Singapore 52 Page 8

  Through a heavily black-framed door, I could see a tiny entrance and a second door to the left but nothing more. The outside door was locked so I yanked on the bell-pull. There was no sound but a second later, a woman in a red kimono and comb in her hair, appeared through the side door. Her forty-something face immediately turned to a stony frown as she saw us: me, an MP and a diminutive Chinese girl.

  For a moment I thought she wasn’t going to open the door but then she did.

  She opened it barely wider than her head and spoke to us rapidly in what I guessed was Japanese.

  Mei Fen said, “She wants know who we are.”

  I produced my new government ID and she squinted at it but didn’t move the door any wider. Hegarty produced his warrant card which was pointless since she could see who he was.

  “She say, no army here,” Mei Fen said.

  “We aren’t looking for anyone from the army.” I looked at our Chinese translator encouragingly and she spoke to the stony-faced lady.

  Mei Fen repeated, “No army here,” and the lady closed the door. She disappeared behind the second door.

  I knocked but no one came.

  Mei Fen said, “Sorry, my Japanese not good and lady not speak Chinese.”

  “It’s better than mine.”

  I took a step back into the street and looked at the building.

  “What now, Boss?”

  “What kind of a place do you think this is, Hedge?”

  Without hesitation, he replied, “A brothel.”

  That was my impression too. Why would my friend have come to a brothel—except for the obvious reason of course?

  I realized Mei Fen had said something quietly.

  “Not brothel,” she said.

  “Tom wouldn’t come to a brothel or this is not a brothel?”

  “Not a brothel. Japanese… happy,” she said and I could see she knew it was the wrong word.

  “Japanese men?”

  “Yes.”

  It looked and sounded like a brothel to me but I accepted Mei Fen’s word for it. I started walking.

  “Let’s just take a look around,” I said.

  The property had two floors and an elaborate roof. On each corner was a mini pagoda perhaps emphasizing the Japanese nature of the building. I counted what looked like eight rooms on the second floor at the front. Using our torches we took a narrow alley before the adjacent property. After the building, a high wall continued, preventing us from seeing over. There was a smell of cooking here, perhaps noodles and meat and then, further on, the smell became distasteful. Rubbish and rotting things I guessed.

  At the back we came out on an earthen track that serviced the rear of the commercial properties. The wall continued but there was a wooden gate, lower than the wall but still too high to look over.

  Hegarty found a couple of crates and piled one on top of the other. I climbed up and peered over the gate.

  There was a courtyard with outside storage rooms and bins. I could see a kitchen with at least three men working in it. A metal fire-escape reached the upper floor and I counted sixteen rooms up there.

  A Japanese man with a white apron opened a rear door and stood in the courtyard. I ducked down and to one side.

  He looked up at the dark sky and lit a cigarette. Then he looked down and straight at me.

  His banshee screech almost made me fall off the crates. I kept watching and the guy with the cigarette just shouted in a foreign tongue. And then another man rushed out of the door. This man was bigger. Bigger than me. Square and solid and brandishing a meat cleaver.

  “Time to go!” I said as I jumped down.

  We were still running down the alley as the big guy appeared at the bottom. But he didn’t chase us. When I looked back he was just standing at the end shouting aggressively.

  Hegarty gunned the engine. “My God, my hands are shaking!” he said.

  Mei Fen also had concern etched on her face.

  “It’s all right, he just wanted to scare us off,” I said. “What was he shouting?”

  “I not know,” she said. “He speak Japanese.”

  That made sense and I figured the guy with the cigarette had also spoken Japanese.

  “Frustrating, having come all this way for nothing,” Hegarty said as he spun us around and headed back south.

  I shook my head but said nothing. I was thinking.

  We passed the crash site a few minutes later and noticed that we all took a long look.

  Hegarty said, “Raining cats and dogs.”

  “It certainly does pour when it rains here,” I agreed.

  “It comes from Norse mythology. Odin had a pack of wolves and he controlled the weather. If it was so bad then the wolves would also fall from the skies.”

  “And the cats?”

  “Witches’ cats blown off the broomsticks.”

  I chuckled. The sergeant was trying to lighten my mood. “Thanks, Hedge, but nothing’s ever wasted.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I convinced myself that Tom really could have been driven off the road and we took a good look at the place we believe he came to that night. We also learned that they weren’t happy to see us at the House of Tokyo.”

  He seemed to think for a while and then shrugged. We were back in civilisation with better roads and lighting. I sensed Tom Silverman’s girl finally start to relax and wondered whether she’d expected someone to be following us. I regretted not comforting her more.

  I leaned back and said she should give Hegarty directions to her home.

  When we dropped her a mile or so later, north of the city, she said, “Please… find who did it.”

  We sat for a moment and watched her disappear inside a block of houses. Hegarty said, “Do you think this has anything to do with the guns?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “And what about security—generally I mean?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Of course he wasn’t my driver for personal matters but he didn’t say anything for a while.

  We crossed the river and cut east towards Gillman Barracks.

  “What did you mean?” he said after the long silence. “What were you thinking when you said nothing’s wasted?”

