Tarasha – Chapter 15 Part 7

By Young C.c

Other Chapters and Parts of Tarasha

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Henry ushered Agent Dakolo politely into his office, he opened the door and waited for the man to walk in before closing it. He poinresthim to the visitor’s seat and turned round his table to take his seat. He quickly cleared up some documents on his table and faced Dakolo, ready for the interrogation. 

He was prepared for Dakolo, ready to save Omotara from him but prepared to do it wisely. He was going to say everything he knows about her as a friend if they ever discovered that they were. But he wasn’t going to tell him of his personal discovery he made about her being a fraudster. He had also changed the system evidence he had for his investigation about the Canadian number. He then sold a lie to Sylvester, about how he made a mistake in the investigation, that the number was really Canadian. He knew that Sylvester did not swallow the lie but he felt less concerned about it since he had changed the system evidence. That way he could get himself out of any coming trouble as he was just a private investigator who was doing his job.

He was only a bit worried about Sylvester’s new volunteer staff. With the way her intelligence and competence was talked about. She may be able to provide evidence of the number being fake. He didn’t think it was necessary to go and see her again, after he had heard about Dakolo’s coming. He was now thinking of a way to make Sylvester stop her from working any longer with him, before she puts him in trouble.

Dakolo stared around the office quietly, not minding Henry’s eagerness for him to start the questioning. After satisfying his eyes, he turned back to Henry. He placed his elbow on the armrest of the chair and rested his chin on his palm as he stared straight into Henry’s face. 

Henry was uncomfortable, he could not understand the meaning of Dakolo’s stare but the look on the agent’s face suggested that he was disappointed in Henry for something Henry had done.

‘Henry,’ Dakolo finally began after two minutes of silence, he sat up and rested his back properly.

‘Sir,’ Henry replied in low tones, trying to avoid meeting the man’s gaze. 

‘Who is Alexander Evelyn?’ Dakolo asked his first question. 

Henry was silent for some seconds. He knew Dakolo had found out something else and that was the reason for the question. After much contemplation, he finally spoke. ‘She’s my friend.’ 

‘Your friend?’ Dakolo’s eyes widened in surprise. He was not surprised that Henry knew her but he was surprised at the endearing manner by which Henry called her his friend. 

‘Yes, my friend sir.’ Henry insisted. 

‘For how long have you known her?’ 

‘It’s not up to a month yet,’ Henry answered. 

‘That’s recently’

‘Yes’ 

‘How and where did you meet her?’ 

‘I met her in Abuja, we ran into each other in a computer gadgets store’ 

‘And you became friends since then?’ 

‘Our friendship did not start immediately, we still had other encounters after that’ 

‘When did you finally become friends?’ 

Henry scratched his head a little, trying to remember the exact time they started talking, ‘About a week or two after the first encounter.’

‘Was your encounter after or before you started investigating her?’ 

Henry raised his eyebrows, ‘investigating her? I didn’t do anything like that.’

Dakolo   licked his lips and chuckled, ‘Henry, you want to tell me that you are not aware she owns the Canadian number you were sent to investigate?’

‘The client never gave me the owner’s information, he only told me to verify the number’

‘Okay, and you didn’t get the customer’s information?’

‘I wasn’t asked to, so I didn’t go that far’ 

‘I see…’ Dakolo nodded his head slowly as he tried to process all Henry had told him and come up with a new question. Henry seemed confident about his answers, he thought. Maybe he was also a victim and Evelyn Alexander had only used him for her operation. 

‘How close were you to Evelyn?’ Dakolo started again. 

‘Very close. We got so close to each her within a short while.’ Henry replied. 

‘How close? A romantic kind of close?’ Dakolo asked, gesturing with his hands. 

‘Kind of,’ Henry reluctantly answered. ‘We got as close as that sometimes.’ 

Dakolo paused and rested his hands on Henry’s table. He narrowed his gaze and continued. ‘Are you in love with her?’ 

Henry was made temporarily dumb by the question. He didn’t know what answer to give, he didn’t even have the answer. He wasn’t sure if the passion he felt for her wasn’t something more than love. 

‘I don’t know,’ he finally answered. 

Dakolo smiled for her first time that day. He took out his Android device and unlocked it. He operated on it for few seconds before dropping it on the table. 

