Nury Vittachi: The Feng Shui Detective

‘Yes. Yet the earring of the Mrs Wanedi we met was not the same. It fell off in the restaurant. Do you remember, Joyce? What sort of earrings slide off your ears? Clip-on earrings. Designed for people who are not having pierced ears. So I thought the earrings in the house did not belong to the person sitting with us in the restaurant. It was easy to take the next two steps to check what I thought. I look at the earlobes of the person who says she is Mrs Wanedi. And I look at the person in the box. The live one has no holes in her ears. The dead one does.

‘She went to the toilet in the restaurant with us. She went the wrong way. She went to the men’s toilet. Then she came back. You showed her where the women’s toilet was. But she said earlier that she and Mr Wanedi had already been to the restaurant. She should know where the ladies’ room was. It was a small but interesting mistake. Once I began to think maybe she was a man I just watch. I see how she moves. How she sits. How she walks. Definitely a man. Also, there was the bathroom in the house itself. No one who had been a woman for fifty years could make such a mess in the bathroom. Even if she had lost her domestic servant. It was a male bathroom, as Joyce said.’

‘Of course. The seat was up-the toilet seat,’ the young woman exclaimed.

‘Yes. Even when he was disguised as a woman, he still did his pee-pee standing up. He forgot to put the seat down afterwards. Some habits you don’t think about. So you cannot fix them. “The trappings of a man’s life are his life,” said the sage Lu. He may try to leave them behind. But they will follow.’

‘And the room with the bad energy…’ said Joyce.

‘The cutting ch’i.’

‘Yeah. It was a woman’s room, all flowers and stuff,’ said the young woman. ‘It was the real Mrs Wanedi who had a bad time with the illness, not Henry. Like, wow. He killed her and then switched clothes. That is so totally, utterly evil.’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘She, I mean he, was a good actress. I mean, all that crying and stuff. It isn’t easy to produce real tears when you’re not really sad. I know, I’ve tried a few times.’

‘It is if you have help,’ said Wong. ‘Did you notice she always put the handkerchief to her eyes just before she cried. Not after? A little laat jeiu jau- what is it in English?’

‘Fresh chilli oil,’ said Sagwala.

‘Yes, fresh chilli oil in the handkerchief would make your eyes red and crying and make your nose pouring.’

‘Running,’ said Joyce. ‘Your nose runs. Not pours. Well I suppose it could pour…’

Sagwala leaned forwards. ‘What a long, slow, cruel, calculated crime, C F. The man must have been really very, very strong-willed to restructure both their lives in this way, over a period of what? A year or so? Purely for the purpose of getting rid of his own beloved wife and stealing her money.’

Wong nodded. ‘Anyone who can have a red-colour study… they can do any evil, I think.’

Joyce’s eyes suddenly widened. ‘Yeuccch. Now I know why she, I mean he, kept leaning on me. On my left boob mainly.’

‘There’s one more thing,’ said Wong. ‘Maybe he was not by himself. I don’t know but I think maybe he had what is called a partner in crime. Ms Tong the cook was with them before they came to here. She stayed in the house all the time. She was the only person with them. I think maybe she plans to meet Henry Wanedi. Maybe she will help him spend the cash from the sale of the house.’

‘The niece from overseas,’ said Joyce. ‘Ms Tong could have been his secret lover, and would return today and tell us she is the niece from overseas.’

‘Maybe so. Or maybe some other accomplice,’ the geomancer said. ‘There is a female involved, I think. She is coming. This is why I say we must stay here and eat. The niece is coming at lunch time today, remember? That’s why I ask driver to bring enough food for four, her also.’ Wong lowered his spoon and wiped his mouth.

For several minutes, there was no sound except that of Chief Inspector Sagwala tucking his fourth plateful into his cavernous mouth.

Then the doorbell rang. The police officer rose reluctantly to his feet, aware that duty was again calling. ‘That’ll be her now. You coming with me?’

But C F Wong had slipped away to another table and was busy scribbling in his journal.

In the twenty-ninth century BC there was a man named Fu Hsi. He had great skill in designing things. But not palaces. He liked to design gardens and rivers.

There was a big flood. The River Lo overflowed. Fu Hsi spent many days walking on the hills around the palace. He drew maps showing where dykes should be built. When the flood came back, the palace was safe. Fu Hsi became very famous.

One day, he was sitting on the banks of the River Lo. He started watching the turtles which swam there. His eyes fell on the patterns on the shells of the turtles. One of them had a shell which had a section in the middle at the top and eight sections around it. Fu Hsi noticed something. The dots in the east, middle and west segments added up to fifteen. When he added the marks north, middle and south, they were also fifteen. Southwest, middle and northeast too added up to fifteen. Northwest, middle and southeast were also fifteen in total.

This became known as the nine-piece magic square. Blade of Grass, the main thing was that Fu Hsi learned that there could be order in things. Order that you cannot see but is very magical.

He had knowledge of architecture and knowledge of hidden magic. Fu Hsi became the founder of feng shui.

From ‘Some Gleanings of Oriental Wisdom’,

by C F Wong, part 81.

His hand stopped, mid-flourish, and he looked at his watch. Oh, already 9.15. Time to go. He would have to do some more writing later. C F Wong slipped his journal into his desk and slid his chair back, the sudden scraping like a roar in the quiet room where his office administrator was sinking back into sleep. The noise caused Winnie Lim’s head to bob up. ‘I will come back before lunch. Maybe twelve o’clock,’ he told her.

Joyce McQuinnie, who was in the middle of a lengthy, murmured personal call on the phone, told her listener to hang on. She spoke to her boss over her feet, which were on her desk encased in a pair of pointed cowboy boots, purchased, oddly, as a souvenir of Melaka. ‘Where’re you going? Am I coming?’

‘This is your decision. I am going to Hong Siu Publishing Company in Orchard Road.’

‘Oh. Was that the assignment you said about last week, and I’m like, “Yawn-yawn, that’s as dull as a dead dodo’s doodoos”? Like an office in an office block?’ She spoke with the voice of a yawn.

‘No. No one is dead there. But, yes, it is an office in an office block.’ He picked up his bag.

‘I think I’ll just stay and write up my notes from last week. I’ve got so much to do today I don’t think I can spare like, a minute even.’ She put her feet back on the desk and resumed her somnolent conversation, which seemed to consist mainly of making humming noises.

‘Okay. Winnie, if there are any important calls, please call me at Update. I will definitely be back before one.’ The office administrator did not reply, being now engrossed in adding green glitter to the gold paint on her nails.

‘Update?’ This was Joyce, interrupting herself again.

‘Update is the name of the magazine Hong Siu makes.’

‘Becky, gotta go. Catch ya.’ Joyce abruptly threw the handset into its cradle, jumped to attention and started sweeping items into her shoulder sack. With a canine yelp of extraordinary volume, she extracted the paper cup of coffee she had swept into the bag, and cleaned out the frothy mess with a paper tissue. ‘Yuk. Hang on two ticks. Just getting my bits. I’m coming with you.’