It stuck to him. He tried to make sense of it, he tried to reason with the fact that there were other children who wore that very same sandal, that surely there were other children in KL whose parents had bought the same shoes. That surely there had to be another child who wore the same coloured shoes who was also perhaps kidnapped, surely…no matter how hard he tried, Omar could not find reason for the fact that the yellow jelly sandal had appeared six months later after Alba’s disappearance.

OCPD Baljit had said, “The DNA testing will take anything from 24 hours to one week. Our forensics team at the Police College in Cheras will do their best to expedite this.”

He’d continued: “DNA testing for parents and children is rather complicated, and we need to match all twenty-two markers to be sure.” OCPD Baljit was apologetic but firm. “And let’s just hope that the body has not decomposed beyond recognition. Fingers crossed.” He smiled.

Another week of waiting, another hellish week. Omar needed to find a way of thinking, a way of getting through each day, of finding meaning in his life, his work. Del was falling apart again, she had completely distanced herself from him, she had stopped eating, stopped yoga, stopped everything that she had been doing to make herself well again. The only thing she did was stand in front of the fridge, take out yet another bottle of vodka, twist open the cap and take a large swig, and then stumbling to her spot at the couch for another day of mourning.

He did not know what to say to her. There was nothing left to say except, “We have to wait, we don’t know if it’s Alba, until we know for sure.” But it fell on deaf ears. PT Raja had been dismissed, there was no new evidence and he had not managed to find anything at all. It was as if Alba had disappeared off the face of the earth and had now, possibly, been found. That she could have been in KL all that time drove Omar into a crazed frenzy. That they did nothing. Nothing! So Del was right, that Alba could have been kidnapped and held in KL. That she could have been saved, somehow. Omar had never felt so helpless in his life. He wanted to blame the cops, he wanted to blame PT Raja, he wanted to blame Del, but he couldn’t. He blamed himself.