The Feng Shui Detective

by Nury Vittachi

  Suddenly, she felt hungry. Wafts of pungent smoke were drifting from the cooking areas, carrying tempting smells of singed meats. Chilli in the air mingled with the odours of cumin and coriander, the comforting fragrance of boiled rice and the tang of fresh coconut. There was sweet mango, sour shrimp paste, something that smelled like burnt sugar and a hundred other smells she couldn’t identify.

  But now where was Wong? He had been right in front of her a minute ago…

  There. The geomancer had abruptly stopped and clasped hands with an Indian man of about sixty who had been sitting at a stained, circular table surrounded by small stools. Wong and Sinha had greeted each other with an odd combination of stiff formality and easy warmth. Clasping four hands together, they had looked into each other’s eyes and nodded their heads, their eyes still locked. Then they had swapped verbal greetings while maintaining the tight grip on each other’s fingers.

  ‘Been too long, Wong. Must meet more often, stop waiting for the mystics.’

  ‘True. We should make more effort. Let us not end this evening without choosing another date.’

  ‘Madam Xu’s already here. She has gone to talk to her friend first. Some old customers of hers here, she says. Come, sit. And the young lady.’

  Wong had then introduced his assistant to the old Indian, Sinha, an astrologer, and the three of them took their seats. A thin young man had immediately appeared through the haze from the stoves with three plastic tumblers full of lukewarm Chinese tea.

  Feeling a little more secure now that they had settled at a table, Joyce sipped the tepid liquid and cast her eyes around at the scene. It always surprised her to see so many young children and even babies out and about at night. You would never see under-fives running around at night in England, she mused. It was milk at seven and bed at half-past, no arguments. Yet in Singapore, children simply seemed to adopt their parents’ schedule, staying up until eleven or midnight, and if they got tired, they just put their heads on the tables and slept where they were.

  As she scanned the crowd, she noticed an elegant, chop-stick-thin middle-aged woman approaching their table. On her bony shoulders hung a black cheong-saam with red piping. ‘Madam Xu!’ Sinha leapt to his feet and held the fortune teller’s hands to guide her to her seat. Before sitting, she bowed and smiled at Wong, who rose and bowed his own greeting.

  ‘And is this the child?’ Madam Xu asked, smiling at Joyce. ‘Hello, xiao pangyou. How old are you?’

  ‘Seventeen,’ said Joyce, although she had not started a conversation by volunteering such information since she had been a child.

  ‘And do you want to be a mystic or fortune teller or something similar when you grow up?’

  ‘Erm. I don’t know. Maybe. I’m just like, studying with Mr Wong at the moment. To write something for my project. It’s very kind of you to let me join the meeting. I hope I won’t be in the way.’ Joyce was shocked to hear herself accepting the role of a polite, model child-something she had never been.

  ‘I’m sure there will be no problem. Mr Wong explained on the phone that you understood the form of these meetings, that no information derived here ever goes outside. Superintendent Tan is right behind me, and he will speak of things that are official secrets.’

  Joyce nodded. ‘Yes, C F told me already. It’s all hush-hush top secret, I know.’

  Suddenly a rather delicate male hand appeared on Madam Xu’s shoulder, and a thirty-ish Chinese face loomed over her head. ‘Hello guys and dolls. Sorry I’m late. Quite unforgivable, I know. Helluva cheeky, since I called the meeting. Shall I sit here, is it?’

  The question was perfunctory, since it was the only seat remaining. Superintendent Tan greeted Sinha and Wong and blinked quizzically at McQuinnie. A stocky, Malay-Chinese man with a pear-shaped head, he eased himself down into the chair and his eyebrows rose at the young woman opposite. Not just his clothes, but his entire body seemed to have the rumpled air of the overworked civil servant.

  ‘Please, Superintendent, I must introduce my assistant to you,’ said Wong. ‘I spoke to the others to tell them she is coming. I could not get through to you. You are so busy. She is Joyce McQuinnie. She is helping me this summer. I hope you do not mind she is joining us. She is the daughter of a friend of one of my bosses, so I cannot say no.’

  ‘Gee, thanks,’ said Joyce, glaring at Wong.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said the Superintendent, arranging a large pile of papers on the table. ‘Bit young, isn’t she, Wong? I mean, for all this stuff? You know what we sometimes get into. Murders and rapes and things.’

