Chapter One
Lagos Island, Lagos, Nigeria.
Cynthia Okonkwo stumbled into her office, her handkerchief mopping the sweat from her brow, her mouth muttering curses at the inhabitants of Lagos and their ancestors. Her skin baked as if she had been doused with a can of boiling oil. She was sure that if she tried to pull her shirt off, it would take with it precious skin. Oh lord.
The weather was hot, the heat baking the ground with a sweltering intensity that sent the car windows of the rich drivers up, their air-conditioners turned on full blast. Office windows were pulled shut－all the fans and the air conditioners in the city were turned on full blast to try and banish the evil of the atrocious heat of the day. The less fortunate Lagosians had to manage the heat the best they could with their hand fans and their kerchiefs.
Cynthia smiled at the young front desk officer her boss had recently hired as the new girl typed away on the laptop before her. She knew that this was the opening zeal that came with the new job; she would work hard, hoping to garner the praises of her boss, then, when the sexual advances started coming, she would either have to pander to it or walk.
Her phone rang.
Don’t answer it, an inner voice warned. She suspected it had to be one from the number of one of Nigeria’s mobile phone service providers. In the past they used short codes to call customers, electronic voices yapping about a myriad of services no one really needed. When they discovered that people were either blocking their calls or refusing to answer them, they started using numbers whose digits resembled ordinary phone numbers. When you answered it, they would begin with their sales pitch.
‘This is Cynthia,’ she said, hoping that it was one of the paying clients; she needed one now more than ever. Perhaps she could handle some matter that her boss would have no inkling about and then pocket the money. Stingy man.
‘Hi, babe. It’s me.’
Cynthia let out a huffing breath of annoyance, her right fingers reaching up to massage her forehead. She could feel a migraine coming on.
‘What do you want?’ she snapped.
The last time she had handled a matter for this man was three years ago. She had been at Tetrazzini in Victoria Island celebrating her birthday－thanks to a surprise party her boss had decided to throw for her－when he called her and told her to come to the Area 1 Police Station at Ahmadu Bello Way there in Victoria Island. Against her better judgment, she went there, only to find out that he had been arrested on human trafficking charges.
‘That’s not the way to talk to one of your clients,’ Anthony Okoli chided her, though he sounded playful.
Cynthia laughed. ‘If you dare to call yourself a client of mine, I swear I am going to hang up on you.’ But she had to tell herself that she was pleased that this asshole had decided to call her; it gave a girl a sense of self-worth.
‘Just listen to me. I just came back from China and I really need to see you.’
She rolled her eyes. Of course he wanted to see her. Perhaps, this time, he had pissed off some Chinese businessman and was on the run now because his adversary had sent a group of assassins after him. She prayed that he was calling her for anything but that.
‘Why would I want to see you?’ she snapped again. She wanted to put this man on edge, to tell him that he could not hope to joke with people the way he did and expect them to run to him at his beck and call.
‘I have money to pay you and you have some things I need to be in your possession,’ the man continued, though this time he sounded rushed. ‘Actually, I just sent over some money to you now. So, you have to come and see me.’
Cynthia snorted, though she did not doubt him for a minute. If there was one thing she had learned in her five years working as a lawyer here in Lagos, it was that people were bound to do the unexpected. Anthony Okoli had paid her some money and now he expected her to come and run to him; if she failed to do so, he would call her boss next. He was a generous man, but he was also a mean bastard. He would play whatever cards he had to play to get her to bite.
‘Fine,’ she conceded. ‘Tell me what you want.’
With military precision, Anthony Okoli outlined what he wanted her to do. She was expected to leave her office immediately, board the next available bus or taxi, and start head towards Investment House at Broad Street. Once there, she had to walk past the House once and he would join her; though she would have to continue walking, pretending not to know who he was. Then they would talk.
And that was exactly what she did.
She was thinking to herself that she hated this man－she hated his guts, hated all there was to hate in a human being because of the way he manipulated his way into getting whatever he wanted－but she had to obey him. After all, he was one of the paying clients that had walked into her life and the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners precluded her from rejecting him. Besides, she was flattered that he wanted her to be his lawyer. And, whatever money he had to pay her would help.
’Sorry, abegi no vex; you how I fit enter CMS bus stop?’
Cynthia turned to the man that had spoken to her, wondering why he would be bothering her at that time of the day even though she was sweating in her sensible suit and her totally unacceptable court shoes. She wanted to tell him as much, but something about the way the man stared at her through hooded eyes that could not be hidden beneath the fine rug of black hair that covered half his entire face snagged her attention.
