Singapore Noir

Bernard had not known what to do until that moment. And perhaps he still did not know the right thing to do. But he was a chilli padi by nature, and Mark’s words were fighting words. One thing about the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve is that there is plenty of loose granite lying around, it having been a site for multiple quarries, now disused. Another thing is that in the midafternoon on a weekday it is deathly quiet. And the quarries are deep and filled with water. There’d be at least a week before the body was found, and in the meantime, Bernard would have liquidated what he could and he and Evelyn would be thousands of miles away. How happy she would be to get free from that monster! And he too would be happy — it was escape for both of them. Fulfillment too.

He met her that evening at his apartment in River Valley. They held each other for a long while and then pulled apart. She looked uncertainly at him.

“I’m so sorry, Bernard. How did your meeting with Mark go?”

“Don’t be sorry, dearest. We’ll find our way.”

“Of course, darling. But how did it go?”

“It was unexpected, I have to say.”

“What do you mean? Is the amount too much?”

“No, it’s not that...” His voice trailed off. She had known he was going to ask for money. “He told you?”

“I was surprised too. What are you going to do?”

“What do you think I should do?”

“What choice do we have? Perhaps if we pay him off, he’ll leave us alone. Oh, Bernard, we could be so happy together. I know it’s terrible but will you pay him for me, for our life together?”

“Do I need to pay him? We’ll bring up our child together. I don’t care if he goes to the press.”

Evelyn looked alarmed. “Bernard, my love, pay him. Pay him quickly. It’s the only way we can be together.”

Happiness, Bernard thought, is about the little things — being with the person you love and who loves you, wherever in the world you might be. Waking up to her in the morning, or watching her sleep at night. Walking hand-in-hand along the beach. Shopping together. Sharing a hot chocolate. A million little things. But love is about the big things — moments of choice, moments of sacrifice. And he had done what he had done for love, for Evelyn, to protect their life together.

He loved her. And she had played him. He would have faced anything with her by his side. But that was not how it was going to be, he understood this now. For a moment, hopelessness gripped him. What was the point of a life without Evelyn? Then from the darkness it was as if his mother were speaking to him, telling him not to waste time, and warning him of the long-haired woman in the shadows. He knew then that he would not succumb, would not die in Evelyn’s embrace, would not watch her grow strong as his life ebbed from him. She’d had the whole damn forest to choose from and she’d picked the wrong tree.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ll pay him. I told you not to worry, I told you I’d take care of it.”

“Oh, Bernard, I feel so safe and secure when I’m with you, when I hold you.”

He cupped her head in his arms and lifted her face so he could kiss her. His thumbs were at her windpipe, and he kissed her half a dozen, no, a dozen times. To his surprise, it was no harder with a woman. Or perhaps, he thought as her eyes closed, it’s true what they say — the second time is always easier.

Smile, Singapore by Colin Cheong

Ang Mo Kio

He had never been in an interrogation room. Where was the two-way mirror? The TV shows had those, but it was absent here. Where were the air conditioners? He had heard so much about those. Six, they said, at full blast, and they would wet you first. There was only one humming here. Perhaps the rooms with the many air conditioners were reserved for political prisoners. There were no cameras either. Wouldn’t it be better to have those? To record everything a suspect said? And then he smiled. They could say whatever they wanted. A video camera couldn’t lie.

He looked down at his hands. They had not handcuffed him and had let him rest them on the cold edge of the table. Perhaps they felt sorry for him. He was an old man, after all. The faceless officers who found him had been young, a sergeant and a corporal, barely adult. He had done everything they asked, resisted them in nothing. He had held his hands out to be cuffed — not meekly, but as a man who knew he had broken the law, though did not believe he had done wrong.