The Singapore School of Villainy (21 page)

Stephen Thwaites stood in the doorway panting, his face an unhealthy shade of grey. ‘Annie, David! Jagdesh is in hospital. He's tried to kill himself!'

Jagdesh lay on a hospital bed in a private room tucked in up to his armpits. He was either unconscious or asleep, his hands lying still and limp on the covers. The solitary sound in the room was the constant beep from the heart rate monitor – its glowing green line forming a hill, then a trough, at regular intervals. As a concession to the exorbitant rates of the private hospital, the curtains were a faded floral print instead of the typical single-tone blue or green. A picture – a print of kittens that appeared to have been cut from a calendar and framed – lent a dismally decorative touch.

Annie asked timidly, ‘What happened?' Both she and the senior partner had been too shocked to speak on the way over.

‘I don't know the details. I just got a call from the hospital. He took an overdose of sleeping pills. His cleaner found him and called an ambulance.'

‘Will he be all right?'

Stephen's rumbling deep voice rendered his answer almost inaudible. ‘I don't know.'

‘Why do you think he did it – tried to kill himself?'

Stephen gave her a sideways glance.

She interpreted it correctly and said, ‘But that's not a good enough reason. I mean, being gay is hardly a crime.'

‘On the contrary.'

‘I know it's a crime
here
. But I don't think the inspector will press charges. He's just using it as leverage because he thinks Jagdesh might have killed Mark.'

‘All I know,' said Stephen heavily, ‘is that Jagdesh behaves like a man with an unbearable burden of guilt!'

Annie nodded. The expression in her limpid brown eyes was pensive.

Their brief vigil at his bedside was interrupted by the unforgiving routine of the hospital that slowed for nothing except death. Two nurses in starched white bustled in. One was so thin as to be almost skeletal, with bony elbows and a forbidding expression. The other was younger and sweeter in appearance but went about her business with the same brutal efficiency. They flipped through his charts, swapped his drips, lifted his eyelids, peered into his eyes and checked his machines. Then, acting in concert and with the supreme coordination of synchronised swimmers, they changed the bedding, raising Jagdesh by the shoulders, fluffing up his pillows, replacing the sheets and somehow making his bed with a minimum of fuss despite the presence in it of a comatose man weighing not less than a hundred kilograms. Annie and Stephen shuffled their feet and tried not to get in the way. It seemed, despite Jagdesh's oblivion, to be an invasion of his privacy.

Finally, when it appeared that the nurses were on the verge of leaving the room without having uttered a sound between them, Stephen asked abruptly, ‘How is he?'

‘No change yet,' said the skinny nurse, her accent indicating that she was one of the Chinese nursing diaspora. ‘The doctor will come back to see him in a few hours.'

‘But, I mean, how is he now? Will he be OK?'

‘Too early to know. They pumped his stomach. But the sleeping tablets were already absorbed into the blood. He's in a coma.' Her normal voice was in stark contrast to Stephen's hushed tone and sounded almost like a shout to Annie's sensitive ears.

The other nurse took pity on him and said, ‘If you need more information, you can ask the doctor later.'

Annie was appalled. Jagdesh was in a coma. He might not come out of it. He might not survive. She stared at the still form. Jagdesh already looked as if death held him by the hand and was leading him away. She shuddered to think of what the police would make of this latest development.

On cue, Inspector Singh waddled into the room, Corporal Fong trailing in his wake. He shook his big head when he saw the bulky figure of his young relative lying as still as the dead against the stark white sheets.

‘What's the prognosis?' he asked, directing the question at the nurses.

It was Annie who answered. ‘He's in a coma. He may not recover.'

‘Young fool!' Singh's words were robbed of their import by his drooping jowls. There was genuine sadness here, thought Annie, for all the inspector's superficial callousness.

‘You lot should be grateful anyway,' continued the policeman, his gaze still focused on the unmoving man.

‘What do you mean?' asked Stephen harshly.

‘It will save Hutchinson & Rice the embarrassment of a trial if they have to pull the plug.'

‘What trial?' Stephen exclaimed.

‘For murdering Mark Thompson,' Inspector Singh replied.

