The Feng Shui Detective Goes South (15 page)

‘Let us try it,’ said Tang Sheng. He stepped out
into the cold garden. ‘Now use your words to lure me
inside.’

But Zhu Gumin said nothing.

Tang Sheng again asked him to use his power with
words.

Zhu Gumin again said nothing.

Tang Sheng decided to go into the house. But the
door was locked.

Listening to what a man says accomplishes nothing
.

Listening to what he means is better. But most useful
of all, Blade of Grass, is to listen to what you yourself
mean when you ask a question.

From ‘Some Gleanings of Oriental Wisdom’,
by CF Wong
,
part 344

If he could work out what Dani Mirpuri had meant to do by writing him a message in code, assuming it was from her, he could take a guess at what it said. But where to begin?

By 7.10 p.m. that Tuesday evening, they were sitting at a stained round table in front of Ah-Fat’s stall at the night market. Dusk had fallen quickly, leaving them squinting in the sharp glare of the food stalls’ strip lighting.

‘There’s no such thing as ghosts,’ said Joyce firmly, in a tone that brooked no arguments.

‘Are you very sure of that, little plum blossom?’ asked Madame Xu.

‘Yep. My friend Seth does channelling, you know? He has a direct contact with Vega, who knows all things because she-he is part of the like, Life Force you know?’

‘Go on,’ the fortune-teller continued warily. ‘Explain to us why your friend Seth says there are no such things as ghosts.’

‘Well, Seth was channelling in the early hours of the morning after an all-night rave, and he calls up Vega and he’s like, “Vega, tell us about the spirit world on earth.”’

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 sounded 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?’