Singapore 52 Read online

  The docks were just a couple of miles south east of me but hidden by the coastal hills.

  I stared out to sea and thought about what Coates had said: munitions coming into the country. Someone was arming themselves. I reckoned there were three options. The first I dismissed for the time being as highly unlikely. By land the munitions would need to come over Woodlands Crossing. A corporal I’d spoken to confirmed my expectation. The crossing was secure and well manned by the army. No way was anything coming over the causeway that we didn’t want. In 1942, the Japanese had cycled across to take the island by surprise. With the present threat from the Reds in the north, the British Army would not be caught out like that again.

  Keppel Harbour, with its ocean going ships could be dismissed for the same reason. I had seen the naval presence there and was confident there was as a similar level of security as for Woodlands. However, I had been over the river a number of times now and I’d seen the frenetic trade coming in by sea. I set off towards the city to find out how easy it would be to smuggle arms via that route.

  SEVEN

  Getting a sense of the balance between incoming and outgoing trade, I stood on Coleman Bridge, the fourth of many that spanned Singapore River. There was a steady stream of traffic crossing between New Bridge Road and Hill Street, cars, bicycles, trishaws and electric buses which ran on cables like dodgems. I chose this bridge because it was less busy than the industrial, dual-carriage Elgin Bridge, and had a good view of the wharves that lined this part of the river inland from here.

  The air was filled with an intoxicating concoction of rubber and spices from cargo on the myriad of boats running below me. My spirits might have been raised if it weren’t for the fact that my old friend was dead. I didn’t really know if the crash was an accident or not but I knew I’d get answers by suggesting it wasn’t,.

  Of course, it could have been a coincidence but my gut said not. Tom Silverman had sent me a telegram asking for help and now he was dead.

  I let my back-brain process everything I was learning and just stood watching the activity. There were two types of boat: barges and a smaller squatter equivalent that I later learned were called tongkangs and bumboats respectively. A line spaced no more than five seconds apart, headed for open water and an equally regular stream of boats returned. A high number of the ones leaving had giant black bales that I realized was unprocessed rubber. Of the overladen boats coming in, I couldn’t tell what the cargo was. Many of the boats were stacked with sacks and others had wooden crates; impossible to know what was inside.

  On the east side of the river was a wharf and I could see more around the next bend. Each wharf had giant wooden warehouses—called godowns—with names written in both English and Chinese.

  Most of the workers appeared to be Chinese and they worked like regimented ants ferrying goods from boat to warehouse, loading flatbed waggons which they pulled by hand. I realized there was no room for horses to work here so human power did everything.

  Occasionally I saw a man stopped and asked to provide something. The customs officials were easy to spot in their white shirts and shorts in contrast to the dock workers’ dark greasy garb. The customs men checked bills of lading but also picked on junior labourers. I was intrigued at what these dock workers were being asked.

  I walked along on the opposite side of the river following a customs man, hoping to see him do it again. He stopped someone who was carrying a sack on his back that was as big as himself. The docker dumped it down, straightened and then pulled something out of his shirt. A necklace maybe.

  The customs officer examined it and then moved on. I shadowed him on the opposite side.

  When I came to another bridge I crossed over and began to follow through the wharf. Then I saw it. The dockers were being asked to show a small medallion they had tied with string around their necks. I got closer. It was like a bronze coin with a hole in the centre.

  I made a mental note to ask about it back at the barracks when something caught my eye. Movement between the godowns. Someone in a suit ducked through a side door.

  Maybe it wouldn’t have attracted my attention if the warehouse concerned had been busy but it was the only one with its main doors closed. The buildings on either side were a hive of activity. This one was different.

  I crossed the busy quay and entered a dark alleyway about eight feet wide. The warehouses loomed overhead. At the far end, about forty yards away, I could see the road that ran behind the wharf. There were no windows in the side wall, just a small wooden door a third of the way along.

  There was no one about. I tried the door handle. It opened and I entered.

  Inside was even darker than the alleyway. High up I could see skylights and dust motes spiralling down.

  I could see the warehouse was stacked with boxes and I could hear voices. I walked towards them and then pulled up short.

  A Chinese guy stepped out from behind a tower of crates. He was burly and maybe an inch taller than me. Initially he looked surprised and then alarmed. He shouted something. Not at me. To someone else. Someone who understood Chinese I guessed.

  A moment later a guy who could have been the first man’s twin scooted around the crates and glared at me.

  “Sorry, took a wrong turn,” I said with an innocent smile.

  Another guy, smaller but with an air of authority, appeared. He stood behind the first two and looked between their shoulders.

  “Who are you?” the third guy asked in broken English.

  I looked around.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked in my best polite but commanding voice.

  The third guy wasn’t biting. “You leave,” he snapped at me.

  Again I said, “What’s going on here? Why are the doors closed?”

