Aunty Lee's Delights Part 7

"I don't think so. No, she didn't. But I got the impression it was someone special." He lowered his voice. "But better not mention it to that young woman who just left. I got the impression there's something going on between them. Or so one would like to think, anyway."

This was noted, though the senior officer did not remark on it. "Marianne Peters didn't give you any idea who she was meeting? Male or female . . . family member perhaps?"

The way he had picked on that point for further questioning made Harry Sullivan certain that the police knew something had happened to Marianne. "Do you mean she's really missing? I thought it was just that woman overreacting. If you asked me, I would have said Marianne probably chose to duck out of the way because that woman was being a stalker." Again he triggered a spike in interest. And again they said nothing.

"That first week was so long ago. I think Laura went back in to talk to Selina. She was pretty upset about what happened, I remember. We all were a bit. I thought it was a big joke, but you know how people are here."

"What happened?" the officer asked. Of course he knew, Harry Sullivan thought, he just wanted to hear another side of the story. Well, since he was there, he would give them all the help he could.

"Laura Kwee had some trouble holding her liquor. She wasn't used to it. She was drinking and talking loudly, you know how they are. The ones that aren't used to it are the worst. She had made cupcakes. She was going on about decorating them, how she planned to make her own engagement and wedding cakes herself out of cupcakes because decorating them was an art form. Gave me the impression she had a bit of a crush on our chief instructor, if you ask me. His wife saw it too. I think she was more put out than he was.

"Selina, is that right? Mrs. Selina Lee. She was still in there with the drunk woman and Marianne went back in there to talk to them. Her brother and his wife had already gone off. I got the impression Marianne wanted to smooth things over before anything got too out of hand. She was that kind of girl, very peace loving. A peacemaker. Selina was going to call a taxi to get Laura home and Marianne said she could share it with her, but Selina said that was ridiculous because Marianne lived five minutes away. But that was the kind of thing Marianne would offer to do. She was a really nice girl. Not that anything serious could have worked out between us, of course. I'm happy being on my own right now. No sense rushing into anything, right? Much better to settle down, see where I am and where I'm going first."

SSS Salim thought the man was protesting too much. He guessed Harry Sullivan had asked Marianne Peters out and been turned down.

"The woman who got drunk-that was Laura Kwee, wasn't it?"

Harry Sullivan nodded. "I didn't like to say-with how things ended up and all. But she was pretty much plastered."

"And you thought that she might be having an affair with someone there? Like Mark Lee?"

Harry shook his head. "I think she had a thing for him. And from the way he was reacting, I'd say he'd done her a couple of times. But affair-no way. I know people, you know what I mean? I sense things that are going on. I think Laura Kwee had something on with her friend's husband and he was trying to dump her. It was all the tension there. That night she was all over him, saying it was stupid to hide his feelings from her when everybody already knew and so on. How she loved baking and his wife wouldn't even fry him an egg. It was clear his wifey didn't like it. I don't know if she was aware the two of them were carrying on before, but after that she sure did. We all did. If I were you, I would look into that. You should go and find out more about her."

SSS Salim made a mental note to ask Mark Lee and his wife about this. He had already spoken to both of them earlier, but neither had mentioned it-not surprising, perhaps. Officer Pang made a note. Attempts to meet them again had been fended off with the excuse that they were both very busy all the time. But that was how it was with most people in Singapore unless they were tourists or retired. SSS Salim was all for respecting the residents, but if Mark and Selina Lee did not make time to see him soon, he was going to have to insist.

"So do you have any thoughts on what might have happened that night after Laura left? Or who may have sent that text if not her?"

Harry Sullivan paused before speaking. He had not expected the police to ask his opinion, though he should have. After all, he had been present when the message came through.

"It might have been a complete stranger-to the dinners, I mean. Obviously it had to be someone Laura Kwee knew. Maybe he or she wanted to see whether Laura would be missed and wanted to delay the alarm being raised till he could leave the country or something like that."

SSS Salim seemed to think that this was a good point. "But wouldn't it be more important for the person who sent the message to make sure her colleagues at work, her family, and so on didn't miss her?"

"Maybe he did. Maybe he's just a very thorough person, who believes in covering all bases."

That was true too. But though SSS Salim did not say so, thoroughness was not a term he would have chosen to describe whoever had put Laura Kwee into the sea.

"You were outside for some time smoking, I hear-"

"So? That's not a crime, is it?"

