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Chapter 44
I was a fool. And she was smart.
Hauwa was so smart that even the police began to be scared. But, I was more terrified than them. She made me believe that she was better than the murders she committed. She even admitted that what she was doing was wrong. But that didn't mean she was going to stop. In fact, she was never going to stop until she probably dies. Because these killings were the only thing that healed her. They were the only things that made her feel alive.
It has been four hours since Hauwa's escape and there was no trace of her or any dead child anywhere.
After I identified the corpse from Hauwa's burning house, which was definitely not Hauwa, the policewoman took me straight to the police station.
It was a very busy morning for her and that was why I have been waiting for her in the police reception for the past four hours. As I was waiting for her, the police driver from earlier gave me agege bread and coke for breakfast, knowing well that I haven't eaten this morning.
Not only was the policewoman very busy this morning, but also the other police officers around. They are now investigating the streets for Hauwa's whereabouts.
The police's only target now was a skinny black woman with a patched bald head. Everybody has been in shock that a woman was the killer. Most people have refused to believe it until there was more evidence.
Just when I thought everything would calm down after identifying what the killer looks like, the police have even caused more trouble on the streets. They go about pulling down down women's hijabs and scarfs from their head to check for the patched bald head. They knew what they were doing was wrong but according to them, they were simply following the 'law'.
Right now, two angry women are fighting with the other police officers by the reception desk because two of the policemen had removed their wigs in front of their sugar daddies. I couldn't help but watch in amusement.
"Miriam." Someone called my name, cutting my attention from the women.
I turned to finally see the policewoman standing beside me and I stood up immediately. She just stared at the two sugar babies by the reception desk and gestured for me to follow her. I followed her and we walked down the corridor of the police station before entering one of the offices in the middle side of the corridor.
She shuts the door behind me and went over to her seat before telling me to sit down on the opposite chair facing her desk.
I sat down and looked around the big office of hers. I could tell that she was a superior in the office. No wonder they let her wear the long sleeves under her uniform shirt whenever she likes. She didn't look up to 30 years but yet she had such an important position in the office.
"Sorry, one minute." She apologised to me while she was scanning through some papers on her desk. She already looks exhausted and the day hasn't even started.
I waited silently for her to finish as I continue looking around the office in amusement. Then I looked back at her and my eyes caught the sign on the wall behind her desk, which wrote:
'Police is your guardian angel not friend.
Friends betray you but guardian angels don't.'
I snorted at the irony of the statement and the policewoman gave me a quick confused glance before turning back to her paper.
"Asmau!" I heard a woman's voice before the office door swung open, with a big policewoman entering inside the office with two little twin boys. The woman looked like she came to ask for a favour but she stopped when she saw me.
"Aunty Asmau!" The twins ran to the policewoman in front of me and jumped to hug her. She didn't seem to be in the mood today but gently returned their hugs.
"These boys will not kill me. Embiyu!" The big policewoman called them. Even though she just addressed both of them as 'twins' in Hausa, I could already tell their names were Hassan and Husseini, since those were the only names Hausa people gave their twin children.
The big police woman began shouting at her twins in Hausa, and I could tell it was a warning from the way both boys released themselves from the 'Asmau' policewoman and silently walked over to their mother with their heads bowed down.
"Remember oga has warned you to stop bringing these children to the station." Asmau said to her.
"My dear, there is nobody that can look after them oh. Oga even told me to check for something at the junction down the road. But let me take these children inside my office first and ask somebody to get food for them." She glanced at Asmau's table and me and back at Asmau, "I can see you're very busy. Maybe I will just ask John to follow me to the junction."
"Don't let him see these children oh!"
The big policewoman didn't respond as she just pulled the twins outside the door and kept warning them not to open the door for anybody that knocks her office. But from the way they kept jumping outside the door, I could tell these boys will not listen.
"Here." Asmau cuts my attention from the children as she stretched out my phone on the table, "I've already sent the recorded audio to my phone through Bluetooth."
I collected my phone back and put it in my gown pocket.
"If I were you, I would delete that audio for safety reasons, so that nobody would start suspecting. But the choice is up to you." She advised me.
I simply nodded without making attempt to delete it.
She placed both elbows on her desk and said, "So about your neighbour-"
Her elbows mistakenly slipped on the table, causing some of the things on the table to fall down. She pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation and I didn't blame why everything was just annoying her this morning.
I quickly bent over to help her pick up the stuffs.
"Please can you help me pick these up." She said, even though I was already doing it, "Thank you."
I picked up the documents first and dropped them on the desk and she simply arranged the papers I dropped without moving from her chair. There were more stuffs that fell at her side and she made no attempt to pick them up. What a lazy woman.
I moved over to her side of her desk and picked up the stuffs, stretching my hands under the table to pick up the last few items. As I stretched out my hands to pick up the last pen that was close to her legs, something caught my attention. Her ankles. Since she removed her boots and wore a jump-up uniform trouser and blue anklet socks, I could see her ankles very well. And...
