Free Suddenly at Singapore by Gavin Black Page A

order.”
    “It’s too late. I phoned up from Gemas. The lorries will be here.”
    “You trust a Chinese contractor?”
    “This one, yes. There’s enough money involved.”
    “There’d be more money for selling you out.”
    “This man won’t do it. There’s as much at stake for him as me. I’ve used this overland route twice before.”
    “Yes, but now they’re much nearer, they’re watching. Don’t ask me how I know, I do. They’re stronger, Paul. I’m an old man. What you’re doing isn’t going to stop them. You know that yourself.”
    “Perhaps.”
    “Then why go on?” He paused. “No, no, I don’t ask you that. Mix yourself a drink.”
    I went over to a table thinking that our security wasn’t too good, this talk in a room that opened into another and then another. His boys might be spies, though that wasn’t likely, they were Malays from Trengganu. He’d had experience of spies amongst his servants and knew what to look for.
    “What for you?” I asked.
    “Nothing. I can’t take it any more. That’s what our doctor says. He’s a Tamil and a fool, but I obey him. I fan my little life.”
    “I hope you go on doing that a long time.”
    “Yes, yes. Paul, it took away a lot of my courage, what happened to your brother. Not for myself. I don’t mind what happens. Why should I? But you should mind. You know what I say to you now? Get out of Malaya!”
    “Where do you suggest? A nice island in the South Seas? I daresay I’ve got the bank account to be a desirable citizen in Tahiti. Ever been there?”
    “No.”
    “It’s preserved. It’s a monument.”
    “Paul! Are you looking for Jeff’s killer … this way?”
    There was a stool near the old man. I took my drink over and sat on it.
    “That’s not easy to answer. I mean to find the killer. But I’m not rushing it. I thought about how Jeff would have approached this if it had been me instead of him. He’d have gone slowly, he always did. He’d have taken a deep breath and gone on quietly about his business, waiting. That’s what I’m trying to do now.”
    “Have you thought that it might be a hired assassin who simply came into this country to do the job and then went out again?”
    “Then why not get both of us together?”
    “That might have been the intention!”
    “No. Whoever killed Jeff knew his habits. He would also know mine, and that we were rarely together in Jeff’s apartment. I haven’t had a drink with him at that hour twice in a year.”
    “But there’s another thing,” de Vorwooerd said. “They may have wanted Jeff dead and you a prisoner.”
    “I’ve thought of that. It’s what I’m watching for.”
    “Paul! I don’t feel you’re watching for anything. I know I’m an old man. I’m subject to fears and tremors which don’t come when you’re younger. My fear tonight … ever since I knew you would be coming here … it’s like something I felt in Java in those last months. Something against which I was helpless. There was no use mustering strength to fight because the time for that was over. You can call this superstition if you like. I don’t know. I just know it’s here.”
    The old man thumped a thin chest. It was rather horrible to watch. He was trembling. I thought what a mistake it had been for Jeff and me to use him, even in this minor way as a kind of signalling post. He was of an age to be uncommitted and he’d earned this, a peace in rooms designed by himself, to be alone with a dream of a whole world now being forgotten, as though it had been wiped out. I felt ashamed that Kim Sung had been free to come here, to make use of de Vorwooerd.
    “It’ll be all right,” I said. “You’ll see. It was all right before. Look, I’ll go out and find Kim Sung. I can get to the estuary all right. You have a boat …”
    “No! Let him come here. I’ll tell him what you have to say. What is it?”
    “The lorries are coming over on the last ferry at Jerantut. They’re waiting in the jungle