9th of august, p.19
9th of August, page 19
It landed in a small puddle on the floor and a flame the size of a palm shot up. Feeding hungrily on the toilet rolls drenched in the flammable liquid, the fire grew quickly. Its gurgle was growing into a roar.
Henry felt the room getting warmer.
He remembered the instructions. Film it.
He whipped out his iPhone and shot a 12-second clip of the blaze spreading through the room. The smoke thickened.
Soon, the sprinklers would be activated.
Henry sent the footage to a WhatsApp number, then left the room and walked briskly to the MRT station.
Once he boarded the train, he sat down and glanced nervously to his left and right expecting to see police officers.
“Why did you do this?” he asked himself.
Too late now.
The rapid beeping indicating the closing of the train doors soon sounded.
Henry sighed, closed his eyes and rested his head on the glass panel next to him.
81
Number Six alighted at Toa Payoh MRT station.
A pasar malam had been set up in front of the library at Toa Payoh Central. Since it was a Sunday, hundreds of shoppers navigated their way past stalls. The smell of Ramly burgers was everywhere. It was so crowded, one didn’t know where to queue.
Kids unaccustomed to so many people wailed. Teenagers complained at having been dragged out of bed by their parents and the elderly shuffled their feet as fast as they could to get into the mix. The market reminded them of a time when they were younger. Hundreds of foreign domestic workers also flocked here like migrating birds, sitting under trees next to a block of flats.
At the void deck of Block 179, Number Six found what he had been looking for—an electric bicycle. Tun had arranged for someone to meet Number Six with the vehicle. Without acknowledging the man, he hopped onto the e-bike and waited.
The crowds eagerly awaited the guest of honour. Number Six waited at the void deck. He was wearing his reflective sunglasses and didn’t have a helmet on. It would have been pointless. He stood next to a wall with an SGSecure poster pasted on it.
The emcee took over.
“Good morning, everybody!”
“Good morning!” the crowd screamed back.
“How is everyone feeling today?”
“Good!”
“Sleepy!”
“Very good!”
“I hope you’re all having fun and it’s great to see all of you here. Very soon, our guest of honour will be arriving. Remember to give him a warm welcome, okay?” the emcee reminded the crowd in his fake husky voice.
“Okay!” they shouted back.
“Good!” said the emcee like an approving parent to his mischievous kids. He let them return to their shopping.
Number Six was looking for an opening. He noted the positions of the stalls along the perimeter of the marquee. They were so close together, there was no way he could squeeze through. He would have to improvise.
Then, the emcee’s voice came on again.
“Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for our guest of honour, Prime Minister John Tang!”
82
The couple who had agreed to rent their Geylang shophouse to a Chinese man a month earlier didn’t know he had been planning to house six Afghans there.
Or leave one of them behind as stiff as a bench.
Mr Gopal and Mrs Chandra had thought it strange the man was willing to pay them $3,000 to rent the place for a week. They had previously rented the house to another couple at $5,000 a month. So to have someone eagerly pay $3,000 a week…this should have set alarm bells ringing, especially in that part of Singapore. But money talks. And when you love money that much, you believe what you want to believe.
The man had paid cash immediately.
Later, the couple started having second thoughts about agreeing to the deal so quickly. What if the man was doing something illegal in their house? Like hiding illegal workers? As landlords, they’d be jailed for not checking the tenants’ employment status. And the price they’d have to pay would be worth more than $3,000. They debated whether to return the money and to call the authorities.
But Mr Gopal said, “It might be nothing. We’ll go over on Sunday to check.”
So, after breakfast that day, they drove to the house in Geylang. They rang the doorbell and waited. Nothing. Mr Gopal rang several more times. It was time to get worried. He fished out his spare keys and unlocked the padlock on the front gate. He didn’t realise how rusty the gate had become. Mr Gopal unlocked the door and they walked in one cautious step at a time.
They were dismayed to find empty cup noodle containers lying about the living room floor and dirty plates on the dining room table. Pigs, they thought.
“Hello!” Mr Gopal shouted. “Anyone in?”
Silence.
“Leave the door open,” he told his wife, who was clinging to his right arm as she followed him into the house. “Just in case we need to run out. But remember, I’m the man, so I run out first.”
Mrs Chandra glared at him.
“I was only joking. And stop digging into my arm. You should cut your nails. You’re hurting me.”
“Oh, sorry,” she said and released her grip.
At the foot of the stairs, they smelt it. Something odd. As if the odour that was wafting through their nostrils was devoid of life. They couldn’t put their finger on it. For some reason, the image of stainless-steel spoons appeared in Mr Gopal’s mind. The couple looked up the flight of stairs and suddenly felt cold. If they were to go up to investigate, would they be able to leave alive?
“Shall we call the police?” Mrs Chandra asked.
“What if it’s a false alarm? I don’t want to trouble the cops for nothing. They’re already very busy as it is,” her husband retorted.
