Nury Vittachi - The Feng Shui Detective

‘I guess they must have noticed it and fixed it.’

‘Maybe so.’

On Thursday, Wong and McQuinnie spent several hours at the publishing house.

Wong had explained to Susannah Lo and Dudley Singh that he had found several problems. The basic layout of the office needed little change, but there were alterations needed to certain desks.

‘The problems are revealed by the lo shu charts. The biggest one is the timing of your move. The company has the central lo shu number four. When you moved into this building, you moved west, from Victoria Street to Orchard Road, which is in the direction of four, your own number. You should not move towards yourself. This is like pushing two identical magnets together. The energies do not help each other. They fight each other. The result is great effort and hard work, but not much good result. Obviously this is a problem here.’ He looked up from the chart at which he had been pointing.

‘Please think of it this way. When you move a company, you are like a farmer moving a field of apple trees. You need to wait until the right time of year. Then you carefully dig them up. Then replant them at the right time of year in the right place. This was not done.’

‘Whoa, this sounds like major bad news,’ said Singh. ‘You don’t expect us to move out and move in again on the right day, I hope?’

‘The shareholders would never agree. Too expensive,’ said Ms Lo.

‘No, I don’t ask you to move,’ said the geomancer. ‘There are many other actions you can take, much simpler. There are some matters concerning Mr Alberto Tin’s personal birth chart. I will go through that with him when he comes back tomorrow. We need a ceremonial re-launching of the company. This will be at a precise time on a precise day. This I will discuss with Mr Tin. There are some suitable dates coming. Some within only a few weeks. Also, there are some small changes to make in the editorial section. Just a few small things. The flow of ch’i energy there is too fast. This is not difficult to fix. I need to place some sea salt at certain positions. Sea salt is very yang. It will make the ch’i energy more solid. Then, the element of metal-’

‘No changes in the production section?’ interrupted Ms Lo.

‘None.’

‘Then I will get back to work. You can talk to Mr Singh alone about the changes in the editorial section.’ She rose and walked smartly back to her station.

On Friday, Wong phoned Alberto Tin’s mobile phone to hear that he had just landed at Changi Airport. The geomancer and his assistant arranged to meet the publisher at 11.30 a.m. at the Tai Tong Hoi Kee restaurant.

When Tin entered, Wong and McQuinnie rose immediately and told him to accompany them. We can come back for dimsum afterwards,’ said the geomancer. ‘I want to have a long talk with you. Go through your birth chart. Also some matters of office placement. But first, we want to show you something.’

They walked 100 yards down the street, making polite chit-chat, until they came to a kiosk selling journals and books. Wong purchased a hot-off-the-press copy of Update and flicked to the editorial letter at the front.

‘There are actually two editions of the new Update. I’m afraid Ms McQuinnie and I, we did a little changing in one.’

‘What? What do you mean?’ Tin looked startled.

‘We did some, aaah, editing, I think it is called.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Do not be afraid. We have not inserted any bad things into your journal. We made it more accurate.’

‘But how could you do it? And what did you do?’ He started nervously examining the page at which the journal was open.

‘Your staff member Dudley Singh helped us. He formed a friendship with my assistant. You see, we found that the plates of your magazine are actually sent to two output centres. Not one. One makes the magazine you usually see. Ten thousand are printed. The other output centre makes a separate one. Prints 30 000 copies. But you don’t know this.’

‘What? What are you saying?’ Tin’s eyes seemed to want to burst through his spectacles.

‘Let me explain it. I’m better at explaining things than you,’ said Joyce. ‘Hollis News Retail has been like reprinting your newspaper. The ones they sell in their shops, most of them are not your ones, you see. They print their own ones, and they sell them, and they keep the money. They print a large number; 30 164 I think is the exact number. I phoned their printer and managed to wheedle the details out of them.’

‘You are saying they illegally reprint my newspaper, sort of pirate it?’

‘Yes,’ said Wong. ‘You print 10 000. Hollis sells them for you. You know about that. The plates are prepared by the Sam Long Output Centre in your building. But the pages also go to another output centre. A place called Wan Kan Colour Printers. There another 30 000 and some are printed, you see? Wan Kan Colour Printers is a subsidiary of the Hollis Group.’

The chubby publisher was momentarily speechless. Then he recovered himself. ‘How can that be? They have no right to do that. What do they do with them?’

‘Hey, B K, what do you think?’ said Joyce. ‘They sell them, of course. You see, Mr Tin, the actual circulation of your newspaper has grown to like, 40 000 copies a time. A lot of these are like, separately printed by Hollis and sold by the Hollis Retail network, which keeps the profits. That is why you see so many people-like me and my friends-buying the thing, but your records show so few sales. It’s quite a neat trick, really.’

Wong nodded. ‘You get all costs. They get all profits.’

‘They are selling 30 000 copies, twice a week, at my expense? Plus their usual cut of my sales? They must be making an absolute fortune.’ Tin was in shock, and breathing heavily. ‘How can they get hold of the pages? Who is giving them to them?’

Mr Wong held up his finger to show Joyce that he would answer this question. ‘We do not like to commit slander and libel upon anyone. But I think maybe you should ask Ms Susannah Lo that question. She is in charge of the pages after they are finished. And she has relatives in the Hollis Group. Do you remember you told me that yourself? Changes made to the pages after she has taken them do not go into both editions.’

‘I just-I just don’t understand. How on earth…? But look, if the paper is so successful, and is making helluva big money for them, why are they tricking me and leading me into financial disaster? The thing is about to shut down.’

The geomancer nodded sagely. ‘I think maybe they will let your operation crash. They can then buy it cheaply. Then they can launch the magazine again as their own. They know that it is already a success. They can cut you out.’

‘I’ll sue them. What they have done is criminal. I’ll sue them in the courts for every penny they have.’

Joyce giggled. ‘Yeah. You should. But you may have to like get in the queue.’

‘What do you mean?’

Wong looked into the middle distance. ‘The sage Lu Hsueh-an, he said: “There is looking and there is seeing. Many people look. But only the Perfect Man sees.”’

The geomancer wagged his finger and turned to Joyce. ‘Many people saw the turtles in the River Lo. But only Fu Hsi saw the markings on the turtle’s back. So he found the magic square of nine.’ He addressed his next comment to Tin.

‘You look at this magazine, but you do not see it.’

The publisher just looked confused.

‘Can I tell him?’ the young woman asked, clapping her hands and almost hopping with glee. ‘We made like four changes to the version of the paper that was like stolen and reprinted by Hollis. I mean, Dudley did them really.’