She had the dotted scar.
I stared at them long and hard enough to see if my eyes were paining me. But they were real. They were almost exactly the same as Hauwa's own. What the hell was this? Was Hauwa not the only one that was used as the virgin ritual?
"Have you finished?" Asmau cuts my attention.
"Ye- yes." I quickly stood up and slammed my head under the table since I wasn't paying attention.
"Ah, sorry."
I dropped the pen on the desk and rushed over to my seat, still trying to understand what I just saw. Asmau was still arranging the stuffs on her desk and I stared at her wrists to look for the dotted scar too. But she had the grey long sleeve inner-wear on.
As she kept moving her hands, I could see a glimpse of her fair wrists since the long sleeves were not that long enough. But I couldn't find any single dot on them.
"You're looking for it, right?" She cuts my attention again. I looked up at her in confusion and she added, "The dotted scars."
She knew.
I stared at her, not knowing how I was supposed to respond.
She stopped arranging the things on her desk and rose her left hand up. Then she rolled up the sleeve to the top of her elbow and, lo and behold, the dotted scar was around her elbow and not on her wrist. I always knew there was something suspicious about those long sleeves.
"Me too." She said while staring at my shocked expression, "It happened to me too."
I sat there speechlessly, debating whether I should run or not.
"Before you jump into conclusion, I'm not the killer." She added while rolling down her sleeve, "Neither am I any nonsense accomplice. I didn't become a police to play games, I only came here to help. Clearly another woman out there wants to destroy that for me and that's why I'm trying to catch her before it's too late. Not for myself, but for the remaining children left."
"I don't understand. My neighbour never mentioned that there was another girl when those cultists attacked her."
"She doesn't know there were other girls that experienced the same thing she went through."
"Girls?" I asked in surprised. As in, plural? "I-I don't understand, please can you explain it to me."
She rested her back on her chair and crossed her arms, "Anything I tell you from this moment on, do not take it out of this room, you hear me?"
I sat up and nodded my head curiously. She didn't look like she could trust me in what she was about to say, but she still gave in.
"And do you know why I trust you? Because your neighbour trusted you." She said, "I know you betrayed her trust by coming here, but what you did was the right thing. I can only applaud you for that."
She sat up and rested her hands on her table and inhaled deeply before she began her story.
"My story is quite similar to your neighbour's own, but this time, Hamza Ribadu wasn't the leader. He was a new member." She started, "I only found out about it two months ago. Unlike your neighbour, I never knew who my rapists were, neither did I know what their leader looked like because every single one of them covered their faces. And surprisingly, it was later I found out that Hamza was one of the boys who touched me that night.
"The name of their cult group in my days was Red Bulls, but they later changed it to Red Beasts. For about nine years, they used one virgin girl for their gang initiation once in every single year. Their targets were always new jss1 girls because they could not guarantee whether the girls in the higher classes were virgins or not. For nine years, they took nine different virgins and raped them with barb wires around our body parts. I was the second girl it ever happened to," She rose her fingers to count, "while your neighbour was... I think the seventh or eight girl."
I exhaled, trying to take in everything that she was telling me.
"I know it's hard for you to process this information." Asmau said and looked away, "It's funny how your neighbour and I chose to respond to it in different ways. I chose to become a policewoman to help those other girls like me. After years of training to join the police force, I worked hard for five years to find each girl that it happened to. The first girl before me killed herself. The others I met were still traumatized but I helped them. I had to teach them what I had to learn and in that way, I saved about four of them.
"Two more committed suicide too. It was too late before I could reach out to any of them. And as for your neighbour, she was the only one I couldn't save. She was the last person out of us nine girls that I couldn't find. And now, look at the mess we're in."
"Wow." Was all I could say after she finished talking, "I really didn't know there were many of you like this."
"Unfortunately, these days it's very hard to find a small girl without a hole in between her legs." She shook her head, "Since almost all the men from every angle have decided to dig up holes without consent."
I nodded my head in agreement. As a girl, walking in the streets of this town was like walking into trauma. Usman Danladi alone taught me that, and that was why I could barely blink whenever I was walking on the road alone.
But still... what those cultists did was too brutal. Too brutal.
"I- I really still don't understand why those boys would be so heartless to those girls. It was just too much. Didn't they have conscious or something?"
"Each girls' innocence was part of their sacrifice, and their poor souls were tied to the Red Beasts' god. That made their god even stronger." She said, "So we can see why your neighbour is killing these children recklessly. It might not even be her anger. Who knows, it might be the Red Beasts' god in her soul causing all these ruckus."
Suddenly, I came to realize that the old rumour of Kauna was half-true. She wasn't the one that was possessed by a jinn, it was her mother.
"But... were there more girls after that? Or did the cultists move somewhere else?" I asked curiously.
