The Shanghai Union of Industrial Mystics (16 page)

Linyao reported her findings to Sinha before he had even sat down: ‘They kept her blindfolded the whole journey there. She has no idea where they took her. Then they kept the two of them in a room with no windows, and pushed food through a flap in the door. They gave them a pizza between them.’

‘I told them she only likes plain with extra cheese,’ the maid wailed. ‘But they wouldn’t listen. I had to take all the pepperoni bits off myself and eat them.’

‘How is the girl?’

‘She’s okay,’ the two women said together.

Linyao continued: ‘I mean, considering. She wasn’t as upset as Angelita was, she said. There was a colour television in the room and a big pile of DVDs. They watched
Friends
episodes until nine thirty and then Angelita put her to bed.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ the domestic servant said.

Sinha smiled at her. ‘Don’t worry. There’s absolutely nothing for you to be sorry about. None of this was your fault. You did very well in keeping Jia Lin fed and unworried and ensuring that she got enough sleep. You did absolutely the right things.’

Linyao continued: ‘My daughter apparently slept through the night. Angelita stayed up all night trying various ways to break out of the room. She dismantled her watch to try to use the edges of it to unscrew the door hinges. But she got nowhere. The kidnappers fed them at about seven in the morning, and then took Angelita out of the room. There were three or four of them, all masked, some Chinese, some
lao wai
. Before she could get a look at anything, they put a blindfold and a hood on her head and took her out of the apartment.’

‘I begged them not to separate us,’ sobbed Angelita. ‘But they wouldn’t listen.’

‘How did Jia Lin react?’

‘She didn’t say anything. Not while I was being taken away. But I could hear her asking the kidnappers something as they took me out of the door.’

‘What did she ask?’

‘She asked if there were any more
Friends
DVDs.’ The maid looked up at him. ‘Are you a policeman?’

Sinha shook his head. ‘No. I am a master of
vaastu
.’

‘I don’t know what that is.’

‘No matter. I shall explain it to you—on the journey.’

‘Journey?’

He stood up. ‘Come on. Both of you. We’re going for a drive.’

Shortly afterwards, they were in Sinha’s car, a Renault Megane he had hired from the Avis office at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport, on his arrival the previous afternoon. He drove slowly, speaking in his languid drawl. ‘Interesting driving techniques they use here. Rather like India. But slightly less use of the horn. You know they say that in India people use the horn in place of the brake? Whereas here they sort of nestle up against each other and use their size to intimidate other users to give them space. Still, it’s more like India than Singapore. I must switch my brain over to Indian Driving Mode, which will give us a better chance of survival.’

‘What good will this do?’ Angelita asked. ‘I didn’t see anything. I couldn’t see anything. I had this hood thing on. I don’t know where they are.’

‘Let me tell both you ladies about
vaastu
. The
Shilpa
Ratnam
, a Sanskrit book, says “
Vaastu
is the unmanifest.
Vaastu
is the matter of all matter.
Vaastu Purusha
is the spark of the soul within.”
Vaastu
, like feng shui, is really not a thing you can see. It is about awareness—awareness of what you can see and what you can’t see.’

‘Meaning…?’ Linyao’s head was spinning and she was in no mood to concentrate on anything—particularly not a lecture on arcane Indian beliefs.

The old man thought for a moment before continuing: ‘For example, the pupils of your eyes focus on various objects and then move on to other objects. But the peripheries of your vision detect much more—information which you see, but don’t
see
that you see, if you get my meaning.’

Angelita whined: ‘But, sir, I could not see anything at all, from the edges of my eyes or anywhere else. I had a blindfold and a hood, which I had on almost the whole time.’

‘But there’s more to awareness than seeing. Perceiving is not just seeing. There’s so much information that you detect without your eyes. What were you aware of? Where did you feel you were? What did you sense, with your five senses, and your sixth sense? What did you hear? What did you smell, what did you touch, what did you intuit?’

‘Sir, I don’t know what that means.’

