~~~
Henry ushered Agent Dakolo politely into his office, he
opened the door and waited for the man to walk in
before closing it. He poinresthim to the visitor's seat and
turned round his table to take his seat. He quickly cleared
up some documents on his table and faced Dakolo, ready
for the interrogation.
He was prepared for Dakolo, ready to save Omotara
from him but prepared to do it wisely. He was going to
say everything he knows about her as a friend if they ever
discovered that they were. But he wasn't going to tell him
of his personal discovery he made about her being a
fraudster. He had also changed the system evidence he
had for his investigation about the Canadian number. He
then sold a lie to Sylvester, about how he made a mistake
in the investigation, that the number was really Canadian.
He knew that Sylvester did not swallow the lie but he felt
less concerned about it since he had changed the system
evidence. That way he could get himself out of any
coming trouble as he was just a private investigator who
was doing his job.
He was only a bit worried about Sylvester's new
volunteer staff. With the way her intelligence and
competence was talked about. She may be able to
provide evidence of the number being fake. He didn't
think it was necessary to go and see her again, after he
had heard about Dakolo's coming. He was now thinking
of a way to make Sylvester stop her from working any
longer with him, before she puts him in trouble.
Dakolo stared around the office quietly, not minding
Henry's eagerness for him to start the questioning. After
satisfying his eyes, he turned back to Henry. He placed his
elbow on the armrest of the chair and rested his chin on
his palm as he stared straight into Henry's face.
Henry was uncomfortable, he could not understand the
meaning of Dakolo's stare but the look on the agent's
face suggested that he was disappointed in Henry for
something Henry had done.
'Henry,' Dakolo finally began after two minutes of silence,
he sat up and rested his back properly.
'Sir,' Henry replied in low tones, trying to avoid meeting
the man's gaze.
'Who is Alexander Evelyn?' Dakolo asked his first
question.
Henry was silent for some seconds. He knew Dakolo had
found out something else and that was the reason for the
question. After much contemplation, he finally spoke.
'She's my friend.'
'Your friend?' Dakolo's eyes widened in surprise. He was
not surprised that Henry knew her but he was surprised
at the endearing manner by which Henry called her his
friend.
'Yes, my friend sir.' Henry insisted.
'For how long have you known her?'
'It's not up to a month yet,' Henry answered.
'That's recently'
'Yes'
'How and where did you meet her?'
'I met her in Abuja, we ran into each other in a computer
gadgets store'
'And you became friends since then?'
'Our friendship did not start immediately, we still had
other encounters after that'
'When did you finally become friends?'
Henry scratched his head a little, trying to remember the
exact time they started talking, 'About a week or two
after the first encounter.'
'Was your encounter after or before you started
investigating her?'
Henry raised his eyebrows, 'investigating her? I didn't do
anything like that.'
Dakolo licked his lips and chuckled, 'Henry, you want to
tell me that you are not aware she owns the Canadian
number you were sent to investigate?'
'The client never gave me the owner's information, he
only told me to verify the number'
'Okay, and you didn't get the customer's information?'
'I wasn't asked to, so I didn't go that far'
'I see…' Dakolo nodded his head slowly as he tried to
process all Henry had told him and come up with a new
question. Henry seemed confident about his answers, he
thought. Maybe he was also a victim and Evelyn
Alexander had only used him for her operation.
'How close were you to Evelyn?' Dakolo started again.
'Very close. We got so close to each her within a short
while.' Henry replied.
'How close? A romantic kind of close?' Dakolo asked,
gesturing with his hands.
'Kind of,' Henry reluctantly answered. 'We got as close as
that sometimes.'
Dakolo paused and rested his hands on Henry's table. He
narrowed his gaze and continued. 'Are you in love with
her?'
Henry was made temporarily dumb by the question. He
didn't know what answer to give, he didn't even have the
answer. He wasn't sure if the passion he felt for her
wasn't something more than love.
'I don't know,' he finally answered.
Dakolo smiled for her first time that day. He took out his
Android device and unlocked it. He operated on it for few
seconds before dropping it on the table.