Those eyes.
‘Anthony?’ she asked, though she managed to keep the expression on her face neutral. She had learned the hard way that she had chosen a profession that allowed her to come across the worst particles of humans God could ever create and she had to play accordingly. If Anthony Okoli did not want to be recognized while walking on the street, then she would be a fool to try to unearth the guy by letting the surprise show on her face.
‘How I fit enter CMS bus stop from here?’ the man asked again. He gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head.
‘Well, you have to go…’ And she started pointing. The sweltering heat of the afternoon slapped into her face with a vengeance. She wished she was still inside the office; at least she would not have to worry about her makeup.
He leaned forward, as if to listen to her, his head nodding at her slow words, his eyes fixed inexorably on her face. ‘Yes?’ he said, then: ‘I sent you something. Your email. You have to check it immediately.’
Cynthia felt the first prick of fear at the back of her neck at his words, though she struggled hard to maintain a poker face. This was a test and she had to pass it, just like she’d had to pass the test her boss had set for her when he newly agreed to take her on in his law firm by taking her with him to witness the hanging of a young woman who had murdered her female employer in a bid to snatch away the woman’s husband.
‘And then you go…’ she leaned forward, her arm pointing one arm towards the direction of the Marina, her eyes fixed intensely on the man’s mouth so she could decipher every single muttered word.
’It is very important that you follow the instructions there,’Anthony continued, his voice even lower, his eyes getting more intense. But to his credit, he appeared calm, the stranger asking directions from another stranger.
‘The CMS bus stop is right there,’ she finished, with a small smile on her face, though she could swear that she could not hear the sound of her voice over the incessant hammering of her heart.
The man had already turned away from her, walking past her as if he did not know her. Their transaction was over and she knew it; it was no surprise to her really. What came as a surprise to her was the fact that when he made to walk away from her, he’d put something flat and small into her hand, letting it slip in－passersby would never have believed that he had passed something on to her. With the rush of people speeding past them, it would take someone ultra-perceptive to notice that he had passed something on to her.
Cynthia continued walking, then frowned when she saw Anthony－with his ridiculously heavy beard－walking beside her again. He walked past her, heading up towards the street. As if he was in a rush and wanted to get away from there as fast as possible. Suddenly he stumbled back, as if his foot had caught on one of the small pebbles that littered the street.
Cynthia rushed forward and caught him before he fell, thinking that this was another ploy on his part because he either wanted to tell her something or wanted to pass something over to her. Whatever it was, she was ready. Then she saw the front of his white shirt.
It was red.
Not only was the front of the white shirt red, it was a stain, and it was spreading out, ballooning out like some weird but altogether fascinating rose. A small puncture hole gaped at her right in the spot where the material was supposed to cover his heart.
Cynthia blinked, her gaze falling into the eyes of the man in her arms. She understood that blank, pained look; the look of a light dying, as if a switch had been flicked shut on some light that dwindled away into nothingness. The air hung still and hot around them. The sounds of the passersby hurrying past meant nothing now. All other sounds faded away into complete nothingness.
I have just witnessed the professionally executed murder of my client.
Still in shock, Cynthia let him fall to the ground and then she stepped back, a scream building in her throat. It bubbled forth to the surface, the sound piercing through the sweltering, abominable heat of the Lagos afternoon. She screamed like a girl－oh, she was a girl actually－her guttural vocal emissions bursting forth as if in some opera performance. She felt all eyes turning to her, the girl wearing the sensible clothes who had perhaps run mad. They would have something to tell their families when they returned home.
’Wetin happen?’ some demanded.
Feet and soles of shoes pounded in her direction as the office workers diverted their attention from their lunch errands and turned to her.
Women converged, along with men; office workers; street vendors with their consumables loaded into rusty green wheelbarrows for the Lagos Island commercial slave workers. But the moment they saw the downed body they stumbled back, faces askance, horror etched dramatically into the Yoruba and Igbo faces. From a myriad mouths rose a staccato burst of outpourings in Nigeria’s three major languages of Igbo, Hausa, and Yoruba. Some wanted to know what was going on; some wanted nothing more than to leave that place with their lives intact.
In the ensuing confusion, Cynthia bent forward, her right hand pressed to the blood-stained shirt as if to staunch the blood flow. Though tears misted her eyes at the thought of what she was doing, she reached forward, her free hand slipping into the right trouser pocket of the dead man, then coming up with the small brown wallet that was nestled there.
Her client had been murdered because of something he had involved himself in…something so heavy and so big he had taken such precautions to meet with her.
It was something that had cost him his life.
She had to find out what.
