asked him as soon as we were away from the shop. “Did anything happen at home?”
“No.”
I had to run a little to catch up with Shin’s long stride, as he suddenly seemed to be in quite a hurry and was heading in the wrong direction for the bus.
“We’re not taking the bus,” he said. “We’re taking the train. Don’t look so worried—it’s nothing to do with home. In fact, they think I’m in Batu Gajah.”
It was half a mile to the railway station from Mrs. Tham’s and Shin showed no sign of slowing down as we turned up Belfield and took a left on Hugh Low Street.
“What’s the hurry?” I asked as we cut in front of a bullock cart, narrowly avoiding a cyclist who rang his bell angrily at us.
“It’s later than I thought.” Shin seized my traveling basket, and there was nothing to do but hurry after him.
Though I’d taken a train only a few times in my life, everyone knew the railway station. Famously known as the Taj Mahal of Ipoh and designed by a British government architect who’d come to Malaya by way of Calcutta, it was an enormous, sprawling white building that looked like a wedding cake or a Moghul palace. Domes and minarets topped curved archways that led to marble-tiled corridors, a hotel for travelers with a bar and café, and tunnels and stairs that went up and down and led to railway platforms.
Shin headed straight into the station. Breathless, I caught up with him at the ticket window.
“Two tickets to Batu Gajah,” he said, sliding the money across the counter.
I was filled with unreasonable excitement and delight. Why were we going? Not wanting to ask too many questions in front of strangers, I squeezed Shin’s arm instead, my face bright.
“Honeymooners?” said the ticket seller, looking at my smart frock.
I dropped Shin’s arm as though it burned. A crimson stain appeared on the back of his neck, all the way up to his ears, but he didn’t say anything.
“Platform Two. Ten minutes till the train leaves,” said the ticket seller. We ran down the marble stairs under the tracks to the other side and then into the train that was already beginning to blow steam.
“It’s a third-class carriage, I’m afraid,” said Shin.
I didn’t care. I was so excited that I had to stop myself from jumping up to look at everything, from the hard wooden seats to the windows that slid up and down. Amused, Shin put my basket on the rack above the seat and I noticed for the first time that he’d brought nothing with him.
“Were you in town last night?” I asked. “Mrs. Tham said she saw you.”
“I stayed with a friend.”
I wondered who it was—maybe a woman—but felt I shouldn’t pry.
“So why are we going to Batu Gajah?” I’d been there once to visit one of my mother’s relatives. It was a pretty little town, sleepily satisfied with its position as the center of colonial administration for the Kinta district. “It’s not because of the finger, is it?” My face fell.
The train gave a final, ear-splitting whistle. “Of course it’s because of the finger,” said Shin. “Don’t you want to find out where it came from?”
I considered telling him about narrow-faced Mr. Y. K. Wong, but couldn’t explain without mentioning the dance-hall part. Instead, I nodded.
“Anyway,” said Shin, “I went down to Batu Gajah early on Monday. They’re a bit short-staffed and were glad enough to have me.” He was looking out of the window, but I understood, without his saying anything, that Shin couldn’t stand being in the same house as his father. No doubt that was why he’d stayed in Singapore during the last holiday break.
“How is it?” I asked.
“I’m bunking with another orderly—he’s friendly enough. The first thing I did was to look up that salesman, Chan Yew Cheung. His aunt said he’d been close to a nurse at the hospital, so I tried to find out if he’d been a patient. Unfortunately, the patient registrations are locked up in the records department. But I lucked into something else.”
“What? The nurse who gave it to him?” Knowing Shin, that would be a fairly easy job.
“No, the pathology department. It’s run by a doctor named Rawlings. They’re fixing up that part of the hospital, and there are boxes of records and specimens to move. He asked me to work overtime and finish it this weekend. It’s just donkey work, but I jumped at it. Also, he said to