Horrendous Saturday

I was on my regular weekend duty at one of our sites this past Saturday with another female colleague. As with any other developer show houses, we attend to potential walk-in purchasers. This particular project of ours had been on the market for over a year and most of the units have since been sold so we no longer get a stream of visitors. Which means things can get very quiet whenever we go on duty.

This last Saturday was no exception. Since morning we only had a handful of visitors. Things were quiet sometime just before noon when a couple of Malay men walked in, saying they were from one of the local banks. The bank they mentioned is already part of our panel of end-financiers so we were skeptical why these men came on their own. Furthermore, they were not dressed in their bank T-shirts and when asked for their name cards, they claimed they didn’t have any.

For the most part, my colleague attended to them but the couple of times that I neared them, I noticed that the men spoke in very hushed tones. After my colleague had briefed them, at which juncture most other visitors would say thank you and leave - these men did neither. Instead, we realized they had made themselves comfortable at the chairs where our bankers desk are located, on the opposite end of the room. Uncomfortable with their presence without anyone else around, my colleague politely showed them the door.

They held out their hands to shake ours before walking out- something most other visitors hardly ever do – but instead of getting into that green kancil they came with, they merely stood near the car and started chatting. And they continued so for at least 15 mins. I thought that was strange because it was, after all, a hot afternoon. Moreover, since the two of them had come together, if they had wanted to chat some more, they could have done so in their car - out of the premises.

They left, but not before we took down their license plate no. We gave the no to the security at the entrance but about an hour or so later, we were stunned when we saw the car drive in again. The guard was not at the guardpost– can’t expect much, he’s an old man. We began to get rather wary because the kancil had driven past the main entrance and headed to our covered parking which only has 3 stalls – already taken up by my colleague and me. So we could see that they were parked at the 3rd spot but from where we were there was no way we could tell if they remained in their car or had left. The frightening bit is this - there is anther entry point from the back which was merely another glass sliding door.

Scared out of our wits, we called a male colleague who promised to send someone soon. Nobody came till more than 40 minutes later so all the while we locked ourselves in the show house, feeling more anxious by the minute. We finally spotted the guard and waved frantically at him through the glass panels but to our dismay he barely raised a wink.

In the end, one of the project site guys came, and approached the two men in their car. They claimed they were waiting for a friend. Very strange excuse. My female colleague was too scared to remain there even a minute longer so we locked up and left. One of the men asked me ‘dah tutup ke kak, petang ni akak datang balik tak?” to which I did not reply in the affirmative.

Back at work on Monday, we called the bank they mentioned and were told the bank never sent out any officers to our site. Frankly, I doubt the men were crazy or trigger happy lunatics but their intentions were nonetheless very questionable.

That was not a pleasant episode, let me tell you. And although I’m certain it was nowhere near the traumatic experience of being held hostage, it was enough to make me feel helpless and weak in the knees.

So – that was my Saturday afternoon – interesting is quite an understatement. Horrendous is more like it..!