by Leye Adenle
‘Why?’ Amaka asked. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘Do you know you talk too much?’
‘I hope you’re thinking of your mother when you fuck me.’
‘I never knew my mother.’
‘I’m sure you can’t even get it up.’
He lowered his gun to his side, looked at Shehu and laughed, then in a flash he brought his gun hand up and across his chest and smacked the side of Amaka’s face with the butt of the weapon. Amaka fell backwards onto the ground, taking the camera down with her.
‘See what you made me do?’ Malik said. He reached towards her and Amaka recoiled. He grinned. ‘I’m not touching you,’ he said. He lifted the camera tripod, set it back upright and checked that the camera was working. ‘Take off your clothes,’ he said as he continued inspecting the camera.
‘What do you want to do?’ Amaka asked.
‘What do I want to do? Do you know why the Romans nailed Jesus to a cross like this?’ He spread his hands wide and Shehu moved away from the barrel of the pistol. ‘It was not to punish him. They crucified him and planted his cross on top of a hill so that everybody would see ‘this is what happens to anyone who tries us’.’
He switched the camera on. A red light blinked.
‘By the way,’ Malik continued, ‘I need to thank you. You did me a big favour today. My house that you burnt – the insurance on that building is worth more than ten times its value. Just like this one. Just like every property I own. You saved me the trouble of burning the place down myself. Now I really need you to take off your clothes and get onto the bed.’
Amaka propped up her body with one hand, touched her mouth, then looked at the blood on her fingers.
‘You brought all of this upon yourself,’ Shehu said.
‘Get up, take off your clothes, and get onto the bed,’ Malik said. Amaka got onto her feet. ‘No,’ she said, spitting blood onto the white rug.
‘But why?’ Malik said. ‘Because I hit you? I already apologised for that. Or, didn’t I? My mistake. I’ll just do it again and this time I’ll make sure I apologise.’
He stepped away from behind the camera and took a step towards her. She flinched and stepped backwards until her feet hit the edge of the bed.
Shehu held Malik’s hand. ‘Miss,’ he said, ‘there is only one way this is going to end, but I can make it fast. A single shot to the back of the head and it would be over. You won’t feel anything. You won’t even hear it. Or it can be the other way. His way. The choice is yours. Tell me who else has seen the videos and the pictures you took from Ojo and I’ll make sure it’s quick.’
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Amaka spat more blood onto the rug and stared into Shehu’s eyes.
‘Fuck you. I’m not telling you anything.’
Shehu nodded. ‘Is that so? Alright.’ He turned to Malik. ‘Ol’ boy, I think you should go first. I’ll do the filming. Do you have condoms?’
‘I’m not fucking her,’ Malik said. ‘Maxim is.’
‘Who is Maxim?’ Shehu asked.
Malik looked at the picture above the bed. Shehu followed his gaze.
‘The dog?’ Shehu said.
‘Yeah. Keep her here while I go get him.’
Malik grinned at Amaka. He turned and walked to the door, placed his hand on the handle, then turned to look back and caught Shehu’s fist in his face.
Malik staggered backwards into the door. Shehu swung a kick at his face but missed as Malik slid down. Shehu launched forward and tried to grab the gun dangling from Malik’s hand but Malik rolled over on the ground. He raised his weapon and Shehu ducked.
As Malik climbed to his feet, Amaka ran forward, threw her body into his stomach and brought him to the ground again. She wrapped her arms around his body and the gun fell away. He put the heel of his hand under her chin and pushed. Shehu ran to get the gun. Malik headbutted Amaka and she rolled off his body. He scampered to his feet and kicked her in the belly. She curled up on the floor. Shehu was standing with the gun in his hand, but rather than aiming at Malik, he was looking down the barrel. Malik laughed. He dashed out the door, slammed it behind him, and turned the key in the lock.
Shehu threw the gun onto the rug, tried the door handle, then knelt beside Amaka.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
Amaka looked at him.
‘It was a lighter,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if he has another weapon, but we can’t take any chances. Can you get up?’
