‘Remove several teeth? Like to make room to insert brace for child?’ Wong looked at Dr Leibler as he said this.
‘This whole idea of using a feng shui man to solve this is ridiculous.’ Gibson Liebler snapped. ‘A woman is dead. I can hardly believe . . .’
‘Very sad,’ said Wong.
‘We all need a break,’ said Dr Liew, slowly sitting down in the dental chair. ‘A few days off. Maybe we shouldn’t open at all next week. Just have a break. Get over the shock of what happened to Amanda. Poor girl. It is unimaginable.’
‘Yes.’ The geomancer moved to the table in the waiting room and unfolded a fresh floor map of the premises he had drawn the previous night, this time with every possible influence scratched on in tiny Chinese characters.
‘I think a holiday is good idea. I want one also. And when you open again next week, many changes must be made,’ he explained. ‘There has to be some important movements of things. First I want to ask a question. Dr Leibler, would you work in this room? Dr Liew change to that room? Is it okay?’
‘You want us to swap surgeries?’ asked Dr Leibler. ‘What would that do?’
‘It would be better,’ said Wong.
‘Wouldn’t it just mean that he gets stuck with the ghost?’ asked Dr Liew. ‘No, don’t answer this. I don’t think I can bear to discuss offices when such a terrible thing has happened to one of our staff. Gibson, can you handle this?’
‘I’ll handle it,’ said the American.
Dr Liew walked like a broken man across the waiting room and slumped onto the sofa.
‘Okay. Mr Feng Shui Man, what good would swapping rooms do?’
‘I think he would have not so much trouble in this room.’
Wong explained that Dr Liew had moved diametrically north from his previous office, which, this year, meant that he had moved in the direction of five. But Dr Liew was forty-two years old, which meant that his personal lo shu number was also five. This was bad enough as a clash. But he had then taken the rooms on the north-east side of the office suite, causing a massive negative shar to descend.
Dr Leibler, on the other hand, was thirty-four years old, and his lo shu number was four. He had moved in a southerly direction to this office, in the direction of two, and he had taken the room on the north-west side of the premises. ‘This is also bad,’ said Wong. ‘For this is a year of two and you should not move in the same direction as the number of the year.’
‘So we both have bad offices?’ said Dr Leibler. ‘Are you saying that neither of us can work here, and we should both move? This is simply not helpful or practical advice.’ He was clearly irritated.
‘No, you are misunderstanding. You have different square numbers and your offices have different influences. If you move into Dr Liew’s room, it will be better for you. If he moves into your room, it will not be perfect for him, but it will be better than it is now. He will be moving away from his shar and into a neutral number, three. We can add some positive effects. Both of you will be happier.’
‘And the ghost or whatever it is will stop?’ asked Dr Leibler.
‘No. I think the move I suggest will not stop the ghost.’
‘Then what’s the point?’
‘I’m not moving.’ This was Cheung Lai Kuen, who was standing in the doorway. ‘I’m not going to work in any of these rooms. Not after Amanda . . . I’m not going to work in this building any more. I think we should leave and get a new office or close that office down completely and just use it as a storeroom or something. And after Amanda spent all that time redecorating the place.’ She burst into tears again.
Dr Leibler repeated his comment. ‘What’s the point of switching surgeries if it doesn’t solve the problem? I don’t mind moving in there—it’s all the same to me. I mean, to be honest, I don’t really believe in ghosts, and I don’t really believe in this feng shui stuff, with all due . . . I mean, I don’t know what it was we heard in there—some bizarre phenomenon of some kind, I don’t honestly know what the explanation is. But I don’t want that noise scaring my patients. After what happened to Ms Luk—I think Ms Cheung is right. Maybe we should move out of this whole building.’
Superintendent Tan, who had been eavesdropping, said: ‘Are there other alternatives? You said there were a few things they could do.’
Wong said: ‘The move I am suggesting would be good for both. As for getting rid of the ghost, I can do that too, but it requires a different operation at a different time.’
‘What do you mean?’ This was Gibson Leibler.
