“What can we do now?” Sharon turned to Elvis and asked.

“I had a closed-door meeting with the police commissioner this morning. He is going to apply for a deferment of sentencing by claiming that new evidence has emerged.”

“But this clip of a local Chinese bus driver kicking an Indian migrant worker out of the bus is going to ruffle a lot of feathers.” Sharon frowned. “We are going to look very bad.”

“Which is why I am hoping not to submit this clip as court evidence,” Elvis said.

Sharon glared at Elvis, bewildered.

“Did you notice that there was an Indian woman involved in the scuffle? She is a local. And it so happened that the police tracked her down yesterday.”

“She is the one who made a police report about someone taking an upskirt photo of her and subsequently impersonated a police officer to conduct a security search on the bus,” Yu Chin added.

Sharon nodded. She recalled having heard about that earlier.

“She will become our new evidence,” Elvis stated. “Her claim of having an upskirt photo taken may serve as a mitigating factor, but her act of mischief in impersonating a police officer and creating fear and alarm on a bus full of migrant workers shall be the focus of the new inquiry. For all we know, she was the trigger of the Little India riot.”

Sharon bit her lip as thoughts raced through her mind. If the court were to be persuaded to reduce the sentence, pinning the blame on this act of mischief was definitely preferable to the clip of the bus driver exercising physical violence inundated with elements of racism and xenophobia. The Indian Embassy would be satisfied with the outcome of the sentencing and her political party could escape the backlash from the social activists. It was the lesser of the two evils.

“Alright, let’s do this.”

The three of them fine-tuned the press statement over dinner. It was close to ten o’clock when they headed for the car park. Sharon was first to fire up her engine and speed out of the building. Yu Chin used to chide her for what he termed reckless driving in the early years, but had since given up. He drove his own car so her driving did not really bother him that much.

As Sharon swerved into East Sussex Lane and approached the house, a figure jumped out from the kerb, giving her a fright. She screeched to a stop and glared with apprehension as the stranger approached her window. It was a young Chinese man in his twenties, wearing his hair back in a ponytail. He tapped on the glass of her car. Sharon hesitated a little but finally decided to wind down the window. For all she knew, it could be one of her residents seeking help and she wouldn’t want to antagonise him.

“What can I do for you?”