The Feng Shui Detective Goes South (16 page)

‘Shhh,’ said Joyce, who had become interested, anticipating something similar. ‘I love ghost stories. Especially real ones.’

‘You must wait and see what the mystery is,’ said Gilbert Tan. ‘And as for the answer to it, well, you must provide that yourselves. This story is missing an ending.’

‘Excuse me, do continue,’ said the Indian astrologer.

‘Dr Leibler thought no more about this trivial incident until a few days later, when he was leaving the office late, and was again surprised to hear sounds coming from Dr Liew’s room. This time he was quite sure that Dr Liew had left—the man had said goodbye to him at least half an hour ago.

‘Again, Dr Leibler tapped on his colleague’s door, and received silence in reply. After knocking again, and calling out his friend’s name, the dentist slowly opened the door. “Dr Liew? You in here?” He opened the door to see . . .’

The police officer stopped and looked at his audience. There was rapt attention. Sinha and McQuinnie were leaning forward, listening intently. Wong, as usual when listening to a story, had his eyes closed and head tilted back. Madame Xu was staring into the middle distance over their heads. Superintendent Tan was delighted by the suspense he had created.

‘A ghost?’ ventured Joyce.

‘Nothing!’ said the police officer, unable to resist a grin. ‘There was nothing there. The room was empty. No dentist, no patient. Nothing. The following morning—’ ‘Hang on,’ said Joyce. ‘There was no one there, but was the sound still there? Was the groaning still going?’

‘I do believe it was. But our hero felt uncomfortable and did not enter the room to investigate further. He said it sent shivers down his spine. He left. Any other questions?’

‘No, go on.’

‘The next morning, Dr Leibler mentions it to his friend and colleague. “Strange thing, but sometimes I think it sounds as if you are in the room, but there’s no one there.” He had expected Liew to disregard the observation, but he didn’t. The Singaporean says: “Helluva strange you say that. Sometimes I hear groaning, you know, and I think: What’s wrong? I haven’t even got my hands near the guy’s mouth. I’m over by the sink doing a rinse of some tool. Then I realise that the sound is not coming from my patient. There must be some strange thing where the sound comes from your room into mine.”

‘“You mean some sort of acoustic phenomenon?” Dr Leibler asks.

‘“Yes, it must be your patient I can hear, not mine,” Dr Liew says.

‘Dr Leibler realises that this cannot be the case. He says: “Yes, but I could hear someone when there were no patients on the premises at all. Neither in your room or mine. Pretty strange, no?”

‘Just then, the other staff, Cheng Lai Kuen and Amanda Luk arrive, and in the bustle of morning preparations, the conversation is forgotten. The whole subject disappears until a few days later when Dr Liew calls Dr Leibler at home one night. “I need to use your office. I have an urgent case this evening, and there is some problem with my room. My client is here now.”

‘“Why of course, go right ahead. You can get in?”

‘“Yes, the spare keys are there where Amanda hides them.”

‘“My room is your room,” says the American.

‘“I’ll call you later,” says the Singaporean.

‘Some forty-five minutes later, Dr Leibler has just finished a post-meal slug of eau de vie, when Dr Liew calls. “Was it okay?

Did you find everything you need?” the American asks.

‘“Fine. Just a cosmetic job. It was Mrs Poon, you know, the New Zealand consul-general’s wife? Chipped a tooth, going on a trip tomorrow, needed a quick cover-up.”

‘“No problem,” says Dr Leibler. “Now, tell me, what was the problem with your office? You said you couldn’t use it. Is it the electricity again? I’ve had this flickering light for ages.’

‘Liew Yok Tse is initially reluctant to say what the problem is. Then he decides to take the bull by the horns. “Gibson,” he says. “I think you will think that I am crazy, but let me tell you what I really think. My surgery is haunted. There is a ghost in it. Someone is there, groaning, like a patient, when really there is no one there. I went in there to prepare, and I heard the sound. I checked in your office, there was no one. Then my client arrived, and I decided to call you and use your room instead. There is a ghost, and it is in my room.”

