Nury Vittachi - The Feng Shui Detective

‘No, not really, not then,’ said Sturmer. ‘You see, the whole system is computerised. It can’t be wrong. It’s always that people spend too much and don’t know where the money’s gone at the end of the day. Human naeture. Then Sarah’s phone rings agin, and it was inother of her clients, with the sime problim. I could tell, just by listening to her half of the conversaition. It was probably then that I was getting a little worried. Three similar complyints, one after another. Something might just possibly be wrong.’

‘A bug in the computer?’ asked Joyce.

‘No way. You see, bink computers are set up so that they can only do one of two things: They either get it right, or they freeze. There’s no in-between. They cannot do their sums wrong. If they are working, then they are working right. All binking computer systems are based on this principle, as far as I know. Inniwhy, I called several people. I phoned my supervisor, of course, who told me to give all detiles urgently to the bink technology departmint and security departmint. This was about ten o’clock this morning.’

He ran his hands backwards through his hair. ‘Over the nixt, well, couple of hours I giss, there were several similar complyints from customers. A high-level security team was empowered to invistiguyte. By lunch time they gaive their initial findings. All checks of the bink computer showed no problim at all. No hint of a malfunction.’

The banker paused, his mystification showing in his face. ‘It was bizarre. It was like a mass hallucination. According to all our records, none of these cash deposits was ever put into the bink, and all the computers were behaving perfectly, according to all diagnostic checks. It was a complete mystery.’

‘Could it have been a mass hallucination, like you say?’ asked Madam Xu. ‘Perhaps… deliberate?’

‘That’s the answer the bink would like,’ said Sturmer, turning to her. ‘But between you and me, no. None of these people know each other. And there’s too many of thim to be in on a scam togither. Some are really old customers, been binking there for years. One of the people complaining is the niece of one of the directors.’

He paused again, as Mrs Chug arrived with plates of idli and uttapum. Madam Xu reminded her about the hoppers.

‘Don’t you have like, security cameras and things?’ asked Joyce.

‘We do. That was the nixt stige of the investiguytion. We worked out that all customers who lost money put it, in cash, into automitic teller machines in the head office’s 24-hour binking hall. There are security kimras in the doorwhy there, which tyke photos every five seconds.’

‘Cameras,’ translated Joyce.

The banker continued: ‘The videotypes confirmed that the customers who complained had entered the hall and used the machines, just like they said.’

‘Tell us about the room, please,’ said Wong.

‘Well, it’s a big room, squarish, on the north side of the building. The investiguytive team checked the bink machines themselves. There are three on each side of the hall, built into the walls on the east and west side, and another six stand-alone machines at the back of the hall, with two more or less opposite the front door and two on each side. All the machines were working perfectly. They were genuine machines, connected properly to the bink by their normal kybles. Nothing appeared to have been timpered with. The security videos showed UWBC technicians entering the premises several times during that two-week period. Four kyses involved adjustments of the wall-mounted machines. Two involved teams delivering and installing stand-alone machines, and one involved a team removing a malfunctioning stand-alone machine. Then there were visits twice a day by cleaning staff. Everything seemed striteforward.’

Mrs Chug arrived with a large plate of aloo gobi, which Madam Xu took from her hands and started dispensing to each of the diners, the banker first, then the other men, then Joyce.

‘That’s it, really,’ said Sturmer, his brow furrowed like a cassava field. ‘That’s all we know. People put the money in, or they imagined they did, and the stuff just vinished. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of Sing dollars, perhaps a million or more. We just don’t know. We don’t know when the complaints will stop coming.’

‘Did you count the machines?’ asked Joyce. ‘Sorry was that a silly question?’

‘All the machines were real and all ours. And nothing wrong with any of them.’

‘Now you stop talking and eat,’ said Madam Xu to Sturmer. She had apparently decided that she would mother the unhappy banker. ‘The time now is for eating and for thinking. Here.’ She picked up a plate of pakora and thrust it towards him.

‘Thenks, but I don’t really feel like…’

‘Eat. Will revitalise the brain and help you to solve the problem. Must eat.’

He helped himself to a tiny sample and the other diners were also suddenly active, serving each other and themselves.

Joyce felt sorry for the New Zealander, who had the deflated look of someone who has thrown away a winning lottery ticket.

‘Have some of this,’ she said, spooning a generous portion of lime pickle onto his plate. ‘This’ll give you a buzz. Must have been a horrible shock.’

‘Yes. Especially since the gineral manager has put me in charge of sorting the problim out. The awful thing is that we have no idea how big the problim is. We are worried that many people will not know they are victims until their bink stitemint arrives at the end of the month.’

‘Clues,’ said Madam Xu. ‘You must have some clues, Superintendent Tan?’

The police officer, greedily heaping his plate into a Himalayan range, carefully lowered his spoon and lifted his briefcase onto his lap. ‘Maybe. There were lots of interesting little points on the initial witness statements we gathered this afternoon. I’ve got them here. They will be too long for you all to read, but I did note down the major discrepancies. Here.’

He pulled out a yellow sheet of police jotting paper covered with his spidery handwriting, and started trying to decipher it. ‘Aaaah, two customers said they came in on Monday afternoon, when in fact the security cameras show they came in at other times, one on Monday before lunch and the other on Tuesday afternoon. Both are old people aged fifty-over, so this might just be absentmindedness, you know how oldsters are? No offence to you, Madam Xu and Mr Wong, I hope, is it?’

He looked at his notes again. ‘Ah, most, in fact, nearly all the victims said they had used one of the stand-alone machines on the right-hand side. Two thought they used a machine on the left, and three could not remember clearly which machine they had used. Several had said they used “the deposit machine”, although there is no such thing, since all the machines, except the balance reader, offer withdrawal and deposit service.’

Tan squinted down at his notes and then held them at an angle to try and read something he had written sideways. ‘Let me see. Ahhh, yes. One guy claimed to have withdrawn a lot of money, changed his mind, and then queued up to deposit most of it back. He is sure he put it back, but only the withdrawal appears on his bank statement, not the deposit. He couldn’t remember which machine or machines he used, but says he usually uses one of the wall machines.’

‘You have not given enough information about the hall,’ said Wong, through a mouthful of masala dosa.

‘I knew you would want that, C F. Here. I brought a floor plan for you. You love floor plans, correct? The 24-hour banking hall is slightly narrower at the back than the front. The doors are at the east of the building, but they open facing south, being double doors on a small extension. Two complainers we took to the banking hall this afternoon pointed to this machine here as the one which took their money.’