‘I will return when the ghost does. I will be back on Monday. Ghost also. He will be here at seven o’clock evening.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He came on Monday at nine morning, Tuesday at six evening, yesterday at four afternoon. So he will come next Monday at seven. I am sure. I will come with some different equipment. I will get rid of the ghost forever.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ asked Superintendent Tan.
‘No,’ said Wong. ‘But I try.’
‘My turn to choose,’ said Dilip Sinha. ‘And I want Sichuan.’
The feng shui master and his assistant had raced from the dental surgery to a restaurant in Chinatown for lunch with the other committee members. They had had a Code Red invitation—which indicated an urgent assignment for the committee.
‘You always want something spicy. What about Little Plum Blossom? She will burn her tongue,’ said Madame Xu.
‘I can eat hot stuff. I ate a whole jalopena chilli once,’ said Joyce, deciding to omit the fact that she had spent at least twenty minutes on the toilet the next morning, and had been unable to sit down for a further ten.
The Sichuan food was delicious. It had that aromatic sweetness of the best Cantonese cuisine but had a spicy bite to it that was reminiscent of Thai curries.
But it seemed as if no one wanted to broach difficult subjects. In the event, the table talk was dominated by Joyce’s breathless report about how she—with a little help from Mr Wong—had solved her kidnap case the day before. Madame Xu and Dilip Sinha listened and grunted politely at all the right moments, but remained preoccupied, looking for an opportunity to change the subject.
Yet despite her upbeat report, Joyce began to feel increasingly guilty as the meal drew to an end. There had been an air of finality about the discussion of the kidnap case, as if a big mountain had been climbed, and now it was time for a celebratory break. But at the back of her mind, Joyce had become deeply worried about Maddy—she had a bad feeling about the way her friend had disappeared. Something must be wrong. She needed her boss to take on the case even though there was no official commission and no deposit had been paid. How could she ask him for help?
Her concern turned to alarm when Wong suddenly rose to his feet and said: ‘Waah! Too much work this week already. One big assignment cracked. Another half done. Now time for holiday.’ He started to move away.
‘CF,’ she called.
‘What?’
‘Er. Where are you going?’
‘Over there. See Mrs Leong, second table? She is travel agent. I am going to ask her book ticket for me. I go to heung ha.
’ ‘When? You mean soon? Like next week?’
‘Tonight.’
‘CF, can I talk to you about something, first? I think it would be great if you would help—’ ‘No,’ he snapped. ‘Too much helping already. Now is time for holiday.’
Joyce was surprised to see that Madame Xu and Sinha also looked agitated. ‘Sit down for a minute more, CF,’ said Sinha. ‘There’s something else. We didn’t summon this special Code Red meeting of the committee just to have a nice lunch and hear about Joyce’s kidnap thing, impressive though it was. There’s a case that Chong Li and I would like to talk to you ab—’
‘No, sorry,’ said Wong. ‘No more cases. Maybe next week.
Really, is holiday time now. Just for two-three days. Back in action next week. Monday.’ He set off across the crowded open-air market t
o catch Mrs Leong.
Joyce slumped back in her stool. What could she do now? ‘Where is he going?’ she asked Madame Xu. ‘Where is Heungha?’
‘He said he wanted to go to “his heung ha”—that means his ancestral home. He wants to go back to Guangdong province in China,’ she replied. ‘The town of Baiwan. He does that from time to time.’
‘Oh.’ Disappointed, Joyce felt helpless. She sat there, staring into space for a while. Oh well, I tried, she said to herself. Sorry, Maddy.
She wondered for a moment whether there was anything else she could do. But by that time, Wong had disappeared into the crowd.
So Joyce did what she always did when she felt down—reached into her bag for a musical pick-me-up. She found her minidisk player and untangled the earphones. Then she pulled out a copy of Elle magazine and started flicking through it. Soon, she was lost in her own little world—and she only half noticed that Madame Xu and Dilip Sinha had quickly begun a very serious and earnest conversation about something.
