ElPhoche:

You go come my house make we sit down,read the story and eat popcorn in my cozy sofa?

queenitee:

Yes now

ghostwritter:
CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE INTRUDER

“…lead us not into temptation, deliver us from all evil, for thou arth the kingdom, power and glory, forever and ever, Amen”.
Lucy rose from her bed side where she had knelt to pray in the early hours of the morning. She walked to the window where she could have a good view of the community. The sun hadn’t risen yet but the morning was clear and bright enough to see a figure from afar. It’s been exactly a month and four days since the community was raided by the government with Fabian and Mustapha taken away. The community felt unprotected without a leader to lead them and so was Lucy who felt same way without Fabian around her. Lucy had tried contacting few prominent friends of hers in London and other countries for help to releasing Fabian but nothing positive happened, nothing they say or do could be done to help free a ‘Terrorist of the Nation’. All Lucy could do was to pray and that, she had always done for Fabian every morning and every night.

Lucy looked down at the community from her window, she could still see few government forces patrolling around, and she could understand it was for the people’s safety, not after the death of five men in one night. The government needed to do it investigation and take temporary control of the community. No murder case had been heard of within that month but the people of the community aren’t happy of the government intimidation upon them.

“Who is it?” Lucy inquired on hearing a knock to her door.

“Madam, it is me Kudirat” a female voice replied from behind the door.

Kudirat is the maid who stays with Lucy in her apartment; she had volunteered herself to the service of Lucy knowing she could learn to speak the British accent like her in return. Lucy had been very appreciative of their company together but a bit skeptical of her over-zealousness to her duties.

“Come inside, the door isn’t locked” Lucy ordered as she headed towards the door to go meet her.

“Good morning Madam!” Kudirat greeted as she walked into the bedroom with a tray of hot jug of tea and a mug “I hope you slept well madam?” she continued as she gently dropped the tray on the stool by the bedside.

“Yes I did, thanks for asking and I hope you also had a wonderful night?”

“Yes Madam, Allahamdulillahi!”

“Good” Lucy nodded as she watched Kudirat pour the tea into a cup and turned to hand it over to her “and again, thanks for the tea” she sipped the hot tea cautiously; it was just how she loved it.

Kudirat walked out of the room but soon came back to inform Lucy of a visitors awaiting her in the parlor. It was the detectives.

Detective Adam had been assigned to investigate the cause of death, he had within three days of his stay in the community interrogated sixteen people in connection to the death of the five stewards. Strangely, no one ever saw the murderer that night. Detective Adam knew it wouldn’t be easy seeing how strange and hostile the people behaved but he was determined to get to the end of the case.

That morning, the detective had paid Lucy a visit, he was glad to know she was Abu-Terror’s girlfriend and by that a sure source of vital information.

“Good morning Miss Lucy, I am detective Adam and here is my partner detective Pamela” he slightly gestured to a young lady beside him.

“I already know who you are, you need to know that people whisper a lot around here, have your sit”

“Then I’m sure you must know why we are here” said Adam as he falls back to his seat

“Of course yes, but a minute please” Lucy called out to Kudirat to bring the guest a cup of hot tea but they declined immediately but after Lucy’s persistence, they agreed to having a cup of steaming tea.

Adam was hopeful of Lucy’s cooperation seeing she was white and hospitable; she appeared to him the understanding type.

“If you have come to ask me if Fabian was guilty of the atrocities nailed against him, I will be happy to tell you that he never did” she paused to calm her growing emotion before she continued “He never killed anyone, he never killed those boys, he was here in the room with me when those boys were murdered out there, I would testify if called upon”

Detective Adam gently dropped his mug of hot tea on the table after he had sipped from it. “Then I’m sure you must help prove us wrong if you want him freed Miss Lucy” Adam lied knowing Fabian wasn’t charged for the murder within the community, at least not yet but for his provable acts of numerous murders outside the community.

“Miss Lucy, we would need you to help us in finding the real murderer, who do you suspect is capable of such act” the young looking detective Pamela asked, that was her first official assignment , she had been assigned to work along with the finest officer, and she was ready to do anything to make it count.

“I don’t know, I got here barely two months ago, I am still trying to find my way around the community and their way of life, it’s weird here if you know what I mean”

“Obviously” Adam said nodding his head

“Wait” Lucy excused herself into the bedroom and returned to her guest with a book, when the detectives inquired about it, she told them Fabian had called it the book of secret and had warned her never to open it, the detectives hope soon dashed when after they opened and realized there was nothing inscribed to it, it was all plain. Adam kept it with a promise to go investigate on it anyways hoping he discover a coded message on it.

Detective Adam had records of solving big cases; he had always thrown himself into the dangerous side of his profession and had somehow made it out victoriously. He had been nicknamed Shylock Holmes by his colleagues, so when the federal government called the state security department for a credible officer for a special assignment into the secluded community, the department without doubt knew Adam Attan had gotten himself an assignment. Adam was more than happy to accept the case but not the new partner tagged with him.