"Actually it is. But that's not the issue right now. Did you see anyone while you were there? Man, woman, anyone who seemed to be watching or hanging around?"

"No. And no offense, but I still have some trouble telling people apart here. Right now they all still look the same to me."

Neither Harry Sullivan nor the Cunninghams had added anything substantial to SSS Salim's information. All they could say was that Laura Kwee had definitely been expected until the arrival of her text message. And that Selina had been so angry that the anger could not have been put on.

Frank Cunningham had said, "There was something not quite right that night, but I can't put my finger on what it was. Part of the problem of growing old."

SSS Salim did not make much of that. People were always sensing something strange after something strange had already happened. He did not really think any of the people he had spoken to that day had anything to do with Laura Kwee's death. All he was trying to do was establish where Laura Kwee had been last seen or heard from. A neighbor had seen her arriving home in a taxi the night of the previous wine dining. Thanks to this neighbor and the taxi company, they had managed to trace the driver of the taxi, who remembered Laura but could not remember her saying or doing anything that would be helpful to the investigation. The next morning Laura had phoned her office to say she was down with the flu and taking two days off. SSS Salim double-checked that the colleague Laura called had spoken to her in person.

"Yes, it was her for certain.

"No, she didn't sound funny or anything. I mean she sounded really sick. I told her to be sure to go to the doctor because she sounded really sick. Do you know what happened to her yet?"

So Laura had been alive then. "Did she call you from her home phone or her mobile phone, do you know?"

"Laura only had a mobile phone because she was the only one living there. She took her phone everywhere with her, so she didn't see any reason to pay for another line."

And Laura had taken her phone home with her. But then, if Laura had taken her phone home, how had it gotten into the burning bin outside Aunty Lee's Delights?

SSS Salim was still waiting to hear back from Laura's parents in Malaysia. They said they wouldn't be able to make it down to Singapore but would send a family representative and gave permission for the police to go through the things in Laura's flat. They didn't know anything about a boyfriend or problems or whether anyone had threatened Laura recently.

"She was a very good girl," her mother said on the phone. "She would phone us once a month. And every time she would tell us not to worry about her. We wanted her to settle down. Get married. We wanted to find her a good husband. But she enjoyed her independence too much. Especially after-" The gentle voice broke off.

"Especially after what?"

"I'm sorry. Nothing. We knew she was seeing some man."

Laura's father's voice cut in. "She never had any time to come back and see us. She used to phone once a month but lately we never heard from her. If her mother tried to phone her, she would get angry because she was so busy, had no time to talk. I knew that she must be seeing some man. So serious about him she had no time to talk to her own parents. What is the point of having children? I ask you. When they grow up they all have no time for their parents!"

Whether or not Laura Kwee had been involved with someone in Singapore, she had certainly lost touch with her family in Penang. That was the sad thing about chances that can lead to a better life, SSS Salim thought, remembering the scholarships that had opened doors for him. If you succeeded in creating a new life for yourself, what happened to the people who had been a part of the old one? On an impulse he picked up his cell phone and called his mother. As it rang he wondered whether he had time to make it back to her flat for dinner; she was sure to invite him.

"Call from Central on line one," Officer Song opened the door to say. "Sounds like bad news. And there's something strange about Miss Laura Kwee's apartment. It looks like somebody broke into it, but it must have happened after she disappeared, according to the neighbors."

SSS Salim cut off his own phone before it was answered. He knew what the bad news was before he heard it. In fact, ever since speaking to old Mrs. Lee, he had been expecting it. There was no way he would be making it home to see his mother that night.

In spite of a dampening weather prediction of "scattered showers over some parts of Singapore," it was crowded on Sentosa, the resort island off Singapore, over the Chinese New Year. This year the first day of the lunar new year fell on a Thursday. Many local people would be visiting relatives or Chinese friends and colleagues while those less socially or traditionally inclined took advantage of the nine-day holiday stretch that materialized if one judiciously applied for just three days of leave between weekends. Because of that, most of the people who had crossed over to Sentosa from Singapore that day via causeway, boardwalk, cable car, monorail, or ferry were tourists. For the most part they were looking for ways to occupy themselves since the Chinese New Year was the one time of year when Singaporeans focused more on themselves and families than on pleasing tourists and other visitors.

