As Ngozi drove out of Ajayi estate with two other police officers and Victoria at the backseat, her phone rang. She checked the caller and discovered it was an unlisted number, she decided to pick it hoping it was Tobiloba. She was the only one who slept at home the previous night and every attempt to put a call through to him were futile.
“Hello.” she said. The moment she heard Kelvin’s voice, she wanted to press the ‘end’ button and switch off her phone but she just couldn’t locate the button. After all he did to her, even if he wanted to apologise, he should have called the previous day.
“Kelvin, please don’t call me again. After all you did to me, you still wanted to see me, so you can continued from where you stopped right?” She asked. She listened for a while before she spoke again.
“You want to see me concerning my job?” She asked.
“yeah. Concerning the case you are handling, Khal corp.” He said that loud enough that the other two officers could hear him.
“I’ll try and fix a time for us to meet.” She replied.
“Ngozi, we are almost hitting the road, if these LASTMA people catch you making call while driving, I hope you know what it means?” One of the two officers asked. Ngozi swerved the car off the estate road and switched off the ignition.
“I’ll call you when I want to see you.” She said.
“Ngozi, it is very important that we meet before twelve noon. Please, carve out time to meet me.” He pleaded.
“Okay, I’ll still have to call you when I am ready.” He wanted to say something, but she had already hung up. Is she still feeling something for the guy? She couldn’t place it, but she should have hung up the moment she heard his voice, a force heightened her curiousity up to a point that, all she wanted to do was listen to him. Maybe she still felt something for him. But she was sure she wasn’t feeling a thing for him after all he had made her go through.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Benson just finished his morning drill as he was getting dressed for the day’s work, he could perceive an odour as if something was burning. Then he remembered, he was cooking noodles before he went in to take his bath. How could he be so foolish? Under normal cricumstance, a noodle should be done under five minutes, but he remembered putting the pot of the gas stove about ten minutes ago.
Its forty-eight hours now since his wife packed out of his house. He felt empty afterwards, but there was nothing he could do. Every attempt at trying to stop her earned him more beating as she hit him on the head with one of her leather bags. Now that she was out of his house, he needed to know the way forward, he had tried reaching her but her number wasn’t connecting. But he knew she might have travelled abroad because she was a citizen of Belgium by birth.
Assuming his wife was with him, she’d be in charge of the cooking while he prepares for work, but in her absence, he was doing a whole lot of things on his own. But the most surprising aspect of her packing out was the fact that she didn’t collect the forty million naira she gave him a few weeks ago to pay his blackmailers unknown to her and to upgrade his law firm. Maybe she would be back in the near future to collect her money. By then she must have became a very rich woman who would be willing to take the case to a whole new level with him. Or could she still be in love with him? Maybe she left to get her broken heart back to one whole. It was evident from the way she cried as she left his house two days ago. As he could remember what she said before driving off.
“God, you know, it is not my wish to leave my husband’s house, but this is too much for me to bear. I married him with a sincere heart but he was doing a double dealing with me. God forgive me.” She had said that morning as she was getting her bags ready while he stood at the doorway looking like a fool.
********
“Have your seat.” Ngozi said to victoria who quickly took her seat among the tens of chairs arranged into waiting room while Ngozi disappeared into where Victoria concluded to be an office.
—-
Clement was discussing with Matilda who was all smiles as they chatted. “Its good to have faith, because someone without fait will definitely be at the loosing end. See how my faith in you has finally paid off. I wanted you to keep tabs on a suspect and one way or the other, the suspect will be here in few minutes, all thanks to you.” Clement said and watched the reaction of the lady before him. Matilda only smiled. “I can’t imagine myself keeping surveillance on a suspect while I am working on a more bigger case, but with the brains around me, I believe success will be ours at last.” Clement continued. Just then a knock sounded on the door.
“Come in.” Clement said. The door opened and Ngozi walked in.
“Hope, I am not disturbing anything?” She asked.
“Not at all, we are just discussing.” Clement replied. Ngozi walked to her table, on her mind was her proposed meeting with Kelvin. She wanted to hear him out, she wanted to know what he meant by the fact that he had something concerning her job and the case at hand.
