Peter Lloyd - Inside Story: From ABC foreign correspondent to Singapore prisoner #12988

Contents

Downfall

Living nightmare

Swimming with sharks

Bail-out

Pandoras box

Ben from Bali

Black Friday

The memory of having no memory

Tsunami

Seventy days to live

The fugitive

Darkness to daylight

Grand Prix week

Deal or no deal?

The October surprise

The long goodbye

The day of judgement

Prisoner 12988

Home away from home

So this is Christmas

Turn around

Saving graces

Visit

Games people play

Famine to feast

Beyond Everest

Corporal punishment

Deep throat

Lessons learned

Sentinels

Please, just leave

First published in Australia in 2010

Copyright Peter Lloyd 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

Email: info@allenandunwin.com

Web: www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia

www.librariesaustralia.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74237 391 1

Typeset in 12/15pt Garamond by Midland Typesetters, Australia

Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Downfall

WEDNESDAY, 16 JULY 2008, 8PM

Two young men are at my flanks. A third is stepping from the shadows to block my escape. Im being mugged, I think. Im looking around, bewildered, processing this unexpected turn of events. Im being mugged in the low-crime capital of Asia.

These assailants are shorter than meall three are Chinese, dressed in jeans and T-shirts. The one to my left has gravity-defying hairthe style you see on young fashionistas in Singapore. A life support system for hair product, I think .

Yet something is not quite right about this scene. They dont look that threatening. A mugger is supposed to be armed or menacing and these three look as dangerous as actuaries. Where are the weapons? Im thinking. Why arent they making any demands? Theyre in far more peril than me, because theyre breaking the golden rule in Singapore: hands off the foreigners (its bad for business). I may lose my wallet but, in Lee Kuan Yews cold utopia, thieves are scarified with bamboo rods and jailed for years for this kind of outrage.

Time to end this nonsense. Flushed with indignation, I am about to get aggressive, to start pushing and shoving. The idiomatic, artless and unequivocally Australian denunciation Piss off, fuckwits! is rising fast in my throat. Its a tried and trusted put-down, guaranteed to scatter pests the world over. Its potency is as much in the tone as in the telling.

Im opening my mouth to unload my tirade when the interloper in front of me steps forward to set me straight. My name is Detective Jack Teng, from Singapore Police, Central Narcotics Bureau. Hes showing me an identity badge. Youre under arrest.

Hes a cop. They are all cops. Im panicking. Im not being mugged. I am being arrested.

To the right: a policeman seizes the mobile phone from my hand with the instruction, Dont move! We need you to co-operate.

To the left: Fashionista Hair is patting me down, pushing his hands against my pockets. Hes looking back at Teng, who is asking, Are you armed?

I gape. Words arent coming out.

Are. You. Armed? repeats Teng.

Do you speak English? asks the policeman holding my phone.

Yes. I. Speak. English, I stutter. Not armed, I add, shaking both my hands loosely. Im Australian, I declare, as if national identity is a shield against suspicion.

Jack Teng: Are you carrying drugs?

No, I stutter. No drugs.

The policemen at my flanks have released my arms so they can thrust their hands deep into my pockets simultaneously. Just as quickly they withdraw a few banknotes and a receipt for a tall caramel macchiatto at Starbucks, the sum total of their trawl.

A pause.

Im stunned.

A minute ago I was minding my own business, standing on a Singapore street in front of a convenience store. Now Im that most dreadful clich, helping police with their inquiries. I can feel adrenalin charging around my body like something monstrous and urgent trying to find the exit. Im sweating profusely. Adrenalin is the most primeval hormoneit is what helps the body decide between fight or flight. Im doing neitherIm submitting to circumstance.

This is mortifying. A crowd is gathering, off to the right. Theyre throwing dagger-like stares in my directon. A bemused onlooker, an older Chinese man with a wispy moustache, is stepping in for a closer look. Hey, says Teng, step away!

Obedience is contagious. The rubbernecker fades into the dark.

I am terrified. Im thinking, Ive never been arrested before .

Sweat beads are sliding down my neck, making my shirt sticky. Maybe they will let me go, now they havent found anything.

My hands feel wet and greasy. Can I pay a fine? Of course notthis isnt Thailand or Indonesia, where you can pay a fine and be on your way.

These thoughts and sensations are tearing around, competing for my attention. To the right, I see handcuffs. Please, says the policeman, dont struggle. They will only get tighter.

Handcuffs! Theyre not going to let me go. I have seen these tools of the police trade many times before but never felt them, never had them wielded against me. I discover they are cold and heavy, uncomfortably tight. Handcuffs are not fun or sensual or erotic. People who get off on them surely could not have experienced being arrested.

My head is spinning. From no handcuffs to handcuffs. From free to not free. Each step worse than the last.

Im in the back seat of a black sedan. Detective Teng has announced to me that he is an assistant superintendent, or A/S-P, and that I am required to answer all of his questions or face additional charges for failure to comply. Ive asked when I can talk to a lawyer, but he says that I have to answer police questions first. This seems unfair, but Im silent. This is not the time or place to demand rights that I suspect do not exist in Singapore.

What is your name?

Where are you from?

Do you live in Singapore?

Im conscious that this is, in all but name, a police state, so everything Teng says is going through a filter in my head that is sifting for some kind of a trick question. Policehere and elsewhereare in the business of suspicion, so he is probably finding the stuttering pauses before each response dubious. Suspicion reinforces itself by prompting suspicious behaviour.

Awkward silences. Hes staring back at me, waiting for me to speak. So I do.

I have drugsbut not here, Im confessing. They are in my room.

Why have I just done that? I am not sure where this is going, but now is not the time to lie. Im sensing big trouble loomingits as though a hungry serpent is twisting and tightening around my torso. Fatigue is wearing me down. And Im a rotten liar.

Theyre at a hospital close by, I explain. Ive been staying there because I picked up an eye infection in Bali, I say, pointing to my eye. I got sick in Bali, and they sent me here for treatment.

I AM BEING LED in handcuffs through the hospital lobby. The phrase walk of shame is running through my head as I pass the doormen and porters, receptionists and nurses, who probably recognise me as a patient. Im feeling ashamedhyper-aware of the public gazeand wondering if anyone realises yet who I am and what this arrest means.