The Feng Shui Detective's Casebook Part 13

'Both doors to office C were sealed with special airtight doors. Because of the large number of computer-things in the room. They had a lot of air-conditioning to keep the computer-things cool.'

'Computer-things?' Wong looked at a police doc.u.ment that included a sketch of what the room looked like before the bomb went off. 'On this picture, only two computer.'

The officer nodded. 'I don't really understand this stuff. There were just two computer screens, screens, there, as you say. But there were lots of er, computer things, computer there, as you say. But there were lots of er, computer things, computer boxes boxes you know, around the room. Different sizes. Just boxes with no screens.' you know, around the room. Different sizes. Just boxes with no screens.'

Sinha turned to Joyce. 'You are good at all this technology stuff. What do you call those things?'

'Oh yeah,' the teenager said. 'They were probably like mainframes, or servers, or something like that. How big were they?'

Wong looked at the sketch and indicated a height of about a metre above the ground.

'Servers,' said Joyce. 'Definitely servers. Probably.'

To her consternation, the police officer wrote her words down in his notebook: Definitely probably servers. Definitely probably servers.

Inspector Gupta continued: 'Anyway, the late deceased gentleman-what was remaining of him-was found in the office once the fire had been extinguished by the trusty fire services of this locality. He was positively identified by his dental records as being one Mahadevan Jacob, forty-three, merchant of 11/c 15 Jabalpur Court, Nagarjuna Sagar Road. He had rented the office eighteen months ago, and ran his own business there, under the name Data Storage Solutions Hyderabad Ltd. He led a lonely life at work, since he was managing director and all the staff. There was no one else. He had used a temp for a secretary and was sharing the cleaning lady with the rest of the offices in that building.'

'What did the company do?' Sinha asked.

'I don't really know,' the officer said. 'Data storage, I suppose. He hadn't hired any temporary secretaries for a year-this town, as you can see, is being rather on the smallish side, and there were only two ladies who regularly offered their services for typing in the English vernacular. He had no wife or family that we could trace. A bit of a loner. Apparently a lot of computer experts are being like that.'

'What about friends? Or business a.s.sociates?'

'Since his records were all destroyed by the fire, we were not finding any lists of those either. We a.s.sumed that some would come out of the woodwork, but none did. After the report in the newspaper, we found a few people who had been at college with him, or had met him at a computer club a few years back, but we couldn't get much detail on him or on what Data Storage did. It did not seem to be a particularly successful company. For a start, there were no complaints from people whose data had been stored, which was presumably what the firm did.'

Joyce interrupted. 'Geeks get like that. Having no friends. I know a few. They just do email.'

Gupta agreed. 'Anyway, we immediately started an -' He stopped abruptly as a woman in a sari opened the door of X=Coffee and looked in. 'This way, Mrs Sachdev,' he shouted over the Hindipop.

The others politely scrambled to their feet as a confident- looking woman in her mid-thirties strode across the cafe and took a seat at their table.

'These are, er, Mr . . .' The policeman gestured with his arms as if he were about to make introductions but it was evident that he had forgotten all their names.

Joyce took over. 'This is Dilip Kenneth Sinha, that's CF Wong, and I'm Joyce McQuinnie. Very pleased to meet you, I'm sure.'

'Yes, never been good at names,' said the officer, with a grateful nod to Joyce. 'Thank you. And this is Mrs -' 'Sachdev. Call me Lakshmi.'

'Thanks, Mrs Sachdev. Mrs Sachdev occupies the office next to Data Storage Solutions Hyderabad Limited. I asked her to join us today because you may be most interested in her evidence.'

'If I can help in any vay, I vould be delighted to.' She spoke with a clear, crisp voice, given musicality by a south Indian accent which turned 'w's into 'v's and vice versa.

'I've told them about the explosion ten days ago. Could you tell them your side of the story? About the so-called ghost?'

'Of course.' She looked at her listeners. 'About maybe three or four days after the explosion ve got an email from Mr Jacob.'

'The dead man?' asked Wong.

'Correct.'

The feng shui feng shui master was constantly amazed by the miracles of technology. 'Email can be used to talk to master was constantly amazed by the miracles of technology. 'Email can be used to talk to dead dead people?' people?'

'Apparently yes.'

'It said what?'

'Nothing. At least, nothing interesting. It was really just an ad, urging my company to use the services of Data Storage. You know the sort of thing.'

Joyce piped up. 'Oh yeah, junk email, I get tons.'

Lakshmi continued: 'Anyway, I happened to mention this to a friend, and he said that he had also got a similar email. I checked with more friends-every single person I checked with had got this email. Isn't that strange? Four days after his death?'

