At the bedroom door, she hides behind the wall and peeks in. Her heart is throbbing so hard it feels like it’s going to burst out of her chest. It surely will if the pantyhose mask man is in there. What am I supposed to do, fight him with this? She looks at the weapon in her hand. Era almost cries at the pathetic idea that she can take on the rapist with a kitchen knife.
Something inside her says, It’s better to fight and die than be subjected to the degrading act again.
Era pulls herself together and scans her bedroom, looking for signs that the rapists are lying in wait. She sees nothing. She gets down on all fours and looks under the bed. Nothing. She lets out a sigh of relief.
While she’s still on all fours, her cell phone gives out a series of knocking sounds, the notification of incoming WhatsApp messages. The noise makes her jump out of her skin. She scrambles to her feet, the knife gripped tightly, at the ready as she runs to the front door. Then she realizes what the sound was. With her heart still pounding like a jackhammer, she swears loudly. Fishing the cell phone from inside her pocket, she sees a string of WhatsApp texts from her secretary.
They read:
OMG boss.
Is it you?
Check out utube-era’s salvation.
Era rushes to her bedroom to get her laptop. Realizing she’s still holding the knife, she throws it on to the bed. Grabbing her laptop from her work bag, she hurries out to the living room, sits on a sofa, and switches it on. She keys in www.utube.com on the search bar, her hands shaking. When the site appears, she searches Era’s Salvation. A series of thumbnails of videos appear. One of them shows her tearful face.
She clicks on the video with a feeling of dread. Straightaway, she sees a pantyhose-masked man walking toward a sleeping figure on a bed. She cringes in horror as the voiceover says: Freeing Era Amilia.
“How did he know my name?” she whispers.
Her eyes widen, staring at the laptop unblinkingly.
The rapist covers her mouth with his hand, his face moving close to her ear. In his other hand a knife he held to her cheek. Her hand moves to her cheek. She felt the cold steel. She opens her eyes. The video zooms in on her terrified face, the blade pressed to her skin. The pantyhose man cuts her bra, and his latex-gloved hand fondles her breasts.
Era feels nauseated. The room begins to spin. My secretary has seen this. That means the whole office must have seen it.
The video is still playing. She can hear the pantyhose man’s hoarse voice telling her she will be free. Era closes her eyes tightly, screams, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” She clamps her ears with the palms of her hands, but she’s still hearing him. Not from the laptop. The playback is in her head.
She springs to her feet, angrily swiping the laptop off the coffee table and sending it flying to the floor. Somehow, the crash causes the video to pause. The living room starts to spin slowly, then faster and faster. She feels like throwing up. Clutching her stomach, she dashes to the balcony for fresh air. Bending over the parapet, she tries to throw up—only water and tangy saliva come out. She bangs the railings repeatedly, sobbing and asking, Why me? Her mind races. Who else has seen it? My boss, my clients, friends? Surely Tim. Oh my God, my parents, my sister, she’s always on UTube. My life’s ruined.
The landscaping, the guardhouse, the swimming pool, the tennis court, the distant hill—they all are spinning. Era looks up to the blue sky, the puffy white clouds, and sees the smiling pantyhosed faces. Then she hears him asking, “Did you enjoy it?” and his laugh. The laughter grows louder and louder. Era turns away from the balcony, and she hears the apartment building’s noises: children crying, the elevator bell dinging as it stops on the floor above, the thud of doors closing and the flushing of toilets in the building. All these welcome, familiar noises suddenly sound like they’re mocking her, chanting, “Era was raped … Era was raped.”
Era turns to face the balcony, gripping the concrete parapet tightly. The chanting in her head stops. Breathing heavily, she looks up to the sky. The clouds are coming together. It seems like they’re coming closer. As they do, they change into the faces of her boss, coworkers, friends, even complete strangers. They are all grinning and sneering at her, chanting, “Cleanse your body, cleanse your soul.”
“From what? I didn’t do anything wrong,” Era shouts to them and weeps.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is you were raped and you need to cleanse your soul.”
“How?”
“Come with us, we’ll help you, and you won’t remember any of it.”
Several white hands extend from the sky toward her.
“Trust us, this is the only way.”
Era climbs onto the parapet, arms reaching for the white hands from the sky to freedom.
8
DETECTIVE DEENA IS AT the Putra Ria Condominium to look in on Era. Walking up to the apartment building from visitor parking, she notices a large crowd including two uniformed policemen at the upper-level open parking lot. She pushes through the crowd. A body dressed in jeans and a pink T-shirt is sprawled awkwardly on the tarmac in a pool of blood. The hands and legs are twisted, and bones can be seen protruding from them. It looks like the body fell from the building—probably a jumper. The jumper’s face is facing the opposite direction—If there is still a face, Deena thinks, but from the body size and hair, she believes it is most likely a woman. Blood spatter can be seen as far as several feet around the body.
“What happened?” Deena asks the policemen.
“She fell from up there,” one of the policemen says, pointing up toward the apartment building.
“Jumper?” she asks.
“Don’t know.”
“Who’s she?”
The policemen shrug.
“What’s the name of the deceased?”
