This International Children’s Day, Detective Marcus Tan reflects on an accident that took away an important sense when he was twelve. It had a bearing on his work. Did it? We rely on what we have left.
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The first responder, as luck would have it, thought Detective Marcus Tan.
The dark warehouse was devoid of light, save for a lone ray of sun light that leaked through the boarded windows. It stood stoically silent; it had been abandoned for years.
The facility was decrepit; moss crawled up the walls. An odor of must punctured the otherwise stale air.
Witnesses and the investigative team wrinkled their noses; an impossible scent wrapped around them like a too-tight sarong. As Marcus trained his eagle eyes on the unwilling crowd that found themselves victims of crime, a ribbon of smoke curled through the air, as if beckoning the gumshoe to a clue that shouldn’t exist.
” Could you describe the smell?” Detective Tan shot a question that caught the attention of the forensic specialists around him. Several looked up with an eyebrow raised. Didn’t he have his own words for it?
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Work was ongoing. Marcus and the investigative team couldn’t process the warehouse in a single sitting; the murder had been brutal. Graphic, with the requisite evidence lost or, as any detective would hope, left to capture. He returned to complete the work the next day
He was alone– the rest of the team had their weekend obligations. That made things a little —
Difficult.
A faint, gray ribbon of smoke crept through the shadows, wafting through the corridors and charred doorways. This was a death by arson–no doubt. The only question he had was–
By whose hand?
The gray ribbon would tell him that. Specifically, its smell.
There was something about its odor. Or nothing.
He couldn’t smell it. An accident he had as a kid had robbed him of that sense. He needed the team’s help for that, though he never told them.
So, he watched.
More carefully than anyone would. While the forensic team was guided by its odor, he was guided by its movement.
So he analyzed it.
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The smoke always ended behind a wall of rock -solid concrete.
Marcus ordered a canine search. The cadaver canine unit started its work immediately.
It wasn’t long before one of the dogs sat directly in front of a suspicious brick.
Marcus tugged at it.
Soon, a humongous hole and a set of Excel sheets. The wall surrendered what it had concealed for too long.
Further digging.
The evidence surfaced.
Human remains.
Further investigation revealed fraud and an attempt by unscrupulous company managers to hide it.
By hiding the accountant himself.
Behind 5 ft of concrete.
But he hadn’t remained behind the wall.
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The discovery made headlines in the Singapore Times.
Everyone reeled in their comfortable armchairs. The company was renowned for its squeaky-clean advertisements and image.
Everyone came to the foregone conclusion.
A dissatisfied employee seeking more renumeration.
He discovers the fraud and asks for more.
The managers, compelled to give and desperate, seal him, live, behind the wall.
But Marcus wasn’t convinced.
Then his eyes fell on something a little–
Out of place.
The fraudulent transfers on the spreadsheet started before the managers made any transfers themselves.
Marcus flipped quickly through the stack of papers before him.
Emails.
Approval chains.
Bank records
And every transfer was made by the–
Accountant.
His fingerprints were on every sheet of paper.
He hadn’t blown the whistle.
He had created it.
And solicited the help of his bosses.
The truth had undone him
One that he had created.
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Marcus secured a warrant for the managers’ arrest. The warehouse was scheduled for demolition for the following month.
He returned a final time and stood behind the broken wall.
At the place where an accountant, a fraudster and a victim were the same man.
The truth had surfaced.
The truth, he thought, billows through the bricks.
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Mirrors of the Mind by Michelle Liew is a collection of psychological and supernatural short stories that explore the quiet unease beneath ordinary moments. These are not tales of spectacle, but of subtle fracture — where memory distorts, silence speaks, and the self is not always singular. In these stories, what is unseen often carries the greatest weight, and what lingers is not what is shown, but what is felt.