The Devil's Own Chapter 1

December 10th 2006

I stepped into the apartment and hesitated. Just for a second, my eyes drank in the entire scene, trying to get a gut reading of why Amy might have disappeared, taking her kid along with her.

The living area was bright and airy, with the midday sun shining through the wall-length windows. To my surprise, the room felt rather cool. Oh I see. Very nice. I had heard of a new type of windows coated with a film of vanadium dioxide and tungsten. At low temperatures, it allowed wavelengths in both the visible and infrared spectrum to pass through. Once the temperature rose above a certain pre-set, it began to reflect infrared radiation. The technology was relatively new and this was the first time I had seen it. Oh mum really wanted it for the house. Pity it costs that much. The entire area was littered with framed photos of the family.

The first photograph was a shot of Amy hugging her kid, Damien with the neighbourhood swing in the background. Amy was showing one of those picture-perfect smiles and Damien was staring wide-eyed at the camera, with the innocent look only infants can maintain.

Next to it was a large shot of Damien celebrating his first birthday. The cake was a multi-layered chocolate lover’s dream come true with fudge, dark and white chocolate piled on top of one another. The excited toddler was probably supposed to pose with the knife just above the cake but of course Damien had other ideas. Left alone for a split second, he had simply plunged the unwieldy blade into the cake and scooped up a chunk for himself. I held onto it for a moment before replacing it, it was just too funny.

Another picture that caught my eye was one where Damien was attempting to stand by himself and Amy was by his side cheering him on. Amy’s expression was one of ecstatic delight Look he’s standing! My baby is standing!

As I looked around the living area, I had to tread carefully to avoid stepping on old issues of Young Parent, countless Enid Blyton titles as well as several volumes of Harry Potter scattered haphazardly on the floor. The reddish brown mahogany shelf next to the TV was packed with perennial kids favourites like Barney and Friends and Hi-5 (looks like every show they ever performed was available). So this is what happens when you become a parent haha

“So do the two of you watch anything other than Sesame Street? Teletubbies perhaps?” I jokingly asked Mr Yong.

He frowned a little and glanced at the shelf before giving a shrug, “I don’t know. You would have to ask Amy, she bought all this stuff, for Damien you know. Maybe you can find it in the other drawer?”

OK. That was weird. He must be really freaked out by his wife’s disappearance. Or maybe they don’t watch DVDs. These business type have no time for anything other than greenbacks.

Damien’s room was painted a soothing blue with life-sized posters of Shrek, Toy Story and Cars along the walls. His bed had a duvet cover featuring space rockets, planets, stars and astronauts with a navy background. Emblazoned on the bedpost was the title SPACE CADET. Underneath the matching pillow, I uncovered a diary used by Damien.

I flipped through the pages quickly. Every date in it contained a well-drawn sketch. There were many of his room, his classmates in school, his desk, and the playground. Most of the sketches were of Amy. She was placing plates at the dining table, she was kissing her husband, she was sleeping on the sofa, she was arranging the flowers. What was amazing was how detailed the sketches were. Using just a pencil, Damien had managed to bring out a sense of depth and shape in his drawings, making them also life-like in quality. This was the work of an extremely talented boy especially since he was only seven. As I passed the last entry dated 5th December this year, Mr Yong stepped forward and clumsily plucked it out of my hands.

“He was always good at drawing. Ever since he got his hands on a pencil, he had always preferred sketching to anything else. Now that he’s gone, this sketch book is all that I have left of him.” he said distantly as he slipped it into his pocket. I thought of asking for it again so I could check through it more thoroughly for any clues but decided that it would be of little use.

Next, Mr Yong led me to Amy’s personal area in their master bedroom. There were several framed photos of Amy in her younger days. Most of them were of Amy with her friends or with her parents. There was also one of Amy with her friends during their university graduation ceremony. I did a thorough search of her belongings but ended up frustrated. There was nothing that could shed insight on Amy’s situation. I had hoped to unearth perhaps a diary or some letters or any item that could help in the investigation. Earlier on, when Mr Yong had given me access to her email account, there was nothing in her inbox except for spam mail and some letters from her fellowship group, which only congratulated her on the success of the charity sale last month. I was feeling more and more uneasy about the case. It was as if someone did not want us to find Amy and Damien.

As I lifted up the last stack of bills on her table, an olive-green pill slipped out onto the table. It was labelled R 4. Finally, something I can use! I picked it up and showed it to Eric.

“Was Amy under any kind of any medication recently? Or… was she having any drug problems?”

He laughed it off, “Oh yeah, Amy suffers from gastric pains. That must be one of her pills.”

Nevertheless, I kept the pill and made a private note to check it out later. It may or may not amount to anything. My eyes drifted over to the small pile of books on her desk. Something about them didn’t feel right. Semiconductors in Industrial Applications.101 Personal Finance Planner. Getting Started in Internet Investing. Executive Thinking: The Dream, The Vision, The Mission Achieved.

“Amy loves reading. You should see her at night after Damien is in bed, you wouldn’t be able to separate her from her book! Even when we are watching the television, she just can’t put it down.”

Maybe but I will bet those aren’t what she was reading before she left. So why did you replace her books? What was she reading?

My time here was almost up and I turned to Mr Yong again. The visit had created more questions than answered and I needed to find out more.

“Mr Yong, can you just tell me everything you can remember about Amy and Damien’s disappearance again? Are you sure you didn’t leave out any bit of information that could help us in the case?” Are you hiding something from us?

“Alright. Yesterday evening, when I returned from work, I found the apartment empty. Usually, Amy would prepare dinner and wait for me to come home for dinner together. At first I thought something had happened to them but when I checked the entire house, everything looked normal. There was nothing missing or messed up so it could not be a burglary right? It was as if they just left. I don’t know why.”

Eric looked rather distraught at the moment and I considered whether to press him any further.

“She was always there for me. Even during the times when my business was going through a rough patch, she never spoke a word of complaint. She just gave me her full support and told me she believed in me. That helped. A lot.”

“She gave up her career for me. For us. Damien meant the world to her and she didn’t want anyone else to care for her. She quit her job as a teacher even though it was her passion. She said she would go back again once Damien was old enough. She was the perfect mother, she really loved Damien and we were doing fine and I don’t know why she would just leave and disappear and…”

I was biting my lip as I listened to Eric. He had an impeccable record, both professional and personal. He had completed his further studies abroad, returning with a Masters in Information Systems a few years ago. Not long after, he had set up Global Solutions with his partner and old friend, Timothy. The company had its ups and downs but it seemed to be growing well. Eric had no record of any past criminal offences and there was no conceivable reason why he would have anything to do with her disappearance.

And yet he was hiding something from me. I was sure of that. I had found whatever I could here. I thanked Eric and let myself out of the apartment.