Pastor, Visa Racketeer Suspected for Tunde’s Gruesome Murder

09 May Pastor, Visa Racketeer Suspected for Tunde’s Gruesome Murder

The visitors streamed out of Lola’s apartment to find several additional policemen standing guard in the courtyard. Abel saw his boss separate himself from the Police Commissioner. He knew it was a silent signal that Benson wanted to speak with him privately.  Abel moved swiftly to his side.

“You know Tunde is dead”, Benson said.

Abel nodded.

“It is bad, but we can’t break the news,” the publisher added, obviously upset.

“Yes, Sir. I understand”, Abel said, his voice raspy. He swallowed to clear it. He felt the pressure of tears behind his eyes and saw his boss shake his head.

“You must work on this, Abel. The Commissioner and I are going to meet with Tunde’s editors to see what they know. But you are to follow your own road.”

Abel nodded, understanding the charge he had been given. Benson turned and hurried after the Police Commissioner who was talking to his men beside the open door of a black Peugeot 607.

Fakorede approached Abel.

“My Commissioner and your publisher are working together”, he said. “Nice to have this collaboration between the police and journalists.”

Abel saw Fakorede suppress a smile breaking around his thick lips.

Fakorede reminded Abel of the mortician who is no longer moved by corpses. He had the ability to remain untouched by tragedy. Abel never got used to seeing the pain of others. And he considered it a blessing. It allowed him to empathise with the victims, and thus made his reporting better. But on this occasion, he envied Fakorede for his detachment. The Sergeant would have been pleased to know he had made an impression on the famous reporter.

Abel thanked the policeman and moved toward the road looking for the Zodiac driver whose car he had abandoned earlier. Abel wasn’t sure the man had waited for him until he heard his familiar voice.

“Oga, I waited for you”, the driver said as he came out of the darkness. “I finish the job even if I am left alone in the rain.” Abel smiled and nodded his gratitude, then followed the driver as he led the way to the car.

“The office”, Abel said, hurling himself into the back seat. He would have to pick up his car then drive home.

As they drove through the streets, Abel remembered when Tunde had first introduced him to his wife. It was on a Sunday afternoon. He had run into them in the newsroom. They were passing through on the way home from the church. Tunde had simply said, “Oga Abel, Lola is my wife”.

Abel had never heard such an elegantly simple introduction. It could only have come from someone with Tunde’s charm and grace. Abel shook Lola’s hands. Her dimpled smile was warm, and Abel had said, “Welcome to the crazy world of journalism. He needs your support”.

Abel sat back and closed his eyes, remembering his earlier schedule for the evening, now impossible to keep. He would have to call the man who was investing in his think-tank and put him off. His dream of starting another business had to be suspended until one more assignment was completed. When exactly it would be, he did not know.

An hour later, after picking up his car, Abel arrived home. His white seven-bedroom bungalow, set among the rich and mighty in the swanky Ikoyi area of Lagos, always gave him comfort. The one safe place in his world.

He declined the dinner offered by his house-help, Thomas Ikomma, and headed for the bathtub with a glass of beer in hand.

Abel felt Ikomma’s eyes on his back, watching him go. Stocky, fair-skinned, Ikomma wore a permanent grin. He was a warm, neat and intelligent man, whom poverty had denied a formal education. Only three months into his stay in what he called the QWH, for Quiet White House, he come to understand the solitary lifestyle of his boss and his moods. Abel was grateful that this night, Ikomma suppressed his usual good cheer, realising perhaps that his boss was terribly sad.

In the tub, partly buried in the soothing foam of the bath, Abel searched for motives for Tunde’s murder. He knew Tunde’s story had something to do with it. It crossed his mind that people in the church, which Tunde had exposed as practicing voodoo, might be responsible. They probably did not want any further investigation into their unorthodox, secret and heretical practices. But he immediately ruled that out as plain stupid. It was, after all, still a church. The House of God.

Similarly, he ruled out the visa racketeer. Tunde might have embarrassed the criminal, but he revealed nothing new about Sunday Ola. The police knew him and his illegal business well. Abel sipped his beer and theorised that there could be a third force that feared exposure as a result of Tunde’s ongoing investigation. It was a puzzle whose pieces did not fit together, and which offered few clues.

Abel wondered about the suspects the police had already, the pastor and the criminal, Sunday Ola. What did they know? And would they be willing to talk?

He took a sip of beer and tried to clear his mind when the phone on the wall opposite him rang.

Abel knew it had to be Chief Benson. Nobody else would call at this hour. He scrambled out of the tub, dripping wet, and answered the line.

“Boss?”

“Yes, boy, you have any early thoughts?” Chief Benson’s voice was strong now, and harsh, like an editor demanding a story from his reporter.

Abel stood on the cold tile, a puddle gathering at his feet. “I have not got anything yet, Boss. Still putting the pieces together.”

“Okay, listen. The police released some details of Tunde’s death. They found Tunde’s body behind a deserted school building. Whoever it was, drove a knife into his heart. From time of death it must have happened in broad daylight.”

Abel knew what this meant.

“Now, we cannot keep the story out of the media tomorrow morning”, he said. “It is probably already all over the place.”

“Yes, and our competition will love to splash it. So, the news editor has crafted a copy with all the police details …”

“Lola!” Abel cut in.

“The doctors are going to keep her sedated, and she won’t see the story until she has been told by her priest. They didn’t have kids, so it becomes easier to manage. Later in the afternoon, the police will address a press conference, but her parents and in-laws would have arrived from Ondo State by then. We will make sure that soon after the autopsy, the body is buried.”

Chief Benson’s voice was quaking now. Abel never had heard such emotion from Benson. His boss must be in great distress.

“And her benefits are ready, Sir?”

“Yes.”

“I suggest the tourism editor arrange for Lola and her sister to travel to the UK to get away for a while.”

“I am depending on you, Abel. We must unravel this mystery. I will not get scooped on our own story.”

“I will begin my investigation as soon as possible.”

“I know I didn’t have to tell you that”, Chief Benson said and hung up.

Abel returned to the bath to rinse off. The flood he had created on the white tile floor reminded him of the Lagos rain and of his afternoon in the car, reading Tunde’s article.

And then it struck him.

He dried off quickly, threw on some clothes and hurried downstairs to his desk where he had left the paper with Tunde’s article. There had to be more to the story than mere voodoo and garden-variety corruption. Tunde wasn’t killed over such trivial matters.

The visa applicants’ names were listed in the article. He re-read the names and ages, which he had only skimmed that afternoon. And then he knew for certain.

Of the 15 applicants whose photographs were in the snake’s bowels, 13 were females. Young women. Under the age of 18. It all made sense. The trafficking and prostitution of female children stared him in the face. That is what this was about.

Re-energised, he asked Ikomma to bring him coffee. Then he sat down at his computer and immediately engaged the Google search engine. It was to be a long night.