Adam wasn’t ready to babysit a young naïve; inexperience detective Pamela Obulu who was believed will learn fast with him and would be useful on the assignment with her feminine touch to it. Pamela’s joy knew no bound on hearing she will be working along side ‘Shylock Holmes’ in an enstranged community. The government provided the detectives with shelters, security personnel and whatever they would need for a successful operation within the community; they have a month to provide the government with information on how to kill Abu-Terror. The government had through the soldiers been unable to execute the terrorist through various means. When shot at, Fabian would appear lifeless for few minutes before he wakes to life, he had been poisoned, stabbed but had never died. Mustapha had been severely tortured into revealing Abubakr’s source to death; he wouldn’t say much but rather laughed mischievously at their ignorance. That prompted the government into getting the best detective for the job.
***
That night, Adam took his time flipping the book of secret page after page with close observation to each. He could sense that the book was more than what it looks but he couldn’t prove it. Ones in a while, he would poof out the fume of his cigarette as he occasionally twist the tip of his mustache. The detective soon discovered three things about the book, -it had a faint word ‘The Key’ at the cover –it had few pages tore from it –someone left a message at it back cover. To Adam, that might just be a lead. He read it over and over trying hard to make sense of it. Pamela knocked before walking into the room. It was twelve minutes past the hour of ten; she could tell that Adam had been on the book for hours going by the burnt end of cigarettes in the ash-tray in front of him and sure wouldn’t sleep any time soon.

“Any luck sir,” she made her sit in front of him

“Not yet” he sighed before pushing the book towards her “What does it mean?”

Pamela looked closely at the opened page 'To my craziest, read with your mind on it and not your eyes to it' it was handwritten and it looked recent, she couldn’t make sense of it either. She suggested they go visit Lucy again to tell what it meant, Adam refused saying Lucy wouldn’t have handed out the book if she already knew what was in it. He pointed her attention to the missing pages and the words at the cover page.

“Sir, I think this book must had been important to someone in one way or the other” said Pamela

“And someone somehow had found a way of reading it content” Adam assumed

“So probably to hide the secret further, the owner had tore the vital part of it” Pamela added

“Or maybe someone else who had found his or her way around the book had torn the vital part of the book to render it useless to the owner”.
Pamela headed back to her room after realizing they had stayed up for two more hours without meaningful evidence from the strange book. Adam smoked a last stick of his cigarette before locking his door and headed for bed hoping he gets a better lead to the secret to Abu-Terror's death the next day.

___________

Detective Adam woke up the next morning to a sharp pain on his arm, he was shocked to see it bleeding. It was a sharp cut across his arm; he rushed to the bathroom to wash it off and as the water washed the blood on it surface, the detective was more surprised to see it was an inscribed word.

‘HELLO ADAM’ was the word carved into his skin; he looked across his room and was certain no one had come inside since the door was locked. He wondered how it was possible for someone to have snicked into his room to carve such word upon his arm without him being aware.
Adam was never a deep sleeper; he would have woken-p to the slightest sound of a footstep. Adam watched as the cut slowly began to bleed again before calling for Pamela’s attention into his room. He showed it to Pamela as she appeared into the room.

“Jezz, what the hell is this? How did you come about this? Did you cut yourself?” Pamela said wondering what had happened.

Adam knew she hadn’t gotten the message he was expecting of her, he stretched his hand further. “Look at it careful, what can you read?”

“Oh my God, who did this to you?” she said after realizing the message

“I don’t know, I think someone is trying to play smart with me” he said looking suspiciously across the room like he was hoping to see an intruder hiding somewhere within. He searched every corner of the room, Pamela joined but they saw no one. The two security personnel guarding the rooms also denied seeing an intruder.The two detectives both carefully examined the wound ones again, Adam couldn’t figure out how the intruder had entered the room, it appeared to him the intruder had taken his or her time to make the cuts to his arm. That was so strange.

“But how did the person know your name?” Pamela pointed out

“Exactly” he slowly raised his head from his bleeding arm to gazing at Pamela revealingly “How could that person had known my name?”

“We sure need to be careful sir; it’s obvious someone wants you dead”

“I don’t think so, if this person wants me dead, he could have just gone for my throat”

Pamela agreed nodding her head, truly the intruder had all the chances to kill her partner but hadn’t “So what does this person want?” she asked.

“I think this person wants me to acknowledge his presence, he wants me to know he could had gone a little further to killing me but had spared it for God knows why” Adam was angry, he felt intimidated and also ashamed by what had happened to him. That was a dent to his prestigious status as a fine detective and more so all happening in the presence of Pamela, the lady he secretly had a flare for. Adam had for months back loved the female detective for her beauty and brain but never made a move or had made it visible.

“Now what do we do?” she inquired

“I will do whatever it takes to find whoever had done this, go get prepared, we have got a job to do” he said confidently hoping to go finding the intruder.

***
******

12345baba:
Make a novel or something my eye dey pain me these days while looking at my phone screens for long

ephraimchima:
The twists in dis story ehn!_Gad!_ very soon Pamela will turn to Amarat!

queenitee:

kennypedia:
He will update latest Saturday night

Dotwillis1:
what is/was your course of study in school?

kennypedia:
He will update latest Saturday night

faragai24:
Nice one indeed, need a copy. How ?