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In a Chinese fish tank

Mike Rader

    I bet you’ve never heard of Kukup, right? And you wouldn’t even know where to find it on the map. Well, when you say it out loud, the word “Kukup” sounds a bit like “cuckoo.” And I reckon I was cuckoo to think I could kill my best friend in Kukup and get away with it!
    You see, Kukup is a town near the southern tip of Malaysia. Where the foul swampy water laps the shore, and seafood restaurants rise on precarious stilts above the mud. You can peer over the rail and watch rats play with the crabs. Sniff the soupy air and you can almost taste the mangroves.
    But the seafood is fresh, fresher than anything you’ve ever tasted. The fishing fleet goes out beyond the silted foreshore, out into the clean waters of the Strait of Malacca. That’s why Kukup pulls in the crowds. People drive hundreds of miles to taste that seafood.
    I figured it was the perfect place to kill Mick, my so-called Australian friend. We both worked just seventy miles away, in the Singapore branch of the same foreign bank, and we both had our grubby fingers in the same till, one covering for the other. We’d falsified customer records, done some currency speculation, and amassed a fortune; now it was time to split our ill-gotten gains while the going was good. So I persuaded Mick to drive north to Kukup from Singapore that Sunday afternoon so we could make our plans away from prying eyes or eavesdroppers. Well, he swallowed the bait.
    We sped up the main road in his Merc, through the rubber plantations and jungles, and then onto the coast road to Kukup. Away from Singapore, this was dangerous country. Accidents could easily happen.
    Mick was in a lazy mood, kept talking about the lifestyle he wanted in Bali. I humored him, encouraged him, as the little thatched villages slipped past. I knew there was never going to be a Bali for Mick.
    I’d chosen the restaurant already, the one at the end of the long pier, made a booking by phone. The low hanging canvas awning partly blocked us from view. First, I got him drunk on the local beer. That was the easy part. Being Australian, Mick loved beer. After an hour he rose unsteadily in search of the toilet. I volunteered to join him. When no one was watching, I gave him a helpful push off the edge of the deck.
    I watched as he vanished beneath the murky tide. A hand rose once then fell. A few bubbles, then nothing.
    Was Mick really dead?
    I waited, scanning the slack water for sign of movement. When I was satisfied my plan had worked, I shouted the alarm. Perspiration pasted my shirt to my body. The police mistook it for horror. For shock at my friend’s accidental death.
    Crowds gathered, fishermen went out in boats to search, prodding the swamp with long poles. Diesel fumes clung to my nostrils.
    Took us till midnight to find Mick’s body by the light of flaming torches. It was caught in the reeds, crabs chomping away at his flesh.
    But — there was no sign of his head.
    I shuddered in disbelief.
    I collapsed into a chair. What the hell was happening? I felt bile rise in my throat. How could Mick’s head have separated itself from his body? Or had the crabs got it? Would they have the power to do that? Icy beads of sweat trickled down my cheeks. A local doctor offered me a sedative. The police radios squawked around me. Local fishermen stared at the headless corpse laid out on the canvas stretcher.
    Then came the scream.
    It burst from the doorway of the nearest restaurant.
    A piercing, blood-curdling, strangled sound.
    The police charged across the deck to investigate. The mob followed. Then came the silence — long and deep, in which I could hear my heartbeats echoing in my head.
    And then the cops were back.
    Without a word, they led me into the restaurant.
    And there it was —
    In the glass fish tank—
    Among all the fake corals and reeds —
    Along with two fat fish —
    Mick’s head, severed at the neck, his eyes unblinking, staring straight at me.
    Seaweed still clogged his mouth as he screamed again. One damning word that reverberated around the room:
    “MURDERER!”

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