‘Never mind, never mind. One detects things in many ways. That’s all I’m saying. That’s the spirit of
vaastu
. One detects bits of things without realising. We need to put it all together. Some people believe that all these underappreciated ways of detecting things add up to something called intuition, which is something that enables us to know things without being told them. Other people think intuition is an entirely different thing; an additional source of information which women in particular have in generous quantities.’

‘But I couldn’t see anything and I didn’t hear anything— any address or anything.’

It was hard to remain patient, but Sinha was aware that an infinite amount of tolerance was necessary. ‘Ms Balangatan— or may I call you Angelita?—you are perhaps not hearing me properly. Which is understandable, since you are very tired, and very worried. What I am trying to say is that it doesn’t matter if you couldn’t see anything clearly, or see anything at all.’ He stopped the car and turned in his seat to look her in the eye, trying to appear serious but kindly, like a family doctor from a television drama.

‘Now, let’s stop here for a minute and gather all the information that is available to us. First, location. In
vaastu
, we always start off with the sun and its relation to us. Because we and the sun change our positions relative to each other, directions and times of the day are where we always begin. Now, Angelita, when you were taken from the school to the place where they kept you overnight, how long was the journey?’

‘Quite far, sir.’

‘Quite far. Can you be more precise? Did you feel yourself travelling a long distance? Or was it just a long time? How long did the journey take?’

‘I don’t know. I couldn’t see my watch or anything. I had my head all covered up.’

‘But how long did it take? There’s a clock in your head, you know, which is good for estimating things. In everyone’s head. Was it half an hour? An hour? Two hours?’

‘It was about an hour. Maybe more.’

‘A lot more, or a little more?’

‘Just an hour, I think, or an hour and ten minutes.’

‘Good. That is nice and precise. Were you moving the whole time, or were you in a traffic jam? Remember, you were close to the middle of town and rush hour was about to start.’

Angelita thought about this for a while. ‘It was stop and start and stop at the beginning, but then we began to go faster, and then it was stop and start and stop again.’

‘Are you aware of turning left or right at any point?’

‘There were lots of turnings, some left, some right. I can’t remember them.’

‘Can you remember the first one? That’s all I am asking for. Was the first turning to the right or left?’

‘It was left.’

‘Okay. Given the location of the school and the direction you were going, that probably puts you on Sichuan Nan Lu heading north. That narrows it down to a place on this part of the map. Possibly Hongkou or Yangpu or somewhere around there. It narrows it down to an area where—just a few million people live.’

Linyao said: ‘If she was driving for an hour and ten minutes, they could be anywhere. You can go a long distance in a good car.’

Sinha shook his head. ‘Yes, but not at rush hour. They snatched them off the street just after five. For at least half that journey, they were moving through rush hour traffic. It would be quite possible to drive for seventy minutes and only travel a few miles, perhaps five. I’ve spent a lot of time in this city on business, and I’ve suffered the rush hour often enough. It seemed to be much worse than usual last night, when I came from the airport.’

‘It’s going to be worse this evening,’ Linyao said. ‘There’s the American President visiting, and the demo. Nothing’s going to be moving.’

The
vaastu
master turned to Angelita again and took both her hands in his. She giggled with embarrassment. Sinha ignored this and spoke with gravitas: ‘Listen to me carefully. Now I want you to think about this morning. Short journeys have more potential to be of help to us than long ones. There are two locations which are relevant to us. The train station where you were released—let’s call that location B. And the location where you and Jia Lin were held. Let’s call that location A.’

‘How do we know she’s still there?’ Linyao asked.

‘We don’t. We don’t know anything. We are working only on probabilities, enhanced by our deductive powers. We work on the basis of anything we can get, including guesswork. But the salient fact is this—the kidnappers went to some lengths to keep Angelita unaware of the address of Location A while releasing her. This strongly suggests that location A remains important to them. They don’t want anyone to know where it is. It may have been just a temporary transfer station or holding pen, but given its importance, it is likely to be more than that. It may be the place where the kidnappers are based, and/or the place where Jia Lin is still being held.’

