Kidnapped

The big golden finger of the diamond-shaped wall clock chimed eleven PM. A man seated at the table bolted up like a bullet. Three other young ladies fidgeted on the edges of the velvet sofa seats they sat on.

“Let`s try her number again,” said one of the young ladies seated on the sofa.

“It`s no use now,” replied the gentleman, who stood up.

“Why?” asked the youngest of the ladies, who was the housekeeper.

“It seems her sim card is not in her phone,” the gentleman muttered.

“How can that be?” wondered the other lady, who had been quiet until now. She was light-skinned and short, with sizable breasts and a big butt.

“Let us pray it is not as bad as I fear,” the man stuttered. His voice quaked. He walked back and forth between his study and the kitchen door. The kitchen was unusually silent and docile, the daily activities occupying it being concluded about an hour and a half ago. After a couple of rounds enough to tire an expeditor, the gentleman paused where on the wall the attractive article of time hung. He lifted his head and screwed his eyes on the oval glass inside the diamond case for about two minutes.

“This is alarming! She normally comes home at seven thirty, and...” He stammered again. His attempts to conceal his fears from his two daughters and the house help came crashing down like a sand castle.

“Whenever there was going to be a delay, she...” his heavy tongue betrayed him again.

“She would make us know.”

Vriiiiiiiiing vriiiiiiiiing

The handset on the table vibrated. The ladies sat up. The gentleman almost tumbled on the phone. It was a text message.

Good evening, Mr. Onapito. If you want to know more about your wife, call this number.

“Is it mom?”

“Is it mom?”

“Is it mom?”

The three ladies thronged around him. Onapito, however, was not aware of their presence. His fingers dexterously rapped the dial pad. The number was available.

“Yes… hello…good evening.” Onapito began in a frenzy.

“Don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt her, please.”

Supplications flowed from Onapito`s lips like Moses interceding for the rebellious and sinful children of Israel before Jehovah. However, just like God could not bear with the sins of the Israelites in the plains of Moab, the man on the receiving end could not be mollified by mere words.

“Keep calm and listen,” the stranger’s voice was stern.

“Because your ears count more than your mouth in this matter.” His gruff voice roughly echoed through Onapito`s ears. Onapito could hear his heartbeat as loud as the beating of a mother drum.

“Do you understand?” the tough voice asked.

“Yes.” Onapito`s lips shivered.

“Rule number one, and very serious. Don’t get the police involved. If you do, we have no choice but to do the unwanted. Two. Make sure you get for us 350 million in 48 hours.”

Those words fell on Onapito`s ears with the weight of a bullet. There was no trace of humanity in the voice. There was no room for negotiation.

As a reward for his cooperativeness, he was offered a glimpse of his wife`s voice.

“She is here. Save her or get her killed,” roared the voice that bore the life or death of Mrs. Onapito.

Onapito did not need to avail his three companions with the proceedings of the telephone conversation. For as he spoke, all three of them were intent on making their heads merge into one with his. Nothing passed their ears unheard.

“350 million in 48 hours,” Onapito muttered to no one in particular.

“We’ve got to do something,” he thought he should have said. “I`ve got to do something.”

“Anything as long as it can save her.”

The weight of shedding tears in front of his children was unbearable; Onapito excused himself from the living room. Leaving them alone, he sunk into the master`s bedroom, brooding like a pelican. And he dropped onto the sofa like a bag of sand. The space beside him on the double sofa stood gaping, stressing to him the fact that his wife was missing. That she was in the hands of some God-forsaken niggas. He had better get up and go away from it. His palms pressed the soft cushion as he stood up. Just yesterday they had pressed the laps of Amulen. He felt his way away towards the library, where a portrait of Shakespeare hung. The library, preferably her library—Onapito does not remember when he last visited it—stands as pregnant as a fat boy, but there was no one to peruse through the pages it hosted, except the mostly dead and gone, otherwise old and rusted authors and the characters of whom they wrote.

‘Oliver Twist’, ‘Lord of the Flies’, ‘Mine Boy’, ‘The Unconsoled’, and ‘How to Make a Good Wife’ among other titles stood accusingly pointing their fingers at him. She who passionately flipped through and plunged into their pages was now at peril because of him.

