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?”

The stranger looked startled; it was obvious that he only just realised she was not the one he was looking for. He mumbled an apology and backed himself into the shadows. Sharon kept an eye on the rear-view mirror as she activated the remote control for the gate and glided down the driveway. Had the stranger dashed in, she would have backed the car out and called the police. But the man made no such attempt.

Curious, Sharon walked back to the gate and peered between the grills. That was when she saw it—Yu Chin driving up the lane, the stranger stopping the vehicle, some verbal exchange between the two, during which the stranger appeared to show Yu Chin something on his mobile phone. And then the inexplicable happened. Yu Chin allowed the stranger to get into the vehicle and drove off.

What was going on?

Sharon got back into her vehicle and fired up the engine. She had to find out. As she reached the junction of Clementi and Holland roads, she spotted Yu Chin’s vehicle waiting for the traffic light to turn green. She slowed down and tailed him as he made his way to Sunset Way, parked and walked towards the row of alfresco eateries together with the stranger. Sharon hid her vehicle at the far end of the car park and continued to track him on foot. From afar, she saw that both Yu Chin and the stranger had joined a lady seated at a table at Rocky Pizza.

It irritated Sharon that the lady had her back to her and she couldn’t see her face. For a moment, Sharon thought this might be the other woman. But bright fluorescent light bounced off the lady’s lustrous black tresses; there was not a streak of white that she could spot. She couldn’t be the one.