Murder At Midnight

by John Ukah

  “I don’t count him among human beings,” she said. “I have a feeling he does not really like me, anyway.”

  I could not help laughing.

  “Did you know he has a camera and takes pictures of people when he thinks they are not watching?” she asked.

  I shook my head. That was news to me.

  “It is so wrong. The day he takes my picture without my consent, I will smash that camera.”

  “And Willie?” I asked.

  She seemed troubled when I mentioned Willie. But she said, “No, of course not, I didn’t include him. He is a man of God, you know.”

  “Your mother does not think of him along those lines,” I observed.

  “She talks too much,” replied Maria. “Plus I’m sure she makes up some of these stories she tells about people.”

  But I was inclined to think that if Mrs. Marshall was making up the stories, the people concerned would easily refute them; instead, she always seemed to have them in a very tight spot.

  “Let’s leave all that,” I said. “Let’s get down to why you are really here.”

  As Maria pouted and fluttered her beautiful eyelashes, I found it difficult to concentrate on what she was saying. She was a very beautiful, young woman. I am sure I must have mentioned that before. I was utterly entranced by her beauty. Her perfume made me feel so heady, that I wanted to hold her close. I had to shake my head from side to side, several times in order to clear my mind.

  “You see, Mr. Simpson, let me take a hypothetical case of Ayuba and his wife, Amina. I’m only being hypothetical, you understand?”

  I assured her that I understood and she continued. “Now, if Amina was found dead at the bottom of a cliff, from which she had apparently jumped, having suffered some emotional trauma and the Police are satisfied that it was suicide, so close the case. But somehow I discover a letter that shows that Ayuba was the one who asked her to meet him on the cliff to discuss certain things, which she knew he had done but which Ayuba did not want her to tell anyone else, and for which he may have decided to push her over the cliff to shut her up. What should I do with the letter? Because although the letter was written by Ayuba to Amina, asking her to meet him there, it still is not proof that Ayuba kept the appointment with her or that he pushed her.”

  I was quiet for a few moments. Although she said it was hypothetical, it was obvious that to me that she knew some secret which was troubling her. Yet, she wanted to protect somebody. Was it her mother or Nagoth?

  “If I were in your shoes, Maria, I would hand over the letter to the Police, even if they have closed the case. If there is anything to uncover, they will do so. But even if they don’t act on it, you would have done your lawful duty. Otherwise, you may be suppressing useful information.”

  “I thought you might say something like that,” said Maria, with a deep sigh. “But what if I am in love with Ayuba and I don’t want him to feel that I have betrayed him by going to the Police? Couldn’t I confront him with the letter and hear what he has to say, first? She was starting to get really worked up about this so-called hypothetical story of hers. I wondered about the identity of the person she was trying to protect.

  “Maria, if Ayuba did push Amina off the cliff and you confronted him with such evidence as the purported letter, it could be dangerous for you. If he has killed before to shut somebody up, he could do so again.”

  “But if he loved me, he would explain everything to me,” said Maria, still pouting.

  I could see that she had already made up her mind to confront the person that she was protecting. She only needed me to back up her decision. But that, I could not do. Working with the story at hand, it was a dangerous step.

  “Why don’t you tell me the whole story, maybe I could offer more concrete advice?” I prompted.

  “Well you see, it was yesterday. I heard a noise in my room, like a rat scurrying around. It had disturbed me, all through the night. So, I decided to search for it. I went over to my chest of drawers and … I …” she suddenly clamped her hand over her mouth.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She looked frightened. “I don’t think that I should tell you any of this, Mr. Simpson. I think I should go now.” She stood up and adjusted her skirt.

  I reached out and held her left hand. She seemed so confused and scared.

  “You can confide in me, Maria.” I stood up. She looked at me with those bewitching eyes. We stood in close proximity and maybe that was what made touching her, a bad idea. A pulsating stream of electricity ran through me as we held hands. I think she felt it too. I could not tell if I drew her into my arms, or if she walked into them. We were suddenly in each other’s arms, and in her eyes I gleaned a need to be comforted. I didn’t know what was troubling her but it had her completely unsettled. I yielded to a sudden impulse. I lowered my head and kissed her waiting lips. Her lips parted, as mine met them.

  It appeared she had anticipated, almost like she expected that move. She melted softly into my arms and crushed herself against my chest. She nestled into me like she had found a place of rest and comfort after an emotional upheaval. It was an exhilarating experience. The kiss was brief, but it felt like a taste of paradise.

  She abruptly drew away, with a little gasp. Flustered and avoiding eye contact, her fingers touched her lips.

  “Well, if you change your mind and want to talk it over with me, I am always around,” I said self-consciously. She nodded her pretty head, opened the door and was gone.