  ‘I’m not young,’ said Joyce. ‘I know a lot of stuff. You’d be surprised. And I’ve helped Mr Wong on cases already. Murders and things, whatever,’ she added, as if she were discussing the irritation quotient of mosquitoes.

  The ever-smiling Madam Xu leaned forwards and beamed at the police detective. ‘She is very mature. I can feel it. You need not worry, Superintendent. Almost as knowledgeable as some of my girls.’

  ‘I hope not,’ said Tan. ‘Anyway, if you are all comfortable with her here, it’s okay with me too. Good to see you all. You are looking well Madam Xu, and you, Wong. And how’s my old friend Dilip?’

  ‘I am extremely well and in fine fettle, Superintendent,’ said the elderly Indian. ‘For my happiness to be complete, only your presence was needed. And now you are here.’ He bowed his head gallantly.

  ‘Very nice speaking as usual,’ said the police officer. ‘Well, first, let me apologise for keeping you waiting. Helluva bad show. But this is worth waiting for. The case which I shall place before you is an interesting one in my humble opinion. Let me just wet my whistle and I will give you all the juiciest details. Under the usual condition of strict secrecy of course,’ he added with a special look at the youngest member of the party.

  The waiter, familiar with the Superintendent’s needs, was already approaching with a pot of Iron Buddha. Wong had a detailed conversation in one of the Chinese dialects with another waiter, to order the food.

  The group then waited in a not uncomfortable silence for the Superintendent’s tea to be poured. He took a slow sip, lowered the tumbler, and cleared his throat.

  ‘He’s quite a good storyteller,’ put in Madam Xu in a stage whisper to Joyce. ‘I think he should be in the theatre.’

  ‘I want you to picture, if you will, a large restaurant in a hotel,’ Tan said. ‘It’s just after three o’clock in the afternoon, and the last luncher has just dabbed his lips with his starched linen napkin and signed his bill. “Thank you, sir,” says the waitress as the man leaves. The restaurant is now empty, except for this last waitress, whose name is Chen Soo. All the other waiting staff have fled for their mid-afternoon break. Most of the kitchen staff have also left, but she hears at least one person still bustling inside, probably the head chef, who is usually last to leave. She also sees a young assistant chef slipping through the swing doors into the kitchen, so it seems that business in there is not quite finished. You follow so far, is it?’

  Joyce found it hard to visualise anything, let alone a spotless hotel restaurant, while sitting in this distracting environment. Trying to cut out the sizzling explosions of wet vegetables hitting woks, she forced herself to focus on Tan’s lips and listen to his slightly sing-songy voice. He had smooth, babyish cheeks, and a slight fuzz on his upper lip. She guessed that he did not need to shave every day and would have a completely hairless chest. He spoke quickly, but giving due weight to each word. She decided that Madam Xu was right: he had a good sense of the dramatic.

  ‘You with me?’ continued Tan. ‘Now this Miss Chen Soo-birthday 10, 10, 1978, birth place Singapore -clears up the last items on the last diner’s table.’

  All three members of the mystics carefully scribbled down this detail, like students receiving exam tips.

  ‘But the lull in the proceedings was not expected to last long. At one of the hotel’s other restaurants, the afternoon tea service had just started, and the food and
beverage manager had asked her to help out there. But for this particular room, things would be quiet until about four, when preparations would start for a private cocktail party, which would last from 5 p.m. to about seven, after which the tables would be re-set for the seafood buffet in the evening. In other words, a typical afternoon in the café of a modern, five-star hotel, you see?

  ‘A few minutes later, Chen Soo wheels the used dishes into the trolley parking area just on the other side of the kitchen swing doors. By this time, there is only one person left in the kitchen: the head chef, Peter Leuttenberg, who she sees getting something from the freezer. She returns outside. She puts a fresh table cloth on the table. It takes her only a few seconds, maybe a minute. She hears a voice. “Afternoon, sweetie.” It is the sous chef, a rather dishy European man by the name of Pascal von Berger, who is in the habit of greeting all the young women, despite not being able to remember their names.’

  ‘Where is he from, chief? A Swiss, I suppose,’ Sinha asked.