  “Like I said they didn’t want to talk to us.”

  “Right…”

  “A Chinese girl, and two white men; an MP and someone with a dubious role. But there is someone they will talk to. No matter what.”

  He waited.

  “The police,” I said. “I’m going back there with the police.”

  SIXTEEN

  Cicadas no longer chirped but it was still dark when I got up. I did the exercise routine that I’d started more than half my life ago for boxing. I finished off with twenty minutes of skipping and hit a cold shower. Refreshed and ready for whatever the day may bring, I put on my uniform and jogged down the hill to the office block.

  The night-duty clerk looked disappointed as I entered.

  “Thought you were my relief,” he said with a shrug. “You’re keen, Captain.”

  “Is there tea?” I asked.

  “The cha-boy will be here soon but the canteen will be open. You could get breakfast…”

  I thanked him for the suggestion but that wasn’t my plan. I asked for the reports from yesterday in case anything relevant had happened. After he’d handed a pile of papers to me in a tan-coloured folder I asked him to place a call to the police station and get hold of Inspector Rahman for me.

  “I could put it through to you,” he said pointing at the shared office.

  “I’ll take it here.”

  A minute later he was handing me the telephone.

  “Inspector?” I said into the mouthpiece.

  “So sorry, Captain Carter but Inspector Rahman was out during the night and hasn’t reported in yet this morning.”

  I took the clerk’s name for reference and asked him to take a message. “Please would you inform the inspector that I need
his help. I would be grateful if he would accompany me to House of Tokyo in Nee Soon. Secondly I would like to know what his sergeant discovered about my friend’s car.”

  After handing the receiver back, I went into the office, opened the file and began to read the reports.

  I heard someone else enter the building and after the night-duty clerk ordered tea, guessed the cha-boy had arrived. An old Indian, who looked like he had never been a boy, soon looked in at my open door.

  “Tea, sir?” he asked without eye contact or waiting for a response. He used an ugly metal tea pot, poured into fine china and placed the cup and saucer on my desk before silently leaving.

  More people came in. I heard the desk clerks change shift and Hegarty say that he didn’t want a cup of tea.

  I called him and he immediately popped his head round the door.

  “Morning, Boss!” he said with a grin. “I just heard you hadn’t had breakfast. Want to grab a bite?”

  Lieutenant Robshaw appeared holding a delicate cup of tea. “Morning. Anything interesting in the over-nights?”

  I waved them in and asked them to sit down.

  “Here’s what I would like,” I said. “Robbo, I’d like you to find out as much as you can about Sergeant Major Sinclair. In particular I’d like to know if there’s a link between him and Colonel Atkinson.”

  The lieutenant looked surprised but just nodded.

  I continued: “Meanwhile Hedge and I are going to Tanglin Barracks for breakfast.”

  Hegarty waggled his bushy eyebrows. “I get all the bum jobs,” he said.

  “We’ll be there for a while so come and find us as soon as you have anything to tell me. Also, if Inspector Rahman calls while I’m out, please have him put through to me at Tanglin.”

  Robshaw ruffled his blond hair and frowned. “So what are you thinking?”

  I stood, took a quick slurp of tea, and said, “I’ll tell you when you get there. And, Robbo… make sure you look formal when you arrive. Imagine you have some serious news for me.”

  We attracted surreptitious glances in the Officers’ Mess at Tanglin. Just a sergeant, Hegarty hadn’t eaten here before and I had to ask him to stop grinning. “We’re on serious business, remember,” I whispered.

  I found a corner table and we both sat with our backs to the wall so that we could see who came and went. Not that I cared, I just wanted to be blatant.

  A waiter asked what we’d like from the menu and we both chose full English breakfasts and tea.

  As the man left us, Hegarty said, “Crikey, so this is how the other half live?”

  I opened the top incident report. It wasn’t at all interesting, just a log of the arrest of some squaddies enjoying too much R and R. I pointed at some of the timings and Hegarty squinted at the page.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “Whatever I point to,” I said. “And then talk to me. Tell me about the incident.”

  Hesitantly he began to talk and I pretended to be attentive. We went through the first two reports and stopped as our food was delivered. The third report was one I was genuinely interested in.

  I let him take a few mouthfuls before saying, “Tell me about Madam Butterfly.”

  “Was there another one last night?”

  I opened the third report between us so that he could see.

  “Jesus,” he said. “Vernon isn’t going to be happy.”

  “Why Vernon in particular?”

  “Because he’s sworn to bring that damn woman to justice. She’s a royal pain in the backside and has been for more than six months now.”

  He went on to tell me that Madam Butterfly was the name given to an attractive woman of Chinese descent who had the tattoo of a butterfly on her thigh. “She lures soldiers with the promise of sex and the next thing they know, they’ve been knocked out and had all their valuables stolen.”

  “And always soldiers?”

  “Any military it seems—at least they’re the ones we hear about and it makes sense.”

  “Because?”

  “Well especially anyone on shore leave. You’d be amazed at how much cash some of the guys carry around. It’s partly because they’ve been on board ship for weeks and suddenly have both cash and something to spend it on. And partly because they’ve got their pay and don’t want to leave it for someone else to half inch whilst they’re ashore.”