“The girl Victoria is in the waiting room.” Ngozi said.
“Okay.” Clement said re-arranging his table as he picked his notepad and a ball pen, he walked out of the office.
“Can I come with you?” Matilda asked.
“Sure.” Clement replied.
————-
He had been praying that his fears wasn’t confirmed because since it has been confirmed that the suspect they were keeping a watch on lived in house 25, Ajayi estate which happened to be his mother’s duplex which she bought after the seperation with his father over a decade ago. He had hoped that the lady suspect should be his sister, but his fears was confirmed when reports reached him that the lady’s name was Victoria. He knew she must be his sister, but the confusion that rocked the Obi Patrick family a decade ago was that Mrs Alice Obi Patrick was infidel and unfaithful in marriage, and the time which she committed the act coincided with the year little Victoria was born.
Chief Obi denied the paternity of the girl who was then fifteen years old. He sent both mother and daughter away and restricted his two boys from ever visiting them. Which was why in the last decade, Clement only saw Victoria and his mum once, Kelvin who was the bad egg in the family and their father’s favourite hadn’t set his eyes on both his mother and kid sister in ten years.
He stopped in his tracks when he saw Victoria seated innocently in the waiting room. He could remember the few times they had spent together as kids, he ever glowing face and her smiles, the fear in her eyes when things go wrong and her fragile heart that made her cry over little things. Even though he didn’t know much about her because in a year, they only meet twice, during the summer vacation and Christmas holiday. And on both occassions they are always like strangers.
Apart from her name and the fact that she was his sister, he knew nothing else about her.
—-
Victoria froze on seeing Clement, she knew it, he was her brother. There was not much change in his looks, still that handsome guy that only smiled when things are in his favour. She could remember the few times they fought as kids, she remembered the first and the only time they fought, how he had beaten her for tampering with the wire connecting with the huge christmas tree in the living room and how she had ran to the kitchen to grab a knife, something she learnt from her friends in the hostel. This only earned her more beating as he beat her to a pulp. She never had the chance to apologize to him, because two days later, she left the mansion with her father and the following week, she learnt Clement had left the country for a two years course in criminology. He was twenty years old then.
“Victoria.” He said. She gave him that ever beautiful smile which gladdened his heart.
“Do you know her sir?” Matilda asked. Just like being influence by a battery remote, she stood up slowly and moved close to him, still contemplating as she closed in on him before enveloping him in a tight hug.
“So Victoria, tell me, do you know why you were attacked?” Clement said. This time they were both in the interrogation room which was brightly lit with large halogen bulbs that could render once sight useless if starred at for a long time. Victoria knew there was no point lying or hiding anything from her brother.
“I can’t point the main reason why I was attacked. He only came with his boys and the next thing they were molesting me.” She replied.
“But, it was evident that you two had things in common. He knew you and you know him too, he is a criminal and you are what?” Clement asked. Victoria looked at Matilda who gave her an encouraging smile.
“What?” Clement asked.
“Tell her to excuse us.” She said.
“What for? She is an officer just like me, she has every right to be here.” Clement replied.
“Please, there are some things I will like to tell you that no third party must hear.” Victoria replied.
“That’s impossible. She is no third party….” He was saying.
“Sir.” Matilda called. Clement turned to face her where she stood at the door. “Let me just excuse you two.” She said and walked out of the room.
“so tell me, what’s your relationship with Rahmon?” He asked.
“I don’t know why he attacked me.” She replied. This was not the question he asked her.
“Do you even know why you are brought here?” Clement asked. She shook her head in the negative.
“Everyone knew you were attacked, but to our surprise, we discovered that you single-handedly took out two of your attackers. Not only that, you made use of a gun. Everyone agreed that it was a means of self defence which was justified by the law. But the main reason was how you have a gun in your possession.” Clement explained.
She heaved a sigh of relief, afterall, no one is yet to know about her ugly past, but there was no way she was getting out of the guns caught in her possession charge.