  ‘Er, hang on a moment.’ The Superintendent flicked through the papers in front of him. ‘That’s right, he’s from Lausanne, birth date 7, 4, 1964.’

  ‘It figures. All Swiss, these hotel people.’

  ‘Ms Chen looks up and greets him as he passes through the swing doors into the kitchen. A few seconds later, she hears a cry, a shout. The word sounds like “Murder”. But it couldn’t be, she thinks. Why shout such a word? Perhaps the men are playing games? She knows that several of the cooks are lively young men-they are playing pranks from time to time. She stands there, not knowing what to do, when Pascal races out of the kitchen. “Miss, miss,” he is calling. “Help, call an ambulance. Peter is ill. Quickly.”’

  Superintendent Tan leaned forward, knowing that he had now fully caught the attention of his listeners. He speeded up his speech. ‘Chen Soo heads for the captain’s desk at the front of the restaurant. She presses the code to summon hotel security on a red alert. She asks Pascal what is wrong with the executive chef. He says: “Peter is on the floor. I think he is dead.” She calls an ambulance. And then the two of them go into the kitchen. Chen notices that von Berger is pale and shivering, in shock. He says to her: “Maybe you do not want to see. It is bad. He is hurt. There is much blood.” But Chen follows him. There, close to the main ovens, the executive chef, a Californian, lies dead on the floor. His hair is wet and matted. There is a spreading pool of blood under him, from a wound apparently on his skull. His head is battered, all out of shape. He seems to be…’

  He paused, dramatically. ‘… dead!’

  The detective leaned back in his chair and looked at the faces of his four listeners. ‘Murdered.’

  He picked at his right index finger nail for a moment before continuing. ‘Now von Berger says he was still breathing slightly when he found him. The chef had lifted his hand to make some sort of gesture, and he had tried to speak. He said something about a waiter. But unlike in the movies, he named no names.’

  He paused again as the first dishes of food arrived. Joyce looked suspiciously at the chipped bowls, one of which contained a green vegetable and the other something in a lurid orange-brown sauce. She wondered if there would be anything she could eat.

  The officer appreciatively breathed in a lung-full of steam from the plate of garlicky choi sum and oyster sauce. He helped himself to a large portion as he spoke: ‘Hotel security arrives within minutes. Two officers. One is an old Nepalese man named Shiva and one a Malay called Sik. Shiva checks the body. He reckons the chef is dead. Sik stands guard at the door of the kitchen. Medics arrive a few minutes later and confirm the man’s soul has made its final journey.’

  ‘Hold on, hold on, my good man.’ This is Dilip Sinha, who was dishing a generous portion of an unidentifiable substance onto Joyce McQuinnie’s plate, ignoring her protests. ‘The door of the kitchen, you say? Surely a big main kitchen in a hotel would have several doors?’

  ‘Quite right,’ the Superintendent replied. ‘But this wasn’t the main kitchen. The hotel is a big one, and had three kitchens, one large and two small. This was a smallish subsidiary kitchen, known as Kitchen Three, which dealt mostly with just two outlets, and also supplied canapés and what-not for cocktail parties in the function rooms on that side of the hotel. This kitchen had only three doors. A main door into the café, a staff entry door and a fire escape.’

  ‘May we ask which hotel? Would it be the Continental Park Pacific?’

  ‘It would. I see you saw this morning’s Straits Times story about this particular incident.’

  ‘I did.’

  Madam Xu made a clucking noise with her tongue. ‘This is clearly going to be a difficult case, Superintendent. These modern hotels are such big, sprawling complexes. I presume the staff door leads into a network of rooms and corridors, to which literally dozens of staff would have access.’

  ‘Not dozens, Madam Xu. Hundreds. Five-hundred-over, I think.’

  The Superintendent heaped chilli prawns onto his plate. ‘Someone had smashed open the head of the executive chef and then fled through one of the doors, we first thought. But this case is simpler and at the same time more complicated than it seems. You see, Shiva went to open the staff door and found he couldn’t get through. Chen, the waitress, explained that there was some building work going on in the staff quarters. The construction people had temporarily closed off that passage. A sign had gone up in the staff room explaining that the staff access to Kitchen Three would be blocked for a few days, and staff would have to arrive and leave by the main door, through the coffee shop.’

