“I don’t understand,” Eliza said. “The police already have the thieves in custody, what else are we looking for?”
“If Watson thinks it’s important, it’s likely to be important,” I replied, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. I ignored Wendy’s grossed-out look as Dad handed me a tissue. “Also, we haven’t actually found the vanished robot yet.”
We were all gathered in our hotel room, snacking on the goreng pisang that Dad had bought from one of the street stalls on the way back to the hotel.
“Shouldn’t we get Watson to play the recording instead of snacking?” Wendy asked.
Eliza smirked and even Nazhar couldn’t hold back his smile. Jimmy continued to jump on the bed in his socks.
“A full stomach is essential to clear thinking,” I replied, wiping the last bit of grease from my chin. “Watson, please proceed with the recording.”
“I-only-managed-to-get-a-voice-recording-as-I-was-invisible,” Watson said. A whirring sound emerged from his torso and then we heard two male voices speaking:
“WE FOUND A BUYER.”
“MEET AT?”
“ET TIAM PNUA.”
“AIRPORT, ISSIT?”
“YAH, HEH PENG.”
“BETTER TELL HER WE FOUND A BUYER. QUICK, QUICK. IT’S TOMORROW, RIGHT?”
“TOLD HER ALREADY.”
It ended there. “That-is-the-important-part,” Watson said. “The-rest-of-the-time-they-talked-about-where-to-find-the-best-kopi-susu.”
“What’s an et tiam pnua?” Nazhar asked, badly mangling the pronunciation.
“What’s a heh peng?” Eliza asked as well. Her pronunciation was a little bit better.
“Dad, do you know what those words mean?” I asked.
He shrugged and said, “It’s probably Hokkien, which I don’t really know as we found out earlier. I only studied Mandarin in school like you kids.”
“Maybe we can search for the meaning of the words on the Internet,” I said.
“How do you spell pnua? Does it have an ‘h’ or a ‘w’?” Wendy asked. I didn’t know the answer to that unfortunately. Chinese can be tricky. The way a word sounds can be very different from the way it is spelled alphabetically.
“Hmm, let’s see what we can understand then,” I said. “They mentioned an airport. Maybe she’s meeting a buyer at the Penang Airport.”
“How do you know for sure it’s a she, Sherlock?” Wendy asked.
“You need to listen more closely, Wendy,” I said. “The man on the recording clearly says ‘better tell her quick’.”
“Oh yah,” Wendy said.
“And we know that it’s tomorrow,” Eliza added. I nodded.
“Isn’t that enough?” Wendy asked.
“We still don’t know what time they will be meeting, or where,” I said. “Perhaps et tiam pnua is the name of a place at the Penang airport? It’s said in response to the question ‘meet at?’ So that would make sense.”
“The best way to figure this out would be to let Sergeant Huda and her team listen to the recording,” Dad said. “There has to be someone in the police force who can understand Hokkien.”
Just then, the connecting door opened and Mom stood in the doorway. Dad waved happily, with one hand still holding onto his half-eaten goreng pisang.
“Did you let the kids eat goreng pisang just before dinner?” Mom asked Dad, looking disapprovingly at the empty greasy brown paper bags littering the bedroom tables.
He grinned and shrugged. Mom shook her head and pursed her lips.
“We have another break in the case, Mom!” I said. “Watson, play the recording again, just so that we don’t miss anything important.”
Watson played it again while Mom listened intently. “So they’re supposed to meet in the afternoon?” Mom asked. “That’s right after our flight at 11.50am tomorrow.”
“How did you know that?” I asked.
“It says so on the recording,” Mom replied. “They say ‘et tiam pnua’.” Mom’s pronunciation was pitch perfect.
“That means afternoon?” Nazhar asked.
“Well, it means 1.30pm to be exact,” Mom replied.
“What about heng peng?” Eliza said, continuing to mispronounce the words.
“You mean ‘heh peng’, and I believe it means ‘there’,” Mom said. “My Hokkien is rather rusty. What does that mean to this case?”
“Over at the Penang Airport one presumes,” I said. “Thanks, Mom! You might have helped us catch the buyer! How come you could understand what they were saying?”
“I’m Peranakan-Hokkien, Sam,” Mom replied. “I grew up listening to your grandparents speak Hokkien. But nowadays, most children use English or Mandarin and not that many understand dialect. And unfortunately, my Hokkien isn’t that great any more.”
“I-think-it-would-be-interesting-to-learn-Hokkien,” Watson said.
“Me too!” Jimmy said.
“Ugh, more Chinese,” Wendy said.
“Maybe you should practice your Mandarin first,” Mom said, but she was smiling. Wendy wrinkled her nose. Chinese was her weakest subject in school.
“Okay, so this is what we know,” I said. “We know that the thieves have arranged to meet the buyer at the Penang Airport at 1.30pm tomorrow. What we don’t know is if they were intending to sell just the wire art or if they also intended to sell the antique tin robot.”
“Wait, how do we know that they are the same thieves who stole the robot?” Eliza asked.
“Did you forget?” I said. “Uncle Ben said that the tattooed man tried to sell him the robot.”
“Eliza wasn’t there, Sherlock, remember?” Nazhar said, giving Eliza a sidelong glance.
“Yeah, she got bored and left,” Wendy said, making a face. Eliza frowned and looked down at her feet.
“Well, anyway,” I continued. “I think this is definitely important enough to give Sergeant Huda a call, right, Dad?”
Dad nodded and made the call. Once he put down the phone he turned to us and said, “Sergeant Huda says that she’ll meet us at the airport tomorrow to say goodbye.”
“But what about the case?” I asked.
“She says that she’ll have her team patrol the airport from early morning until the evening,” Dad said.
“I think you’ve done enough here, Sam,” Mom said. “Maybe we can do something fun tonight? We are on a holiday after all.”
Everyone nodded and Jimmy cheered though he still looked a little worried.
“Jimmy, your mom said she would meet us for dinner, okay?” Mom said. “She just needs to settle some accounting and insurance paperwork before her accountant leaves for Singapore tomorrow.” That seemed to cheer Jimmy up a bit more and he grinned his silly Jimmy-grin.
I didn’t like leaving a case unresolved. I really wanted to find Jimmy’s mom’s stolen tin robot before we left Penang.
“I wish my mom’s robot would turn up soon though,” Jimmy said. “I know she’s super worried.”
“Don’t worry, Jimmy,” Nazhar said. “It’s just a matter of time before the police find it hidden with the rest of the stuff they found in the warehouse.”
I hoped that would be the case, but I really wanted to be the one to do it. And why did I still feel like I had missed something important?