man (9786167611204) (40 page)

Buildings like that were all gone, as gone as
if they had never existed at all, and now the city was mostly
somewhere he did not know, somewhere he had never been. For over
thirty years the people who decided such things, the bastards, had
been tearing down glorious structures just because they were old.
Sometimes they even replaced them with new structures touted as
modern versions of whatever they replaced. They never were, of
course. They never were anything, really, other than just new.
Through the merciless grinders of progress the soul of a city had
passed, along even with Tay’s own soul, and each of them had
emerged as…well, he really had no idea.

Sometimes Tay thought he could close his eyes
and see everything again just as it had been before, back when he
was eight years old and Singapore was thrilling to him; but he
wasn’t absolutely sure anymore he really could. Was he seeing
something he actually remembered, or was he only seeing something
he hoped he remembered?

The older Tay got, the harder it was for him
to tell.

***

Tay’s sergeant, Robbie Kang, was waiting for
him just inside the Marriott’s main entrance. Kang had long, black
hair and a fair complexion and was tall and gangly for a
Singaporean. He was wearing his customary short-sleeved white shirt
with a button-down collar and a pair of dark chinos.

“What’s going on, Sergeant?”

“They didn’t tell you, sir?”

“All I know is that somebody called to say
the Chief wanted me here fast. And when the big bull trumpets, I
answer the call.”

Kang didn’t smile, so Tay stopped
smiling.

“What is it, Sergeant?”

“We’ve got a deceased woman upstairs, sir. A
homicide. It’s…” Kang hesitated and Tay could see his Adam’s apple
bob as he swallowed. “I’m told it’s messy, sir. Very messy.”

Inspector Tay did not like messy. He and
Sergeant Kang didn’t talk about it, but Tay knew Robbie Kang knew
perhaps all too well. He really did not like messy.

“You haven’t looked at the scene yourself
yet, Sergeant?”

“No, sir.” Kang shoved his glasses up the
bridge of his nose with his forefinger. “Not yet.”

Tay had never before had to deal with a woman
found dead in one of the city’s five-star hotels, not even a neatly
expired woman let alone one who had become deceased in such a
manner that Sergeant Kang felt compelled to describe it as messy.
And he really didn’t want to start now.

Even after nearly twenty years as a
policeman, each time he approached the scene of a violent crime he
struggled against a squeamishness he feared might yet master him
entirely. For years he had watched his colleagues out of the corner
of his eye searching for someone else who shared his secret
weakness, but he had never found anyone at all. As far as he could
tell, his colleagues thought nothing of spending an afternoon
poking around the charred corpses of two children killed in a
suspicious apartment fire and then going straight out for a rare
steak.

Tay couldn’t do it. Whatever gene might be
required to achieve that sort of detachment, he lacked it.

For a fleeting moment, Tay toyed with telling
Sergeant Kang that he could no longer bear any of it. He would not
on this day stand gazing down at broken bones, unsupported flesh,
and extruded innards. He would not squat down next to a glistening
heap of blood and tissue, poke at blood-drenched clothing, and try
to still his pounding heart while he fought against nausea. He
would not do that again. Not ever again.

But Tay said none of that.

What he said was this.

“Okay, Sergeant, let’s get to it then.”

The elevators were only a few steps away.
Kang pushed the call button and one opened immediately. Inside,
Kang touched twenty-six, Tay heard a slight humming sound, and the
elevator doors closed as silently as they had opened. As he and
Sergeant Kang levitated in an air-conditioned hush, Tay tilted his
head back against the polished wood paneling and shut his eyes.

Singapore was normally an uncomplicated place
to be a policeman, particularly one who investigated homicides. In
Tay’s tiny country — its five million people an ethnic stew of
Chinese, Malays, Indians, Caucasians, and Eurasians together with a
smattering of almost every other race on earth — there were few
criminals and even fewer killers. No more than a couple of dozen
murders were committed in Singapore each year, almost all of which
were the result of domestic violence. But that Singapore’s few
killers mostly killed people to whom they were related did nothing
to make the killings any easier for Samuel Tay to take.

