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  I looked at Abubakar, but it was Emeka who spoke.

  ‘There are a lot of stories about what happened the day my son was killed. I don’t believe any of them, so I’m here to ask you to help me find out what really happened.’

  I was no stranger to these sorts of requests, and I had my standard response. ‘You mustn’t mistake me for a detective, Mr Nwamadi. I’m a psychologist with expertise in studying the motives behind crimes and how they are committed. Most of my investigations are purely exercises in academic exploration.’

  It was a speech well rehearsed from years of explaining the limits of my expertise to my ex-colleagues at the San Francisco Police Department.

  ‘I read these books,’ Emeka said, pointing at them.

  ‘They’re academic papers.’

  ‘Brilliant in my opinion. I’ve never read anything like your analysis of crowd behaviour.’

  ‘They’re post-event observations. Hardly forensic.’ I tried to sound dismissive but I was pleased at the compliment.

  ‘Insightful nonetheless,’ Emeka insisted.

  ‘I told you he’s humble,’ Abubakar said to Emeka, then turned to me. ‘Phirif,’ his Hausa police-boss mode was in full bloom, ‘you’re the only one that can feece together what haffened. These feeful need your herf. As the only investigative psychologist in this country –’

  ‘That you know of.’

  Abubakar waved his hand like he was warding off a ludicrous proposition. ‘Ip I don’t know them, they don’t exist. You, I know.’

  If there was anything I had learnt from eight-and-a-half soul-numbing years of ‘piecing together’ the motives and modus operandi of some of the most heinous crimes known to man at the SFPD, it was that there are no winners in any crime involving the loss of life. I was quite happy being a lecturer. I was ready to voice a more determined refusal.

  ‘Have you watched the video, Dr Taiwo?’ Emeka asked.

  ‘Please, call me Philip.’

  ‘Philip,’ he conceded without missing a beat. ‘Have you watched the video?’

  I shook my head and Emeka reached for his smartphone, tapped the screen twice and handed it to me, a challenge in his eyes. Seconds later, the last minutes of Kevin Nwamadi’s life played out in my palm.

  For quite a while after Abubakar and Emeka left me in that classroom, the horror of what I saw stayed with me. After over a decade and a half of studying human transgressions, I have almost mastered the necessary art of detachment. But this is the first time I am witnessing a crime in progress, yet paralysed by the fact that it had already happened and could not be stopped.

  I couldn’t shake the images of the three young men as they were beaten, broken and burnt alive. It was difficult to fathom the pain Emeka Nwamadi and the other parents must feel. The loss of a child is unbearable enough, but to have that painful death – that dying – playing out in a continuous digital loop on the World Wide Web must be the most terrible of existences.

  There were many reasons why taking the assignment appealed to the researcher in me. One of them was the opportunity to localise some of my hypotheses on crowd psychology to the Nigerian context. It also would not hurt my chances of getting a more permanent consultancy at the Police College or an equally reputable institution. However, it was the father in me that made me want to help Emeka Nwamadi find the closure he so clearly needed.

  I left work earlier than planned that day, and drove to Folake’s office, eager to share my initial impressions of the case. But I never did.

  In fact, it ended up being a complicated day; distressing and depressing in equal measure because it was from the parking lot that I looked up and saw my wife in the embrace of another man.

  THE SINS OF FATHERS

  For days, Abubakar followed up, trying to convince me to take the assignment, but I couldn’t tell him that the Okriki Three was the last thing on my mind. I ignored Emeka Nwamadi’s text messages and refused to take his calls. I wasn’t being difficult. I just wasn’t functioning well enough to commit to anything. Until the day my father summoned me.

  You could tell the gravity of a situation in the Taiwo clan by the time of day my parents chose to discuss it.

  Family discussions ranging from scolding for subpar academic performances to grave infractions against the family name were late at night, when there was no danger of interruption by visitors. These days, serious conversations, which my dad called ‘strategic meetings’, are reserved for dawn. This is when career paths are discussed, worry is shared regarding the behaviour of any of my three siblings or the size of our financial contribution to a number of the family projects my father has committed his children to, usually without our permission.

  When I got the text message summoning me to our family home on Lagos Island at the crack of dawn, I wondered if Folake had confessed her indiscretion to him and asked his intervention in asking for my forgiveness, but I quickly dismissed the thought. My dad is Folake’s godfather and they have been close since her childhood. There are few things I have done in my life to impress my dad, but marrying his god-daughter must rank as what my twin brother calls the ‘checkmate of sibling rivalry’. Folake wouldn’t risk tainting the image he had of her, except as a last resort.

  Dad was waiting for me when I arrived. My mom was still in bed. Ever since she retired from being the chief nurse at my father’s practice, she insisted on sleeping in; recovering, she claimed, from raising two sets of twins and managing a workaholic husband. When asked why my parents did not have more kids, my dad always joked that he was afraid the next set of children would be sextuplets! In his late seventies, he still works at his practice not too far from home, where I knew he would be heading as soon as our meeting was over.

  ‘Kehinde!’ he exclaimed, as he pulled me into an embrace and ushered me through the large living room into his study.

