The Feng Shui Detective's Casebook (27 page)

‘Er, not sure. Maybe she is having long lunch break.’

Waldo pressed a button on his intercom. ‘Amanda, Mr Wong’s assistant has gone AWOL. Can you ask the usual suspects if they’ve seen her? And then get her sent to my room?’

The secretary’s voice came out of the speaker: ‘I think she’s in the student canteen. I saw her going in with one of the sixth-formers.’

‘No problem,’ said Waldo. ‘I’ll get her myself.’ He leapt out of his chair and trotted out of the room, moving remarkably quickly for someone so large.

To pass the time, Wong mentally rearranged the room. First, he would throw out all the junk—every last bit of paper and decoration. Then he would move the furniture so that the principal was sitting in the northeast of the room, facing east. The
ch’i
energy of the northeast would motivate the man to get his life in order, and the freshness of the eastern energy would inspire him to make a new beginning. The telephone should be moved to the southeast, to enhance communication. The objects of violence would be reordered so they could keep out negative influences.

Less than four minutes later, the principal returned, gently pushing Joyce along with a hand in the small of her back.

‘The wanderer has been found,’ the head teacher said.

Joyce had a big-eyed, surprised look on her face, but was silent.

Again, Waldo threw himself into his seat, and then asked curiously: ‘So tell me. What do we have to do? Do we need to install a magic goldfish or something in 208A?’

‘Magic goldfish?’

‘No, I’m joking. I shouldn’t be flip about all this. It’s a serious matter. Tell me, do I need to do something to minimise the effects of that ghastly event last week?’

‘There are some strange things about this incident,’ said Wong. ‘First: the four pillars of destiny for Ms Ling and Ms Briggs are both negative for that day.’

‘That’s not strange, surely? Both of them suffered very negative outcomes from what happened that day.’

‘Yes,’ said the geomancer. ‘But not so straightforward as that. There’s a
shar
by the window of room 208A.’

Joyce, suddenly coming to life, decided to insert a footnote at this point. ‘A
shar
is an area of bad fortune. Like I pointed out when I was in your flat?’

Waldo nodded. ‘It seems rather obvious that the window did prove to be a point of bad fortune for Ms Ling on that day.’

‘But the
shar
is a
shar
of two. And that is the negative number for Ms Briggs, not Ms Ling. The
shar
for Ms Ling is at the other side of the room.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said the head teacher. ‘What are you getting at?’

Wong shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Conclusion is very strange. But I think each of the two women—it is like each one has the birthday of the other one.’

‘What? I’m not following this.’

‘I think maybe the two birthdays got mixed up in the files,’ the
feng shui
master said.

Waldo smiled. ‘That is the conclusion you came to? Very odd. Well, I’ll ask Amanda to check. That’s my secretary. Sometimes the files do get mixed up, although we keep teachers’ records and pupils’ records separately, so I don’t see how that could have happened.’

‘I explain it in detail,’ the geomancer said.

Waldo looked less than excited at the thought, although he said nothing.

‘Following the flying stars school of
feng shui
, I made these charts.’ Wong pulled out two sheets of paper covered with lines, arrows and tiny Chinese characters. ‘Number one, indicating blood, located in west. We also find number six in same square, indicating head. Blood and head. In west of room 208A, where window is. We also have a two, which means someone is not well. Two is
shar
of sickness.’

The principal peered down his long nose at the unintelligible scribbles. ‘If that’s really what that chart says, it seems to have got the fate of Ms Ling down pretty accurately.’

‘Yes. But this is not chart for Ms Ling. This is chart for Ms Briggs.’

‘Oh.’

Wong warmed to his theme. ‘Numbers on birth charts give us a lot of information. Number seven, metal, indicates a young girl. Also associates with eyes. But number nine, fire, links to eyes. Now if we look at this chart —’

Lawrence Waldo looked at his watch. ‘That’s fascinating, Mr Wong. I hope you get to the heart of it. I’m running late this morning, and I do have a lunch appointment with the chairman of the school trustees board, so I am going to have to run. Anything else I can help you with?’

‘No,’ said Wong. ‘I will do some more work in 208A in the afternoon.’

‘Fine. I hope you’ll . . .’ The head teacher began to say something in a more serious tone, but then his voice trailed off.

‘Yes?’

The man stood up and placed his knuckles on the desk. He spoke with gravitas. ‘I hope you’ll help me get things back to the way they were. I am very fond of both Sasha Briggs and Alma Ling, and value them both as members of this school community. Ideally, I would like to turn the clock back to where it had been at the beginning of last week. But if that cannot be done, I need above all to make sure that this school continues its unblemished record as a school of peerless standards. Do you understand? The school comes first. The greater good of the majority . . . That’s what’s at stake, here.’

Both visitors nodded.

Waldo shook hands with them and rushed off to his meeting.

Wong turned to Joyce. ‘You okay? You very quiet just now.’

‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘I was just thinking . . .’

He rose to his feet and picked up his case.

‘You know, CF . . . When Mr Waldo came to get me just now?’

‘Yes?’

‘He came to the canteen where I was sitting talking to a guy, and then he escorted me up the stairs and over to here. The odd thing is . . .’

‘What?’

‘Well, just as we turned the corner to come in here, he patted my bottom.’

‘Oh.’ Wong wasn’t sure how to react to this. He knew that sexual harassment was considered a serious offence these days, but there was no way he would allow a complaint by Joyce to get in the way of a deal with a paying customer. He spoke tentatively. ‘You want to complain or something?’

‘No,’ said Joyce. ‘It wasn’t a big deal. But it just made me think. I mean, he comes across as such a good man. But that’s not what you expect a headmaster to do, is it? Pat a girl’s bottom?’

Wong was relieved that she wasn’t taking it seriously. ‘You’re right. Now I go back to 208A.’

‘I’m going back to the playground.’

‘You’re Rebecca Smiley, aren’t you? Can I call you Becky?’

‘Go away.’

‘I only want to —’

‘I said, go away.’

Joyce suppressed a sigh. What could she say to make Rebecca understand that she was not the enemy? She had gone back to the playground to find that the former friend of Sasha Briggs had disappeared from her wallflower spot in the upper school playground.

But it hadn’t taken Joyce long to find her. Having been a loner herself, it was easy for her to scan the school playgrounds and see the natural places to which someone with a lack of social skills would gravitate. There was a small seated area to the left of the main playground, where some quiet kids were reading books. There were also some benches in front of the school tuck shop. And there was a small alley with a park bench behind the bike sheds. It was in the last of these that she found Becky Smiley, sitting alone with her book.

‘You don’t have to talk to me. But do you mind if I talk to you? There are things about this thing with Sasha Briggs that have me kinda worried.’

‘I’m not listening.’

‘I’m not a policewoman. Really, I’m not. Do I look like a policewoman?’

‘I don’t care.’

Looking away, Joyce mused out loud: ‘Hey: You know what this whole awful situation reminds me of?’

Becky didn’t move.

Joyce continued: ‘Track three of That Guy’s Belly’s third CD.’

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.