"They ended after the ninth girl. Because she was one of the former cult member's sister. One of the suicide girls too." She said, causing me to be amazed, "Her brother was so furious that he killed all of the last cult members, including himself. That was the most tragic one I heard from all of the girls' stories."
It was karma. And he deserved it. The stupid cult members all deserved it.
"Why didn't you speak up about this since? All of it, the cult group to the lollipop to the numbers." I argued, "You knew all the killings of the children had a link to what happened in your school years ago."
"Do you really think I didn't want to? I had no choice but to keep quiet or else I would be the next suspect after that secondary school teacher and the imam. You think it's not uncommon for anybody to suspect a police officer as a serial killer."
"Sorry, I was just suggesting." I said lowly, knowing that I have already offended her by the sound of her tone.
She didn't say anything but just began searching for her pen on the table.
"But, are you okay now?" I asked, concerned about her well being.
"Nobody has asked me that question before." She gave a small smile and answered, "Well... I have my bad days."
I nodded in an understanding manner.
"So about your neighbour, can we start discussing about her now?" She asked, setting her pen on top of one of the papers on the desk.
I nodded and we proceeded. Our conversation from there became only about Hauwa. Asmau asked a few questions regarding Hauwa's identity, appearance, how I met her, if I knew her family relations and all that. I only told her the few stuffs I knew about Hauwa and she wrote down everything I said, word by word. And soon, we were done.
"We will look into her." Asmau concluded while dropping her pen, "And don't worry, we will keep you as an anonymous witness for safety reasons. Nobody will know you were the one that reported the case to us, neither will they know you were the other voice on the recorded audio."
"Thank you." I said, relief flushing through me. I was already getting tired and it felt like I had been in the office for ten hours.
There was a knock on the door before two police officers came inside, one of them being the one that came to pick me from the hospital with Asmau. The two officers both looked worn out and had smoke dusts all over their uniform.
"We didn't find anything." One of them said to Asmau, not caring that I was there, "He- sorry she burnt down every single evidence possible."
I could tell they returned from mr Audu's house. Hauwa really did a crazy job in burning down that house and running away. I wonder if we would even be able to find her at all. Her mind was as sharp as a double edged sword.
Disappointment flashed all over Asmau's face and she looked really hopeless. Trust me, I think that was the only way to feel right now. Because Hauwa was no longer a human being anymore, she was witch.
Another knock came on the door and another police officer stood by the door and called Asmau's attention.
"We were told that you wanted to question the imam by 2 o'clock." He said.
"Ah, yes." Asmau looked at her time and exhaled in tiredness, "Its two already. Where did time fly to."
"He's here." The police officer said and shifted for Abbas Hassan Ribadu to step inside.
Both his hands were handcuffed to his front. His entire kaftan and turban were worn out and so tattered. Couldn't the police be nice to allow the arrested people to bath and change their clothes once in a while? Because this was exactly how they left mr Zamani to stay until his body odor could not stand in a room anymore.
I excused myself and stood up to leave the office. I stared at Abbas Hassan on my way out and watched him take his time to seat down on the chair I just left.
The four police officers stayed in the office with the shia imam and they all stood around to question him. As I walked out of the office, I did not completely shut the door behind me. I stayed outside the door and peeped through the small space to listen to what they were going to discuss, and none of them noticed I was there. Amebo was a serious disease.
Asmau crossed her arms and sat at the edge of her desk, not too far from Abbas Hassan.
"Sources told me that you knew that your son, Hamza, was in a cult group, am I right?" Asmau asked him.
The imam didn't seem bothered and just shrugged, "That's what I heard. And I refused to believe."
"But you knew it was the truth even though you refused to believe. Your son was a cultist and rapist and you did nothing about it." She rose her voice at him.
"Asmau, take it gently." One of the policemen told her.
"Well, I prayed for him. And Allah answered my prayers by causing him to get involved in a car accident and lose his memory and as you can see, my son did change for the better." The imam argued.
"Allah does not cause accidents, human beings do." She argued.
"And what are you implying?" Abbas Hassan rose his eyebrows.
"That you caused that accident intentionally."
"And who said so?"
"You were the driver, imam. I interviewed your former driver and he recalled multiple times that there was nothing wrong with the car that day. The only assumption I can make here is that you wanted to kill your son so that he wouldn't destroy your 'religious image' but, he didn't die. Instead, he lost his memory and became paralyzed in the process. I also interviewed your doctors about the incident and they said you had your seatbelt on but Hamza didn't. Why? Why! Because you're a stingy man. You should be thankful that we serve a loving and merciful Allah because if it was me, I would have ripped your head out a long time ago!"
She was angry. Very angry, I could tell. The other policemen tried to tell her to calm down but she continued.