Again the two policemen shrug.
“Didn’t you ask around? What the hell are you here for?” Detective Deena snaps.
“We just got here,” one answers.
“Era!” shouts a man in the crowd who was eavesdropping.
Deena turns to the man.
“Era Amilia, from the ninth floor?”
“Unit 9.01.”
“Shit,” she curses under her breath.
Deena steps away from the crowd and calls her boss. Sherry, who is driving out to meet friends for tea, calls one of them to apologize for not being able to make it. She makes a detour to Pantai Dalam. Deena is waiting for her at the visitor parking, and together they walk to the upper-level open parking.
The body is already covered with a plain light-colored blanket, probably given by one of the more sensitive residents. Deena introduces Sherry to the policeman on guard. They step up to the covered body. Deena lifts the blanket for her boss to take a peek. Sherry bends down, her lips moving as if saying something or offering a prayer. She inhales deeply, gestures to her detective to cover the deceased.
On the ninth floor, they find the assistant officer in charge of Pantai Police Station, Sergeant Major Rashid, and his team huddled in discussion in front of Era’s unit. Approaching them, Sherry introduces herself.
“What’s the situation?” she asks.
“The door is locked from the inside. I’ve called for a locksmith to pick it,” Rashid says, pointing to a Chinese man sitting at the emergency staircase. “He managed to pick both the knob lock and the dead bolt, but we still can’t open the door. The locksmith suspected it has a bolt, you know, the night latch.”
“What’s the plan?”
“We’re waiting for the OCS’s instructions.” The OCS Rashid mentioned is his superior, the officer in charge of a police station.
“Have you called D10?”
Rashid nods. His cell phone rings, and he steps aside to answer it. Coming back, he displays a look of uncertainty. Sherry gives him a questioning gaze.
“OCS says to get one of the men to come in from the tenth floor through the balcony.”
“That may not be a good idea,” Sherry counters
.
She asks for the OCS’s contact number. Taking out her cell phone, she makes a call.
“Evening, sir, this is Inspector Sherry from D11. SM Rashid says you’ve given instruction for him to get a man onto the balcony from the higher floor.”
“Hi Sherry, what’s a Sexual & Child Abuse investigator doing at my suicide scene?”
“She’s a victim in my case, or shall I say, was a victim in my case.”
“Oh, I wasn’t informed. SM Rashid says the door is bolted from the inside. Entering through the balcony seems the best option without breaking down the door.”
“Sir, the balcony could be a critical site for recovering any evidence of struggle. Coming through it may destroy the integrity of any evidence there. Since the door is bolted from the inside, it’s better to force it open, as I’m certain there would not be any tampering of evidence.”
“You think it wasn’t a suicide?”
“It probably was, unless there’s another way out of the apartment. My victim was experiencing PTSD, and the doctor had admitted her for observation, but then she checked herself out. I just want to be sure that there was no foul play.”
“PTSD? What’s that?”
“Post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“Wow. If you use big words like that, how can I say no?” the OCS jokes. “Go ahead. Do it your way.”
“Thank you, sir,” she says. Terminating the call, she says to SM Rashid, “We’re going through the front. Where’s the locksmith?”
A middle-aged Chinese man who was sitting quietly at the emergency staircase is pushed forward.
“Can you open the door by cutting around the night latch?” Sherry asks.
The locksmith knocks the door lightly with the handle of a screwdriver, listening to the sound.
“I have to cut a hole around here,” he says, making a circle on the door with his finger. Then he flashes a youthful grin, saying, “I don’t have my drill with me.”
“Maybe the management office has a power drill?” Deena says. “l’ll go ask.”
“The management office is closed,” one of the policemen informs.
“Can someone get the security to call the management staff in?” SM Rashid barks.
“Hang on,” Sherry says. “SM, can you get me a carjack?”
Sergeant Major Rashid nods and instructs one of his men to get one from the patrol car. Turning back to Sherry he asks, “What do you want it for?”
“See those flip windows? We can go in through there. Use the jack to pry open the grille. That way, we won’t damage the door, in case D10 needs to examine it.”
“Good idea.”
Using the carjack, they open a gap in the security grille of the kitchen window. The flap-window opening is small but large enough for a small person to squeeze in. Sherry looks around for someone small to climb through it, and her eyes stop at Detective Deena.
“Oh no,” her detective says, backing away.
“You’re the smallest.”
“It’s not ladylike,” she protests. “And I don’t want their grubby hands all over me,” she says, indicating the policemen.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be gentle.” one policeman says, and the rest laugh.
“Come on, Deena, show the men that we women are up to any challenge,” Sherry coaxes her.
Deena grunts and relents. “Any one of you touches me in the wrong place and you’ll be eating my shoes.”
Two policemen lean against the wall and lock their hands together, creating a human ladder. Deena places her right foot on the hands of the policemen, holding on to their shoulders.
“Turn your faces away,” she snarls at them.
She reaches up and grabs the lower frame of the window, and the policemen give her a lift.
“Stop, stop,” she yelps. “I can’t go in headfirst. I need to get my legs in before the rest of me.”
