by Femi Kayode
Just then, a uniformed man who I recognise as Emeka’s driver approaches them. He is carrying a large bag, which he hands over to Emeka respectfully. Emeka hands it to Chika. A few words delivered more calmly elicit nods from Chika. Soon, the Range Rover is reversing and making its way out of the hotel’s large gates while Chika heads towards the Land Cruiser.
I turn slightly to ensure he doesn’t catch sight of me. When he gets to the car, he opens the trunk. I can’t see much from where I stand, but when he closes the trunk and turns towards the hotel entrance, I walk as fast as I can to the elevators. Luckily, they open as soon as I press the up arrow.
As the doors close, I see Chika enter and make his way towards the bar in the lobby. Empty-handed.
LITTLE WHITE LIES
‘I left my iPad in the car,’ I say again in front of the bathroom mirror.
I know it’s ridiculous that I am practising how to get the keys to the car from Chika, but I am quite aware of how bad at lying I am, and how good Chika is at reading people. I have to say I need the iPad to get some work done, unhurried but eager enough, with the right amount of casualness.
‘I think I left my iPad in the car …’ Yes, that’s much better. Saying ‘I think’ sounds appropriately unsure. I down the last bit of the drink I ordered and head down the hall to his room.
I would have turned back straight away if he did not answer the door on my first tentative knock.
‘I think …’ The words are stuck in my throat. He looks tortured, so instead my planned deception becomes a sincere question. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Your wife?’
‘She’s fine. You want to come in?’ He steps aside and I have no good reason to decline.
Inside the room, I am flustered, wondering whether to revert to my original intention or get him to tell me what is bothering him.
‘I owe you an apology,’ Chika says, still at the door.
I am caught off guard, but can’t pretend I don’t know what he is apologising for.
‘You could have told me. It would have made my job a lot easier.’
Chika nods. ‘I was planning to tell you … I am really sorry, Philip.’
The words are solemn, and I think if he had added ‘sir’ again, I would’ve waved off the apology. But the way he said my name carried both respect and regret, and it would have been ungracious not to respond in kind.
‘It’s all right. I am sure you and Emeka had your reasons,’ I shrug.
‘I should’ve told you what my real role was in all of this.’
‘It wouldn’t have hurt.’
‘It wouldn’t have helped either.’
If I think about the different ways I could have gone about this assignment if I knew who Chika really was, I would beg to differ. Most of all, I don’t like being deceived. ‘You’re a detective?’
He shakes his head. ‘Security expert. National Bank is one of my clients. I evaluate the risks to their systems, provide training support for the guards who carry cash around, and sometimes I’m called in for special assignments like this.’
‘Are you really married?’
He smiles. ‘Yes. And yes, my wife is really expecting our first baby.’
‘Thank heavens. I would hate to think I wasted marital advice.’
He laughs. ‘It was not wasted at all. I took it, and I’m happy to report that she’s much calmer and more supportive.’
A series of images flash through my mind.
– Chika standing against the Land Cruiser waiting for me after my interview with Sobi
– the familiar way he approached the security guard at Whyte Hall, and their quick, easy laughter
– the way Sobi frowned when he saw Chika
‘There was no Tochukwu was there?’ I ask.
‘What?’ He seems taken aback.
‘That day at Harcourt Whyte, you’d been there before. You didn’t interview anyone. You were giving me information you already had.’
‘Yes. But I swear I didn’t know about Tamuno.’
‘You never spoke to Mercy?’
He shakes his head. ‘It was too risky in those early months. She was too fragile. It would have been cruel then.’
That was why he encouraged me to go to the hospital, and was so pushy when we were speaking to Mercy. It’s all making sense now.
‘The Registrar, you’ve met him before …’
Chika looks away. I would like to think he’s a tad ashamed.
‘Yes. I interviewed him a number of times in the first weeks afterwards.’
‘What about Godwin?’ I ask, holding my breath.
Chika looks back at me sharply, shaking his head.
‘No. It was the same situation as Mercy. I was not allowed to speak with him because he was considered too unstable, and I was neither an investigator nor the police. It was one of the conditions of Ikime helping us now, especially because the university was still doing its own investigations then. I listened to his audio interviews, gathered information from other students and studied him from afar, but I swear I didn’t speak with him directly.’
I want to believe him, but at this point, my trust level is abysmally low. Who else knows? Surely my dad cannot be part of this whole charade. Abubakar? Salome? The Inspector? My head is swimming with questions, but I am not convinced I will get the whole truth from Chika now, not with that exchange with Emeka at the parking lot fresh in my mind.
I play back the words that confirmed the unsettling feeling that Chika was not who he claimed to be.
‘A dropout playing at being a detective.’
‘And TSU?’ I ask aloud. ‘Did you really go there?’
Chika walks to the window and stares out. ‘I did, I just never graduated.’
‘What happened?’
‘I was rusticated in my third year for being a cult member.’
I am ill prepared for this revelation. I take in a deep breath, trying to find the right response, but the words don’t come.
‘It’s not something I am proud of,’ he says into the silence.
I keep my tone as neutral as possible when I speak. ‘Do you know for sure if the boys were in a cult or not?’