‘“Nonsense,” says his friend. “It is an acoustic problem, like you said before. Just a sound coming from somewhere else.”

‘“But where? Your office was empty.”

‘“Maybe another dentist somewhere else in the building, and the sound travels?”

‘“No,” says Liew. “Directly above us is some sort of boutique, and below, the whole floor is a restaurant. I don’t think it is coming from next door. And the sound. You should hear it. It sounds so close. Like you can touch it, him, the person. Someone IN my room.”

‘“The voice: what does it say?” asks Leibler.

‘“He—it—just groans. It sounds like a bad patient of a bad dentist, when you haven’t given any anaesthetic.”’

Gilbert Tan scanned the faces of his listeners. ‘Now are you with me so far?’

Joyce nodded. Sinha slowly bowed his head.

‘Good. Well, the two dentists decide to meet half an hour earlier at the office in the morning to check out the problem. At eight the next morning, they carefully examine Dr Liew’s office. Nothing strange, nothing remotely out of the ordinary there. In the cool light of morning, the problem seems ridiculous, and they decide to forget it. Dr Liew laughs and says he would be a fool to take such ridiculous fears seriously. “It was probably a cat,” he says. “You know how human they sound when they are on heat? Probably in the air vents of the building or outside.”

‘He laughs off the problem, but Dr Leibler soon realises that he hasn’t really forgotten about it. Dr Liew has lost his cheerfulness. He used to sing under his breath, old Hokkien love songs, but no longer. When small items go missing, Liew looks very uncomfortable until Cheung Lai Kuen—that was the name of his dental technician, remember?—finds them, innocently misplaced under a newspaper or a jacket. The person who suffers most from all this is Lai Kuen. You see, she has to deal with an unhappy and jittery boss, and she too is unhappy most of the time, being a rather gullible soul.

‘Gibson Leibler eventually decides to tell his wife Cady Tsai-Leibler about it. She immediately decides that she knows who the ghost is. Soon after she got engaged to her husband-to-be, he got caught up in a malpractice lawsuit with a former patient of his, a man named Joseph Oath. Oath’s child had been improperly anaesthetised for an operation, and had never regained consciousness. The anaesthetist concerned had afterwards died of an overdose, and Oath’s fury had been redirected at the dentist. The hearing, when it finally came to court, was slated to last for two weeks. But halfway through the first week, Oath died suddenly. The case was adjourned. His widow decided not to proceed with the case. But the damage had been done, you see? Dr Leibler, his reputation shot, decided to leave Hong Kong and move to Singapore. That’s where the story ends—until a few weeks ago, when some spirit—possibly the ghost of Joseph Oath—started appearing in the surgery and upsetting everything. Mrs Tsai-Leibler believes that the ghost followed her husband home to their new flat in Ridley Park at the weekend and set fire to it. From her point of view, the most important thing to do is get rid of the wandering, unhappy spirit.’

Superintendent Tan turned and looked directly at Wong. ‘Dr Liew arranged for a Buddhist priest to come to the premises and chant for an hour on Friday last week. But it had no effect at all. He had a pair of psychics in, too. They were no use. So now they are at their wits’ end. I told the dentists that I would pop in tomorrow morning with a couple of officers to see if there was any funny business going on. You know, anyone hidden in the ceiling panels or dangling outside the window or anything like that. But Dr Liew also wants a feng shui man to come and cleanse the surgery. He now thinks that is the only way to solve the problem.’

Wong nodded slowly, then turned to Joyce. ‘What do you call a person who exercises?’

‘What?’ Joyce was taken aback by the question. ‘I dunno. A fitness freak?’

‘No, exercises the ghosts.’

‘Oh. An exorcist.’

‘Yes.’ Wong turned to Superintendent Tan. ‘You want an excer-cist. Not a feng shui man. He can get the ghost out.’

