Abubakar didn't remember the last time he ever cried, but he buried his face in his pillow and wept almost all through the night.
His tears were as a result of believing that he had failed as a father.
All his professional and married life, he had done his very best to be the best father, husband and police officer that he could be.
Apparently, his best wasn't good enough.
Yes, he was a revered police commissioner in the country. His four wives were not complaining. But out of his nine children, three had gone haywire.
He had known of some of his children's capricious and wayward life but never did he think that one of them was part of the same crime syndicate that was giving him sleepless night and instilling fear and terror into the hearts of many of the Nigerian citizens.
He wondered what it would look like if the news about Ibrahim inadvertently leaked out to the media. That would definitely be the end of his career as a law enforcement officer.
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Of course, they wouldn't fire him—there is no place where it was written in the Nigerian constitution that a person would bear the consequences of the negative actions of a family member. But Abubakar knew he would simply resign because he would be unable to bear the shame.
This was why Abubakar would forever be indebted to Omotola.
And no matter what anyone said or did, no matter whether anyone forgot or not, Abubakar would always remember what Omotola did for him and his family.
His attention returned to the ongoing news coverage and he could see that the public relations officer had just wrapped up his press conference. He pulled out his phone and called the PRO for his own personal report.
"Are you certain that this is not an act of cultism?" The commissioner asked after the public relations officer had finished briefing him.
"Sure, these people are indeed cult members, we could see the marks on their bodies indicating as much but there has been no cult activities that would warrant what we saw this evening."
"So, you think it is a lovers quarrel just as the students are speculating?"
"It's too soon to say, sir. The report that we are getting is that the boy cheated on his girlfriend a lot. They quarreled over it several times, but the boy was always threatening her with a breakup.
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"Some of our analysts are saying that maybe he carried on with his threat and since the girl was unable to bear the heartbreak, she decided to kill the boy and commit suicide. Things like this happen between couples when one of them is obsessed," the PRO said.
"Okay, carry on with your investigation, but keep me posted if anything changes."
"Will do that, sir. Thank you so much."
The commissioner disconnected the call and clumsily dropped the phone on his table as his mind wondered if he should contact Omotola to come and carry out his own investigation on this crime, but he quickly decided against it because he didn't want to be too dependent on him.
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