Rich kill poor kill, p.13
Rich Kill. Poor Kill, page 13
“No, forget the research. What do you think?”
“It’s not relevant what I think.”
“Yes it is. If you tear up all your theories and pull back the curtain, you see what we really are. You know what we are. We are racist. Even after death, we’re still racist. We rank people, skin colour, economic background, even in death. Hundreds die in Iraqi car bombs all the time, it’s a footnote. A few people die at the Boston Marathon, it’s an international tragedy. A little white blonde girl goes missing on holiday, it’s a front-page story for years.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. It’s sometimes called the hierarchy of death.”
“There you go. You buggers have even got a term for it. The hierarchy of death. Bloody hell.”
“That obviously bothers you.”
“Of course it bothers me. Wah lau. My Technology team are all working overtime right now, cannot go home to their families, working their balls off. You know why? Racism. They are working round the clock to feed our racism.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look. Every Facebook page, every photo, every newsfeed ever visited, every aspect of social media that was uploaded or read by our dead ang mohs is being analysed right now.”
“Because they were murder victims.”
“Because they were white murder victims. We’ve got American and Australian media covering the case now. Why? They weren’t from either country. We’ve got New Zealand and Canada offering their condolences. Why? We’ve got the Government giving us more men. Why?”
Lai frowned at her ranting patient. “Singapore has a serious killer. He has killed four people.”
“Please. That one was obvious. Once he killed the second one, no point in stopping.”
“OK, let’s assume what you are saying is true. Yes, institutional racism is commonplace. Yes, the human mind still struggles with inherent prejudices. I have read studies that show Israeli deaths get twice as much media coverage as Palestinian deaths. The evidence is there.”
“Exactly.”
“But is this anything new? I know how capable and intuitive you are as an investigator. None of this should come as a surprise to you. And yet, the aggression is obvious. Why do you think that is?”
Low rubbed the stubble on his chin.
“Because I asked those bastards to get me involved once my boy was involved. And they told me to stick with the bloggers. When he died, when that fucker stuck a screwdriver through his heart, they didn’t give a shit. A Singaporean. And they didn’t give a shit. Now I sound like a bloody blogger, but fuck it, it’s the truth. Dragon Boy was doing it for me, helping me to catch this bastard, and for what? He died for nothing. He’s been sliced up for the autopsy, cremated and gone. But those two, on your newspaper there, passing through with Daddy’s credit card, gave this country nothing. And look at us, look at the whole country, running around like headless chickens.”
“So really, this is about Dragon Boy.”
“No lah. It isn’t about Dragon Boy at all. That’s the point.”
Chapter 32
At the front door of Maxwell’s apartment, a young Malay man pulled off his motorcycle helmet and tapped on the door with a gloved knuckle.
“Just coming.”
The courier took the pizzas from his heatproof satchel and waited expectantly. The girl in the office had said the double cheese pizza delivery was a mat salleh. Mat sallehs usually gave a tip.
Maxwell opened the door. He was wearing only boxer shorts. His stomach flopped over his waistband like a loose tarpaulin flapping in a storm. “How much was it again?”
“Er, $34 with the garlic bread, sir.”
Maxwell went through the notes in his wallet. His TV played loudly in the background, catching the delivery guy’s attention. He rubbernecked over the fat white guy’s shoulder.
“You watching my TV, there?”
“No, no, sir.”
“It’s OK. What do you think of it? Sixty-five inch, curved, 4K.”
“Damn shiok, boss.”
“Yeah, she always liked that TV. Anyway, what was it, $34, right? Hey, let’s make it an even 40.”
“Wah, thanks man.”
“No problem, have a good night.”
The delivery guy felt like he owed the generous tipper something. “Terrible ah, on TV.”
“What’s that?”
“The two mat sallehs. Sorry, I mean the two, er, Caucasians on the news. Very sad.”
“Yes, it was. I heard it’s four people altogether.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. Anyway, thanks for the pizza.”