Amaka nodded. Shehu stood and offered her his hand. She took it and he helped her to her feet. She kept one hand on the side of her belly where Malik had kicked her.
‘Move away from the door,’ Shehu said. ‘If he has a gun, he won’t knock, he’ll shoot.’
Shehu started to push the bed; it moved a few inches then stopped as the rug gathered beneath it.
Amaka scanned the distance between the bed and the door. ‘We have to turn it over,’ she said.
Lifting from either side, they flipped it over against the door. They dragged the two sofas in the room up behind it, and, breathless, they retreated to an adjacent wall and sat with their backs against it.
‘Do you hear that?’ Shehu said.
Amaka listened. ‘Yes.’ She got up and dashed to the window.
‘No,’ Shehu called after her.
She looked out of the window. ‘He’s leaving,’ she said.
‘What about the boy?’ He turned round and sniffed. ‘Do you smell that?’
Amaka turned around. She could smell it too. Behind the bed, smoke had begun seeping into the room from under the door. A fire alarm went off downstairs, and another, and another, all screaming out of sync.
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Shehu pushed one sofa away from the bed. He covered his nose and coughed. Smoke curled into the room from under the door. ‘We have to hurry,’ he said, turning to Amaka. She put her hand into the front of her skirt, pushed it down, and pulled out her phone. She looked at the screen before bringing the phone up to her ear. ‘Eyitayo?’ she said. ‘Did you get everything?’
‘Amaka.’ Eyitayo shouted.
‘You got the address?’ Amaka said.
‘Yes, yes. 28B…’ Eyitayo grabbed the notebook from Gabriel.
‘Ayo Jagun,’ Amaka said.
‘What’s that sound?’ Eyitayo asked. ‘Where are you?’
‘Fire alarms. He set the house on fire. I’m upstairs in a room. He locked the door.’
‘What?’
‘He’s getting away. He’s driving a Red Mercedes ML.’
Gabriel was on the phone to Ibrahim. ‘Amaka is trapped in the house,’ he said. ‘He set fire to it. You have to hurry.’
‘No,’ Amaka said, hearing the conversation down the phone line. ‘Tell Ibrahim to go after Malik. I’ll be fine.’
Shehu stood up. ‘Who is that?’ he said.
Amaka kept her eyes on him as she made another call. ‘Ibrahim?’ she said into the phone. ‘…No, I’m fine. Go after him. Don’t let him get away. He killed Florentine. He confessed it. I’m in a room upstairs. I’m with Navy Commander Shehu Yaya… No, he wasn’t with him. He protected me… You can ask him when you see him… We’ll be fine… No, Ibrahim, don’t come here. Where are you now?… By the time you get here we’ll already be dead if we haven’t gotten out.’
She tucked the phone into her waistband.
‘Is that the police?’ Shehu asked.
Amaka nodded.
‘Thank you.’
‘Ojo told you about the videos?’ she asked.
‘Videos of him with little girls. Videos that can cost him the election. Yes.’
‘And he told you to get them back from me?’
‘Yes. And to take care of you. He will do anything to stop you from releasing those videos. And I will do anything to make sure you release them. That animal cannot become Governor of Lagos State.’ He coughed. They both looked at the smoke pouring in from under the door.
‘We have to get out now,’ Shehu said. He moved t
he bed enough to open the door.
‘Stop,’ Amaka said.
Shehu looked at her.
‘Is it hot?’
‘You’re right.’ He placed his hand against the door. ‘No.’ He wrapped his fingers round the handle, stepped back, and rammed his body against the door. It flung open and he fell out onto the corridor. Smoke poured into the room. At the end of the corridor, flames leapt up from the stairwell.
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Sergeant Bakare was driving as fast as the police van could go. All the while Ibrahim kept his eyes on the other lane of the dual carriageway, looking out for a red Mercedes ML. He saw his Camry that Amaka had borrowed, and a Prius, both parked on the carriageway. He turned to look at the two abandoned cars as Bakare raced on.
‘Get to the other side,’ Ibrahim said.