"You failed to caution your son about the cultism when you found out about it. Let me tell you this; you have failed, both as a parent and a man of God. Maybe if you had cautioned him well, none of this would have happened today! None of it!" She slammed her hands on the table.
Now I think this wasn't just about the killings, it was probably about her own personal experience. She was probably pouring out the pain she must have felt from her own experience with the cult boys.
Before she could continue, my phone rang loudly and all the police officers inside the office turned to my direction. I quickly backed away from the door and went down the corridor a bit more, to where the cleaner was mopping the floor so that it would look like I came to gist with the cleaner.
My phone stopped ringing and I checked to see that Kaka flashed my number. Then she sent a message asking me where I was. I knew a lot of time has passed since I left the hospital and I couldn't just lie that I went out to get fresh air. And so, I refused to reply the message.
As I was about to put my phone back into my gown pocket, I heard Asmau's office door shut loudly, causing me to be distracted. Instead of me to be concentrating on my phone, I was still itching to hear what was going on inside and because of my amebo, my phone landed on the floor instead of my pocket. Miriam, just mind your business and get out of here. You've already finished your job here.
On noticing my phone on the floor, the cleaner quickly bent down to pick it for me and stretched out her hand to give it to me. I took it from her hand and thanked her before I turned around to leave the corridor.
Just as I was about to take another step, my legs froze. It was like time stopped at that moment and I couldn't feel myself anymore.
The cleaner's hands. Her wrists... were very familiar. She had them. And there was only one reason why.
I slowly turned around to look at her, my heart pounding so hard in my chest. Ho- how? How was this possible?
The cleaner held onto her mop and turned her head to look back at me, then she smiled. Not the gentle or friendly one, but the maniac one. Do you know why?
Because she was Hauwa.
Hauwa Sarah Audu. The serial killer that we have been looking for everywhere was right here, standing in the middle of the same building as the people that were after her. To make matters worse, she was dressed as an ordinary cleaner. Or did she really work here? No, I can't imagine it. That will be too much.
Looking at her, there was no way anybody would suspect she was the killer. She was simply dressed in the cleaner's blue polo t-shirt and a black mary-amaka skirt with a red scarf tied around her head, the same scarf she had worn last night. She looked too innocent to kill a fly talk less of killing countless children. This life was truly mysterious.
I began moving backwards in fear, my body shaking as Hauwa and I locked eye contact. I could feel my soul already leaving my body. Suddenly, Asmau's office door opened and the three policemen came out and escorted Abbas Hassan back to his cell. Asmau got out last and once she saw me, she called out to me.
"Thank God you're still here. Please I forgot to add something." Asmau said.
I quickly rushed over to her side before Hauwa did something to me.
Asmau held up her pen and paper against the wall to write on it and asked me, "About your neighbour, how old did you say she was again?"
My eyes grew wider in fear and I turned back to look at Hauwa, hoping she didn't hear. She continued mopping the corridor floor like she wasn't listening, but I knew she was.
"21." I replied while staring cautiously at Hauwa.
"Okay, she's very young then. And you said she looked very sick right?"
"Yes." I responded while still staring at Hauwa's sick face.
"Alright." Asmau nodded while focusing on her paper, "Do you still think she will be in Mansur right now? I feel like she must have escaped to another town this morning. Don't you think so? Any sane person would definitely do that."
"You have no idea what you're talking about." I refused to take my eyes off Hauwa. The point was... Hauwa was not sane. She was far from sane. In fact, I think the devil himself must be scared of her now.
I wanted to talk. I really wanted Asmau to know that the lollipop killer was just few meters away from us. But sensing Hauwa, she was beyond unpredictable and I wonder what she would do to me if I opened my mouth right now. And so, I decided not to say anything. But then,
"Do you know that woman?" I asked Asmau while nudging my head towards Hauwa's direction.
She stopped writing and glanced at Hauwa before she responded, "Yes, she's our cleaner."
My eyes widened in shock. She was really working here?! In the police station?!
"How long has she been here?"
"You mean Martha? I don't know. She has been working with us for some months now." She responded while writing some things down on her paper.
My head snapped at her, "Mar- what?"
"Martha." She repeated and glanced at Hauwa with a smile, "Such a very good and humble girl. She is always singing one church song or the other. Bless her soul."
My blood was boiling hot. How was I supposed to tell her that the 'humble and hardworking' girl was the lollipop killer? Just how?
"Please can I ask one more question?" I asked in concern, worry growing all over my face, "Did you people ever do background check when you were hiring her?"
"Why would we do background checks on our cleaners?" She scoffed while taking down her paper from the wall, "After all they're the ones begging for the job."
They had no idea what they have brought upon themselves. No idea at all.
Asmau finally looked at me in concern, "All these questions, is there anything-"
"Asmau!" One of the police officers in the reception called her attention, "Oga wants to talk to us now!"
"Ina zuwa!" She responded in Hausa and was about to leave but I held her back. Before I could talk, I heard a loud bang behind me.