Maxwell closed the door. He didn’t want to say or do something the delivery guy might regret and he had found the cigarette smell nauseating.
But his mood had improved in recent days. The media’s hypocrisy had entertained him. The Penny Black pub had been packed with potential eyewitnesses, so he knew it was only a matter of time. He was determined to enjoy himself.
After a couple of slices of pizza, he returned to his repair job in the kitchen. Earlier in the day, he had bought a new plug socket plate to replace the blackened, scarred one. He worked quickly with his yellow Phillips screwdriver. He couldn’t bring himself to throw it away, or even clean it properly. There were still traces of what he had lost. The first two screws went in easily, but the third proved trickier, requiring real force in the wrist to drive through the incomplete thread.
Whistling his favourite Britpop tunes from the 90s, Maxwell was about to start on the fourth when an unattractive, sweaty Chinese guy filled the screen. The harsh camera light did the guy no favours on Maxwell’s 65-inch TV. Ugly people didn’t belong in high definition. Maxwell read the crawler beneath the man’s perspiring armpits:
breaking news—anti-foreigner rally planned for speakers corner.
On screen, Harold Zhang blinked in the stinging lights, ignoring the uncomfortable beads of sweats attacking his temples like bluebottles around a horse’s eyeball.
“This is too much already,” Zhang said to the reporter. “Singaporeans are scared of this serial killer. But the Government is only scared when this serial killer attacks foreigners. So we must gather to make a real statement.”
Maxwell smiled. The idiot on TV had a point.
Maxwell turned to the laptop on the breakfast bar beside him and found The Singapore Truth homepage. He now had the site bookmarked. He was curious to see what the repugnant fool had to say this time. He left the final screw for the time being. Instead, he reached for another slice of pizza and opened Zhang’s latest blog posting:
WHITE MEN CAN JUMP ALL OVER SINGAPORE
Two ang mohs are killed and now the Gahmen wakes up. Two ang mohs are murdered and the Gahmen decides they cannot tahan already. Four people killed, but only the last two count. Two white people are better than two brown people. Two foreigners are better than two Asians. What about Singaporeans? Heck care lah. What about the first foreigner? Heck care lah. She was a prostitute only. But we are the whores already. We are being screwed every day.
Maxwell stopped reading the drivel. As expected, Zhang’s only salient point was lost in the xenophobic whining. But that didn’t particularly bother Maxwell. He only ever wanted the moron to push buttons on his behalf and he found the headline mildly amusing. But the uncouth “whore” references were too much, so unnecessarily rude and undeserving. There was no need to prolong the pain.
Chapter 33
Zhang and half a dozen comrades with neatly parted, oily hair stood together on the makeshift stage. The sun’s relentless rays filtered through the trees at Hong Lim Park and cast them all in an unforgiving light. When they joined hands and raised their arms aloft to salute the crowd, they revealed the sweat rings beneath their armpits. The applause was generous, but soft. The crowd was small, almost lost in Chinatown’s tiny green lung. Committed activists waved xenophobic placards, calling for foreigners to go home. Tattooed Chinese gangsters posing as legitimate political opponents screamed, “true Singapore for true Singaporeans” whenever the chance presented itself. This was Speakers’ Corner, the island’s tokenistic nod towards free speech. The location was handy for many Singaporeans. Many came to Chinatown for the cheap shopping and food. Speakers’ Corner was a convenient, quiet shortcut to the MRT station.
Zhang’s colleagues retreated to the rickety plastic seats at the back of the stage, wiping their foreheads as they sat down. Their self-appointed leader moved towards the lectern. He grinned at his wife, sitting with his colleagues over his shoulder, at the edge of the stage. Li Jing crossed her legs and ignored him. That was all the encouragement he needed.
