The Hour Before Dawn. Sara MacDonald

couple at the next table got up to go and Fleur leant over to pick up a paper in English they had left behind. It was The Straits Times. She flicked through the pages looking for headlines that used to make David and Fergus laugh when she pointed them out. AN AMOK CAUSES PANIC IN CHINATOWN. BUSINESSMAN CHARLIE CHAN FOILS INDEFATIGABLE ROBBERY.

      She turned another page and another, smiling. Suddenly a small headline with a photograph caught her eye, near the bottom of the page. She started to read it. Her heart jumped painfully making breathing difficult. Her hands began to shake and her eyes became blurred with shock. She placed the paper flat on the table, her food forgotten. She blinked and made herself read the words over again, very slowly, sickness rising up in her throat.

      She placed her hands over the page and stared down at them as they trembled over the print. She thought for a second that she would pass out and she gripped the edges of the table until her knuckles were white. She made herself breathe again. Breathe.

      The gardens and the people around Fleur receded, leaving her beached and isolated at her small table. She did not know how long she sat staring down at her hands. Then, infinitely carefully, she tore the page out and placed it in her bag. She paid for her unfinished food and walked to the entrance.

      Taxi drivers called out to her: ‘Datang…Datang…Teksi…Teksi, Mem? Hotel? Restoran? Shops?’ She walked past them, stumbling, blind and numb to anything but that terrible small and lonely image etched indelibly on her heart.

       TEN

      ‘No,’ Jack said. ‘Nikki, there’s no way I’m letting you fly to Singapore on your own. You’re seven and a half months pregnant and you shouldn’t even be flying. I’m coming and nothing you say is going to make any difference.’

      ‘Jack, listen, you should be here when the charter boats start to come in. It’s the end of the season and what if my mother suddenly turns up…’

      ‘Sorry, Nik. You’re my priority, you and the baby. Both Neil and Rudi can manage the boats without me and Dad says he will fly down with mum and stay in the house if the boys have any problems.’

      ‘But, it might just be a complete misunderstanding with mum…’

      ‘Nikki, your mother’s left all her belongings in a hotel in Singapore. We’ve heard absolutely nothing for twenty-four hours.’

      Nikki closed her eyes. ‘Oh, God. I’m so frightened for her.’

      ‘I know you are. So don’t push me away, Nik. We’re in this together and we’ll find out what’s happened together.’

      He pulled her to him and they stood in the middle of the room listening to the bamboo chimes clunking outside in the garden, heads turned towards the sea glinting in the bay.

      Nikki gave in with relief. ‘OK. We’ll both go. Thanks, Jack.’

      ‘Will you try to stay as calm as you can? I’m really afraid of you losing this baby.’

      Nikki turned away from him and took the coffee pot off the stove and poured him coffee. She took it to the table and sat down. ‘I want to say something.’

      Jack sat opposite her, pouring milk into his coffee and wondering what was coming.

      ‘Jack, pregnancy isn’t an illness. I’m resting and taking all the care I can. I want this baby as much as you do but I have to go to Singapore and find out what’s happened to my mother. It could be that she’s dead, that something terrible has happened. I have to deal with that, pregnant or not. Please, if you come, just be there with me, don’t add to the things I must worry about. I have to have blind trust in this baby going full term. That it is my karma…whatever happens.’

      Jack looked at her. He loved her intensely, in a way she probably did not yet love him. Nikki had been marked by watching her father die and losing her twin. She had been scarred in ways Jack was still discovering. Every now and then he had a glimpse of her bravery and of her apparent ability to just accept passively whatever fate might land at her feet.

      Sometimes, Jack thought, this passivity could be mistaken for a lack of hope. He wanted Nikki to believe in their future together; in the life they were building here. You had to have faith that sometimes things did come right despite the odds. He saw this as his job, to keep faith for the woman he loved.

      Secretly, he thought karma was a cop-out, an excuse for not acting. Sometimes you had to fight for the life you wanted. He got to his feet and bent across the table to kiss her nose.

      ‘I’ll go and see how soon we can get a flight to Singapore tonight.’

      ‘I’ll go and find our rucksacks.’

      They smiled at each other. Below them, a motor boat full of tourists wrapped up in wet weather gear shot out of the harbour across the bay to The Hole at speed. Their screams of mock terror and excitement were drowned by the sudden burst of the engine and did not rise up from the water to reach them. The speed in the lazy stillness of yachts at anchor seemed out of place, the long white wake disturbing the acres of blue. Then the sound faded and was gone. Peace. The sea straightened out again into glassy stillness.

      Nikki moved around the house touching things uneasily like a cat marking a territory she was afraid she might never return to.

      

      Detective Sergeant James Mohktar, a Chinese-Malay, met them at the airport. Nikki stared: he had the most extraordinary and beautiful face.

      He drove them straight to the police station. ‘It is just for the paperwork, Miss Montrose. Also, we have not quite finished with the hotel room. You see we must explore every avenue…’

      Nikki went white with shock. They must think Fleur is dead; they are treating the hotel room as a crime scene. James Mohktar, watching her face, said quickly, ‘We have no reason to think the worst, Miss Montrose, this is just normal procedure. The hotel will need the room back and before your mother’s belongings are removed we have to make sure there is no clue there to her disappearance. At this stage do not get too alarmed, lah? Sometimes people on long journeys get disorientated and lost. Let us hope we find your mother safe and well very soon.’ He glanced at Nikki’s protruding stomach. ‘Now, there are some questions you can help us with and then we will drive you to the Singapore Hilton to rest. I believe you have booked into the same hotel as your mother?’

      ‘Yes,’ Jack said. ‘We thought it would be practical.’

      He wanted to say, Look, my wife is pregnant. Can’t she rest before you bombard her with questions? But he couldn’t, and he did not like to say girlfriend or partner because he was unsure how this Asian policeman felt about Nikki being pregnant and unmarried.

      D.S. Mohktar asked Nikki all over again about Fleur’s exact travelling plans. Was Mrs Campbell meeting anyone on her stopover here? Had she any worries? Was she a confident traveller? Was she in good health? Had Nikki got a recent photograph?

      Nikki had only one recent photo of her mother, taken at Fergus’s funeral. She had brought it with her and she took it out of her bag and handed it to the Detective Sergeant. She had asked someone to take this particular photograph because her grandparents had flown over from their retirement in Cyprus for Fergus’s funeral and Sam had flown back from Australia. The family had all been captured together, a rare thing.

      Fleur was dressed in black, her dark hair streaked elegantly with grey. Nikki had thought when she saw her mother again, God, she even goes grey elegantly. No aging pepper and salt for Fleur. Her mother had lost weight. She had shadows under her eyes and her cheekbones had become more prominent, yet there was something ageless about her.

      Mohktar stared down at the photograph. This woman was younger than he had expected and she was still attractive. It made his job easier because she would not have gone entirely unnoticed, but it also increased the chances