Chapter 6: In Search of Lust Time

“Now you will feel no rain, cos each of you will be a sanctuary to each other,” John Sonekan remembered the joy on his father’s face; the rare joy of being your son’s wedding priest. “Now you will feel no cold, cos each of you will find warmth in each other.”

His face was, by then, a joyed waterway. He remembered the tears in Menorah’s eyes as well. This was ten years ago. Before her death from AIDS.

If only he had known that his bride had been gang-raped by her police superintendent uncle and his drunk friends three years before that wedding, maybe he would have asked that she got tested for HIV. If only Menorah had known that one of those men could have, and did infect her with HIV, maybe she would finally have found the courage to tell her husband that little detail that eventually turned out fatal.

But it was in the past, and John was her future, so it was pointless. Besides, her uncle had since apologized to her. So why risk losing her man over it? Why embarrass her family like that?

“We did not arrest him, ma. He surrendered.”

John heard a sergeant major say to Nadia. He smiled. Something was definitely serpentine about his presence in that cell. His air reeked with devilish calm. And he loved how it felt. He loved how they would never know the death that hovered around till he had taken another life. The last one. The one really wanted.

“Me, I think something is fishy oh. This his alakowe look cannot deceive me ntemi.”

“Enough,” Nadia said. “You may leave now.”

Her gaze met John’s as the sergeant made his way to the Superintendent’s office. He looked too interested in checking her out to be bothered about the soup he was in. It reminded her of the time Milford had first tasted stardom, and all he seemed to think about besides football were girls and sex. It felt like the time she screamed at Milford to “Get a hold on life!” But “All I want to get a hold on right now is a pair of boobs,” was his reply.

She had hated that her younger brother would say that. But she had loved his honesty. Without it, maybe she wouldn’t have been able to guide him to the choices he was making now. Like Gold, his Ghanaian friend, who was teaching him a little of Twi and a lot of how to be a better man. She would gladly offer the same scream-service to John, but the superintendent had insisted on interrogating him himself. Besides, John was no teenager. She would just get on with her own job; bringing Dauda, her mother’s murderer, to justice. She hoped her new witness, the woman who Aliyah’s heart was donated to, would help her do just that. The woman was waiting in Nadia’s office.

“I hope it wasn’t too much of a bother, bringing you here like this?” Nadia said to the woman seated in one of her office’s visitors’ chairs. She had heard the woman was a movie star. One of her favourites, in fact. But she wasn’t exactly doing ‘how stars do’. She looked surprisingly sober. Strikingly patient. Nadia extended her hand for an handshake with the woman. “I apologize for keeping you waiting. I’m a big fan, by the way”

“It’s okay,” Tayo responded. “I was hoping you would let me see my friend too. So, I was glad when I learnt that I could be of help here.”

“Your friend?”

“Coach Olaitan. I just met him, actually, so he not like a friend friend. But he doesn’t come off as someone who would do what you all are accusing him of.”

Nadia smiled wryly. “Looks deceive, ma’am. I’m sure an actress like you would understand that.”
If only life was as simple as those movies, Tayo thought. “Well, can I see him?”

“No, ma’am. I can’t give you that permission.”

Nadia almost couldn’t believe the disappointment on Tayo’s face. She looked out of Dauda’s league by a bit of a mile. How under the heavens did her evil father score so good with this woman? It was a riddle she didn’t even know how to start solving.

“Anyways, you said you have a report of what killed Mrs Aliyah Olaitan?”

“Yes, it was included in the donor documents given to me. I have them here with me.”

Nadia collected the documents from Tayo. The sight of her mother’s name made hot tears gather in her eyes. Her eyes fell on the recorded cause of death. “Piercing Force On The Neck”.

She paused.

Hadn’t it been an accident? An accident that Dauda caused?

There had been no record of this cause of death before now. And from pictures she saw after the accident, the vehicle’s windscreen had cracked. It hadn’t exactly shattered. So it couldn’t have pierced Aliyah in the neck.

Kamoru had said it before, but she hadn’t given it much thought. Now though, even a fool couldn’t deny that something was definitely not right.
The TV in her office came on all of a sudden. Electricity had just been restored. The sound of Lagbaja’s Konko Below coming from it was one she loved to hear. But in this moment, all that mattered was what was happening here.
A loud scream suddenly emanated from somewhere. John’s cell.

Tayo, Nadia, and other police officers rushed to the cell. But the sight they were greeted with was the worst Nadia had witnessed in the past two years she has served as a police officer.

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