Nury Vittachi - The Feng Shui Detective

There was a flash in front of them as a red bird swooped over the car and disappeared into a canopy of trees. There appeared to be a second bird, following about 60 centimetres behind it, but Joyce realised after a moment that the first bird had a cluster of feathers on the end of a long thin tail.

‘ Paradise bird,’ said Wong.

‘This is kinda cool,’ said Joyce. ‘Wish I had a proper camera with a zoom thing. I hope we get close up to the animals.’

She lapsed into silence as they entered the rainforest proper. On some parts of the road, the trees met overhead, and they found themselves in an arboreal tunnel, with flickering shadows running the length of the car. The woody canopy was heavily festooned with epiphytes, giving the impression of having been decorated. Giant mushrooms sprouted from trunks supported by immensely thick root buttresses. The air inside the car quickly turned humid, and there was a pungent, earthy smell.

After ten minutes, their eyes became accustomed to the shadows under the thick, leafy canopies, and they started to spot animals in the trees: Bulwer’s pheasants, Bornean gibbons, white-bellied woodpeckers and other curious climbing beasts that none of them could name. A huge variety of large, colourful butterflies and birds seemed to fill the gap between the bushes and the canopy.

‘Listen. What’s that? What’s that sound? Can you hear something?’ asked Sinha.

‘What? You mean lions or what? Where? I can’t see them,’ said Joyce, looking around.

‘No. Some noise in the car. Sssss, like air coming out of a balloon.’

‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘CF?’

‘Don’t hear.’

There was a sudden intake of breath from Sinha in the back seat. ‘Wong,’ he said, quietly. ‘Wong,’ he breathed again in a high-pitched whisper.

Wong was preoccupied with the road, leaning over his steering wheel as if he could see better that way. ‘Have a bad feeling,’ he said to himself. ‘Tambi driving too fast.’

‘Joyce,’ said Sinha, louder and more urgently.

‘You okay?’ Joyce turned around. She noticed that his face was set, his eyes were wide open and he was barely moving his lips.

‘I think I’ve found out why Martha and Gerald Legge got out of the car in the jungle,’ he said, very quietly. ‘It wasn’t to pet the lions. It was because they were not alone in the car. Joyce, I don’t want you to move a muscle. Stay calm when I tell you this. There’s a large snake in the footwell just under your seat. It is coiled up. At the moment its head is facing to the back of the car and it is looking at me.’

The young woman gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.

‘Wong, did you hear what I said?’ asked the astrologer.

Wong gave a single nod. He had a deep-rooted fear of snakes, and appeared to have stopped breathing. ‘Will turn around. Drive back to the gate.’ The geomancer peered out of the window. The path was only as wide as a single vehicle, and he would have to drive onto rough ground to change the direction of the car.

‘No,’ spat Sinha. ‘Don’t bump it around. It may get annoyed. I think just try and drive as smoothly as you can.’

‘But I must go out of this jungle. Then we can leave the car. We cannot leave the car if we stay here,’ said the geomancer, driving slowly and craning his neck forwards to find a flat section of ground where he could turn the car around. ‘There are hungry lions.’

‘Oooooh,’ yelped Joyce. ‘What’s it doing now? Can’t we get it out of the car? Is it still under me? Eeeeeeee.’

‘Bump is here,’ warned Wong, as the car approached a small pothole in the road.

Joyce lifted her legs off the ground as the car jerked slightly and righted itself.

‘It didn’t like that,’ whispered Sinha. ‘It hit its head on the underside of the seat. It’s looking ahead at where your feet were, Joyce. I think you had better just stop the car, Wong, as carefully as you can.’

‘Ooooooh,’ Joyce squealed. ‘Can you get rid of it? Ask Tambi. He’ll know how to get rid of it.’

‘Unless he put it here,’ said Wong, bringing the car to a gradual halt. ‘Aiyeeeya.’

‘We really, really have to get out of the car. This is a highly dangerous snake. It’s a king cobra,’ said Sinha. ‘It looks highly irritable, too. I think it has dyspepsia.’

Dubeya had also stopped his car, ahead of them. He started pressing his horn in a repeating two-beat pattern.

‘Why is he doing that?’ asked Joyce, her legs still in the air. ‘It’s not feeding time… is it?’

‘He has not put any fresh meat out,’ said Wong, with a gulp. ‘I think… maybe we are the fresh meat.’

Three adult lions appeared in the bushes and started to move directly towards the Proton.

‘Oh, why are they coming over here?’ Joyce squealed.

Their muscles rippling under their lean skin, the big cats padded calmly towards the car. They were large and heavy-looking, the stockiest one about 2 metres long. His head seemed huge. One had its tongue, a pink, rough-surfaced thing as long as a child’s arm, lolling out of its mouth.

‘They are coming here. Don’t know why,’ said the geomancer, a tremble in his voice.

The lions stopped, 3 or 4 metres from the car, looking with curiosity at the vehicle’s inhabitants. A large male lion licked its lips, and flicked his head to one side.

‘Oh dear God,’ prayed Joyce.

‘They’ve probably sprinkled our car with some blood or something. Maybe stuck some raw meat in the tyre wells,’ whispered Sinha.

‘Ooooooh, someone do something. Can you get rid of the snake, please? Can you call Tambi?’

‘He’s busy,’ said Wong, squinting at the multi-terrain vehicle ahead. ‘He is making videotape of us.’

There was a slight scraping sound from under Joyce’s seat as the snake moved.

She gave off a thin, high-pitched squeal like a badly tuned television.

‘The snake is moving, looking for something,’ said Sinha. ‘I don’t think it has had its dinner. We really cannot stay in the car. We have to leave. We have to get out. It’s in a bad mood, I can tell. I know snakes.’

‘Maybe I can drive slow-slow and we get out of the jungle?’ suggested Wong.

But looking around, he realised that it might be impossible. Tambi’s large car was blocking the path in front of them. The ground was uneven on both sides of the road, and there was no way to spin the car around without throwing the snake from side to side.

‘Maybe I drive backwards, very carefully,’ said the geomancer.

‘No. Just stay as you are,’ said Sinha. ‘The snake may calm down. At the moment it is moving forwards, very slowly.’

There was silence in the car. One of the lions gave a small roar, more a throat-clearing really. The snake could be heard shuffling slightly.

The young woman, who was breathing in short, sharp bursts like a galloping dog, turned pleading eyes to Wong. She whispered: ‘I really, really don’t like snakes. Do something. Please!’

Wong leaned over to the passenger seat. ‘Joyce. Take your music-thing out of your music machine. Put it in the car player.’

‘What?’ She reached into her handbag and fumbled with the CD player, eventually extracting its contents. She then tried to stretch over with the disc in her hand, but she lost her grip and it tumbled down into the footwell. ‘Ooops.’

‘Careful! You just missed its head,’ snapped Sinha.

‘You have any other disc? Loud one? Bad noise? Screaming, that sort of thing?’ asked Wong.

‘Yeah. Here, take this.’ She pulled another CD out of her bag and snapped its case open.

The geomancer reached over to take the shiny disc. He said to Sinha: ‘This music it makes me uncomfortable. I think it will make the lions mm-shu-fook too. But the snake. What will happen?’