by Unknown
‘With this case we need no lo pan. Only lo shu charts, pillars of destiny. First, Mr Semek.’
He opened his dusty volumes with enormous satisfaction and started reading through pages of Chinese characters. Mr Semek’s day pillar was fire and he was born in late spring, at a season of wood, the geomancer explained. He would get strength from fire and wood. Just like in a real fire, if you add more wood and more flames, the fire gets bigger. But if you add water on it, the fire will go out. If you put metal objects or earth on it, it will be difficult for the fire to burn.
The night he died was a day of metal, Wong said. Each element is associated with a part of the body. Mr Semek was shot in the chest. Metal is associated with the respiratory system. In this case, the astrological indications came true in the most literal way. A metal bullet went into his respiratory system.
Motani is also a fire person. However, there was only one wood element in his four pillars, but three metal elements. So he was not a strong fire person . . .
Gilbert Kwa strode over to the table. ‘Got anything?’
‘Yeah. It’s obvious, isn’t it, chief?’ said Joyce with smile.
‘It is?’ The police officer sat down opposite her.
‘Driver’s innocent. Someone shot the guy through the window of the cab. Long-range gun. Sniper style. With a silencer. Like in that movie The Jackal, you know? Remake of The Day of the Jackal. Good film.’
‘But the driver says the window was shut.’
‘Naah,’ said Joyce. ‘The driver said he stopped to ask directions. How do taxi drivers do that? Well, they wind down the window and shout, right? That’s when someone shoots the guy. The bullet whistles past the driver and kills the guy without the driver even noticing. Waddaya think?’
‘I think you watch too many movies,’ said Kwa, with a smile. ‘For a start, he wasn’t shot. He was stabbed. We saw the hole and the blood and no knife, and we first assumed a gun . . . but the doctor says he was definitely stabbed—by something like a kitchen knife or fruit-paring knife, short but sharp. We are searching Motani’s house again. Trouble is, could have thrown the thing out of the car window anywhere along the route.’
‘Oh. Does that change your theory?’ Joyce asked Wong.
‘No. Metal in respiratory system. Bullet, knife, the same.’
The young woman sat back and bit her index finger nail. ‘You know, I’ve got another idea. How about this? There was someone hiding in the trunk. He stabs the guy right through the back seat, yanks the knife out, then when the car stops, he jumps out and runs away. The car doors are never opened. Waddaya think?’
Kwa smiled. ‘Still you watch too many movies,’ he said. ‘Nice idea, but the victim was stabbed in the front. Right through the heart. Not the back.’
‘Well, at least I’ve got some interesting theories, which is more than you guys have,’ she said.
‘The answer is not in your movie ideas. Is somewhere on this desk,’ said Wong. He picked up the paperwork, opened his book of charts, and slotted the sheets in. ‘I go to my office. Sit quietly. Draw four pillars of fortune for each person. Must do the investigation properly.’ He stood up.
Joyce remained seated. ‘This is the first time I’ve been in a Singapore police station. Can you give me a tour, chief?’
‘Of course,’ said Kwa.
‘And can you show me where you lock people up and cane them and stuff?’
‘Also can-lah. Come.’
Early that evening, Joyce sat in a Starbucks on Orchard Road with a Coca-Cola and a blueberry muffin. She faced the road and looked at the shops on the other side of the street. Traffic flowed quickly, although there were periodic obstructions. Once, a taxi stopped suddenly to pick up a fare, and a van behind it skidded to a halt. A few curses were exchanged, and then both vehicles moved on. Somewhere in the distance, there was what sounded like a church bell ringing; an unexpected and very European sound, she thought to herself.
There was a Toys ‘R’ Us nearby. And around the corner was a large bookshop. In the boutiques on either side of the road, she saw the same designer clothes she had seen in South Molton Street. A young couple strolled past and sat at the table next to her; they were both wearing Levi’s 501s: she recognised the tags.
Without consciously thinking it, her mind was pondering over the fact that the scene looked like Tottenham Court Road, or perhaps a main road in the Kensington area. Yet it could never be mistaken for such a spot. What made the difference?