In his two decades in the Criminal
Investigation Department of the Singapore Police Force, Tay had
seen enough dead bodies to last him several lifetimes: bodies
broken in stairwells and bodies dumped in alleys; bodies battered
by cricket bats and bodies crushed with tire irons; bodies opened
with gaping knife wounds and bodies flattened by cinder blocks;
bodies beaten into raw meat with golf clubs and bodies ripped into
unidentifiable shreds by dogs; bodies in bed with their hands
neatly folded and bodies in the harbor with crabs crawling out of
them. Tay had stared at all kinds of dead bodies and he could
remember each and every one of them with a clarity verging on the
pornographic.

Murders in Singapore weren’t the romanticized
duels between clever killers and plodding investigators that ended
up as Michael Douglas movies. They were mostly sad and sordid
events perpetrated by people who had lost money, lost a job, lost a
spouse, lost hope. When Tay entered the places where desperation
had taken control of people and turned them into killers, he could
feel their sadness and despair pressing down on him. It was as real
and palpable as a shroud.

Was he just getting old or was the carnage
getting worse? When Tay first began investigating murders, he
assumed he was dealing with people who were more or less like the
people policemen had always dealt with, but he wasn’t so sure of
that anymore. More and more these days, Tay found himself thinking
that the truth of it was really quite simple: we are worse people
now than we were twenty years ago, and every year we get even
worse.

Tay didn’t want to believe that, he really
didn’t, but so help him God, at the bottom of whatever passed for
his soul these days, he was certain it was true.

“HERE WE ARE, sir,” Sergeant Kang said when
the elevator doors opened.

“What’s the room number?”

Before Kang could answer, a blue-uniformed
patrolman appeared from somewhere. “I’m sorry, sir, but this floor
is closed to all—”

Tay lifted his right hand, palm outward.
“CID-SIS. I’m Inspector Tay and this is Sergeant Kang.”

“Yes, sir. Could I see your—”

“What room, Robbie?” Tay asked again, cutting
off the patrolman.

“2608, sir.”

Tay strode off down the corridor and Sergeant
Kang pulled his plastic-coated warrant card from his back pocket
and draped the chain around his neck. The patrolman barely glanced
at it. Instead, he shot a look toward where Tay had already
disappeared.

“He’s okay,” Kang said. “He’s just having one
of his twitchy days.”

“If you say so, sir.”

The Marriott has only sixteen guest rooms on
each floor. All of them face the outside of the tower while a wide
corridor carpeted in wine red and bordered with brown-and-white
marble traces the building’s octagonal shape around the core where
the three passenger elevators and the service elevator are located.
The corridor itself is entirely white. White walls, white doors,
white ceiling. Lighted by a soft glow from the wall sconces spaced
evenly along both sides, the whole effect is tranquil to the point
of being spooky.

There were four men outside the door to room
2608. Three wore dark suits and were arrayed in a sort of arc
facing the doorway, in front of which the fourth, a uniformed
patrolman, stood with his arms folded. The grouping made Tay think
of a tiny band of Christmas carolers waiting for a choirmaster to
lead them in song.

“I’m Inspector Tay,” he announced when he got
to where the men were standing. “And this is Sergeant Kang.”

“Oh, thank Christ. I’m Bill Barwell. I’m the
general manager.

Tay examined the man who had spoken and
registered both his American accent and the chummy way he had
introduced himself. Was anyone actually named Bill? That was just a
nickname for William, wasn’t it?

“This is Mike Evans, my Executive Assistant
Manager,” Barwell continued, indicating the man on his left, “and
my other colleague is Ramesh Keshar, our Chief of Security.”

Tay glanced at Evans, whose short hair and
well-scrubbed face unmistakably marked him as another American. So
far, Tay thought, this had all the makings of an authentically
crappy day. First the stupid building, and now all these
Americans.

Tay didn’t dislike Americans. Not as such.
Not really. Some of his best friends…well, no, it wouldn’t be true
to say that. Tay had to admit that there were a number of things he
admired about Americans. Their self-assurance, their boldness,
their generosity, their even-handedness, their easy manner, their
willingness to take risks. Most of all, he admired their sense of
absolute certainty that the world would step aside and make room
for them wherever they went merely because they were Americans.