They would be driving the wrong way, racing into oncoming traffic, but if they didn’t – if Malik drove past them on the opposite lane – it would be near impossible to catch up with him. Bakare moved to the inside lane, ready to cross at the first opportunity. Like the rest of the officers in the vehicle, he was determined to catch the man who killed Fatima, their colleague.
A shot rang out from the back of the van. Ibrahim ducked and looked through the window in the back. The shot had been fired by Hot-Temper and the sergeant was aiming again. Another shot cracked from his weapon. On the other carriageway, a red Mercedes ML sped past. Two more shots rang out. Bakare stopped the van to give Hot-Temper a steady shot.
‘Hold your fire,’ Ibrahim shouted through the door, but Hot-Temper kept shooting till he had emptied his magazine, then another officer fired off a full volley after the departing ML.
Bakare did a two-point turn, caused oncoming vehicles to swerve to avoid hitting the van, then he levelled the car and screeched off, accelerating into oncoming traffic. Ibrahim braced himself at the sight of cars moving out of their path. ‘Bakare, slow down!’ he shouted, but the sergeant was hunched over the steering wheel, focused on the road. All the officers in the van were bent on revenge.
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‘We can’t go out that way,’ Shehu said. He covered his nose and waved smoke away from his face.
Amaka stood behind him in the corridor. She turned, opened the next door and went inside, then tried the next room, and the next. Back in the corridor Shehu had inched towards the flames to look down the stairs. ‘Come,’ she said.
Shehu followed her into the bedroom she had just come out of. She went to the window, turned and waved him over to join her. The edge of the swimming pool was visible to the left.
‘Can you swim?’ Amaka asked.
‘I was in the Navy,’ Shehu said. He slid the window open and gripped the metal burglar bars. They were too close together to squeeze through.
‘The roof,’ Amaka said.
She walked over to a chest of drawers at the side of the room, swept away a vase on top and the glass shattered on the ground. She shook the chest of drawers. It was solid.
Shehu bent down and interlocked his fingers to give her a boost. She took off her shoes before stepping onto his palms and he helped her onto the cabinet. Hunched down, she knocked on the ceiling. It was hollow. She braced her back against the wall and banged on the ceiling with her fist. A crack appeared. Below, on the ground, smoke seeped into the room from under the door. Shehu ran to the bed, yanked off the sheets, rolled the cloth up and jammed it along the base of the door. He returned to the chest of drawers.
‘Let me try,’ Shehu said. He extended his hand to Amaka and she helped him up. Hunched down, their bodies pressed against each other, they banged on the ceiling causing debris to fall from the hole. A chunk of the ceiling fell away and thick smoke poured down from the hole they had made. Coughing, they both bent down. Shehu jumped off, causing the chest of drawers to wobble. ‘Get down,’ he shouted. He held his hand up to her while shielding his own face from the black smoke pouring into the room.
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Bakare swerved onto the other lane of the intersection. The van zigzagged before he regained control. He downshifted and the engine roared as the van leapt forward. The Mercedes came into view ahead of them, stuck behind two cars at a traffic light. The amber light came on and the Mercedes was still metres away.
‘Don’t shoot,’ Ibrahim yelled. In the mirror he could see Hot-Temper bracing himself in the open back of the van and aiming his rifle at the Mercedes. ‘Hot-Temper, do not shoot. It is a command.’
The light turned green and the cars ahead of the Mercedes began to move. Bakare pulled up beside the SUV and rammed the side of the van into it. The SUV swerved away. Bakare accelerated, then stopped across the road. Hot-Temper was first on the ground. He levelled his rifle at the windscreen of the SUV. By the time Ibrahim got out, pistol drawn, all the officers from the back of the van had spread out in front of the SUV and were aiming their weapons at the driver’s head through the windshield.
‘Put your hands up and get out,’ Ibrahim shouted.
Approaching cars stopped metres behind the Mercedes. Some reversed away from the stand-off. In the Mercedes, the driver kept his hands on the steering wheel.
‘Put your hands up,’ Ibrahim shouted again.
