Chapter 23
23
Presumably Renee got a taxi home. Ket Siong’s journey home was a little more involved, requiring a Tube train and a bus. He had a book on him—a Wallace Stevens collection—but he didn’t take it out.
The conversation with Renee replayed itself over and over in his head, but almost without the power to hurt him. He watched it with the bafflement of a viewer of a film in a foreign language, wondering how those people had reached the state in which they found themselves.
He had to get off at Seven Sisters to catch his bus home. He remembered, dully, that he’d texted his family earlier, to say he was going to be late and wouldn’t need dinner. He should check whether there had been a reply.
Renee wouldn’t have messaged. Though if she’d calmed down and was regretting what she’d said, it would not be out of the question for her to get in touch. Her moods shifted quickly, and she was never too embarrassed to own it.
There were no texts from his family or Renee. But there was a notification of a new direct message on Facebook. He’d forgotten he’d downloaded the messaging app after writing to the Hornbill Gazette . Four weeks had passed since then. He’d given up on hearing back.
I’m sorry for the delayed response. Your message went to my spam folder, so I didn’t see it before. I’m working on an article for a major broadsheet here about the situation in Sarawak, and would be very interested in talking to you and your brother. I hear your brother is in London now. Could we meet in person? He can rest assured that I protect my sources. I can put you in touch with people who could vouch for me, if needed. Let me know.—HD
Which could be none other than Helen Daley—editor in chief of the Hornbill Gazette and author of a thousand screeds on the venal corruption of the Malaysian political body. She’d followed up with another message, supplying her phone number:
Feel free to call me if it would be easier to talk.
She would see that Ket Siong had read her messages the next time she checked. He put his phone away in his pocket.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise to hear from Helen Daley herself. That was what he’d been hoping for. If he’d written in thinking the message would be read by an intern, he would have explained who he was and why he was asking. He’d been assuming that would all be understood.
But he hadn’t expected this. Mrs. Daley had, at various times, been denounced in Malaysian mainstream media, banned entry to the country, and had an Interpol notice issued against her because she had pissed off the Malaysian government just that much. She had to be careful about giving out her personal details.
Yet she’d given Ket Siong her number, unasked. And she knew Ket Hau was in London. That would, presumably, have taken her some digging to find out. What had she been looking for?
Ket Siong had said to Clarissa Low that Stephen might have known something, echoing the Hornbill Gazette ’s speculation. It had never previously occurred to him that his brother might withhold anything of importance from him. But he found himself wondering, now, what Ket Hau knew.
It wouldn’t be long before he could ask. But the journey home that night felt even longer than usual.
It was past eleven by the time Ket Siong got home. Ma’s bedroom door was shut, but Ket Hau was lying in wait for him. He loomed out of the living room, arms crossed, when Ket Siong got to the top of the stairs.
“Come on,” he said curtly.
Ket Siong hadn’t been planning on talking to his brother about the Hornbill Gazette ’s messages that night. He’d had enough emotional scenes for one day. But it looked like he was due another, and he wasn’t going to be able to opt out.
“What’s wrong?” he said, but Ket Hau was already heading to their bedroom.
The first thing Ket Siong noticed, when he entered their room, was the desk. The desk was Ket Hau’s domain, since it was his office job that brought in the bulk of their income, his legal studies that were their best bet of financial security in the future.
Usually it was a mess of law textbooks; copious notes on foolscap paper; bills old, new, and overdue; takeaway flyers; and assorted stationery Ket Hau had appropriated from his firm: highlighters, Post-its, sticky flags, and pens.
But the desk had been cleared of its usual chaos. Two manila document wallets sat on it.
“What do you think you’re doing?” said Ket Hau. “It’s not enough to chat up Low Teck Wee, you have to go look up his daughter as well? Are you playing the fool or what?”
Ket Siong had known he would be in trouble when his family found out, but his imagination hadn’t taken him quite far enough in predicting how unpleasant it would be. “I was just trying—”
“To find out what happened to Stephen.” Ket Hau’s mouth twisted. “I can tell you, all right? Those thugs drove off with him, they took him to some deserted place, and they shot him in the head—if he was lucky. If he was lucky, he only had a short time to know he was going to die alone and nobody was coming for him. Then those bastards dumped him somewhere. OK? What more do you want? You’re so desperate to know every last detail?”