The trees, she decided. Very oriental. English trees looked different from Singaporean trees. And the people of course. They were shorter. English people were tall, angular. And there weren’t so many of them. Ten people on a London high street at once, and the pavements looked crowded. Here, there were always seventy people on the pavements, night and day.
And the air, of course. Although it was a cloudy, breezy day, and the sun had disappeared, the air remained hot, humid, unmoving. If this sort of weather hit London, it would be described as a heat wave. There would be topless sunbathing in Hyde Park, and reporters would be trying to fry eggs on the pavement. Here, people had put on their sweaters.
What other differences were there? She became suddenly aware that she was focusing on this mundane comparison because her mind didn’t want to acknowledge what was really going on in her head. She was trying to block out something which had shaken her. She wasn’t sure what it was.
But as she absently chewed on the muffin, she felt herself relaxing, and she gradually started turning over recent events in her mind. She had spent a rather fruitless afternoon talking to members of Motani’s family. His mother spoke little English, but was clearly devastated by the arrest of her oldest son. Then there were the four brothers and two sisters who still lived at home in the small apartment in a characterless housing estate called—called what? Already she had forgotten. The girls had been uncommunicative, and she had spent most of the time talking to two of the taxi driver’s younger brothers. One was seriously good-looking, but was sullen, and spoke in monosyllables.
The other had a huge nose and wispy facial hair, but was animated and helpful.
She felt a fraud. She was trained in neither police work nor feng shui. What was she there for? What could she do? All Wong’s instructions had been were to talk to the family and find out if there was anything they could tell her that would be helpful in resolving the case. She had no idea what to ask, or what information to record. Should she have taken notes? Should she have recorded the interview? At least that would have given her some air of professionalism. But then, they may have thought she was a reporter, after a scoop.
Was anything said that would be useful to relate to Wong? There had only been one topic of conversation during the time she had been in the house. And that consisted of repeated declarations that Motani was entirely innocent and how could the gods have got him into the situation?
When Joyce had explained that she wasn’t a police officer, but was someone who wanted to help, they assumed she was a type of social worker, and asked a slew of questions about what welfare help they could get if Motani, the main breadwinner of the family, was locked up for years—not that he had committed any crime, of course.
She had surprised herself with her ability to answer some of their questions, and deflect the ones that baffled her. ‘Where did I learn to bullshit so well?’ she asked herself. Maybe it came naturally. Her dad was an expert, after all. Anyway, she had not brought any shame onto C F Wong & Associates, which was the main thing. She reckoned she had acted professionally enough—except, perhaps, for her impulsive request to borrow a bootleg CD of a Pearl Jam concert she saw on the desk that Motani’s youngest brother was doing his homework on.
So why did she feel so shaken? She decided that it might be because she had soaked up a lot of the misery of the mother, who had drifted in and out of the room in tears throughout the afternoon. Or perhaps it was more than that; perhaps she had taken on some sort of moral responsibility for ge
tting Motani free? Maybe that was why she felt like she was carrying a huge burden.
Or perhaps it was just all the events of the past few days that had left her in shock. Finding a corpse in the garden. That was the second corpse of the summer. So far. Not a lot of seventeen-year olds spend their gap year finding corpses. Perhaps I’m just like, growing up, she said to herself.
She had stopped for a drink to put off the main job of the afternoon, which was to report back to Wong what she had discovered. But she had discovered nothing. How could she communicate this to him? She called him on her mobile phone.
‘CF? It’s me. Jo.’
‘You find flat okay?’
‘Yeah, thanks. The cabbie took me right there.’
‘You find anything?’
‘Well . . . he’s got this huge family. His dad’s dead. He’s the main breadwinner. He has loads of brothers and sisters. They’re all really upset, of course. And . . .’
‘And?’
‘Well . . . that’s it, really. I mean, I didn’t find out anything to like, solve the mystery or anything. I didn’t really know what to ask. Or what to look for. I just sort of talked to them.’
‘Okay, no problem.’
‘But there is one thing, I guess . . .’
‘What thing?’
