Virus by Ifedayo Akintomide Page A

now the color of ash and he looked as
if he was on the verge of collapse.
    “Baba Adora__” He said taking two
steps forward. “Are you alright? You look sick. Do I run and get
help?”
    The word ‘help’ seemed to get
through to him and he snapped out of his panic induced
haze.
    “No son__ there is no need ___ I
will be fine.”
    “Was it something I said that scared
you so much?”
    Another long pause
followed.
    “Its not important son ___ go home
now while you still can.”
    Wole’s eyes widened at his strange
choice of words, but he said no more and hurried home.

Chapter
Seventeen
     
    Taiwo Betiku stood two feet in front
of the door of the hospital’s mortuary watching as two of his men
examined the lock. As expected, it was intact. The lock over the
refrigerated compartment where Chike’s body had been stored too was
intact. There was no sign of forced entry anywhere. So where in the
world had the boy’s body disappeared? A frown hardened his face.
There was more to this puzzle than met the eye.
    “No sign of forced entry sir__” One
of his men said turning to face him.
    The frown on his face grew harder.
Was the man retarded? Of course he could see there was no forced
entry. Did the goat think he was blind?
    Quelling the urge to give him a
stinging retort, he took a deep breath and nodded. Several moments
of silence ensured.
    Taiwo stood still, his heavyset body
stiff and rigid. He always assumed that position whenever he was
deep in thought as he was now. The three other men in the room
moved restlessly. He knew what that meant of course. The dim wits
were waiting for instructions from him. A sigh left his lips. He
was loath to do what he was about to do, but he could see no other
way around it.
    “Are the men that were working in
the mortuary that night still outside?”
    “Yes sir.” The bulky sergeant on the
left growled snapping to attention.
    He nodded with a grim look on his
face. “Ok arrest them all. A couple of days in prison should loosen
their tongues somewhat.”
    “Do you want us to apply pressure?”
The broad sergeant asked. He had a cruel smile on his
face.
    The frown on Taiwo’s face deepened.
He knew what apply pressure meant. To put it simply, it meant
torture. That was a term Taiwo was not overly fond of, he was not
averse to using threats and other forms of psychological wrangling,
but he drew the line at torture.
    His sergeant on the other hand
seemed to get off on it. There had been many unconfirmed reports
that he had been quite brutal with a few suspects in the past.
Investigations into those reports had yielded nothing of course.
Police officers tend to stick together when one of them got into
trouble. All it needed was for one officer on the scene to
corroborate the victim’s assertions.
    No one did however. All of the
officers stated that the sergeant’s action had been strictly
professional with no bias or violence whatsoever. A look of disgust
crept into his eyes as he thought this. Some of his colleague’s
reports on him bordered on him described as some sort of
misunderstood saint.
    “No pressure Sergeant Diran! If I
hear any of you strayed from my explicit instructions by even an
iota, you best get prepared for six weeks suspension without pay.
IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?”
    The faces of all the men present
grew grim at the D.P.O’s harsh words. They all hurried out of the
cold room without another word. Sighing Taiwo hurried after
them.
     
    That night
    Dr Makinde trudged towards his front
door. He lived in a three bedroom brown bungalow built on the edge
of town. It had no fence. He and his wife Victoria had not been
able to raise the funds to build a concrete fence around the
property.
    The fence was the last thing on his
mind however. He felt sick. Sweat poured down his skin in rivers.
His clothes were soaked through, as if someone had dumped a bucket
of water over his head. That however was not his biggest concern,
not by a long shot. His arm was almost three