"Good morning Inspector, what can I do for you?
"We are here to see one Miss Sandra Benjamin. She works as a Secretary to the public admin office manager"
"Okay, she's in her office"
"Please, how do we get to her.
"Just go this way" she replied, pointing a direction to her. "Climb up the stairs, open the first door you find, she'll be there"
"Okay, thank you" Helen replied and walked to the direction pointed to with a uniformed officer, leaving another uniformed officer at the reception.
They got to the top floor as directed and opened the first door. Sandra was startled as she saw the uniformed police officer, she stood up from her chair.
"Good morning" Helen greeted.
"Good morning, please what can I do for you?"
"Are you Miss Sandra Benjamin?"
"Ermm... Yes, I am"
"Okay, your attention is needed in our office"
"Huh? Any problem?"
"No, not at all. We just want to ask you some few questions"
"Ermm... Let me inform my Boss first" she made a move to leave but was blocked by Helen.
"Sorry, you have no time to do that. You have to follow is immediately" Helen said sternly, "this way please"
"Ermm... You have to..."
"It will be in your best interest to keep shut mam, just follow us quietly"
** Forty minutes later **
" 0-7-0-3-8-8-9-9-5-6-2 , do you recognize this number?" Helen started the interrogation.
"No"
"Are you sure you've not seen this number anywhere?"
"Yes, I've not seen it"
"And it's not a number of one of your friends?"
"I don't know, I don't store people's number in my memory"
"Then you should check your phone if it's stored there" Helen replied and gave her the phone which was previously seized.
"I don't think I have any number like that" she said as she scrolled through her phone. She suddenly found something, she took a quick look at Helen's face and looked back to her phone. She quickly punched some buttons before Helen grabbed the phone from her.
"What did you delete?" Helen shouted at her.
"I didn't delete anything" she lied.
"But your phone showed that a contact had just been deleted now"
"No, I didn't delete anything" she replied shakily.
"Well, that was just to confirm if you're really guilty" Helen continued. "We already know you own the number, that's why we came for you"
"I... I... " she stuttered.
"You don't have to say anything to defend yourself, just answer ... " Helen was saying when her phone rang.
She ignored the call and continued, "you just have to answer all my questions truthfully and I'll let you go. When last did you use the sim?"
"I've not used it for a long time now"
"For how long have you not used it?"
"For over six months"
Helen replied her with a heavy slab, making her fall from the chair she sat. She drew her up and made her sit back into the chair.
"If you don't answer my truthfully, I'll have to force out the true answers " she threatened. "Now, when last did you use it?"
"About two weeks ago" Sandra reply inaudibly, as tears flowed out of her eyes.
"Ehn?"
"About two weeks ago"
"Who did you use it to call?"
"I didn't use it myself, my friend did"
"Who's this your friend? Was she Nike Adejumo?"
"No, Bola made the call"
Helen landed another slap on her face. "Who is Nike Adejumo? And where can we find her?"
"I don't know Nike Adejumo" Sandra replied, with tears flowing more rapidly from her eyes.
"Then who made the call?"
"Bola made the call"
"And who is Bola?"
"Bola Olatunbosun, my friend"
"Bola Olatunbosun? Daughter of late Chief Olatunbosun?"
"Yes"
"She's in the hospital right now"
"Yes, she shot herself"
"Okay, what's your relationship with Bola?"
"We are friends"
"That means you must know about her relationship with Frank and her friendship with Ini"
"She told me about Frank who impregnated her and another Lady who was trying to snatch Frank from her"
"Who is that Lady?"
"Amarachi"
"And what about Ini Williams?" Helen asked and paused for a brief moment before she asked again. " Do you know her?"
"No o, I don't" Sandra lied.
"You never heard about her? Or met her?"
"I don't know if we've ever met, but Bola never told me about her" she continued to deny.
Helen paused for a brief moment and thought deeply, she remembered that Ini had once told them that only Bola knew about Nike Adejumo. If only Bola knew Nike Adejumo, then it was possible for her to have used Sandra's sim card to make the call.
"Who did Bola make the call to with your phone?"
"I don't know, she only asked me to borrow her a sim that I wasn't using again and I did. The sim is still with her, I didn't collect it back" she lied once again.
"You weren't there when she made the call?"
"I wasn't there"
"Hehe" Helen chuckled and stared sternly at Sandra. "Are you sure you are saying the truth? You'll be sorry if I get to find out that you're not"
"I... I..." She was saying when the door flew open. Uche came in sweating.
"Take her away" Helen quickly commanded the junior officer who was standing nearby.
"Who is that?" Uche asked, the expressions on his face showed he really needed an answer.
"How did the test go?" She asked another question, ignoring his.
