He was about to complicate her life. Renee could dispose of that complication easily—by cutting him out of it.
“He was never seen again,” said Ket Siong. He went on, quickly, before Renee could speak or he could lose his nerve: “When we met at the V&A, I was there because I saw Freshview Industries in the list of supporters of the exhibition. I went because I wanted to ask Low Teck Wee if he knew what happened to Stephen.”
Renee’s eyes were huge in her face. Dread roiled in his stomach as he watched understanding dawn on her. He couldn’t bear to see her face shut down, not when he’d just told her about Stephen.
“Freshview was the company,” she said.
She’d barely had any of her ramen. He should have waited till she’d finished. She wouldn’t eat anything now.
“Freshview won the legal case,” said Ket Siong. “The forest in Ensengei is gone. They’re planting oil palm there now.”
Renee took a sip of her genmaicha, placing the cup back on the table with deliberate control. “But your brother’s co-worker—what was his name?”
“Stephen. He was a good friend.”
Renee’s eyes slid past Ket Siong. “The one who got you the scarf?” He’d slung his scarf over the back of his chair.
“Just a guess,” she added. “There was something about the way you said the person who gave it to you was a good friend. You know, in the past tense. Like it was someone you’d lost.”
She glanced around at their surroundings. The crowd had thinned out a little since they’d arrived. Their immediate neighbours had vacated their table. At the next table over, two men were having an amiable half-shouted conversation in Italian.
“You think Freshview was involved?” Renee said, in a near whisper. Ket Siong had to strain to hear her over the general buzz of conversation. “What did Uncle Low say, when you asked him?”
“Nothing much,” said Ket Siong. “He wouldn’t have told me, no matter what he knew.”
“But you think he does know something.”
Ket Siong remembered what Ket Hau had said about his run-in with Low. “There’s no way he didn’t know. If he wasn’t involved, he was complicit.”
Renee’s expression changed. She said, in a new tone, “Do you have any evidence of that?”
“He wouldn’t have left evidence I could find,” said Ket Siong sharply.
He regretted this the moment it was out, but Renee gave him no opportunity to soften it or row it back. Her back straightened.
“It’s a very serious accusation to make without evidence,” she said.
“If Low were an innocent man, Renee, he would have told me he doesn’t know what happened to Stephen,” said Ket Siong. “He wouldn’t have walked away.”
“Sometimes all you can do when you’ve been accused is walk away,” said Renee. “If everyone’s decided you’re guilty, you’re not going to change their mind. The only way out is to refuse to engage.”
Ket Siong knew what she was talking about. “This isn’t like that.”
“Like what? You mean, the time my brothers trumped up some bullshit allegations about me and everyone fell over themselves to believe them? Because I was successful and that’s the one thing people can’t forgive.” Renee crossed her arms. “Ket Siong, why did you tell me this? Why now?”
“I didn’t know you were planning on working with Freshview before.”
“You knew I was working with Chahaya.” Renee’s eyes were hard. She would give no quarter, would expect none from him. “How do you know Chahaya hasn’t done equally bad things? That’s what business is like.”
Ket Siong frowned. “You don’t believe that. It’s not how you do business.”
“Isn’t it just a matter of degree?” said Renee. “Our makers in Cambodia get, say, forty dollars a piece. We apply a three times markup before it gets to the consumer. And I live in the most expensive city in the world, in a flat that could set our makers up for life. Money’s never really clean, Ket Siong.”
“I know you try to be fair,” said Ket Siong. “It’s not easy to build a business the way you have. There’s a difference between that and Freshview stripping Iban and Bidayuh land. Look, this isn’t about you or Virtu—”
“How could it not be?” said Renee. “Tomorrow I’m going to bestanding up in front of Low Teck Wee’s nephew, trying to persuade him to give us a job on the development. There’s millions of pounds of Malaysian state funds invested in that project. How much dirty money do you think is sloshing around in there? Or were you hoping I’d pull out? Tell Su Khoon and Dad, ‘Oh no, I can’t do it, Freshview is morally suspect’?”
“It’s not for me to tell you what to do.”
