The Feng Shui Detective Goes South (37 page)

‘I’ve never been so tired in my whole life,’ said Joyce, as a police car dropped them back at their hotel at 10.41 that night. She gave a yawn that was so large it hurt her jaw and made her close her eyes. ‘Dear God,’ she said. ‘Poor us. Poor me. Poor Maddy.’ She sniffed and her red eyes filled with tears again. ‘She was only a year older than me. Can’t we go and help them look for her? She was a champion swimmer. She
told
me. I really think she could have jumped deliberately.’

‘I think better we decide that Madeleine Tsai is dead. Sydney coroner will probably write down open verdict, presumed dead.

Most bodies in harbour waters are recovered. Some are not. But if she is officially dead, that means that triads will not come find her. Jackie Sum will not look for her. This is good. Old Man Tsai will not come find her. She doesn’t like her father. This is good. Australian immigration officers will not come find her. Also good. No one will come find her.’

‘But if she is still alive . . .’

‘If she is alive, she can start again. Fresh. Clean. New. New country. She is young, clever. She knows how to look after herself.’

‘Will that horrible guy get the insurance money? Her boyfriend?’

‘Don’t know. Maybe. He said he wants to spend it on sick children. Maybe he is telling the truth. Spending money on sick children is good.’

As they stepped into the elevator, the young woman said: ‘If like she’s officially dead, then it all works out fine for everyone, in a way, doesn’t it?’

‘Not fine for everyone,’ said Wong. ‘No one to pay me.’

Monday:
With human
hands

The ghost groaned, right on cue at seven, o’clock. It was a sad, whimpering exhalation: ‘
Unhhh.
’

‘There it is,’ gasped Joyce McQuinnie, standing in the doorway.

‘I’m going home,’ said Lai Kuen, grabbing her handbag and trotting stiffly out of the office on her high heels.

The two dentists stood in the waiting room, while Lai Kuen waited in the corridor, trying to cram her fist in her mouth. They had all come back to the still-shut surgery on Monday evening to watch CF Wong deal with the ghost.

The geomancer’s face was set, but with exhaustion rather than fear. The long weekend holiday he had craved had turned out to be nothing like a vacation. It would be impossible to imagine anything less relaxing than to fill three days with two long-haul flights, divided by a long day of breathless action— especially since the non-flying hours had been significantly over-supplied with painful police interview sessions.

Arriving back in Singapore on Saturday evening, the heat and humidity had hit his face like a hot hand towel from a restaurant. He could smell petrol and pollution in the air. The undying roar of the traffic on the highways sounded curiously loud. The aroma of spices and fried fish drifted from an open window. Somehow the noise and the stink seemed wonderfully comforting. Okay, so this place wasn’t as spectacular as Australia. But it was
home.

And although he had a day’s grace before getting back to work, he had been unable to relax on Sunday. Words related to ‘death’ and ‘loss’ had been too much in evidence in his waking hours during recent days. They had—maybe—lost Madeleine Tsai, and might have to fly back to Sydney for an inquest. He had definitely lost his chance of a big reward from Old Man Tsai. And Singapore also reminded him of death: Amanda Luk had lost her life, and the assignment at the surgery remained irritatingly in need of resolution. In all, the past week had been far too stressful. He desperately needed to get back to his quiet, safe world of floor plans and ancient calendars.

But what to do? First, the unquiet spirit at the surgery had to be dealt with.

On entering the offices, Wong had immediately noticed that both Liew and Leibler had changed noticeably since the events of Thursday morning. Both seemed years older. The tall, angular Liew Yok Tse was stooped and shrunken, and appeared to have lost weight. He and Cheung Lai Kuen stood close together, apparently taking comfort from each other’s presence. She held on to his arm.

Gibson Leibler had lost his strut. There was no spring in his step. His head was bowed. He shuffled on his feet, his face unshaven and his eyes looking sore. He noticed that the surgeon’s collar was standing awry on one side and his left ear contained a spot of shaving cream. The implication was that this was a man who was living alone. Had he walked out on Cady? Or had she thrown him out?

Both of them watched from the waiting room as the feng shui master entered the haunted surgery holding his
lo pan
and another, smaller device, which was encased in plain wood and had unusual markings on it. He walked carefully around the room once with his
lo pan
and then put it down on the tray next to the dentist’s chair.

‘He’s in the chair,’ whispered Joyce. ‘The ghost. He’s in the chair. I can hear him.’

Wong picked up the other device.

‘What is that?’ asked the young woman, who was watching carefully from behind the outward-opening door.

‘Feng shui metal finder.’

‘Never heard of that before.’

‘It is for finding unseen metal. These days usually you can get a floor plan. Will show you where metal pipes are.

This is good when you need to find metal not on floor plan.’

Wong carefully went around the edges of the room and stopped when he got to one of the side walls. He slowly lowered his compass to ankle level and then lifted it up as far as he could reach. Then he bought it back down again, roughly to shoulder level.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘There is metal here which is causing the problem.’