  My father never calls me ‘Philip’. He insists ‘Kehinde’ was the name I was born with and Philip was my mom’s idea at my baptism. I was worried that he didn’t call me by his nickname for me – Kenny Boy – which he coined to differentiate me from one of the younger twins, another Kehinde. She is ‘Kenny Girl’. While I’m more forgiving of the old man’s moniker for me, my sister baulks at being called a ‘girl’ at forty-four.

  ‘I spoke to the boys last week,’ my father said, as I settled into the well-worn leather sofa across from the shelves that held his admirable collection of books.

  I breathed in and waited for the old man to finish his favourite topic: his grandchildren’s educational achievements or lack thereof. He lamented their handwriting which he described as ‘spidery’. Ironic, coming from a medical doctor. He informed me he just finished reading the Harry Potter novel my daughter gave him – ‘Witches and wizards! Is this what these children are learning nowadays?’ He talked of my mother’s recently acquired habit of removing gluten from their diet, ‘I am seventy-eight! What is her point?’

  When he finally paused for breath, I rose, heading towards the Nespresso machine in the corner of the room, before venturing to ask why he had summoned me.

  ‘Sit,’ Dad ordered.

  I did, abandoning my plans for coffee, still clueless and nervous. He sat too and his expression became sombre, which heightened my unease.

  ‘A good friend of mine says you’re avoiding him,’ he said finally.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Emeka Nwamadi.’

  ‘You know him?’ I shouldn’t be surprised. My father’s network of friends and patients reads like a Who’s Who of the Lagos elite.

  ‘Yes. He and I play golf at the country club.’

  ‘He failed to mention that when we met. He was introduced to me by the Commandant at the Police College.’

  ‘I know. I think he didn’t want to put undue influence on you.’

  ‘Hmm, I wonder what changed,’ I said wryly, settling again into the sofa, more relaxed now that I had an idea where this was going.

  ‘It’s really sad what happened to hi
s son and those other boys, don’t you think?’

  ‘Terrible,’ I said tentatively, not sure where my dad was going with the conversation.

  ‘I think you should consider taking the case.’ He held my gaze as he said this, his tone steely.

  ‘But, Dad, I don’t know what I can do. All the reports –’

  ‘– are speculation, rumours and conjecture. We need to get to the truth.’

  ‘We?’

  My father gave a deep sigh, stood and padded to his bookshelf, where he retrieved a battered manila file. He took an old photograph from it and handed it to me.

  I recognised a younger version of my dad – my twin sons bear an uncanny resemblance to him, and I could have been looking at any of them in the picture – surrounded by five other young men of about the same age.

  ‘Your university days, huh?’ I thought I recognised at least two young men in the picture. They were familiar faces from the alumni gatherings my father had hosted many times at the house.

  ‘My fraternity at University of Ibadan.’ My father’s tone was softened by nostalgia. ‘We were inseparable. Live together as brothers or perish as fools. That was our motto.’

  My eyes registered the red bandana around all of the young men’s heads and it hit me. ‘Dad, were you a cult member?’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ he retorted sharply. ‘Never ever call us that –’

  ‘Fraternity, cult … What difference does it make?’

  He bristled. ‘We were distinguished gentlemen.’ His voice was imperious and brooked no argument. ‘We were nothing like these university boys now. We were brothers; politically aware, academically excellent and, above all, gentlemen.’

  I looked at the picture and my hand shook slightly at the realisation that I had to revise the image I had of my dad, no matter what he said.

  ‘I am still that person,’ he said as if he could read my mind. He sat down next to me and took the picture. His voice softened as he looked at it. ‘And so are all the men in this picture.’

  ‘This,’ he pointed, ‘is Dr Chukwuji Nwamadi. He was one of the pioneering lecturers at the University of Nigeria, in Nsukka, and we lost him during the bombing of that campus during the war. The rest of us have pitched in to look after his family ever since. His wife, his children –’ He looked pointedly at me, ‘especially his eldest son, Emeka.’

  ‘And that’s why you want me to take the case? Because you knew Emeka’s father?’

  ‘I feel a sense of responsibility towards him. All of us in that picture feel the same. His father was blood. But this goes beyond that. These children today, running around with weapons and killing each other; they’ve tarnished our legacy. The laws we fought to get passed, the awareness we raised about injustice, our protest against the civil war, all of that gone because when people think about university fraternities now, all they see is mayhem.’ He shuddered, shaking his head sadly. ‘And when something occurs that’s as violent as what happened to those boys, one can’t but wonder what role we had in all this and if all the bloodshed could have been avoided. This wasn’t the plan. Our vision was heroic in the beginning.’ He let out a deflated sigh.

  ‘Does Emeka know this about you? You know, with the … er, fraternity.’

  My father nodded. ‘Everyone in that picture pitched in to send him to university here and to the US for his MBA. He knows.’

  ‘Do you think his son was killed because he was in a cult?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know enough to think anything of consequence.’

  My father nodded again. ‘There’s so much that’s unknown. But maybe, just maybe, if the facts came out, the unfortunate events that led to the death of Kevin and those boys would never be repeated.’

