Authors: Nury Vittachi
Wong looked up, chewing.
‘You know I said, like, there were some, like, aristocrats coming on this trip?’
‘Ah, Ms McQuinnie, how lovely to see you.’ Sinha half stood up and then lowered himself back into his seat and returned to plundering the dishes. The protocols of civilised behaviour had to be followed, but should never be allowed to distract one from the important things in life.
Before Joyce could launch into her announcement, there was another distraction: the arrival of Ms Xu Chong-li, a fortune-teller who threaded her way carefully through the tables, anxious to avoid staining her clothing. Although she was a rather grand fifty-something lady who was always expensively
upholstered (she had been a banker before giving it up for astrological pursuits), she loved cheap kopi house meals and was delighted to slide onto the seat next to Sinha.
‘Sit, sit,’ she said, waving her hand to Joyce, whowas too excited to do so. ‘And then tell us about these aristocrats. I have hobnobbed with a great many aristocrats in my days, and it may be that I am a personal friend of the ones who are due to visit you.’
‘Er…I don’t think so. But I’ll tell you about them anyway.’
‘Sit first.’
‘Okay, but I don’t think I want to eat anything.’ The young woman flopped down onto a stool and by habit placed her left leg through the straps of her handbag. She leaned forwards conspiratorially.
‘It’s a member of
the royal family
,’ she revealed. ‘
The
royal family. Or maybe two. He wouldn’t say exactly who it was, but it was someone very high up—security reasons, you know—they can’t tell us exactly.
The royal family
.’ Joyce vibrated like a washing machine on spin-cycle.
Sinha gazed thoughtfully at her over the piece of fried brinjal he was just about to slip into his mouth. ‘There are many royal families on this planet, but one in particular seems to hog the headlines internationally, whether for right reasons or not, so I assume you are talking about the Windsors?’
‘I mean like
the Queen
. A member of the Queen’s family.’
‘Indeed, there are a great many Queens on this planet as well, including several thousand in Indonesia and even more in Africa, but the Queen of England is the lady you have in mind, I take it?’
‘The Queen is coming?’ Chong-li asked.
‘It’s not the Queen. It’s a member of her family. It could be
Prince Charles, or…or one of his sons.’ Joyce’s eyes instantly glazed over.
‘Prince Charles coming to visit you?’ Chong-li was impressed. ‘My. That
is
a coup. Well done. How did you set that one up? I have often invited him, but have never had the pleasure. I thought after he lost his wife he might be tempted, but he resisted my blandishments.’
‘Or his sons.’
‘He has boys, does he? No girls? What a pity. A pretty wife he had. Girls would have been nice.’
‘The boys are pretty nice, too,’ said Joyce, and then blushed.
Sinha at once noticed the reddening of her cheeks. ‘Aha. Instant scarlet. I do believe you have designs on the boys, is that right? Are you planning to let CF do the work so that you can devote yourself to seducing one of the princes from the tower for yourself?’
Chong-li started singing: ‘One day my prince will come…’
‘No, of course not,’ said Joyce, looking down at the table, as if there was something in its cracked vinyl-coated surface of great interest. ‘But I wouldn’t mind meeting Prince Will. He is a bit of a dish, although I don’t know if he’s really my type.’ She uttered this last phrase with patently false nonchalance.
‘Talking of dishes, why don’t you sample some of these?’ suggested Sinha, sweeping his hand over the plates.
Joyce shook her head. She lived on processed snacks and coffee, and only occasionally forced herself to eat actual food. She scanned the array of weapons-grade curries with suspicion. Although she could enjoy a mild chicken tikka marsala with some white rice and a poppadum if she was feeling adventurous, the more exotic dishes repelled her British–Australian palate. They kind of had
too
much taste, sort of thing.
‘Mm…no thanks. I think I’ll just have a poppadum.’
While the rest of them were eating, Joyce explained to them that she and Wong had just landed an assignment involving something that was going to be front-page news all over the world. A revolutionary new European aircraft called Skyparc had just flown into Hong Kong. It was a British version of a giant plane built by Airbus Industrie, a European consortium, and was being offered for sale as a luxury skyliner to Asian airlines. One of the group of organisations responsible for the meeting, the British Trade Commission, was assumed to know most about Chinese conventions, because of Britain’s long official history in Hong Kong. There were aristocrats on board, and an executive called Mr Manks, who was something to do with the royal family, had suggested the conference rooms aboard the plane be inspected by a feng shui master before the meeting.
