Silhouette

LIX

Thwap thwap thwap. The sound of bullets rippling into walls. The harsh glare of the sun. The crackling of radios; shouts of commands, hoarse cries for help from the wounded. Dust in the air like clouds. The boom of an explosive detonating; the heat, the force of it throwing him several feet into the air. Straining, struggling to breathe some oxygen into tired lungs, only the air is filled with dust, and smoke, and blood.

Dave wakes with a start. There is a harsh white light glaring down on him and he shuts his eyes. Tries to make sense of where he is. He remembers pointing his gun at John, pulling the trigger, both of them crashing out of the glass and onto the car down below. He remembers the pain, the rain. The sirens.

Dave sits up, awareness pours down on him like an avalanche, but he finds his right hand is cuffed to the bed, an IV drip runs into his left arm. Dave knows where he is. He has stayed long enough in hospitals to recognize them by smell alone. Dave falls back on the bed, his chest a sinking pit. It is all over now, he is sure of it.

He wonders what will happen next, he would be charged, no doubt. There will be a flurry of investigations, inquiries. Every case he has ever solved will be uprooted, everyone who knows him would be interrogated. And finally, he would either get the firing squad or life imprisonment. Dave thinks this through with the cold detachment of an executioner. For some reason the terminality of his situation does not faze him. He has escaped death so many times he knows it is only a matter of time.

There are footsteps outside the door and murmurings. A woman walks in a few moments later. Dressed in a beige suit, hair tied severely into a bun. A light skin--biracial. Dave recognizes her; he had seen her at the headquarters the day he stole into the archive. She strolls past his bed without a word or a glance, raises the curtain by the window and lets in a meager, late evening light.

She spends a few moment with her hands on the window sill. Then she turns. "I have a ton of questions," she says. "But what I keep wondering is what reason you may have had to do the things you did."

The woman's voice is soft, her accent British and crisp. Dave stares at the IV bag dripping crystal clear liquid into his veins. He reckons she would go away if he doesn't reply.

She continues. "I am a profiler, you see. In my line of work, people who have done the things you did, to that extent, are very very disturbed individuals. Of course you wouldn't know by just looking at them. You can think of it as an apple, juicy and delicious looking, but with a very rotten core. To find out why they did the things they did you will have to dig into the core. Dig into their lives."

Dave listens to her, breathing. The woman takes in the silence. She goes to the edge of the bed. "They call you The Executioner. Bifouma's death certainly cemented your legend. The doctor dug a piece of his tooth out your knuckle."

Dave looks at his right hand, it is no longer throbbing, no longer swollen purple. Dave wonders what Ola is doing. He knows they will focus their spotlights on her. He wants to tell her he is sorry for everything, but his reality is the cold metal encircled on his wrist.

The woman sighs. There is a buzz in the pocket and she picks the call. She nods into the phone, says, "Okay."

She pockets the phone, looks at Dave with sad, brown eyes. "I really hope we will have a meaningful conversation sometime soon," she says. Then she turns to leave.

"You want to know why I did the things I did?" says Dave.

The woman stops, turns, eyebrows raised. Raises her palms as if saying 'go on'.

"The system was rotting, crumbling. I did what I had to do."

"You saw your own share of bad guys, but what policeman hasn't? Is that enough to drive you into killing people, guilty as they may be? I have also seen my share of the evil men do. "

"You think you know evil but you're wrong. You don't know evil until you have witnessed it, felt its touch on your skin, tasted it on your tongue."

The woman blinks. "Suffice to say, you have become the very thing you are fighting," she says. She turns and leaves.

***

Dr Joseph Osagie, Dave's counselor, manages a counseling practice near Ikoyi. Janette mulls this piece of information over as she accompanies Madueke to the counselor's office. She wonders why Dave Coker needed a counselor. She thinks, perhaps it is because of some trauma from his military past.

"Did you know that Dave visited a shrink?" she asks Madueke who is looking increasingly morose.

"Yes. You see, Dave's employment was not ... typical. He was a recommendation."

"A recommendation?"

"From someone up high obviously. No doubt someone in the military. But Dave has been a good detective, one of the best I've known in years. I can't believe this is what he has been doing."

The officer pulls up before an establishment. The gate is finely wrought metalwork and leading up to the frontage is a carefully tended garden. Janette walks the path leading to the main doors with Madueke behind her. Flower pots are littered next to the path and hanging just by the door is an empty birdcage.

Janette strides in. The lobby is air-conditioned, chic. The receptionist glances at Janette and Madueke with bored eyes. She stiffens when the officer who had driven comes after them.

"Dr Joseph," says Madueke. "Is he in?"

The receptionist nods vigorously. Her name tag reads 'Emily'.

"Tell him he has visitors. It is of utmost importance."

The receptionist lifts the telephone receiver, relays the message. Janette watches the receptionis, her fear is almost palpable. It still surprises Janette the way the people relate with the police around here. A toxic mixture of distrust and fear.

Dr Joseph pops out of his office a moment later. Middle-aged, well dressed and with so much white in his beard Janette can't decide if it is dyed or not. He beckons at them, steps aside to let them in. Then he closes the door and takes his seat. "Please, sit down," he says. Then with a pointed look at the officer standing by the door, he says, "I hope I am not in any trouble."

Madueke coughs. "My name is Anthony Madueke, the Lagos state deputy commissioner of police. And this is Janette Lincoln, she is a ..."

"A profiler," Janette chips in.

Dr Joseph smiles. Janette thinks he really is handsome. She watches his pose: relaxed, both arms on the leather chair's armrest. He doesn't have to do much to put anyone at ease. "I met a profiler once in my travels abroad and he left a bad impression."

"How so?" asks Janette.

"Well, we were at a restaurant and he made a point of profiling everyone at a table. It was rather annoying the way he seemed or wanted to seem all-knowing. Humans are very complicated creatures. Our actions and the things that influence them cannot be summarized into one or two sentences, or guesses, no matter how well-informed."

Janette wants to tell the counselor about how people's actions and personalities revolve around certain similar cycles: addictions, abusive relationships, the death of a loved one. But she senses Madueke is not in the mood for a chit-chat. "We are here because of a patient of yours," she says. "His name is Dave Coker."

"Dave?"

"What about him?"

Madueke tells him the bare details. When he is done, Dr Joeseph is standing by his low bookshelf, a look of bare horror on his face. "Oh my God," he says.