  The guy said something and the other two flexed their hands as though ready to fight. Their size didn’t bother me. As my trainer had said early on, “The bigger they are the harder they fall,” and most times it was true. I changed my stance, relaxed my shoulders and rehearsed the moves in my head. I’m a south paw and normally a counter-puncher. I expected the one on my left, the guy who had arrived second, to move first. As soon as he twitched I would step forwards, jab him with my right and follow through with my left. Bam bam. With the momentum I would then crouch and swivel to the right and catch the other big guy in the gut. He would double over and catch my uppercut on his chin. That went through my mind in a millisecond, followed by the memory of the market, how I’d not planned on the third guy and stumbled over the Japanese vendor.

  I looked at the smaller guy in the middle trying to assess him. And then it was too late. He yelled and the two big guys virtually jumped to my left. I tracked their sudden movement and in that same instance felt something strike my right leg, just above the knee. It felt like I’d been sliced. The smaller guy stepped back. In his hand was a stick about one and a half arms’ lengths that he held at his side.

  The twins looked like they were waiting for me to buckle but I fought the urge and gritted my teeth.

  I took a short step back to cover all of them, wondering what their next move would be. The smart move would be to go for the guy with the stick. But then they’d expect that.

  The guy raised it as though about to whip my legs again. “Go!” he snarled at me.

  I began to work out my moves.

  Third guy stepped back but I could see in his eyes it was a feint.

  “Wang! Stop!” A woman’s voice cut through the tension.

  The man stopped his move and waited. At first I couldn’t see her clearly and then she stepped between Wang and me, and Singapore suddenly became interesting for a very different reason.

  EIGHT

  Happy to talk, I gave her my name and she introduced herself as Su Ling, just a translator. In the warehouse she had shown control over the guys. When she snapped at them they’d just melted away into the dim interior. She was more than just a translator.

  She walked me outside and we s
tood on the footbridge. I knew I was staring, but couldn’t help it. She was Eurasian, half English and half Chinese she later told me. For now I just saw a golden brown skin and dark almond-shaped eyes. When the light caught them I registered how green they were. Her hair was tied up in a swirl held on with a needle-like stick. She wore a shimmering blue cheongsam and glittery, dark blue shoes. She was elegant, moved with poise, and knew she was perfection.

  I noticed she wore a matching silk strap on her right wrist like a watch.

  “How is your leg?” she asked and looked at the red welt rapidly growing on my flesh.

  “I’ll survive.”

  “I am sorry,” she said for the tenth time. “Wang and his men were just protecting the property. You know you were trespassing.”

  “I made a wrong turn.”

  She smiled at me. “Yes you did.” I knew she wanted to know why I had entered the warehouse and who I was, but I wasn’t offering information. Not yet anyway.

  As a way of diffusing the situation and getting me outside, she’d invited me to eat with her. On the far side of the bridge she hailed a trishaw and took me up Orchard Road to a small restaurant. We didn’t speak on the short ride but she kept glancing at me making an assessment I think.

  Even though I’d eaten at the barracks, I ordered the same as her: Singapore noodles and a beer.

  “So Mr Carter, you are an enigma.” She paused and smiled. “You are not military although from a distance you could be mistaken for one in those clothes. You are not Customs because I would have seen you before. You are obviously not from the police because you are white.”

  I took a sip of my beer when it arrived. “I’m just a civilian,” I said.

  “With an interest in warehouses no doubt?” She laughed. “Shall we say you are a student… no, a professor of commerce?”

  I chinked my glass with hers. “I like the sound of professor, but to be honest I’m more of a scientist.”

  She studied me with her dark eyes and then nodded. “So please do tell me. What was your interest in Mr Yipp’s warehouse?”

  “Mr Yipp?”

  “You don’t know who he is?”

  “No.”

  “Mr Yipp is the head of the largest Chinese business empire in Singapore from rubber plantations, manufacturing, sawmills, canneries, real estate, import and export brokerage, ocean transport and rice trading. He is also well known as a philanthropist.”

  “And you work for him?”

  “As I said, I am a translator but I also act as his personal assistant.” She smiled again and I was becoming accustomed to enjoying it.

  “You still haven’t told me the truth,” she said, after a few heart beats of silence. “You have an easy style of answering a question with a question. Were you a policeman from somewhere else?”

  At that point I realized she was playing with me. She knew or at least suspected what I was.

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “You’re doing it again, Ash. Question with question.”

  I waited.

  She took a slow sip of beer and flashed her smile. “Mr Yipp knows everything.”

  “Does he know about arms coming into the country?” As I said the words, I knew instantly that she didn’t know. Surprise flickered in her eyes before she hid it.

  “Is that what Secretary Coates believes?”

  “Now you are answering with a question.” When she didn’t immediately respond, I asked, “How long have you known who I’m working for.”

  “Pretty much from the moment that Secretary Coates decided to employ you. And, yes, I know about your background: British Military Police Captain from Palestine—until you retired two weeks ago. You are acting as liaison between the police and military. Why you came though, I must confess, is less clear.”

  “I’m here because a friend asked me to come—asked for my help.”

  “Help with what?”