“Yes, but what if…”
“What? What if what?” asked Mr Gopal, who was getting agitated. Partly with his wife for not finishing her sentence as usual and partly with himself for struggling to find the courage to go upstairs. He always got angry when he knew he wasn’t in control.
“I’ll walk in front, you follow behind,” he told her. “If anything happens, you run out and call for help. Okay?”
Step by step they made their way up, putting in much effort to not breathe loudly. Mrs Chandra looked behind now and then to make sure no one was following them or was closing the door on them. She was gripping her iPhone and had already keyed in “999” to save precious seconds. She recited the address in her mind so she could give the police operator their location as quickly as possible. It’s a good plan, she reassured herself. Everything’s going to be all right.
They checked the first room. The door was unlocked and, not surprisingly, they found it in a mess. Dirty clothes were lying on the two beds and had spilled onto the floor. There were also printouts of the MRT network. Tourists? Mr Gopal and Mrs Chandra checked the toilet—it was clean except for the light red stains in the sink and on the floor. Had the tenants been painting?
They went to the next bedroom. It was locked. Mr Gopal once again fished out his set of spare keys and fumbled with them. He had not labelled them and tried one key after another.
Once he opened the door, that smell rushed out and hit them square in the face. Metal, he thought. It smells like metal. The curtains were drawn and the ceiling fan was off. They didn’t have to take another step in to know what could cause that kind of stench. But they needed to be sure. They glanced at the bed on the right and it was empty and well made.
The bed on the left had a bulge on it. Something had been covered with the blanket. It had the shape of a human body. And there seemed to be a puddle of something beneath the bed. Mrs Chandra glanced behind her again, her hands trembling, her face close to her husband’s wet shirt. Her right thumb on the green “call” button. Mr Gopal took a deep breath and slowly drew the blanket from top to bottom. A man was lying face down, his once-white pillow now dark red.
Mr Gopal looked at his wife.
“What are you waiting for? Call the police!”
83
Mr Gopal and Mrs Chandra stood by the side of the road as uniformed police officers and forensics crews brushed past them to converge on their house.
An officer dragged blue-and-white police tape from the doorway of the house to the nearest pillar along the corridor. The onlookers who had gathered outside were excited they were witnessing a crime scene. “Did someone die?” they asked the cops, only to be ignored.
The first police car arrived within six minutes of Mrs Chandra’s call. The two first responders spoke to the couple, then, with guns drawn, bounded up the stairs to find the body just as the landlords had described. They also found an explosives-laden haversack lying near the bed. They immediately radioed back to headquarters.
As they waited for back-up to arrive, the two officers eyed the haversack warily. Should they stay in the room and guard the evidence or should they run like hell in case it blew up?
“I think we had better leave,” said the more senior one to his partner, who did not argue with him. “And we’d better evacuate all the units in the area.”
While officers knocked on doors and rang doorbells, telling occupants to vacate the premises, a car pulled up.
84
Rahim had a lot of things on his mind and solving murders was not one of them. It wasn’t his job. Not really. He was annoyed he had been dragged out here when he had been completely focused on The Cell. How was he going to prevent an imminent attack if he was in Geylang?
Flashing his ID card, he entered the house and immediately recognised the smell of blood. He stopped complaining. He walked up the stairs as police officers made way for him. A cop at the top pointed him to the room where the body lay.
“Over there.”
Rahim walked cautiously towards the bedroom where the stench was the strongest. Two officers were huddled around something. They were wearing bomb disposal gear, complete with helmets and visors. They looked like the overweight participants of an obstacle course in a reality show. They straightened themselves when they saw him and moved aside.
One of them said to Rahim, “We’ve checked the bag. It’s not rigged. It’s safe. There are enough explosives in there to blow up a bus. I’m going to call my wife to tell her to stay home with the kids. I think today is going to be a busy day.”
“Yeah,” said Rahim, rubbing his chin with his right hand. “It’s going to be a bloody busy day.”
He whipped out his smartphone and pressed a number on speed dial.
“Sir. It’s happening today.”
85
Irate passengers were giving Number One the evil eye. There were so many empty seats, yet he insisted on standing in the middle of the vehicle with his bulging haversack.
“Hiyah!” an elderly woman complained as she squeezed past him with her handbag. “So much space at the back why must stand there? Good feng shui is it?”
She deliberately bumped into him and felt some satisfaction when he didn’t retaliate.
“Don’t dare to hit a woman, right?”
The temperature hit 35 degrees and sunlight penetrated the bus’ tinted windows. The air-conditioning did little to cool frayed tempers.
Number One wasn’t budging. He had found his spot. He glanced at the bus captain who was watching him in the rear-view mirror.
More passengers threw him angry looks as they struggled with big pieces of luggage to the back of the bus. It’ll be over soon, he told himself.
