Chapter 1
Although her body was first found by both the house keeper and Stella Maris Okoebor, Daniela’s roommate, who happened to arrive the same time as the house keeper.
“corper Stella good morning oh. Thank God say you don come.”The house keeper greeted with Pidgin English.
“Good morning mummy David. Why are you standing outside?” “No o. No be so corper. I don dey knock since but nobody gree open door for me.”
“That’s strange.” Stella Maris muttered to herself. She knew her roommate. She wasn’t one to sleep deep and she was sensitive enough to know when a pin falls to the ground. A knock would have sent “Ella” as everyone calls her jumping up and rushing towards the door.
“Ella. Ella.” Stella kept knocking and calling her name. For some reason she couldn’t fathom, she had began to shiver. She felt cold. It was the same feeling. That smell and body language reaction. She had felt this sensation when Stephen her twin had almost died of a food poisoning. She frantically rushed for her bag to grab her keys. She cussed as she threw her make ups and ID card on the floor. She found the key and with a rush opened the door, with mummy David following her behind and both screaming their lungs out. There she was, Daniela Pepple, bludgeoned to death in her room. She has been gruesomely murdered. Blood everywhere. Her eyes were still closed. Her lips were sewed with a needle and a thread. The bed was ruffled with almost 1.5 liters of her blood soaked to the bed. Her legs were crossed together, with her right leg above the left. Both her hands covering her shaved privates. The injury to her forehead and her throat slit caused the blood rest on her exposed breasts. The killer had used her blood to make a crucifix sign on her forehead. This was murder. Murder done in execution style and no one, absolutely no one was ready for what was to come of this…..
It was a partially +90 degree Celsius cloudy Tuesday morning when detective Folorunsho Williams arrived the city of port Harcourt. The treasure base of the nation. He had been to this part of Nigeria once and it was during the bi annual Nigerian police conference. He hated travelling. But it was part of the job. Detective Folorunsho Williams was a 32 year old seasoned detective, who graduated from the Nigerian police academy ten years ago. He was the youngest to have graduated the institution since its inception in 1988, when it first had its temporary campuses in Kaduna and kano. Graduating with a first class honors with high recommendations, he had decided to work with the criminal investigation department sub head quarters in Lagos, rather than join his family’s legacy. He was the only one in a family of five who had opted for policing rather than the military. He was his father’s favorite, but he had always had a mind of his own, different from what his family had expected of him. If it were up to him, he wouldn’t be here right now, almost stranded waiting for his pickup driver to come take him to the state police head quarters. He would have loved to be home back in Lagos drinking himself to stupor and enjoying his three months break, which he would have preferred his boss calling it what it was, “a suspension, not a break”. His boss Mrs. Sheyi Lawson had visited him on Monday and was met with broken alcohol bottles. He had been drinking. This wasn’t the Williams she knew, but who was to really blame. Williams? His dead fiancée? Or his cousin? who had been having an affair with his fiancée without his knowledge. Both his fiancée and cousin Tobi were murdered in a hotel room and for some reasons which were against the normal ethics of policing and investigation, probably the power that be, Williams was assigned the case. He had refused at first, but was coerced to investigate. He became the lead investigator and cracked the case in a hundred and twenty eight hours. And ever since he had been on a roller bender. Drinking, coming late to work, hence the suspension. Sheyi understood Williams’s actions. His drinking habit wasn’t based on how hurt he was. He wasn’t drinking because his fiancé was cheating on him with his cousin but he was rather angry at himself. Angry that he couldn’t see what was happening right under his nose. How come he didn’t see what was right in front of him? That was why she was here, to give him a case that could help him focus again. A new environment. New faces. A new task. A new case. A case she was sure wasn’t going to end in just twenty four hours. In fact, she had hoped that this case takes as much month as it needed. She needed his favorite detective back ASAP. The police van had arrived late and despite the driver’s apology, Williams was quiet. He just wanted to get to the police head quarters, get a full briefing and head towards the crime scene. The Rivers state police command has nine area commands with fifty two divisional police headquarters, twenty five police stations and 23 police outposts. Located at the famous Moscow road. Moscow road is famous for housing most of the helms of government buildings in port Harcourt, including The state court house, the Nigerian bar association, the port Harcourt government house, Rivers state house of assembly, the civic center as well as the famous office building of the department of petroleum resources. Williams alighted from the van accompanied by five mobile police. Two on both sides with the fifth clearing the passage of entry. He knew he was popular, but he had never had this sort of welcoming. Heads up, he walked alongside the escorts until it was just him and the fifth mobile police whose badge read Abu-Bakr Vincent. He was to lead him to the elevator up to the office of the commissioner of police, river state chapter. He kept his eyes glued on his badge and wondered why or how do northerners have both Christian names and Muslim names. He was now sure that he was going to get his answer sooner than he thought as Vincent made a gentle smile with his right cheek, as if to say “I know what you are thinking. Out with it”.
