The Feng Shui Detective Goes South (27 page)

But he had grown up in a place where you could always see the sky. In low-slung cities, slow-moving clouds act as useful direction markers for hours on end. But in modern skyscraper cities of crowded canyons, there was nothing from which to get one’s bearings. He had never been a good map reader, so these days had got into the habit of guiding himself around with his south-pointing
lo pan.
After leaving the hotel, he had walked for twenty minutes in what he thought was a triangular route, but had ended up in a totally unfamiliar quarter.

So he decided to sit on a small wall and use the opportunity to study the map of Sydney he had picked up at reception. Although tourist maps tended to omit important things, such as contours and mountains, they usually included watercourses, viewing towers, cable cars and so on, which provided him with a basic overview of a city’s feng shui.

Water meandering gently between east and west to the south of a key location was always the most favorable situation. But it was clear from the map that the
ch
’
i
in this city had pooled to the south of the river. North of the waters, there were relatively few items marked as being of interest to tourists. South of the channel, the map was covered with tiny symbols identifying key landmarks. Evidently Sydney was a yang city south of the estuary and a yin city to the north.

Then there was a network of major roads, a bridge, an undersea tunnel and a sizeable railway operation. He reckoned he could easily spend a couple of weeks examining the feng shui characteristics of the city.

But no time for that now. They probably had only eight or nine hours in which to find Madeleine Tsai. He tried, without success, to fold up his hotel map. Then he crumpled it up in his pocket, and took a chance on small road to his left as a possible route back to where he had started. To his surprise, it proved correct. He had turned one further corner and gratefully sighted the hotel again. Time to go back to his room and make some calls.

As he rose in the elevator, he shook his head with wonder at his own strange behavior. He had astonished himself, agreeing to go to Sydney on what appeared highly likely to be a wild goose chase. And to have allowed himself to have been persuaded by his irritating intern, of all people! What hope did he have of finding two people in a place as large as Australia, without any clues as to their address or itinerary? Especially since at least one of the two people had no intention of allowing himself to be found. It all seemed a gamble with the longest possible odds.

But the news that Joyce had delivered of Madeleine Tsai’s status as heiress to a business fortune could not be ignored. Her father Tsai Tze-ting had a fortune of legendary proportions and was once reputed to have given a million Hong Kong dollars to a man who had recovered a hat he had left in a park.

Wong believed that everybody got one golden opportunity in life—and this just might be it for him. There was a possibility that Joyce could be bringing him his chance to make enough money on which to retire. The gods were known to have an ironic sense of humour. It would have been just like them to use his pestilent junior to deliver a golden rice bowl to him.

But if that was so, it would be the practicalities that counted. No cash gift would be forthcoming unless he found the missing girl and made sure she got through this difficult period alive. Their best hope, Wong had immediately realised, was to find out exactly what had motivated Amran Ismail to go to Australia. It was simple logic: certain feng shui charts showed that Australia, and a few other more distant southerly places, were the worst possible locations for Madeleine Tsai’s prospects on this date. Or, to see it from Ismail’s point of view, Australia was the best possible location for him to fulfil his aim of seeing her suffer an untimely death and become eligible to collect his winnings from insurance companies.

But Ismail was a
bomoh
, not a geomancer. He would be highly unlikely to know the right feng shui lore about locations at specific times—the heavenly stems and earthly pillars of destiny. He must have consulted someone from the same school of feng shui as the one to which Wong himself belonged. This gave a limited number of options. If he limited himself to professional geomancers, he reckoned there were a total of nineteen people in Singapore who could have done the necessary calculations that would have prompted Ismail to head for Sydney.

Wong was carrying a list of these names. Before leaving Singapore the previous night, he had given a similar list to Dilip Sinha and Madame Xu.

After touching down on schedule at Kingsford Smith Airport after nightfall, they had arrived at the hotel in Sydney much too late to make any calls. And the time difference meant that he would be unable to make any calls himself to Singapore numbers for about three hours.

Wong got back to his room at the hotel at 8.42 a.m. to find the telephone light blinking. There were two messages. One was from Joyce McQuinnie at 8.01 a.m., informing him that she had woken up ‘really
really
early’ and was ready for action. The other was from Dilip Sinha at 8.39 a.m.—5.39 a.m. in Singapore—asking him to return the call as soon as possible.

He quickly dialed Sinha’s number.

‘Sinha? Is me.’

‘Ah, Wong. Good to hear your voice. How was the journey? Comfortable, I hope? I am always amazed at what a long journey it is from Singapore to Australia. One thinks of Australia as being just below this part of East Asia. But when one hears that it takes as long to get to major cities in Australia as it does to get to, say, Europe from Singapore, then one realises that Down Under is actually not just down under us, but is in reality an enormous distance from here, equivalent to crossing the world, but in a southerly—’ ‘Never mind,’ snapped Wong impatiently. ‘Did you phone all those feng shui men last night?’

‘Indeed I did. Not all of them were in, but we were diligent. We made careful notes of those who were in to take our calls, those who only received recorded messages—goodness, how I hate talking to a tape recorder, it’s so discomfiting—and those who were not contactable, but would need repeat calls . . .’

‘Any one of them met Amran Ismail?’

‘I was just coming to that. At about 9 p.m. last night, we managed to get though to Eric Kan, who was, I believe, second to last on our list of people whom we had not yet been able to speak. As soon as I mentioned the name of Mr Ismail, Eric gave a cry of recognition.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He sort of said, “Yes,” or perhaps, “Sure-lah,” in the Singaporean style.’

