IT’S A SMALL WORLD (12)

I have always known it’s a small world. But the brain and life’s experiences have a way of painting a different picture for us. There is always an answer and solution to every question and challenge in the world even if the answer is no and the solution is death. Still basking in the euphoria of my last feats, I engaged the services of my friend Solomon to help resolve the puzzle Judith had become. Like I mentioned before, I needed to know the details of her activities including her relationship, if any and any other details Solomon could get.  A bit of information about Solomon; I have known this guy for more than ten years now. Way back in school, Solomon could easily complete sentences before I finished them. He could read meaning, I mean the correct meaning to every step and signal that I made. I remember back then, we used some terminologies we learnt in our organic chemistry classes as our everyday language and we communicated very fluently and effectively too. Solomon would say for instance that “peptide bond was the most important thing in the world now.”  That simply meant that whatever we were discussing at that point made no sense to him until he had eaten food. There’s this other one he attributed us to electrolytes. He used the movement of electrolytes to describe where he would want us to go at any given time. It was really fun while it lasted. We would watch our friends struggle to decode our what we were discussing. After some time, most of our friends didn’t bother to understand what we were saying again, they would hiss at us and walk away in frustration. We would wonder why they could not make meaning to what we had said where in most cases we wouldn’t have used the word before. We were that close and good at using those codes.

When I told Solomon the whole story and the plan, he jumped into hook line and sinker. He confessed it had been long he allowed his imagination to run riot. He was more than willing to flex his brain muscles again . I showed him Judith’s picture before transferring same to his phone via Bluetooth. I painted a vivid picture of the compound  I saw the three enter on Saturday after their early morning workout.  Solomon asked for boundaries  and deadline; I told him he had no boundaries except that he was not allowed to disclose or talk about me with any of them. And for the time, I suggested a period of one week; Solomon looked into the sky before he nodded in acceptance the timeline. We tried to catch up with the “good old days” when men spoke in coded language.

On Wednesday, Solomon called he would like to see me. We later agreed to meet the following day in my office. On Thursday before noon, Solomon had arrived my office looking like he had come with a basket full information for me. I requested for some time to conclude what I was working on before he entered.  When I mentioned I was ready for him, Solomon handed me a flash drive and requested that I should look for a folder labelled Judith. I was curious to know what he had discovered. I promptly slot in the flash drive; waiting for the drive to open looked like waiting for eternity. The moment it opened, I sat up and scrolled down to ‘M’. I clicked on the folder labelled Judith as instructed and to my surprise there were about twenty five pictures waiting for me to feed my eyes on. The first picture that attracted my attention was the picture of  Judith in a car with a guy. The guy had brought her up to her gate before she alighted from the car; Solomon was able to capture Judith kissing the guy before she alighted from the car. With that singular picture, Solomon had achieved almost everything I had in mind, everything I wanted to establish with his mission. Oh yes, Judith was in another relationship; this must be a cartel they are running! Other pictures were insignificant to me at that moment. I fixed my gaze on that picture, both out of surprise and anger. What a combination!  I have seen what I wanted to see. I have my confirmation. “Bad girls!” I screamed. There were two other pictures also. In those two pictures, Judith was with the lady I couldn’t identify in my last trip to their street the previous Saturday. In the first picture, Judith and the lady were just exiting their compound; they were properly dressed.  The second picture was different from the first one, the only difference being that the picture was taken from the back.

“So what do you suggest I do now?”  I asked Solomon who was looking and smiling at me. “This is the most interesting part of this journey, now that we have established these things, what do you really want to achieve with them?” Solomon asked, apparently returning my question to me.  “See this man, I want to pick your brain and you are throwing the same question back to me.”  But seriously, I haven’t really thought about what I really wanted to do with my findings. Well, I told him I was going to forge ahead with the rest of the investigation. When we get to that bridge, we would cross it one way or the other. The second lady needs to be identified; I was not going leave any room for speculation and assumptions. I know Sydney had shown me Agnes’s picture in the past but the image didn’t stick since I only took a casual look at it.   I looked at the whole thing again and far we had gone, I felt it was time to reveal a bit of my findings to Sydney; after all, that was the only way I could make headway if I truly wanted to identify the lady that had become a recurring figure with Judith.

Sydney responded to my invitation; he arrived at my office at the agreed time. He had come to see the little surprise I said had for him.  Before he arrived, I had already used the picture that had Judith and the unidentified lady as my screensaver.   As usual, as soon as Sydney settled down, we tried to catch up with events that must have happened since the last time we met. “That’s why I called you for this little meeting,” I said. I turned my laptop towards him. He looked at the screen without really getting the message I was trying to pass across to him.  I pointed at the screen again and asked him to take a closer look at it.  “What?! Where did you see Agnes?” Sydney asked looking genuinely surprised.  He sprang from his seat, grabbed the laptop and moved towards the door for more illumination. I kept looking at him to be sure he wasn’t acting surprised.  “Wait, you mean you saw Agnes?” “Yes I saw her,” I replied. “Please where?” I looked at Sydney again, “abeg, guy stop that thing, you know where she is joor,” I said to her. “Know what? What is that supposed to me?” Sydney asked looking offended. “You know I have always believed that you know something about this whole drama. I have always wondered why you looked indifferent to the whole thing,” I said. “How can you think like that?” Sydney cut in. “I didn’t know what to think again after the incident at your office that evening and how you and Efe handle it. It was too casual for me,” I replied. Sydney laughed at my submission, “how could you have suspected me of all people?” He asked.   Again,I confronted Sydney with his response after our first meeting with Efe. I tried to remind him how he suddenly sounded very cold when I pushed to know exactly what he discussed with Efe. “Oh that? Efe said he didn’t want to pursue the matter again and I didn’t want to push him,” he said.

“So talk to me where did you see Agnes?  This looks like a dream,” At that point,  I was convinced Sydney was genuine, so I spilled the bean. I told him how I had commenced investigation into the whole charade when I felt I was not told the truth. Sydney could not believe his ears; he could not believe the extent I had gone to uncover the truth. He was fascinated by the steps I had taken. “O boy you are wasting your talent here, you really have to join the SSS with this kind of instinct you have. I’m very sure you will do extremely well there,” he said. I laughed at the way he was describing me to me. “Oh boy I’m telling you the truth, you need to consider it,” Sydney added. “Consider what, how much do you think they pay their people that I will leave my company and join them?” “Sorry, I have totally forgotten your company, I was totally awed by your ability to crack this thing,” he said. “You know what, I want to confront Agnes this weekend; please you will have to take me there,” he requested.

When Sydney left, I had to rethink his request; I felt it was too early for me to confront anyone in the line of my investigation. I still have Efe to investigate. I turned Sydney’s request. I have Efe to crack and that would be my next mission.

IT’S A SMALL WORLD  continues…

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