It was only when the first track was over and there were a few seconds of silence before the next track began did she catch what Sinha was saying.
‘—tell him that this unfortunate Hong Kong girl urgently needs our help. She’s facing an imminent death. We have to do something. He’ll understand.’
The opening chords of the next track started thumping in Joyce’s ears. She turned the volume down so she could eavesdrop further.
‘She’s Cantonese, like he is. He’ll want to postpone his holiday to help when he hears about her case,’ Madame Xu said.
‘If we both ask him together, and refuse to take no for an answer, I’m sure he’ll see sense,’ said Sinha. ‘You have a way of persuading men to do what you want, I’m sure.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
It sounded like they were talking about Maddy. ‘What’re you guys talking about?’ Joyce asked, yanking the earphones out.
Madame Xu’s brow wrinkled. ‘It pains me to say this, but I am afraid I’m not able to tell you. Dilip and I are discussing a client that we have in common.’
Sinha interjected in his best ‘kindly-grandfather’ voice: ‘Of course we consider you a full honorary member of the investigative advisory committee of the Union of Industrial Mystics, my dear. But the particular case we are discussing at the moment is not advisory committee business, but a private affair, and highly confidential.’
‘That’s cool,’ replied Joyce. ‘I understand. It’s just that—’ She paused, unsure how to continue. ‘It’s just that—well, it may be that I know more about young Hong Kong women facing imminent death than you might think.’
This statement produced an unexpectedly dramatic response from both Madame Xu and Dilip Sinha. They both turned sharply to stare at her, and then looked at each other before turning their gazes to her again.
‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ Madame Xu asked.
‘Yes. What exactly do you mean? Are you talking about a particular young Hong Kong woman?’ Sinha asked. Joyce nodded solemnly.
‘Who is facing an imminent end?’ Sinha added.
She bowed her head again.
Sinha turned to Madame Xu. ‘Extraordinary. What we thought were individual consultations with the two of us must really have been widespread discussions with every mystic in town.’
‘And even their junior assistants,’ added Madame Xu, her pin-thin pencilled eyebrows arching a full centimetre upwards.
‘Remarkable.’
There was silence as this point was carefully considered.
‘I didn’t know you guys knew about her,’ said Joyce. ‘I really didn’t. How did you find out? I guess the urgent question is where is she? Where has she disappeared to?’
Sinha frowned. ‘Disappeared? I have heard nothing about that. She is staying with an aunt in an apartment in town while waiting for her fiancé to deal with some, er, other pressing matters, right? For the fact is, that she is quite unwell—seriously unwell, as I imagine you know.’
‘She’s sick?’
‘Not exactly sick. But in very real physical danger. As I presume you know. But tell me: what makes you think she has disappeared?’
‘Because I was up practically all night searching for her. Her domestic helper thought she was out clubbing. Her friends at the clubs thought she was at home. She’s vanished. I phoned around again this morning and no one has seen her. She’s not been home. I’m really worried about her. Maddy’s so worried about just staying alive at the moment. I mean, when she disappears like this—’ ‘Who’s Maddy?’
‘The Hong Kong girl. Madeleine Tsai?’
‘Oh. Perhaps we are talking about different young women. We were thinking of a young lady named Clara.’
‘Oh.’
‘I don’t know, though.’ Sinha was intrigued. ‘Tell us about your Maddy.’
‘She’s a little smaller than me; dark hair streaked with brown and gold; boyfriend called Ismail who is seriously weird—he comes from Malaysia and is into all this bomoh stuff; she went to Hong Kong International School for a while. She’s small but strong-looking. She was head of the school swimming team when she was thirteen—’
Sinha held up his hand, signaling her to pause. ‘It is the same girl. Definitely. Perhaps Madeleine is Clara’s middle name or something. Now listen carefully, girls. We’ve got to get CF interested in this case. We can’t do it ourselves. We need to work together on this one.’
The three of them huddled around the Chinese teapot and plotted.