Joyce shook her head. 'But it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean there was a ghost or anything. It just means that his junk mail is on a server somewhere that is still churning it out. Might go on for months.'

Sinha leaned back in his seat and put his arms behind his head. 'Thank G.o.d you're here. This is all rather technical for me.'

Inspector Gupta leaned into the conversation. 'Correct, Ms McQuinnie. We thought the same thing as you. We too are most most Internet-savvy. So we got an Internet expert to trace where the emails were coming from, and he sent us the address of the Internet-savvy. So we got an Internet expert to trace where the emails were coming from, and he sent us the address of the ip. ip.'

'The what?' Wong was struggling to keep up. 'Ip? This is person or technical term?'

'I understand it is indeed a technical term,' said Gupta.

Joyce's brow wrinkled. 'How do you spell that?'

'I.P.'

She smiled. 'Ah. The Internet Protocol. I see. It's not really p.r.o.nounced ip.'

'It is in India,' said the inspector, wounded.

'Oh yeah, maybe. But it's like-it's the address that the original signal came from. The address of the actual computer.'

The policeman nodded. 'Yes. This is what it identifies. Anyway, the ip ip indicated that it came from the late Mr Jacob's computer. Which was a bit odd, because the computer in question was a charred metal box by that time. It was not even plugged in. So people started talking about a ghost.' indicated that it came from the late Mr Jacob's computer. Which was a bit odd, because the computer in question was a charred metal box by that time. It was not even plugged in. So people started talking about a ghost.'

Silence descended as this bit of information was digested.

Inspector Gupta continued. 'People got lots of messages over the next few days from the late deceased personage's computer.'

'I don't think there's anything weird or ghostly about this,' said Joyce. 'The email was just bouncing around a bit. Through a network of proxy computers or something. It probably came from Mr Jacob before he died and bounced around a bit before getting to you. Or perhaps it went viral? That's why it got to Lakshmi and all her mates.'

Wong's brow furrowed. 'Went viral?'

'Yeah. Turned into a virus sort of thing. Like a germ. A bug.'

Her answer left him no wiser.

'I think I have gone viral,' he said, wearily getting to his feet and heading for the toilet.

Wong, McQuinnie and Sinha had been summoned to investigate the explosion because the Bodwali Building was one of a portfolio of south and central Indian offices owned by a property developer named Nawal Ajit Kish.o.r.e, a Singaporean Indian. Kish.o.r.e served on the board of East Trade Industries in Singapore, and had decided to exploit the connection to augment the work of the local police.

Wong had agreed to the challenging a.s.signment on the basis that Mr Pun pay a larger-than-usual daily stipend and cover the cost of their being accompanied by Dilip Sinha, who had spent a significant portion of his childhood in Hyderabad.

And he had always enjoyed curries. But not on this trip.

Sinha went to talk to some Hindi-speaking witnesses while Wong and McQuinnie trekked across town to see the munitions specialist used as an expert witness by the police department of Hyderabad for all incidents involving explosions. They found him in a back office of a gla.s.s-walled building near the Osmania University. Despite the modern exterior, his office was in a musty suite of rooms with lines of old wooden desks.

Finding the right room after some difficulty, they discovered that the expert was a surprisingly youthful man named Subhash Reddy. He was a slightly chubby geek of about twenty-six, with thick hair, a solid moustache and a twinkle in his eye. His lashes were so thick Joyce wondered whether he was wearing make-up.

Reddy had been educated for five years in the United States, and he and Joyce immediately hit it off together. The young woman declared that she loved New York and Subhash explained that he hated it-and somehow the conversation brought them together.

'I just hated Central Park,' said Subhash. 'And those uptown buildings where the rich live.'

'Yeah. It's such a majorly cool place. We saw John Lennon's house.'

'And those silly tourist types who think it's cool to go round in a horse-drawn carriage.'

'Yeah. My sister and me went twice. It was so neat.'

'New Yorkers are just all really weird.'

'Totally. We had the greatest time.'

Wong impatiently dragged them back to the question at hand. 'Please tell us about explosion in Pallakiri town.'

Reddy reluctantly took his gaze off Joyce and twirled his seat around to open a cabinet and find a file on the case. He flicked through the sheets and pulled out a typewritten report. 'It was plastic explosive, tightly packed in a small metal container. He opened the container and the thing exploded. Simple as that.'

'Biscuit tin?'

'Smaller, maybe just three or four inches high. More like a tin of tomatoes or something. But not tomatoes-there would have been traces.'

'No tomatoes?'