  I stood up to create some distance between us. ‘You want me to prove the killings were not gang-related, so you and your friends can sleep better at night?’

  ‘I want you to help a grieving father, to give him some closure. I want you to find out the truth, and if the truth is one more thing on my conscience, then so be it.’

  Gone was the jovial doctor, the affectionate father, the affable grandfather and loving husband.

  ‘I still can’t picture you …’ I shook my head. ‘The things I’ve heard about what these gangs get up to on campus.’ My eyes widened as a memory came to me. ‘I remember you calling Taiye and me when we were thinking of studying here. You told us, no, you warned us not to even think of joining a cult.’

  Dad wagged a finger at me. ‘I never used that word “cult”, when I spoke to you and your brother. I said gang.’

  I snorted. ‘Is that not what your fraternities have become? Violent gangs that you warned your own children about joining?’

  My father shook his head, but could not give me an answer that cleared my confusion.

  ‘We’ve tried, Kehinde. All of us, alumni of different fraternities in different campuses all over the country. We have tried to end this violence. We’ve consulted with university authorities, served on advisory boards and even helped to formulate laws to control what everyone calls “secret cults”. But nothing has worked.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say something? Even when you were warning Taiye and me, why didn’t you tell us you were in a fraternity yourself?’

  ‘If you saw the way you’re looking at me now, you’d know why.’

  I left my childhood home that morning with a heavy heart. In less than a week, the two people closest to me had shattered some of my core beliefs. My wife made me question my faith in our union, while my father planted doubt about what I knew of him for the past forty-six years.

  While I wasn’t ready to deal with Folake, I had the skills and training to take on the Okriki Three case. I needed the distraction. So, the day after my meeting with my dad, I called Emeka Nwamadi and agreed to take the assignment.

  I didn’t mention my father, but I knew he knew. We were bound together.

  RED-HOT ARRIVAL

  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Flight NJ2406 going to Port Harcourt. We apologise for the delay of this –

  One would think the delay was an hour at most. And I had been right in my reading of the crowd at the counter. Only the announcement that the plane would in fact fly just two hours ago had prevented the pummelling of airline staff. Total waiting time: five hours, twenty-eight minutes. That’s almost eight hours of me sitting in Mr Biggs, periodically buying snacks in lieu of rental space.

  Captain Duke and the crew will do our best to arrive in Port Harcourt quickly, with your safety and comfort as our primary goals. Please take your seat as the plane refuels and we will be on our way.

  Logic dictates that aviation fuel is not the same as the one that goes into my four-year-old Prado, but announcing a refuelling after all that delay doesn’t allay my scepticism that this plane will actually get to Port Harcourt.

  Although the flight should be no more than an hour, the long delay makes me wonder again why Emeka had not agreed to my suggestion of making the trip by road. I’ve never been to the south-eastern part of the country, and I’d hoped the drive, which GPS informed me takes about ten hours and fifteen minutes, would enrich my assimilation. But Emeka and Abubakar had insisted that, apart from the bad roads, it was safer to travel by air. The road-trip-loving American in me had hoped to wrap up the assignment quickly and drive towards the border shared with Cameroun, but Abubakar had sputtered into his drink when I suggested this. When I asked for an explanation, he had cryptically asked me to trust him when he said flying was best. In hindsight, I recall neither Emeka nor Abubakar had said it was faster.

  The passenger in the adjacent seat arrives. One look at her and I immediately forget my anxiety about another possible delay. Her face is so perfectly made-up that I’m certain it couldn’t have been applied by hand. Her waist is squeezed into a form-fitting dress that accentuates her full figure as she reaches up to put away several bags in the overhead compartment. Her leather laptop ba
g won’t go in, so she puts it under the seat in front of her and turns to me with a thousand-megawatt smile.

  ‘Hi,’ she says.

  I find my voice a second too late. ‘Hello.’

  ‘I was afraid I’d be late.’ She smooths her dress and settles back in her seat.

  ‘The flight was delayed.’

  ‘My queue boy told me, but the traffic getting here was manic.’

  ‘Queue boy?’

  She raises an expertly pencilled eyebrow. ‘Someone you hire to stand in the queue for you. These flights are always late. So, you pay someone to stand in the queue and check you in. They call you as soon as boarding starts.’

  I can’t hide my bafflement. ‘But the traffic … Surely there’s no way you can make it between the call and boarding?’

  She laughs; a rich, bubbly laugh that calls attention to itself. If any of the women on board had Folake’s number, her phone would be ringing this second. You leave your husband to travel alone to Port Harcourt? Are you crazy? Get here now and come save him from witchcraft parading in Chanel No. 5! Meanwhile, a middle-aged man sitting across the aisle from us looks like he would trade places with me in a Lagos bus-stop minute.

  ‘Which is why I’m the last to get on the flight.’

  It’s my turn to laugh. I hold out my hand, ‘Philip Taiwo. Pleasure to meet you.’

  She holds out ringed fingers. ‘Salome Briggs. Likewise.’

  I’m careful not to let the handshake linger. ‘So, Port Harcourt. Business or pleasure?’

  ‘In PH, it has to be both. I live there. Lagos for me is always business. You?’