The Feng Shui Detective Goes South (24 page)

‘And . . . ?’

‘What do you mean, and?’

‘What do you think? How she died?’

The police officer rubbed the tip of his nose with his forefinger. ‘I don’t know. If we wanted to be melodramatic, we could point out that she had an expression of terror on her face. Maybe our ghost followed her home and scared her to death. I don’t know. But that’s a bit airy-fairy for a nice tough policeman like me. I am going to subscribe to the poisoning theory or perhaps a heart attack until the coroner tells me something different.’

There was a knock on the door.

‘Come,’ said Tan.

The two dentists entered the room. ‘We’d like to know what happened last night in this surgery,’ said Liew.

‘We’re entitled to know,’ said Leibler. ‘We’re paying him.’

The police officer looked at Wong. ‘Sure. Do tell. I, too, would like to know. I’ll ask you to do a proper statement later, but my curiosity is killing me. Let’s just pretend this isn’t happening. A detailed, but unofficial version, please.’

‘The ghost continue paining, on-off, on-off, for a long time,’ said Wong. ‘Poor ghost. Very unhappy. One hour over.

One hour and a quarter nearly. Moan-moan-moan. Then he goes. I did some more measurements. Then I left the office too.

Go home. Went to bed early.’

‘The ghost usually stays about that long,’ said Dr Liew.

‘Where do ghosts go when they go?’

‘What’s the relevance of the length of time?’ asked Dr Leibler.

‘I don’t know,’ said Wong. ‘Tell me, is there a dentist operation that takes one hour and fourteen minutes? That was how long he stayed.’

Dr Liew rubbed his chin. ‘Well . . . , not really. I mean, most people need a combination of treatments. Most individual treatments can be done within the hour, but it would not be unusual to do a treatment that could stretch to that long. A complex crown, for instance. Or the removal of several wisdom teeth in a single operation. Or an operation that needed a short period of anaesthesia.’

‘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 to 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.’