Asmau and I both turned around to see Hauwa on the floor with the mop and mop bucket lying on the floor too. Hauwa winced in pain and tried standing up but couldn't bring herself to, then she looked at us for help.
She was pretending, I knew that very well.
"Careful." Asmau rushed over to her side, while stepping over the soapy wet floor from the mop bucket.
I stood there, refusing to move one bit. Asmau tried lifting Hauwa up but she pretended to be too weak to stand up.
"Asmau, hurry! He is angry!" The policeman from the reception shouted impatiently.
"Miriam, please come and help her! I have to hurry!" Asmau called out to me.
No no, not me. I shook my head and wanted to run away but she quickly came to drag me to help Hauwa.
"Please take her to the toilet or something." Asmau begged me and quickly rushed to the reception.
I was now alone. With Hauwa.
Hauwa looked at me and stretched out her hand for me to help her. I refused to help her but when Asmau glanced at our direction from the reception, I had to take her hand and pick her up.
Hauwa placed her hands all over my shoulders for support and I knew she wasn't going to let go this time. I was done for.
"Where should I take you to?" I muttered under my breath, knowing that I was already in a hopeless situation.
"The toilet is this way." She pushed her head towards the end of the second corridor on our left.
We walked there like that, with Hauwa pretending to limp while walking and her hands wrapped over my shoulders for support.
Once we got to the single unisex toilet, I was ready to throw her in and run away, but instead, she pushed me inside and shut the door behind her. I fell to the ground and hit my head against the toilet sit, causing me to groan in pain.
I held my hands to my head and next thing I heard was the toilet door lock. I looked up at Hauwa to see her standing in front of me.
"Please, don't kill me." I begged her and moved back on the ground. I began crying because that was the only thing I could do in this situation.
She didn't say anything but simply leaned against the door and crossed her arms.
Then she scoffed and said, "I'm not here to kill you."
I stared down at the ground, refusing to meet her eyes this time, "Then why did you bring me here?"
"To thank you," She said, causing me to glance at her slippers in surprise, "for sharing my story with the world. You just made everything easier for me. I always wondered how I was going to share my story after I finish my revenge."
She moved closer to me and I shifted back in fear, thinking she was going to attack me. But she simply picked up something from the window frame.
She walked back to the door side and held up what she just picked up. I glanced up for a second to see a razor blade in her hand.
She leaned closer to the wall beside her and started scraping something on it. I just sat there glued to the ground, too scared to move or do anything.
"Actually, I would have killed you." Hauwa added while scraping on the wall, "I would have killed you last night if you tried to kill me."
If there was anybody that was very good at pretending, it was Hauwa. All through last night I believed that Hauwa has given up on the revenge and was ready to die on her own. But I was wrong.
The toilet became silent as neither of us said anything. The only noise were Hauwa's scraping on the wall and the mild rain drops and thunderstorm coming from outside.
I finally looked up to see her scraping and counting the tally marks on the wall.
"Don't worry, I'm just writing down the number of children I have killed. I do this almost all the time." She said, like that was something to be proud of.
I just shook my head and stared at her. Then I remembered what Asmau told me earlier about Hauwa and her killings.
"It might not even be her anger. Who knows, it might be the Red Beasts' god in her soul causing all these ruckus."
It all made sense now. Hauwa was always a smart woman, she knew right from wrong. Maybe it was the darkness in her soul that didn't allow her to rest.
"You know... they say the endings could either be the best or the worst part of a story." Hauwa stopped scraping and asked me, "How do you think my story is going to end?"
"You're going to get caught. You're going to get caught by the police before you can kill your last two victims." I answered confidently, knowing that once I get out of this toilet I would open my mouth to Asmau. No more wasting time. I looked at her, "And that's the best part of the story."
Hauwa just scoffed mockingly and continued scraping on the wall, "You watch too many boring films."
"But this is not a movie."
She stopped scraping again and smiled at the razor blade she was holding, "I have been working in the police station for nearly 6 months now, what makes you think today is going to be the big reveal? Because you know what I look like, you think it's easy to report me? Go and try it."
God, I hate this woman.
"So let me ask again, how do you really think my story is going to end?"
I became uneasy with the determination in her tone.
"I don't know, maybe kill yourself?" That was the only option I knew left.
"I told you I'm happy to live now." She said before placing her hand on the wall and wiping off the dust particles from her scraped writing to make it more visible.
Then she turned to the side to finally look at me and said, "We're going to kill together."
****
"Please I can't do this, I'm a child too." I begged Hauwa as we walked down the corridor to the reception area.
Hauwa was walking directly behind me, with the razor blade just very close to my waist. Anybody that passed by would think she was simply just trying to be friendly by holding my waist. Nobody would notice that I was being threatened with a razor blade.
"Shut up and listen to me." She said the moment we got to the reception area.