‘But why do you think he did it?' asked Annie.

‘His lying there looks a bit like a confession, to Superintendent Chen, at least.' Perhaps anticipating their outburst, he continued, ‘And so does this!' He took a sheet of paper wrapped in cellophane out of the file he was carrying.

Stephen almost snatched it from his hand and he and Annie stared together at the single sheet of paper torn from a notebook. In black ink, in Jagdesh's unmistakable scrawl, were written the words, “I'm sorry. I'm so ashamed. I cannot carry on.”

 

Mrs Singh was aghast.

‘He tried to kill himself?'

The inspector could see that she did not believe him – she probably thought he had his facts wrong or was trying to annoy her with a childish made-up story.

‘He's in a coma, unlikely to recover.'

She sat down suddenly, her caftan billowing out and then settling on her bony knees.

‘Why? My God! Why? What will his mother say?'

‘The family has been notified already.'

‘But they haven't called me.' Her surprise was evident in her tone, the voice higher than normal and staccato.

Singh knew that his wife had been in close contact with Jagdesh's family all through the investigation. She had been like a mosquito buzzing in his ear, demanding that he release the young man's passport so that he could return to India for his sister's wedding and insisting that Jagdesh Singh would never have been involved in a murder. She had been a very effective mouthpiece for her faraway relatives on the subject of the guilt or innocence of one of his suspects. As if that was not enough, she had invited him to dinner. Singh profoundly hoped that Superintendent Chen never found out that the boy's last supper before he tried to top himself had been at the Singh residence.

Mrs Singh asked again, ‘But why would he try and kill himself? Maybe someone else did it!'

‘There was a note,' said Singh crossly.

He didn't need his wife putting it out that Jagdesh Singh had been the victim of attempted murder. He quaked to think of what his superiors would say if such a rumour reached the press.

‘What did it say? What did the note say?'

‘The usual…'

‘You think he murdered his boss? And that's why he tried to kill himself?'

Singh said bluntly, ‘Yes.'

He wasn't sure – he wasn't sure at all. But expressing uncertainty would only provoke his wife to new heights of persistence in her nagging of him. And the fact remained that Jagdesh's closely guarded secret had been in the hands of his dead employer. He had Maria's testimony to that effect. As far as Superintendent Chen was concerned, Jagdesh had an unimpeachable motive for murder. And his own opinion would not count for much if Superintendent Chen had his way.

Singh watched his wife carefully, curious to see if he had shaken her calm faith in the natural order of things. Mrs Singh shook her head energetically from side to side. A few tendrils of hair escaped from her tight bun, a definite sign that she was agitated. ‘I can't believe it. He's from such a good family, a well-brought-up boy. You're making a mistake.' She paused for breath and then continued, ‘I have no idea why he would try and kill himself. Must have been some girl, probably Chinese. I
knew
I needed to find him a wife. It's all your fault, tying him up in this murder investigation so that he was too busy to meet some nice girls.'

Aggravated by her persistence, the inspector snapped, ‘He was found in bed with a Chinese
man
.'

‘What?' Her eyebrows leapt up two inches.

It was difficult, decided Singh, to discern whether she was more horrified by the homosexuality or the multi-racial nature of Jagdesh's assignation.

‘He's gay – Mark Thompson found out. Jagdesh Singh killed him and then in a fit of remorse, or because his homosexuality is now out in the open, he tried to kill himself.'

‘That's why they haven't called me. They must be too embarrassed.'

Singh squinted at his wife and realised she had reverted to talking about Jagdesh's family.

‘No wonder he wasn't married! And those people wanted me to find him a wife…can you believe it?' Mrs Singh was angry now. ‘How could I find a wife for a pervert?'

Singh suspected that she felt as if she had somehow been used unfairly, set up to look like a fool, hunting for a wife for a gay man.

‘Now are you prepared to believe he's a murderer?' he asked, morbidly curious to see if he was about to witness a moment of rare self-doubt.

He had underestimated his wife. Her mouth puckered in distaste, as if she had added too much lime pickle to a spoonful of rice. ‘Of course he did it!' she said adamantly, ignoring her previous diametrically opposite views.