Ket Siong said, “Maybe if we knew the details, you could stop thinking about it.”
Ket Hau lowered himself heavily to his bed. “I’m never going to stop thinking about it.”
There was nothing to say to that. Guilt lowered Ket Siong’s head. But even to apologise would be an insult, at that moment.
“Can I look?” he said instead, gesturing at the manila folders.
Ket Hau no longer looked angry, but sad and tired, older than he should be. “Help yourself.”
The folders were crammed with paper. Printouts of emails, spreadsheets, slide decks, reports—the ordinary detritus of corporate operations. Ket Siong was only skimming as he leafed through the documents, but the same two words jumped out again and again.
“‘Project Alpha,’” he read aloud.
“That’s what they called the Ensengei project,” said Ket Hau. “I’ve looked through the papers. There’s not much there. Somebody called ‘VVIP’ was involved—that must be the state premier, or the daughter, or the son-in-law. Your friend Clarissa’s circled some financial transactions, probably kickbacks. Nothing earthshaking. Do you think it was worth risking our safety for this?”
“When did Clarissa give these to you?”
“She dropped them off at the office today. That’s why I went in, instead of working from home.” At Ket Siong’s look, Ket Hau said, “She found my details online. Thought I was you.”
He smiled mirthlessly. “You nuke your social media, move countries, don’t tell anybody where you’re going, and then your bloody employer outs you to the whole world. Type your name into Google and anybody will know how to find you. Unbelievable.” He shook his head. “This time it was documents, but next time it could be a bomb. Who knows?”
Ket Siong sat down on his bed, across from his brother. “Why would anyone send you a bomb?”
Ket Hau shrugged, weary. “Why did they take Stephen?”
“I didn’t ask at the time,” said Ket Siong slowly. “He was standing in the way of a major project, threatening the reputation of a big company. But the project went ahead and the company is fine. Low Teck Wee had dinner with the mayor of London while he was here. So why would anyone be worried about you?” He paused, watching the play of expression across his brother’s face. “Why did they take Stephen, Ko? What did he know?”
Ket Hau went still. “What are you trying to say?”
Ket Siong got out his phone, brought up Helen Daley’s messages, and handed the phone to his brother.
“What’s this?” said Ket Hau. His eyes skipped down the phone screen, and his face went blank.
“What does Helen Daley want to talk to you about?” said Ket Siong. “Did Stephen know something? Is that why they got rid of him?”
“Is that what you told the Hornbill Gazette ?” said Ket Hau, his voice rising. “Are you crazy ?”
“I didn’t tell her anything.”
But Ket Hau was in no mood to listen. “How does Helen Daley know I’m in London? Why am I even asking, she knows how to Google, too. And now she knows you’re here as well. And she wants to write about us in the fucking newspaper. Fuck!” He ran a hand through his hair. “Siong, seriously, do you have a death wish? What’s the point of uprooting and coming all the way here if you’re just going to paint a target on our backs? Don’t you know how dangerous this is?”
Ket Siong should be tactful. Ket Hau had been through a lot over the past few years. They had all been through a lot, as a family. They needed to be gentle with one another.
But he’d already spent too much of the evening keeping a lid on his feelings to try to avoid some irreversible rupture, and it hadn’t even worked. Ket Siong found he was out of tact.
“Obviously not,” he said. “If Helen Daley knows more than me! Ko, I can’t keep us safe if I don’t know the full story.”
“It’s not your job to keep us safe,” shouted Ket Hau. “It’s mine !”
Ket Siong had never heard this voice from his brother before. It seemed to have bubbled up from some primal, unacknowledged part of him.
They were both shocked. Ket Hau opened his mouth and closed it, looking somewhat at a loss.
“I’ve been asking and asking you to keep your head down,” he said finally. “Instead, you’re going off and talking to every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the country. What’s Ma going to say when she finds out?”
“Finds out what?” said Ma’s voice.
Their mother stood in the doorway in her ancient grey Uniqlo fleece, worn over a batik kaftan. Poking out from under the kaftan were her fluffy polar bear slippers, bought cheap from Poundland. She blinked in the light, looking groggy.
“What are you all fighting about?” she said.
“Ma,” Ket Siong began, when it struck him that something was off. It took him a moment to identify what it was.