Chika turns towards me but says nothing, hesitant.
‘Chika?’
He faces me slowly, but it’s like his eyes are begging me not to ask more questions.
‘I did find out that Winston and Bona were popular because they supplied drugs – ecstasy, poppers, even cocaine – at the parties.’
‘Godwin was their supplier?’
He nods. ‘It seems so. They bought from him and sold at the parties they went to, but they were not part of any cult.’
‘And Kevin?’
Chika lets out a deep breath and looks away again.
‘You must promise not to tell Mr Nwamadi that I knew this.’
I refuse to be part of this whole deception game, but I suspect Chika will not talk further if I don’t make a commitment.
‘I will try. I can promise that.’
He looks at me squarely, his eyes are sad. ‘Kevin was a cultist. Took me weeks to find proof, but, yes, he was in a cult.’
I let out a deflated sigh and sit in the nearest chair. ‘You never told Emeka?’
Chika shakes his head. ‘I couldn’t. Especially because I also found out that after Kevin started his relationship with Mercy, he tried to get out. He stopped going to meetings and took up causes like Justice for Momoh to prove he was reformed.’
‘But you still couldn’t explain how Kevin came to be with Winston and Bona?’
Chika shakes his head again. ‘It all got confusing as soon as I knew Winston and Bona were not in a cult and there was no proof that Kevin was taking or selling drugs. And I couldn’t push further without telling Emeka that his son was indeed a cult member.’
‘That’s why you agreed to help me to find out what you already knew, so I would be the one to tell him.’
Chika nod
s, and smiles ruefully. ‘Guess that backfired because we now know cultism had nothing to do with why those boys were killed. We wouldn’t have known that if Emeka hadn’t brought you in.’
This is little consolation given the amount of deceit that went into getting me on board.
‘You uncovered several critical aspects that would have made my job easier if I had known.’
He is dismissive. ‘I’m a glorified muscleman without your insights and expertise.’
‘You underestimate yourself.’
‘You are kind, but I know my limitations.’
We’re silent for a while.
‘The rustication …?’
He smiles, and I am not sure whether it’s in resignation or regret.
‘I deserved it. I was stupid. It set me back several years and made me ineligible for admission into any university in the country.’
‘If you don’t mind my asking, what made you join?’ I ask, thinking of my father.
He gives his characteristic shrug. ‘I wish I could say peer pressure, but it wasn’t. I went to the university with good grades and to be honest, I felt sort of special. I come from a family of traders. I was the first to attend university but I might as well have been invisible. I was special at home, but just one of over tens of thousands of undergraduates. I wanted to stand out, to be someone to be reckon with, to have power. They didn’t recruit me. I sought them out and I fit the bill: eager, reckless and stupid.’
There’s no self-pity in his voice. These are no more than details of a past he’d made peace with. I wait for him to say more, and when he doesn’t, I change direction.
‘Does Emeka have a private jet?’
‘Yes.’ He briefly looks at me with a frown. ‘Why?’
‘That would explain how quickly he got here today.’
Chika doesn’t respond, and I’m now learning that rather than lie, he tends to keep quiet. I can, therefore, deduce Emeka didn’t arrive in Port Harcourt today but earlier. Perhaps even as early as when I arrived. I wouldn’t put such close monitoring beyond a man as driven as Emeka.
Which brings me to my original intention for coming to Chika’s room.
‘I came because I can’t find my iPad. I think I left it in the car,’ I state with surprising ease.
Perhaps because the atmosphere is charged and Chika is feeling guilty about his own extensive deception, he appears grateful for the change of subject.
‘I can go check for you.’
‘No, no. It’s fine. I’ll do it.’
I catch sight of the car keys on the desk and pick them up. I pat his shoulder. ‘You did a fine job, Chika. I wish you had told me all this from the beginning but I also understand why you didn’t. It might have even coloured my perception of the whole thing, so maybe it was a good thing.’
My smile is sincere but his remains guarded.
‘Be right back,’ I say as casually as I can muster and leave.
I almost choose the stairs when the elevators take longer than usual to arrive, but will myself to be casual. I get in calmly when the elevator arrives, and at the lobby, I greet the doorman at the entrance and head towards the parking lot.
I look up at the windows of the hotel to be sure Chika is not looking out. I walk over to the car and quickly open the trunk.
The jack and wheel wrench are lying on top of the mat and not underneath. I gently move them aside and lift the carpet. There is the black bag. I turn back to look around me. Nothing. No one is watching.
I quickly unzip the bag, my heart thudding in my chest. On some level I have known all along what I would find, but confirmation only made me feel even more out of my depth.
I take out my phone, my hand shaking slightly as I capture what lies inside with its camera. I zip the bag back up and carefully cover it with the mat, close the trunk and press the car remote.
I hope I’m a picture of calm as I walk back into the hotel. Once inside my room, I rush to my iPad.
It takes some searching online, but I do find a match with what I saw in the bag.
Brügger & Thomet APR 338. A sniper rifle renowned for both its silence and long-range capabilities.
TURNING TABLES
I pretend I am on the phone with Folake when I knock on Chika’s door. I wave the iPad in his face while mumbling a ‘hold on’ to the pretend caller.