"Fine, but I don't think the result will be positive, I don't think Ini has anything to do with the knife" Uche replied
"Why do you say so?"
"I kept asking her questions all through our journey there and with the way she answered, I don't think she has a hand in it"
"But you can't just conclude with that"
"I'm not concluding yet, I'm only saying that I don't think she knows anything about the knife, the same way you were sure that Amarachi and Kelvin weren't the ones who used the knife after you questioned them"
"Hmm... Okay, but we have to wait for the result"
"Yes we do, but if it proves that she didn't use the knife, then we have to go ahead and prosecute Ama and Kelvin" Uche added.
"Yes... But I really do wish it wouldn't go this way, I don't want the innocent to be punished"
"It has to go this way ma, Ama has to explain how the knife which she admitted to using earlier was used for the murder and was found in her room, at the same place she kept it" Uche intensified. "Kelvin has to prove to us that he did not murder Frank during their fight"
"Hmmm, but I think Kelvin has greater chances. The tool used for the murder has been found and it has been proven that he didn't use it"
"Huh, that's true"
"Yea"
"Okay, so who was that girl you were interrogating?"
"Ermm... Nobody really serious"
"Nobody really serious? Is she not connected to the case"
"No, I'll tell you of we are to bring her in" Helen answered. "If you may excuse me, I have to leave now"
"Okay"he said and followed after Helen as she left the interrogation room, taking the opposite direction she took.
** 2 Hours Later **
"Yes, come in please" Helen answered a knock on her office door.
"Oh! Uche, thank God you're here" she exclaimed as Uche walked in. "I just got a directive from the IG, I sent a copy of the email to your box already. We have to report to the commissioner's office early tomorrow to assure him that we can work as a team"
"Work as a team?"
"Yes"
"Do we have a team?" Uche asked an usual question.
"What do you mean by that?"
"With all due respect ma, we don't have a team. How can we function as a team with bigger tasks when we don't function as a team in smaller tasks?"
"I don't get your point" Helen seemed confused.
"We are handling a small case and you're hiding things from me already, how would we work effectively? How do we call ourselves a team if we want individual glory?"
"Can you please go straight to your point?" Helen slammed.
"Why are you not carrying the rest of your team along? You arrested the person whose phone was used to make the call to Ini and you're hiding it from us, I had to find out from an outsider who doesn't work with us at all"
Helen felt guilty as his words hit her deeply. She tried to appease him "Ermm, I'm sorry, I didn't really mean it to be that way"
Uche stared at her deeply for some seconds before replying, "Is that all? You're sorry?"
"I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to hide it so as to take the glory but I just didn't want to leave any stones unturned"
Uche smiled briefly before asking another question "how would hiding it from us help you?"
"I..."
" If you really don't want to leave any stones unturned, why have you not asked us to investigate Bode?" Uche asked a striking question.
"Huh?" The question took her off balance
"Yes, why have you not asked us to investigate Bode?"
"And why should we investigate Bode?" She replied, trying to be hard with her voice. "Is there anything that implicates him in the case?"
"How do we know that if we don't investigate him?"
"See, there's no point in this"
"Oh! There you go, we can't investigate him because you have a personal relationship with him?"
"What? Are you crazy? You know I don't get personal with anybody"
"Oh! Really? But you drove him all the way to his house yesterday?"
"What do you mean?"
"Don't even pretend, I saw you when you drove out with him yesterday and I was just leaving here when I saw you drive back home"
"You don't know what I went to do along that area, I have nothing personal with him"
"Oh! Please Inspector Helen, with the you guys stare at each other, someone who is not even a detective knows you have something going on"
"Believe whatever you want to, I'm a professional at this job and I know what to do and how to act with different people"
"Then stop protecting him and lets investigate him too"
"I'm not protecting him"
"You are, you're not ready to investigate him as the leader of the team and you're not even giving us the order"
"Okay, you have it. Go ahead and find out whatever you want"
"You're not going to lead us?"
"Lead you in something fruitless?"
"Okay, if that's the way you want. Then as Bode's protector, you might become one of the suspects very soon" he said and stormed out of the office without paying attention to her reply.
She fumed with anger as he left the office, she had never spoken to any of her superiors like that nor had any of her juniors talk to her like that.
She began to wonder if she was really protecting Bode as he said. Maybe she was allowing her personal feelings come into the task, if not why would she have followed Bode's instruction not to get her long time partner and teammate involved in a part of the investigation. Maybe Bode had recognized her feelings and was taking advantage of it to hide something.
She was still deep in thoughts when her phone rang, she answered the call before it beeped the second time.
"Hello Doc... She gave up the ghost?"
TBC....