Ket Siong never got to speak first in this sort of situation. Being the youngest—and the quiet one—meant getting shouted down was an inevitability, even with as kind and equable an elder brother as Ket Hau generally was.
But Ket Hau wasn’t interrupting. This was because he was busy staring down at Ket Siong’s phone. Ket Siong had forgotten Ket Hau still had it.
“Who’s Renee SR Goh?” said Ket Hau.
Ma sat them down at the dining table. They were not to fight. It was clear none of them was in a fit state to retire, despite Ket Hau and Ket Siong’s feeble protests that Ma should go to bed and not worry about them. Instead, they should talk—but not before she had made them all hot drinks.
They waited in silence while Ma bustled around the kitchen, putting on the kettle and getting jars out of cupboards. Ket Siong stared at his phone.
His heart had leapt, absurdly, when Ket Hau said Renee’s name, but there was no message from her. Or there was, but nothing so encouraging as a text. Renee had sent him a payment for her half of the bill for dinner.
He’d forgotten she had his bank details. They’d exchanged those after their Chelsea nasi lemak dinner. Renee had reluctantly permitted him to pay for his half of the meal, at his insistence, but then she’d turned around and sent him back an amount covering their drinks. She’d said it wasn’t fair for him to have to pay fifty percent when she’d drunk ninety percent of the alcohol.
He hadn’t argued. That was what friends did, go Dutch. Maybe when their renewed friendship was no longer quite so new and Renee had relaxed a little, she’d let him treat her once in a while.
So much for that. This time she’d calculated the amount owed down to the penny. The precision of the payment was a statement. Her debts were paid; he had no claim on her.
The notification had come through at five minutes to midnight. Hopefully Renee was asleep by now. She’d have to get up early for her pitch the next morning.
He remembered with a slight start that he didn’t want the pitch to succeed. But he didn’t want it to go badly for Renee, either. She’d put so much into it.
Who was he to judge her for her choices? Love compromised you. Ket Siong should know.
“So,” said Ket Hau, “is this the same Renee?”
Ket Siong’s head whipped up. “What?”
“You know, the friend you told us about back then. The one you had a crush on at uni. Come on,” said Ket Hau, as Ket Siong gaped at him, “it was obvious. You couldn’t talk about her without blushing. You’re doing it right now.”
Ket Hau shook his head. “So she’s the girl you’ve been seeing. I should have guessed. I couldn’t believe you went and slept with some stranger you met at an event—”
Ket Siong glanced towards the kitchen. “Shh!”
There was no sign of Ma emerging, thankfully. The kettle was boiling and the hiss tended to fill the kitchen, drowning out all other sound.
“It was so out of character,” Ket Hau went on, though he did at least lower his voice. “I couldn’t brain it. You meet some random girl and suddenly you’re always on your phone, you’re going around humming to yourself…”
“I wasn’t humming. Was I humming?”
“Oh, and it was a Dior exhibition you went to. Of course ,” said Ket Hau. “She studied fashion, right, your Renee?” At Ket Siong’s expression, he added, “What, did you think we didn’t know? We were so worried after she rejected you back then.”
Ma and Ket Hau had been especially solicitous while he was reeling from the breach with Renee, but Ket Siong hadn’t noticed anything unusual in their concern. After all, he had just had to give up his studies at the Royal Academy of Music. If he was crushed, that needed no explanation.
Apparently, it had, in fact, required no explanation. If anyone in this family was allowed secrets, it certainly wasn’t Ket Siong.
“She didn’t reject me,” he said, a little too loudly.
Ma, coming into the room with three mugs on a tray, said, “I told you all, cannot fight.”
She placed two mugs before Ket Siong and Ket Hau, brimming with piping hot Milo, made in Ma’s irreproducible style. Heated milk poured onto six heaping spoonfuls of Milo powder, with a generous teaspoon of condensed milk stirred in at the end.
Ma had made herself mulberry leaf tea. She sat down, cupping her hands around her mug.
“I wasn’t fighting,” muttered Ket Siong. “I was just saying. I was the one who rejected Renee.”
“Which Renee?” Ma’s eyes widened. “You mean your uni friend? The fashion student?”
Ket Siong probably shouldn’t be surprised at the retentiveness of his family’s memory. After all, they remembered more of his life than he did.
“You broke up with her because you had to leave London?” said Ket Hau sympathetically. “I’m sorry, man.”
