Joyce looked at each face in turn, happy to have caught the attention of a group of people all of whom were four or five times her age. ‘And she-he, I mean Vega, is like, “No, there’s no such thing as ghosts, it’s all just mumbo-jumbo.” And Seth’s like, “Wow. So all these ghostbusters and people are just wasting their time?” And Vega’s like, “Totally”.’
Breathless, she folded her arms.
CF Wong closed his eyes. He must have committed a very great sin in a previous life.
Madame Xu looked vaguely disappointed. ‘Be that as it may, my dear, Vega’s esteemed opinion may not directly affect our assignment tonight.’ Sitting bolt upright on her stool as usual, the fortune-teller placed one liver-spotted hand on top of the other and placed both on her lap, as calm and motionless as a Buddha. ‘Inspector Tan has got a real-life ghost story for us tonight, and I, for one, am willing to make up my mind on its believability or otherwise, only after full examination of all aspects of it.’
‘Superintendent,’ corrected Sinha.
‘If you are waiting for me, do not wait. I am ready.’ CF Wong packed the journal in which he had been scribbling into his briefcase and slid it beneath the table, where he held it firmly between his old and rather sagging black shoes.
It was a windy night, and a fresh south-easterly breeze was blowing the day’s humidity away. There was little cloud cover, and the cold light of the stars appeared to be contributing to an unusual but welcome coolness in the air.
Joyce was immediately regretting her outburst of scepticism. It was probably not the right thing to say at the month’s first official meeting of the investigative advisory committee of the Singapore Union of Industrial Mystics, where all of one’s fellow diners were people who seemed to spend more than half their day dealing with unseen things.
And it wasn’t just the company that made it the wrong thing to say, either; it was the surroundings. The entire night market at this late hour seemed to take on a paranormal atmosphere. Much of the lighting came from hanging strings of bulbs swinging in the breeze, or from the headlights of passing cars. This meant that all the shadows were constantly moving, shuffling and swaying back and forth at various speeds, or sprinting across the field as if running away from the vehicles that gave them birth. This gave the casual diner the impression that there were a thousand unseen creatures creeping around his or her peripheral vision.
Then of course there were the market’s steam spirits, which would rise from each wok, as if the stoves were all direct openings into hell. The wind was blowing smoke from Ah-Fat’s wok in their direction, so every few minutes a child-sized wraith carrying powerful odours of tauhu goreng would drift across the table.
Dilip Sinha snatched a fried shrimp from the platter in the centre of the table and popped it into his mouth. ‘I am all ears, Superintendent Tan. Please proceed with your story about ghosts. I, for one, not only believe in ghosts but commune with them regularly, finding them more real than many people.’
Joyce and her boss had arrived half an hour late for the meeting of the committee, but found Sinha and Madame Xu unperturbed by their tardiness. The two old friends had clearly been engrossed in an intense private conversation. Further, the person doing the briefing—Superintendent Gilbert Tan of the Singapore police—had not arrived.
Food was ordered, and had quickly started to arrive on the table. The theme of the meal—set by Sinha—was nasi melayu, traditional Malay food. The smell of freshly grated coconut pervaded the market.
Joyce had noticed that coconut milk was used in sauces for savoury dishes, as well as in cakes, desserts and even drinks. It was a pleasing odour—but the same could not be said for the other smell that dominated the night market: the sharp, bitter taste that she had learned came from dried shrimp paste. She avoided dishes that gave off such an aroma, and took tiny portions of the multi-coloured dishes that had other flavours: lemon grass, ginger, shallots, garlic, and a something that Madame Xu described as kaffir lime leaf. She carefully avoided the reddish curry dishes such as assam pedas and lontong, which she knew were full of hot chilli powder.
But Dilip usually ordered something milder for her: nasi goreng, served with a sweet coconut milk, palm syrup and chendol, a jelly drink. Yet she found that her tongue was gradually becoming accustomed to Malay food. Beef rendang, which she had found suspiciously dark and pungent the first time, now seemed to her to be a tasty and acceptable substitute for the steak on which she had been raised in Australia and New York.
