Tay had never been to DeSouza’s house before, but from the surveillance reports he knew exactly how to find it. It was one of the classic old bungalows up Ridley Park Road just behind the Tanglin Park Condominiums.
He also knew from the surveillance reports that DeSouza lived alone. It was a pretty ritzy address. What was a single man doing living all by himself in a big house in an expensive neighborhood instead of in a condominium? All at once it occurred to Tay that he was a single man and he too lived all by himself in a big house in an expensive neighborhood instead of in a condominium. Did that mean he was like DeSouza in some way? No, that was not possible. He was not like DeSouza in any way.
The further Tay got from Orchard Road, the more traffic thinned and by the time he passed the darkened windows of the Tanglin Mall it pretty well disappeared altogether. Tanglin was not a neighborhood in which people drove around late at night. The tree-lined roadways, the neatly trimmed lawns, and the widely spaced street lamps gave the whole area an aura of order to the point of artificiality. He hoped Sergeant Kang had pulled the surveillance off DeSouza as he had told him to. If anyone were still watching DeSouza’s house, Tay would have a hard time explaining what he was doing driving by it in the middle of the night.
Just beyond the British High Commission, Tay started watching the street signs. The Chinese embassy appeared and disappeared in the darkness and his headlights swept the neatly trimmed lawns of the elegant low-rise condominium complexes that lined Tanglin Road. When he saw the sign for Ridley Park Road, he turned right.
A hundred yards beyond the Tanglin Park Condominiums, Ridley Park narrowed into two lanes. The trees closed in and the vegetation thickened, but Tay could still see houses far up the circular driveways behind big iron gates. The houses all looked more or less alike: two stories tall with white walls, black-painted beams, red tile roofs, grassy green lawns, and wide front porticos. The area made Tay think of a deserted stage set for some play based on a Henry James novel.
Tay knew from the surveillance reports that DeSouza’s house was on the corner just around the curve he was approaching. He slowed and scanned the road cautiously. To his relief, he saw no evidence of surveillance. When he made the curve, he spotted the house immediately.
There was a black iron gate suspended between two white brick pillars and beyond the gate a short driveway crossed a tightly trimmed lawn to a covered portico at the front of the house. There was a light in the portico and lights in several upstairs windows. At a glance Tay thought all the downstairs windows were dark, but he couldn’t be certain without examining the house carefully. He didn’t want to make himself conspicuous, at least not yet, so he drove on.
Just past DeSouza’s house, Ridley Park Road narrowed further and thick vegetation crowded in on both sides. Tay kept a close eye out for surveillance vehicles along the road or off to the sides of it, but he saw none.
On the right side of the road, a high wire fence caught Tay’s eye. It was topped with coils of concertina wire, a sight that suited the Tanglin area about as well as a herd of grazing reindeer. He was just wondering what the significance of the fence could be when what looked like lines of military barracks appeared out of the night on the opposite side of the road. They were long, low whitewashed buildings with tile roofs and green shuttered windows and they looked ghostly and abandoned.
He used a roadway between two of the barracks to turn his car around. He sat for a moment with his headlights illuminating the deserted buildings and half imagined armed sentries rushing to challenge him, demanding to know what he was doing there. If any had, he would have had difficulty giving them a coherent explanation. He was even having difficulty giving himself a coherent explanation. After a bit, he stopped thinking about it, reversed out into Ridley Park Road, and turned his car back toward DeSouza’s house.
Tay parked on the grass at the side of the road. He chose a place where his car was screened by a thick stand of trees and would not be noticed if DeSouza happened to look out a window. He picked up the envelope with the photographs of the Hoover Hotel and got out, closing the car door quietly behind him.
The night was almost unnaturally calm. There was no wind at all. Moisture hung in the air like globs of powdered sugar. Tay stood for a moment on the grass, listening. Hearing nothing, he walked to DeSouza’s gates and examined them in the dim light of a street lamp up the road. He was pleased to see that they were unlocked. He gave the right one a small push and it swung open.
Tay hadn’t expected to encounter any security and he didn’t. He walked up the driveway, entered the portico, and climbed the three concrete steps to the front door.
He rang the doorbell.