Asmau and her other colleagues were there, discussing something with their oga. There were a few other non-police staffs walking around the area, but not a single soul knew I was in danger. Not a single soul knew another child was in danger. Not a single soul knew that the woman right behind me was the lollipop killer they were discussing about.
"You see that child over there?" Hauwa nudged her head to a little boy sitting on the reception chair beside his mother, "You're going to bring him to me and we will kill together."
I was ready to cry again but I knew I would only cause more trouble.
"How do I take him?" I asked her worriedly, "His mother is right beside him."
"Use your head."
I shook my head, "I can't. He didn't do anything wrong-"
"Think of something that has pained you in the past. A man maybe. Someone you've always wanted to kill." She whispered in my ear manipulatively, "Imagine he was that little boy. Imagine his soul living inside him. Wouldn't you just want to grab him and slice his throat?"
I tried to think of Usman Danladi. And all the things he had done to Mama. The things he almost did to me. And what he did to Hamid. I would definitely do anything to break his head.
But then, how the hell am I supposed to imagine an innocent little boy as that devil? That was just madness. Was this really how Hauwa has been killing all the little boys? By imagining them as each of the 13 cult boys that raped her?
"You see the clock over there," Hauwa cuts my attention and I looked at the clock on the wall which was showing 2:16 pm, "you must wait for me in the toilet with the boy and lock the door. Do not let anybody enter. And once that long hand reaches 6, unlock the door for me."
I didn't say anything and she secretly slipped an orange and pink wrapped Lolly Pops in my hand, causing my eyes to widened.
"I'm watching you. If you fail, I will make sure you're the next suspect." She warned.
I looked at her in pain and she looked back at me.
"Ah, Martha." Asmau cuts our attention and I quickly slipped the Lolly Pops into my pocket.
She walked over to our side as she separated herself from her colleagues and oga who went their own separate ways and I guess they have finished their meeting.
"How is your leg now?" She looked down at Hauwa's legs while coming to stand next to us.
"It's better. Thank you, ma." She grinned and squatted like she was greeting her. What a fake witch.
Asmau smiled at her and looked at me, "Miriam, well done. I think you can go back home now. I will call you once we find something about that killer neighbour of yours, okay?"
I inhaled deeply. Hauwa brought the razor blade closer to my waist, practically threatening me to shut up.
I just nodded my head in response.
"I can see you two have already gotten along very fast." Asmau puts an impressed expression while staring at Hauwa's hand around my waist.
"Yes, ma. She has been very generous in helping me." Hauwa grinned wider and looked at me, "I will be going to take the mop outside now. Take care of yourself, you hear?"
I just gave her a wry smile at her sarcasm and she released her hand from my waist before excusing herself.
I didn't look happy. It was very obvious and I wondered why Asmau was too slow to notice that something was wrong.
I looked at Asmau who was just staring at Hauwa oddly. Maybe this was my chance.
"Asmau-"
"Hold on." She cuts me and dashed at Hauwa who was just about to leave the reception room.
Before Hauwa could take one step into the corridor, the unexpected happened. Asmau took off her scarf from her head.
I was shocked and excited at the same time. Finally, Asmau did have a brain.
But instead... Hauwa's head was shaved clean. She didn't have the patches of hair she had on her head last night. Just a plain bald head. It was so neat that you wouldn't even think there was any patch patch hair on it last night.
I groaned. This woman.
Hauwa yelped in embarrassment and covered her head, pretending to be so ashamed of her bald head.
"Sorry, Martha." Asmau looked at her apologetically, "I thought this scarf looked familiar."
Hauwa started fake-crying and God knows I was ready to strangle this woman. Asmau kept apologizing to her and everybody in the reception made her look bad.
I shook my head in disdain. There was nothing that would make anybody catch Hauwa. She was way ahead of us in the game.
Asmau kindly returned the scarf back to Hauwa and told her to go somewhere private to calm herself down. Hauwa nodded in a fake-sad manner and started walking away with her head down.
Asmau turned around to look at me in embarrassment and just shook her head. I glanced at Hauwa who slowed down her walking pace and turned back to look at me. Her expression changed from a fake-sad one to a warning glare. Then she turned around and walked down the corridor.
"How could I really believe she was the killer?" Asmau shook her head while walking past me, "That's just madness."
I just looked away in hopelessness and stared at the little boy on the reception chair. His mother was busy filling up a form and I knew her mind was far away.
I walked over to her side and said, "Excuse me, ma."
She looked up at me and I said, "Sorry to disturb you but when you were coming inside, there was a blood stain at the back of your skirt. I think you've started your menses unknowingly."
"I am on menopause." She argued.
I exhaled in frustration, knowing I couldn't just give up or else I was done for.
"I know that." I lied, "But there was a really bad stain at the back of your skirt."
"Do you think I'm here to play games?"
Kai, this woman was very tough.
