“A sound near your head, and you wake up to see a bullet in your pillow. What will you do? You sound the alarm, in the end perhaps the perpetrator can be caught. Whatever it is, the main point is, the kill is, how do you say in English, bungled.
“Of course the headboard isn’t much of a problem with a thermal-imaging scope on your rifle. But look at this.” He patted the headboard again. “Do you see a hole in this?” Kunley shook his head. “Tell me this, then. Where did the bullet come in from?”
The young detective pointed at the hole in the window. “From there,” then to the scratch in the wall, “to there,” and then at the patch of dried blood on the bed. “To there.”
Clyde nodded his head. “Just so. Which leads me to believe that his rifle wasn’t capable of scanning through infared. It is possible he may not have been aware of this headboard, but I look at the way this kill was so skillfully done and say non, he was aware, and came prepared to carry it out anyway.”
Clyde turned around, slid aside the curtain and opened the windows, watching the hole in the one on the left as he did. He looked out at the street beside the house and the road beyond it. His eyes scanned the area, and landed on one building in particular.
“Now, as for where the shot was taken from,” he said, thoughtfully. He heard the sound of shoes on the floor from behind. Kunley had stood up. He walked to the window, peering over Clyde’s shoulder, though keeping a respectful distance. The officer was nothing if not respectful.
And he seemed to know what Clyde was looking at.
“Primeview Hotel. Sir, you think the person that killed Ms. Durojaiye did it from there?”
“I know the shot was taken from there, Kunley. I am not ignorant of the use of sniper rifles. I look at all the buildings out there and one jumps out as the most suitable. That is the one.” He turned around and looked at the officer. “You do not think it likely, yes?”
“It’s not as if we didn’t consider the hotel, but. . . It’s a hotel. How can someone just smuggle a gun inside there? They have cameras everywhere. And even if somebody did it, gan, Detective Akano said there’s nohow that somebody wouldn’t have heard it and contacted the police to report.”
Clyde smiled. If he hadn’t known all along, this statement alone would have made him know that they actually knew nothing about what a sniper was. Because if they did, they would know of the kind of suppressors that came with sniper rifles.
“You say it is not likely, I say it is more than likely. I say that is the place. And I say I can prove it.”
Kunley started to talk, when Clyde’s phone pinged. He took it out, looked at the Whatsapp message on the notifications, talking as he typed a quick reply.
“Could you get the gate, Kunley? I told someone to meet me here.”
“Outside the gate? Okay, sir.”
The young detective stood up and left the room to open the gate, and Clyde dé Crozon returned to the window to look at the hotel.
