Nury Vittachi - The Feng Shui Detective

Superintendent Tan approached in his usual languid manner, with a sloping gait and his hands buried in his pockets, as if he alone were the counterbalance to the famed uprightness and stiffness of other aspects of the city-state’s of ficialdom. He stood at the corner of the table. ‘Hello, old friends, very nice it is to see you. Thank you very much for coming, Madam Xu, C F, and, er, Miss Mak-er…’

‘Jo,’ she reminded him.

‘Jo, right. We met last time.’

‘Our pleasure to come,’ said Madam Xu. ‘Especially on a Friday night.’

Wong lowered his pen and gathered up his papers, his long fingernails scratch-scratch-scratching at the table like a cat sharpening its claws.

‘But where is D K?’ asked the young Singaporean police officer. ‘Not here yet? He’s coming late, is it?’

‘Not coming tonight. Sends his apology,’ the geomancer put in. ‘Has been tied up.’

‘Sit, sit,’ said Madam Xu.

‘No, first, I have something to ask you, you see. Officially, according to the rules, there are no visitors allowed to these meetings, right? But C F, you brought your assistant with you last time and this. I want to ask tonight if I can bring someone too. Can or not? You don’t mind, is it?’

‘Well, it depends,’ said Madam Xu, automatically checking how her cheong-saam (black velvet, flecked with purple, blue and pink) sat, at the thought of a guest approaching. Her clothing, of course, was immaculate. ‘If it is someone as charming as Ms Jo, I can see no objection.’

‘It is a bank manager. Well, private banker, really, I should say. He is involved with the case you will help with tonight, you see.’

‘A bank robbery?’ asked Wong.

‘No, it is a case of… actually, I am not sure what it is a case of. The bankers are calling it mass hysteria. I think you have not had a case of mass hysteria before, is it? I can bring him now, okay or not?’

‘A private banking gentleman? I think you may,’ said Madam Xu, and Wong nodded his assent.

Tan turned and gestured at a man in his early thirties, who stood awkwardly watching them from a distance. Tall and pale-skinned with sandy hair, he approached briskly, coming to a sudden halt behind the police officer.

‘I will do the introductions. This is Joseph Sturmer of United World Banking Corporation. Madam Xu, Ms Joyce, Mr C F Wong. Right, now sit, please.’

The lanky banker, looking out of place in his dark suit and conservative tie, perched unhappily on a chair with his hands on his lap and looked dolefully around. He was as freckled as a child. Joyce looked at him carefully. Nice floppiness to the hair, okay roman nose, but unpleasantly thin lips and no chin at all. Anyway too old, she decided.

Madam Xu explained that she had already discussed the evening’s menu with old Uberoi, so the men may as well just get on with their story. ‘We can eat and listen at the same time.’

‘We shall get on with it then,’ said Tan. ‘This is a story of a bank robbery, as you said. Or perhaps not. What would you say, Mr Sturmer?’

‘Well, it’s a mystery, isn’t it? That’s why we’re here, right? The guys in the bink can’t work it out, inniwhy.’

Joyce noticed the broad accent. ‘Hi. I’m Jo. You from Down Under?’

‘Austrylian? Me? No, mite. From New Zeyland.’

Uberoi’s wife, a huge woman named Nina Chug (Uberoi himself was supermodel-thin) arrived with drinks: salt lassi for Madam Xu, Wong and Tan, and sweet for the two mat sellah. All Westerners, it is assumed, prefer sweet.

The silence which followed was broken by Tan. ‘Ah. How shall we start? Someone has robbed the bank in a funny way.’

‘We think, maybe,’ added Sturmer, unhappily.

The geomancer said: ‘Why not Mr Sturmer just tells us?’

‘Yeh, okae,’ said the New Zealander. ‘All this is totally confidintial, right? Not to go further than these four…’ He noticed that the restaurant only had three walls. ‘It’s confidintial, inniwhy. I’m the diputy exicutive minager of the private binking division of United World Bink. Now I received a call from a customer this morning clyming that a deposit had not been processed. We often get this type of complynt. Nine times out of tin, it’s some sort of perfectly normal da-lie.’

‘Da-lie?’ asked Wong.

‘Delay,’ said Joyce. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll translate. My sister went out with a Kiwi once.’

Sturmer continued, a little warily: ‘I gaive the usual excuse: “I’m sorry Mr Somchai,” I say. “It takes up to seven working dies to clear a cheque, depending on which bink the money is drawn from, and up to twenty-eight days in the case of a foreign currency cheque.” It does, you see. But this customer, Mr Somchai, is not satisfied. “This was cash,” he says. “I put cash in. It should have been cleared immediately. You don’t have to clear cash, it’s just cash.” He had a good pint there. Now this calls for a different line. “Probably jist some miscalculation somewheres,” I tell him. “I’m sure it’s not a problim. I think if you just wite for your bink statement, you’ll find that it’s all there,” I say. You see, sometimes customers, they put money in, and a cheque arrives for a similar amount the same die, so that the customer thinks that his bink account total has not gone up, when really everything is fine. Or perhaps his wife withdraws an amount which she forgits to tell him about. Hippens all the time. I tell Mr Somchai that I could send him an interim stitemint, for which we could whyve the processing charge.’

Joyce noticed that C F Wong was watching and listening with intense concentration, struggling to understand the man’s accent. For some reason, the bank manager focused on Joyce, and related the story entirely to her. She was first nonplussed, and then pleased, and made sympathetic nodding movements as he spoke. She wondered if the others would be annoyed, since she was the only non-mystic among them.

‘Inniwhy, the guy turns mean. “Mr Sturmer,” he says. “I am not a fool. I have no wife. I know exictly what goes in and what comes out of my account. I bilince my chequebook every time I use it. What I know is that I deposited five thousand Sing dollars in my current account two dies ago and it is not there now.”’

Sturmer, now getting into his story, became more relaxed, and looked briefly at Wong and Madam Xu before returning his gaze to Joyce. He started using his hands for emphasis. ‘So I do the stroke-stroke thing and tell him that I know he is good with figures and I tell him I will personally look into the matter right awhy. Where did he deposit it? Head office? Fourth machine on the right? Right. Thank you for calling. I tell him I will call back within two business hours, which is standard procedure for private binking clients. Okay so far?’

He paused and Joyce and Madam Xu nodded. Wong continued to stare.

‘Right. Now at this stige, I am still largely disregarding the problim. Ninety-nine per cent of cases like this, it is the customer having mis-counted something. You would be amized the number of billionaires who just can’t count from one to tin or do simple arithmetic. But then my colleague, Sarah Remangan, who sits one desk away from me, she looks over. “I’ve had the same call from one of my accounts,” she says. “Put her money in last Tuesday. Got a receipt and everything. But she swears the money isn’t there now and never got there. Even ordered a stitement which bicks her up, so she says.”’

The banker paused as a waiter gently elbowed him to one side and placed plates in front of each of them. A platter containing five masala dosas followed almost immediately.

‘Go on,’ said Madam Xu, starting to distribute the potato curry pancakes, serving the banker first. ‘That is when you realised something was wrong.’