Chapter 7 — The One Who Counts Bridges

The cassette player could not read the second side of the tape, only emitting a long hissing sound and a steady tapping rhythm as if someone was tapping a table with a fingernail. Tung sat on the floor, removed each small screw from the machine's lid, and arranged them in two rows on a white sheet of paper.

“If you break any more, Uncle Nhuan will fire me,” he said.

“If we don't destroy it, we still can't hear it,” Khai replied.

“Do you know how to fix it?”

“Know how to keep the device from being electrocuted.”

Yen put down two cups of coffee. "Can you two talk more quietly? I'm rewriting Mr. Minh's dialogue."

Linh An stood by the window of the cooperative, looking at the low clouds pressing on the city. From here you can see the Old Ben Cu Bridge and the two new bridge spans with scaffolding up. The power lines running between the roofs are like another layer of map, no one draws it but everyone has to live by it.

After the server lost connection, Diem discovered that the entire workstation had been logged out. There were no signs of malicious code, but the system logs showed that an external device had requested to sync the inventory folder for exactly three minutes. The sender could not retrieve the file because Diem had turned off the power, but some temporary copies on Linh An's computer disappeared.

“The crime scene photos are still on the camera,” Diem said. “But yesterday's coordinates only have paper copies left.”

“Does anyone know if I saved a copy on an external drive?” Linh An asked.

“If you know, there's no need to guess.”

Linh An took the hard drive from the locker. The indicator light is still on. She opened the folder and saw that the three coordinate files were intact but the modification date had been changed to today. This is not content editing, just changing the timestamp. One person wanted to make the data look like it was created after Thinh died.

“They don't need to delete it,” Yen said. “Just make it harder for us to prove it came first.”

“Field data with imaging time.”

“If the photo was taken with my camera, they would tell me to recreate it.”

“Then use Khai's device.”

Khai looked up. “My phone is not connected to my phone.”

“That's the advantage.”

They checked the memory card of the old camera Khai used when he was on the maintenance team. Photos of bridge girders from three days ago are still intact in the folder, along with the device's time data. A low-angle photo, in the background showing the connecting section and painted patch number thirteen.

“I don't remember taking this,” Khai said.

“Automatic camera?”

"Are not."

Tung picked up the phone and turned it over. There was a cut on the strap and then it was tied.

“Someone borrowed the phone,” he said.

"Who?"

“I don't know.”

Linh An enlarged the photo. At the edge of the frame, a hand rests on the beam. There are light burns on the wrist. That person is holding a small piece of metal, possibly the code plate that was removed from the bridge.

“If you zoom in further, the image breaks,” Khai said.

“But the burn is still a detail.”

“Whose burns?”

"The person who delivered the memory card. Maybe half the city's welder."

Tung put the cassette player cover back. "Uncle Nhuan said there was a person named Phuc who worked in the material warehouse and his hand was burned while welding the bridge frame. But Phuc has retired."

“Where do you know?”

“People under the bridge talk to each other.”

“So do you know where he is?”

Tung nodded. "In the boarding house behind the bus station. But the person who gave the card was not Phuc. Phuc was limping."

Linh An did not ask further. Tung often hears things that adults ignore, but he is not a data warehouse to always open when needed. She just wrote down the address, promising to come with him if he wanted.

At noon, Yen brought a copy of the death record of Thinh provided by a hospital source. She did not take the original, did not write down unnecessary information. The preliminary report recorded the time of death at 6:20 a.m., while the server account logged in at 9:17 a.m. But the login address may have been automated by the machine, which does not prove that Thinh is still alive.

“There is another detail,” Yen said. "The apartment door was not broken. The phone was found on the table, but the glass of water in the kitchen had the second person's fingerprint."

“Do the police know yet?”

"I know. But the fingerprints haven't been identified yet."

“The station should not report this news.”

Yen looked at her. "I know."

"Not because of fear. Because it pushes the story of a murder when we have no basis."

"I know."

Yen pulled out another piece of paper. "I want to find the person who rented the server. Not the killer."

Linh An nodded. She began to believe Yen not because Yen was always right, but because she knew to stop before turning a question into a headline.

In the afternoon, the group went to the boarding house behind the bus station. Tung went first, pointing to the room at the end of the hallway. Phuc is not there. The tenant next door told him to go work at the scrapyard. On the door there is a bridge-shaped keychain with a broken span in the middle.

Khai recognized the keychain. “Maintenance team distributed to workers on the inauguration day of Bridge Number Seven.”

“Blessed to keep it?” Linh An asked.

“Many people keep.”

Tung bent down to pick up a piece of paper from the crack in the door. On it was written the phone number and appointment time of 9:17. No name.

“Are you sure you want to go along with this?” Linh An asked.

“You've been following me since before I knew it.”

“But you can stop now.”

Tung looked at the row of rented rooms, where night shift workers were sleeping behind half-closed doors. "My father looks after the bridge. If they remove the walkway, my father will lose his job. I don't want to make a living by repairing cars forever."

“What do you want?”

"I'm taking the exam to get into the electrical industry. But if you want to take the exam, you have to have electricity to fix it."

Khai smiled very lightly. “Target can hear it.”