The table, the upright study chair, the light bulb, the pages flipping and rustling, his wife seated there. He turned away from them sharply, shielding his eyes with his palms as if to protect them from dirt during the irritating dry season. He slumped on the bed; his bleeding eyes had wet his palms.

Snow white bed sheets patched with glittery red roses. She had changed them just that morning in commemoration of their engagement. 15th April 1995. That was the date, carved in purple and stuck on the wall at the head of the bed, just above a portrait of him and her, all smiles. 15th April 1996 was the wedding day. His eyes dropped and closed; he frowned at the act of releasing a string of memories that threatened to throw him off balance. His gaze fell on a pair of sky-blue pillows. He remembered the night he first kissed her on those very pillows back in 1995. On that blissful night, they conceived Joanita.

“Fuck the deal!”

“Fuck the deal!”

“Fuck me and the fuckin deal!”

Onapito pulled the bed sheets and flung them out of the house through the window. He tore the pillowcases, hurling them at the portrait on the head of the bed. The portrait shook; he grabbed it and brought it down on the tiled flow. Glass smashed and spilt. His legs shot at the frame, sending it smashing under the vanished mahogany bed.

“Fuck that date!”

His fingers were scratched on 15th April 1995. Their efforts were feeble. He snatched the mahogany flower vase and with it razed the mark that reminded him of the day he had betrothed to her. Her face, radiant, glowing, crescent played in front of him. He ground and gnashed his teeth in pain. He buried his fingers into his kinky hair and ran them across his scalp.

“Why did I do it?”

“What will I tell people?”

He pulled out his phone from one of his trousers pockets and dialled Yusuf. Yusuf did not pick up.

“What the hell is up with this sonaofabitch?”

“It must be him.”

How can Yusuf do this?

His door banged hard with a knock. “Who the hell is that?” he shouted back at the knock. “It`s me, Joanita.” Came the voice of his firstborn. Onapito dried his watered eyes and hesitantly went to open the door. “Dad, there are some visitors who want to talk to you,” Joanita spoke. How the hell does a visitor come at this time of the day?

The DPC of Aduketa CPS was seated on a cane chair at the dining table.

"Welcome, sir; how may I assist you?” inquired Onapito.

“Thanks a lot, Mr. Onapito. I am the DPC Aduketa CPS, and these two gentlemen are the OC CID and Inspector, respectively.” Onapito raised his palm to signal the man to keep quiet. The calm man obeyed.

“I don’t need your help.” He snapped.

The DPC and his two companions nodded in empathy, and then the former spoke.

“We suppose you have other mechanisms you have thought of, but we would like you to allow this one as well as a backup plan.”

“I don’t want my wife, the mother of my children, to die,” the officers nodded again.

“We too do not want your wife to get killed.”

“Then get out of my home right away,” Onapito ordered. A lead-like silence followed. The OC CID cleared his throat, breaking the silence.

“Could it be that you have already interacted with the kidnappers? And if so, it would be good for us to know to act with discretion.” OC CID spoke.

“I don’t want to lose my wife by involving you. That is all!”

"Daddy, please let them help,” the two daughters begged.

“We will do our part,” the DPC said conclusively. He proceeded to take statements from the girls and promised to do the same with the workers at Onapito and Family Arcade.

I warned you against involving the police, but you disobeyed. Now I have no alternative.

He read that text message a dozen times without knowing whether he had understood it. It was just six hours since he met the DPC and one from the time he remitted the 150 million shillings to the police and the 350 million shillings to the kidnappers. How could they have known as quickly as that? There must be an alibi in the police or somewhere.

The DPC and his team were shocked to hear his news.

“I told you about these things; you refused to accept and now you have ruined me.”

Five days later.

ATV

BREAKING NEWS

A naked body of a dead woman has been recovered in Odulai swamp, just about two hundred meters behind Odulai St. Mary`s Cathedral. It is believed the body was dumped during the night by kidnappers. Our reporters have ascertained that a woman named Mrs Onapito has been lost since yesterday evening. No one has claimed the body yet.