‘I found out from the file of your kidnap case that she was the same person that you were kidnapped with,’ Dakolo continued. 

‘Yes, she was’ 

‘And you led them all the way to her in Elymax hotel to pick her.’

‘Yes, they were disguised as policemen. They also had similar ID cards to that of the police.’

‘Why didn’t you call someone to report of your arrest?’ 

‘My phone was seized, they didn’t allow me call anyone.’ 

‘Oh true! I read that also,’ Dakolo said, picking up his device again. 

‘Your kidnap, do you think Evelyn knew nothing about it?’ 

‘She couldn’t have known anything, she was also a victim.’ 

‘But the way you escaped from them is still illogical. The explanation you gave doesn’t really make sense. You said you were unconscious?’

‘Yes, I was.’

‘And then she told you that the assassins fought amongst themselves?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

Dakolo smiled again. He read something quickly to himself from his device and dropped it on the table. The smile on his face gave way for a serious look. ‘Were you aware that Evelyn was working with Chief Jubril Lawal?’

Henry thought of lying, but that would only complicate issues for him. He decided to say the truth but hide the extra details. ‘Yes, she told me. The day before we were kidnapped, I was with her when Dare Lawal also came to see her.’ 

‘Did you know before that time that they knew each other?’

‘No, I was just getting to know Evelyn.’

‘Okay, what happened that day?’ 

‘Dare came in and met us seated together in the restaurant. He was furious and couldn’t wait, he rushed away from the place immediately’ 

‘And did she follow him?’

‘No, she stayed with me. I told her my story.’ 

‘And how did she react?’

‘Ermm… Just the way every other person would react.’ Henry replied, consciously omitting the information about her “God outburst” and her story which she also told him. 

‘Okay… When then did she tell you about her business with Chief Jubril?’

‘After I told her my story.’

‘And wasn’t that the same day you were given the job to investigate the number?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you by any chance mention to her about the job?’

‘No, I wasn’t even aware that the job was for Jubril Lawal then’ 

‘And you think she didn’t find out in any other way, before or after that day?’

‘I don’t think so, she never mentioned a word about it to me and I never did also.’

‘Okay, so you were kidnapped the next day and didn’t spend up to twenty four hours with the kidnappers?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t you think the kidnap is related to Chief Jubril’s job?’

‘No, the main suspects I have are Dare Lawal and Samantha Osman.’

‘Samantha Osman?’

‘Yes, then I was on her case and I thought it could be her team that carried out the kidnap.’ 

Dakolo gave a brief laugh at Henry’s last words. Henry was now sounding more like a victim of circumstance to him now. He wondered how Henry would feel if he hears that Evelyn could have been Samantha. 

‘But right now, who do you think it was?’ 

‘I don’t know’

‘We now know your kidnappers,’ Dakolo announced, he saw Henry’s face brighten up a little. ‘But they are all dead,’ he added. Henry looked confused. 

‘Dead?’ 

‘Yes, but the strange thing is that they all died in the same events centre that Jubril Lawal and Dare died. They were murdered by the same assassin group.’ 

Dakolo sighed and picked up his device again. He opened it and clicked some commands in. 

‘Henry,’ Dakolo called softly in readiness to ask the main question. He was sure in his heart of Henry’s innocence about the assassination but as a detective, he couldn’t let his heart deceive him, he must throw his questions as strict and professional as possible even if he had an emotional attachment to the interrogatee.

‘Did you attend Chief Jubril’s birthday party?’ His face had lost all his smiles, warning Henry not to try denying the truth. If Henry would deny his presence in the party, then it meant that Dakolo’s heart had been deceiving him, Henry was surely working for Samantha’s group and all his innocent way of answering questions was just an act. 