She climbs back down. After a short banter with the policemen, she agrees to be hoisted up by two of them so she can push her legs through the window first.
“Careful that she doesn’t cut herself on the broken grille,” Sherry warns them.
Facing outward, Deena hangs on tightly to the window frame, feeling for a foothold on the kitchen cabinet, testing its strength. She spreads her other leg wide to distribute her weight on the cabinet top, before taking her grip off the window frame. One of her legs knocks over a cooking utensil, sending it tumbling to the floor with a racket.
“Oops!” she exclaims with a grin through the window.
“What was that, what did you knock?” Sherry asks.
“Frying pan. I’m in,” she calls out, stating the obvious, drawing applause from the group outside.
“We can see that. Don’t go breaking anything else,” Sherry calls back. “Now, move along the wall and open the door. Be sure to put on your gloves.”
“OK.”
Sherry hears the sound of the night latch sliding. The door cracks open, and Deena’s face beams at them.
“Yes, ma’am, may I assist you?” she jokes, role-playing a housemaid.
“Funny,” Sherry says, glaring at her. Turning to the group, Sherry says, “SM, just the photographer in. The rest can wait outside.”
In the living room, she spots the laptop on the floor and warns them, “Watch where you step.”
They tread carefully through the living room to the balcony.
“Apart from the laptop, nothing else seems to be broken or out of place. No signs of struggle,” Deena observes.
“What do you think happened here?” Sherry asks no one in particular. “Are you taking photos of all this?” she asks the photographer.
The photographer nods. Snapping on a pair of gloves, Sherry flips open the screen of the laptop and reads it. She makes a note and says to the photographer, “Can you bag the computer? I’ll need Forensics to look at it later. Deena, can you look for her cell phone?”
Deena comes out of the bedroom with Era’s cell phone and hands it to her.
“I think you should come and see the bedroom,” she tells the inspector.
“Why, what’s there?”
“There’s a knife on the bed.”
“Knife, you mean there’s a sign of struggle in there?”
“Hard to say, the bed seemed to be the same as we left it last night. I mean bare after D10 took the bedsheet and blanket. But when we left there was no knife on the bed.”
Sherry enters the bedroom, sees the knife on the bed. She examines the room for signs of commotion but does not see any.
“Why do you think the knife is here?” she asks her detective.
Deena shrugs.
“Deena, go check the kitchen and see if you find other knives. This looks like a kitchen knife.”
Deena leaves the bedroom. Sherry tells the photographer to snap photos of the knife and bag it. Deena returns holding a similar knife but shorter than the one on the bed together with the overnight bag, showing them to Sherry.
“There’s a knife missing from the holder,” she says. “I believe it’s that knife. It looks the same as this and others in the holder. Found her overnight bag on the floor.”
Sherry tells the photographer to snap photos of the knives and holder. She checks the cell phone, and it is key-code locked.
“Here, bag this, too,” she says, handing the cell phone to the photographer. “I’ll need to ask our Forensic IT to unlock it.” Turning to SM Rashid, she says, “In the meantime, why don’t you see if you can track down her parents to inform them of their daughter’s demise?”
Sergeant Major Rashid nods.
“I noticed the address on her IC is that of a permanent address, not this unit. Chances are that’s the parents’ address.”
Sherry hands over Era’s purse containing the identity card to the sergeant major. “The IC is in there. There’s nothing more for me to do here,” she says and motions Deena to follow her.
“Why did you give the victim’s personal belongings to the AO
CS?” Deena asks. “Are we not handling the case?”
“What case?”
“This case.”
“This is a suicide, since when do we do suicide?” Sherry asks, annoyed at her detective for not being able to distinguish the two cases.
“Yes, but she’s our victim, our rape case,” Deena presses on.
“So?”
“This should be our case.”
Sherry lets out a tiny snort. “The rape case’s still ours, but the suicide’s the station’s case. They may or may not be related, but they’re different cases.”
They take the elevator down and notice that the crowd has grown larger where the deceased lay. Sherry beckons the two policemen over and instructs them to disperse the crowd.
“This is not a freaking show,” she admonishes them. “How would you like it if that’s your sister or relative lying there?”
The policemen bow their heads.
“Now,” she snaps.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Walking to their cars, Deena says, “That was quick.”
“What was quick?”
“Up there,” she says, tilting her head to the apartment building.
“There was no sign of break-in, no sign of struggle, what’s there to linger for?”
“Are you planning to go somewhere?” Deena asks.
“No, why do you ask?”
“You’re all dressed up like you are.”
“I was, but now I’m going to the office. There’s something I need to check.”
At the office, Sherry makes a call to Superintendent Lillian to update her on the suicide. Lillian hears the frustration and pain in her officer’s voice. The hopelessness of not being able to stop an avoidable tragedy.
Lillian remembers how frustrated she herself was at not being able to act when the Australian police presented information and evidence on the infamous British pedophile Richard Huckle. Unlike in the United Kingdom, Malaysia’s law required a complainant for a charge to be brought against him. Her team had to let the British police handle the case, although all the victims were Malaysians. That is the law: in offering protection, it blindsided the process.
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