The Feng Shui Detective Goes South (18 page)

They reckoned that a policeman in Singapore didn’t do too badly if he was tipped to reach senior rank?’

Dani had promised to make her final decision by the previous week, Joyce said. When the time came for her to announce it to the family, she stunned them by naming a third person—a male called Charles Winterbottom none of them had ever heard of. He worked as a stockbroker downtown.

When her father told her that she could only select from the list of two pre-approved candidates, she threw a tantrum and ran off to stay with one of her girlfriends—or that was what she told people, anyway.

Mak, the policeman, was incensed. He went off to find her. That’s where the trail stopped for a couple of days. Dani was hiding with a girlfriend or something. She came home on Saturday night and everything seemed normal. And then on Sunday she disappeared again.

‘And then the news turned really bad,’ said Joyce. ‘On Monday. Like her mum got this note saying that Dani had been kidnapped and that we would never see her again unless she put one million Sing dollars into a package and left it at a certain place at a certain time: the little park off Maxwell Road?

Real cop show stuff.’

‘So what did she do?’ asked Wong.

‘Nothing. She treated it as a joke. This is real life. She ignored it. But yesterday morning she got a call from a guy sounding angry? He said he had really kidnapped her and that she would come to harm if she didn’t come up with the money? That’s when she called us?’

Wong scribbled notes as she spoke. Joyce’s version of the story had turned out to be more detailed than Mrs Mirpuri’s.

‘But there’s more,’ said Joyce. ‘It gets worse. I found out something amazing about another young woman in your life.’

‘Who?’

‘Your girlfriend.’

Wong’s face became a mask of anger. ‘Please to stop saying this. I do not have girlfriend. I spend a long time last night to try to explain to Madame Xu—’ ‘Ha,’ Joyce laughed. ‘Did they tease you about that? Sorry. Couldn’t resist it. But the way the girl was looking at you, she did look interested in you. Hey, where are you going?’

Wong had risen to his feet. It had not been easy, since his bones were old and the seats in the coffee shop were like sponges. ‘Must go. I think Mrs Mirpuri will be ready to meet me soon. You can stay.’

‘Wait,’ said Joyce. ‘I haven’t finished yet. I haven’t finished my muffin and I haven’t finished my story. Sit down, please. This is really interesting, I promise you.’

Wong reluctantly sat down again. ‘I do not pay you to eat,’ he said.

‘I’m an intern. You don’t pay me at all. You employ me. Mr Pun pays me.’

The feng shui man had no answer to this. ‘So what you want to tell me?’

Joyce, speaking with a mouthful of chocolate sponge, said: ‘I got talking to the girl who was looking at you? Her name is Maddy. She’s from Hong Kong. She said she’s met you? She knows some of the same people I know in Hong Kong.

She hung out at Insomnia and Le Jardin in Lan Kwai Fong just like me. She scored eight and a half on a ten-metre pike at a diving contest at my school pool year before last. She knows this guy Lenny I used to know—before he got busted for drugs.

Anyway, I was friendly enough but I didn’t pay her that much attention. I wanted to find out what people knew about Dani.

I was working really hard all last night.’ She stopped for a moment. ‘Can I get expenses for what I spent at the club?’

‘No.’

‘Okay, just thought I’d ask. Anyway, about two o’clock in the morning, I decide it’s time to go home? I’m just saying goodbye to the gang, when this girl Maddy comes up and grabs my arm. She’s like, “Can I go with you? Can I talk to you?” It’s a bit strange, but I’m like: “Sure.” She says that I was so concerned about Dani being missing that I must be a nice person. She said she didn’t have any friends and wanted a friend like me, who cared about whether she disappeared or not. It was a bit strange, what she was saying. I gave her my phone number and my email and my Skype handle. Anyway, we’re walking along and she steers me into one of those late-night noodle shops you get up on those roads past Kilimanjaro on Boat Quay, you know? I’m trying to make conversation, so I’m like: “You got a boyfriend, then?” She’s like: “Yes. And he wants me to die.” Ever so casual.’

‘Young people, they get drunk, they say silly things. Is not real.’

‘Maybe. Maybe it was just the drink talking. But she told me she’s got this boyfriend? Actually, fiancé. He’s a lot older than she is, like ten years or something. I think she said he was like thirty-something. Anyway, she told me she went to the cheap flophouse where he stays yesterday, and found he was out. She managed to get into the room—she didn’t say how. She decides to wait for him. While she’s there, to pass the time, she starts reading the papers and letters and stuff on his desk. The letters are boring stuff, invoices and things. But there are some papers tucked away. She finds that he has taken out an insurance policy on her life. She keeps reading. He has insured her life for like
two million ringgits.
Then she finds another insurance policy, also made out in her name. Then there’s a third one. Basically, she finds that her fiancé has taken out loads of life insurance in her name. Like millions. I don’t know what that is in real money, but I bet it’s a lot.’

‘This is normal. People get married, they get insured.’

‘I don’t think so. She said that there was no insurance coverage in
his
name. All of it was coverage for her, with him as the—as the—ben . . . ben . . . you know what I mean.’

‘Yes,’ said Wong. ‘The benny-something. Know what you mean. Benny factor?’

Joyce wrinkled her brow. ‘It’s on the tip of my tongue.’

‘What is?’

‘Beneficiary.’

‘Beneficiary.’ Wong was pleased he knew the word. He must find a way to use it in his book.

‘Yeah. Anyway, he’s going to make an absolute fortune if she dies. And the most suspicious thing of all: he hasn’t said one word about all this to her. It’s his little secret. It’s suspicious, isn’t it? Go on, CF, admit it. It is suspicious.’