Linyao nodded.

Sinha drove to the corner of Jiaotong Lu and Hengfeng Lu by the North Railway Station, where Angelita had been pushed out of the car.

‘Which side of the car were you pushed out of?’

‘This side, sir,’ she said, indicating the right.

‘And you landed on the kerb? The pavement, here?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Now that tells us that they were on this side of the road, so came along this way. Where exactly did you land? Where were you when you stood up and took off the blindfold and the hood?’

‘Just there, sir.’

He screeched the Renault to a halt.

‘Okay. So that’s where you landed. Let’s work out where you came from.’ He slammed the car into reverse gear and started driving backwards.

The car squealed at a high pitch. There were shouts and honking of horns, which he ignored. They reached the previous junction. ‘Now, Angelita. Did you turn left or right into this road?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

‘You turned a corner? Which way?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘But you did turn a corner.’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you know you turned a corner?’

‘Because the way the car moved made me lean over until my head touched the window.’

‘Ah. Can you show me?’

Angelita leaned to the left, pretending to knock her head against the car window.

‘Thank you.’ He revved the car backwards and turned it sharply to the right. Angelita, who was not wearing a seatbelt, leaned over and hit her head lightly against the window.

‘Just like that,’ said Sinha. ‘Right?’

She nodded.

The
vaastu
master continued to drive in reverse gear, causing more shrieks and blasts of car horns from shocked motorists behind them.

‘That indicates that you turned sharp right, just here. Then what? Were there any other turns before that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you do any other leaning over?’

‘Yes. I lean over one time before that time.’

‘Did your head touch the window again?’

‘No. It went the other way. There was nothing to lean on. I felt myself leaning against the shoulder of the girl. Leaning to the right, right over, a lot.’

‘The girl?’

‘One of the kidnappers was a young woman.’

‘How do you know the person next to you was a girl?’

‘She smelled like a girl. She was smaller than the others. Her voice came from lower. She was wearing Estée Lauder. White Linen.’

‘And the other one: woman or man?’

‘I think a woman, but I’m not sure. And the driver was a man.’

‘Did the other person guarding you say anything?’

‘No.’

‘Did he or she cough?’

‘Yes, one time.’

‘And from that do you think it was a man or a woman?’

The domestic helper thought for a while. ‘Yes, it was a girl’s cough. A young woman, maybe.’

Sinha nodded. ‘Good detection work, well done. Can you show me exactly how you leaned?’

Angelita listed heavily to the right. ‘The girl’s shoulder was here, and I was pressing on it. For a long time.’

‘Good. That means the car turned sharply left. Any more leaning to the left or right before those two instances?’

‘No. They stopped the car after those two corners.’

‘Now let’s get down to establishing some facts. How long did it take to go from location A, the place where you ate pizza and watched
Friends
, to location B, the station?’

‘Not very long.’

‘Now that’s not a good answer. I don’t need to tell you why. You are an intelligent adult woman. I will ask again: how long did it take to go from location A to location B?’

‘Just a few minutes. Five or ten minutes.’

‘There’s a big difference between five and ten.’

‘I think maybe seven minutes. Or less. Maybe six.’

‘Good. That’s a nice, clear answer. Was the vehicle moving continuously during the six minutes, or did it start and stop a lot?’

‘Mostly it was moving. But it did start and stop a bit.’

‘Did it stop because the traffic lights were red? Or did it get caught in a traffic jam?’

‘How can I tell? I had the hood and the blindfold on.’

‘Traffic jams and traffic lights—and train crossings, come to that—have a different effect on how cars move. Did you hear any beeping noises? Did the car stop moving completely for two minutes, and then move again? Or was it stop-start-stop driving?’

Angelita thought. ‘Both. The first time it was stop-start-stop for a while. And the driver, or someone, was getting very impatient. He kept saying curse words, and things like: “Come on, come on.” Then, after about three minutes of hardly moving at all, we went fast for a while, but then stopped. I think that stop may have been traffic lights.’