Tarasha 75 The Dream

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 doc.u.ments 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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.sa.s.sins 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 "G.o.d 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 circ.u.mstance 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 a.s.sa.s.sin 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 a.s.sa.s.sination 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 eyegla.s.s

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 pa.s.sionate

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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.sured with a kind smile.

'Like we agreed before ma, we'll carry out the

distribution this Sat.u.r.day. 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 eyegla.s.s. '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.'