“Where did you get a gun?” Clement asked. She wanted to open up to him, but she felt there was a way she could get herself out if she played her way out.
“The guns belonged to the men. The first one I killed, I didn’t use a gun on him, I strangled him to death and I picked the gun from his pocket. I only used the gun on the second one when things threatened to go out of hand.” She lied.
“No one is blaming you for killing those men, but according to Matilda who was an eye witness, she said something like you and Rahmon talking about a business. Just last week, you were spotted with a guy called Don. Yes or no?” Then she knew it, the police had been on her trail for a very long time, how could she be so stupid that she didn’t keep an eye on the rear mirror as she drove. But she remembered she had only seen a car on her trail once before the Matilda’s scenario, which was when she went to arrest Janet from her apartment. She waved it off since she wasn’t going for something illegal.
“I am not convinced by your explanation that you took the gun from the men because Matilda said there was more to it. Rahmon knew you, you know him and it seems you have a common business.” He said and watched her reaction. There was nothing different about her reaction, she still wore that fazed look.
“A search team will go to your apartment now to get anything implicating and otherwise.” Clement said. She thought for a while trying to picture her room if there was nothing incriminating in there.
“Why would they search my room?” She asked this time with an alarmed look.
“Guns were caught in your possession, you spoke with Rahmon like you know him. Victoria, tell me, what job do you do now? I believe you should have graduated.” He asked. That was the question she wasn’t expecting, how on earth does he expect her to open up to him, “I am an assassin?” How does it even sound in the ear? Not even in just any policeman’s ear, but his brother. This should have been a perfect reunion, but it is turning out to be something else.
“Sir, your attention is needed with the Rahmon of a criminal.” A police officer peeped in and said.
“Is he ready to confess?” Clement asked.
“I think it has to do with his health. He is almost dying sir.” The officer replied. At once, Clement sprang up and ran out of the room. A prayer point on Victoria’s mind, was that Rahmon should die so that he won’t live to tell the police what they had in common.
About an hour later, Clement returned all sweaty and tired.
“Welcome.” Victoria said as soon as he entered the interrogation room.
“Yeah, thank you.” Clement replied as he took a seat opposite her.
“How is he now?” She asked.
“He has been taken to the hospital.” Clement replied. She was disappointed that he didn’t die, because she knew sooner or later, her secrets will be in the open.
“Bro Clement, can I tell you something?” She asked. He was surprised to hear her call him by the title ‘Bro’
“You can trust me.” Clement replied.
“Bro, it was after I left with my mum then that my friends introduced me to what they do in the school. The first time some senior boys bullied me in the school canteen, but since I had no means to defend myself, I was bullied. The second time, it was after a sport session in the school, then we were changing to our school uniforms in the locker rooms. I was the last person to change because I was very secretive about my body, then I forgot to lock the door as I changed, when the senior boys came in and asked me to remove my uniform and they all had fun looking at me, but they couldn’t go beyond that.
A few days later, I confided in one of my hostel mates who happened to be my bunk mate. She agreed to introduce me to what she does as well as other girls to defend themselves. I was initiated into a group known as ‘water ladies.’ We virtually ran the school, even the boys feared us, I became untouchable.
For the last one year I spent in secondary school, I was the most feared. We left school at will, skip classes, go head-to-head with teachers. I thought everything will stop after secondary school. But unfortunately for me, I gained admission into UNILAG with most of my secondary school mates and therefore we maintained that clique, no one dare step our toe in school, but we were not cultists.” Clement knew where this was heading to, he already got where she was coming from.
“How does that concern the case at hand?” Clement asked.
“I met Don in my second year and subsequently met Rahmon. I dropped out at the beginning on my third year and teamed up with Don who had also been rusticated.”
“To do what?” Clement asked already on his feet.
“I am an assassin.” She replied.
“What!” He exclaimed.
That minute, he could feel his world crumble before him. His sister whom he last saw many years ago. Just when he thought she was back with him, things had already gone wrong.
“But, believe me, I have stopped being an assassin for a very long time. I don’t know why Rahmon is after me.” She added.
