Chapter 10

Mohan: How much money does she owe you? And why are you holding onto her passport?

Issac was caught a little off guard before mumbling a figure.

Issac: Oh ... err ... mmm ... just around 2 thousand and Marie stays over at my place frequently you know and she leaves her things lying around.

Jim: How did you end up lending money to your girlfriend man? You record all the dates you paid for dinner, do you?

The guys laughed but Soh gave me a dirty look.

Issac: err ... no no ... Anyway, I also want to part on a clean note. She’s probably looking to go back to Malaysia too so I’m hoping to talk to her and wrap things up.

Damn he is smart. He’s already planning his exit route, but I already had an idea what he wanted out of this. It had got to be the hard drive. I’m sure it had footages of him hitting Marie. That is going to be worth a lot to him.

If he meets up with Marie, he can easily threaten her to keep her mouth shut about what he did. Then again, if he’s planning to meet at the café Marie’s sister is working at, there is always a chance that Marie could run to her sister for her help, or show her the bruises, turn the tables and come clean, revealing who Issac really is.

Too many possibilities. Something is off. This cannot be that simple.

Issac cleared his throat and his tone changed slightly.

Issac: There is something else. Something that I would really need your help with.

As he began to speak, it finally dawned on me that wrapping things up with Marie was just an appetiser. Not only did he want to shut Marie up, and get the missing hard drive, but he was out to get the person who helped Marie.

Issac: I last checked in with Marie on Thursday at 9.30pm. I called the landline when I saw her scurrying about in the house.

Rizwan: You have cameras in the house?

Issac nodded without elaborating.

Issac: I called her again at 9.45 pm when I saw her standing by the gate on my PC but she refused to pick up the call.

That’s weird, I didn’t hear any phone ringing.

Issac went on to give a breakdown of the events that happened after that.

The hairs on my arms stood on end as I looked at him.

Issac: At 10 pm, someone came and Marie left with him. I arrived at her place at 11.00 pm and this is what I saw. One, Marie left in a hurry because she only packed some clothes, leaving most of her stuff behind. Two, the lock to the gate was cut.

Mohan: What?

Issac immediately followed up with that comment that Marie had the key to the gate lying around somewhere which was obviously a lie.

Issac: She has the keys but she’s not a tidy person, always misplaces her things. Now the lock is not easy to cut, and you would need an industrial bolt cutter to do it which is why I came to the conclusion that this person that helped Marie is a man.

Issac took the marker from the white board and started drawing.

Issac: The lock is 1.35m from the ground, the cut was done from a downward direction which means this man is probably taller than 1.75 m.

What the fuck?

Issac went on without breaking a beat.

Issac: Motive is definitely not money, there were almost 400 dollars sitting untouched in the house.

As if this was not bizarre enough, Issac went on to tell us that he had a few of his father’s staff calling up hotels.

Issac: I asked the staff to call up all the hotels looking for a Marie Teo li Ping from Malaysia who checked in between around 11pm on Wednesday night on the pretext that I have a meeting with her and will be late, but out of 452 hotels, 400 said they do not have a guest by that name, 30 refused to accept my request, 20 put us on hold and never got back while the other 2 had a Malaysian by the name of Marie, but not Teo li Ping.