‘Thanks,’ I say, as I hand the key back to Chika and indicate the phone. ‘Home. Later.’
‘You were saying, Sweets?’ I ask as Chika’s door closes behind me.
As soon as I enter my room, I head for the minibar and am quite tipsy when I do call my wife. It’s either this or march straight back to Chika’s room and demand answers.
‘Hey,’ she says groggily.
‘Sorry I woke you.’
‘No. It’s okay. Are you all right?’
‘Nope.’
‘What’s wrong?’ I can picture her sitting up in our bed. ‘What happened?’
I tell her everything, the past week pouring out in a torrent of words that slip into a ramble.
‘Sweet, are you drunk?’ she asks when I am done.
‘Almost.’
‘You want to sleep and call me back in the morning?’
‘No. I’m coming home.’
‘But you’re not done.’
‘Have you been listening to me? Everything is a mess. I don’t know anything any more.’
‘Because you found a sniper rifle in a bag that was given to this Chika by your client, suddenly everything doesn’t make sense?’
‘Why would Emeka give him a rifle, Folake? Explain that to me –’
‘I can’t. All I know is, I’m not sure you’ll like yourself if you come back before finding the answers you went looking for.’
‘No one’s telling the truth –’
‘That’s generally the case when a crime is being concealed.’ I can hear the dryness in her tone.
‘Well, I’m not going to be part of it any more. I’m coming home.’
‘As what?’ I hear the challenge in her tone.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You heard me, Phil. Are you coming back as my husband or the angry man who left this house a week ago?’
I am silent. A part of my brain struggles to reconcile the events of the past days as having happened in a week.
‘Phil?’
‘I don’t know,’ I finally answer.
‘I think you should before coming back. I had hoped this assignment would restore whatever you believe leaving the States has taken from us. Maybe it’s prestige, or pride or whatever.’
‘I lost you,’ I say before I can catch myself. It clicks somewhere in my mind that I’m not tipsy but quite drunk. But it’s too late.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I saw you, Folake,’ I say, trying to stem the anger that is threatening to become a sob in my throat. ‘I saw you.’
‘You saw what?’
‘You and that boy. Your graduate assistant!’
The words tumble out. I tell Folake how I came to her office to pick her up, hoping to regale her with my first impressions of Emeka Nwamadi while driving us to watch our sons at their school’s basketball tournament. I tell her how I parked the car and called her on the phone to come down. When she didn’t pick up the call, I looked up at the large windows that framed her office. And that was when I saw them.
She and the young man who had visited our house many times to drop off papers, grade assignments and pass on administrative tidbits that needed Folake’s attention. I remember his name: Soji Bello. A nice enough young man who I never paid more than the most cursory mind, until the moment I saw my wife in his arms.
‘You said you were caught in traffic,’ Folake says when I pause for breath.
‘I drove off. I had to think. To clear my head.’
There’s silence. I want to scream at her to say something, anything to defend herself but –
‘Let me let you sleep,’ she says. ‘I can�
��t talk to you like this.’
‘What would you say? I know what I saw!’
‘Go to sleep, please. I’ll call tomorrow.’
And with that, she hangs up with a finality that enrages me further. I redial her number. It just rings and takes me to voicemail. The operator informs me her phone is switched off on all my subsequent attempts. I throw the phone aside. In my mind, I had practised how I was going to confront her: to her face, calmly and coolly. The very opposite of what I just did.
The minibar is now empty, so I order more bourbon from room service and fall into a restless sleep.
Surprisingly, I don’t have a headache when I wake up. My mouth is dry and my stomach is queasy, but, otherwise, I am fine. But I don’t look fine. My eyes are bloodshot as I stare at the bathroom mirror after relieving myself and I hold on to the sides of the sink to steady myself. As the hungover tend to do, I try to recall everything that happened last night and the accuracy of my memory is not comforting.
I walk back to the room and check my phone. Nothing from Folake. I want to call her, but I stop myself. She should be the one calling me, pleading for forgiveness.
I toss the phone on the bed and go into the shower. When I return, it is to four missed calls from Salome. She didn’t leave a message. I’m not in the mood to speak to her anyway. She’s part of this whole mess. No, Ms Salome Briggs, I’m not going to be party to whatever game you’re playing. Not today.
I have a murderer to find.
Chika seems to be in good spirits when we meet in the hotel restaurant.
‘Rough night?’ he asks.
‘We really must get going. No time for chit-chat.’ I wave the waiter away. No breakfast today.
‘Someone is in a foul mood,’ he says with a levity that irritates me even further, then chuckles. ‘Well, let’s hope this cheers you up.’
‘What?’ I’m desperate for some good news, so I pull out a chair and sit.
Smiling, Chika takes out his cell phone and waves it triumphantly ‘Look what my hacker friend sent me.’
I squint at him. ‘They got into Kevin’s account?’
Chika nods and hands me his phone.
I swipe through screenshots of messages that confirm what Tamuno told us about Godwin. He knew Kevin very well. In the series of messages between them, Godwin appears to be denying the accusation of being the one who tipped off the police about the damning images found on Momoh’s phone.