  “I don’t know and I’m unlikely to find out. Because he died in a car crash before I arrived.”

  She said she was sorry to hear that and asked his name. We finished our meals and she ordered some kind of aromatic tea which I didn’t like.

  “The warehouse—” I said. “Will you tell me what was in it and why were the doors closed?”

  “Mr Yipp has many warehouses. About a third of those on the quay were his. The one you entered is small and simply wasn’t moving goods today.”

  “Really? It’s as simple as that?”

  She inclined her head with a smile.

  I asked, “Why then were those men there? The big ones are clearly heavy security… or protection.”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  And then the big question: “And you, as a translator, why were you there?”

  Her green eyes studied me for a while. Perhaps she was assessing, deciding how to respond. When she did, I believed she was telling me the truth. She said, “I was following you. I saw you enter through the side door. I came in from the main road.”

  As I’ve said before, I’m good at spotting a tail and yet I hadn’t spotted her—a beautiful, elegant woman.

  “How long—”

  “Have I been following you? Just through the quays.”

  So someone else must have been following before. They had handed over to her. “And what about yesterday, were you following me then?”

  “No.”

  “But you know where I was and what happened.”

  “At the market? Yes. And then the police station.”

  “So Mr Yipp has eyes everywhere?”

  She inclined her head with the smile. Yes. “I understand you were defending a Japanese market trader.”

  “Not because he was Japanese, if you’re asking that.”

  “You will find out about the Japanese,” she said. When I looked inquisitive she smiled. “It’s what you do, Ash. You are an investigator so I am just saying you will want to understand.” With that, she stood up.

  I waved to the staff for the bill but Su Ling told me it was paid for.

  “I need to go,” she said and held out her hand. I was surprised at how cool and smooth it felt, whereas mine felt bloated by the heat.

  I checked my watch and realized I had to get a move on.

  “A quick question,” I said, fishing out the piece of paper that Coates had given me. I showed her the red symbol. “What does this mean?”

  “Can I take it?” A question in response to a question.

  “It’s all I have and would like to keep it for now. Do you know what it means?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Let me think about it and I will let you know.”

  “I’m at Gillman Barracks,” I said unnecessarily.

  She left me then and I hailed a trishaw.

  I had an appointment with Major Vernon.

  NINE

  Eyeing me with suspicion, the desk clerk told me to knock and wait at the door. Vernon kept me waiting a few minutes before he called for me to enter.

  I sat opposite him at a grand desk with a burgundy leather inlay. I guessed it had once had a gold trim but it had worn away. He had a long credenza and an array of filing cabinets, the tallest of which was metal with multiple drawers.

  “So how does this work, Mr Carter?” Before I could respond, he continued: “You are here as my guest. As you probably know, I am the acting CO of 200 Provost Company. It is my camp and the rules are my rules. Whilst you are here you will respect those rules. Yesterday you tried to pass yourself off as an MP. The deal is that you will act as an MP. I am an officer short, so while you are here you will wear the uniform.” He looked me up and down slowly, deliberately. “Which is basically how you are already dressed, but you will put on your insignia and wear the brassard.” He then gave me a smile laced with irony. “But you will not have a service revolver. Don’t try signing one out from Armoury because they will be under specific instructions—”

  “That’s fine,” I said, because at that point I had no intention o
f shooting anyone or even threatening to use a gun.

  “And there will be no trouble. If there is, I will have no hesitation but to put you in the clink again. Is that clear?”

  “Of course. I get the deal. But don’t expect me to call you sir.”

  I could see his chest constrict with annoyance but he managed to control his anger. Instead of shouting at me he said, “All I require is respect.”

  “In public.”

  His head nodded although his eyes were saying something different. But he didn’t dwell on it. Instead, he switched subjects and said, “We have our own liaison officer, Lieutenant Robshaw. The police have theirs—Inspector Rahman—who I understand you have already met. The reason we need you is because the police are utterly useless. They are fine at traffic problems, they are fine with minor public order offences, but when it comes to crime… they are either headless chickens or incompetent fools. Quite frankly they are a bunch of monkeys. If we have an investigation or exercise then I want them kept out of the damned way.”

  “Secretary Coates is concerned about security.”

  Vernon scoffed. “That’s his job.”

  “He mentioned specific intelligence about arms coming into the country.”

  “Your point is?”

  “That’s my job. To find out if it’s true and identify any threats.”

  “You’re my guest and I say your job is to stop the bloody police blundering into our affairs.”

  I said nothing for a while. A fan turned slowly on the ceiling.

  He watched me with his small eyes. Finally he said, “Dismissed.”

  I stood.

  “Another rule,” he said. “You will keep me informed of everything you do. Give me a report at the end of each day. Verbal if I’m here, otherwise in writing.” He smiled without moving his eyes. “Is that clear?”

  “Anything you say.”

  He desperately wanted a yes, sir but he wasn’t getting one. The meeting was over.

  The desk clerk showed me a small common room and an office where I would work. He said I’d share an office with the liaison officer and a sergeant.