“Victoria, but why? Don’t you have teachers to report to when you discovered that some set of boys were bullying you? Don’t you have councellors to talk to?” He asked.
“You won’t understand. The pressure was too much then that reporting to anyone was the last thing on my mind.” She replied. He looked at her one last time and walked out of the interrogation room.
“Lock her up.” He said to the policeman standing at the door. He could hear Victoria’s screams and cries as he walked back into the waiting room where he met his mother.
“Clement.” She said like she had seen a ghost.
“Mum.” He replied postrating before his mother. She wanted to talk, but no word came out. She opened her mouth but couldn’t join letters to form a word.
“Where is your sister?” She asked. It seemed like she knew the kind of job she does, because from the look on her face, it seemed like she knew she would be locked up.
“Lets go to my office.” He said leading the way. The two officers behind the counter were watching their boss in awe, first the suspect brought in for interrogation was his sister, now the mother is here. Why is this happening to oga clement? Was the question making the rounds.
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*********
Ngozi was deep in thoughts when Clement led an elderly woman in her late fifties into the office.
“Ngozi, please excuse us.” Clement said. She picked up her phone and walked out after exchanging pleasantries with the woman. On getting outside, she realised this is the best time to go see Kelvin just like he requested. She walked back into the office.
“Clement, please I need your car.” She pleaded.
“Its somewhere over there.” He replied pointing to a shelf at the far end corner of the room. It was not like she needed to plead before she took the key or even ask him, but she only saw it as something neccessary. He had already lost the trust he had in her, right from the night she ran away from home. And she was on a mission to regain his lost trust.
She unlocked the car doors and hopped behind the wheel.
“Hello Kelvin, where are you?” She asked.
“I am at work and you?” He replied.
“Can you come and see me now?” She asked.
“Definitely. So where do we meet?”
“The eatery along Bode Thomas. How about that?” She said.
“How about if we go to the hotel we lodged in the last time?” He asked.
“No way am I going to a hotel with you. So you can have your way with me all over again right?” She asked.
“Fine, so what do you want? I am not going to an eatery with you.” he replied. It did not work.
“This is it, I’ll be waiting for you at the police headquarters bus/stop. All you need to do is join me in the car.” She said and hung up.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Maleek was seated as usual in the hall which served as his office and meeting place with his high ranking officials in the Khal corp. Kelvin walked back into the hall, he went to recieve a call outside.
“So what did she say?” Maleek asked.
“I am meeting her in thirty minutes.” Kelvin replied.
“Do you need backup?” Maleek asked further.
“Its me Danger-kelv. I don’t need distractions?” He replied.
“Now that you are meeting the lady, when should we strike her fiancee?” Hakym asked.
“I’ll tell you. First, I need to get everything that she knows, then we look at the threat she poses before hitting her or her fiancee.” Kelvin replied.
Since Kelvin resumed for work this morning and he briefed the attack on the underground and the masterminds to Maleek, an emergency meeting has been called and they had gone into series of debate in the last one and a half hours. he told them about a certain detective Ngozi discovering the underground, the corporation most strongest defence but quickest means of downfall. And subsequently, about thirty members of the khal corp had been killed, meaning, the underground was not a safe place to walk into and land directly in the room opposite Maleek’s office.
Maleek together with Kelvin had agreed that Ngozi must also be punished, and therefore they had decided to kill her morale and desire to work by killing the person closest to her, which is her fiancee, Tobiloba. It was part of the working ethics of the corporation that they would try as much as possible not to kill top police officers who were actively involved in bringing Khal corp down. Their aim was to weaken everyone in the police force, kill their morale, ridicule their actions and forcing them into surrendering their arms and in the end grant Nigeria as a country amnesty and not the other way round.
According to Maleek, killing policemen shows how weak they(Khal corp) were, but it would be a perfect scene to watch if the police decides to surrender their arms and seek peace from the corp.
“Get as much informations from her as possible. We need to know how far they have gone, becuase since we sent letters to Clement, he had withdrawn into his shell, Sylvester didn’t even report to work this morning. These exactly are the things we want to achieve.” Maleek said.