‘We have to get him off. I mean, he didn’t do it.’
‘Why you think that?’
‘No reason. I just do.’
‘Understand. Me too. You go home now. Walk-walk slowly.’
She smiled. Emma had explained the Chinese equivalent of ‘take care’. ‘Yeah. You walk-walk slowly too. G’night.’
Late the following morning, Wong found Gilbert Kwa in the corridor of the court house. The police officer was in a bad mood. ‘Why oh why can’t court cases be done on proper schedules, like dentists or doctors? Why do I have to spend hours hanging around like this?’
‘I have an important question for you,’ the geomancer said. ‘Then maybe we will have answer.’
‘Better be quick. We’re charging Motani this morning. We’re going to be called into court three any minute now. Or any hour now. Hard to tell.’
A clerk appeared at the door and read out a sheet of paper. ‘Case 12/768-F. Motani, N.’
‘I should have said any second now. Sorry, we’re on. Talk to you after.’
‘No. Wait, Mr Kwa. One question: was it raining Tuesday night? I slept early. I don’t know. But very important.’
‘No, if I remember, it rained in the afternoon, but was dry in the evening, okay? Sorry, Wong, I have to go in now.’ The officer started to move towards the door of court three.
‘Wait. I have something important.’
‘Got thirty seconds only, C F. Judge Simeon Malik is on today. He keeps everyone waiting but no one can keep him waiting.’
The geomancer took a deep breath and started his explanation. ‘The main thing is that Motani is a weak fire person who needs wood to give him strength. On the night of the killing, his pillars were bad. There was a clash between metal and wood. Also a clash between wood and earth. But the hour pillar of the death shows strong support of wood to Motani’s fire. If water was present—if it had rained at that time, then very bad for Motani. But no rain. Only wood. This means that what happened at that hour was not destruction of Motani’s life. Only part of the cycle. He will not be locked up. He will be released.’
‘Sudah-lah,’ said the officer. ‘Thank you and goodbye.’ He stepped towards the door of the court.
‘There is another thing. Semek was dead before he met Motani.’
‘What?’ Kwa stopped. ‘What do you mean? Proof, please.’
‘Semek was stabbed on the street. His friends carried body to taxi. He was not drunk. Dead. Big American put Semek into the car. Propped him up.’
‘But he—Semek spoke to the driver—told the driver the address even.’
‘American reached into the car. Switched on a tape recorder. In Semek’s pocket. Contained the sound of a voice saying Mr Semek’s address. Then a gap. Then later a voice humming song called New York.’
‘“New York, New York”.’
‘Yes.’
Kwa’s legal assistant approached. ‘Gilbert. We’ve been called. Come on.’
‘Wait,’ said the police officer.
Wong continued: ‘This is designed to make everyone think he dies later. On cab journey. Even the taxi driver thinks he dies later. Later police examine body. Then tape player has switched itself off. Auto rewind. You play tape. Hear a voice saying an address. You think is the start of dictating a letter. You think nothing strange. You listen to the tape more. You hear voice singing. Mr Semek is big karaoke fan. You think nothing strange.’
‘What about the bag? With samples and cash?’
‘Bag never had samples and cash. Always was full of bricks. To prop him up. Keep him straight in taxi.’
‘You think his partners killed him? But why? What would they have to gain from it? He was the only one with no money.’
‘They are venture capital people. He is ideas man. They don’t want his money. They got money. They want his idea. Maybe they don’t want to pay him.’
Kwa turned to his colleague: ‘Tell the prosecutor to approach the judge. Ask for an adjournment. We’re not ready.’
Joyce McQuinnie, who had been talking to Winnie Lim on the phone in another part of the court house, arrived in the corridor. ‘Hi. Winnie says you got a call this morning from Madam Fu again.’
‘More rubbish in garden?’
‘No. Her cousin came for morning coffee, stayed an hour. The old bat reckons her cousin left some bad vibrations there sort of thing. Wants you to come and do her house again.’
Wong nodded. ‘Better go. Just in case. We can take taxi again. Singapore taxis quite safe.’