‘You have been asked to feng shui an aeroplane,’ said Sinha. ‘Surely a moving craft by definition cannot be feng shuied? Items of transport have no north and south, no east and west. And in the case of an aircraft in particular, it spends much of its time in the air, and thus has no direct relationship to the ground, so no up or down. Surely it is the mountains and rivers and topography that define the macro-feng shui of a place? A moving aircraft…well, every minute, its relationships with the surrounding geography change.’
The others knew that Sinha was allowed to engage in technical, even adversarial discussions about feng shui, as he was a master of
vaastu
, the Indian equivalent.
Joyce agreed. ‘But we’re just doing a feng shui reading for the aircraft’s main conference room while it’s in the hangar. This is not your ordinary airplane. Skyparc is “your office in the air”.’
She pulled out the copy of
Time
magazine and showed them the photograph. ‘We just have to make sure there is nothing that can go wrong for this particular sales meeting. Easy. Airplane sales deals are big money. They can’t take risks. They have to get everything right.’
‘Quite so,’ said Sinha. ‘I imagine a craft like this would cost hundreds of millions of US dollars. So if there is some deal where they are selling a fleet of these, we must be talking very large amounts indeed. A single purchase of a small fleet of aircraft can add up to more than a billion US dollars.’ He turned to Wong: ‘I hope you’re getting a good slice.’
Now the subject of money had been broached, the feng shui master was happy to turn his attention away from the food and deign to join in the conversation. ‘Normal fees, I bump it up a bit, maybe sixty or seventy per cent, plus big surcharge for express service. But one bad thing. The man wants me to fly to London to do some work for someone else after.’
Sinha looked puzzled. ‘You are invited to go on a free trip to the United Kingdom, all expenses paid by a wealthy organisation, but you are reluctant to do so? Is this logical?’
‘I think I will not like UK. Too many foreigner.’
‘That’s true. There are a lot of UK people in the UK. Odd, that. But you could always hang out in Gerrard Street. You’d feel at home there. They do an excellent
cha siu bau
, and you can even get a good plate of
dau miu
. Indeed, Cantonese is the main language of Gerrard Street, as it now is for large swatches of Vancouver. London might be fun. I haven’t been there myself for, oh, half a decade or more.’
The feng shui master shook his head. ‘Too much trouble. Besides, I have plenty of worry on my mind. Maybe should stay here, raise some money. I have to make a payment of big, big bucks to Arun Asif Iqbal Daswani in ten days’ time.
Harmoney deal turned out to be big, big trouble.
Aiyeeah
.’ He grimaced at the memory of the morning’s meeting. ‘Daswani messed up plenty but still he wants me to pay. Not fair, but what can I do?’
Sinha put his elbows on the table. ‘Ah. You owe money to Arun Daswani? That’s bad news indeed. He’s not the sort of person to get on the wrong side of. That alone might be a good reason to get out of town and on to the other side of the planet as promptly as possible. Anyway, if you need big bucks at high speed, surely the London deal is what you want? The royal family, no less! Surely it will be easy money?’
Wong scowled. Given his long history of loathing all things Western, it would be hard to reconcile himself to having to spend several days there. And he always felt long-haul trips were bad value because of the travelling time. ‘Maybe they pay full fees, but overseas trips take so long. I get maybe two-three days’ pay, but have to travel one-two days to get there, another one-two days to get back. End up wasting seven-eight days for only two-three days’ money. Too much time, not enough cash.’
Sinha dismissed this with a wave of his hand—which unfortunately sent a piece of onion into Joyce’s hair. ‘Nonsense. You have to factor the travelling time into your bill. Make them pay for it. Better still, with the royal family, there is no need to hold back when you are writing an invoice—so just make up a number. They can afford it. They’re as rich as Croesus.’
Wong had no idea who Crease-Us was, but it occurred to him that Sinha might be right—he was dimly aware that a royal family in the West was likely to be super-wealthy. He had encountered non-rich royals several times in places such as Indonesia and Malaysia, but the royals of London should have money, one would think.
