The girl tensed.
Joyce knew she was listening intently. ‘The bit in the chorus where they sing: “It’s back-to-front and upside-down, the voices in my head they pound-pound-pound . . .”’
She noticed the younger girl turning her head slightly, so continued to sing: ‘“But I can’t explain, I’m in such pain, the world’s not fair, whoa, whoa, whoa, yeah.” That is such a cool song.’
Becky nodded in spite of herself. ‘Yeah.’
‘The lyrics are like, like, pure poetry.’
‘Yeah. They really are.’
Joyce paused and patiently counted to ten in her head. Then: ‘I don’t suppose poor Sasha ever heard That Guy’s Belly.’
‘Heard them? You kidding? She had every album they ever made. You should see her bed —’ Becky suddenly stopped. She turned her head away again, evidently upset that she had been tricked into talking.
Silence returned. Joyce decided that she had no choice but to try a long shot. ‘You don’t have to talk to me. But I’ve got this theory that everyone has got it all wrong about this Sasha and Ms Ling business. Still, my theory—it’s not much use. I’m probably the only person who thinks that. Who’s going to listen to me?’ Joyce stopped and waited. Again, she counted silently to ten.
Slowly, Becky turned to face her. ‘Really?’ she said in a tiny voice.
Am I about to tell a lie? Joyce asked herself. Then she looked at the girl’s face and decided that what she was about to say was not untrue. There was something odd about this case. It was just a feeling she had. She found herself staring at the younger girl’s features. As soon as the dark cloud of hostility had disappeared, Becky Smiley’s face had an open, honest expression.
‘Really,’ said Joyce. ‘Like totally. I mean it. I really think that there’s like a real possibility that people have got it all wrong.’
‘Are you really an investigator? You look . . . you don’t look like an investigator.’
‘I’m a sort of consultant, that’s all. Just someone trying to help.’
‘Oh.’
Quietness returned. Joyce decided to let it be. Someone started playing tennis at a court nearby. There was a steady thwack sound as the volleys lengthened. She could hear some children arguing in the distance. ‘Give it back,’ somebody yelled.
Becky was hiding something. Could it be an important bit of information about the case? Although Joyce had never been good at holding her tongue, she forced herself to remain silent.
After a minute passed, the young girl spoke again. ‘They have got it wrong. I’m sure they’ve all got it all wrong.’
‘Yeah. That’s what I’m beginning to think, too. But what really happened?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there.’
‘Why do you think they’ve got it all wrong?’
‘Because . . . Just because.’
‘That’s not a very helpful answer.’
‘What does Sasha say about it?’
‘She’s not speaking to anyone.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because . . .’ The schoolgirl sighed. ‘I can’t tell you. I just can’t.’ She rose to her feet and ran into the girls’ changing room.
Joyce, Wong decided, had gone crazy.
On the pretext of checking the confusing birth charts of the main protagonists in the classroom 208A battle, she had searched through the head teacher’s files and copied out the home address of Sasha Briggs. The schoolgirl had been grounded in the custody of the aunt with whom she lived. According to Eric, she was on bail until the police decided to lay charges against her. The birth dates in the school files were the same as they had originally been given, so the mystery of their contradictory interpretation remained.
Joyce had suggested they go visit Sasha Briggs.
Wong had flatly refused to have anything to do with such a dangerous idea. But she pointed out that none of his feng shui readings of what happened in room 208A made sense— and only Sasha Briggs or the injured teacher, Alma Ling, could resolve that problem.
The geomancer amazed himself by agreeing with her. This was after he realised that until he had resolved the bizarre mismatch in the two women’s birth charts, he could not complete the report and give Mr Waldo an invoice.
They arrived at the ground-floor garden apartment in Bedok New Town at about 8 pm. Darkness had fallen. They rang the doorbell repeatedly, but there was no reply.
Wong wanted to leave, but Joyce refused to let him. ‘She’s in there, I know she is. She just doesn’t want to talk to us. But we have to make contact with her. It’s really important.’
She led the geomancer around the grass to the back window of the flat. ‘Come on, I’m sure there was a light in this window when we arrived. Don’t you remember?’
