Must Read: Paradox Of Abel - Season 1 - Episode 27

7 years ago

Must Read: Paradox Of Abel - Season 1 - Episode 27

They’d once again retired to their various rooms. As he stepped into his own room, Daniel immediately bolted the door. He admitted it, he was scared. He was scared of a murderer stepping into his room and stabbing him while sleep took hold. Besides, David had warned everyone beforehand to bolt their doors.

Prevention was better than protection. The two police officers had been called and they’d promised to come as soon as possible. The corpse had been covered up with a white wrapper provided by the maid, and all the doors leading out of the house had been securely bolted.

But Daniel wasn’t satisfied yet; there was a murderer in the house and it would take someone much more intelligent and clever than Ayo Festus and Moses Anuku to fish out the killer. Although these two police officers had been promoted to the post of Director of Police in their various divisions, Daniel felt that neither of them was shrewd enough to tackle this murder case. It would take a very brilliant detective to take on this case and do justice to it. He knew of only one man who could do that. Only one man in the whole of the country was up to the task.

He so much wanted to go home by dawn – to go away from the strange family to meet his own family. Strangely, his thought drifted towards his biological father. He was missing him now, even though he had never known him.

But he knew that his name was Sam Oliver, and he was a great man. He had never won a war, never made a law, never composed a music, never written a famous novel, but he was greater than any general, politician, scientist, composer or prize-winning novelist that ever lived. He was great because he was kind. He was great because he was humble, gentle, full of laughter. But his gentle life was cut short by a madman.

Daniel brought out his mobile phone and scrolled down to a particular number. He stared at the number for some time, trying to decide about what to say to him. It had been over three years since he’d last spoken to him. Daniel knew that the man he was about to call was retired and he might probably not come.

But there was no harm in trying. He needed the man to come; a part of him needed him to come and unravel the mystery surrounding this strange family, and another part of him just wanted to see the man again and work with him once more. With the detective’s presence, Daniel knew that he’d feel much more comfortable in this house. He placed the call.

The phone rang but the call was not answered. Daniel placed the call again; another part of him fearing that the detective did not want to have anything to do with him anymore. It had been three years.

The phone continued ringing without answer, and at about the last second, the call was picked by a man with a husky voice.
“Hello,” The voice said.
“This is Daniel Famous.”
“I know. And to what fortunate circumstance am I to attribute the honour of a call from you this early morning?”
Knowing that he was talking to a man particularly difficult to understand, Daniel did not know if he should greet the detective or just report his reason for calling.
“What can I do for you?” The detective demanded, “Have you lost your tongue?”
Daniel smiled at this; he was not mistaken about whom he was calling.
“Are you in Lagos, sir?”
“What if I was?”
“We need your presence here.”
“Who has been killed?”
“A man, sir.”
“What kind of family is yours, really?”
“It’s not from my family. The killing is in another family, sir.”
“So, what do you want me to do?”
“It’s murder, sir.” Daniel replied, “You need to come and investigate the crime.”
“What makes you so sure it’s murder?”
“The victim was stabbed in the back, sir.”
“What’s the address?”
Daniel gave him.
“How much has been transferred?”
Daniel was dumbfounded, he’d forgotten that the detective would have to be paid before taking up a case.
“How much?” The detective asked again.
“Nothing has been transferred yet.”
The detective was silent a moment, “Then why are you calling me?”
“I-”
“I can’t come. I’m sorry.”
The call was terminated.

Murderers do not usually give their victims notice. This one death which, however terrible that last second of appalled realization, comes mercifully unburdened with anticipatory terror.

It was on these grounds that the famed detective took it upon himself to investigate the crime voluntarily. Contrary to his usual style, Detective Lot didn’t travel in his own vehicle this morning; he sat comfortably at the backseat of a taxi. He was alone in the car save for the driver who was busily but silently articulating the automatic vehicle. Lot was grateful for the driver’s taciturn characteristic. He wasn’t like most garrulous drivers Lot had encountered in the past. He needed time to think now, and silence was one of the factors required for the intellectual task.