‘Ha-ha! I choose my moment to arrive perfectly, is it?’ Tan had asked in a broad Singaporean accent, arriving suddenly out of the darkness and patting Sinha heavily on the back. The astrologer coughed on a peanut he had eaten. This caused the law enforcement agent to thump the old man with even more strength, until his spluttered protestations caused him to stop.
After the small, pudgy officer had expressed his apologies for being late, he pulled up a stool, sat down between Madame Xu and Joyce McQuinnie, and rolled up sleeves. He picked up each dish and sniffed it, savouring the strong flavours. Only after he had served himself a mountain of food, and taken ten large, slowly chewed mouthfuls, did he feel ready to talk.
Tan, they all knew, had a very high estimation of himself as a raconteur. (He constantly reminded people that he came partly from a show business family, and had many tales of his mother Theresa Ting’s experiences in Chinese musical theatre.) So he took the story-telling part of his job extremely seriously. After chewing his food carefully and wiping his lips with a carefully folded sheet of tissue paper from the box in the middle of the table, he calmed himself, and seemed to be waiting for the correct moment to begin. He looked in turn at the faces of each of his listeners. He picked his teeth with a toothpick, extracting a shred of beef. He put it back into his mouth.
Then he leaned back into his chair, having decided that at last the moment had come for him to tell his tale. He spoke slowly, carefully articulating each word.
‘Helluva strange, this tale. As you will see. The case involves the room of a dentist in a modern office block in Singapore. I think you can picture the type of establishment. A tall building on Orchard Road near the junction with Clemenceau Avenue, offering a range of shops and services, with a small suite on the fifth floor shared by two dentists, a Dr Liew Yok Tse and a Dr Gibson Leibler. Dr Liew had been practising for many years in a rather run-down office on Mosque Street, and a year ago he had met Dr Leibler, a newcomer to Singapore, who was anxious to set up his own practice. Dr Leibler was of American origin, but had been living in Hong Kong for some years. He had married a Hong Kong woman a couple of years ago and now considered himself an honorary Asian. He was looking for an office, and Dr Liew suggested they book a surgery for the two of them and share expenses. This way they could get a better location, and could provide cover for each other on holidays. The two of them decided that their cultural differences might be a good selling point, as the joint practice would not be labelled ‘Chinese’ or ‘Western’ but would attract all comers.
‘Dr Liew found a place. The receptionist they had hired, Amanda Luk, had a good eye for colours and organised decorators for it. They moved in some three months ago. Now, Dr Liew, of course, had many more regular customers than the newcomer, but Dr Leibler also brought something to the relationship. He was quite social, as was his wife, and they also started introducing regular clients to the practice.’
‘When does the ghost appear?’ asked Joyce, who was already bored with the story.
‘Coming, dear. Have patience. One Saturday afternoon, about three weeks ago, Gibson Leibler was in his office, putting on his jacket. He had seen several clients that morning and through the lunch period, but had kept the afternoon free. The time was about two o’clock. He changed into his sports jacket and then slipped out of his door, and was standing in the waiting room, fishing in his jacket pocket for the door keys, when he heard a sound from Dr Liew’s room. It was the pained grunt of a male patient. He said it sounde
d like the noise of someone moaning with some metal contraption holding his mouth open. This was followed by a few more yelps.
‘These are not abnormal sounds in a dental surgery, of course—but are not expected in an empty one. Dr Leibler had thought he was alone in the office—Dr Liew usually left at lunchtime on a Saturday to go and play golf. The American realised that his colleague must be working still. He knocked on the door, planning to tell Dr Liew that he was leaving, and he, Dr Liew, should lock up when finished with his patient.
‘There was no answer. Dr Leibler knocked again. Still no reaction. He called out: ‘YT?’ But there was silence from the room. Dr Leibler thought about opening the door but then stopped himself. Why disturb the man? He decided that Liew would have the sense to check to see if he, Dr Leibler, was there when he finished, and would lock the premises. Dr Leibler picked up his bag and left.’
‘I can guess what is coming,’ said Sinha, rubbing his hands together with excitement at a good story. ‘Is it a ghost patient? Someone who was root-canalled to death in the chair, perhaps, and now will groan and clutch his jaw forever and ever?’
‘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 h
alfway 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.’
The Feng Shui Detective Goes South Page 10