Shocking details emerge as Peter Abel investigates the death that shocked Nigeria

24 Jan Shocking details emerge as Peter Abel investigates the death that shocked Nigeria

The next morning, Abel’s story was front-page news and the talk of both Lagos, Abuja and Bammak

a City. People discussed in small groups, speculating how the accident might have happened and whether it was an accident at all.

Timo Tiko read the paper at his breakfast table. Millie was shocked when he cursed loudly and threw his coffee cup against the wall.

“Timo, please.”

“We’re being accused of murder! By your boyfriend!”

Millie took the paper and looked at it. She felt hurt by this accusation, since nothing had happened between her and Peter Abel. She looked up at her husband.

“That is a terrible thing to say, Timo. You sent me there, thinking I would seduce Peter. But I didn’t. I got you your information and retained my honour, which is more than you expected.”

Millie knew from the look on her husband’s face that his mind was already elsewhere. He didn’t really care if she had slept with Abel or not, and it hurt her terribly. She also suspected he was sleeping with Rika, that bitch. Millie had contemplated leaving Timo before. And now, she decided, was the right time. But he couldn’t know her intention because he would never let her go.

“Timo,” she said, “I would like to go back to London for awhile. This terrible thing is going to occupy you for God knows how long. And maybe it’s better if I’m not here. The last thing you need is to worry about me.”

Tiko looked at her and Millie wondered if he’d guessed her agenda. But he simply nodded. “Whatever you want. Maybe it is better if you’re out of here. Things are likely to get ugly. I don’t want you getting hurt in the crossfire.”

Millie almost laughed out loud. He said he was worried about her getting hurt by others, but he had no compunction about landing the emotional blows himself.

Millie would make her arrangements and fly to London the next day.  She hoped never to see Tiko again.

 

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Tiko retreated to his office and locked himself in. He called Rika. “Whatever you do, don’t get defensive. And make sure Gorem stays neutral. He’s got to say he wants the killers captured and punished if, in fact, it was a murder. He’s got to say he’s cooperating fully.”

“As far as he knows, he is. You took care of Noro?”

“Yes. He’s taken the autopsy and the accident report. Nobody will ever see them.”

“Someone should have told the medical examiner to keep his mouth shut.”

“That’s why I was trying to get Abel out of the way. Now, we simply need to keep him guessing.”

“Why not kill him here in Bammak City? It will be easier to get to him.”

“No, Rika. If he dies now, people will know the Camp family’s deaths were no accident. Let Abel start rumours. He can’t prove anything. And I’ll make sure we get to everyone he could possibly talk to. Nobody will dare give him another quote.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because the medical examiner had an unfortunate accident himself this morning. Every finger on his left hand was broken. I think that’s a message people will not fail to miss.”

“And you’re not afraid someone will think it’s because he spoke out?”

“He has issued a statement already, saying he was working in his garage at home when a cable gave way and a heavy metal box fell on his hand. An everyday mishap.”

Rika was suddenly excited, thinking of this manoeuvre. “When can I see you?”

Tiko recognized the tone in her voice and it excited him, too. “Soon. Tomorrow. Millie is returning to London, and her rivals know I should not be disturbed.” She was the only one who could challenge me because of the wealth of her parents, the others wives lived off Tiko.

 

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Governor Huud was frustrated. He had been trying to get Comfort on the line since the night before and she would not talk to him. He worried that she suspected him of involvement in the deaths.  He also wondered if she had seen the morning papers. Damn, Peter Abel, that meddling reporter. He had no real proof. This phantom heel print proved nothing. Neither did the break in Theodora’s neck. It was all very speculative, but he knew it had already started rumours and doubts, and there was a student demonstration planned.

Huud asked Issa to try Comfort once again. But again, she was “busy.”  As he hung up, Rika entered from her office. She knew he’d been trying to reach Comfort.

“What’s so important about speaking with that woman? One would think you had a crush on her.”

Huud was surprised how she knew, but it didn’t matter anymore. He shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. She’s one of Camp’s closest aides. I’m trying to find out how he is this morning.”

“You should try to see him.”

Huud nodded. “Maybe later. Have you seen the paper?”

Rika had. “Don’t worry. It’s just a rumour, and Abel is well known to be anti-government.”

