He glanced through her initial statement and went through his notes, and bits and pieces of the conversation he had had with her replayed in his head.
“I went by 12:30 p.m. for my cleaning round.”
“I used my access badge to enter.”
“I pulled the sheets and blanket off and saw two people on the bed.”
“I noticed a patch of blood, then ran out to the reception and asked them to call the police.”
“Only guests are allowed to use the phones in the rooms.”
“There was no handbag in the room.”
“It’s part of my training. Safety and security.”
Inspector Osbourne put the report aside, closed his eyes, and leaned back on his seat. He wasn’t getting anywhere, and it was partly due to his fatigued brain. He felt it was time to go home, so he reluctantly got up, packed up his things, and left.
Chapter Seven: Call
Same Day
Friday, 23rd November 2018
9:10 a.m.
Inspector Osbourne woke up on the floor of his sitting room, surprised. Although his shoes were off, he still had his work clothes and socks on, and the floor was littered with files and documents. He rubbed his eyes, as his memory felt blank as to how he had ended up at home and asleep on the floor, but within seconds, it all began to come back.
He had gone through Titilayo Lawrence’s initial statement and his notes the previous night and it hadn’t done much. If anything, it had made him more tired than he already was. He had planned to go home and sleep so that he would be in top form in the morning and be able to see anything he might have missed about the case. But when he got home it was a different outcome.
He was physically and mentally drained, then made a first stop on his couch, where he tried to sleep but hadn’t been able to rest his mind. Of all the cases he had worked on, none had confused him this much. All the evidence was right in front of him, but somehow, the doctor and Desola Ogunba seemed to evade him. It was either they were extremely good or he was missing something. He had to be missing something, and he didn’t know what it was.
He had tried again to sleep, but the case kept occupying his mind, so he decided to just look through the chronology of events one more time, and that was the last thing he remembered before waking up on the floor.
A glance at his wristwatch revealed that it was minutes after nine in the morning, and he was late for work, but he wasn’t bothered. He had worked late and also worked at home, so coming in after the official resumption time would not be a problem for him or anyone else, maybe apart from his boss, only because he wanted updates. The good thing, however, was that he was now well-rested.
He got up and began replacing and rearranging all the documents and files back in the boxes when he heard his phone ring. As he searched around him for the phone, he prayed it wasn’t his pestering boss calling him back for more updates. By the time he found the phone between the cushions of his couch, the call had rung out.
He looked at the number and smiled. It wasn’t his boss, but he couldn’t tell who it was or where the caller was calling from. The number looked strange. Just then, the number called back, and he picked up without any time wasted.
“Hello,” he croaked.
“Still in bed?” asked a voice the inspector didn’t readily recognise.
Inspector Osbourne cleared his throat. He knew his voice sounded husky, as he hadn’t said a word since he woke up. He looked at the caller ID again, at the strange number format, then asked, “Who is this?”
“It’s Princewill Jackson. Rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” the P.I. joked.
“Oh.” Inspector Osbourne sighed. “Long night.”
“I guess you couldn’t get anything out of the doctor and Desola Ogunba.”
“They didn’t, or rather couldn’t deny the fact that they knew each other from the hospital, but I couldn’t get the doctor to admit that he had met with Desola Ogunba at the guest house.”
“Yeah.” Princewill Jackson sighed. “But meeting her at the guest house or being her doctor doesn’t solve the case. What you need is something to put them both in that hotel room.”
“Yes. That is exactly what I need,” Inspector Osbourne agreed. “Because those pictures don’t confirm anything. By the way, what strange form of number are you calling me with?”
“It’s not a strange form.” Princewill Jackson laughed. “Home phones normally take this number form. Call me old school, but I still have one.”
“You mean like a landline?”
“Yes.”
“Do people still use landline telephones? Apart from you, of course.” The inspector laughed. “We have only cell phones at the station now. Landline telephones were years ago.”
“People still use it, and a lot.” Princewill Jackson also laughed. “Offices, hospitals, you name it, businesses in general still use it. Plus, it’s cheaper, but not just mobile.”
Inspector Osbourne paused, as he came to a sudden realisation. “That’s it,” he said.
“What is it?” Princewill Jackson was clueless.
“I have to check something out.”
“Okay, I can meet you at the station in about an hour.”
“That’s fine.”
The inspector immediately hung up, and the P.I. was none the wiser about what he had indirectly helped the inspector to figure out.
***
Same Day
Friday, 23rd November 2018
10:15 a.m.
Inspector Osbourne stood at the reception of the hotel, waiting to be attended to. He looked away, lost in thoughts, with the left side of his face in his palm. One of Titilayo Lawrence’s sentences replayed in his head after the revelatory call with Princewill Jackson, and it made sense to him: “Only guests are allowed to use the phones in the rooms.”