She tapped at the window, but there was still no response. Then Joyce marched to the French windows and tugged at them. ‘It’s open,’ she whispered.
‘You cannot go in,’ Wong whispered back. ‘Breaking and entering. Very illegal.’
‘We’re not breaking and entering. We’re just trying to make contact with this girl.’
They both heard a click. It sounded like a gun being cocked. They turned to look at each other. Despite the semi-gloom, their eyes passed the same message: Did you make that sound? I didn’t.
There was a second click—and this time it was clearly recognisable as the sound of a light being switched on. After a second, a fluorescent tube flickered into life. The two of them were bathed in pale blue light and turned to find a young woman in a nightdress facing them from inside the living room. She had a large shotgun pointing at them.
‘Put your hands up,’ said Sasha Briggs. ‘This baby’s loaded and I ain’t scared to use it.’
‘Aiyeeah.’
‘Who are you? Why are you trying to break into my home?’
‘Don’t shoot please. Only we try to help.’
‘Chill. We’re friends,’ added Joyce.
‘Yeah? Friends who break into people’s houses? I don’t think so.’ Her finger tightened on the trigger.
Wong closed his eyes in sheer terror. He started murmuring a lengthy prayer in Putonghua.
Sasha lifted the gun slightly higher and took aim at the feng shui master’s chest. ‘Start running.’
‘Becky sent us!’ Joyce said.
Sasha paused. She lowered the gun a centimetre. ‘Becky?’
‘Sort of,’ Joyce continued. ‘Well, she didn’t actually send us, but we’re here because of something she said. She told me that everyone’s got it all wrong. What happened in the art space. In room 208. She said it wasn’t like people said. She said you weren’t like that. She said people have got it all wrong about you.’
‘Becky told?’
Joyce was about to say yes, but she stopped herself. There was something about the way Sasha used the word told. There was some secret between her and Becky—something that it would have been wrong to divulge. ‘No. Becky didn’t tell us any secrets. She’s your friend. You can trust her. The only thing she told us is that it wasn’t like people say it was. We believed her. We still believe her. Let’s chill.’
Wong decided to leave this conversation to his assistant. In his view, teenagers and women were creatures almost impossible for adult men to talk to. Ducks don’t speak chicken, as the Cantonese said. There was little hope that he could follow a conversation between two teenage women.
He carefully backed away and sat himself down in a garden bench to still his heart. He did not like having loaded guns pointed at him. Being shot at was very bad feng shui.
A cicada started its astonishingly loud buzzing, sawing song in the trees somewhere behind them.
‘The police don’t believe it.’ Sasha Briggs, a girl of seventeen with dark brown hair, spoke with bitterness. She had slightly protruding eyes, a large jaw and strong shoulders that looked out of place under the Victorian-style nightgown she was wearing.
‘We’re not the police. We’re consultants. Just
helping.’
Wong agreed furiously. ‘We are not police. If you want to shoot police, no problem. Go shoot. Not us. I think we go now.’ He rose to his feet.
‘Shut up and sit down,’ Sasha said, lifting the gun again and pointing it at his head.
He sat down, his palms facing her in a posture of abject surrender.
‘Can you tell us what really happened?’ Joyce asked.
Sasha sat down on the back step suddenly, moving the gun to a level position across her knees. ‘You won’t believe it. No one would believe it.’
‘Try us.’ Joyce dropped down and sat on the edge of a plant pot.
The young woman sighed. ‘What’s the use?’
‘Please.’
‘Okay. Here goes. Old Ling drags me into the art space and shuts the sliding wall. Then she shouts: “Stop, stop.” But I’m not doing anything. “What?” I say. I’m baffled. Really, I’m not doing anything at all. She grabs my arms and digs her nails into my skin. “Ow,” I say, but she shouts louder, even though I’m still not doing anything to her. It’s like she’s gone mad.’
Wong was listening intently.