"Sorry, ma. I was just trying to help." I was ready to give up but then she stood up.
She tried to check the back of her skirt to look for the stain and this gave me the opportunity to progress. I lied that the stain was in the middle and she wouldn't be able to see it until she removed it in the toilet.
"Watch my son for me." She began getting worried and was about to go down the corridor to go to the toilet but I lied the that the toilet was outside.
Once she was out of sight, I told the boy that I would take him to piss in the toilet and carried him away like a responsible aunty so that nobody around would find me suspicious.
The moment we got into the toilet, I locked the door sharply and made the boy sit on top of the covered toilet lid. I leaned against the door and stared at him. I felt so bad for bringing him here in the first place.
I really didn't want to do this. Why did Hauwa have to drag me into this mess?
Time passed and Hauwa has not yet knocked on the door. Thankfully, the little boy was very quiet throughout and all he did was play Snake Henxia game on my phone. I felt so bad that this was going to be the last game he will ever play a game in his life.
I was beginning to get impatient with Hauwa and all I did was stare at the walls of the toilet and listen to the sound of rain drops outside.
My eyes caught the wall that Hauwa was scraping earlier and I noticed the tally marks she drew there. According to her, it was the number of little boys she had killed. I moved closer to study it and placed my hands to start counting them.
"5, 10, 11..." My eyebrows drew together, "12 and 13? 13?"
But the last boy she killed was number 3, so why...?
My eyes grew wider. Oh, no.
Suddenly, I heard crowd noises outside the toilet door. I turned my head to the door and slowly unlocked it. I quietly opened the door and took a peep outside the corridor.
A lot of policemen were rushing past the corridor down to the back door side. I watched them in confusion and knew this was my chance to save the little boy before Hauwa gets back.
I quickly took my phone away from the boy and brought him outside the toilet door.
"Go and meet your mother! Hurry! And don't leave her side!" I warned him and let him run off to his mother in the reception.
His mother, who was looking so worried, saw him coming to her and she quickly ran to carry him up in relief. I hid back inside the toilet before she could catch me.
"Call oga to go to the back quickly!" I heard one policeman tell his colleague as they were running towards the reception in their soaked bodies from the rain outside.
Something must have happened.
I took out the lollipop from my pocket and threw it inside the toilet dustbin before running to the back to see what was wrong. As I ran past the corridor, I glanced at the wall clock in the corridor to see it was 2:45 pm, 15 minutes after Hauwa was supposed to meet me. Where was she this time? Did she get caught in the act?
I pushed the backdoor open and let the heavy rain take over me. I didn't care whether I was going to fall sick or not, I just want everything be over.
I followed the few people that ran towards the forest behind the police station. We all ran under the rain with the slippery muds staining our shoes.
I was beginning to lose sight because of the rain but I had to make it through. Was this the moment where everything was going to end? Was this really the end? Like the end end of everything?
There was a little crowd gathered at one corner of the forest and I increased my speed to join them. The moment I got there, I slowed down and stood in front of what they were staring at. And once I caught sight of it... I heard a woman scream behind me. I knew who it was. Their mother.
The big policewoman dashed at the sight in front of me and kept screaming and bawling louder. She fell to the ground and entered the hole that has been dug but the policemen around began dragging her away. But she was too pained to remain calm.
I, on the other hand, couldn't move. I just stood there with my eyes closed and my body couldn't stop shaking. I couldn't look. I just couldn't look. And despite I only saw the sight for a few seconds, it kept replaying in my head as my eyes were closed.
She did it. She won. Hauwa won the damn battle.
"Embiyu!!!!" The big policewoman kept bawling as she tried to get a hold of her children in the hole but she only kept getting herself injured.
I opened my eyes again, surrendering the trauma that was about to stay in me.
The twins, the ones from earlier today, were Hauwa's last two victims. They were number 2... and 1. She dug a hole and buried them inside with barb wires wrapped around their little body, so that anybody that touched them would get injured. She had arranged them in the hole like twins in a womb and left thirteen Lolly Pops circles around them. I didn't know how she did it but she did it. I didn't know what this meant but I knew it was probably a reflection of what happened to her on her worst night; from the forest, to the barb wires, to the thirteen Lolly Pops surrounding the twin's corpse.
They both had their numbers drawn all over their backs and it was such an awful sight because this was the largest sign Hauwa has drawn from all the children. There were no other signs of scars or bruises on their body which probably meant that Hauwa must have poisoned them to death, which must have happened before I found her mopping in the corridors.
Hauwa knew what she did with me. When she said we were going to kill a child together, she didn't mean I was going to kill a child physically, she just wanted me to be distracted and not report the police while she was finishing up with her last two victims. And she succeeded in fooling me again.
The question now was... where was Hauwa?
"Did you find Martha?!" I heard Asmau shout in anger not too far from me.
