Evil in Emerald by A.M. Stuart

Author:A.M. Stuart [Stuart, A.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

Monday, 7 November

The overnight train from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur arrived at Seremban station at five a.m. Despite the comfort of a sleeper, Curran had passed a restless night, his sore ribs protesting at every lurch of the train and his mind churning with thoughts of a life without Li An. He fell asleep just before Seremban and the conductor had to wake him.

He stood on the platform, looking with bleary eyes after the departing train. Less than two hours farther on lay Kuala Lumpur. If he had time in the afternoon, he would continue his journey to KL and seek the address Jayant had given him, but right now he had business in Port Dickson and he needed to give it his full attention. He checked the timetable, and as it lacked a couple of hours until the connecting train to Port Dickson, he ate breakfast in the station’s adequate cafeteria, shaved and changed into a clean uniform.

He got into Port Dickson at nine. It was his first visit to the port, which lay on the coast between Malacca and the major port and harbor for the west coast of Malaya, Port Swettenham. Like many of the smaller west coast ports, it existed to service the booming tin industry, and the area around the station had an industrial feel to it with railway trucks filled with the raw material mined from the hills and mountains of Malaya and bound for the industrial north of England.

He found the customs office and introduced himself to the young man in charge, a lad of probably no more than twenty-five with a shock of fair hair, who greeted Curran like an old friend as he wrung his hand.

“Alfred Simmons,” he said. “Good to see you, Inspector. What can I do for you?”

Curran asked to see the records of the February sailing of the Hesperides.

“That old rust bucket?” Simmons commented as he pulled out his ledgers. “Funny thing is, you’re the first person to ask about it. Here you go . . . She sailed on February fourth with a local captain and six crew. She carried a cargo of thirty thousand pounds of crepe rubber shipped by Robert White & Co.” He looked up at Curran. “Brokers, aren’t they?”

Robert White & Co.—Sewell’s company?

Curran nodded and almost held his breath as the man’s finger moved to the last column. “Insured value, six thousand pounds. That can’t be right. Rubber was fetching about two shillings a pound. The stated insured value is double its actual value.”

Curran restrained himself from punching the air. There it was . . . the fraud.

He steadied his breath and noted the details in his notebook before asking, “Do you get much rubber going out of here?”

“That’s the other thing. Hardly any. Most of it goes by rail down to Singapore or out of Port Swettenham. They mostly use this port for tin.” Simmons shut his ledger and looked at Curran. “Why the interest?”

Curran saw no reason to prevaricate. “I’m investigating a possible insurance fraud.

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