Nury Vittachi - The Feng Shui Detective

The feng shui man carefully changed the angle of his seat before lowering himself slowly into it. ‘Mr Motani, I do not say that you did anything. My name is C F Wong. I am consultant. I want to know the real truth. Please to tell me exactly what happened. Start from when you saw Mr Semek. Finish when you left him. Go slowly-lah.’

‘I didn’t kill him,’ said the driver. ‘He was dead already when I looked back.’

‘Please to tell me the full story,’ Wong said, trying to be reassuring but firm.

The man scratched his hairy cheeks, sighed, and then began. ‘So many times I have said this already. I turned into Orchard Road about 10.30, maybe a bit earlier, maybe a bit later. I saw these three on the street corner. They had come out of a bar. I could tell. The man in the middle was leaning against the woman, who was laughing loudly. The other man, the tall foreigner, was holding on to the man in the centre. I think they had all been drinking. They waved to me and I stopped. Technically it is not allowed to stop there. That I know. And if you want to arrest me and charge me for that, I will plead guilty. I will plead guilty a hundred times for that, just do not charge me with this… with this thing I did not do.’

‘Please continue. You stopped the car. And then…?’

‘I stopped the car. The tall foreigner put the bags in and helped his friend in-the drunker one, while the woman was outside. Then he told me the address.’

‘Who told you the address?’

‘The tall one, the American one. “Katong, East Coast Road, near the Red House,” he said.’

‘Red House? Ah, you mean the old Katong bread shop?’

‘Yes, you know, the bakery. The drunk one was slumped a bit and the American reached into the car and sort of like patted him. “Bye, old buddy.” Something like that, he said. I did a U-turn into someone’s driveway-and if you want to arrest me and punish me for that, you can, please-and then I went down Orchard Road -’

‘East.’

‘Yes, east, you know, then down Stamford Road, Raffles Avenue, across the bridge. Then I took a wrong turn somewhere. I don’t know that side so well. I stopped, asked another driver which way. He told me, and I got to the Katong very fast, just only a few minutes later.’

‘Passenger say anything or not?’

‘No, he was too drunk. He repeated the address. I think I asked him something, made conversation, you know, I’m a very friendly guy, nice guy, I say something about Katong being a nice place to live, but he didn’t answer.’

‘He say anything?’

‘He sang a bit.’

‘What did he sing?’

‘I don’t know music, I have no time for music. I only know Tamil movie songs. He sang one of those old Western pop songs, you know, something about America or something, I don’t know.’

‘And then what happened?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all. I just drove him, in the dark, to East Coast Road. I turn left into the road and I heard a noise behind. I looked in the mirror, couldn’t see him. I stopped, and saw that he had folded up, fallen over, partly into the foot well, partly on the seat. I drove on.’

‘Why you drive on? Did he not look sick?’

‘I tell you, Mr Policeman…’

‘I am not a policeman.’

‘I tell you, kind sir, when you are a taxi driver and you work the late shift, you many, many times take home people who fall asleep or who get drunk and unconscious. This is not unusual. You just take them home and when you get to their address you wake them up. This happens many times, ask any Singapore taxi driver.’

‘Okay. Then you came to his address?’

‘Correct. That’s when I tried to wake him. Anything I said, it didn’t work. I reached over and shook him. It didn’t wake him. He felt funny, loose. Then I got out of the car and went to the back to take him out of the car, leave him on his doorstep. I’ve done that before. But that’s when I saw the stain on the coat. I thought he had been sick. But it was black.’

‘It was blood?’

‘Yes, I guess it was blood, but it looked black in the dark night. There was not much light there. When I realised he was sick or dead, well, I nearly screamed. I didn’t know what to do. I just wanted to get him out of the car, but what could I do? It felt like there were a hundred windows all round, all looking at me. I couldn’t take the body out, in front of the windows. I thought about calling the police, but no one had had anything to do with this man except me. I thought the police might think I was… I was the killer. Which I wasn’t. I wasn’t, I wasn’t, I wasn’t. I tell you he was dead when I looked back.’

‘Then you did what?’

‘I closed his door, got back into my seat, and drove as fast as I could.’

‘Where to?’

‘Don’t know. Just drove. Eventually, I found myself out in Meyer Road area, you know? I went down a dark lane near there, around the corner, and threw the body over a little wall. Also his bags. Briefcase and heavy bag.’

‘Did you open?’

‘No. Didn’t touch. Only touched outside of bags, to carry them.’

‘And after?’

‘Then I took the car back home, cleaned, cleaned, cleaned it all night. I cleaned it and then repeated cleaning it and then did it again. I finished cleaning it at 6 a.m. in the morning and then went to sleep, slept for only a couple of hours. I was too scared to go back to work, so just sat at home, staring at the wall. I did that, for, I don’t know how many hours. I did that until the police knocked at my door. They brought me here. I have been here ever since. That’s all I know. Please believe me. Please, I ask you, beg you.’

‘I believe you,’ Wong found himself saying. ‘But must ask some questions. Car windows open or not?’

‘No, the windows were shut. I have air-conditioning. Don’t want to waste. Keep the cold in, you know?’

‘You hear Mr Semek open window? Hear any sound like him opening window or door or anything?’

‘I think no. I wish I could say something different because it would indicate that someone came in and killed him, which is what I believe happened. But I am a good Hindu man, Mr Policeman, and I do not tell lies, so I say I did not hear anyone opening any windows or doors, because that is the truth. Please, please, I hope you-’

‘Okay, finish-lah,’ said Wong.

The geomancer sat in the police canteen with a cup of green tea, studying copies of the paperwork of the case. Joyce arrived, carrying his books of astrological charts. He told her the details of the case, to see whether she would ask the right questions. ‘Weird,’ she said. ‘Who killed the guy if the driver didn’t? what happened on the journey that we don’t know about? The key is: what effect did the guy’s death have, right? Any inheritance or anything?’

Wong nodded. Correct question. It was one he had asked Kwa earlier that day. Semek had an ex-wife in Indonesia, and some children at college somewhere who would inherit his money-but no relatives in Singapore or Malaysia. The inheritance was not large, and as far as the police knew, there was no life insurance. As for business deals, Semek, Sin and Coles had just signed a development deal for a technical product. Something to do with ore analysis for use in mining in Kelimantan. Semek was a scientist, on the technical side of the deal, with Coles and Sin handling the business side, respectively being specialists in financing and marketing functions. The partners, who were badly shaken by the murder, had agreed to freeze the deal until after the funeral, when everyone involved would meet again and restructure it.

‘Like, anything interesting on the body of the dead guy?’

‘What is interesting is what was not on the body. He was carrying two bags when he got into taxi. One small briefcase. But also one big bag. Doctor-type bag. This contained rock samples, machine bits, foreign currency.’