Silhouette

XLIX

"Why am I doing this?" Thomas asks.

Thomas and Yemi stand under the cover of the awning. The floor is littered with small, empty pots. The rain streams down with ice pellets. Across the garden, climbing plants twist their way from the foot of the fence and up the wall-a chocked mass of leaves and stems.

Yemi taps away on his phone, his face aglow with its blue light. "You have something valuable. You are a wanted man."

"Why am I doing this?" he asks again. Thomas has seen his face more than he's liked on TV. Splashed across the screen with Wanted below it. He has scoured the news websites lately and the editorials have all painted him a dangerous criminal. The comment sections are even worse.

He understands this is a script being played out by the media or whoever is behind all of these. But it doesn't make him feel any better.

Yemi puts away his phone. He rubs his shoulders, blows into cupped palms. "You could have left, you had the chance."

"Yes." Thomas remembers driving Sophie to the airport and trusting she'd find a plane to wherever she wanted to go. Not boarding the plane with her was a mistake, he has told himself severally.

Or was it? His thought process has been very rattled, especially after he had been shot at more than once. "I don't know. I just had the feeling that running away would be nailing my coffin."

"Probably. You only need to push the right buttons to cook up one or two claims of some criminal acts and the roof would come falling down. A graceful extradition."

"I couldn't put Sophie through that."

"You are doing the right thing. Staying holed up here is the best solution."

Thomas chuckles. "The best solution? Have you seen what is being written about me?" Thomas winces. He had no idea he had raised his voice. There's an acute hysteria rising up inside him. Feels like he needs to make a long, hard, primal scream. The rain increases in torrents as if providing an answer.

Yemi steers Thomas sideways with his hands. "Take a deep breath," he says. "This would all be over soon."

Thomas nods. Yemi's words do little to calm him, but he forces himself to take long, deep breaths. It doesn't stop the trepidation breathing down his neck. His fingers tremble from the cold or maybe just plain dread.

"How are you so confident?"

Yemi's lips widen into something like a smile. "I hear optimists tend to live longer than pessimists."

***

Under the grayish light, the station is brimful of uniformed and plain-clothed officers. They all watch Dave pass. He feels their eyes.

Dave marches to Jonjo's cramped little office, full of comic book posters, energy drinks and strange devices. It looks like a budding junk collection.

Bolanle, a detective and Rose's friend, is hunched beside Jonjo's desk. Red eyed and blowing into a tissue.
She springs up as Dave enters. "I heard what happened?"

"It was bad." He thinks about telling her how he let the man get away, how he couldn't pull the trigger, how it all could have been avoidable. He doesn't tell her. He just says, "But she'll be okay."

Bolane sniffs. "We plan on going to check up on her by the end of the day."

Dave checks his watch. It is a minute past 3. "Sure," he says. "I'll come along."

Jonjo bustles in twitchy and feverish. He walks circles round and round the cramped office. He massages his forehead with a finger. A newspaper is tucked in his armpit.