“I hear there will be a student protest. And some in the Federal Legislature are calling for an inquiry into the accident. It is that big.”

“Let them inquire. They won’t find anything.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because, my dear, there is nothing to find. I told you yesterday. It was a tragic accident and nothing more. I wish you’d believe me.”

“I do. Of course, I do.” But he didn’t.  Huud slapped the paper. “We have to counter this nonsense.”

“I’m giving Peter Abel an interview tomorrow. I’ll set him straight.”

This surprised Huud. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

“If we don’t speak to him, he can keep making things up, speculating. But if we are convincing, he has to quote us. If he misuses what we say, well, I will be recording the interview and we will broadcast it. It will destroy his credibility.”

Huud thought he recognized Tiko’s logic in this statement, Tiko’s way of doing things. He was more and more certain that Tiko and Rika had somehow orchestrated the accident. At the very least, they were spending time together deciding how to make the most political capital out of this mess.  Rika kissed him on the cheek and left. He barely noticed that she wasn’t demanding as much sex from him these days. He didn’t care where she was finding her outlets anymore. He was tired of it all.

He sat down, depressed. Part of him wished this were all over, this terrible situation. He hated being governor. He hated himself for stealing and cheating. And now he saw no way out. Yesterday he had been a mere white collar criminal. Today he was part of a triple homicide involving innocent children. How had he fallen so far?

Had he been a more heroic person, had he been the man he imagined himself to be at one time, he would have gone to the police or the EFCC and volunteered to wear a wire and entrap his wife and her lover. He knew he could get them to admit everything. But he wasn’t a hero. He no longer recognized the world around him. He didn’t recognize the people who inhabited it. And most disturbing of all, he didn’t recognise the face in the mirror.

 

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Comfort Deree let Abel and Billings into Camp’s home. Her puffy eyes made it obvious she hadn’t slept in a long time.

“My sympathies, Ms. Deree,” Abel said.

She tried to speak, but tears ran down her face and she could only give a nod and show them inside. She asked Billings to wait in the living room, then showed Abel to Camp’s bedroom. He was lying on top of the covers in a flowing gown, his feet bare.

“Doctor Camp, Peter Abel is here,” Comfort said quietly, as if she was afraid if she spoke too loudly her voice might break him.

“My sympathies, doctor. It’s a terrible tragedy,” Abel said.

Camp took a deep breath, blinked, and said, “I saw what you wrote. You really believe what you said?”

“I’m afraid so. It’s more important than ever to bring these people down.”

“But Governor Huud came and saw me. He seemed so… well, he seemed devastated.”

“I don’t know, Doctor. Maybe he is. But the big picture. That’s what we need to keep an eye on. Governor Huud or Timo Tiko or others have stolen from the people and then tried to kill you to stop your investigation.”

“Investigation,” Camp said, as if it were some foreign concept. “I might have sympathy from the people, but I am still under attack. They have made me appear the thief.”

“We’re going to fight that.”

“Governor Huud pledged he would make it go away. I wonder why he would say that.”

“Doesn’t that tell you he was behind it? He must be feeling guilty.”

Camp looked away from them, the whole thing obviously too much. Abel saw that but didn’t want to let the man fall into total despair. He felt Camp could retain any semblance of sanity only by fighting back.

“Listen to me, doctor. My article has stirred up a lot of talk. I think we’ve begun the process. The EFCC wants me to hand over my collection of evidence, but I have told them it has to be conclusive. The people who did this will be caught, and then they will talk. And they will bring down those in the government who have been stealing. It’s all tied together.”

But Camp wasn’t listening anymore. He had closed his eyes and begun to drift. Abel didn’t know to where, but had he been able to enter Camp’s mind, he would have stepped onto a serene white beach and seen aquamarine water and a family of four happily floating amid brightly coloured tropical fish.

 

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Outside Camp’s bedroom, Comfort Deree put a hand on Abel’s arm. “I have to tell you something, Mr. Abel. Doctor Camp asked me to run that list of names you brought him from London.”

Abel blinked, barely breathing. Camp had entrusted the most sensitive information they had to this woman, someone Abel did not know well or necessarily trust.

“I’m surprised,” was all he could bring himself to say.

“I understand his conversations with you were secret. I knew nothing about them until he came to me right before he went to Limi. He couldn’t track the names himself because whoever is behind this is monitoring his computer usage. But I am not under surveillance.”

