Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [113]
I suppressed a shudder as I stepped past the warrior and sat at the desk. The figure was so powerful and so very lifelike that I had to force myself to rationalise that it was just a mannequin, like those in Fort Siloso—but this one was much more realistic.
Half an hour later, I left Sami’s office none the wiser. His phone records showed normal traffic. Business calls to and from our accountant friend. There were calls from the housekeeper and chef ordering in goods and a variety of incoming calls from several different sources. The call from Sami was also logged, but there was no record of anyone—through the time leading up to or following that call—phoning any number not already logged in the system.
The one thing I did note, however, was that following the call from Sami, there had been a long delay of almost two hours before the call had been made to the Sacred Dream Funeral Home. Why had Kaylin waited so long before making it?
Of course, cellphones threw the whole equation sideways. Everyone in Singapore has a mobile. Short of gathering everyone’s personal cell and searching their individual records, how was I going to identify who had been talking to Thomas Lu or one of his crew?
I wasn’t prepared to point the finger at anyone just yet, but the two Ks (K and Kaylin), along with Paul Wong, were high on my list. What had Kaylin done during the two hours between Sami’s call and her phoning the funeral parlour? Had she used her cell to call Lu? Had he called her prior to Sami’s call. Had he ordered her to use the Sacred Dream Funeral Home where he had a man or men in waiting? Did he, in fact, own a share of the business itself? That was something that would be difficult to confirm either way.
I found a baseball cap to cover my scalp wound. It had a Levi’s 501 logo on it. I would have preferred something a little less distinctive, but my BMW one hadn’t made this trip with me and the 501 cap was the only other available. It would have to do. K gave me an elevator key. I put it on the ring already containing the key for the service tunnel doors as I travelled the twenty or so floors down to the basement car park. I unlocked the heavy steel door into the service tunnel and went through the garage of the neighbouring building and on to the next. The garages were all identical and so, I guessed, were the buildings above.
I made my way up the ramp to street level. The man in the cubbyhole at the top nodded to me and wished me a good day without blinking an eye. I returned the greeting and stepped out into the Singapore evening. Incidentally, I had left the Browning behind, but the borrowed Fairbain Sykes look-alike was in the sheath stitched into the lining of my left boot. Being totally unarmed was something I rarely did. A blade in my boot was more a talisman than anything else, although it had saved my life in Phuket just a few months before.
“He must have gone back to Bangkok as he said he was doing. We have not seen him in days, but his friend is here.”
“Friend?”
“The man called Crewe, he was injured in the bomb blast. The man they were looking for on Pulau Ubin. He is staying in the apartment.”
Thomas Lu grunted. He didn’t know anything about this man Crewe other than what he had seen in the media. Had he been one of those who had captured him on Sentosa? Had he perhaps been the man who had raided the fort and made off with the recorder? Was it in his interests to capture or kill Crewe? He decided it wasn’t, not yet anyway. If Somsak stayed in the north and kept out of Singapore, he would let the status quo reign, at least until he could devise a means of getting rid of the Thai gang boss