Neither any of those character traits nor
that kind of self-confidence were commonly found in the Singaporean
temperament so Tay’s experience in dealing with people like that
was limited. Actually, to be entirely honest, Samuel Tay didn’t
really understand the first thing about people like that. He
supposed that was why Americans made him uneasy. They scratched him
where he didn’t itch.

Tay ignored both Barwell and Evans and looked
at the security man.

“You’re a local hire?” Tay asked him.

“Yes, sir, I am,” Keshar said. “Singaporean
born and bred.”

Tay nodded at that. At least there was one
person he could talk to here who wasn’t an American.

Sergeant Kang took out a notebook and turned
to Barwell. “Did you discover the body?”

“Me? Oh, good Lord, no. Not me.”

“Then who was it, sir?”

“Someone from housekeeping, as I understand
it.” The manager flicked his eyes to Keshar. “Is that right,
Ramesh?”

“Yes, sir. She was running her regular room
checks. When she found the body, she called me and I came right
up.”

“Where is the maid now?” Tay asked
Keshar.

“She’s a housekeeping supervisor,” the
manager interrupted. “Not a maid.”

Tay kept his eyes on the security man and
waited.

“Downstairs in my office,” the security man
eventually replied when he saw that Tay intended to ignore the
general manager until he did. “The poor woman is hysterical. I left
her with my secretary.”

“Where did this…” Tay shot a quick glance at
the manager, “housekeeping supervisor telephone you from?”

“Probably the service area. I’m not really
sure. She certainly wouldn’t have stayed in there to call.” Keshar
inclined his head toward the door to 2608 and Tay noticed he looked
away from it when he did.

“You’ve been inside the room?” Tay asked.

“Just long enough to verify what the
housekeeping supervisor told me. No longer than I had to.”

Tay finally shifted his eyes back to the
manager. “You, sir?”

“No, no.” The man shook his head quickly and
his pale skin seemed to grow even paler. “Jesus Christ, no. Not
me.”

Tay found himself enjoying the manager’s
discomfort and kept his eyes on him until the man glanced away.
Only then did Tay turn his attention back to Keshar.

“What did you do when you went into the
room?”

“I just rang the…it’s actually a one-bedroom
suite, Inspector. Not an ordinary room. I rang the bell several
times. When there was no answer, I let myself in with my security
card.”

“And you could see the deceased from the
doorway?”

“No, sir. She’s in the bedroom.”

“How could you be sure the woman was
deceased? Did you check for vital signs?”

“There isn’t any doubt she’s dead, Inspector.
Go in and see for yourself.” Keshar clamped his mouth shut and
seemed to struggle for control.

“What did you do after you confirmed the
presence of the deceased?”

“I got out of there, you can bet. I made sure
the door was locked, then I went downstairs to Mr. Barwell’s
office.”

“You didn’t just call him?”

“No, I went right down to his office. I guess
I could have telephoned from somewhere, but that just didn’t seem
like the right thing to do.”

“I called the police as soon as Ramesh told
me about this, Inspector,” the manager cut in. “We waited for the
officers at the concierge desk and then brought them directly up
here.”

Tay continued ignoring the manager. “Who is
the room registered to?” he asked the security man.

“They haven’t told you?”

“Told me what?”

“About the room. The registration.”

“No.”

“Ah, I see.” The security man hesitated,
cleared his throat unnecessarily, and then he plunged ahead
quickly. “There is none.”

“You’re saying you’ve lost the registration
information for this room?”

“No, that wouldn’t be possible. I mean the
suite isn’t registered to anyone. This suite is empty.”

Tay glanced toward the door to room 2608.
“Apparently not.”

“Yes,” the security man nodded. “Apparently
not.”

“When was it last occupied? At least as far
as you know.”

“Not for some time. A week or so?” The
security man glanced at the manager, who nodded. “Something like
that. I can get you the exact date.”

“And the name and address of the last
occupant.”