Episode 14

The detective and his team of policemen searched the hospitals closest to the hotel but found nothing.

Veronica's dad, Mr. Olumide, was distressed about the state of affairs and the detectives lack of information concerning the whereabouts of his daughter. He went to the police station to confront the detective.

"Detective may I have a word with you."

"Mr Olumide is anything the matter."

"Yes detective! A whole lot of things, and I can start by stating the fact that you are not competent enough to find my daughter. She has been missing for almost 2 weeks now and you have not been able to find her."

"Mr. Olumide, we are doing all we can to find your daughter. Please calm down and let us do our work."

"Don't tell me to calm down, if anything should happen to my daughter because of your incompetence, I'll sue you."

Mr. Olumide walked out of the station broken and distraught, he knew he had lost his daughter.

'Someone once asked "if there is great pain in bearing a child, what degree of pain is there in losing one?"

The pain Mr. Olumide felt knew no bounds, but what can one do when faced with the unknown?

I dare say, fate has the answer.

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The detective was beaten down by the confrontation he had had with Mr. Olumide. He felt challenged and his ego took over and he was determined by anything to find Veronica. He read the report from the NIN database once more. It showed where Cyril was born, his date of birth, his father's and mother's names and his BVN number.

The detective asked his IT team to scan Cyril's BVN number to find out if he had an open account. After about 2 minutes the results came back; he had an open account with the United Bank of Africa plc - UBA.

Immediately the detective went to the nearest UBA branch and asked for a customer's information and statement of account.

"Detective I am truly sorry but we cannot give out information of our customers without his or her consent or a written and signed letter from a high court that shows an open investigation involving our client."

The detective was angry at himself once more for missing a key detail, no bank gives you information about their customer except a letter from a judge has been presented.

He called one of his lawyer friends if they could help in getting the warrant they needed to get the information from the bank. He was told it would take 24 hours to get and to him 24 hours was a long time.

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Nonso had taken his sister into the thicket, he placed her on the ground as gently as he could. He brought out a plastic bottle from his back pack, raised her arm and placed the bottle just below her wrist. He brought out a penknife from the back pack. He sliced through her radial artery just adjacent to the palm and blood gushed out, he used the plastic bottle to collect some of the blood.

The death from cutting through the wrist isn't a painful death as one would think - though some would have a differing opinion than mine. The blood slowly exits the body, the heart struggles to pump blood through the blood vessels to make up for the lost one but the blood just keeps flowing out, the oxygen level drops since the blood cannot carry the oxygen through the body, the person begins to suffocate and due to the lack of oxygen the brain cells begin to die and in a few minutes the subject, dies. And so it happened in Nkechi's case, though she struggled to breath because of the loss of oxygen but it was basically a painless death.

After Nonso had collected enough blood, he closed the bottle cap, he trimmed her nails and cut a few strands of hair from her head. His work was finally done, he didn't take time to bury her, he just covered her with earth and leaves. He had to get back home before anyone realizes he had been outdoors all night.

It was about 1 am in the morning when he returned from the bush, he entered the compound and there was no one. He tiptoed into the house - opening the door as quietly as he could. He tiptoed into his room, climbed onto his bed and pretended to sleep.

In the morning, everyone was awake except Nonso. He had fallen asleep while brooding on the events that had taken place. When he finally woke up from his slumber, he went out to meet his mother and sisters outside preparing breakfast and cleaning the house.

"Nkechi did not sweep this compound today." his mother said

"is she still asleep? Someone go into her room and wake her up"

One of the sisters went into her room to check on her but she was not in her room.

"Mama, Nkechi is not in her room. Maybe she has gone to fetch water from the borehole."

At 10 am Nonso announced to his family that he would be leaving, this time his mother was not as harrowed as she was the first time. But she was worried that Nkechi had not returned from wherever she had gone to.

"Mama, Nkechi is a big girl." Nonso said

"she will definitely come back from wherever she went. When she comes back tell her I'll come back soon."

And so Nonso left for Akwa Ibom, to meet with Cyril so they could go see the Oracle together.