The Singapore School of Villainy Read Online Free PDF Page A

cordon off parts of the office. Annie felt as if she was a bit-part actress in a television crime series.
    A turban appeared around the door and a crooked finger summoned the lawyers. They glanced nervously at each other and traipsed out of the room obediently. As Singh led the way down the corridor, Annie noted again his peculiar shape – pointy head and small feet in white sneakers with a massive girth in between. He looked like a character from a children’s cartoon – one of the Teletubbies. She suppressed a slightly hysterical giggle.
    She noted that Jagdesh, his fellow Sikh, towered over the inspector, but it was the shorter man who was the band leader. Jagdesh trailed in his wake like a ten-year-old being led to the headmaster’s office. Quentin might as well have been invisible. His shoulders were hunched and his gaze lowered. His aftershave failed to mask a faint smell of dried sweat.
    Singh waved them into chairs and Annie’s two colleagues sat down on either side of her. Her index finger went to her mouth and she chewed on the end vigorously. When it came away, a red droplet of blood oozed out of the tip. Her mind replayed the picture of Mark Thompson lying dead in his office. She gritted her teeth – the nausea was almost overwhelming.
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    Inspector Singh looked at them in turn, his expression enigmatic. At last, he asked, ‘So, any guesses who killed your boss?’
    He noted the young female lawyer, Annie Nathan, steal a quick glance at the other two and filed away her reaction.
    â€˜He had no enemies that we were aware of, sir,’ Jagdesh answered calmly. His physical stature gave his words a convincing air of credibility.
    â€˜Business rivalries?’
    Quentin spoke up. ‘Sure – we all have those! It was just professional. No one hated Mark. Not enough to kill him.’
    Singh eyed the lawyer who spoke with certainty but whose voice was shaking with doubt. What he had said was patently absurd. Mark’s body was a tangible contradiction of Quentin’s insistence that he had no enemies.
    Jagdesh said aggressively, ‘If he had any enemies, we certainly didn’t know of them.’
    The other two lawyers maintained a determined silence. Singh deduced that this was the unspoken consensus. No one wanted to be the first to break ranks and start naming suspects. They knew full well that any omissions would hinder the policeman in forming an accurate picture of the dead man. But for now they were keeping their secrets.
    Jagdesh wondered aloud, ‘Reggie and Ai Leen haven’t turned up. That’s strange – they said they were on their way.’
    â€˜And what about the others?’ asked Quentin. ‘Presumably all the partners were invited to this mysterious meeting.’
    â€˜Some of them are here, in another room,’ was Inspector Singh’s deadpan response.
    He was pleased with the widening eyes and sudden inhalation of breath that this remark produced. The lawyers were smart – short of clapping them in irons, he could not have emphasised his authority over them more clearly. He was the policeman. Information was in his gift, to be distributed or withheld at his discretion. And now they knew it.
    â€˜Why are you keeping them away from us?’ asked Quentin, his tone betraying a fear that the murder was going to embroil them in an experience going well beyond the immediate horror of sudden death.
    He did not receive a response from the taciturn policeman.
    Jagdesh’s well-shaped lips were pursed with displeasure. ‘I don’t understand why you’re hassling us anyway. It must have been some stranger who killed Mark!’
    â€˜That’s your honest opinion – that some stranger killed your boss?’ asked Singh.
    Jagdesh and Quentin both nodded immediately. Again, the policeman noted that Annie was not so quick to assert a position. She opened her mouth to protest, then shut it again.
    Inspector