This was the plan. As soon as Wong returned to the table, Madame Xu was going to coerce him to sit down next to her. He would be too gentlemanly to refuse. They would then corner him and refuse to allow him to leave the table until he had agreed to take on the girl’s case. Sinha, with his easy gift of eloquence in English, would present an impassioned plea for him to put all his energy into extricating Clara/Madeleine from the dire straits in which she found herself. Madame Xu would present a similar plea in Cantonese if necessary. Joyce, meanwhile, would head over and intercept Mrs Leong, who would be told that Mr Wong wanted to cancel the travel plans he had just made because an urgent assignment had just come up.
‘Here he comes,’ said Sinha, as Wong reappeared, strolling between the tables. ‘Off you go, Joyce.’
‘Go for it, guys,’ the young woman said, passing the geomancer and racing to find Mrs Leong’s table.
She quickly located a round table two dozen metres away, where a bespectacled Singaporean woman was discussing tariffs and surcharges with a large group of middle-aged people in business suits: a group of mostly female travel agents having a social lunch, she decided.
‘Excuse me, Mrs Leong?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m Joyce McQuinnie. I work with CF Wong. I think I’ve spoken to you on the phone before.’
‘You’re right,’ said the travel agent. ‘C F seems to have a secretary who is permanently unavailable to answer the phone.’
‘Well, he just asked you to book a ticket for him?’
‘Yes, a Dragonair flight to Guangdong, for tonight or tomorrow. I promised I’d do it as soon as I got back to the office. I told him I couldn’t guarantee him a seat at such short notice. But I can try.’
‘Well, I’ve just been sent over to tell you that he probably won’t need the ticket after all. Something came up.’
‘But he just asked me for the ticket a few minutes ago. A few seconds.
’ ‘Something just came up, while he was talking to you.’
The travel agent looked at her suspiciously.
Joyce decided that she was sounding rather vague and had better deliver enough details to make her story sound authentic. ‘It’s something very urgent. You see, there’s this Hong Kong girl called Madeleine Tsai who has gone missing with her Malaysian boyfriend and we need—I mean, CF needs to find them urgently. Like today and tomorrow. This week, anyway. So there’s no hope of him taking a holiday for at least a couple of days
until—’
‘Did you say Madeleine Tsai?’
Joyce looked around. The question had come from a small, rotund Malay woman with thick glasses sitting directly opposite Susan Leong.
‘Does she travel with a gentleman called Ismail?’ the woman continued.
‘Yes,’ said Joyce. ‘How did you—? I mean, do you know them?’
‘I booked a pair of tickets for them yesterday. The guy bought them. Paid cash. But those were the two names on the booking, Amran Ismail and Madeleine Tsai. He wanted the tickets issued right away.’
‘Where are they going?’
‘Where have they gone, you mean. They’re not in Singapore any more. They left on the evening flight to Sydney last night.’
Joyce headed back across the crowded restaurant slowly, much in thought. Had they lost the battle to find Maddy and help her? What should they do now? As she approached their table, she noticed that the other plotters had succeeded in pinning Wong down. She eavesdropped on them from behind. The geomancer slouched on a stool as he was assailed from both sides with demands that he abandon his silly idea of having a holiday until a missing young woman was found and relocated to a safe spot, and her imminent appointment with death postponed for at least fifty years.
She wondered whether the news she would bring—that Madeleine and her fiancé were no longer in Singapore—would make their mission unnecessary. Wong was hardly going to let himself be persuaded to go flying around the world to save someone he didn’t know, and who wasn’t paying him.
But then she decided to wait until the discussion was over. One thing at a time. It would just be adding a needless complication if she immediately announced that the person they wanted to find was lost not in Singapore but in Sydney. She dawdled for ten minutes, listening in from a few metres away.
Joyce found herself becoming increasingly amazed, as Madame Xu and Dilip Sinha told Wong an extraordinary story that she had not heard: about how every type of predictive mystical art available in Malaysia and Singapore had confirmed and reconfirmed that Madeleine (whom they referred to as Clara) was facing an unspecified but near-term death, and would almost definitely have expired by the end of the following day.
The Feng Shui Detective Goes South Page 16