Henry stopped to think for some seconds. He thought of answering no since he wasn’t an invitee but just accompanied Omotara to the event. No one knew about his attendance, so it was better if he hid it completely. He cleared his throat. ‘I…’

~~~~~

Jefa grabbed his chest as he felt like a sword just pierced through his heart. He was panting heavily and sweating profusely despite the high speed of the fan blades. He fell on his knees, still feeling the pain in his chest, and trying to fathom what happened to him. 

It was all a dream. He rubbed his sweaty forehead with his hand and got up. He tried to stretch his body, the pain was reducing slowly. After stretching, he sat back and began to ponder what the dream could mean. This was the second dream he was having in recent times and the both dreams had ended badly. Does it mean that reuniting with Omotara will bring them ill luck? Then if that was the case, he was ready to give up reuniting with her. It was better for them to go on with their lives the way they have been living and for him to act as if he hadn’t seen her. He took out his phone and searched for Henry’s number. He stared at it for some seconds before deleting it from the phone memory. 

~~~~

‘Thank you ma,’ the visitor’s appreciated as Mrs Attahiru ushered them into her office. 

‘Please, have your seats.’ She pointed them to the three seats already prepared for them and turned to seat on her own swivel. 

‘Thank you,’ Mr Alfred, the elderly man who led the team appreciated once again. 

‘You’re welcome,’ Mrs Attahiru gave a warm smile. She was dressed neatly in a black skirt suit, looking smarter than other elderly women of her age. She had an eyeglass with think lenses on. Her dark hair was plaited neatly in a traditional style, it was obvious that the hair was dyed as it look too black and without grey strands for a woman of her age. 

‘I was glad when we were informed that we were going to have Nigerian representatives from your organization,’ the woman began with a smile. ‘It’s good to have sons of the soil relate with us. I believe you’ll be more passionate about people in your own country.’ 

‘Actually ma, we were the ones who initiated this project.’ Mr Alfred joined cheerfully. ‘We pushed in Nigeria when the organization was trying to select an African country.’

‘Wow! That’s what I’m talking about. I know you guys would have more passion for your country.’ She remarked happily. 

‘Yes ma, there are lots of needs in our country and we recognize that. That’s why we mentioned your foundation which is recognized for the good works it has carried out all over Africa.’ 

‘Nice, I hope we’ll have a great time working with you.’

‘You’ll surely do ma.’ Mr Alfred assured with a kind smile. ‘Like we agreed before ma, we’ll carry out the distribution this Saturday. We have the funds available already. All we need is to do it under the name of your organization. The bags of rice would be ready tomorrow. But I don’t know how ready your team is for inspection.’ 

‘Humm… We may not really need to do so much inspection.’ She said, adjusting her eyeglass. ‘The supplier is a partner of ours and we are sure of their quality, we’ll just do a brief overview.’ 

‘That’s okay, deal done then.’ Mr Alfred and his whole team smiled. 

‘Yes.’ Mrs Attahiru joined them. 

‘One more thing ma,’ Mr Alfred quickly added. Mrs Attahiru paused to pay attention. ‘We’ve been thinking of organizing a conference here in Nigeria in collaboration with your organization. We want to use the conference to inspire the wealthy citizens towards devoting their time to helping the less privileged in the society.’

‘Wow! That’s a nice idea.’ Mrs Attahiru’s face brightened up. ‘We’ll be glad to work with you on that.’ 

‘Thanks.’

‘Yeah but ermm…’ She paused as a thought came into her mind. ‘How are you planning to achieve that? You know that the wealthy people in our society may snub conferences like that giving excuses of their busy schedule. Most of them may see it as a fund raising event and just send peanuts to our account without coming for the conference itself.’

Mr Alfred smiled, ‘We are aware of that challenge ma and we have a plan to fix it already.’ 

‘Can you share the plan?’ Mrs Attahiru seemed excited. 

‘Simple! We are going to be inviting elites from other countries whose charity works have been laudable. When those in Nigeria hear of the top profile people coming, who are far wealthier than they are, they won’t be able to snub the conference.’

‘Hmm…’ Mrs Attahiru was speechless.

Mr Alfred chuckled, ‘it’s a huge program that’ll require a lot of money but we are ready to fund it. Some of our partners in Europe are also ready to provide maximum support.’ 

‘Nice,’ Mrs Attahiru was visibly wowed by their plan. 

‘We’ll need something important ma,’ Mr Alfred quickly put in, acting like it just came into his mind.

‘What’s that?’

‘This project is a huge project and we’ll need a lot of support from the government. We’ll like to meet with the Senate President who is your son and relay this plan to him.’ 

…to be continued

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