“Goodluck man.” Kelvin walked out of the hall. He had no choice other than to work for the corporation who had done a lot for him, but one thing he would never join them to do was attack his brother’s family.
—
Kelvin opened the door from outside and hopped into the car.
“Hope I didn’t keep you waiting?” He asked. She ignored him and kept starring at her hand which was placed on the steering wheel. “Ngozi!” He called tapping her.
“Don’t you ever touch me.” She screamed. Kelvin knew she was still hurting from how things played out between them because no sensible lady will decided to hang out with a guy that forcefully had the carnal knowledge of her. But when one’s thinking has been beclouded by either of love or lust, then you could invite someone who tried to kill you a few days ago to dinner with you alone in the house. Kelvin knew better not to ask questions from her, because he knew it will further ruin his chances of getting anything from her.
“Tell me what you have to tell me and leave.” She said. He weighed his chances and decided to play the game of capturing hearts with her.
“Ngozi, I was listening to the news yesterday and I heard something about how a police team invaded an uderground situated in Mr Ayo Okorie’s compound.”He began.
“How does that concern me?” She asked.
“It concerns you baby. Your name was mentioned, we were made to understand that you were the officer that discovered the underground.”
“So?” she was now getting impatient.
“Don’t you think your life is in danger? Considering the fact that this terrorists listen to the news too, they may want to get back at you.” He said.
“And why will they attack me? Its not like I was the one who led the police troop into the underground.”
“Its because I care about you, that’s why I am telling you this.”
“You care about me and you molested me? Kelvin you made me look cheap. Kelvin you hurt me.” She cried. Now he was getting his desired result, the next thing to do now is to buy her trust.
“Baby, I still regret my actions, which was why I have decided not to call you. I am left wondering how you’ll feel, a whole me, that was in the position to protect you, make you feel loved and never lack support, I am the one that made you feel insecure, I am the one that hurt you.” He said soberly. The trick was working, she was crying the more he talked, the tears were flowing freely. “But I am here now to protect you. No terrorist will come near you or harm you. I ought to be in my office now, but I sneaked out without permission just to speak with you and I am sure I’ll face the panel as soon as I return. But I am ready to face the d–n consequence provided it is because of you.” He said like he had crammed them. She heaved deeply as her eyes finally fell on him.
“What gives you the impression that the khal corp are after me?” She asked finally.
“I didn’t say they are after you. All I am trying to say is that they may be after you, you know how these people work don’t you? We watch them in films.” Kelvin explained. She looked into Kelvin’s eye for a minute without blinking trying to see lies in what he just said.
“And what if they are not after me?” She asked.
“We are lucky then. But I’ll want you to be very carefull.” He said. She smiled for the first time, but the next second, she was frowning. “According to newsmen, we were told that the underground was located in one of the most secretive place in the house. How were you able to discover it? And how did you know it was an underground?” Kelvin asked.
“I saw a map lying carelessly in the living room and out of curiousity, I saw it there.” She replied. Kelvin could vividly remember Mr Ayo Okorie’s reaction the moment news reached him that the underground in his house had been discovered.
“There is only one way to see the underground. The map.” He had said.
“But, how can you be so careless to let such a secretive material fall into the enemy’s hands?” Maleek asked him.
“That was a huge mistake, but to stop further disasters, we need to get the map as soon as possible. Anyone with the map will find it easier when locating the Khal corp, but without the map, they will find it difficult, then we can attack them and keep them at bay.” Mr Ayo explained. This had prompted Maleek to send Kelvin on the assignment to get the map of the police force, most importantly, Ngozi.
“The map? Where is it?” He asked.
“No one is talking about it in the office, so I guess it should still be there in the house.” Kelvin knew how bad he needed to get the map back to Mr Ayo, but the problem is how to get into the house. Ngozi should be able to do this for him, but won’t he look desperate? He’ll have to device another means.
“What’s that tattoo on your chest?” She asked.
–to be continued–