  The latest case was a twenty-year-old Royal Engineer from the 27th Regiment. He had been drinking with his mates at the Penny Black pub. They went shopping and then some of them reconvened at Happy World, a dance hall. He carried on drinking and bought too many dances to remember. In his own words, he thought he had pulled one of the taxi dancers and left with her. He had another drink with her in a bar he couldn’t remember the name of. After she’d finished he asked if she had somewhere to go, assuming they were going to have sex. She had slapped him and disappeared before he returned to his senses. Then he found himself talking to an even more attractive girl. She seemed to like his attention and he bought her a drink. As they chatted, she put her hand on his leg and she gave him that look. Seconds later, they were outside hailing a trishaw. She gave instructions to the driver and they were rapidly cycling through the streets, kissing and fondling as their carriage bounced along. He said he suddenly felt sick and emptied the contents of his stomach just as the tricycle stopped.

  He remembered the girl helping him out of the trishaw and leading him down an alley towards a door. He assumed this was where she lived and she was taking him upstairs but he never got that far. He blacked out and woke with a stinging lump on the side of his head. His watch was gone. So was the cash in his pocket and the more serious money in his boot.

  “It’s typical,” Hegarty said. “And I see we don’t have a clear description of the girl except she wasn’t short, she had a nice dress with a long slit up the side and she was very pretty. The problem with these guys is they are so blind drunk it’s lucky they can remember as much as they do.”

  Hegarty wanted to know if I was leaving my black pudding. I let him have it and waved to the waiter to bring us some toast. I started talking to Hegarty as he polished off my food. When the waiter was within earshot I said, “It’ll be interesting about Sinclair because—” I stopped suddenly as though not wanting the waiter to hear our discussion.

  After he’d left a rack of toast and poured us more tea, Hegarty looked at me. He said, “You were just saying…?”

  “I wanted the waiter to hear Sinclair’s name. If you notice he’ll shortly go over to the far table with four officers on it and give them an update. He’s been trying to hear us for the past ten minutes.”

  Sure enough, the same waiter made his way over to the table and poured the men tea. They hadn’t ordered any. I could see him talking and one of them couldn’t resist a glance in our direction. As soon as the waiter moved away, all four got up and left.

  We kept going with the tea and toast for almost an hour. The number of diners waxed and waned until we were the only ones remaining.

  “What now?” Hegarty asked after long minutes of silence. “Even I can’t eat any more toast.”

  I was about to answer when Robshaw burst through the door. I’d wanted him to be serious but his wild eyes said something very different. They said he had shocking news.

  SEVENTEEN

  Lieutenant Robshaw sat opposite us and took a long breath. “You won’t believe it,” he said.

  “You found information on Sinclair.”

  “I certainly did. And you wanted a link between him and Atkinson, Gaskill’s adjutant.”

  I waited and Robshaw enjoyed the tease. He delayed by slicking back his straw-coloured hair.

  Finally, Hegarty crumbled, “For Christ’s sake, tell us Robbo!”

  “Sinclair was in Korea until eight months ago. He was with the 54th Commonwealth. The move to Singapore was a promotion.”

  “OK,” I said. Nothing shocking so far.

  “His reassignment and promot
ion was signed off by one particular officer.”

  “Atkinson?”

  “Right. Atkinson was also in the 54th. He left a month ago to come here to work for the new general.”

  I looked at the lieutenant. There was more to it.

  He said, “Atkinson was at Tanglin during the war.”

  I already knew this. “But he left with Gaskill before the invasion.”

  “No, he was badly injured. One of the few who made it off by boat.”

  “Anything else?”

  He looked crestfallen. “Isn’t that enough to go on? I assumed you had something on them and just needed the link.”

  “It’s not much.”

  “How about that my source said Atkinson and Sinclair were as thick as thieves—that’s the actual term he used. Thick as thieves.”

  I said nothing.

  Robbo said, “So…?”

  I took a sip of cold tea, thinking. “I’d like both of you to go over to the Stores office and get the inventory ledger.

  “But we checked it only two days ago,” Hegarty said.

  I smiled. “Maybe we missed something. Maybe we didn’t, but let’s take another look at it again anyway.”

  As they left, I told them to remember to be formal. I smiled as they stood to attention, saluted and marched out of the mess.

  They’d been back for forty minutes. I was disappointed that Sinclair hadn’t been in the office. Warrant Officer Cooke had handed over the ledger and the three of us were now looking at the entries, line by line, with me turning the pages. The words and numbers were starting to blur because I wasn’t expecting to see anything. As Atkinson had told me: Sinclair runs a tight ship. We wouldn’t find anything in here even if there was something to find.

  I was starting to think our little trip and the gallons of tea were wasted when the door opened sharply. Sergeant Major Sinclair stood in the doorway. He surveyed the room and immediately matched towards us. He was in full uniform, his medals worn proudly on his left chest and he had a swagger stick under his arm.

  This was the other side of the man. Formal, probably dictatorial like most sergeant majors I’d known. It was a role they had to play and this guy could play it well.