It was a visiting Canadian couple who got tired of crowds and giant rabbits, crafted out of plastic, plants, and soda cans for the incoming Chinese zodiac year, the Year of the Rabbit. They went off the beaten track. The husband was an amateur botanist interested in tropical flora and his wife was sufficiently in love with him not to find his pa.s.sion tedious. Plunging muddily through the mangroves, they found themselves at last at the junction of waters where debris washed up by the incoming waves lurked till the tides changed their direction again.

"Look at all the garbage. All that plastic-think of the poor sea creatures. It's terrible."

"And the smell-there is a dead fish somewhere. Or maybe it's a dead dog . . . Look, over there-there's something in a bag-"

But it was not a dead dog. It was the body of a very dead woman.

9.

Marianne Peters Aunty Lee slept deeply but restlessly. She was sitting facing M. L. Lee and he was smiling as he said to her, "Can I take your hand?" And Aunty Lee felt so overwhelmingly happy, wanting to say so many things at the same time, from "Yes! Yes!" to "Do you remember those are the words that you proposed to me with? And every time you say them to me, I feel as though you are proposing to me again?" and "That is what I miss about you most of all-now I can look at you all the time but I can never touch you," and she was a young woman again; the young girl M. L. Lee had proposed to.

And then she saw Nina. For a moment she was angry with her. Nina of all people should have known how little time Aunty Lee had with her husband now that he was dead. Nina was approaching them, walking toward them from a great distance across the padang with a piece of paper-Aunty Lee knew at once that it was a telegram carrying bad news; apart from the one announcing the birth of a child, most telegrams brought news of death. Aunty Lee decided she and M. L. Lee would run away from Nina. She already knew what the bad news was, but as long as Nina did not deliver the telegram, it did not have to be true. But M. L. Lee did not run with her. He was already fading and insubstantial and Aunty Lee could not feel the hands she tried to take in her own desperate fingers. The knowledge she was trying so hard to deny was already more substantial around her than the man she so longed to keep alive by her side.

"Wouldn't you rather know the truth?" M. L. Lee asked her without speaking.

"No. I don't want to know it. I don't want it to be true!" Aunty Lee thought desperately at him.

"That ang moh man asks very funny questions," M. L. Lee said to her. "You should see what he has written about you so far in his notebook. He is writing about you for that magazine, you know."

Aunty Lee said desperately, "I don't care what anybody writes as long as you stay alive." But it was no good. She had lost him again. The downside of hope was how rapidly and miserably you crashed each time you lost it. Again.

Then Aunty Lee realized that Nina was not telling her that M. L. Lee was dead. They had moved back into the present (she knew, as she noticed the liver-colored age spots on her hands) and Nina was saying, "They found another body. They think it is Marianne Peters," and Aunty Lee looked around to see that she was not the only one who did not want to hear the news. Carla Saito was sitting curled up on the ground, scrunched up into a ball with her hands covering her ears to shut out the news. Beyond her, standing close together, Aunty Lee could see Marianne Peters's family: her father and mother, her brother and his wife, and, next to them, Mathilda, M. L. Lee's daughter, who was saying, "Aren't you glad I'm safely far away in England?"

"Should we tell her?" Nina said, now standing over Carla Saito. "You should tell her. Her friend is dead. She will want to know."

No, she wouldn't, Aunty Lee thought. She would certainly not want to hear. But Nina was going to tell Carla and Aunty Lee knew she had to stop her. This was not news you could just break to someone. Aunty Lee knew this because she knew what it was like to be given "news" you already knew but were doing all you could to shut out. But Nina and Carla Saito were suddenly miles away, though Aunty Lee could still see them clearly, the way one can see only in dreams, and even as Aunty Lee struggled to shout out to Nina, she could tell it was too late.

And then Aunty Lee woke up. It was still dark in her bedroom. Her morning tea was not yet on her bedside table. That meant it was not yet six-thirty in the morning and that M. L. Lee was long dead. Aunty Lee lay savoring her regret for a moment, then she remembered the events of the previous evening and she was instantly wide-awake.

Aunty Lee pressed the buzzer for Nina. It was just past six but Nina appeared within minutes with her tea and the newspapers. Aunty Lee fumbled through the books and papers on her bedside table looking for her reading gla.s.ses.

"Did Salim find out anything else?" Aunty Lee asked Nina. "Anything that's not in the papers?" Not finding her spectacles, she reached for the newspapers anyway.

"Drink your tea, ma'am," Nina said. Deftly she stacked the things on the bedside table, retrieved the reading gla.s.ses from behind the table lamp, and handed them to her employer.

Something in Nina's manner made Aunty Lee stop fussing to watch her. "Tell me," she said.

