‘I went into the bedroom and the mosquito net was down and I could hear talking and Dad’s voice, so I called out and there was this rustling then a funny silence and I was afraid and called out again and Dad lifted the mosquito net and erupted from the bed…’

My chest was so tight I couldn’t breathe. I could hear little noises of fear escaping from my mouth.

‘Nikki!’ Mohktar’s voice brought me back.

I turned then and looked at him. ‘He wasn’t alone…there was someone else there…I couldn’t tell Mum, I couldn’t. It wasn’t a woman, it was a man in bed with my dad…it was a man…’

Mohktar stared at me.

‘Dad’s face was frightened, like he was shocked to see me, and he lifted me quickly and carried me out of the room. I turned, clutching my dress, to look back. I caught a glimpse of the man’s face before the mosquito net fell. Then all I could see was the man’s long, long legs under the sheet…right to the end of the bed…like a spider. Mum must never know, Detective Sergeant Mohktar…she must never know that Dad was…’

There was a small movement by the door. It was Fleur. She looked tiny and ashen.

Oh, Mum!

She walked towards us and there was a dignity and grace in her movements that tore at me. She still walked like a dancer.

‘Oh, my darling Nik,’ she said. ‘I knew that David was a homosexual. How could I not know?’

I began to cry. Saffie died because of something I had seen. Because she had been wearing my dress.

THIRTY-SIX

Inspector Blythe was not happy. Mohktar saw that as soon as he got out of the car.

‘What the hell are you playing at, Detective Sergeant? Why has your mobile phone been switched off?’

Blythe turned and stalked back into the small hot office. Sweat lined his back and under his armpits. Mohktar thought quickly.

‘Sir, may I take you to a very good place to eat lunch? I have not eaten today. There I will tell you all I have learnt today, lah.’

Blythe relented, fractionally. ‘Yes…very well. Let’s go. I could certainly do with a Tiger beer.’

As they walked past fruit stalls lined with artistic rows of oranges, lychee, melons and bunches of small sweet bananas, they avoided the bicycles wobbling and overloaded making their way along the road to the nearest kampong.

A butcher’s shop lay open to the flies, strange thin carcases hung on hooks. Outside, stray dogs hovered and Blythe couldn’t help thinking, as they passed, how like dog those carcases looked.

Mohktar wondered how Blythe would accept Nikki’s dream version of how her sister died. Would he believe the link Nikki had made about this nameless, but certainly identifiable, army pilot who she believed killed a small child, the wrong child, because of what she had seen one hot Singapore afternoon in a supposedly empty house?

‘Well?’ Blythe said, as soon as their drinks came. ‘Are you going to keep me in the dark or tell me what you have been up to?