‘Then she starts walking backwards towards the window. “Stop it, stop!” she shouts. I’m not doing anything, but she’s telling me to stop. It makes no sense. Or at least, it made no sense to me at the time. “What are you doing? You’re bloody crazy,” I shout at her. I guess I might have said something like that a few times. Then she climbs onto the windowsill, looks down and then just steps off. It’s only a few metres down, and there just happened to be a pile of mats down there, so I wasn’t that worried. I thought she’d finally flipped.’
‘Then what happens?’ This was Joyce.
‘I don’t know what’s going on. I decide that Ling has gone crackers. The scratches in my arm are hurting like anything. My eyes are full of tears, I can’t see any more. So I swing the door open and march out of the classroom. Nobody stops me. As I’m leaving, one of the kids—I think it is Oliver Choong— is looking out of the window and I hear him saying something behind me. He’s like: “I think she’s killed her.” I run out of school and keep on running till I get here. But the whole time while I’m running, I keep hearing Oliver’s words. Then I realise what old Ling has done. She’s made everyone believe I tried to murder her.’
The girl burst into sobs. ‘It’s so bloody unfair.’ The gun fell out of her hands and clattered to the floor.
‘Siu sum! Careful,’ barked Wong, wincing.
‘It’s just a replica,’ Sasha said. ‘My dad’s a collector.’
Joyce gently laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s okay. Why don’t you just tell the police the truth?’
Sasha gave a big watery sniff and then wiped her nose with her hand. ‘I told the first policewoman who interviewed me. She didn’t believe a word of it, I could tell. She said I might be suffering from delusions. Like my mum. That’s what she said. Like my mum.’
‘Where is your mum?’ Joyce asked gently.
Sasha sniffed again. ‘My mum’s mental. She’s in a home. I don’t really blame the policewoman. What I said sounded totally mad. Saying that the bitch grabbed me and dragged me to the window and threw herself out and broke her own bloody neck. I didn’t want anyone else to think I was . . . like my mum. Not many people know about my mum. Old Waldo knows. Becky knows. Waldo must have told the police. So after that, I refused to talk to anyone.’
‘But you told Becky what really happened.’
‘No. I didn’t tell Becky anything. I never even got to see Becky. I asked for her, but nobody would let me. Nobody let me see anyone.’
‘Then how did Becky know that—that—what happened wasn’t like Ms Ling and your classmates say it was?’
‘I don’t know. Because she’s a good friend, I guess.’
Joyce agreed. ‘I guess she really is.’
Joyce McQuinnie looked in the mirror. She decided she looked great in the nurse’s uniform. It was cut in a not-very-flattering way but she still liked the way it hung on her. She was skinny enough to get away with what she called a ‘dumpy-cut’ dress. It was thin white cotton knee-length one-piece dress with matching pale blue piping on the lapels, at the end of the short sleeves, and around the hem of the dress.
She put on a light-green surgical facemask and then strode confidently into private room A2. ‘Er, hi, Miss. I just need to clean these things with some antiseptic wipes,’ she said in a brisk voice.
Alma Ling turned momentarily with irritation in her direction but said nothing. An attractive Chinese woman in her mid-thirties, she sat propped up on her pillows watching a soap opera on television. She was picking her teeth.
Joyce picked up the vast numbers of cosmetics that were arrayed on the side table and slipped them onto the tray she was carrying. ‘I’ll just put these over here so I can thoroughly disinfect the table.’ She took the tray and walked out of the door. She turned to the left and strolled a few metres to the main nursing station, a small office down the corridor from Ms Ling’s room.
She came back to the bedside and started wiping down the surfaces again.
‘That stuff stinks,’ Ms Ling complained.
‘The smell won’t last long.’ Nurse Joyce then busied herself wiping the bed rails and all available surfaces. She worked rather erratically, as if she was trying to kill time.
Ms Ling peered at her suspiciously.
Oddly, the nurse started to blush and bit her bottom lip. Then the beeper attached to her belt started purring and flashed a red light. ‘Oh! Gotta go. Back in a minute,’ Joyce said, scurrying away.
Alma Ling leaned back on her pillows and went back to watching the television.
Then the phone rang. Annoyed by a further interruption, she snatched up the handset. ‘Yes?’
