Free Suddenly at Singapore by Gavin Black Page B

until an hour before dawn, when they’ll go down the track Kim knows near the ferry here. The bank there is like a dock. Kim knows what to do. When the junks are unloaded they’re to clear off. It’ll be light by then, but they can go downstream without their motors.”
    “What about coming up? They have to use the motors then, don’t they? What if they’re heard?”
    “They weren’t last time. Besides, launches use the river.”
    “Your junks have diesels, it isn’t the same sound at all. Paul, you are chancing it again.”
    “You have to a lot of times in this game.”
    “Ach!” de Vorwooerd said, like a sigh. “Give me a schnapps after all. A small one. What about Kim? You’re not seeing him this time?”
    “There’s no need. I’ve got everything laid on. I want him to clear off and he’s not to go near Pulao Tioman. The Jap ship may have been spotted anchored there. Keep well away. In ten days he’s to bring his junks to Singapore and anchor. He can come up to my office. If the local police seem interested he’s not to mind. Can you remember all that?”
    “Of course. I think he’ll be pleased to do some normal trading. And he never liked going to that pagar of your brother’s.”
    “Neither did I much. De Vorwooerd, can I bring a friend to see you to-morrow?”
    “A friend? What is this? An excursion for pleasure?”
    He looked almost angry, that beard stuck out at me.
    “In a way. I think you’ll like her.”
    “ Haut ver dammer ! A woman! No! I’m too old for parties.”
    “I’m bringing her for lunch. All this will have been over for a long time by then. You can serve a good hot curry.”
    When I got back to the rest house the tin miners were eating in the dining-room, and being noisy about it. They had the gramophone playing jive which blared out into the hot night. There wasn’t going to be any place where you could get away from that din. Another thing we wouldn’t get away from easily was that sense of three men with tongues hanging out for a woman. They’d probably spend the evening bellowing and then go off to the bazaar. It wasn’t quite the setting I’d thought about.
    I went up the stairs slowly, and along to Kate’s door, knocking on it. There was no answer. I knocked again and then tried the handle. The door opened into emptiness.
    For a moment I thought I’d made a mistake. It couldn’t be her room at all, the bed tidied and not a trace of her things, no case, nothing on the dressing-table. I stepped in and closed the door.
    She might have moved, of course, hearing the din from below and wanting to be away from it, some place at the back. Then something made me turn my head.
    There was a man standing in the opening to the bathroom. He was small and compact, black haired, white suited, dark skinned. He had a gun in his hand, pointing at me. He was even smiling. When he spoke his voice was low, a little nasal and droning.
    “I think, Mr. Harris, that we can say we have caught up with you.”
    He lifted his hand a little, the one with the gun.
    “Don’t move, please. Nothing foolish. I’m not alone in this. I have my assistant.”
    I saw the assistant from a corner of my eyes, a figure stepped out from behind a curtain. I knew he also had a gun. They were taking no chances.
    “We don’t want any noise if it can be avoided, Mr. Harris. Though we’re not afraid of it, you understand?”
    “Who the hell are you?”
    He came a little into the light from a bright central fixture, as though to let me see for myself. He had the composure of the trained killer, that was what I thought then.
    Malay? Javanese? Not easy to say. A little European blood perhaps, but not too much, just enough to be conscious of it all the time, to be on the defensive in his world where that was no asset. I knew where he came from. And where the other came from, too, a bruiser, with a professionally mangled face, no smile and no manners. The boss had the manners, and used them softly.
    “I