Chasing the Dragon by Mark Wightman

Author:Mark Wightman [Wightman, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery & Detective - Singapore
ISBN: 9781915817174
Published: 2023-09-12T05:00:00+00:00

Having seen her to the door, and made sure she was all right to get home on her own, he returned in search of Lenehan. He found him at the bar table, a large glass of something brown in his hand. Lenehan made his excuses to the linen-clad couple to whom he’d been talking and ushered Betancourt away from the crowd.

‘Bit awkward, that. Not the usual sort of behaviour we expect at one of these affairs. Women, eh? Emotional.’

Betancourt chose not to respond to this psychological analysis of womankind and instead redirected the conversation to the reason for his visit.

‘Were you and Dr Fulbright close?’

‘Professionally speaking, do you mean?’

‘In any way.’

‘We knew each other, of course – ours is a small world – but, no, I wouldn’t have called us close. What’s all this about, anyway? Fellow drowned; that’s what I heard. What’s it to do with me?’

By this time, Betancourt had taken a thorough dislike to the pompous Lenehan, and he continued to ignore the man’s questions.

‘I’m led to believe there was a strong rivalry between the two of you.’ Molly Ridpath hadn’t said that at all, but Lenehan didn’t know that.

‘Well, you know how it is…’

‘No, I don’t know how it is. Why don’t you tell me?’

‘Well, Fulbright and I both worked in the same field: South-East Asia. His field was archaeolinguistics, of course. Mine is ceramics.’

‘Archaeo-what?’

‘Linguistics. He specialised in ancient languages. Him and old Ridpath, they tried for years to decipher the inscription on the Singapore Stone. Ridpath was convinced that if he could translate the inscriptions, it would prove that there had been a Majapahit empire hundreds of years before Raffles arrived.’

‘I take it that Dr Fulbright agreed with Dr Ridpath’s theory, and you don’t.’

Lenehan gave a pig-like snort. ‘Boy’s Own adventure stuff. Pure fantasy. This godforsaken lump of rock was uninhabited until the first Siamese settlers came here in the seventeenth century, as I lay out clearly in my book, Singapore: A Siamese Seaport.’

It sounded to Betancourt that he was being extended an invitation to request Lenehan to expound further on his theories, but he was more interested in the here and now.

‘Do you also work here, for the museum, with Dr Fulbright and Miss Ridpath?’

‘No. My work is self-funded.’ He paused for a moment before continuing. ‘In any case, Fulbright didn’t work for the museum. Neither does Miss Ridpath.’

‘What do you mean? I spoke to Miss Ridpath in her own office upstairs not two days ago.’

‘Yes. They all work, or should I say worked, from the museum. The benefits of having Cambridge backing you.’ He said this with a touch of what Betancourt took to be jealousy. ‘But they don’t work for the museum. The trust just rents rooms.’

‘What trust?’

‘The Donald Ridpath Trust. That’s who rents the space. Although, I heard that Fulbright had been a bit, you know, slow with the payments.’ Lenehan elongated the word slow.

Betancourt recalled that Molly Ridpath had mentioned going to visit her bank. Was this what it was about?

‘On stage, earlier, you mentioned that both you and Dr Fulbright were up for a prize.

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