  Sinha raised one long, bony index finger to make a point. ‘But wouldn’t that be very disruptive to the restaurant, to have staff tramping in and out all the time?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Staff arrived in the kitchen well before lunch time, to prepare the food. The customers rarely arrived before noon and ninety per cent of them go by 2.30 p.m. The kitchen staff would clear up and leave for their fifteen-minute breaks, which were staggered between three and four o’clock.’

  ‘What about the fire escape?’ This was Madam Xu.

  ‘Yes, the fire escape. This would be the perfect exit for a murderer on the run. It goes straight from the kitchen to a corridor on a lower floor which leads right out to the back gardens. A murderer using that route could have made a speedy exit, and gone from the kitchen to the back garden in less than a minute. Except for one thing. He or she didn’t.’

  Joyce asked: ‘Was that locked as well?’

  ‘No. The fire escape wasn’t locked. But it was wired to an alarm, as are all the fire exits in that hotel. You cannot go in or out of a fire exit without tripping the alarm. The security desk confirmed that the door had not been tampered with, nor had the alarm gone off. Therefore, the murderer did not use that exit, you see.’

  Joyce spoke indistinctly with her mouth full of surprisingly delicious onion cake. ‘So he killed the guy and then went out through the coffee shop. Sorry, Mr Sinha. I didn’t mean to spray you.’

  Madam Xu lowered her tumbler to the table with a dramatic thud, slopping brown bo lei onto the table cloth. ‘Unless,’ she said, dramatically, ‘he had not left.’

  The police officer smiled. ‘Yes. A definite and frightening possibility, which did occur to the officers, as they stood in the kitchen. After all, the body was freshly murdered. But remember the security guards. Sik had been guarding the door throughout that first hour, and Shiva and the first of my men who arrived checked the kitchen carefully. There are not that many places to hide in a small kitchen like that, and all of them were checked carefully. There was no one there.’

  ‘Air-conditioner vent?’ asked Sinha.

  ‘Checked,’ said the Superintendent. ‘It was too greasy to climb out of. Even if you had done it, you would have left lots of evidence.’

  ‘So the murderer must have left through the café door,’ said Joyce. ‘Must have been a waiter. He said it was a waiter.’

  Madam Xu said: ‘What exactly were
the dead man’s last words? And you said he made a gesture. What was his gesture?’

  ‘He said, “It was that stupid waiter,” and tried to wave his hand towards the washing area-but by that time, there was no one standing on that side of the kitchen. And there are no doors or windows in that part.’

  ‘So you questioned the waiters?’ said Madam Xu.

  The Superintendent finished chewing a mouthful of orange vegetable before replying. ‘Of course. We interviewed all the waiters. But remember, several people saw him alive after all the waiters had gone. The last people to see him alive were a waitress, a junior cook and the sous chef. None of these can technically be described as a “waiter”. On the other hand, if you are dying, you may be a bit muddle-headed and may be not too accurate about your words, agree or not? Maybe he meant the waitress or some other staff member.’

  ‘Birth date? Of the dead man?’ This was Wong.

  ‘Ahhhh…’ Tan leafed through his papers. ‘Twentieth of September, 1957. Born in… ah, Sacramento.’ He used his chopsticks to fill his mouth with rice and spoke out of the side of his teeth. ‘Anyway, you know what police procedure is. We were pretty thorough. All the lunch-time staff were interviewed, and they all said Peter Leuttenberg was alive and well when they last saw him. Naturally, suspicion fell most heavily on the last person to leave the kitchen. It was a young man named Wu Kang, who was a junior assistant chef, birth date 4, 9, 1976, Singapore. Ms Chen-the witness I mentioned right at the beginning of my story-she remembers seeing one young kitchen assistant re-entering the kitchen while she was clearing the last table, you remember I said before? That was Wu. He says he was only there for a few seconds. His story seems to stand up-and to help us time the event.

  ‘You will also remember that Chen says she popped into the kitchen for a moment a few minutes after seeing Wu enter, and she saw Leuttenberg alive and Wu gone. Wu’s story was the same as that of the other staff. He said he left the kitchen, popped back in a few minutes later to pick up his hat, and left almost immediately. He said he had said goodbye to Leuttenberg, who was preparing a tiramisu for himself. He said he recalls seeing Ms Chen tidying table forty-three as he left. It all tallies, time-wise.’