“I see your posters,” he began slowly. “We will pick out prizes for the best posters later, but I see them. Singapore for Singaporeans. Foreigners go home. Keep our jobs here. Protect our borders. They all say the same thing. We are strangers in our own country. We go in a shop or take a bus and we cannot find anyone who speaks our language. But we cannot say anything. We cannot say anything at all. If we speak up, we are whacked by our own government. If we speak up, we are xenophobic. If we complain got no space, we are racist. We complain got no job, we are ungrateful, typical Singaporeans; always complain, no perspective, strawberry people, bruise so easily.
“But I’ll tell you this. My friend on stage, who will speak later, middle manager, got qualifications and experience. He was replaced by a PRC. Now he’s a taxi driver. Also up here, got one lady, work in a shopping centre for 20 years, the same department store, replaced by a Filipino. They say her English was not good enough. She never smiled enough. They say her salary and CPF make her too expensive. Now, she helps her cousin at his coffee shop. Is Singapore helping these Singaporeans?”
Zhang paused for the muted indignation. The crowd was pitiful, the lowest yet. The anti-government novelty was wearing off. Heated anger was hard to sustain in an air-conditioned nation. Not everyone had Zhang’s resolve. Not everyone was married to Zhang’s wife.
He nodded at the roars of dissent, privately counting the numbers. He figured around 500 had turned up, maybe 200 were rubberneckers, 200 were hardcore supporters, 20 or so were hooligans looking for a fight on a lazy Sunday afternoon and the rest were journalists, undercover officers and patronising tourists wandering through to catch Singapore’s nascent democracy in action. Zhang would record at least a thousand in his blog later. The mainstream media would go no higher than 300 and their respective audiences would be none the wiser.
Zhang glimpsed over his shoulder at his wife. She was reading her phone. Perfect.
I’ll get your attention now.
“They say citizens come first, always come first and we do. First for National Service, first to take our CPF, first to take our jobs,” he shouted, pausing until the last of the easy laughs faded away.
“And now first to take our lives. Now we know where we really live, right? This monster, this IKEA Killer, is like nothing before. He kills a prostitute. Nothing. She’s a prostitute. She doesn’t count. He kills a Singaporean, definitely doesn’t count. Then we find out he’s an ang moh. Last time we bring in foreigners to take our jobs, now we bring in foreigners to take our lives.”
A smattering of boos filled the heavy, humid air, but a dissenting voice shouted, ‘Bullshit’. Other mocking jeers could clearly be heard. Zhang had overreached. The dissenters were probably plants, scattered among his followers by undercover officers. Or they could have been tourists and expats. He had spotted one or two in the crowd. Or they could have been bleeding-heart liberals, with their overseas degrees, foreign ideals and wishy-washy philosophy. They bothered him more than the foreigners. But the boos were a misstep. In a crowd this small, Zhang’s GoPro cameras would almost certainly pick up the negativity. The booing had just lengthened his editing process.
“OK, OK, this killer is a one-off. But he is an ang moh. And now, he has killed two ang mohs. And now everybody is here, the foreign media is here. The newspapers are here. There are TV cameras here. It’s not about us anymore. It’s about them. It’s not about our dead Singaporean. It’s about their dead foreigners. Two dead ang mohs holding hands at Upper Seletar and now everyone gets excited. Now the Gahmen say they will do anything to catch the killer, more police, more money, more everything. Who are they doing this for? For us or for them?
“I’ll say one more thing, OK, one last point, and yes, it’s controversial. But this IKEA Killer is a monster. He must be stopped. And we support the police in catching this man, doesn’t matter where he is from. But he showed us what we already know. For 50 years, we been told we need foreigners, cannot survive without foreigners, got no natural resources. Our economy would collapse without foreigners. What does it tell us? Foreigners are more important than us. All our lives, we hear the same message. Foreigners are more important than us. That’s what it means. That’s what they are really saying. And now, at a time when our country is scared, when we must all be helping each other, we are still getting the same message. Even in death, foreigners are more important than us. Frankly speaking, I hope the police catch this animal. But he’s told us something that I think we already knew. Dead or alive, we don’t count anymore.”
Zhang brought his wife to the front of the stage to acknowledge the applause. The event’s other speakers flanked them on either side. Zhang waved to the crowd. “Should sell quite a few T-shirts today,” he whispered to his wife.