An imperfect enclosure
Five hundred years ago a great spirituality came to the west of Beijing. This was a time when tangible gave way to intangible. There was much magic.
Every day a bowl would fly from the holy temple to the Imperial Palace. Spirits would carry it. They were unseen. Empress Li would put alms in it. It would fly back to the temple.
One morning the Empress was not ready. She was in her nightdress. The bowl came into her room. She was half-awake only. She covered herself up. She made a joke.
‘What do you want so early? Five hundred girls for your 500 monks?’
The bowl flew back to the temple. It did not come the next day.
The Empress realised she should not have made this joke. She wrote a letter to the head of the temple. His name was Tao Fu. She told him what she did.
Tai Fu said: ‘There is only one thing you can do. You must send 500 girls for the 500 monks. Then you will not have insulted the spirits. There will be no untruth.’
So she sent staff to find 500 girls. After a long time they found enough. The girls were sent to the village of Shih Fu. This is near the temple. The 500 men and 500 women could not stay so close together without sin. They were tempted. They came together.
Tao Fu did not know what to do. The punishment for this sin was death. He decided he had to do it. He took the 500 monks and 500 girls and surrounded them with fire. They lit the fire to burn them to death.
But the Immortals were looking. They lifted the 500 couples straight to the Highest Heaven. They became saints. Tao Fu took the bed of Empress Li and made it into an altar.
Blade of Grass, from this incident a great truth became understood. The holy man who gives up love for his whole life is a pleasure to Heaven. But the holy man who gives up his whole life for love is also a pleasure to Heaven.
From ‘Some Gleanings of Oriental Wisdom’
by C F Wong, part 287.
CF Wong put his journal away and picked up the day’s mail, which consisted of a single letter. As usual, there had been an armful of communications jammed into the C F Wong & Associates pigeon-hole downstairs. And as usual, most had been envelopes with windows (put
into a drawer to await the weekly accounting session), phone number cards from taxi companies (binned), and items of junk mail (ceremonially burned in a bid to wreak a small karmic vengeance on the senders).
The geomancer examined the outside of the single example of genuine correspondence and gave an unhappy sigh. This, surely, meant trouble. The envelope bore the crest and marks of Master Dinh Tran of the Buddhist Vihara of St Sanctus, a man whose oddly cross-cultural title bore witness to the mixed history of his temple, built in south Vietnam on the site of a former Roman Catholic church.
‘Oh well, better eat the bullet,’ Wong said half out loud before tearing open the envelope and scanning the contents. The lines around his eyes grew visibly deeper as his gaze rolled down the page. ‘Aiyeeeaa,’ he breathed. ‘Terok-lah! AiyeeAAA.’
In the letter, Master Tran, a friend of Wong’s late father, requested the feng shui master’s urgent presence to deal with a complex problem. He must come now. The temple was willing to provide a fee equivalent to one day’s consultation to East Trade Industries. No mention was made of air tickets or accommodation. Presumably he would be housed in a Spartan room inside the temple complex. The offer of payment was academic anyway, because East Trade Industries would gallantly refuse to take any money in a case such as this. There were enough superstitious people on the board to ensure that, as Master Tran well knew. All in all, it was almost guaranteed to be a tricky and unprofitable way to spend a few days.
Wong tossed the letter to his assistant, Joyce McQuinnie, who was watching with curiosity.
‘I’m going to walk the streets again,’ he said.
‘Hit the road again,’ corrected Joyce, after a moment’s thought. She looked at the stamp on the letter. ‘Vietnam! I’m coming with you. If Daddy lets me.’
‘Yes,’ Wong said absently, his mind already travelling. It could be all right. There was something other-worldly about Vietnam that sometimes uplifted his spirits, although Saigon itself could be depressing. And he had a cousin in Cholon he could see. Perhaps he could take a day or two off, do some meditation? It had been, what, eight or nine years since he had spent any serious time in a temple? He recalled how refreshed he had been after a week of quiet contemplation in a temple lodge in Chiang Mai. Or hang on, was he thinking of the free holiday he had received while doing the feng shui for that new five-star resort in Nusa Dua?