Nury Vittachi - The Feng Shui Detective

Sinha slept for a few hours in a guest room, and then woke up suddenly at tea time, coming downstairs with his white hair standing on end and a raging thirst for earl grey.

He arrived just in time to hear Wong’s initial exegesis of the site to his young assistant. ‘There are problems. I can see. We have too much water to the west. Right next to the mountains. This is known as “mountain star falling into water”. It is not a good sign. This needs to be fixed.’

‘Oh right, so we are going to move the lake and the mountain,’ said Joyce. ‘Fine. I’ll do that and you can get on with something else.’

‘It would be hard to move the lake and the mountain,’ Wong said. ‘We must compensate for it by other ways. But there are good signs on this big map too. Look further this way. You see this range of mountains. It forms almost an embracing road. A path of affection. Roads curving around things are good. See how this line embraces this part here? This means that Tambi’s Trek is in part of a dragon’s lair.’

He pulled the close-up map of the theme park closer to him, and then compared the two. ‘There seems to be an arm of this mountain range coming down here, which actually comes into the park. It forms a lifted-up flat bit here. What do you call it? A platter?’

‘A plateau.’

‘Yes. Now this good force will come down this way. But is being dispersed by the wind. We need a body of water to stop it dispersing. There is a body of water just here. It needs to be made a bit bigger until it comes nearer to the plateau. We will tell them to make it wider. If they can. Or set up a spring or waterfall. Or even a tap. At this point here.’

Tambi, who had been hovering in the doorway, entered the room and peered over the geomancer’s shoulder. ‘I am fascinated that you identified this part as the interesting part. Can you tell, from this map, what is under here? We once had some visitors who were in the mining business, and they said there could be ore under here. Possible?’

‘Yes, I think so,’ said the geomancer. ‘This shape of the mountains and the water is very common for metal underground. Look. The soil ch’i here leads to this flat part. Then there is the water here. This part is strong, thriving. But soil ch’i and water ch’i do not thrive together. Unless there is metal ch’i between them. Soil ch’i damages water ch’i. But soil-metal-water is what we call the support cycle of the Later Heaven. This is a good area. It may be because there is metal hidden here, under.’

‘Absolutely fascinating,’ said Tambi, wiping his sweaty hands on his white trousers. ‘I await your full report with interest.’

After a preliminary examination of the area on paper, Wong told the others he would spend the afternoon doing a feng shui reading of the house, and devote the following day to travelling around the park itself.

During a heavy dinner at the same long table that night, they heard the grim story of the Legges.

‘He was a wonderful man. He loved the lions. And they loved him,’ said Tambi.

‘They ate him,’ said Joyce.

‘Yes, but that was because of a misjudgement on his part. Lions, you see-and animals in general, I suppose-they behave instinctively. They do what they have been programmed to do, like computers. They have no choices.’

He paused and took a long drag from his cigar-a rather damp cheroot which he had had trouble lighting.

‘Lions, you may or may not know, do not eat three meals a day like we do. They gorge themselves on meat one day, and will happily go for the next three, four, five days with nothing at all to eat. They are quite docile, especially just after a meal. But you would not want to get out of the car next to them when they haven’t eaten for many days and are ready for their next meal.’

‘Is that what the unfortunate couple did?’ Sinha asked. ‘Dear me. It doesn’t bear thinking about. I had a great uncle who was eaten by one of the last tigers in south China. It’s really quite a good story-’

Tambi interrupted: ‘It was most unpleasant. There was no one with them, of course, so we had to piece it together afterwards. What we think happened is that Martha and Gerald went in to the Trek in the middle of the morning, because they had heard that one of the wildebeest had been seen limping badly, and also because a rare bird had been reported in the sanctuary, some crested something-or-other. The lions were due to be fed later that day, so were hungry. Normally, there is no danger, even in going in when the lions have not been fed-as long as you do not get out of the car near one of the beasts. They know they cannot bite through metal. They perceive the cars as big, metal, inedible beasts. They will leave you alone if you stay in the car. Our lions are well-trained. When we are feeding them, we take the meat in, we throw it on the ground, then we press the car horn repeatedly. This sound they have learned is their summons to dinner. We stay in the car. Absolutely crucial.’

He shifted his weight in his chair, which creaked loudly, and took another drag from his cigar.

‘But they did not. They got out of the car. Heaven knows why. Gerald had a miraculous ability to be friendly with the lions-they would literally eat out of his hand. I have seen them take a piece of liver from his hand. But to get out of the car on feeding day before the lions have been fed is not wise.’

Tambi screwed up his face in an expression of agony. His voice cracked. ‘For some reason-I don’t know why-for some reason they thought they would risk it. My cousin Dubeya found the bodies. He had gone in to feed the lions about two hours after the Legges had been seen alive for the last time. He found their four-wheel-drive car on the edge of the road with the doors open on both sides.’

He reached forwards and stirred a large pot of glass vermicelli. A pungent aroma of chilli and lemongrass drifted over the table from a dish of unidentified meat.

‘The remains of Martha and Gerald were stretched over an area of many yards. It was not a pleasant sight. Lions, you see, do not go primarily for flesh. They go for entrails, first. If you ever see a big cat eating an animal, you will see it will go for the belly first, rip it open, and then pull out the internal organs, the colon, the stomach. Only later will it devour the muscles. The whole thing was a mess.’

He shivered. ‘The staff fled. Everyone went except my cousin. Picking up the pieces of the Legges must have been an unbelievably terrible job. Dubeya did it-after we had the police in, of course, to check the scene. The remains were sent for autopsy. Death by misadventure. They were tucked away in coffins by the time their relatives arrived to bury them.’

Yuk,’ said Joyce. ‘What a horrible story.’

Tambi nodded. ‘A horrible story. Now it is only me and Dubeya-two humans and five lions. More lions than humans in this place.’

The servant boy, who apparently did not count as a human, entered with more dishes.

Tambi turned to Joyce: ‘I hope you brought a camera, dear child. You’ll see lots of birds and some strange cow that you only get in this part of the world.’

‘Neat,’ the young woman replied, without enthusiasm.

‘We go into the park tomorrow,’ said Wong. ‘The lions, I hope they have been fed already.’

‘Actually, feeding time is tomorrow night. But don’t worry. You’ll be quite safe. Dubeya will go in with you. I may even come myself. We will be with you at all times. Your internal organs will be quite safe. Now, who would like some chicken liver?’

The next morning, Wong did not appear for breakfast. The servant boy told Tambi that the old Chinese man had risen very early, had a bite in the kitchen, and then had spent the morning walking around the outside of the house and drawing plans.