Abel didn’t know the woman had briefly become Huud’s lover. Had he known it right at that moment, he would have assumed the whole operation was blown.

“What did you find?”

“I ran the names of those men. They don’t exist. They have false histories, phoney ID numbers, the works.”

Abel was startled. “Don’t exist? Are you sure?”

“Yes. I know how to dig into computer files. To get dates of entry, which are encoded. These men were entered into the database only last year. Their histories indicate a lifetime of activity but they do not, in fact, exist. To make sure, I checked on one man in particular. Nobody has ever met or heard of him. He is a figment of someone’s imagination.”

“So, whoever did this purchased the homes in London under the names of people who aren’t real.”

“Yes. And of course the names of such people would not be in official records. If it was maybe it would have been to implicate some former staff, long dead.”

“This has to remain completely confidential. Nobody… and I mean nobody can know.”

“Of course. Who do you suspect?  Doctor Camp wouldn’t say.”

Abel wondered if he could trust her, but at this stage in the game, he felt he had to. She already knew everything else.

“Governor Huud, his lovely wife, Rika and Chairman Tiko.”

He saw Comfort react to the names and wondered if it was simply because they were such big players. Finally she spoke. “I want you to know I’ve been close to Huud, worked closely with him.”

Abel suspected she meant more than she said. “How close?”

Comfort didn’t answer for a moment. She wasn’t going to admit an affair, Abel knew that. But he could read between the lines. Finally she spoke. “He trusts me. Mr. Abel, what you wrote today. You believe Doctor Camp’s family was murdered?”

“I’m sure of it. And I’m sure that Huud or Tiko were behind it.”

“I’ll do what I can to help you. Now, what about the information I discovered?”

It was a good question. What should they do now? “I’m going to let the inspector in London know what we found. And hope he can dig deeper.”

“Tell him that Governor Huud and Tiko both have used a London trader named Martin Pinch. They’ve invested funds with him under the umbrella corporation, Ivory Limited. He should investigate Pinch and that corporation. It might lead him to the real owners of the properties.”

“How do you know about this?”

Comfort looked off.

“I don’t want to send the inspector off on some wild goose chase, Ms. Deree,” Abel said

“I was in Huud’s guest house. I noticed some correspondence in his living room from a Martin Pinch of Ivory Limited. Rika and Tiko were addressed as directors. Of course, Rika would be a front for Huud. It struck me at the time as a potential conflict of interest, but I didn’t question it. I wasn’t supposed to see the letter. I was a guest in the house. Huud took the letter from me before I could see any more.”

This confirmed that Comfort must have slept with Huud, not realizing the man was crooked. Perhaps now she was trying to extricate herself. And her guilt over this betrayal and her bad judgment no doubt were fuelling this burst of honesty. Plus, she genuinely seemed to want to do the right thing.

Abel shook her hand warmly and said, “Welcome to our side, Ms. Deree.” It was a corny line he remembered from the movie Casablanca. But it had the desired effect. She nodded.

“I’ll keep in touch with Governor Huud. I’ll see what I can find out for you.”

“For all of us,” Abel said.

 

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When Governor Huud called again later that afternoon, Comfort took his call and apologized for being out of touch. Huud said he had to see her, that he missed her. They agreed to meet at the guesthouse that night. Comfort tried to calm herself, thinking she was becoming a regular Mata Hari.

 

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Abel returned to The Zodiac bureau in Bammak City. He filed a new story, this time about Camp’s devastation over the deaths of his wife and children, intended to keep up sympathy while he waited for more facts.

Billings was checking with underground sources for Abel, trying to identify the hired killers. Billings was eager to get his feet wet as a reporter and made sure he took a standard reporter’s notebook and two pens with him. He assured Abel he would return with a real “coop.”

The other thing Abel did was to send to Clarke the information he’d gotten from Comfort, with the advice that they had been looking the wrong way. He felt this might, in fact, be the break they were looking for. If any of those land deeds could be traced back to Huud or Tiko via the phoney names, it would open up a Champs Elysees-wide avenue of investigation.

 

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Comfort Deree allowed Governor Huud to kiss her, but she held back when he tried to go farther. He looked at her, hurt.