“Good morning, sir, can I help you?” a voice asked, waking Inspector Osbourne from his thoughts.
The inspector turned towards the person, and said, “Yes.”
One look at his face and the receptionist recognised him. “Oh, Inspector, it’s you. What do you need?”
“The call logs from the room where the victims were found.”
“We don’t have the logs here because we don’t monitor calls, but the phone service provider should be able to help you get it. Let me ask the IT and Security team to contact them.”
“Tell them to get it across as soon as possible.”
“I will.”
The receptionist placed the call and told the person on the other end what was needed. After she hung up, she asked Inspector Osbourne to wait, as it was likely going to be a while.
Inspector Osbourne didn’t know how long it was going to take, so he sat rather impatiently in the lobby, absentmindedly going through a pile of magazines on display. About twenty minutes later, the receptionist came to meet him. He saw her approach and got up.
“Do you have the call logs?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Please, follow me.”
The receptionist led him to the IT and Security Department, then handed him over to a woman by the entrance after telling her who the inspector was.
“Inspector Tunde Osbourne, my name is Ifeoma Umeh.” The woman extended her hand to the inspector, and he shook it. “I’m the head of IT and Security for the Lagos Star Hotel. Please, come into my office.”
Inspector Osbourne followed her into her office that looked similar to Wilson’s workstation with a lot of devices and gadgets all over the place. Four massive screens formed a large square the size of the wall and each square was divided into little squares that captured the whole inside and outside of the hotel. The images were so small that Inspector Osbourne wondered if the woman could actually see anything and identify anyone.
Although he had come for a different purpose, something else came to his mind. “I thought the hotel manager said the cameras don’t work,” he asked, seeking confirmation.
“They work. What he meant to say is th
at they don’t store footage.”
“Isn’t the work of the cameras to store footage?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then they don’t work.”
“They are programmed to see things happening now, but not things that have happened.”
“Then they don’t work,” Inspector Osbourne repeated. “Solving the murder case would have been much easier if you had stored footage.”
“We stored footages in the past, tons of them that didn’t serve any purpose other than to occupy space on our servers. We were paying so much money just to store what we didn’t need, that was why we stopped it, as part of a cost-saving business strategy.”
“So much for a cost-saving business strategy that might cost you much more now in terms of guests and reservations, and one that came coincidentally before a crime was committed.”
“We stopped it in January of this year, and that’s about ten months ago, so I don’t see any coincidence. It was a great strategy until yesterday. So thanks to the crime, we realised that anything can happen when you least expect it, so we resumed storing footage this morning. We have decided to keep them for at least three months before discarding them.”
Inspector Osbourne shrugged. It was a little too late for that, so he came back to his reason for being there – the call logs, although he wasn’t sure of what he hoped to get, as he didn’t know if the phone had been used at all in the room.
“You have the call logs from the room?” he asked.
“Yes. Only one call was made since the room was reserved.”
The inspector sighed in relief. His expedition hadn’t been futile.
Ifeoma Umeh hit a button, then said, “Listen.”
“Hello?”
“Mr. Kamar Ogunba?” a male voice asked.
“Yes, who is this?”
“I’m sorry to bring this to your attention, but I just saw your wife enter a hotel with a man.”
“My wife?”
“Yes. Her name is Desola Ogunba. She has been seeing this man for some time now. If you come now, you’ll catch her there.”
“What hotel?”
“Lagos Star Hotel. Room 202. Hurry.”
Ifeoma Umeh hit Stop on the recording.
“Is that all?” Inspector Osbourne asked.
“Yes, it is. And isn’t Kamar Ogunba the male victim?” Ifeoma Umeh asked, and before Inspector Osbourne could respond, she added, “Why would someone else call from the hotel room where he was supposed to be staying only to invite him over? It makes no sense.”
“That’s because he wasn’t staying there and whoever made the call never expected that it would be discovered.” Inspector Osbourne smiled and shook his head. “Can I get a copy sent to my phone?”
“Of course.” Ifeoma Umeh took Inspector Osbourne’s phone, connected it to a device, and allowed it to copy the audio file. The transfer was complete in no time, so she returned the phone, and said, “It’s done, and I hope you find whoever is behind the murders.”
“I will. And thank you for the recording,” Inspector Osbourne replied, then left.
***
Same Day
Friday, 23rd November 2018
11:00 a.m.
Inspector Osbourne’s heart beat faster than usual as he drove. No matter how many times he solved a case, it always felt like each new one was his first. It was a feeling he couldn’t control. He had just gotten a breakthrough, so he understood why he felt momentarily nervous. He also wondered why he never thought of checking the call logs of the hotel room before, but it was because he never assumed anyone would want to communicate via that channel, let alone cheating lovers. Besides, he had now established the doctor’s means of communication with Desola Ogunba, which was the hospital.
