Free The Feng Shui Detective Goes South by Nury Vittachi Page B

aiyeeaah mean?’
    Winnie tilted her head to one side, thinking. There was silence for thirteen seconds. ‘Cannot translate. No word in English. Only in Chinese and Indian.’
    ‘So what is aiyeeaah in Indian?’
    ‘ Aiyoh, ’ said the Singaporean.
    ‘But what does it actually mean?’
    ‘ Aiyoh means aiyeeaah. Aiyeeaah means aiyoh.
    ’ ‘Thanks.’
    Winnie flung the letter in Joyce’s direction with the grace of a toddler doing ballet. It landed on a cabinet on the wrong side of the room, where it balanced for a moment, before falling neatly into a wastepaper basket.
    ‘I think leave it,’ said Wong. ‘Probably it belong there.’
    Joyce got out of her creaking seat and retrieved the letter.
    ‘Might be something important. You never know.’
    She looked at the single sheet of paper for a few seconds. ‘Nope. Gibberish.’
    ‘Not computer language?’ asked Wong.
    ‘Not any language. Computer garble. Or secret code perhaps,’ she added with a laugh.
    She dropped the letter back into the bin, then threw herself ungracefully into her chair, where she sprawled back and fanned herself with an eighteenth century Chinese molding she had picked from a shelf behind Wong. ‘Can you believe this heat?’ she said.
    The geomancer opened his writing book but didn’t feel creative in this furnace. The lack of white noise from the air conditioner meant that the roar of traffic outside seemed extraordinarily loud. And Joyce, no doubt, would turn on her headphone thing which made irritating tsik-tsika-tsik-tsika-tsik drumming noises. How could one even think in such conditions?
    ‘I go tea shop,’ he said, snapping his journal shut.
    ‘I go HMV,’ Joyce said, imitating her boss’s low, staccato voice.
    ‘I go home,’ chanced Winnie.
    ‘No!’ snapped Wong to his administrator. ‘Phone someone. Get new air conditioner. Get old one taken away. Quick. Before police come. Aiyeeaah.
    ’ Winnie glared at him.
    Joyce followed him out of the door.
    The feng shui master was moving quickly towards the staircase, but stopped suddenly on the top step. Something half-remembered had momentarily halted him. But the memory of the ticking he had heard when he had first stepped into the room had gradually sunk from his conscious mind to his subconscious. He gave his head a quick shake to clear it, and then trotted quickly down the stairs.

    The offices in Telok Ayer Street were set away from the main traffic of the nearby financial district, but the continuous sound of traffic still filled the air with a rushing noise like a distant sea. The feng shui master stepped into the sun, blinking, and strode quickly to get into a patch of shade. It was equally hot outside, but somehow the heat was more bearable than it was in the office. The intern hurried after him. They had barely walked two dozen metres when they were stopped by a screech.
    ‘Wooooong,’ came a high-pitched voice.
    CF Wong spun to look behind him. He saw only Joyce, walking behind him, but the voice hadn’t been hers.
    ‘Woooong,’ came the shriek again.
    ‘It’s Winnie,’ said Joyce, indicating the window above them by looking up.
    The geomancer lifted his eyes to see his office administrator leaning out of their fourth floor window.
    ‘The phone! Calling. Important,’ she screamed.
    ‘You get it,’ he shouted, walking back until he was standing directly under her.
    ‘You say what?’
    ‘Get it for me.’
    ‘Okay. You wait,’ said Winnie, and disappeared back into the darkness.
    Wong and McQuinnie stood on the pavement, looking up expectantly at their fourth floor office window.
    A few seconds later, Winnie reappeared—and threw a small object out of the window. The two people on the ground stepped aside as something small and dark fell to the ground and hit the pavement with a cracking sound. It bounced once, spun in the air for a second, and then fell into the gutter with a splintering sound.
    ‘Oh dear,’ said Joyce, looking at the smashed office