The Singapore Wink

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “As I said, they were once engaged.”

“But Sacchetti is now married.”

“So I hear.”

“Why then should a young woman—”

I interrupted Tan. “As you say, she was a young woman. It’s sometimes difficult to tell what a young woman of Carla Lozupone’s temperament will do when she’s been jilted.”

“The woman scorned thing, you mean?” Huang said.

“She didn’t talk to me about it.”

Huang moved from the window and placed his cup and saucer on the coffee table. “Let me see if I have the correct picture of your relationship with Miss Lozupone,” he said, as he returned to the window to take in the view again. “Both of you, through coincidence, came to Singapore at the same time to find Angelo Sacchetti. You, Mr. Cauthorne, for what seems to be some type of psychological reassurance that he was not dead. Miss Lozupone, perhaps for revenge. But you didn’t discuss your reasons with each other. Tell me, did you discuss Angelo Sacchetti?”

“Yes.”

“Tell us about that.”

“There’s not much to tell. We both agreed that he was a son of a bitch.”

“In just those words?” Tan said.

“Those will do.”

“Do you think that Miss Lozupone might have disliked, or even hated, Sacchetti enough to have tried to do something foolish?” Huang said.

“What’s foolish?” I said.

“Try to kill him,” Tan said.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

“Did you know that we are looking for Angelo Sacchetti in connection with her death?” Huang said.

“No.” That hadn’t been on the radio.

“When we found Miss Lozupone, we found her holding Sacchetti’s wallet.”

“If he killed her, I doubt that he would have been thoughtful enough to leave his wallet in her hand,” I said.

“That did occur to us, Mr. Cauthorne,” Huang said and kept most of the sarcasm out of his voice.

“But you’re still looking for him?” I said.

“Yes,” Huang said. “We are.”

They told me the rest of it then, at least as much as they felt I should know. Carla Lozupone had been murdered around midnight, give or take an hour, and had been driven to the Malay kampong or village near Geyland and dumped by the side of the road. She had not been sexually assaulted, as Tan put it, and they had wired her father in New York.

“Her purse and passport were missing,” Tan said. “Did she carry large sums of cash?”

“Traveler’s checks, I think. How did you know her father’s address?”

“From the hotel registration and the immigration records at the airport.”

There was a pause then. It stretched out for almost two minutes. Huang stared out the window and Tan was busy inspecting a button on his coat. Neither of them had taken notes and I felt that they really weren’t too interested in the lies that I had to tell them.

It was Huang who broke the silence. “Are you familiar with Sacchetti’s activities in Singapore, Mr. Cauthorne?” he said, still taking in the view.

“Yes.”

“Lim Pang Sam informed us this morning that he had briefed you when you first arrived.”

“Then you’ve talked to him?” I said.

“At length,” Huang said. “If we hadn’t, we’d probably be talking at headquarters rather than here.” He turned from the window and gazed at me through his thick-rimmed glasses which almost gave him a professorial air. “The Singapore Police, Mr. Cauthorne, are under the control and direction of our Ministry of Defense and Security.” Huang paused. “The Ministry’s principal function is to deal with threats to Singapore’s security — both internal and external threats and sometimes it’s exceedingly difficult to differentiate the two. One could say this has been true in the case of Angelo Sacchetti and that is why he has been given a certain amount of latitude. Although his operations could properly be defined as a threat to our internal security, their disruption could have proved to be an even greater threat to our external security.”

“Because of his father-in-law?” I said.

Huang nodded. “Yes, because of his father-in-law. I see that Mr. Lim briefed you well.”

“He told me that Toh could start a full-scale race riot almost at will,” I said.

“That’s true,” Huang said. “And such a riot, of course, if serious enough, could prove disastrous. Although this was true more in the past than now, a riot possibly could lead to intervention by other countries.”

“Malaysia?” I said.

“Or Indonesia, although our relations with it have improved since the confrontation ended and Sukarno was deposed.”

“So you let Sacchetti operate in exchange for domestic peace,” I said. “It’s a logical trade. It might have a slightly gamey smell, but it’s nothing unique.”

“It’s a humiliating trade, Mr. Cauthorne. Especially to a policeman.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“But murder is something else,” Huang said. “Murder cannot be overlooked.”

“Or covered up?” I said.