For The Death Of Me

29

Jimmy gave us a lift back into the city. He was going to take us to the hotel, but Dylan asked him to drop us in Orchard Road instead. The wise old guy knew where we were headed: he took us straight to the vehicle entrance at the back of Ngee Ann City.

It’s quite a place, a bloody great edifice of red granite and marble, which has managed to attract some of the world’s leading names in consumer and luxury products. They look after the ladies too. We found the Philip Kingsley Trichological Centre on level five. It’s world-famous and its published client list includes Barbra Streisand, Cher and Mick Jagger; Maddy had been mixing in exalted company and, into the bargain, enjoying a lifestyle beyond the means of your average theatre-company director.

It was a dead end, though. . or maybe that should be a split end. Philip Kingsley is not your average barber shop: it’s a highly specialised place, which focuses on the health of its customers’ hair rather than on cutting it into attractive shapes. It’s not a business where the ladies go for an hour’s chat under the dryer, and if they do, anything they say is treated with the confidentiality of the confessional. That’s more or less what they told us; the head trichologist didn’t even confirm that Maddy had been one of their clients. I wound up buying a stack of remoisturising products and telling them they could add my name to their celebrity client list, if they chose.

We didn’t have time to shop, or I could have done some damage to my credit card. Instead, we found the taxi rank; we had interviewed and rejected four drivers before we found one who convinced us that he knew for sure where Cafe Narcosis was. (Note for Singaporean cabbies: knowing the address of the place to which you’re taking your passengers helps to reassure them.) He took us downtown past Clarke Quay and across the river, stopping almost at once in front of a building called Riverside Walk. ‘In there,’ he said. ‘Next to Friendly Waters.’

‘Who?’

‘Friendly Waters; they organise diving trips. Okay-lah? That seven dollar fifty.’

I gave him ten and we stepped out into the rising heat. The early-morning cloud had gone: it was going to be seriously warm. I led the way up a few steps to the second level of the building; at the top, a sign faced us, ‘Friendly Waters Seasports Services’ with an arrow, pointing to a shop-front. ‘FW,’ I whispered.

The place had a glass door, and this time I could see inside. It was small and crammed with dive gear. I tried the handle and stepped inside; when I say ‘small’ I mean that there wasn’t room for both Dylan and me. There was an equally cramped office to the right, with a Singaporean guy, in his thirties, sitting at a cluttered desk tapping away at a laptop keyboard.

He looked up; dark hair, brown skin. ‘Can I help you?’

‘You run this place?’

‘Yeah. My name’s Dave. How can I help? You want to book a trip?’

‘That depends. I’m looking for a friend, her name’s Maddy January, I can’t find her. I know she dives with you, so I’m starting here.’

He nodded. ‘She does. Reason you can’t find her is she isn’t in Singapore. She’s on Aur.’

‘Where?’

‘Pulau Aur, off Mersing. It’s where we have our divers’ lodge. Maddy headed up there on her own last night; she came in around five and booked in for a week, said she’d drive straight up there and catch the supply boat on its way back from dropping off the weekend dive party. She was lucky: normally I’d have been with them and this place closed, but my buddy took this group up for me. She told me a man would be joining her, paid for him too, but I thought he was going up last night. You him?’

When I nodded, his eyes narrowed a little, his face became a little less friendly. ‘Then you’ve got competition. Another guy ask after her this morning. What’s going on?’

That was not the news I’d expected or wanted to hear. I fixed him with a stare. ‘Believe me, I’m the person she wants to see.’

He looked a little harder, then the light came on. ‘Hey, you’re the guy in the movies; you tore up that creep Mai Bong last night. You’re in Straits Times this morning.’

‘How do I get to Mersing quickly?’ I asked.

‘You need to drive, I reckon.’

‘How far?’

‘Little over hundred and fifty kilometres.’

‘And to Aur?’

‘You need to wait for a boat going out there, unless you charter. The islands are around sixty kilometre offshore.’

‘You got a map?’

‘Sure.’ He picked one up from the morass on the desk and handed it to me. ‘You going to dive?’

‘Only if I have to. Don’t worry, I’ve got my PADI advanced open water, and rescue.’

‘Okay then; we got stuff in the lodge you can hire if you need it.’ He reached out a hand; we shook. ‘On you go, enjoy and say hello to Maddy for me. You find the other guy, tell him not to take the piss from Davey again.’