“Didn’t think racism was that popular,” she hissed, also waving.
“The truth always sells. In the end.”
In the middle of the crowd, Low scooped out the last of his buttered sweet corn from a polystyrene cup. He thought about his dead kaki and tried not to laugh. Dragon Boy was many things, most of them unpleasant. But he was never a national martyr. Now he was a poster boy for unhinged nationalists. In truth, the gangster was not in the least patriotic, always selling his services to the highest-bidding capitalist. In that sense, he was an authentic Singaporean. Tiger had been the unswerving patriot, loyally committed to both the flag and the biggest crime syndicate in the country.
But Low had seen enough. The diatribe was as dull as expected, but he had at least gleaned something from the tiresome blogger’s rant. How did Zhang know the victims were found holding hands? That was never made public. Being attractive, white and dead was enough for the tabloids. Singapore didn’t need the handholding adding to the melodrama.
Low pulled his cap lower and eased through the crowd, his eyes always pinned to the feet of passing strangers. He brushed past a broad-shouldered man and made his way back to the temporary sweet corn stall. There was always time for a second cup before returning to the office.
The man with the broad shoulders glared at the runt scurrying past in the baseball cap, but continued to applaud Zhang and his wife on stage. He put his fingers between his lips and whistled loudly.
When the clapping stopped, he waited for the crowd to shuffle towards the best poster competition being held on the field.
And then Maxwell slowly made his way to the stage.
Chapter 34
Rage weakened most men, but Low was a rare exception. He knew that. So did his employers. The leash was short, but it was still there. They couldn’t cut him loose. They needed his anger and so did he. Fury fuelled him. It blew the clouds away and allowed him to think clearly. The only man who matched Low in this regard was Tiger. There was little to choose between them. Low caught the old loan shark in the end, but the inspector never kidded himself. He had the law on his side. Nothing else.
Chan wasn’t blessed with such a dubious attribute. Low watched carefully as the younger inspector made his way through the coffee shop crowd. The zip on his trousers was partially undone and the back of his shirt flapped over his belt. His matted fringe stuck to his forehead and his puffy eyes sagged. The recent promotion had aged him. Low channelled the inner loathing, both for himself and his quarry, until it consumed him and propelled him forward. Most men succumbed to the weight of expectation, to the horror, in the end.
As he put two cups of teh tarik on the table, Chan looked like most men.
“Eh, Charlie, you OK or not?”
Chan didn’t bother to correct his old mentor. “I’m fine. Why?”
“You look like shit, man.”
“So would you if this was your case.”
“I always look like shit.”
“I was being polite.”
“No need.” Low sipped his drink. “This teh tarik damn shiok.”
“It’s Geylang.”
“That’s why.”
“I did my first police cadet work here.”
“Everybody did at some point, right?”
“Crime capital of Singapore.”
“Sex capital of Singapore.”
“Yah.”
Chan’s gaze drifted past the packed coffee shop tables and street traffic. “Started simple with the prostitutes, aggressive soliciting in the coffee shops. Then moved on to the pimps, wah, the real scum. Selling fake virgins from Cambodia and Vietnam. Then move onto to the brothel owners, the towkays …”
“And then move on to Tiger.”
“That was you, not me.”
“What’s your point?”
“It never, you know, stops.”
“Of course, otherwise we’d be estate agents. Come on lah.”
Chan faced Low directly. “He’s not going to stop, is he?”
“No.”
“Until I catch him.”
“We catch him.”
“How?”
“How what? How we catch him? Same as always, man. He fucks up or we win the lottery.”
“Yeah, and everyone’s a detective now. Everyone is telling us how to solve the case, online, overseas, everywhere.”
“Balls to them.”
Chan concentrated on stirring his tea. He hesitated before speaking.
“I’m sleeping on the sofa. Well, I’m not sleeping at all. I’m lying on the sofa, whenever I go home.”