He was reading a copy of The Punch he’d purchased a couple of minutes ago at a newspapers stand near the entrance of the car-park. Occasionally, he glanced through the glass of a window of the car at the world beyond. For a fine morning in late December, it was surprisingly chilly; dawn had broken clear and the driver flipped down the visor to keep the sun out of his eyes. Lot was an incurable smoker, he dragged his wheezing lungs through cigarettes at a rate of a pack a day for thirty-five years; he’d decided for a moment to impose upon himself some token abstinence during the journey that lay ahead of him. When they approached the traffic, having carefully perused the column of ‘houses to let,’ and the column of ‘kidnapped child,’ and then the two columns of ‘wives and apprentices runaway,’ he turned the newspaper in his hand to the back page and started on the crossword, his mind registering nothing at all on the first three of the clues across. But on the fourth, a hint of a grin formed around his hairy mouth as he looked down again at the extraordinary apposite words: ‘With malice afterthought? (6)’. He quickly wrote ‘murder’, and with more and more letters henceforth making their horizontal and vertical roads into the diagram-grid, the puzzle was finished well before reading. Very many times, crossword puzzles not only always drew much sweat from his forehead. Sudokus were sometimes more challenging. All in all, these puzzles were juvenile for Lot’s mind, but the detective liked solving them – they always allowed him brief moments of the freedom of the mind.

Having successfully tackled the crosswords and Sudokus alike, Lot leaned as far as his legs would allow in the backseat. He looked out the window again; there was a police car parked at the side of the other lane. ‘To protect and to serve’ went the slogan lettered on the side of the black vehicle. Every day, people laughed and scorned or ignored it. “Serve?” Who knew what that meant? But protecting people was something else. If you cared, like Lot used to do when he was still in service, if people got hurt because you or your partner, or the police in general wasn’t up to the demand of protection put on it, you hurt too. Real bad. Nobody knew it and you didn’t talk about it. Except to yourself or maybe to the face in the bottom of a bottle when you tried to forget about it. This was the bedrock behind Lot’s decision to answer his callings by becoming a homicide detective. His avocation lay in defending the victims who were not in much position to defend themselves.

He peeked at his gold encrusted wristwatch, 8:15a.m., he felt like time was running out. Hours had gone by since he received the call. And the traffic jam was not helping a bit. Out of boredom, he lit a cigarette to pass the time. He decided that he’d abstained from smoking long enough. Curiously enough, he felt relaxed as he took puffs and, without success, attempted to blow a smoke ring. As he sU-Cked one to the hilt, he lit another from the consumed one. By the time the taxi reached the street of his location, Lot was already smoking his sixth stick. The driver, who didn’t favour cigarette odours gave series of coughs to signal his irritation and discomfort, but the detective appeared not to notice this expectoration. But the driver was not in a good position to make any audible complaint, his passenger had been overly generous. Few passengers could pay thrice as much as the normal fare for the distance they needed to cover. So, the least he could do in return for his passenger’s generosity was to endure this fumigation.

They finally arrived at the destination a few minutes before nine. The driver breathed a sigh of relief when Lot finally got off the taxi; the interior of the car was practically filled with smoke so the driver had to wind down all the windows to allow ventilation take the place of pollution. Soon, he drove away feeling happy with his payment.

Lot walked to the gate and was almost instantly admitted into the compound with the automatic opening of the large gate. As he walked down the compound, there was no one who came around to welcome him. He brought out a sheet of packet from his pocket. The paper was where he had written the address which Daniel had given him; he checked it to know if he was really in the right place. The note on the paper confirmed that he was not mistaken. As he walked closer to the main building, Lot noticed a figure covered in white cloth on the ground, it was the corpse of the man who was reported to have been stabbed. A section of the cover was jutted upward because of the knife still embedded on the back of the deceased. Lot instantly knew that this was going to be one puzzle more complicated than any crossword or Sudoku. This was going to require a large part of his intellectual capability.

