Maris went to Axel’s hotel later that night. She had waited for him to call but he hadn’t. She had stayed in the back room of the gallery trying to figure out what to do. Finally she had called Peter’s lawyer, Henry Fong, the one who had read the will and given her the trunk of Peter’s things. He was as shocked as she was about what had happened. “I don’t believe Peter would have been involved in such a thing,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He called her back in a couple of hours and said they were holding Angela and Dinah for questioning and would not be releasing them for at least forty-eight hours.
“Can they do that?” she asked.
“Apparently, they can,” he said. “This case involves Interpol and so there are a lot of players outside the Singapore police. I’ll do what I can, but for the moment, that doesn’t seem to be much.”
“Can I see them?”
“Not tonight,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow.”
When Axel didn’t call or answer when she called, she locked up the gallery and headed for Raffles. She would not leave until he told her what was going on.
Axel was in his room and appeared to be expecting her. He had ordered room service, and there was food and a bottle of wine on a cart that was covered with a white tablecloth.
“Come and eat something first,” he said. “And have a glass of wine. This has been a terrible day for both of us and I think we need to step back for a minute before either of us says something we might regret.”
“Are you going to tell me you were just doing your job?” she said.
He didn’t answer her but started to uncork the wine. He poured her a glass and handed it to her. She took it but her hand was shaking and she had to put it down. He removed the silver covers from the plates of food and she saw that he had ordered sandwiches. She realized she was hungry; she hadn’t eaten since lunch. She had sent Lim home right after the arrests and had asked her not to say anything, although she knew that word would have spread pretty fast already. The police had not been discreet; they had taken Dinah and Angela out the front door and put them in police cars in full view of everybody.
“I actually don’t know what to say to you,” Axel finally said, “except that the investigation led right to the gallery and we had to act fast. Obviously, I couldn’t warn you. We had to have the element of surprise on our side.”
“You mean the element of shock, don’t you?”
“Look,” he said. “We did it as quickly and as quietly as we could.”
Just then, Axel’s mobile rang. He looked at the call display and said, “I have to take this. Excuse me.” He went out into the corridor, closing the door behind him. Maris picked up a sandwich and took a bite. It was roast beef with horseradish, but it might as well have been sawdust.
Axel returned after ten minutes, turning off his phone. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We won’t be disturbed again.”
“Who calls you at this time of night?” she said.
“My boss,” he said. “There’s a time difference and he waits until the end of his day. I had to give him an update.”
“Why don’t you just call him instead?”
“He’s hard to reach. And it’s easier this way. Besides, he’s the boss.” He smiled a half-hearted smile and shrugged. “How are the sandwiches?” he said, taking one.
“Fine,” she said. “Why are you holding Dinah and Angela?”
“It’s necessary,” he said, taking a bite of his sandwich. Maris understood that chewing on the sandwich made it impossible for him to say anything. It gave him a chance to think up a plausible answer. “Look,” he said, “this is a serious crime. We’ve been trying to crack this ring for two years now. We think Angela, and maybe Dinah, might be able to tell us something that can lead us to the bad guys.”
“And for this you had to arrest them?”
“It’s more complicated than that,” he said, taking another bite of his sandwich. Maris sighed and took a big gulp of her wine. This was going to take a while.
“They’re being held for questioning. If they’re involved — and I’m not saying they are — then they could be a flight risk. We have to hold them.”
“Where would they go?” she said. “I don’t even think Dinah has a passport.”
“She does,” said Axel. “And Angela has lots of places to go.”
“You think she’d take Dinah with her?”
“It’s possible.”
“You’re nuts,” she said. “Angela wouldn’t do that. Not even if Dinah’s life depended on it.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Well, I know it,” she said, defiance creeping into her voice. “Dinah’s my friend and I know she doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“And what about Angela?” he said.
“Angela is not my friend, but I’ve known her a long time. She’s not the nicest person in the world, but I can’t imagine she’d be involved in a crime.”
“See, that’s something you can’t know,” said Axel. “If she is involved, then she’s good at keeping secrets and being circumspect. Of course you wouldn’t know.”
“But Peter …”
“Yes, Peter,” he said. “Peter may have suspected but, unfortunately, he didn’t say that. It might be what got him killed — this whole secret operation.”
“So you don’t think he was involved?”
“I can’t say for sure, but he was killed for a reason, and it was probably connected to this. It all depends on who killed him. And we may never know that.”
“Gee,” Maris said, sarcastically, “maybe Dinah did it. His own sister. Or Angela, his ex-wife. Or maybe they did it together.”
“Don’t, Maris. Don’t make light of this. I’ll do everything I can to find out what really happened. And if Dinah and Angela are cleared, I’ll be the first one to break open the champagne. I don’t want this to be happening any more than you do.”
“Why do I have trouble believing that?” she said. “It would be a real feather in your cap to break up this smuggling ring. This is the perfect solution to the crime.”
“Please, Maris, don’t do this,” he said. “I don’t want this to destroy what we have.”
“And just what do we have?” she said.
“I love you,” he said. “I would have given anything for this to turn out differently.”
Maris didn’t say anything. She wanted to believe him but there was just too much stacked up against him. Obviously, his job came first. And, apparently, he didn’t trust her enough to tell her there would be a raid on the gallery.
“If I had told you,” he said, as if reading her mind, “would you have kept quiet and not told Angela and Dinah? Can you honestly say that?”
She took another drink of her wine. “I don’t know,” she said, finally. “I really don’t know.”
“Then maybe you can understand how torn I was about this. I wanted to tell you, but the policeman part of me knew it wouldn’t be wise. None of us knows what we’d do in such a situation. What is right? To tell your friends or to do as the police say? Where does our loyalty ultimately lie?” He shook his head as she stood to go. “I never wanted to come between you and your friends.”