My Third Cycle

8. Betrayals

9am
June 23, 2000.

Bayo

Resuming work at Silverbed's headquarters, Bayo went in to say hello to his supervising officer Mr. Kayode Akinwunmi who was quite surprised at his appearance.

"Is everything okay at home, Bayo?"

"Of course! Why wouldn't it be?"

"What are you doing here? It's your day off."

"I know," Bayo said, "But I can't resist big stories like today's murder case. Come on, Kayode. Who better than me to solve the case? I have beaten the police to the solution so many times."

"Ok, ok... but Lola is on the news case. You can work together on it. If you want it, you're going to have to play nice with her."

Not exactly what he had been hoping for but he would have to find a way to get the case from Lola then. Bayo and Lola used to have a thing but it didn't end well and since then they despised each other.

"Hey!" He said as he walked into Lola's office, giving Lola a sheepish smile. She stared back with disgust.

"Don't give me that face. I know what you want, Kayode already called. Why would you want to be on the same case with me? We clearly don't get along."

"Well sometimes people do things they aren't comfortable with for the better good. So, for now, till this case is over let's try to play nice. Truce?" He said, sticking his hand out for a handshake.

"Get that hand out of my face!" she snapped, "I am only accepting this because I have no other choice."

"Yes, you do." Bayo replied, "You could drop the case and leave it for me."

"You would love that, wouldn't you?" she asked, letting out a scornful laugh.

"Absolutely."

"Well not a chance," she said, "Now get off my desk."

****

They entered the Police headquarters in Victoria Island together. The Chief of Police, Shonekan was an oversized bear of a man, with small sunken eyes and a large mouth. The narrow eyes narrowed even further once they landed on Bayo, and he became very hostile. So Bayo let Lola do the talking, which he thought was wise as old men respond very well to attractive young women.

Lola was attractive; very. Honey colored skin as smooth as silk, and legs that went on forever. She constantly lined her nut brown eyes eyes to accentuate their tilt, giving her a slight feline look. Almost always dressed in trendy blouses showing off just the right amount of cleavage and tight knee length skirts that put her curves on full display. She spoke with the Chief of police alluringly, and that made him very co-operative and forthcoming.

The police were yet to find their primary suspects Mr. Abdul Saad and Miss Zaleka Akeem. The only new thing they learnt was that Saad had visited Air Raven - where both girls worked - a day before the murder looking for Zaleka. The secretary gave him Zaleka's official phone number because he refused to leave.

The police also found out that Saad worked at the stock exchange bureau at Ikeja, they had questioned his supervisors and no one seemed to know anything of his whereabouts but they had gotten a picture of him that would be aired on television to help with the search.

"If he is still in this state, there will be no place to hide." Shonekan said confidently.

"Can we see this photo of him?" Lola asked, smiling sweetly at him.

"Of course you can." he said, smiling hard and exposing his brown teeth. He opened his drawer, pulled out an envelope, took out a little passport photograph from it and slid it on his desk over to Lola.