Ket Siong found himself abruptly tired of subterfuge. There was no reason not to be honest. If he’d acted on his impulse to tell Renee how he felt about her earlier that evening, maybe she would still be talking to him.
“No. We weren’t dating,” he said. “I turned her down, because I found out her father is Goh Kheng Tat.”
There was a brief silence.
“Oh shit ,” said Ket Hau.
“Hau!”
“Sorry, Ma.” Ket Hau turned back to Ket Siong. “But wait, Siong. You’re back in touch now. Are you going out with her, or…?”
Their mother gazed down at her mulberry leaf tea, wearing the expression she used to assume whenever a gossiping auntie visited—austere, yet not quite discouraging. Gossip was not correct and so she would not initiate or encourage it, but it would be rude to interrupt.
Ket Siong wasn’t inclined to enlist her help, anyway. It wasn’t like there was anything to hide, anymore.
“I don’t think I’ll be seeing her again,” he said.
Ket Hau was agog, more alive than he had looked in a long time. “Why? What happened?”
“I’ll tell you,” said Ket Siong. He met his brother’s eyes. “But I asked you some questions, too, Ko. I think it’s your turn to answer.”
Ket Hau dropped his gaze.
Ket Siong was experiencing a novel feeling, one he’d rarely enjoyed in relation to his family. It was the sensation of being in possession of the moral high ground.
“Just now you said something,” he said.
Ket Hau waved a protesting hand, his head still bent. “Not fair to drag up what I said. Ma said cannot fight.”
“You said it’s not my job to keep us safe. It’s yours,” said Ket Siong. “But you can’t decide to keep us all safe. That’s not under your control. And it shouldn’t be on you alone. You have to let us help.”
“Correct,” said Ma. “I’ve told you also, Hau. You should listen to Siong. He’s so sensible now he’s grown up.”
Ket Siong had been about to point out that he was an adult and therefore entitled to take on equal responsibility for protecting the family, but Ma’s contribution put paid to that. Better to let the fact he was fully thirty-one years of age speak for itself, even if his family seemed incapable of remembering the fact.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was trying to find out about Stephen,” he said to his brother. “But I’m going to make mistakes if you don’t tell me what’s going on. You can’t make the decisions for us all.”
Ket Hau was quiet, unusually for him. He wiped his face with his hand, and Ket Siong and Ma both realised at the same time that he was crying.
“Boy, what is this?” said Ma. “Why are you crying? No need to cry. Siong, get the tissues there.”
Ket Siong was already on his feet, grabbing a box of tissues off the mantelpiece. He passed them to his mother, too obscurely guilty to present them to Ket Hau himself. Ma pulled out several pieces and pressed them into Ket Hau’s hands.
“You must be nicer to your brother, Siong,” she said. “You don’t know. It’s not easy, everything that happened… And now it’s very stressful, his job. Having to earn to support the family. I remember how it was like, when you all were children. You think I don’t know?”
“I’m sorry,” said Ket Siong.
But Ket Hau said, with a laugh that sounded too much like a sob, “Leave Siong alone, Ma. He didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just my chickens coming home to roost.”
“Chickens? What chickens? You bought chickens? We already have a lot in the freezer, cannot finish—”
“No, don’t worry. I didn’t buy chickens,” said Ket Hau. “There are no chickens.”
He was definitely laughing now. Ket Siong sat back down, cautious.
His brother looked at him. “If the worst thing to come out of this is I have to admit Siong is right, I’ll be happy. That’s considered getting off lightly.” Ket Hau rubbed his face on his sleeve and put the tissues Ma had given him on the table, still dry.
“I was trying to protect you all,” he said. His voice broke on the sentence.
Ket Siong said, “I know.”
Ma’s eyes were fixed on Ket Hau’s face, troubled. “But what is it, Hau? What are you trying to protect us from?”
“I might as well show you. Hold on.” Ket Hau got up and went to their bedroom. They heard him moving around, mysterious creaks and thuds issuing from the room, before he emerged and sat back down at the table.
He was holding a small silver USB drive. He put it on the table.
“What’s that?” said Ma.
“This thing is in my dreams every night,” said Ket Hau. He was gazing at the USB drive, his expression sombre.
Somehow Ket Siong knew what he was going to say. “Stephen gave it to you.”
“The night before they took him,” said Ket Hau. “Yes.”