"Ma'am, they found the dead body of Marianne Peters."

"Identified?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Without saying anything further, Aunty Lee put on her spectacles and read the article for herself. SECOND MURDER VICTIM FOUND ON SENTOSA, the headline screamed. After saying the body had been identified as that of Marianne Beatrice Peters, aged twenty-eight, it went on to say that this second female body was less decomposed than Laura Kwee's had been. Though this body was similarly packed in plastic wrap, it seemed to have been more meticulously wrapped and taped, which might have been why it had taken longer for enough decomposition gases to bloat it up enough to bring it to the surface. Preliminary tests suggested that this victim probably died several days before Laura Kwee, who had been found on Sunday morning.

"Ma'am, you want me to bring your soft egg and toast up here?" Nina was also shocked by the news, but feeding her employer was her responsibility.

"No. I'll get up and go downstairs. We're going out and I want to prepare some things first." Aunty Lee swung her legs off the bed, startling Nina. She had her own responsibilities as she saw them.

"Are we going to see Professor and Mrs. Peters, ma'am?"

"No. I want to drop off a note, thank you for reminding me, but I think they will have enough on their minds right now-"

SSS Salim studied the report. Two bodies of young women found in four days-this was something that belonged on television, not on the beaches of law-abiding Singapore. Press and public opinion would be all over them for not doing anything to catch the killer before he struck again.

It was not that Salim was afraid of being blamed-he was a very small fish in this pond. What surprised him was that this information had been sent to him at all. It was true that one of the dead women had lived in his jurisdiction, but because of the family concerned, he had not even had to take on the task of notifying them. It turned out that the commissioner of police was a family friend of the Peterses' and was taking care of it personally. Salim had no doubt that everything would be taken care of by senior, experienced officers.

He was not sorry about this. SSS Salim knew he was a responsible, hardworking man who had risen through the ranks through his own efforts. He could do a good routine job. But when it came to crimes like this, he felt unskilled compared to officers with more qualifications-for example Commissioner Raja, who not only had a law degree from a Singapore university but further degrees in criminology and criminal psychology from Cambridge and Harvard . . . and who had already left two messages asking SSS Salim to call him in his office and then on his private cell phone when Salim arrived at work at 7:15 a.m.

SSS Salim's first thought was that he was being considered for transfer. This was swiftly discarded. He had only recently received his current appointment and had done nothing so far to justify further recognition. His second thought was that he was being reprimanded. One dead woman had been last seen alive in his neighborhood jurisdiction and the other had lived there. Or HQ had found someone more senior and experienced to put in charge of this suddenly hot district. A transfer would be unfair and unjust, but Salim felt it not unlikely. He also realized that he did not want to give up his posting even though he had not wanted it to begin with. But he could hardly tell his superiors that he wanted to stay on because the recent deaths had suddenly made the job interesting.

He put the call through to the commissioner, feeling a mixture of dread and determination. But what the police commissioner said took him completely by surprise. Even now he was not sure what to do about it. He had not mentioned it to the rest of the staff, who were no doubt also wondering whether he was being fired or demoted. He had not joined them in placing breakfast "orders," but they had brought him a packet of Kopi-O (black coffee with sugar) and a packet of noodles nonetheless. He had not paid anyone for them and both remained untouched on the side table in his office when he heard the knock on his door.

"Sir?" Officer Pang opened the door without waiting to be invited in. The younger man had spent as little time asleep as Salim had, but seemed very little the worse for wear. Salim suddenly felt old. He was in his thirties, his mother was always reminding him no woman would marry a policeman (high danger, low pay), and now the hours were starting to get him down. Perhaps it was time to start looking around for another line of work. But what? When Officer Pang did not continue, SSS Salim looked up from his papers to see what was wrong.

Aunty Lee was standing right behind Officer Pang. The only reason she was still outside his office was that Officer Pang had physically blocked the doorway with his uniformed bulk-for the time being at least. Even though the top of Aunty Lee's head barely reached above the officer's shoulder, she was already making inroads into the office, looking around him and even under his arm.

"Senior Staff Sergeant Salim? Can we just have a moment of your time?"

"Madam, please," Officer Pang told her patiently, "will you wait outside. I will inform you if he is free to see you-"

"It's still so early. I'm sure you haven't had time for breakfast. You are allowed to eat here, right? You have to keep your strength up on the job."

