Chapter 14 — Calls are not allowed to be hung up

Six minutes after that fateful call, when all three people in the on-call room were still sitting silently waiting in an almost suffocating silence, Dan's personal phone vibrated in the drawer. She grabbed it immediately, her heart beating so fast that she could clearly feel her own heartbeat through the tip of her finger pressing the listen button.

— I've arrived.

Vinh's voice rang through the phone, his breathing was rapid as if he had just climbed the stairs quickly, mixed with the sound of the night wind whistling through the receiver, a lively sound completely different from the lifeless silence that Dan had been accustomed to all night. Dan turned on the speakerphone so Anh Tuyet and Bao Ky could listen together. The three of them sat close together around the phone as if gathering around a single fire in the middle of a cold night.

Dan tightened his grip on the phone, signaling Anh Tuyet and Bao Ky to be absolutely silent, even though they both automatically held their breath from the moment they heard the incoming call.

— Where are you in the building?

— I just reached the fourth floor. The stairs were as I described, dark, with only light coming from the dim emergency light in the corner of the wall. The smell of cigarette smoke still lingered, someone must have finished smoking not long ago.

Dan closed his eyes, imagining the scene Vinh was describing, feeling like she was standing there herself, in the musty darkness of an old apartment hallway, her heart beating with every step he took. During eight years of working, she was used to only being able to imagine the scene through sounds and descriptions. She had never witnessed the results of her judgments with her own eyes, but never had that feeling been so intense and real.

— Did you see the apartment license plate? — Bao Ky interjected, his voice was equally tense, completely forgetting his initial doubts.

— Some houses still have the sign, some have fallen off, leaving only nail holes on the door. Wait for me to take a closer look, the light here is too weak.

— You see the apartments on the side facing the tracks?

— Two apartments, just like you said. A green-painted iron door has peeled off, with no light coming through the door. The other room has a wooden door, with a weak light coming from below, which could be a night light or a hallway light in the house.

— Are you afraid? — Dan asked suddenly, not really a professional question, but like a rare human moment between two tense ends.

- Yes. But being afraid that you might be wrong is much more comfortable than being afraid that you might be right and do nothing.

That answer made Dan choke for a moment, a feeling of gratitude rose in her heart for the man standing alone in the middle of a dark hallway, willing to put his entire career on the line just because he trusted the judgment of an operator who had never met the child she was trying to save.

— Did you hear any sounds from those two rooms?

In a short silence, Dan imagined Vinh pressing his ear to each door, trying to listen in the silence of the late night.

— The iron door was completely silent, without a sound. The wooden door... he heard something very soft, like the sound of a TV being turned on low, or maybe a fan.

Dan clenched his hand holding the pen, trying to quickly analyze the information he had just received. A completely dark and silent apartment could be a sign of a family that is fast asleep, or it could be an empty apartment with no one living in it. The other room has low lights and sounds, more suitable for the image of an awake family, where someone is keeping watch, or where a child is still trying to stay awake in the dark.

She remembered details from the fifth call, the sound of a chair falling over, the sound of a man screaming right after waking up on the sofa. If it was true that he had just woken up in anger, it was very likely that the lights in the house were still on before, not having time to turn off in the midst of the chaos.

— What do you think, Ms. Tuyet?

— She leans towards the room with light. A family that is having trouble rarely turns off all the lights, especially if there has just been a fight.

— I think it's a wooden door. — Dan said, her voice trying to stay steady even though it wasn't completely certain. — But I can't be 100% sure.

— I also lean in that direction. But Dan, if you knock on the door and it's just a normal family sleeping, they have the right to report to your superiors about being unreasonably disturbed in the middle of the night, and things will be much more complicated.

— I know. But if you knock on the right door, all those risks will be worth it.

Vinh did not answer immediately. Dan heard the sound of his footsteps moving slowly between two doors, the sound of rubber shoes lightly scraping on the old tile floor, a sound that lasted to the point of extreme tension for the three people with their ears glued to the phone speaker at the other end of the line in the city.

— I'm also considering something else. — Vinh said, his voice lowered to a whisper, perhaps to avoid making noise in the hallway. — If you knock on the wrong door, the person who opens the door will probably call to complain during the night, and the news will reach your superiors before morning. But if you do nothing, and that's true, you will never forgive yourself.

— You're saying exactly what I just said to Tuyet fifteen minutes ago.

— Maybe because we are both facing the same choice, the only difference is that you sit behind the desk, and I stand in front of the real door.

That sentence made Dan silent for a moment, realizing that the burden she was placing on Vinh's shoulders was much greater than what she had imagined when she called him for the first time at twelve thirty-five tonight.

— Okay, I'll try the wooden door first. But give me a few more minutes to observe, I don't want to act too hastily and miss an important sign that could change my decision.

- I know. Just follow your judgment.

Vinh was silent, and in that silence, Dan heard him move a little away from the door, perhaps standing in the corner of the hallway to avoid being detected through the door if someone looked out. She imagined his eyes scanning every smallest detail of both doors: a pair of slippers left outside, a withered potted plant, a faded house number plate.

— Do you see anything?

— There is a pair of children's slippers outside the wooden door, small in size, shaped like rabbits. Next to the iron door was nothing but a pile of old newspapers, which looked like no one had read them for a long time.

The detail of the children's slippers made Dan's heart tighten, a feeling of both hope and fear rising in his chest at the same time. She looked at Anh Tuyet and saw that she was also clasping her hands tightly, her eyes never leaving the phone. Bao Ky sat as still as a statue, his hands clasped together on his thighs, his lips pursed into a tense straight line.

— How old is that shoe size? — Dan asked, trying to find another piece of confirmation.

— I don't know much, but she looks small, probably the size of an elementary school child, about seven or eight years old.

That number exactly matched the age Dan had estimated from the voice from the first call, a small coincidence but enough to strengthen the trembling faith in her heart.

— That could be an important sign.

— I think so too. Okay, I'll knock on that door first.

Dan glanced at the clock, two thirty-two in the morning. Seventeen minutes had passed since the panicked fifth call, long enough for anything to happen behind either of the two doors Vinh was standing in front of.

At that moment, Dan's desk phone suddenly rang, another ring, not from Vinh, but from a familiar number that had been called five times earlier that night.

— Mr. Vinh, wait, she called back!

— Okay, I'll wait. I'll stay here and not knock until you call me back.

Dan quickly switched to the other line, his hands shaking with excitement, while on the other end of the line Vinh was still standing still in the dark hallway, one hand raised close to the wooden door with rabbit-shaped slippers, waiting for the next signal from the person who pulled him into this unofficial investigation.

Anh Tuyet signaled Bao Ky to keep the speakerphone of the call with Vinh on hold, while Dan shifted all his focus to the main headset, preparing to receive whatever was waiting on the other end of the line.