‘No. What did Kan say to Amran Ismail? Where did he tell him to go?’

‘Ah, right. Yes, of course. That’s the key bit of information. Well, let me tell you. Ismail apparently told Eric exactly the same news that Madame Xu and I heard, about this girl Clara being due to die this week. And then Eric looked through the papers that Ismail had bought. Eric did pretty much the same feng shui calculations as you did. And he came to the same conclusion that you did. Eric said that he should head north from Singapore.’

‘North?’

‘Yes, north. He said that Madeleine’s luck was extremely bad here, but would be better if he headed north. I think he actually gave a suggested compass destination—like nor’ nor’ east 358 degrees or something. I can’t remember. Chong Li wrote it down. Then Ismail asked what would be the worst destination. Interesting, huh?’

‘Yes. And . . . ?’

‘And Eric Kan told him that whatever he did, he should not take her southwards. Tell your friend not to even think about going to Australia over the next few days, he said. He probably said it as a joke. He said it would be the worst place—as you yourself said at lunch yesterday.’

‘I see.’

‘Then Ismail gave him a small cash tip, thanked him profusely, and headed off. No doubt straight to a travel agent to buy a pair of tickets to Sydney. Now let me just look at my notes. Um. Ah, that’s right. Amran Ismail saw Eric on Wednesday at about 10.30 in the morning, and the travel agent said that he bought tickets to Australia for that evening’s flight just after lunch on the same day. That afternoon, no doubt he made up some cock and bull story to tell to Clara that Australia was the safest place for her, and off they went.’

‘Thank you. Did Eric say where in Australia to go? Or just say, Australia?’

‘He just said Australia. So I’m sorry. It doesn’t narrow it down for you. Oh, the only comment he made was some sort of joke. He told me he said something like: Don’t even think of sitting under a hanging knife in a graveyard in Australia. In other words, he was telling him to avoid bad feng shui spots in Australia. So I would suppose that if he had gone to Sydney, he would find the worst feng shui spot in Sydney. I mean, that’s logical. It’s not a very big clue, as far as clues go, I’m afraid. Is that any help?’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Wong was about to thank Sinha and ring off when the elderly Indian astrologer spoke again.

‘Then there were the other chaps who came round about teatime to help with the search. I presume you put them up to it, Wong?’

‘Ah?’

‘The other chaps.’

‘Other chaps.’

‘What was the guy’s name? Jackie Something was the leader.

He had a couple of friends who didn’t say very much.’

‘
Mm-mingbaak.
Don’t understand.’ Wong wondered if Sinha was getting confused in his old age. ‘Don’t know any Jackie Something.’

‘These guys turned up at Madame Xu’s door—we were doing all the calls from her place, so as to be coordinated—and said that they were looking for Madeleine Tsai. Chong Li said she had no idea who Madeleine Tsai was—she is so forgetful, that dear girl. I of course pointed out that Madeleine was the name that Clara used when talking to Joyce. So I presume that Jackie Something must be a friend of Joyce.’

‘Jackie Something. Funny name.
Gwai lo?

’ ‘No, he was Chinese. I’m not saying his name was Jackie Something in the sense that his family name was Mr Something. I’m saying that I can’t remember what his family name was. Maybe Madame Xu can remember. You could give her a call. She should be at Sago Street now. Although perhaps not awake yet. It’s not yet six here.’

‘Jackie is name of girl in most places. In Hong Kong, it is name of boys. This man: he was from Hong Kong?’

‘Yes, I think he probably was. He had that sort of hard-nosed slickness that the Hong Kong young men have. Not soft and fat like Singaporean boys. So did his friends.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Very elegantly dressed. Dark suit, probably Zegna or something like that. Dark glasses. Like a movie star. He was, I can honestly say, almost impeccably well dressed. There was just one thing wrong.’

‘What?’

‘It was quite amusing, really. Everything was perfect in every detail—but he had unfortunately forgotten to cut the fingernail on his pinky. It stuck out a good half inch, maybe more. Maybe an inch.’

‘Aiyeeaah,’ said Wong, closing his eyes.

‘He seemed a perfectly charming young man, although he spoke English with a very strong accent, presumably a Hong Kong accent. I don’t think there is anything to worry about.

He said he considered himself a brother to Clara.’

‘Big brother?’

‘That’s right.’

‘
Aiyeeaah.
What did you tell him?’

‘I told him that we had no idea where Clara was. But I told him that she was somewhere in Sydney and that you and Joyce had gone to find her. I told her that Joyce was her big buddy, and knew her personally. He said he would get on the next plane to Australia to lend you guys a hand. I gave him the name and address of your hotel. I thought it would be helpful. He said he would go straight to the airport. If he managed to get a plane last night, he’s probably already in Sydney now. He’ll probably have been on the first flight to have arrived this morning.’

Wong dropped the phone and raced to find Joyce.

The young woman had just finished getting dressed when her bedside phone rang.

‘CF?’ she asked.

‘Ms McQuinnie?’ asked an Australian female voice.

‘Yes?’

‘This is reception. There are some young men here to see you.’ The voice spoke to someone else: ‘What name shall I give, sir?’ The receptionist returned to Joyce. ‘The name is Jackie Sum. Shall I send them up?’