“Is something wrong?”

“All this tragedy, Gorem. I can’t enjoy myself. It doesn’t feel right.”

Huud nodded, but he wasn’t convinced. He worried she suspected him. “Comfort, I told you I had nothing to do with any of this. Please believe me.”

“Did Chairman Tiko, your godfather? Or your wife?”

Huud stepped back, shocked by the question. “You can’t be serious? You’ve been reading that reporter’s stories. And maybe talking to him? I hear he was with the doctor today.”

“I was there, but we didn’t discuss this.”

“That would be unusual for him. After all, you’re someone he’d want to interview.”

Huud was trying to find out where she stood. He hoped she didn’t see through him. He had always felt dirty from the mud hurling of politics.

“He asked me questions, yes. But I know nothing,” she said. “I’ve been trying to comfort poor Doctor Camp. I expected you to visit.”

“I was there yesterday. I will visit again tomorrow. Today I assumed he needed to grieve and to rest. I was hoping you could arrange a time I could see him. Maybe spend a couple of hours together.”

“Of course. That would be good for him. And he said you were going to deal with these rumours about him stealing money?”

“That’s one of the things I was doing today.”

“And how did you deal with it?”

Again, Huud watched her and his heart sank. She was fishing for something, and he suspected it was at the behest of Peter Abel.

All of a sudden, the one last light in his life seemed to go out. He sat on the bed and shook his head. “Comfort, you don’t believe me. You’re here to find out what I know. Am I a thief? Am I a killer?”

“I hope not, Gorem. Because I really did fall in love with you. Only now…”

“Now you think I may be mixed up in all this. I am not. My wife may be. She and Tiko … well, they are in league together as lovers and as political powers. They want me out. And I’m only too happy to go. I don’t have a happy home.  I am not happy with my job. I would be happy to go. But I can’t, Comfort. Not now. Not this way. You have to believe that I am innocent. They may have stolen money. They may have been after Camp. But I’m innocent. I’ve been used. And if you help me, I will get to the bottom of this and expose it all myself.”

Comfort watched Huud, and he could see that she was touched with the depth of his sincerity. He was relieved when she nodded.

Huud didn’t try to make love to her, though he felt it might make her trust him.  He listened as she told him to be cautious. He knew she didn’t tell him everything, but she did say that there were forces at work, and they were getting close to the killers and the thieves.  She left him, both making mutual promises of fidelity and love.

 

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Once Comfort had left the guesthouse, Huud sat by himself for a long time. He realized the dream of starting over with Comfort by his side was now impossible. He didn’t have the courage to admit his guilt to her. But still, she would find out at some point, and then it would be over.

Huud smoked a cigarette, something he rarely did, and pondered his next move. If he let Rika and Tiko have their way, he would be eliminated eventually, either he would wind up in jail or dead. He began to think that death wasn’t such a terrible option. He felt the weight of all the guilt he carried. For a long time it hadn’t bothered him, but that was when he thought, erroneously, that he had nothing to lose.

 

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At nine o’clock that night, as Abel struggled over the final version of his copy about Camp, front-page news, the phone rang. Abel was shocked when the state editor of The Zodiac poked his head in and told him Rika Huud was on the line.

Abel smiled. This was good news. If Rika wanted an interview, then she and her partners must be worried the effect his stories. And if he could get inside the door, Abel felt certain he could get the woman, who was not disciplined, to say revealing things.

“Good evening, Madame First Lady.”

“Please, call me Rika,” she said, giggling. Abel rolled his eyes. What a transparent bimbo.

“We spoke of you interviewing me. Are you still interested, Peter?”

“Of course. Especially after what has happened.”

“I’m devastated, as you can imagine. Such a lovely woman. And those poor children. I’m just sick. But really, Peter, what you suggest about it being anything but an accident, do you really believe that?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, perhaps I can shed some light on it for you. Shall we say, seven o’clock tomorrow evening? It will be so much quieter and more relaxed then.”

“I look forward to it, Madame First … Rika.”

The woman giggled again. “I wish all reporters were as handsome and charming as you, Peter. I would give many more interviews.”

Abel said goodbye and hung up. He went to his hotel and took a shower. But that didn’t wash away the feeling that he’d just rolled in mud, nor his anxiety at the thought of being alone in a room with this