Joyce enthusiastically backed up Sinha’s assertion. ‘He’s right. They are
totally
loaded. Filthy rich.’
‘Filthy?’
‘It means,
really, really
.’
Wong couldn’t hide the lust for money that was beginning to sparkle in his eyes. ‘I can charge them three-four times usual rate?’
The Indian shook his head. ‘No. I think six or eight times the normal rate would be more like it. Just think of the Queen’s property portfolio. It’s massive. Remember, Britain is one of the richest countries in the world—it’s up there in the top ten with America and Switzerland and all those places. And the Queen is one of the richest people in Britain. That makes her one of the richest people on this planet.’
‘Oh. She has much property?’ asked Wong.
Sinha gave a scornful bark. ‘Much?
Much?
“Much” is not the word. Let me tell you about the Queen’s property portfolio,’ he said, counting on his fingers. ‘She owns England. And Scotland. And Wales. And Northern Ireland.’
The feng shui master was astonished. ‘All those?’
Sinha leaned forwards. ‘Yes.
And
Australia.
And
New Zealand.
And
Canada.’
‘She owns Australia? And Canada?’
‘She does.’
‘I think Gibraltar too,’ Joyce put in. ‘That’s in Spain. And the Falkland Islands, which are part of Argentina really, but…’
‘Quite,’ said Sinha. ‘And she used to own Hong Kong. And India. And Sri Lanka. And what is now Bangladesh.’
Wong was stunned. ‘What did she do with them? She sold them?’
‘Yep. Pocketed the cash. Money in the bank.’ Sinha leaned back in his chair. ‘Now
that
is a serious property player.’
Wong’s brain was now ticking away at high speed. He had thought he knew all the names of the big players in property: from Li Ka-shing in Hong Kong to Donald Trump in America. But he had never realised that the Queen was in the game. Respect dawned in his eyes.
Sinha, having satiated one appetite, was now happy to lean back and indulge a second great love: the sound of his voice. ‘Of course the British Empire has shrunk from its glory days, but at one time it spread across one-third of the world’s landmasses. One-third! And the Queen of England was ruler over all of it. As I say, her empire is not as large as it was, but she still holds sway over a large swathe of the civilised and uncivilised world.’
The geomancer was impressed. It was indeed an impressive property portfolio. He had a vision of himself and the Queen sitting in a palace having a long chat on the subject of property arbitrage, square-foot pricing comparisons, hottest tips for emerging property markets, et cetera. And better still, she would be paying for it—at any rate he chose. Perhaps she would retain him as the royal feng shui master. It would be more fun doing palaces than doing scenes of crime, which had kept him busy for much of the previous three years. ‘So I can charge big extra premium, for sure?’
‘Make up a number. Ten times the normal rate should be no problem at all.’
Joyce was excited. ‘So we’re doing it for sure? We’re going to London, too?’
Wong grimaced. ‘Maybe
one
of us go. But only for a short time. And very hard work. Work hard, collect big bucks, go home.’
The young woman stuck out her lower lip. ‘They wanted both of us. I told them we were a team. Besides, you can charge more for two operatives.’
Sinha turned to her. ‘What exactly is the United Kingdom part of this assignment? Does the Queen want Buckingham Palace feng-shuied or what?’
‘I’m not sure. He didn’t say—the man who called up. He’s some sort of consultant. His name is Robbie Manks and he’s a PR man or lobbyist or something in that line. I don’t even know which member of the royal family he’s working for. It may not be the Queen.’
This worried Wong. ‘Not the Queen? Other members of the family, are they also rich? All share the family fortune?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Joyce. ‘I mean, yes, they’re all rich. But they’re not much of a family, if you know what I mean.’
He looked at her blankly.
‘According to the papers, the family members don’t really like each other all that much. And they all hated Princess Di and Fergie, who never behaved like royals are supposed to. So I don’t know if they do all share the money or what,’ Joyce explained.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Chong-li told Wong. ‘The Queen has Buckingham Palace, Prince Charles has Highgrove House, they all hang out at Windsor Castle and Balmoral—there are more than enough places for you to feng shui in UK. And you can charge the earth for each one.’
Wong looked comforted. ‘I need the money quick-quick. You think the Queen pay cash?’