  I was quite puzzled. What was she hiding? Why did she use Ayuba and Amina in her hypothetical story? It was clear to me that she knew something, which she was refusing to tell. Or was she afraid to tell it? I hoped she would not make the wrong decision and get herself into trouble.

  Sometimes, we believe we are unable to come to a decision when actually it is doing what we know deep down to be the right thing, that is the difficulty. I was certain that Maria knew the right thing to do, but emotions rather than reason, were guiding her.

  Later that evening, as I sat in my room determined to finish reading the novel I had been carrying around for some days, I noticed an increased frequency in the foot traffic along the corridor. My eyes, just as frequently, went to the wall clock, which would later assist me in keeping a methodical sequence of events.

  At about 10:00pm, I heard very light but sharp footsteps – like those of a lady wearing high heels. The footsteps stopped and there was a light knock on one of the doors. The door opened, the owner of the footsteps walked in and the door was shut. This was followed by two other doors opening in quick succession. After a short interval, both doors were shut almost simultaneously. One of the doors was that of Nagoth.

  The next time that a door opened, I looked at the clock; it was twenty minutes before 11:00pm. The light footsteps clicked their way out, the door slammed shut, and I heard the sound of footsteps hurrying away.

  I opened my door to see who it was, just at the same time as Nagoth opened his. We stared at each other without a word, then both looked down the corridor. I caught a fleeting glance of a red dress, just before it disappeared around the corner. The head of the person seemed to have been covered with a yellow shawl. Could it have been Maria? I was not sure. But who else? Amina only came around in the morning, to clean up. Mrs. Marshall walked with crutches.

  Nagoth came out of his room and locked his door, before going after the person. I went back into my room and shut my door. Some minutes later, I heard Nagoth come back and enter his room.

  At exactly 11:00pm, another door opened. I heard footsteps and whistling of a popular tune, as the owner walked down the corridor and confirmed his identity.

  Some minutes later, Philip returned. Although he was no longer whistling, I knew his jaunty steps.

  It was about 1:00am, when someone came up the stairs and down the corridor. A door opened and shut. Those were the last steps I heard before falling asleep, with my novel still unfinished.

  CHAPTER FIVE


  DEATH IN THE LODGE

  The next morning, Maria was not present for breakfast.

  “Has anyone seen Maria?” asked her mother.

  “Her door is still locked,” said Amina, as she served the food.

  “What!” exclaimed Mrs. Marshall, as she struggled to her feet. “Why isn’t she up? That’s unusual of her.” She left the dining room and returned, looking worried.

  “Please, come with me, Mr. Simpson,” she said to me.

  I left my place at the table and walked with her to Maria’s room.

  “Something is wrong,” said Mrs. Marshall, her eyes wider than usual. “Her door is locked from inside, but she isn't responding to my knock.”

  “Perhaps, she is outside?” I asked.

  “No,” said Mrs. Marshal. “I peeped through the keyhole and I could see her legs on the bed.” I restrained myself from telling Mrs. Marshall that it was wrong to peep into somebody’s room.

  “Then, she must be sleeping,” I suggested.

  “What kind of sleep can that be?” asked Mrs. Marshall, and she hit the door several times with one of her crutches. There was no response. I became alarmed, myself.

  “Break down the door!” ordered Mrs. Marshall.

  “Is anything the matter?” asked Ayuba, as he came over. His face was partially covered by a huge plaster but rather than look concerning, it looked comical. However, I wondered what had happened to him.

  “Yes, something seems to be wrong with Maria,” I sad. “She refuses to open her door. Have you a spare key to the room?” I asked.

  Breaking down the door seemed so drastic.

  “Yes, of course now,” said Ayuba. “Let me get it now.” And he hurried away.

  All kinds of thought raced through my mind, as we waited for Ayuba for what seemed like an eternity. Worry lines had appeared on Mrs. Marshall's brow.

  “I can’t find it!” Ayuba said with a tremor in his voice. “It’s missing … it's not where I kept it.”

  “Break down the door, Mr. Simpson!” ordered Mrs. Marshall.

  I looked at Ayuba, who shrugged his shoulders. So, I put my shoulder to the door. The door was quite good, but my shoulder was better. The door flew off the hinges when I smashed into it. We rushed in and met a gory sight. Maria was lying face up on her bed; her eyes were open and staring in what seemed to be surprise, at the ceiling. Her mouth hung slightly open. A butcher knife was buried deep in her chest and the bedsheets were caked with dried blood. I did not need a doctor to tell me that she was dead. Ayuba gasped in shock, and Mrs. Marshall screamed and fell forward. I caught her just in time to avoid a nasty fall.

  “She is dead!” said Ayuba, in a strangled voice. Shock and dismay were boldly written on his face. It dawned on me that this was the same room in which a young lady had hung herself earlier in the year. Was it a room of death? This was not good for business in any Lodge.