‘I thought about that, but I decided no,’ said the police officer. ‘You know, there’s no one I know here who does that sort of thing except old Father Fan, you know, Fan Yin Sze, and I wouldn’t want to inflict him upon anyone.’

‘But you cannot get a feng shui
sifu
to do the job of an excerciser. It is too different.’

‘Maybe so,’ said Tan. ‘But the Buddhist priest Dr Liew used, a gentleman named Brother Q, whom I believe Madame Xu knows, is a top man in that field. As I say, he had no effect.’

Madame Xu nodded. ‘If Brother Q cannot get rid of the ghost, then clearly it is resistant to the efforts of normal operations against paranormal infestations. I think a feng shui reading may be an interesting way of attacking the problem from a different angle.’

Wong was adamant. ‘No. Cannot. I already have difficult assignment this week. Busy today, all day tomorrow, maybe next day also. Confidential one. Also, I don’t believe in ghost. Don’t want to take this assignment.’

‘It’s not his cup of tea,’ said Joyce.

Wong started to lower the cup of
bo leih
he had just raised to his lips.

‘No, I don’t mean that’s not your cup of tea,’ said the young woman.

The confused geomancer blinked at her, his cup stuck halfway to his mouth.

Superintendent Tan leaned over and put his small, fat hand on the back of the geomancer’s thin, wrinkled hand. ‘I know you don’t want to take this case, but you will.’

Dilip Sinha laughed and clapped his hands together. ‘There you have a fine example of emotional blackmail, which is what I believe they call this. You don’t want to do it, but he knows you will do it for the sake of your old friendship with the Super.’

‘No,’ said the police officer. ‘That’s not the reason why I know he’ll take it. When I tell him what the dentists have offered to pay, he will take it. Dentists
yau cheen.
Plenty rich.’

Wong suddenly looked interested and lowered his cup.

‘Tell.’

By the time the meeting came to a close with a platter of
pulut durian
,
ondeh-ondeh
,
kueh kosuree
and other coconut-flavoured Malay sweetmeats, Wong had agreed to go to the dental surgery on Orchard Road the following afternoon. Superintendent Tan left the table to hurry home to his wife Selina, a teacher, and their two children.

As the gathering broke up, Wong quietly told Joyce that he wanted to spend the following morning doing a feng shui reading of the home of Danita Mirpuri, after which he would meet the missing girl’s mother, who was due to finish her appointment with the hairdresser at lunchtime. Then he would spend the afternoon at the dental surgery.

‘You also have some work. You please tonight write down everything you have found out about this girl, especially about her boyfriends,’ he told the intern. ‘Put it on my desk tomorrow morning. Then you can take day off. Go to HMV.’

‘Sounds like you have some homework to do tonight, plum blossom,’ said Madame Xu. ‘Just like in school. Better hurry home and have a quiet night.’

‘Home? I’m
so
not going home,’ said Joyce. ‘I’m going out. I’ll see if I can find out anything about Danita from the club. That’s where her mates hang out. I’ll also see if I can find out anything more about your girlfriend, CF. ’ Madame Xu and Dilip Sinha suddenly spun their heads to stare at Wong. ‘Your
girlfriend?
’ said Madame Xu.

The feng shui master was speechless.

‘He came to the disco with us last night,’ said Joyce. ‘And he was the first to pull.’

‘Pull what?’ asked Sinha.

‘Don’t ask,’ said Wong, furious.

Joyce pulled out a mirror and a black lipstick to ready herself for another late night at Dan T’s Inferno.

Wednesday:
Life is not a
mini-series

As planned, CF Wong spent the first two working hours of Wednesday morning at the Mirpuri house in Mount Faber. He already had diagrams of the family home on file in the office. (Winnie had miraculously managed to find them at the bottom of one of twenty unmarked cardboard boxes in the office meditation room.) So on this visit he focused particularly on the young woman’s bedroom, which was a malodorous pile of clothes, magazines and used tissues. He also spent some time with her aunt, compiling a list of key dates in the young woman’s life.