Suddenly at Singapore Read Free

and dead.”
    “That’ll be restful,” Kate said bitterly.
    As soon as we went into the hotel lounge a little man came forward from the desk.
    “Mr. Harris? Mr. Paul Harris?”
    “Yes.”
    “There is a message for you from Singapore. An urgent message. You are to phone this number, sir, and quickly. They make it most important.”
    “Who?”
    “The police, sir.”
    “Kate, sit down over there and order a drink, will you? Beer for me.”
    Kate turned away at once. I went to a little booth and shut myself in.
    When I came out it was with my world broken around me, blown up, shattered. I felt sick and old. Kate saw me coming and slowly she stood.
    “Paul …!”
    “It’s Jeff. He’s dead. Murdered. Shot in the back of his head.”

CHAPTER II
    I T WAS K ATE who got me up to my room. I went to the bed and fell on it, face down in the pillow. I couldn’t look at her or anything, anything in the world. She moved about the room, I heard her, but it didn’t mean anything, even having her there. Then she came over.
    “Try and drink this.”
    “No.”
    “Oh, Paul. I know what it means to you. When he talked about you I had the feeling you were his only concern …”
    “Please stop!”
    “Sorry. I’m so sorry.”
    She went away again. She must have sat down. After a time I pulled myself up and sat on the bed, my feet on the floor.
    “Thanks, Kate. It was a kick in the stomach. It would have been worse without you here.”
    She nodded. She was smoking a cigarette, looking at a wall, not me. I went into the bathroom and washed my face. My mouth seemed to have a fuzz in it and I cleaned my teeth. I had only once before felt grief physically like this, weakness as though all your strength had been drained away.
    Jeff. Oh, my God, Jeff!
    Standing above the basin I began to retch. Kate heard and came and held my head, her hand on my forehead. Then it was over, that part, and I was in control again.
    In the bedroom Kate watched as I started to throw things into my bag.
    “You shouldn’t drive back,” she said. “You’re not fit to.”
    “I’m all right. I can drive.”
    “Oh, Paul. There’s a train in an hour.”
    “I’ll beat the train.”
    “But what good will it do now?”
    “I’ve got to get back, that’s all. You’d better go to your room. And thanks. Thanks so much.”
    “Why do you have to thank me? I’m not a stranger.”
    “I know. I just had to say something, that’s all.”
    “I’ll come with you and do the driving. I’ll go fast.”
    “No!”
    “Well, I’m coming.”
    She turned and went out. I wasn’t long in getting to the car, but Kate was beside it, her bag on the pavement.
    “I can’t stay here alone now,” she said. It was an appeal.
    “All right, get in.”
    The jungle roads were lit by hard clear light shivering down them. We had the windows lowered and it was cool. We went through villages and towns, slowing to ease a way through night clamour, Tamil boys walking hand in hand, fat Chinese women wobbling. We seemed to tunnel through laughter and talk at these times, snatches of it coming in to us, words. People peered at the low, sleek little car. We smelled cooking, spicy and hot.
    Jeff’s country and mine. Maybe we were wrong, maybe they were strangers out there, for all that I could talk to them so that behind a screen none of them could have guessed I didn’t belong, that my skin wasn’t the colour of theirs. Maybe in desperation we’d clung to the only thing we knew, fooling ourselves about it, calling it our world. Kate didn’t believe it was really my world.
    She didn’t say anything at all, just sat there beside me. Sometimes she lit a cigarette and put it between my lips. Then at Gemas I remembered. I braked the car into a pavement.
    “I didn’t phone Ruth. I must do it now. The police will have told her.”
    Ruth didn’t come for a long time, it was the second houseboy on the line, a Hainamese, who wasn’t always easy to understand. He seemed to be