  “Did she kill herself?” asked Ayuba. “Her door was locked from inside.”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, as I helped Mrs. Marshall into a chair.

  She was understandably in a state of shock. Her body was shaking and she kept saying, “Maria! Maria! Maria!”

  I took some steps closer to the bed and examined the corpse. She had been dead for hours, and the knife was buried to the hilt. A loose, white, square button lay close to her right hand; I observed that it did not match those on her dress. Though I did not touch it, I could not help feeling that there was something familiar about the button. I felt like I had seen it somewhere before, but I could not quite remember where.

  “Call the police, Ayuba! And get an ambulance,” I said.

  The other guests, who had been attracted by the scream, now crowded the doorway.

  “What happened?” asked Willie, who led the group. A shocked silence followed when they saw the body.

  Within the hour, an ambulance and two police vans arrived. While waiting, I had kept watch by the door of the bedroom, so that nothing would be tampered with. The others had hung around, too. Mrs. Marshall had been taken to the lounge, where Amina sat with her. She looked like she was desperately in need of medical attention. She was still saying, “Maria! Maria! Maria!” intermittently. She was still shaking and was now crying.

  As soon as the police came, we were all waved aside. We were kept out of the room, while they worked, as was routine in such circumstances. Finally, a gurney was brought out of the ambulance and wheeled into the room. Maria's body was placed on it, covered with a sheet and wheeled inside the ambulance.

  Mrs. Marshall asked to accompany them to the morgue, and they only agreed when it was explained that she was the mother of the dead girl.

  Ten policemen were dispatched; they went over the room and asked us all kinds of questions. They kept nodding to themselves. I introduced myself as an ex-policeman, thinking that would make them take me into their confidence. I was greatly mistaken. They just smiled and asked some polite questions about my career in the Force, then proceeded to completely ignore me.

  But I was eager to know what they thought of the button, which I had seen earlier. So, I called one of the policemen aside.

  “I don’t know if you saw a white, square button on the bed?” I asked.

  “What about it?” asked the policeman. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “I just wanted to know if you took note of it,” I explained. “I observed that it did not match those on the dress of the deceased.”

  “We saw it and also took note. Thank you,” said the officer curtly and he left. They probably thought I was poking my nose into their investigation. I would have thought the same. All the same, there had been something oddly familiar about that button.

  At the end of the corridor downstairs, was a cupboard where Amina kept her cleaning items: mops, buckets, vacuum cleaner and disinfectants. It was spacious enough for a man to hide. When the door was shut, there was a small circular opening that you could see through. The police seemed particularly interested in it and spent an enormous amount of time inspecting it. What the cupboard had to do with the murder, was a mystery to me. In my opinion, they were simply wasting precious time inside a cupboard, instead of concentrating on the actual crime scene.

  I went back to the lounge where the other guests were huddled together, discussing in low tones. Some speculated that it might be suicide, while others were of the opinion that it was murder.

  “But her door was still locked from inside,” observed Amina who still had a shocked expression on her face, with her chin in her palm. “So she must have killed herself. I wonder if this has anything to do with the black cat that ran in front of me this morning. But I prayed about it. I even spat over my left shoulder, three times.”

  “Stop being superstitious,” said Ayuba, putting an arm around her shoulders. “A black cat running across your path this morning, has nothing to do with anything. She must have died, last night.”

  “She couldn’t have driven the knife so deep in her chest by herself,” said John, who actually looked bored. “She must have been killed by someone.”

  “But who?” asked Tonye.

  John had no answer to that and the perpetual frown on his face, deepened.

  Just as the weight of the million Naira question began to hang thickly in the air, one of the policemen came into the lounge. He was similar to me in height and build.

  “Listen,” he said, standing stiffly and looming over us since we were all seated. “You’re all to remain within the Lodge until the autopsy report comes in or you’re given any other further instruction. None of you is to leave the Lodge before then. This is not a suggestion and it is not open to any debate. It is an order.”

  Without waiting for a response, he went back to join his colleagues. We all stared at each other in silence.

  Nothing particularly eventful happened until two days later. But you could have cut the tension and fear in the Lodge during that period, with a knife. The police had taken the knife used for the murder
to their forensic lab for analysis. Apart from being interviewed and having our statements formally taken, we had also been swabbed for DNA and fingerprinted.

  People began to go to bed as early as 8:00pm, with their doors firmly locked. Apart from John who remained aloof, everyone else seemed to jump out at the slightest sound and were openly suspicious of every movement made by others.

  Tonye seemed to be the most badly affected. He was so frightened, that he wanted to leave the Lodge immediately. But the orders of the police stopped him. I was surprised that his fear did not actually kill him. Willie was still able to preserve some of his faith. He called on the other guests who were willing, to join him in his room at 7:00pm each day for prayers of protection. He also wanted to pray for the repose of the soul of Maria Marshall. But only John hearkened to that call.