“Nothing on her yet. The flat’s registered owner is Mr. Thomas Ng,” the private investigator replied.
“Doesn’t ring any bells,” Astrid said numbly.
“We’re still assembling a dossier,” Mr. Lui said. An instant message flashed on his phone, and he reported, “The woman just left the flat with a young boy, approximately four years old.”
Astrid’s heart sank. “Have you been able to find out anything about the boy?”
“We have not. We did not know there was a boy inside the flat with them until this moment.”
“So the woman has left with the boy and my husband is alone now?”
“Yes. We don’t think anyone else is in the apartment.”
“You don’t think? Can you be sure there isn’t someone else in there? Can’t you use some sort of thermal sensor?” Charlie asked.
Mr. Lui gave a little snort. “Hiyah, this isn’t the CIA. Of course, we can always escalate and bring in specialists if you wish, but for domestics such as these, we don’t usually—”
“I want to see my husband,” Astrid said matter-of-factly. “Can you take me to him now?”
“Ms. Teo, in these situations, we really don’t advise—” the man delicately began.
“I don’t care. I need to see him face-to-face,” Astrid insisted.
A few minutes later, Astrid sat quietly in the back of the Mercedes with tinted windows while Mr. Lui rode in the front passenger seat, frantically barking orders in Cantonese to the team assembled around 64 Pak Tin Street. Charlie wanted to come along, but Astrid had insisted on going alone. “Don’t worry, Charlie — nothing’s going to happen. I’m just going to have a talk with Michael.” Now her mind was reeling, and she was getting more and more antsy as the car inched through lunchtime traffic in Tsim Sha Tsui.
She just didn’t know what to think anymore. Who exactly was this girl? It looked like the affair must have been going on since before their wedding, but then why had Michael married her? It clearly wasn’t for money — her husband had always been so rabidly insistent about not wanting to benefit from her family’s wealth. He had readily signed the hundred-and-fifty-page prenuptial agreement without so much as a blink, as well as the postnuptial her family’s lawyers had insisted on after Cassian was born. Her money, and Cassian’s money, was more secure than the Bank of China’s. So what was it that motivated Michael to have a wife in Singapore, and a mistress in Hong Kong?
Astrid looked out her car window and noticed a Rolls-Royce Phantom next to her. Enthroned in the backseat was a couple, probably in their early thirties, dressed to the nines. The woman had short, smartly coiffed hair and was immaculately made up and dressed in a purple blouse with an enormous diamond-and-emerald floral brooch pinned to her right shoulder. The man at her side was sporting a florid Versace silk bomber jacket and Latin dictator — style dark sunglasses. Anywhere else in the world, this couple would have looked completely absurd — they were at least three decades too young to be chauffeured around so ostentatiously. But this was Hong Kong, and somehow it worked here. Astrid wondered where they came from, and where they were going. Probably off to lunch at the club. What secrets did they keep from each other? Did the husband have a mistress? Did the wife have a lover? Were there any children? Were they happy? The woman sat perfectly still, staring dead ahead, while the man slouched slightly away from her, reading the business section of the South China Morning Post. The traffic began to move again, and suddenly they were in Mong Kok, with its dense, hulking sixties apartment blocks crowding out the sunlight.
Before she knew it, Astrid was being led out of the car, flanked by four security men in dark suits. She looked around nervously as they escorted her to an old block of flats and into a small fluorescent-lit elevator with avocado-green walls. On the tenth floor, they emerged into an open-air hallway that skirted along an inner courtyard where lines of laundry hung from every available window. They walked past apartments with plastic slippers and shoes by the doorways, and soon they were in front of the metal-grille door of flat 10-07B.
The tallest man rang the doorbell once, and a moment later, Astrid could hear a few latches being undone. The door opened, and there he was. Her husband, standing right in front of her.
Michael glanced at the security detail surrounding Astrid and shook his head in disgust. “Let me guess, your father hired these goons to track me down.”
13
Cameron Highlands
MALAYSIA
Nick borrowed his father’s 1963 Jaguar E-Type roadster from the garage at Tyersall Park, and he and Rachel headed onto the Pan Island Expressway, bound for the bridge that linked Singapore to the Malay Peninsula. From Johor Bahru, they drove up the Utara-Selatan Highway, detouring to the seaside town of Malacca so that Nick could show Rachel the distinctive crimson-hued façade of Christ Church, built by the Dutch when the town was part of their colonial empire, and the charmingly ornate Peranakan row houses along Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock.
Afterward, they stayed on the old road that skirted along the Negeri Sembilan coast for a while. With the top down and the warm ocean breeze on her face, Rachel began to feel more relaxed than she had since arriving in Asia. The trauma of the past few days was dissipating, and at last it felt like they were truly on holiday together. She loved the wildness of these back roads, the rustic seaside hamlets that seemed untouched by time, the way Nick looked with day-old stubble and the wind whipping through his hair. A few miles north of Port Dickson, Nick turned down a dirt road thick with tropical vegetation, and as Rachel looked inland, she could glimpse miles and miles of uniformly planted trees.
“What are those perfect rows of trees?” Rachel asked.
“Rubber — we’re surrounded by rubber plantations,” Nick explained. They pulled up to a spot right by the beach, got out of the car, took off their sandals, and strolled onto the hot sand. A few Malay families were scattered about the beach having lunch, the ladies’ colorful head scarves flapping in the wind as they bustled around canteens of food and children who were more interested in frolicking in the surf. It was a cloudy day, and the sea was a mottled tapestry of deep green with patches of azure where the clouds broke.
A Malay woman and her son came toward them, hauling a big blue-and-white Styrofoam cooler. Nick began talking animatedly with the woman, buying two bundles from her Igloo before bending down and asking the boy a question. The boy nodded eagerly and ran off, while Nick found a shady spot underneath the low-hanging branches of a mangrove tree.
He handed Rachel a still-warm banana-leaf packet tied with string. “Try Malaysia’s most popular dish—nasi lemak,” he said. Rachel undid the string and the glossy banana leaf unfolded to reveal a neatly composed mound of rice surrounded by sliced cucumbers, tiny fried anchovies, roasted peanuts, and a hard-boiled egg.
“Pass me a fork,” Rachel said.
“There’s no fork. You get to go native on this — use your fingers!” Nick grinned.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope, that’s the traditional way. Malays believe the food actually tastes better when you eat with your hands. They only use the right hand to eat, of course. The left hand is used for purposes better left unmentioned.”
“But I haven’t washed my hands, Nick. I don’t think I can eat like this,” Rachel said, sounding a little alarmed.
“Come on, Miss OCD. Tough it out,” Nick teased. He scooped some of the rice into his fingers and began eating the nasi lemak with gusto.
Rachel gingerly scooped some of the rice into her mouth, instantly breaking into a smile. “Mmmm … it’s coconut rice!”