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fish.
    In seconds, it all came back to her. She had climbed through a window into Tik’s apartment and fallen into something cold and wet. She saw movement in the black water and a shiver of horror ran down her spine as she realised she may have landed on something alive and crushed it. What was that spongy thing she had been lying on?
    As her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, she noticed in the low glow from the edges of the curtains that she was in a large room, and there were many tubs across the floor. Splashing and slithering noises came from all directions. The room appeared to be filled with fish tanks of various sizes. It was like a nightmare.
    She scanned the dark walls for a light switch, but then decided that it would be unsafe for her to touch anything electric, since she was soaked to the skin. Instead, she carefully walked between two tanks to the curtains, and drew them open.
    She turned around and gasped. Wong had told her to expect a couple of fish tanks. But instead, there were at least a dozen, and each was filled with sea creatures—ranging from thrashing giant carp to shoals of brightly-coloured clown fish. There must have been hundreds of fish in the room. Eeew!
    She looked with disgust at the tank she had fallen into and noticed that a large spotted fish half a metre long lay flat and lifeless on the bottom. She must have crushed it to death, she realised with a spasm of repulsion.
    To distract herself from that unpleasant thought, she looked into the other tanks. Many contained beautiful creatures. On her right, she saw a group of luminous fish, glowing green as they darted between strands of seaweed. And to her left, she saw a tank of what looked like tiny sharks. In another tank, tiny orange-tinted turtles swam over glowing, waving blue anemones.
    Something about the blue glow reminded her of the mobile phone in her pocket. She plucked it out and was dismayed to see that it was soaked and the screen was dark. Water dripped from inside the casing. Punching the buttons produced no effect.
    ‘Shoot. Oh well, one problem at a time,’ she said out loud. ‘I’ve got a job to do.’
    The room was smelly but it was not cold. The air-conditioning was off. She was shivering from shock, not chills, she realised.
    She took the lo pan out of her wet bag and carefully picked her way towards a flat surface. Although there was no furniture in the house, the kitchen counter would serve as a desk. She spread out her things upon it, and was glad to find that most of the stuff inside her bag was dry. At the bottom of her satchel, she found a pen that worked and some sheets of paper that were wet only on the edges, and started to work.

    By 3 pm, Wong had done basic readings for most of the main rooms in Tik’s new residence. The colour scheme was disastrous and would have to be adjusted and most of the furniture would have to be changed too. It would take a great deal of work to get the house right, but the feng shui master was pleased at how things had turned out. He knew he would have to be subtle about persuading Tik to make the changes, and they would have to be stretched out over a long period. With a bit of luck, Wong would have repeat fees which would carry him along for weekly visits for three to four months, if not longer. And if the house did start to smell of fish, he could assign Joyce to do all the follow-up visits.
    It was time to head back to the office to start filling slots into his work diary. He rubbed his hands together.

    By late afternoon, Joyce McQuinnie had finished analysing the fish-filled apartment. It had taken her a long time, but she was generally satisfied with her work. There were neat pages of diagrams showing the orientation of each room and the main influences working on the various spaces.
    The rather obvious over-supply of water influence in the rooms had caused her a major challenge, but one she felt she had coped with. She had a list of recommendations that introduced