'I found out from the file of your kidnap case that she
was the same person that you were kidnapped with,'
Dakolo continued.
'Yes, she was'
'And you led them all the way to her in Elymax hotel to
pick her.'
'Yes, they were disguised as policemen. They also had
similar ID cards to that of the police.'
'Why didn't you call someone to report of your arrest?'
'My phone was seized, they didn't allow me call anyone.'
'Oh true! I read that also,' Dakolo said, picking up his
device again.
'Your kidnap, do you think Evelyn knew nothing about
it?'
'She couldn't have known anything, she was also a
victim.'
'But the way you escaped from them is still illogical. The
explanation you gave doesn't really make sense. You said
you were unconscious?'
'Yes, I was.'
'And then she told you that the assassins fought amongst
themselves?'
'Yes.'
Dakolo smiled again. He read something quickly to
himself from his device and dropped it on the table. The
smile on his face gave way for a serious look. 'Were you
aware that Evelyn was working with Chief Jubril Lawal?'
Henry thought of lying, but that would only complicate
issues for him. He decided to say the truth but hide the
extra details. 'Yes, she told me. The day before we were
kidnapped, I was with her when Dare Lawal also came to
see her.'
'Did you know before that time that they knew each
other?'
'No, I was just getting to know Evelyn.'
'Okay, what happened that day?'
'Dare came in and met us seated together in the
restaurant. He was furious and couldn't wait, he rushed
away from the place immediately'
'And did she follow him?'
'No, she stayed with me. I told her my story.'
'And how did she react?'
'Ermm… Just the way every other person would react.'
Henry replied, consciously omitting the information
about her "God outburst" and her story which she also
told him.
'Okay… When then did she tell you about her business
with Chief Jubril?'
'After I told her my story.'
'And wasn't that the same day you were given the job to
investigate the number?'
'Yes.'
'Did you by any chance mention to her about the job?'
'No, I wasn't even aware that the job was for Jubril Lawal
then'
'And you think she didn't find out in any other way,
before or after that day?'
'I don't think so, she never mentioned a word about it to
me and I never did also.'
'Okay, so you were kidnapped the next day and didn't
spend up to twenty four hours with the kidnappers?'
'Yes.'
'Don't you think the kidnap is related to Chief Jubril's
job?'
'No, the main suspects I have are Dare Lawal and
Samantha Osman.'
'Samantha Osman?'
'Yes, then I was on her case and I thought it could be her
team that carried out the kidnap.'
Dakolo gave a brief laugh at Henry's last words. Henry
was now sounding more like a victim of circumstance to
him now. He wondered how Henry would feel if he hears
that Evelyn could have been Samantha.
'But right now, who do you think it was?'
'I don't know'
'We now know your kidnappers,' Dakolo announced, he
saw Henry's face brighten up a little. 'But they are all
dead,' he added. Henry looked confused.
'Dead?'
'Yes, but the strange thing is that they all died in the same
events centre that Jubril Lawal and Dare died. They were
murdered by the same assassin group.'
Dakolo sighed and picked up his device again. He opened
it and clicked some commands in.
'Henry,' Dakolo called softly in readiness to ask the main
question. He was sure in his heart of Henry's innocence
about the assassination but as a detective, he couldn't let
his heart deceive him, he must throw his questions as
strict and professional as possible even if he had an
emotional attachment to the interrogatee.
'Did you attend Chief Jubril's birthday party?' His face
had lost all his smiles, warning Henry not to try denying
the truth. If Henry would deny his presence in the party,
then it meant that Dakolo's heart had been deceiving
him, Henry was surely working for Samantha's group and
all his innocent way of answering questions was just an
act.
Henry stopped to think for some seconds. He thought of
answering no since he wasn't an invitee but just
accompanied Omotara to the event. No one knew about
his attendance, so it was better if he hid it completely. He
cleared his throat. 'I…'
~~~~~
Jefa grabbed his chest as he felt like a sword just pierced
through his heart. He was panting heavily and sweating
profusely despite the high speed of the fan blades. He fell
on his knees, still feeling the pain in his chest, and trying
to fathom what happened to him.