‘
Ahhhh,
’ moaned the ghost. ‘
Owww-unhh.

’ Wong marked the spot on the wall with his pencil and then reached down into his bag. He lifted out a drill with a fine point and plugged it into a socket he found near the sink.

‘What are you doing?’ This was Dr Liew.

‘Getting rid of the ghost,’ said Wong.

‘Don’t! That stippled wall covering cost a fortune,’ said Lai Kuen, holding on to her boss’s arm. ‘Amanda got her friend to do it. I don’t know if we will be able to replace it. Look, this is ridiculous, can’t you stop him?’ That last comment was aimed at Dr Leibler, who showed no reaction.

‘But shouldn’t you find out what the metal is?’ asked Dr Liew. ‘What if it’s a water pipe or something? Or something electrical? You could hurt yourself.’

‘
Ohhh,
’ said the ghost.

Wong said nothing, but turned the machine on. The whine of the drill in the small room was so loud that all conversation had to stop. The geomancer used two hands to steady the machine as it bit into the plaster. He pressed harder, and the drill head slowly sank in, millimetre by millimetre, with the sound rising a tone as he put pressure behind it.

‘Nearly there,’ he shouted.

‘Stop!’ yelled Lai Kuen.

Suddenly the drill changed tone, as it hit something inside the wall. There was a metallic splintering sound.

Wong turned the drill off. It took a few seconds to whirr to a halt. Silence filled the room.
Complete
silence. The ghost had gone.

The feng shui master turned to his assistant. ‘Did you bring invoice book? Is invoice time. Then dinner.’

More than two thousand years ago, the great sage
Confucius was sitting and talking to four young scholars
about what would bring happiness to them.

The first said that he would achieve happiness if he
achieved the rank of Minister of Defence.

The second said that he would have ultimate joy if
he became Minister of Finance.

The third said that he would reach the peak of
human pleasure if he became the Emperor’s Master of
Ceremonies.

The fourth student was bored by the discussion. He
played his lute.

Confucius said to him: ‘Tseng Tien, I want you to
answer the question.’

The young man said: ‘Happiness is to be with a
group of friends, bathing in the River Yi in late spring.
A cooling breeze blows through the rain altars. We sing
at the tops of our voices as we stroll home.’

Confucius said only Tien understood anything about
happiness.

No wisdom has ever surpassed that of Confucius.
But one who may have been equally wise was Lao Tzu,
Blade of Grass. Two and half millenniums ago, he said:
‘He who is satisfied, is rich.’

From ‘Some Gleanings of Oriental Wisdom’
by CF Wong, part 351

‘What
is
that thing, anyway?’ Madame Xu stared suspiciously at the dish on the table.

‘I’ll show you,’ said Joyce. She flicked through a book on Australia that Brett Kilington had given her. ‘It’s that.’ She held the book up and showed Madame Xu the image. ‘It’s called a kangaroo.’

‘But what IS a kangaroo?’

‘It’s a native of Australia.’

‘Really,’ said Madame Xu, amazed. ‘And to think my nephew married one of those to get a passport.’

Joyce had bought some kangaroo meat and a box of macadamia chocolates back as a souvenir of Sydney. Ah-Fat had agreed to stir-fry the kangaroo meat as long as he could have a portion himself out of curiosity.

‘Tastes like chicken,’ said Joyce.

‘I’m not really sure if I want to eat it,’ said Madame Xu. ‘It’s got such fat legs in the picture. I’m worried it might give me fat legs.’

‘If eating this stuff makes you fat, we’d better force-feed CF with large amounts of it,’ said Dilip Kenneth Sinha. ‘He looks skinnier than ever. It must have been all the stress of your adventures in Australia.’

‘Australia very nice place,’ mused Wong. ‘But very shocking things happen there. Police they arrest you all the time. Every five minute, almost. Worse than China even. But policemen not so bad as some China policemen.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Joyce. ‘The first time they arrested us it was because of Brett. And the second time, they did have a pretty good reason for detaining us and talking to us. They thought we were landing helicopters on their most famous national building.’

‘It all sounds much too dramatic and exciting for me,’ said Sinha. ‘Thank goodness I wasn’t there. Sampling this kangaroo meat is probably enough excitement for me.’

‘It’s full of crocodiles too,’ Madame Xu said. ‘And arboretums’ ‘Aboriginals,’ Joyce interposed after some thought. ‘That’s what we call the native peoples of Australia. It’s a good place.

If you ever go down there, I’ll give you a list of places to visit.

Nightclubs, shops, everything. Fab CD shops. They’ve got it all.’

‘Why don’t we plan a joint excursion?’ Sinha suggested.

‘This is not a meeting to plan our holidays,’ said Madame Xu. ‘This is a working dinner. And we can get to work now, because the final member is here.’

Superintendent Gilbert Tan hurried into the night market.

‘So sorry, so sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m very late, is it? Helluva rude of me. Food here already, good, good, then we can start eating right away.’

‘Try this,’ said Madame Xu. ‘It’s special. Joyce bought it from Australia.’