Singh's tufty eyebrows bunched up with annoyance. He thought of his insistence to Superintendent Chen that being gay was unlikely to be a secret worth killing to preserve and the older policeman's relief that the murderer might turn out to be someone whom he viewed as a deviant member of society. He glared at Mrs Singh. It was not difficult to imagine a young gay man going to almost any lengths to avoid the vilification of such intolerant members of society as his worthy wife and his tiresome boss.

 

Stephen pressed a button and the clear glass walls became opaque. The yellow lighting made the collection of lawyers appear sallow and unhealthy. A tray of untouched sandwiches sat at the centre of the pine table. Mineral water bottles were laid out at regular intervals. The secretaries were ever efficient although the legal firm that employed them was fraying at the seams.

Stephen glanced at the other lawyers. The intervening week had wrought many changes.

This time it was Ai Leen who seemed the most careworn and fragile, her face wan under her make-up, bluish shadows beneath her eyes, a scarf wound unfashionably tight around her neck as if she was trying to ward off a chill. Her united front with Reggie appeared to have faltered. She shrank from him and sought the chair furthest away, avoiding catching his eye.

Reggie, on the other hand, had gained in confidence. He leaned forward and grabbed a ham and cheese sandwich, shovelling it into his mouth and munching with genuine enjoyment. He did not seem to have a care in the world. Stephen felt his stomach turn as he watched him devouring his lunch, tearing away at the sandwich like a half-starved carnivore.

Stephen looked around the room as if to gauge whether they had the strength to absorb further bad news. He said, ‘You've probably all heard that Jagdesh is in hospital.' There were a few nods. ‘He's in a coma. The doctors are unsure if he'll recover.'

‘David said he tried to kill himself. Is that true?' asked Ai Leen.

‘I'm afraid so,' answered Stephen grimly.

No one responded. To hear the rumour confirmed was a shock.

Ai Leen broke the silence. ‘But why? I don't understand.'

Stephen exchanged a look with David; this was the moment of truth if they were to reveal Jagdesh's carefully maintained secret. He hesitated for a moment before speaking. ‘I'm afraid we don't know why he tried to do this.'

Reggie, true to form, was the first to articulate the possibilities. ‘Does it have something to do with the murder?'

‘There's no reason to think so!' snapped Stephen. He saw Annie look at him in surprise. He knew that this was a contradiction of his earlier position that Jagdesh's behaviour was that of a man with an unbearable burden of guilt. But however strongly he felt that Jagdesh might have killed Mark, he could not bring himself to agree overtly with Reggie.

Reggie pounced on his denial. ‘Why else would he have done it, you know, tried to top himself?'

‘What are you trying to say, Reggie?' asked Stephen.

A cold voice answered, ‘It's quite obvious, isn't it? He's accusing Jagdesh of murder.' The thin, disgusted voice belonged to Annie.

Reggie asked shrewdly, ‘What do the police think?'

Stephen said, ‘They consider it a possibility.'

Again, there was quiet in the room as everyone took in his words.

‘What about Quentin?' asked Reggie.

‘I guess they have more than one suspect.' Stephen sounded resigned to the reality that two of his partners were in the frame for the murder of Mark Thompson.

A broad smile broke over Reggie's face. ‘Well,
that's
the first good news I've heard in a long while.'

His smirk was interrupted by the door opening. They all turned around as one.

Quentin Holbrooke stood at the entrance. He was even thinner than when they had last seen him but his clothes were as tidy as ever and his thin hair was combed neatly away from his forehead. He might have been returning to the office after a couple of days off sick instead of having been incarcerated in a Singapore jail for drug-related offences. Stephen saw that his colleagues were staring at Quentin as if he was the ghost of Hamlet's father. And in a way, he was returning from the dead, thought the senior partner.

Quentin said in a quiet voice, his tone hoarse, ‘They released me. Inspector Singh let me go.'

‘How come?' asked Reggie.

Quentin raised his skinny shoulders, the bony outlines protruding sharply through his shirt, to indicate that he did not know.

‘They're not pressing charges? For the drugs?' It was David who ventured the question, his brows knitted together in puzzlement.