Chapter 20
20
Yap Ket Hau leaned back in his Herman Miller Aeron chair, stretching his arms and sighing. It was midmorning and he was already tired, aching in places he hadn’t even known he had when he was in his twenties. There was only so much a ￡1,000 ergonomic office chair could do for your back when you were thirty-nine and working fourteen-hour days.
He’d hoped for a lull after the team had filed their big case, but he’d had all of a week of quiet—just enough time to clear out the various administrative emails in his inbox and close his open timesheets—before getting pulled onto another department’s matter. A big-ticket lawsuit by a Central Asian bank against its former chairman, who had embezzled hundreds of millions before taking off. He was currently believed to be somewhere in the Tuscan countryside.
A case raising crunchy points of law and interesting evidential challenges. As a paralegal, Ket Hau had nothing to do with any of that. His chief contribution was bundling—putting papers in files, in the right order, labelled and divided correctly. For days on end. If he never saw a lever arch file again in his life, it would be too soon.
He’d have to start doing yoga again, for his back. Ten minutes each day, before work.
I promise you, Stephen said, from somewhere in the past. Do three sessions and it’ll become a habit.
When was that? Right, when Stephen had got obsessed with mixed martial arts and dragged Siong into it. They’d tried to pull Ket Hau along, but Ket Hau had always been less susceptible than his brother to Stephen’s influence in these matters. Exercise had not been one of the passions he’d shared with Stephen.
He detached his conscious mind from the memory of Stephen with a discipline that had become habitual over years of effort. His subconscious would keep gnawing away at it, but there was nothing Ket Hau could do about that. He didn’t have the money for therapy. And he wouldn’t be able to tell any therapist the worst part, anyway—the part that kept him up at night, when it wasn’t giving him bad dreams.
He stood up, scanning the office over the top of his cubicle. Both the pod he was in and the next one were empty. He always chose to work one of his three mandatory “in the office” days on Monday, because hardly anyone else came in.
He’d get himself a fresh cup of tea, then finish proofreading this English translation of a Russian lease. At least he was due some chunky overtime. He’d see where they were at the end of the month, after they’d paid off the bills. Maybe he could take Ma somewhere nice.
And Ket Siong—not that Siong deserved special attention. He was so distracted by this girl he supposedly wasn’t dating that he’d probably forget to show up to anything Ket Hau planned. Well, no doubt that would shake itself out in time.
Stephen would have loved watching Siong’s little love story play out. He’d always been a romantic.
Ket Hau picked his mug off his desk, when a phone started ringing. It took him a moment to recognise the ringtone. He didn’t get calls on his work mobile very often; his co-workers usually preferred to ambush him on Teams.
No Caller ID, read the phone screen. The new partner, Ameera, had said she would call to brief him on a research task. Maybe she was ringing from her landline at home.
“Hello?” It was a woman on the line, but not Ameera, or anyone he knew. “Is this Ket Yap?”
Ket Hau suppressed a yawn. “Yes, speaking.”
“It’s Clarissa,” said the voice on the line. “We talked a couple of weeks ago, at Foyles?” She sounded nervous. Was that a Malaysian accent?
Ket Hau was about to say, Sorry, you’ve got the wrong number, when the woman said:
“Clarissa Low.”
Ket Hau froze.
“Give me a moment,” he said.
Quiet as it was today, in an open-plan office there was always the risk of being overheard. He stepped out of his cubicle and went into the small meeting room opposite the pod, shutting the door behind him.
He lowered himself into a chair, gripping the phone to his ear. “Right.”
There wasn’t much of a family resemblance between Ket Hau and his brother. Siong had Ma’s willowy grace and enviable bone structure, whereas Ket Hau took after their father. Which meant he was four inches shorter and didn’t make people stop dead in the street, staring.
But they sounded almost exactly the same. Even close friends and family were liable to get confused about which of the two of them had picked up the phone.
“Clarissa,” he said. “Of course.”
“Is now a good time to speak? Great.” Clarissa Low paused. “I spoke to my father after we talked. About the Ensengei project. I didn’t mention you. And I didn’t learn much, he didn’t want to talk about it. But it made me realise you were right. I should start asking questions.”
“Right,” said Ket Hau. It seemed the safest thing to say.
“I managed to get access to the company systems,” said Clarissa. “And I found some things. I don’t know how much they mean, but I printed them off in case they’re useful. I thought that would be better. No electronic trail. Can I pass them to you?
“This week?” she added, before Ket Hau could say anything. “I’m flying back to Malaysia on Thursday. My grandma’s not well. That’s why I didn’t ask Alicia to contact you. She’s away travelling, and I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. I found this number online. I thought there couldn’t be that many Malaysian Ket Yaps in London, right?”
“Sure,” said one of at least two Malaysian Ket Yaps in London. “So you found this number on the firm’s website?” Ket Hau put Clarissa on speaker so he could bring up the website on his phone. “I see.”
Turned out he did have an online profile. That was news to him. Historically, the firm hadn’t bothered devoting individual web pages to profiles of their paralegal staff.
This had to be Ameera’s fault. She came from a tech industry background and believed in doing away with the traditional hierarchies of legal practice. Her team had a stand-up every Monday and she never had ordinary calls, only synced.
At least his surprise profile was bare bones. The one piece of identifying information on it, besides the shortened and rearranged version of his name he went by at work, was the fact he’d studied at Universiti Malaya. No picture. It was no wonder the girl had been led astray.
“I’m sorry about your grandma,” said Ket Hau.
He might be able to bluff this girl into thinking he was Siong for the duration of a phone call, but any face-to-face encounter was going to shatter the illusion.
“You’ll be busy,” he said. “Rather than meeting up, would it be easier if you courier the documents to me?”
“I think better to hand them to you,” said Clarissa. “I could come to your firm? It’s near Holborn, right?”
She seemed anxious to put herself out on Ket Siong’s account. Whatever he had told her, clearly it had impressed upon her a sense of obligation.
“The thing is, I’m in all-day meetings this whole week,” said Ket Hau apologetically. “Can you drop the documents off at reception? I’ll let them know to expect you. Sorry, it’s just a busy time.”
Clarissa hesitated. “The documents are, you know, they’re pretty sensitive. I shouldn’t really have them. But after what you told me… I want to help. But I hope—I’m trusting you to handle these carefully.”
She sounded very young. Wasn’t one of the Low daughters some kind of influencer? Ket Hau had seen photos of her before, floating around on social media—a long-legged teenager in Chanel. If this was her, she couldn’t be older than twenty, at most.
“I understand,” he said gently. “I appreciate your trust. You don’t need to worry. If you pass those documents to reception, I’ll make sure they come straight to me. This is a reputable firm. We know how to handle documents.”
Documents she’d stolen from her father’s company and was sharing with an outsider, unbeknownst to her father.
An outsider and a stranger? It didn’t sound like Clarissa knew Ket Siong that well. She wouldn’t be the girl Ket Siong had been seeing. Would she?
“It’s probably the least suspicious way to do the handover,” Ket Hau added. “If you’re spotted and someone starts asking questions, you can say you came to consult the firm on something.”
A nerve-wracking pause, and then:
“That makes sense,” said Clarissa. “I’m going to Senate House Library tomorrow afternoon. I’ll drop by your firm on the way, if that works? Can you let me know as soon as you receive the documents? I’ll give you my number.”
Ket Hau took the number down. “I’ll let you know the moment they’re in my hands.”
“Thanks, Ket.”
“No,” said Ket Hau, with complete sincerity. “Thank you .”