There was a bit of traffic on the road, and within forty-five minutes, Inspector Osbourne got to his destination and his heart beat much faster. He walked up to a familiar door and gave it a bang, then another. After the third bang, the door opened in front of him.
“Good morning sir.” A man smiled, flashing all his teeth. “Please, come in.”
“Thank you, Bassey,” Inspector Osbourne said to the doctor’s steward, as he entered the residence and stood by the door.
Bassey ran off and went up the stairs, and minutes later, he came back with the doctor.
“What is the meaning of this?” the doctor protested. “I’m sick and tired of seeing you.”
Inspector Osbourne flipped Doctor Umanze around, shocking Bassey. Once he pulled out his handcuffs and began to secure the doctor’s hands, Bassey took to his heels. Whatever he was running off to do or where he was going, the inspector didn’t know and didn’t care. But when he didn’t return, the inspector figured that he was probably afraid of being taken along with the doctor.
“Have you lost your mind?” Doctor Umanze asked, once the inspector had successfully restrained him.
“You’re under arrest and you need to come with me to the station for interrogation.”
“I will make sure I sue you for harassment because this has gone too far.”
Inspector Osbourne didn’t say anything in response. He simply grabbed the doctor from under his arm and left with him.
***
Same Day
Friday, 23rd November 2018
11:40 a.m.
Inspector Osbourne walked into the station more than two hours after he spoke to Princewill Jackson and saw him waiting in the lobby. Princewill Jackson stood up immediately and eyed the doctor from his head to his hands cuffed behind him as he was led towards an interrogation room. Whatever Inspector Osbourne had found, it had to be serious because he had never had to use handcuffs on the doctor before.
Princewill Jackson went into the viewing room to watch the interrogation. The inspector pushed the doctor on a seat, then pulled out his phone and scrolled through. After he found what he was looking for, he hit Play and placed the phone on the table.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Kamar Ogunba?” a male voice asked.
“Yes, who is this?”
“I’m sorry to bring this to your attention, but I just saw your wife enter a hotel with a man.”
“My wife?”
“Yes. Her name is Desola Ogunba. She has been seeing this man for some time now. If you come now, you’ll catch her there.”
“What hotel?”
“Lagos Star Hotel. Room 202. Hurry.”
The recording went off on its own when the conversation was over and the doctor sat, looking clueless. Inspector Osbourne threw him a look that meant he ought to know something.
“Oh, wait, am I supposed to react to that?” the doctor finally spoke. “Because I don’t know what that is.”
“That’s the recording of the call you made to Kamar Ogunba luring him to the hotel, where you were with his wife, to kill him.”
“What? That is ridiculous.”
“You used the hotel phone to make the call, but you didn’t know that we would ever check the logs, right?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about and you most certainly can’t prove it’s me on that recording.”
“It’s your voice Doctor Umanze,” Inspector Osbourne snapped. “Stop playing around and tell us what happened.”
Doctor Umanze didn’t say anything.
“I know your wife caught you unawares at the hotel, but what I don’t understand is why you would invite Kamar Ogunba over. What was the plan? Was it really to kill him? But why?”
“You see, it doesn’t make any sense to you either. You’re trying everything possible to pin the murders on me.”
“That’s because you know something about it that you’re not telling. If you talk right now, we’ll consider reducing your sentence for your cooperation.”
“I’m tired of this harassment.” The doctor looked away. “I need a lawyer.”
Inspector Osbourne got up and left. When he exited the interrogation room, he met Princewill Jackson by the door.
Inspector Osbourne nodded. “Of course, it is. I got it from the hotel. The idea came to me when you called me with a landline number. And when I spoke to the cleaner yesterday, she said only guests are allowed to use the phones in the room to make external calls.”
“So now we have something linking the doctor to Kamar Ogunba in the hotel.”
“Yes, but that’s not enough.” Inspector Osbourne grimaced. “I need more.”
“But he is refusing to talk. How are you going to get more? And truth be told, no one can prove that the doctor was in that hotel room let alone that he made the call. It may sound like him, but that’s not proof of anything.”
“I know.” Inspector Osbourne stopped to think, then added, “I have an idea.”
***
Same Day
Friday, 23rd November 2018
12:30 p.m.
Desola Ogunba heard banging on her door and went to check who it was. She looked through the peephole and wasn’t pleased.
“What do you want?” she yelled.
“Open the door, Mrs. Ogunba,” Inspector Osbourne yelled back. “I need to ask you a few more questions.”
“I believe I told you yesterday that I had nothing else to say to you and hoped you would not have any more questions for me. I am tired of being your suspect. Did you miss that part? What makes you think that I will change my mind and want to say any other thing to you?”
Hotel Room Murder Page 10