I turned to watch a policeman telling her that, "We didn't find her anywhere. But I think she left something on your office desk."
"That witch! That witch!" She groaned and stomped out of the forest.
I knew it wasn't my business to interfere with her business but I secretly followed Asmau behind.
When we got back inside the police station, I stood by Asmau's half opened office door and watched what was going on inside. Was Hauwa there too?
I noticed some of Hauwa's belongings all over Asmau's desk. Her blue cleaner's shirt, black mary-amaka skirt, red scarf, slippers and so on were there. Even two large packs of Lolly Pops and about 4 blunt knives were on the table, with one of them having blood stains. This woman was really something else.
There was a piece of paper lying on top of Hauwa's clothes from today and Asmau picked it up and looked at it. From the ceiling light flashing directly above the paper, I could see how terrible the handwriting on the paper was.
"What did she write?" The policeman inside the office asked.
"'I want to thank Mansur police for being so lazy at their jobs. My healing is finally complete because of their laziness and now I can finally live the life I want to live.'" Asmau read out in disgust, "'I have less than two weeks to live before I die. I will no longer kill again but if you look for me, I will kill another 13 boys before I'm dead. Choose wisely. Sincerely, Hauwa Sarah Audu.'"
I shut my eyes in frustration. She had truly won both the battle and the war. There was no turning back now.
"How dare that illiterate threaten us?!" The policemen spat out in anger.
"She is an illiterate?" Asmau scoffed scornfully at him, "She is an illiterate but yet she is smarter than all of us. She is an illiterate yet she can write a letter! She is an illiterate yet we couldn't catch her! Just because she is a cleaner doesn't make us any better!" She rose the letter up at him and said, "This is proof that we are the illiterates, not her."
"Why are we still standing here then?" The man ignored her, "Let's go and catch her! She is not too far from here!"
She stretched out her hands in front of him to stop him.
"Don't." She warned, "Don't make this harder than it is. Just let her be before this gets worse. We're the ones who failed."
The policeman pushed her hands away and argued, "Tell me how we have failed?! Tell me how this is our fault?!"
"Tell me when you made an effort to look for the killer? No, tell me! The only time we ever showed up or cared about this whole thing was when there was another dead body. It was always after there was another dead body! We never looked for the killer, we only looked for a dead corpse. Tell me where we succeeded?"
"I don't care." He headed for the door but she stopped him again.
"I said don't go!" She snapped, "That's an order from your superior."
He glared hard at her before he scoffed, "An order? Wait here, let me show you what an 'order' is."
"Bashir." She tried to stop him but he threw her hands away and stomped out of the door, almost bumping into me.
She slumped on the chair opposite her desk and put her hands over her face. I stood there and rested by the door frame for a few seconds before I knocked on the door, hoping not to be a nuisance.
She removed her hands from her face and said, "Oh, you're still here? I was going to call you."
I didn't say anything but sat on the chair beside her. I stared at her face and she was in a state of hopelessness. Well, who wouldn't be?
"These murders," I said, talking about the children killings, "were like a medicine to her."
"Why didn't you tell me it was Martha?"
"She was going to pin it on me if I didn't do what she said." I said, feeling guilty, "Sorry, I know I was very selfish."
"Aren't we all?" She scoffed while staring at the table with her head resting on her palm, then she muttered to herself, "He said if I ever disobey him, he will expose my secret."
"Who? What secret?" I asked in confusion, knowing that I wasn't supposed to hear what she just said.
Unsurprised by my response, she slowly looked up at me, giving me a look of surrender. What was it? What could be worse than Hauwa escaping again?
"I," She paused for a second and continued, "am a criminal too."
I frowned in confusion, "I don't understand. I thought you didn't kill the children, then why-"
Her office door banged open and three police officers, including the 'Bashir' policeman that just walked out, barged into the room.
"Arrest her!" Bashir pointed at Asmau.
Two of the other policemen came forward and stood in front of her with handcuffs and one of them said, "Miss Asmau Abubakar, you are under the arrest for the murder of Hamza Hassan Ribadu on the 5th of May."
I stood up and stared at her in disbelief, "You're the one who shot Hamza during the riot?"
She was about to say something but Bashir cut her, "Shut up! You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in court."
"I will still end up in prison, so what am I shutting up for?" She hissed and turned to look at me.
"Please tell me it's not true." I shook my head.
She sighed and admitted, "There is no greater pain than opening an already opened wound."
And with that, the two police officers dragged her out of the office. I just stood there, unable to move. This was truly not the ending I imagined.
Like Hauwa said, it could either be the best or worst part of a story. But she never said they could be both. To Hauwa, this was the best part. To the rest of us, especially Asmau, this was the worst part of the story.
Indeed, those Red Beasts created a story that they, themselves, never got to see the ending.
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END OF CHAPTER 44
Don't worry this is not the end of the book guys😂. We have two more chapters to go and we're done 💃🏾