Finally, the bus captain closed the doors. There were about eighty people on board. Passengers were standing elbow to elbow. The bus inched forward out of the bus bay and merged onto the main road before picking up speed. Those standing swayed together like a school of fish performing an underwater ballet to avoid predators.
Number One looked at his watch. The second hand moving one thunderous tick at a time. Fifteen more seconds. The people seated around him appeared happy, blissful and clueless.
He eyed his watch again.
Noon.
He felt he was ripping his chest open when he unzipped his jacket with his right hand. People around him laughed and chatted away about what they were going to buy and where they were going to eat.
The bus made a U-turn as part of its route, passing the MRT station.
Number One’s hand disappeared into his jacket and he found the stick with the red button. He thumbed it, closed his eyes and thought of his family. He took a deep breath and wept silently as his thumb pressed down hard.
Number One and the people closest to him didn’t feel a thing as the blast ripped through the vehicle, sending chunks of the roof and body parts hundreds of metres into the air. Burning bodies were flung sideways out of the vehicle as glass and metal pieces flew in all directions, hitting those at the bus stop.
86
Blood spurted everywhere as victims fell clutching their throats, eyes and stomachs. Shrapnel made tiny holes in their bodies as the earth shook. Those still in the queue screamed, squatted and dove for cover, shielding their eyes from the angry ball of flame that had burst from the bus they had previously wanted to board.
The shop windows at the MRT station shattered as those inside screamed, covered their heads with their hands and ducked under counters and display cabinets.
The blast also killed several drivers of vehicles that had been near the bus. One had been decapitated as his wife in the front passenger seat lay unconscious and bleeding to death from a throat wound. The sharp piece of metal that had slit her had sliced through her husband’s neck only moments earlier. Their two preschool girls in the back seat were just as dead. The body of a younger girl was found a hundred metres away still strapped in her child seat.
A tipper truck, its driver dead from the head injuries he had suffered, barrelled towards an MPV on the opposite side of the road. It slammed into the left side of the car, killing its occupants.
The flaming hulk of the bus continued down the street as the flames crackled furiously and hungrily consumed bodies and metal alike.
A 62-year-old postman, who had been on the bus with his wife and four friends, lay on the road facing the sky, where clouds obscured the sun. All was quiet. He couldn’t hear a thing, the blast permanently damaging his eardrums. He didn’t know it but he had lost both legs. He saw fingers of smoke rising into the sky. Were they coming from him? Was he on fire? His mouth gaped like a fish out of water. His eyes studied the clouds. He had never realised how beautiful they looked. Maybe he should look at them more often and start paying more attention to the things and people around him. If only he had been given more time. He felt lighter. Like something was pulling him towards the sky. He was too weak to resist. He decided to let go. He died with his eyes open before the paramedics arrived.
Several passengers had been thrown onto the road or had landed on grass patches nearby, their clothes and pieces of flesh ripped out by the force of the blast. Passing motorists who stopped to help had to turn their faces away when they approached the casualties. They no longer looked human.
Two passengers, fully alight, stumbled out of the bus, which had not stopped moving. No one could tell if they were men or women. One fell forwards on the road and stopped moving. The other walked with arms outstretched, zombie-like, across the road without any particular destination in mind.
The sight was enough to make dozens of vehicles stop in their tracks.
The body kept walking, tongues of flames licking the air all around it as black smoke rose into nothingness. It only took twenty seconds for the poor soul to reach the other side of the road but it felt like an eternity for those watching helplessly.
Finally the figure tripped on a grass patch and fell face down. The body, obscured by the long grass, continued burning and the fire spread. A witness managed to compose himself enough to grab a fire extinguisher from the boot of his car and rush forward to put out the flames. He thought about running towards the burning bus, with its missing roof, but decided against it when he saw it was too late for anyone still on board.
The vehicle finally stopped when the driver of a private coach stepped on the accelerator on the opposite side of the road, mounted the road divider and parked his bus in front of the burning behemoth. Other motorists rushed forward with fire extinguishers and emptied their canisters to prevent his bus from burning, too.
The blare of sirens from ambulances, police cars and fire engines could be heard in the distance. When they arrived, they were greeted by debris, limbs and bodies littering the road. Fire crews made short work of the flames with their hoses.
The SCDF sent 12 ambulances. They were not enough. Twenty more were dispatched.
It had to be a bomb, witnesses at the bus stop told police, describing the explosion and everything else they had witnessed. They remembered a man in a jacket carrying a big haversack.
Police officers were already in the control station near the turnstiles reviewing security camera footage. They seized everything the cameras had caught and hauled the hard drives back to their labs for analysis.
Five people in the bus queue died. Two from cardiac arrest and three, including a pregnant woman, from flying shrapnel.
87
Survivors sat on the steps of the MRT station with blankets draped across their shoulders. They were looking into the distance at nothing in particular. Some didn’t even blink nor respond to questions from paramedics, who moved on to the next person.
The survivors made quiet resolutions to be better people from that day on.
I’ll complain less.