It was all a dream. He rubbed his sweaty forehead with
his hand and got up. He tried to stretch his body, the pain
was reducing slowly. After stretching, he sat back and
began to ponder what the dream could mean. This was
the second dream he was having in recent times and the
both dreams had ended badly. Does it mean that
reuniting with Omotara will bring them ill luck? Then if
that was the case, he was ready to give up reuniting with
her. It was better for them to go on with their lives the
way they have been living and for him to act as if he
hadn't seen her. He took out his phone and searched for
Henry's number. He stared at it for some seconds before
deleting it from the phone memory.
~~~~
'Thank you ma,' the visitor's appreciated as Mrs Attahiru
ushered them into her office.
'Please, have your seats.' She pointed them to the three
seats already prepared for them and turned to seat on
her own swivel.
'Thank you,' Mr Alfred, the elderly man who led the team
appreciated once again.
'You're welcome,' Mrs Attahiru gave a warm smile. She
was dressed neatly in a black skirt suit, looking smarter
than other elderly women of her age. She had an eyeglass
with think lenses on. Her dark hair was plaited neatly in a
traditional style, it was obvious that the hair was dyed as
it look too black and without grey strands for a woman
of her age.
'I was glad when we were informed that we were going to
have Nigerian representatives from your organization,'
the woman began with a smile. 'It's good to have sons of
the soil relate with us. I believe you'll be more passionate
about people in your own country.'
'Actually ma, we were the ones who initiated this
project.' Mr Alfred joined cheerfully. 'We pushed in
Nigeria when the organization was trying to select an
African country.'
'Wow! That's what I'm talking about. I know you guys
would have more passion for your country.' She
remarked happily.
'Yes ma, there are lots of needs in our country and we
recognize that. That's why we mentioned your
foundation which is recognized for the good works it has
carried out all over Africa.'
'Nice, I hope we'll have a great time working with you.'
'You'll surely do ma.' Mr Alfred assured with a kind smile.
'Like we agreed before ma, we'll carry out the
distribution this Saturday. We have the funds available
already. All we need is to do it under the name of your
organization. The bags of rice would be ready tomorrow.
But I don't know how ready your team is for inspection.'
'Humm… We may not really need to do so much
inspection.' She said, adjusting her eyeglass. 'The supplier
is a partner of ours and we are sure of their quality, we'll
just do a brief overview.'
'That's okay, deal done then.' Mr Alfred and his whole
team smiled.
'Yes.' Mrs Attahiru joined them.
'One more thing ma,' Mr Alfred quickly added. Mrs
Attahiru paused to pay attention. 'We've been thinking of
organizing a conference here in Nigeria in collaboration
with your organization. We want to use the conference to
inspire the wealthy citizens towards devoting their time
to helping the less privileged in the society.'
'Wow! That's a nice idea.' Mrs Attahiru's face brightened
up. 'We'll be glad to work with you on that.'
'Thanks.'
'Yeah but ermm…' She paused as a thought came into
her mind. 'How are you planning to achieve that? You
know that the wealthy people in our society may snub
conferences like that giving excuses of their busy
schedule. Most of them may see it as a fund raising event
and just send peanuts to our account without coming for
the conference itself.'
Mr Alfred smiled, 'We are aware of that challenge ma and
we have a plan to fix it already.'
'Can you share the plan?' Mrs Attahiru seemed excited.
'Simple! We are going to be inviting elites from other
countries whose charity works have been laudable. When
those in Nigeria hear of the top profile people coming,
who are far wealthier than they are, they won't be able to
snub the conference.'
'Hmm…' Mrs Attahiru was speechless.
Mr Alfred chuckled, 'it's a huge program that'll require a
lot of money but we are ready to fund it. Some of our
partners in Europe are also ready to provide maximum
support.'
'Nice,' Mrs Attahiru was visibly wowed by their plan.
'We'll need something important ma,' Mr Alfred quickly
put in, acting like it just came into his mind.
'What's that?'
'This project is a huge project and we'll need a lot of
support from the government. We'll like to meet with the
Senate President who is your son and relay this plan to
him.'