A smirk spread across Malik’s face as he raised his hands.
‘Get out,’ Ibrahim shouted. His pistol remained aimed at Malik.
‘Can I put my hand down?’ Malik shouted back.
‘Keep your hands up and get out.’
‘I need to put my hand down to open the door.’
A single shot rang from beside Ibrahim. The bullet pierced the windshield of the SUV on the passenger’s side and continued through the leather seat.
Hot-Temper returned his aim to focus on Malik’s head.
Keeping one hand up, Malik opened the door with his other hand and got out of the car. A phone fell out of his lap and onto the ground. He raised his hands above his head and stepped out from behind the open door.
‘Get on to your knees,’ Ibrahim shouted.
Malik knelt, one knee at a time, on the hot tar, and as the officers approached, the smirk on his face widened until he was grinning at the faces lined up behind a row of gun muzzles.
‘Malik?’ Ibrahim said, standing over their captive.
Malik shielded his face from the sun to look up into Ibrahim’s face. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And you are Ibrahim,’ he read off Ibrahim’s uniform. ‘Can you be so kind as to explain what this is about?’
Ibrahim turned his pistol in his hand so that he gripped the gun by the barrel, then in a blow faster than Malik could dodge, he smashed the butt of the gun into the side of Malik’s face.
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Shehu ran to the door and grabbed the handle but he did not open it. Instead he looked down to its base, to the cloth he had rolled up and used to stop the smoke entering. Thick smoke now poured into the room from the hole in the ceiling. He let go of the door handle and searched the pockets of his trousers and the sides of his top.
Amaka climbed down from the chest of drawers. She stood and watched Shehu searching in his pockets. He looked scared. His eyes were red from the smoke. It was acrid now and tasted of plastic; of chemicals. Something dangerous was burning. The carpet? Synthetic material in some furniture? Wires? It burnt her nostrils to breathe it in. It gathered in the back of the throat where it festered and built, stealing the oxygen from every breath she took.
Shehu looked at her, continuing to search his pockets. ‘Amaka,’ he said. But that was all he said: her name, a complete sentence, submitting to what was to come. To the smoke. The fire. The inevitable.
‘No,’ Amaka said, looking at him. ‘This is not how I die.’
Calmness came over her like she had never experienced. With smoke clinging to her hair like mist, alarms screaming from behind the closed door, and Shehu panicking right before her, her senses became sharper than ever. She saw everything as it would happen, and she felt it all: the abrasiveness of the mattress against her fingers as she gripped its edges; its
weight as she lifted it; the heat of the flames when they opened the door; the bursting pain in her chest from holding her breath through it all.
‘Come,’ she said.
She went to the far side of the mattress and began to lift it. Shehu lifted from the other side. He didn’t ask why. They heaved the mattress on to its side, and moved it to the door. She knew it had to be heavy but it didn’t feel so. There they held it steady while Amaka swiped away the cloth at the base with her leg. Smoke rushed in from under the door and she swallowed a gulp of air and held it in her mouth. She poked her head round the mattress to look at Shehu who was holding his breath as well. Then she gripped the handle, turned and pushed.
The sound of the fire was like hissing snakes slithering over gravel. Together they forced the mattress out onto the burning carpet and let it drop length-wise onto the flames. In a puff, they had gained some ground. They lifted the mattress to its full length. It smouldered from a fresh coat of black soot. They dropped it again, fighting the flames towards the stairs. They lifted again, and dropped it again, and they got closer to the flames leaping up from the staircase. Just then a forceful swoosh of white smoke blew up from the stairwell and engulfed the entire corridor. They couldn’t see a thing. They dropped onto the mattress and crouched, coughing, choking, flames behind them, a thick cloud of smoke around them, the edges of the mattress beginning to burn.
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Two men pulled Malik to his feet. He touched his bloodied mouth and winced. The officers shackled him with rusty handcuffs. Another bent down by the open door of the Mercedes and picked up the phone that had dropped onto the floor. He took it to Ibrahim. Sergeant Hot-Temper continued to aim at Malik’s head.