'No. There were traces of some meat we haven't been able to identify yet. Possibly pork, possibly beef.'

'Religious motive?'

'Maybe. Maybe not. We also found some silver foil that could've come from a chocolate bar wrapper, and some peanuts. The impression I got was that he had been having breakfast or lunch at his desk when he opened the tin containing the bomb.'

'His food kills him. Very not nice,' said the feng shui feng shui master. He had Cantonese blood, and the idea of an exploding meal deeply upset him. master. He had Cantonese blood, and the idea of an exploding meal deeply upset him.

'Not nice. Bombs are never nice,' said Reddy. 'Presumably you have some questions for me?'

Joyce looked at the man's dark eyes. 'Yeah-are you wearing mascara or are your eyelashes natural?'

'I am quite convinced that Delhi belly is all in the mind, Wong.'

An hour had pa.s.sed, and they were taking a lunch break in a small restaurant. Lazy ceiling fans sent down waves of air that mussed their hair rather than cooled their heads. Sinha had ordered a large repast, much to the annoyance of his digestion-challenged colleague. Within ten minutes of ordering, an aromatic array of six curries was spread in bowls across the table.

Sinha waved his large hands around as he spoke. 'Foreigners expect to get upset stomachs here, so they do. Now look at Joyce. She's young. She has not yet acquired the prejudices of adulthood. So her stomach is fine. Yet what has she eaten? She has surely eaten exactly the same things as you have. The same airline food, the same hotel dishes, the same breakfast. If there were germs in it, you would have the same germs. As for me, I have never felt better in my life.' He took a deep breath, waving his hand theatrically, as if to wave more air towards his large nose.

'Amazing colours,' said Joyce, staring at the neon-vivid curries on the table. 'Like, totally psychedelic.'

She put a tiny portion of each one on her plate and tried to guess what they were. She particularly relished some soft lumps presented in a creamy, lemon-yellow sauce.

'That is a humble potato.' Sinha was filled with pride. 'What a bland and uninteresting vegetable the potato is. No taste, no texture and no visual appeal. Yet curry a potato in the correct sauces and it becomes a succulent, delicious, melt-in-the-mouth treat which is perfect, pressed gently into basmati.'

'Mm-mm. How'd you make it?'

'Easy. You simply curry the potato with red onion, dhania powder, mango powder, garam masala, sugar, ginger, jira, dhania, tomatoes, chilli, curry leaves, fennel, all that sort of thing, and gently simmer it for a long time. It turns into what we call a white curry.'

'But it's yellow.'

He was momentarily taken aback. 'We mean white in a metaphorical sense. It has an extremely subtle subtle taste. A white taste.' taste. A white taste.'

His eyes went out of focus again. 'In all parts of India, the potato is revered. In Hindi-and also in Oriya and Punjabi, we call it aloo- aloo-that's the name you'll see on the menu at Indian restaurants around the world. In Malayalam and Tamil, they talk of urula kizangu. urula kizangu. In Bengal, they celebrate the In Bengal, they celebrate the gal alu gal alu, while the people who speak Telungu talk of the alu gaddalu. alu gaddalu. The names have one root, but many rich a.s.sociations. So many t.i.tles for one vegetable.' The names have one root, but many rich a.s.sociations. So many t.i.tles for one vegetable.'

'And French fries. And chips. Those are names for potatoes.'

'They are? I often wondered what they made those disgusting things out of. Poisonous, I believe.' He pressed a lump of potato with his fingertips into the rice and expertly turned it into a little ball that he lifted to his lips. 'Can you guess what the other dishes are?'

'This one's like lentil soup?' Joyce offered.

He nodded. 'Sambar. We call it sambar.'

'And this is okra?'

'More commonly known here as bhindi or lady's fingers.'

Joyce correctly identified the chicken dish and a fish dish, but was baffled by a lumpy, dark brown meat which was rather too chewy for her taste.

'Beef?'

'Certainly not. This is India. Hindus cannot eat beef. Although many historians believe that the real reasons for the non-consumption of our bovine brothers and sisters were actually more practical than religious. In the fifth century, the number of cows in India was diminis.h.i.+ng fast, and it was decreed that the value of a live cow, as an active year-after-year producer of ghee and so on, was far more than the value of a dead cow, as a short-term meal of beef.'

'Is it lamb?'

Sinha shook his head.

'I don't know, then. Is it something rare?'

'Rare in Singaporean restaurants, yes.'

'Crocodile? Tiger? Elephant?'

He shook his head again.

'I give up. It's an unidentifiable meatal substance. Hippo? Rhino? Ostrich?'

Sinha smiled. 'You would call it goat. We call it mutton.'