Wong stood up again. ‘Maybe so. But Joyce, I want you to remember one thing. We are not comic hero. We are not Superman. We do not save the world. We are not good guys. We are consultants. We are businessmen. When people pay us, we do things. At the moment, Mrs Mirpuri will pay us rack rate plus fifty per cent for express service. Dentist will pay us big money, I will make up outrageous big number for them.

Already I have done some work for them. This will be good week for our finances. Very necessary to have good week from time to time. But this girl Maddy is not our assignment. We cannot help her. We are too busy. Must earn crusty bread, as the English say.’

He marched angrily out of the coffee shop. ‘Always we waste time,’ he mumbled.

Joyce scooped up the remains of her breakfast and ran after him. ‘Wait,’ she said.

She caught up with him and swallowed the foamy dregs of her coffee before speaking again. ‘Listen, CF, I was just coming to that. Maddy, the girl in the disco,
is
one of your clients, sort of. Her full name is Madeleine Tsai. She’s the cousin of one of your clients. You know. She was in the apartment that nearly burned down with you in it on Saturday. Maybe the ghost wasn’t trying to kill Mrs Tsai-Thingy. Maybe the fiancé was trying to kill Maddy.’

Wong stopped dead in his tracks.

The office door crashed open. The crack in the glass lengthened.

‘Hell-ooo!’ said a cheery voice. ‘Mr Wong?’

Madame Xu poked her head into the office. ‘Ah, Winnie, my dear. Is Mr Wong at hand?’

Dilip Sinha appeared behind his friend. ‘Good afternoon, Winnie. How are you? We are here on a little surprise visit to your employer. Is he around?’

Winnie, who was in the middle of a lengthy private phone call in which she was trying to find out whether she could prosecute her employer for forcing her to work in a room without an air conditioner, sighed at the interruption. ‘Not here,’ she barked.

‘He’s not here,’ Madame Xu echoed, disappointed.

‘Oh dear,’ said Sinha. ‘Well, never mind. We’ll see him later, I’m sure. Is he expected back shortly? Should we wait?’

‘No,’ said Winnie.

The two visitors were stumped. They waited for Winnie to invite them in and offer them
ching cha
while she phoned around to find out where her boss was. They waited in vain.

‘Well, what can we do?’ Madame Xu sighed. ‘We can’t enlist him in this battle to save this poor young lady if he is not here to be enlisted, can we? We’ll just have to talk to him another time.’

‘We don’t have a lot of time. The unfortunate girl may no longer be with us by Friday evening,’ Sinha said. ‘It’s already Wednesday. Really, this case is the most troubling one I have had to deal with for many years.’

‘He must have gone out with Inspector Tan to deal with the ghost at the dentists’. That did sound like a fascinating case. Is he at the dentists’, Winnie dear?’

‘Don’t know,’ snapped Winnie. ‘Talk later,’ she said into the phone, reluctantly ending her call.

Madame Xu decided to take control of the situation. She pulled Joyce’s chair over to the corner of Winnie’s desk and sat down heavily in it. ‘Listen, my dear,’ she said to the office administrator. ‘Can you give a message to Mr Wong when he comes back? It’s
very
important.’

Winnie made no move to pick up a pen or paper.

‘We need Mr Wong to urgently find a remedy for a person of a certain birth date who is facing a major problem on a certain date which is very close. Do you understand?’

‘Hmm.’

‘Can you deliver such a message?’

‘Okay,’ Winnie barked, without attempting to hide her irritation. ‘Which person?’

‘I can’t tell you that.’

‘Which date?’

‘I can’t tell you that either.’

‘What problem?’

‘I’m afraid that, too, is confidential.’ The older woman gave the secretary an apologetic smile. ‘I know it’s all really very difficult, but you have to bear with me. I swore on some chicken gravy.’

‘Gravy?’

‘So you see how serious it is.’

Winnie’s brows knitted themselves together to show her exasperation. ‘Don’t understand.’

Dilip Sinha cut in. ‘I think, my dear, if you would simply tell him to contact us urgently on a matter of great importance, that would suffice. Where will we be, Chong Li?’

‘Let’s go back to my house. Your one always smells of curry.’

‘It does, I confess. One of the reasons I’m fond of it. We’ll be at Madame Xu’s house. Sago Street. Mr Wong knows.’

‘We’re going now,’ Madame Xu said, creakily rising to her feet. ‘You don’t mind being left all your own in this office?’

Winnie rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

The pair left the office. As they walked down the stairs, Madame Xu said to Sinha: ‘Actually, I had this feeling that he wouldn’t be there. I didn’t want to say, but I had a strong premonition that he would be out.’

‘Odd, but so did I,’ said Sinha. ‘I knew it would be useless coming here.’

‘Well, why didn’t you say so? You could have saved us a journey.’

‘Well, you didn’t say so either.’

‘You didn’t ask.’

They bickered affectionately down four flights of stairs.

Wong, as usual when he was concentrating, retreated into his shell. After running out of information to deliver to him about her investigation into Danita’s love-life, Joyce asked him several times what he had discovered about the coded letter, but he said nothing, merely continuing to mumble to himself in Cantonese as he strode briskly through the crowded mid-morning streets. He made marks in a Singapore map-book as he walked.

‘This way,’ he said out loud after jaywalking briskly across a road. ‘I think down here.’

Joyce had expected him to lead her to a kidnapper’s den. But instead they found themselves at the Hair Today Salon, a rather tacky beauty shop fronted with dark glass, its frontage liberally sprinkled with Christmas lights.

‘Well, Mr Wong, what do you think?’ said a large, dark-skinned woman decked in a silk sari and heavy jewellery who was waiting for him on a sofa at the entrance. ‘I think we find her quite soon,’ said the geomancer, shaking her hand as they stepped out of the shop.