One of Lot’s three university degrees was in philosophy; consequently, he had taken numerous logic courses. He remembered one class that, in part, had dealt with the logic of mazes. When these three-dimensional puzzles were designed by educated mathematicians or logicians who drew upon all their learned cunning to deceive, the result was usually a labyrinth that few would find their way through in a timely manner, and from which a certain percentage of frustrated challengers had to be rescued by guides. On the other hand, when the maze was designed by anyone other than a mathematician or a logician – by ordinary folk, that is – these more mundane maze makers followed a stultifying predictable pattern, because the design flowed from instinct rather than from intelligent planning; evidently, embedded in every human psyche was an affinity for a basic pattern that rarely failed to be asserted in the designing of a maze. Perhaps this building his intelligent sight was beholding was the pattern of the network of caves and tunnels in which the first extended family of mankind had dwelled, under the aegis of red bricks and stones; perhaps the man of that earliest of all homes had been imprinted in our genes, and represented comfort and security. Lot had spent a considerable large amount of time brooding on the subject. Philosophy was such an interesting course.
His mind pondered about the reason behind Daniel’s involvement in this mess, considering the fact that the young footballer’s home was not very far away from here. A part of him told him that Daniel was not here for the noblest of purposes. Daniel Famous, he reflected, could only be here for one of two reasons; either in his own strange belief in stopping something bad from happening or searching only for what was never lost but also never found yet, Love.

The former, Lot supposed, was quite understandable but the latter was simply ridiculous.

Approaching the figure behind the sheet, Lot saw two men emerge from the house. He recognized them; Moses and Ayo. The albino looked darker than the last time he’d seen him. And Ayo, the dark-skinned one, was more muscular now. Both men were discussing as they came out of the building. At first, the man could not recognize Lot when they saw him.

And when they did, they could not mask their excitement. By the way they looked, Lot could tell that they were relieved at his presence here. To them, the case was already a hard nut to crack. They approached him with beaming smiles. They bowed when they reached him.
“You’re welcome, sir.” Ayo greeted.
“We thought you’d not come.” The albino added.
“How did you get here?” Lot demanded of them.
“We came by the summons of Daniel Famous.” Replied Moses.
“Where’s he now?”
“He’s inside having a discussion with one of the family members. He’ll come out anytime soon.”
“I suppose that’s the victim, right?” Lot asked, pointing at the white sheet behind the two police officers.

They looked behind them to confirm where the detective’s finger was pointing before they nodded in assent.
“That is the landlord of this property.” Ayo informed.

Lot walked past the two men and bent over the white sheet. Moses and Ayo stood aside as they watched the detective. For a few moments, however, Lot was more than reluctant to pull back the covering. His dark eyebrows contracted to a frown as he mentally traced the odd configuration of the bulge beneath the sheet. Surely the body had to be on its belly, but the protrusion of the hilt was sideways; it was not upright. The body was lying on its side.

Lot expected his suspicion to be false as he pulled back the sheet. It was true; the body was lying on its side. It could have been supine if not for the knife embedded in the back. After only a few seconds, he replaced the sheet and stood up.

He asked the police officers, “Did you check the corpse when you arrived?”
“We only raised up the cover to see,” Moses replied, “Just to know who had been murdered. We didn’t touch the body at all.”
“What position was he when you checked him?” “He was dead, of course.” Ayo replied.

Lot scowled at him and said, “I’ll ask the question again, and I’ll oblige you to use your thinking faculty before you reply. What position was he when you checked him?”
“He was lying on his face.” Moses replied.

Lot turned to Ayo and asked, “Is that true?”
The officer nodded, “Yes, he was lying faced-down when we checked him.”
“Kindly check him again.” Lot mildly ordered.

There was about the detective nothing of the quality called Nonsense.

The men obeyed him. They gasped in shock at what they saw.
‘I swear this man was lying faced-down when we last checked him.” Ayo swore.
“When did you arrive here?” Lot asked.
“Around seven o’ clock, sir.” Moses answered.
“And when did you check the corpse?”
“About thirty minutes after our arrival, sir.”
“Did you check him after then?”
“No.” Both officers replied in chorus.
“Then between half past seven and nine o’ clock, someone meddled with the corpse. Do you have any idea whom that person might be?”
The two men shook their heads.
“You reply when I’m talking to you, not shake your heads like mannikins. I want to believe that I’m not talking to a pair of dolls.”
“We don’t know who that person might be, sir.”

Then, right at that moment, Daniel came out. He was looking weary and there were rings at the sides of his eyes due to lack of sleep. When he saw the detective, he smiled warmly. And had Daniel been able to observe more closely at that moment he might have seen that in the deep shadows of Lot’s rather cold strong eyes there floated some reminiscences of an almost joyful satisfaction.