“So you were in quite frequent contact with my grandmother, then?” Nick asked.
“Off and on, over the years. You know how old friends are…we would skip a year here and there, but we did try to stay in touch.” Jirasit paused for a moment, staring at an old Rolleiflex twin lens on the table. “That Su Yi…I shall miss her.”
Nick took a sip of his coffee. “How did you two become acquainted?”
“We met in Bombay in 1941, when we both worked at the British India Office.”
Nick sat forward in his chair, surprised. “Wait a minute, is this the Indian branch of the War Office? My grandmother worked there?”
“Oh yes. She never told you? Your grandmother started out in the code-breaking office, and I was in the cartography department, helping to create a detailed map of Thailand. The cartographers didn’t really know Thailand well, especially in these remote northern parts near the border, and we needed accurate maps in the event of an invasion.”
“How fascinating. I always pictured her luxuriating away in some maharaja’s palace during the Japanese occupation.”
“Well, she did that too, but the British, you see, enlisted her to do some…sensitive diplomatic work as soon as they realized what she was capable of.”
“I had no idea…”
“Your grandmother had a certain allure that’s hard to put your finger on. She was never one of those typical beauties, but men just fell at her feet. It came in very useful during the war. She was good at influencing those rajahs in certain directions.”
Nick reached into his satchel and took out the leather box that Su Yi had entrusted to him, placing it on the table. “Well, the reason I’m here is because my grandmother wanted me to return these to you.”
“Ah, my old Dunhill case! I never thought I’d be reunited with it after all these years,” Jirasit said like an excited child. “You know, your grandmother was a very stubborn woman. When she insisted on returning to Singapore during the height of the war—complete madness, I tell you—I gave her a few of my most valuable possessions. My father’s Patek and these gold sovereigns, and a few other things, I can’t remember what. I thought she would need them to bribe her way into Singapore. But see, she hardly needed them after all.” Jirasit began winding the pocket watch, and then he held it up to his ear. “Listen? Still ticking perfectly after all these years! I’m going to have to tell my friend Philippe Stern about this!” Jirasit picked up the packet of old envelopes tied in ribbon and studied them for a moment. “What’s this?”
“I have no idea. I assumed they were yours, so I didn’t open them,” Nick said.
Jirasit untied the ribbon and began sifting through the letters. “My goodness! These were my letters to her after the war. She saved every last one of them!” His pale gray eyes clouded over with tears, which he flicked away quickly.
Nick had brought with him a prospectus of his Tyersall Park buyback scheme, and he was about to take it out of his satchel to show Jirasit when the man abruptly stood up and announced, “Come, let us attend to the matter at hand!”
Nick had no idea what he was talking about, but he followed Jirasit as he strolled swiftly toward a pavilion on the other side of the lake, marveling at his pace. “Jirasit, I hope I’ll be as agile as you are when I’m your age!”
“Yes, I hope so too. You seem quite slow for your age. Do keep up! I picked up yoga when I lived in India, and I’ve never stopped my daily practice. Also, it’s important to keep your body alkaline, young man. Do you eat chicken?”
“I love chicken.”
“Well, stop loving it. Chickens reabsorb their own urine—and so their meat is extremely acidic,” the man said as he quickened his pace. When they reached the glass-walled pavilion, Nick noticed two guards flanking the entrance.
“This is my private office,” Jirasit explained. They entered the room, which contained nothing but an ancient gold statue of Buddha inset into a niche on one wall and a beautiful black-and-gilt desk facing a window onto the lake. Jirasit went to a door against the back wall, and placed his hand on the security scanning pad. A few seconds later, the deadbolt unlocked automatically and he gestured for Nick to follow him into the room.
Inside, Nick found a space that resembled a walk-in vault with built-in cabinets along every wall. At the corner was an old antique Wells Fargo safe that had been bolted into the floor. Jirasit turned to Nick and said, “Here we are. The combination please?”
“I’m sorry, you want me to give you the combination?”
“Of course. This is your grandmother’s safe from Singapore.”
“Um, I have no idea what it is,” Nick said, surprised by this turn of events.
“Well, unless you’re good at safe-cracking, you’re going to need the combination. Let’s see, why don’t we call Catherine in Bangkok and see if she knows what it is?” Jirasit took out his phone and moments later had Catherine on the line. The two of them spoke animatedly in Thai for a few moments, and then Jirasit glanced up at Nick. “Did you bring the earrings?”
“What earrings?”
“Your grandmother’s pearl earrings. The combination is on them.”
“Oh my God! The earrings! Let me call my wife!” Nick said in astonishment. He quickly called Rachel’s cell phone, and moments later she answered in a sleepy voice.
“Honey, sorry to wake you. Yes, I’m in Chiang Mai now. Remember those earrings I gave you? The pearl earrings from my grandmother?”
Rachel crawled out of bed, went over to the dressing table and opened the drawer where she kept her jewelry.
“What am I looking for exactly?” she asked, still half asleep.
“Do you see any numbers carved on the pearls?”
Rachel held a pearl stud up to the window light. “Nothing, Nick. It’s totally smooth and luminous.”
“Really? Can you look again?”
Rachel closed one eye and squinted at each pearl as closely as she could. “I’m sorry, Nick, I see nothing. Are you sure we’re talking about these earrings? They are so tiny, I can’t imagine where someone would hide any information, unless it’s inside the pearl.”
Nick thought back to what his Ah Ma told him when she had handed them over. My father gave these to me when I escaped Singapore before the war, when the Japanese soldiers had finally reached Johor and we knew all was lost. They are very special. Please look after them carefully. The words took on a whole new significance now. He stared at the safe, wondering what it could possibly hold. Would there be gold bullion bars, stacks of old bonds or some other type of financial documents that would help him secure Tyersall Park? What was in there that was so valuable to his grandmother that she would go to such great lengths to protect it?