At the scrapyard, they found Phuc disassembling an old motor. He is about forty, walks with his left leg dragging slightly. The burn on the hand does not look like the photo: the right hand has a scar, the left hand is normal.

“Who told you to come?” Phuc asked.

“We're looking for someone who worked on the maintenance team,” Khai replied.

“I work in many places.”

“Did you give the memory card to Linh An?”

Phuc looked at her, then looked at the street. "Are not."

“Did anyone ask you to monitor the bridge?”

"Are not."

“Do you know anyone with a burn on their left hand?”

“There are all kinds of welders.”

Phuc picked up the wrench and tapped the motor housing. "You guys come and ask the dead people, the fired people, the sales people. What's the point of asking? New bridges are still built, walls are still falling, people with money still take the high road."

“I don't promise to stop new bridges,” Linh An said. “I just want to know which road will be available when the water rises.”

“You know?”

“At least people have the right to know.”

Phuc smiled. “The right to know you can't pay the rent.”

“But not knowing can cause them to die.”

He looked at her longer. “You look like your father.”

“You ever met my father?”

"I once signed for his tools. He counted each screw before handing it out, making the whole team angry."

“So you know about the bridge collapse?”

"I know an appendix was taken that day. I don't know who took it."

“Have you seen anyone's left hand burn?”

Phuc pointed to an iron barrel. "Ask Mr. Quang Huy. He has a mark on his left wrist from when the scaffolding burned."

Huy is the director of Cau Moc joint venture. Linh An recorded it, but did not consider it as evidence. Before they left beach, Phuc called after him.

"If you meet Huy, don't ask him about the dead. Ask him how he knows the time is 9:17."

“You know too?”

"Everyone who has been under the bridge for a long time knows. That is the hour when the old flood bell rings."

On the way back, Khai explained: twelve years ago, the warning system used a water level measuring station near Bridge Number Seven. When the water exceeded the threshold, the siren sounded at 9:17 a.m. during the biggest flood. The station was dismantled after the collapse.

“So 9:17 is not a unique code,” Linh An said.

“No. But the person who wants to refer to the water line will choose that time.”

At night, they returned to the cassette player. Tung found a replacement belt from the old music player. The tape ran for another forty seconds. After the cut, Van's voice appeared, small but clear.

“If I sign, will Mr. Hoa still be able to work?”

One person replied: "Get support first. Work will come later."

“Will he be held responsible?”

“If the final data is correct, no one will pursue anyone.”

Hoa's voice interjected: "The final version is not correct."

The sound of a chair falling. Then there was a loud crash, then Van called out someone's name. Not Hoa's name.

“Minh,” she said. “Mr. Minh, what are you doing?”

The tape stops.

In the room, no one spoke. Khai removed his hand from the machine. Yen turned off the recording light. Linh An looked at her mother standing outside the door. Van listened to this part through a small speaker placed on the table.

“Mom, you know Mr. Minh pushed dad down?” Linh An asked.

"I don't know what he did. I just heard the sound."

“Why didn't mom say anything?”

“Because then your father stood up.”

“Is he injured?”

“Yes. But he said it was okay.”

“What about mom?”

Van raised her left hand and touched the scar. "Mom got burned when the cassette player fell into the kettle. She wasn't pushed."

Linh An listened, but that distinction didn't make things any easier. One person can be pushed, another person can be forced to sign, and both disappear from the record.

Yen put the bandage in a box. “We need to determine if the audio is spliced.”

Diem checks head, speed and background noise. She said it was impossible to conclude the original sound just from the machine in the room. Need another copy or someone who knows the tape structure.

Mr. Bay listened over the phone and did not ask to send files. “The tape is cut,” he said. “But the rest is enough to know they started doing something wrong before the bridge collapsed.”

“Do you know who cut it?” Linh An asked.

"The cutter left two minutes and seventeen seconds. If they wanted to erase it, they would have taken the tape."

“So who do they want to listen?”

“People who know how to listen.”

At the end of the day, Linh An returned to the restaurant. Mom had emptied the compartment under the stairs, leaving only the cassette player and a cleaning cloth. She put the house key on the table.

“I can't let you continue to stay here,” Van said.

"Why?"

"They came to ask where your mother was, what she was doing, and if she had talked to Mr. Bay."

"Who?"

“The men in blue.”

“You want me to go for them?”

“I want you to go because I'm afraid I'll sign again.”

Linh An looked at the key chain. “What will mom sign this time?”

“The paper kicked me out of the house.”

She spoke without crying. That's what made Linh An not know how to react.

Outside, ambulance sirens echoed from the new bridge area. An announcement on the ward loudspeaker reminded people not to go near the construction site. The wall clock jumped to 9:17.

Van turned the key in her hand, placing it down between the two of them.

“You leave tomorrow morning,” she said. “Don't bring your father's map with you.”

Linh An did not answer. She just took Mr. Bay's paper, which had a line on it address of the person receiving the measurement, then place it next to the key.

A house is chasing her away. A dead person needs her vindication. A bridge has an extra span that no one accepts. And in the middle of it all, her mother still stood there, holding the end of her testimony like a dull knife.