Chapter 8 — Calls are not allowed to be hung up

At this time, there was only the sound of the ceiling fan and the occasional keyboard sound in the room. Most of the night shift colleagues had fallen into the familiar slow working rhythm of the time after midnight. Dan dialed the number, held the phone close to his ear, waiting for each ring to pass as his chest tightened.

— Hello, Vinh, listen.

A sleepy voice rang out after three rings, mixed with the sound of a chair creaking as if the listener had just woken up from a resting position in the middle of a shift.

— Mr. Vinh, Dan is here at 115. Sorry for calling at this hour.

— Dan? Why are you calling at this hour? There are no fire alarms in your area.

There was the crackling sound of a walkie-talkie echoing somewhere behind his voice, the familiar work codes of the night patrol force rang out sporadically, showing that he was still on duty, only temporarily stopping to rest between two patrol points.

— Not a fire. I need you to listen to me explain something, it's a bit long but I think it's important.

— Just say it. He's on duty in the area, can't go anywhere, but his ears are free.

Thirty-four years old, with more than eight years working as a regional police officer, Vinh is the type of person who rarely jumps to conclusions, but once he believes in something, he follows it to the end regardless of whether the rules allow comfort or not. Dan once witnessed that during a warehouse fire, when Vinh ignored his superior's warning that "the source had not been verified" and drove to the scene to check first, and it was that decision that helped detect the fire when it was as small as a table.

Dan recounted the entire incident from the beginning, three calls in less than two hours, the frightened whisper of a child, the technique of asking yes or no with the sound of typing, and finally the inference that led to the Lam Dien apartment building in Vong Thuy alley. She spoke quickly but clearly, without adding emotion, just presenting the events in the correct chronological order like the way she always reported to Anh Tuyet and Long.

The other end of the line was silent for a while after Dan finished speaking, only the sound of Vinh's steady breathing, who Dan knew was considering carefully before answering, was not the type of person to rush into making a decision.

— Do you have a specific address? House number, apartment name or something?

— Not yet, sir. I only know that it is Lam Dien apartment building, fourth floor, one of four apartments.

— So that means you have no basis to get a search warrant or even ask the official patrol team to stop by, Dan. If your superiors hear a report based on "the typing sound of an unidentified child", they will immediately ask if you have any more specific evidence.

— I understand that principle, so does my side. To request an official deployment, we need to have clear elements that constitute danger, such as a direct call for help, sounds of violence heard at the time of calling, or an authentic address. Currently, I can only reason logically from a series of yes or no answers.

— Logical reasoning is not a legal basis, Dan, no matter how certain it is in your mind.

— I know. That's why I didn't call your superiors, but called you directly.

— I know. I'm not asking you to mobilize official forces. I just ask you, if possible, to visit that area yourself, like on a normal patrol, to keep an eye out to see if there's anything unusual.

Another silence, longer than the last. Dan heard Vinh move something, perhaps standing up from his chair, footsteps echoing steadily on the tile floor.

— I remember the last warehouse fire, at that time you only relied on a small noise in a fake alarm call to guess the correct location, while my whole team was looking in the wrong direction. I believe your ears, Dan. But this time was different, because it involved him possibly having to knock on people's doors in the middle of the night without any orders in hand.

— I understand your risk. I won't force you to do anything beyond your authority. Just go by and see if there are any unusual signs in that building, if any doors are unusually lit at this hour, if there are any sounds of arguing coming out. If there's nothing, just move on, I won't bother you anymore tonight.

Vinh sighed, but it was not a sigh of boredom, but more like the sigh of a person who was convincing himself to accept a decision that was not easy. He was silent for a few seconds, and in that silence, Dan imagined he was standing in the middle of the small ward police headquarters, holding the phone in one hand, looking out the dark window, weighing between complying with the regulations and listening to an intuition that he had reason to trust.

— I can't promise I'll find anything, that area is very quiet at night, and the lights aren't often bright enough to see clearly. But he will walk sideways, a little slower than usual, keeping his eyes and ears open.

— That's enough.

- Okay. I'm on duty in that area tonight, the patrol route originally went through Vong Thuy alley. He will stop by, treat it as a normal patrol, and not write it down in the official work diary until there is more clarity.

— Thank you very much.

— Don't thank me yet, I haven't done anything yet. Besides, Dan...

— Yes?

— If this is really as serious as you think, and I'm just passing by and taking a quick look from the street, maybe I won't find out anything. Domestic violence doesn't always go out the window.

— I know. But that's the first step I can take now, rather than sitting still waiting for the fourth call without preparing anything.

— I understand. I'm on my way now. If there's anything, please call me back at this number, not through the general switchboard, in case anyone wonders why a local police officer would directly contact a specific switchboard operator in the middle of the night.

- Yes.

— Besides, Dan, if the situation out there is different from what you imagined, for example I knock on the door but no one opens, or something causes me to step back and wait for more grounds, don't blame yourself. There are limitations not due to lack of effort, but because the law is the law.

— I understand you. Thank you for saying that.

The call ended, Dan put down the phone, looked at the clock, it was twelve forty-five minutes. She imagined Vinh putting on a thin sunblock, checking his radio, and walking out of the small ward police headquarters to begin a patrol unlike any other normal patrol in his career.

Bao Ky, who had just finished another call, glanced over to see Dan's expression somewhat more relieved than before.

— Did he agree to help?

— Yes, but just passing by, not officially. If he couldn't find anything more specific, he couldn't do much more than that.

— So should we wait now?

— Now I wait, and hope she calls back before things go too far.

— Do you think Mr. Vinh can find anything?

— I don't know. But at least now there's another set of eyes out there, instead of just us sitting here looking at a circle on the map.

Dan returned to his screen, reopened all the notes from the three calls, skimmed through it again as if hoping to find some detail he had missed. She knew that even though she had taken an important step forward by involving Vinh, the next waiting was the hardest part, because it was out of her control, depending entirely on whether that child would have the chance to touch the phone one more time.

She looked at the team leader's table, Anh Tuyet was nodding slightly at her from afar, an implicit gesture of understanding that did not require words, as if to confirm that she knew what Dan had just done and had no intention of stopping it. That silent agreement, even though unofficial, was enough to make Dan feel that he was not completely alone in his recent decision.

Outside, a patrol motorbike turns into a dark alley, its headlights scanning the moss-stained walls of the Dong Lam area, towards a five-story apartment building with no hallway lights, where behind one of the twenty apartments, there may be a child huddled in the dark, listening to every sound of his house as if listening to the countdown of fate itself.

Dan couldn't see that scene, she could only imagine it through her mind, but she knew one thing for sure: from this moment on, she was no longer the only one staying awake because of a child she never knew.