“Yeah,” Tay said. “Or something.”
Tay returned his.38 to its holster. Without another glance at DeSouza, he stood up and walked out of the room.
August stepped aside as Tay passed through the doorway, then he reached out and closed the door behind him.
TAY sat outside in his car for a while without starting the engine. He heard no sound. The air was soggy and heavy with moisture. It muffled the earth like a snowfall.
He looked up and down the street for the car in which August had come, or perhaps a motorcycle, but he saw nothing at all. He had looked around when he drove up, too, and there was nothing then either. Why should that surprise him? Nothing else about August surprised him anymore, so why that of all things?
In a few minutes — or it could have been longer, Tay had no idea how long he sat there — it started to rain. The drops were big and fat and they thudded against the car like acorns falling from a tree. Tay looked at DeSouza’s house again. He thought he saw a shadow flit across the light in the front portico, but perhaps it was only the rain.
He had been a policeman all his adult life. He had served justice all his adult life. That was what he did. That was all he had ever done.
Was he serving justice now, or was he confusing justice and revenge? He didn’t know. He really didn’t.
God help him, he wasn’t even certain anymore there was all that much difference.
Tay started the car and drove away.
FORTY-EIGHT
Tony DeSouza’s suicide didn’t rate a lot of space in the
Tay doubted anyone else had noticed the coincidence since it wasn’t commonly known that Elizabeth Munson, Susan Rooney, and Cally Parks had all been shot once in the head with a.22 as well, but it didn’t really matter. The gun was next to DeSouza’s hand and there was no sign of forced entry into the house. A determination of suicide was never in any doubt.
There were a few days after that when Tay was seized by uncertainty, but not many. He occasionally thought about whether what he had done was right, but not often. Mostly he wondered what would come next, and when it would come. Tay would be patient. It was one of the things he did best. He would be patient.
NEARLY three weeks after DeSouza’s death, early on a Saturday morning, Tay found the note pushed under his front door.
It was a single piece of white paper, folded over once. When Tay went downstairs in the morning to make some coffee and saw the paper on the polished hardwood of the entry foyer, he had no doubt at all what it was. Picking it up, he carried it into the kitchen without unfolding it and put it on the counter.
He scooped some beans from the coffee jar and put them in the grinder. Pouring the freshly ground coffee into a filter and filling the reservoir of the coffee maker with water, he flicked the switch and walked over to the window while he waited for the coffee to brew.
It was a nice morning, the sky clear and perfectly blue. Maybe it wouldn’t rain today, he thought to himself, or was that entirely too much to hope for? There were no birds on his garden wall this morning. He wondered if that meant anything.
The coffee maker made little spitting sounds when it was done. Tay turned away from the window and filled a heavy, white mug.Then he picked up the folded sheet and took it with his coffee to the small, round table by the window. He sat down, placed the folded paper on the table, and took a long sip from the mug. It was so good he took another. Then he put down his coffee and drew the paper toward him. He unfolded it, spread it flat, and read the two lines laser-printed on it:
Singapore Airlines to London at 1240.
Come say good-bye.
There was nothing else on the paper.
There didn’t need to be.
Tay finished his coffee and looked at his watch. Nine-fifteen. Plenty of time.
He would go back upstairs and shower and dress. Maybe he would even go somewhere for breakfast before he went to the airport. All of a sudden he was starved.
Tay’s warrant card passed him smoothly through the employees’ entrance into the departure area at Changi and he took the escalator in front of the Times-Newslink bookstore up to the Singapore Airlines lounge. At the entrance, Tay showed his warrant card to the attendant and explained that he was meeting a colleague who was waiting for a departing flight. There was nothing to be alarmed about, he told the pretty young girl in the Singapore Airlines uniform, nothing at all.
He hoped he was right about that.
He turned right into the first class section of the lounge and walked past the bar to the buffet. He wandered around as if he were perusing the selection of food on offer while he scanned the lounge.
It was a large room, tasteful and elegant with leather furniture set out in groupings scattered among colorful aquariums and large flat-screen televisions. It was as quiet as a library. There was no music in the background and no audible conversation, just the occasional sound of an espresso machine spitting out coffee or silverware rattling decorously against a china plate.
Late morning was not a busy time for flight departures from Singapore. Most European and North American flights went out either early in the morning or late at night and about all that left for midday were short-haul regional flights that carried relatively few first class passengers. That meant there were not very many passengers in the lounge right then.
Tay had no difficulty spotting his man immediately. He was in a far corner, his back to the buffet, sitting in one of four brown leather lounge chairs arranged around a granite cocktail table. There was a black leather briefcase on the floor next to his chair and a small, black carry-on bag beside it. It looked like a Prada bag, but at that distance Tay couldn’t be certain.
There was no one in any of the other chairs around the table. The man was alone.
Still, Tay took his time and watched for a while before going over. He poured some tonic water and helped himself to a curry puff. When he had finished, he wiped his hands on a napkin, dropped it into a bin, and walked to where the man was sitting.
“Good morning, Ambassador Munson,” Tay said. “May I sit down?”
Without waiting for an answer, Tay settled into a chair and Munson looked at him over the top of the
“On your way back to Washington, sir?” Tay asked.
“No,” he said, “to London. I’m speaking to the Harvard Club.”
The ambassador was clearly puzzled, not quite certain who Tay was. He peered at Tay more closely.
“Dammit, I know you, but…” Munson snapped his fingers, suddenly remembering. “You’re that policeman, aren’t you? You came to my office right after Liz was…after Liz died.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tan, wasn’t it?”
“Tay, sir. Inspector Samuel Tay.”
Munson folded the newspaper and put it down. “Where are you headed today, Inspector?”
“Nowhere.”
“But…” Ambassador Munson wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Why are you here then?”
“I’m here to see you.”
