Free Umbrella Man (9786167611204) by Jake Needham

assigned us
the body at the Woodlands.”
    “But what if the two cases are
connected?”
    “Connected? How are they connected?”
    “I have no fucking idea.”
    “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t understand.”
    “Then I suggest you come down here and sit
where I’ve been sitting for the last few hours. Look at what these
people have done to our country, and then tell me you don’t
understand.”
    Kang fell silent. That was what he usually
did when Tay took off on one of his flights of fancy. He had long
ago decided that was the safer course for him to follow.
    “They are not going to take this case
away from me. I’m not going to let them put us out to pasture when
the worst crime in the history of Singapore has to be solved. We
are going to find out who did this and then I’m going to wrap it
all up in a pretty package and shove it right down their fucking
throats. And they can choke on it for all I care. Do you understand
me, Robbie?”
    There was a short silence, and then Sergeant
Kang cleared his throat again.
    “Yes, sir,” he said. “I understand you.”
    “Good,” Tay said.
    Then he turned off his phone, shoved it in
his trouser pocket, and walked slowly east toward Emerald Hill and
the house where he had lived for all of his life.

 
     

ELEVEN
     
    TWENTY MINUTES LATER Tay was sitting in his
garden lighting his first Marlboro of the evening. His city lay in
ruins, hundreds were dead, thousands were injured, and he was
investigating a single dead man found in an apartment at the
Woodlands HDB estate. That seemed to him about as important as what
he was doing right then: smoking a cigarette.
    He had wanted a cigarette the whole time he
was sitting on that metal chest in the middle of the security area
and struggling to take in the destruction all around him. But it
had seemed wrong to smoke there, disrespectful somehow, and so he
hadn’t. He was ready now to make up for lost time.
    While he smoked, he thought about the dead
man in the Woodlands apartment. He pictured the man’s face. Did he
know him?
    He did. He was sure of it.
    But then again, he didn’t.
    And at exactly the moment he was thinking
that, he heard a woman’s voice.
    ***
    “Of course, you know him, Samuel,” she said,
startling him out of his reverie. “You’re not senile. Not yet, at
least.”
    Tay looked around, but he was alone in the
garden. Of course, he was alone in the garden. Had a neighbor
spoken from beyond his wall?
    “You don’t even recognize my voice, do
you?”
    He did, but how could he? His mother was
dead.
    “A son who forgets his own mother’s voice.
What kind of a son is that?”
    Tay looked around again. Was this an
elaborate prank of some sort? Surely not. No one pulled pranks on
Sam Tay.
    “My God, Samuel, are you just going to sit
there like a moron? Speak up, boy.”
    “Uh…hello, Mother.”
    He felt like an idiot, but something made him
afraid to keep silent.
    “That’s better. How are you, boy?”
    “I’m fine,” Tay offered, his voice tentative.
“How are you?”
    “How am I? I’m dead, Samuel. That’s how I am.
Dead.”
    “So…how is it?”
    “How is it to be dead? Is this your idea of
small talk, Samuel?”
    “No, I just don’t know what to say and—”
    “If you must know, it’s not a barrel of
laughs. But you’ll find out for yourself soon enough.”
    Tay’s heart began to beat faster. Was that
what this meant? Was he about to die and this is how it happened?
Someone from your past appeared to you and told you that you
were about to die?
    “Are you telling me I’m going to die,
Mother.”
    “Oh, for God’s sake.” The tone in his
mother’s voice was one he remembered all too well. “Of course,
you’re going to die, Samuel. But probably not tonight. How should I
know? I’m dead, not clairvoyant.”
    “I just thought—”
    “Stop talking, Samuel. I don’t have much time
here so I want you to listen to me carefully.”
    Tay said nothing. Were the dead given
something