SSS Salim gestured to his a.s.sistant to let his visitors in. He might as well make one old lady happy that morning. Of course he had work waiting for him, but then he always had work waiting, that was nothing new.

Aunty Lee had brought him breakfast. Nina followed him through the door that Officer Pang held open, looking both amused and confused. Terrorists should dress up as old ladies, SSS Salim reflected. Regardless of their training, most Singapore officers were conditioned to show respect to their elders, however eccentric. He gave Officer Pang an excusing nod.

"Yes, Mrs. Lee? How can I help you?"

"h.e.l.lo, Salim. Actually I was hoping we could help each other. Such terrible news, right? That poor, poor girl. I watched her grow up, you know. And it must be so terrible for her parents also. Such a shock. They thought she was on holiday, you know?"

It so happened that SSS Salim did know this. He was pleased to be able to say, "We have already spoken to them. Of course, we welcome any information that you can give us, but you know you can always make a report even if you don't see me-"

Aunty Lee had settled herself down in one of the two chairs facing him. Nina laid out the breakfast they had brought for him: homemade nasi lemak, a coconut-cream-coated rice dish that was already fragrant through the waxy banana leaf that enclosed it. Nina unwrapped the steaming package to reveal fried egg, deep-fried ikan kuning, cuc.u.mber slices, and a generous dollop of sambal over a mix of ikan bilis and peanuts.

"Don't worry," Aunty Lee said. "We also brought for your people outside. Also some epok-epok for later. My special recipe-we made both sardine and potato."

"This could be considered bribery." SSS Salim was only partly joking.

"Nonsense. We citizens want to show our appreciation to you nice young men for keeping us safe . . . what's so wrong with that? Anyway, you have to eat, right? If this is your breakfast time, then I am not taking up so much of your work time. Anyway, I spoke to your Commissioner Raja-"

"What?" Startled, SSS Salim half stood up in his seat.

"Careful you don't spill your tea. I made masala tea. It is a new recipe, I'm still experimenting. You tell me what you think of it? Where was I? Oh yes. I met your commissioner, that nice Inspector Raja, at the Peterses' place yesterday. I told him I had spoken with you about this-even before the poor girl was found."

SSS Salim wondered whether Aunty Lee had just managed to sabotage his whole career.

"I told him when we spoke you were concerned about poor Marianne and tried to investigate her whereabouts, but her family insisted she was away on holiday. And I thought that if given the opportunity, you could probably pick up a lot more because you are here at gra.s.sroots level."

"I see," SSS Salim said, though he did not see. He suspected that the commissioner had been caught by surprise by Aunty Lee and mouthed polite responses till someone came to rescue him.

"So I told him what I thought he should do and he said I could speak to you, to see if you are okay with it."

"I see," SSS Salim said again. The nasi lemak smelled temptingly of coconut, reminding him of how his late grandmother's nasi lemak used to taste. Recently he had only tasted the dish out of the takeaway packets sold along the walk from the MRT station. He could have afforded a car, but reasoned that he had the official car for official duties, and if the minister for transport could take the train to work, he felt he ought to too. Besides, there was always the matter of saving up for the future . . .

Looking across to Nina, Salim saw she was watching him as though following his thoughts, and he quickly looked away. He was being absurd.

"So what do you have to tell me?" he asked Aunty Lee.

"I got these for you." Aunty Lee put a file on the table. "The contacts for the friends that Marianne Peters was supposed to be on holiday with. And what they said she told them. It's all there. I think they were afraid of being blamed by the family or accused of lying by the police, so they didn't say much at your official interview, but I think you'll find it quite interesting. There was definitely someone else involved. You'll see, they say she mentioned someone trying to lend her his chalet to show what a nice guy he is? And after this, I'm going to talk to Carla Saito-you've already interviewed her, right?-about exactly what Marianne was hoping to do. Why don't you try your epok-epok before it gets cold? I made it this morning. Straight from the kitchen. Your commissioner likes it very much also. By the way, he thinks very highly of you, you know."

Salim took a tentative bite of the fried batter puff. If it was good enough for Commissioner Raja, it was good enough for him. Then he forgot all about the commissioner as the hot savory mix of chili, onion, sardine, and-was it lime?-burst out of its crisp casing in his mouth. This was possibly the most sensational epok-epok he had tasted since his late grandmother's death. Unlike the usual Chinese version, the pastry was thick and rich, and the savory mix of seasoned fish, potato, and hard-boiled egg inside almost made him swoon. He looked across at Aunty Lee with something like devotion in his eyes.