‘There’s a reporter and a photographer to see you, Ms Ling,’ said a female voice that sounded slightly distorted, as if someone was speaking with a pen in her mouth. ‘Shall I let them come up?’
‘Oh. Right. Yes. Send them up. Wait. I need a few minutes to get ready. Keep them downstairs for five minutes and then send them up.’ Ms Ling abruptly slammed down the phone.
The teacher looked to the bare bedside table. ‘Shit,’ she said. She leapt nimbly out of bed and raced to the nursing station to recover her cosmetics. There was no way she was going to be photographed without her make-up. She was surprised to find that it was dark inside the nurses’ office. She switched on the light.
‘Surprise!’ said a hidden audience of four people: three men and the new nurse. Joyce McQuinnie, CF Wong, Lawrence Waldo and Inspector Gilbert Tan waved in unison.
The principal added: ‘Glad to see your legs have miraculously recovered, Alma.’
‘Shit,’ Ms Ling repeated in a most unteacherly fashion. Her legs almost immediately lost their ability to keep her upright, and she dropped in a crumpled heap to the floor.
The glare outside the hospital was so bright that Joyce had to shut her eyes completely. She walked along blinking them open every few seconds and shading her face with her hand until she spotted, through her half-closed eyes, a white Mercedes-Benz with a blue logo. ‘Taxi!’
The interior of the car was cool and shaded. A radio was playing Unleashed by Toby Keith. How bizarre that people in steaming, tropical Singapore had such a taste for American country music, she thought.
Wong was happy at last. Now he knew why Sasha Briggs had a birth chart that indicated concepts like ‘blood’, ‘head’ and ‘sickness’ on that date. She had been attacked by a woman who had drawn blood, and had her labelled as dangerously mentally ill. In contrast, Alma Ling’s chart said nothing at all about bodily harm, because she had not really been harmed. She had placed the exercise mats under her window, gently lowered herself halfway to the ground and then jumped down the rest of the way, ready to fake a state of partial paralysis.
Sasha Briggs’ testimony had made it all perfectly clear.
But there were still several things about the
case that puzzled him. Why had the teacher worked so hard to get her student into trouble? Why had the witnesses in the classroom lied? How on earth did Joyce work out what really happened from a set of playground conversations?
‘This case very difficult. No motives. People very crazy.’
‘Oh, CF, you are so slow on the uptake when it comes to like matters of the heart.’
‘Oh. So? What?’
Joyce stared out of the window into the middle distance, trying to work out how to explain it to him. ‘Well . . . I don’t know for sure what happened, CF. But I think I can guess. It’s all about . . . lurrve.’
‘Lirv?’
‘No, lurrve. That’s what I reckon, anyway.’
‘Who is Lirv?’ He vaguely remembered her using the phrase before.
‘Lurrve is a bit like love, but it is more dramatic sort of thing. Heavy romance.’
‘Ah.’ They were straying into territory unfamiliar to him.
Joyce turned to her boss. ‘You wanna know what I think? I think the headmaster was sort of flirting with Ms Ling and with Sasha. Two-timing them.’
‘Two time what?’
‘I reckon Ms Ling knew she couldn’t compete with Sasha. She’s ancient. She’s thirty-something. But Sasha’s even younger than me. But Ling knew there was one thing Old Waldo loved more than women: his beloved school.’
‘So?’
‘So she tried to make it seem that Sasha was destroying the name of his school. Pushing teachers out of windows is kinda not the done thing in good schools. She reckoned Waldo would drop Sasha like a hot brick.’
‘Oh.’ Wong still looked confused. ‘So that’s why Ms Ling started fight with crazy girl and jump out of window?’
‘Yes.’
‘But other children see it happen.’
‘Not really. They heard it happen. They heard Ms Ling saying: “Stop! Stop!” and they heard Sasha saying: “You’re bloody crazy”. Only one kid—Simone Waldo, the principal’s daughter—was sitting by the crack in the sliding wall and actually saw what happened. And she lied about it to make Sasha look bad.’
The Feng Shui Detective's Casebook Page 19