THE HOLY MAN-Chapter 3

 The shooter was Hunter Chidioke and he had been more than surprised to realize he had shot at a woman. After pleading with Wunmi and telling her he thought she was a wild animal ( To Wunmi, it was a flimsy excuse), he decided to follow her and the slim boy back to the market. 
 Then Wunmi told him who she was. 

"To think I had mistakenly tried to kill you earlier. Welcome to Umuda but I must tell you the Police Station is a bit far from here and it's already late"
"I need to speak with the officer in charge" Wunmi insisted.
"That can wait till the morning and besides everyone in Umuda knows Officer Adams does not joke with his sleep"
She followed him to his house.
Hunter Chidioke's family were very hospitable. The man himself made sure Wunmi tasted his varieties of games he brought home from the forest. He was a tall, elegant man, possibly in his fifties who must have been very handsome at his youthful age but penury and hard work had robbed him of it.
His wife was fat with a deep voice, too deep for a woman and legs that seemed to move swiftly about. Her name was Cynthia and Wunmi couldn't help but marvel at how delicious her soup tasted.
"I have six children" Hunter Chidioke said proudly, as if he had won an award for it.
Wunmi gagged on the fofo she was about swallowing. Six children!! Not meaning to, she glanced around the house and hoped the hunter and his wife had not seen her.
Their house was very small, made of wood.
Half of the ceiling was caving in and they had used clothes as curtains to shield them from the mosquitoes. The furniture were termites-eaten that Wunmi feared the table she had placed her food on might collapse at any minute. No television, no electricity. Their source of light was from a large battery lamp that hung from a nail.
Suddenly, Wunmi realised how they were so different from her. They were living in abject poverty but she had grown up in a mansion, in a world of high classed people. She remembered how her father had always told her to stay away from the poor people.
"They have nothing to offer you. You need to be seen with the people who own the world"
All her youthful life, she had known affluence. Her father had made sure she had lacked nothing since she was the only child and he had loved her mother so dearly before her terrible death.
Yet, there had been no happiness and peace in her home. That was one thing Hunter Chidioke and his family had. They were happy people who did not have to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.
"Three of them, boys, joined the army. Sadly, we lost all three" Hunter Chidioke said and his expression changed.
Wunmi could feel the burning sadness from him and his wife.
"Two of our girls have married while the last girl still stays with us" Cynthia said.
"I'm so sorry for your loss" Wunmi found herself saying.
Yes, there was another difference between her family and the family in front of her.
Following her mother's death, her father had turned overprotective and to Wunmi, insane. Death had had no impact on the Chidiokes. It had not turned them into heartless monsters that her father had turned into.
He never allowed her to go anywhere without at least three bodyguards, even to school and most of her mates had laughed at her, calling her "daddy's little girl". Wunmi always wished to pour out her complaint to him but he would never listen if she did.
"I don't want to lose you like I lost your mother. I would never be able to forgive myself"
Everyday, her father blamed himself for her mother's death. He wished he had not taken them to that war infested country. He wished they had stayed back in Nigeria.
That was why he hated poor people. He couldn't even bare to see them. He had vowed he would never try to save them by raising up charity foundations. The one his wife had built, he later turned it into one of his nationwide-known restaurant.
One day, he had caught Wunmi with the driver's handsome nephew and all hell broke loose. It was then Wunmi realised her father was indeed crazy. He had commanded his guards to lock the boy up. For one week, Wunmi pleaded with him to let him go. He had agreed and warned the boy never to see his daughter again. Apart from that, he had sacked his driver.
Wunmi had thought everything was alright until the next day when information reached her that the boy had been murdered by masked shooters. "What have you done?!!!" Wunmi yelled to his face.
"I did nothing, sugar pie" He had replied calmly.
But Wunmi knew her father better. He had ordered that the boy should be killed.
"Don't you ever call me your sugar pie!!!!!" That was the last time she had spoken to him.
Wunmi's thought wandered back to the present and realised Hunter Chidioke was still talking. If her father knew where she was now, she was damn sure he would have a heart attack.
"Her name is Janetta, our beautiful daughter. She is most likely......."
Just then, someone entered. A young, astonishingly beautiful young girl. She was most likely eighteen but she looked more like a woman who ought to be in her husband's house.
"Janetta, your father was just introducing you to the new inspector!!" Cynthia exclaimed.
Janetta greeted her Parents politely before she turned to Wunmi.
"Evening, inspector....."
"Wunmi"
"Haa.. Wunmi.. A Yoruba inspector. We are more than pleased to recieve you in Umuda"
"Thank you, Janetta" Wunmi replied.
There was something about this young girl that made Wunmi suddenly like her. She had this bright smile that seemed to make Wunmi forget all about her past.
But the bitter truth soon dawned on her. She envied Janetta because she had never been happy like her when she was young.
"The people of Umuda loved the late Inspector Obi a lot. It was so saddening to hear of his sudden death" Hunter Chidioke said. "Actually he died of cancer. We ran a test on his body in Lagos" Wunmi said.
"Wetin be that? Is that a curse from Amadioha?" Cynthia asked.
"No, no, it's a terminal disease, not a curse from gods" Wunmi replied.
"People said Amadioha had cursed him because he failed to find the culprits for all the killings that have been happening in Umuda since he came. Someone had stabbed Chief Alle five years ago yet no culprit" Janetta said.
"I don't think it's clearly his fault. Culprits are not easy to catch" Wunmi defended the dead inspector.
"But we believe that as you have come to Umuda, a change will begin" Hunter Chidioke said.
"I can't promise you that but let's continue to see" Wunmi answered with a smile.

  ***      ***       ***
 Wunmi had barely enjoyed her sleep on the uncomfortable mat and so she was up before everyone in the small home of the Chidiokes.
   Cynthia made her Pap and akara and again, Wunmi marvelled at how delicious the food was. She thanked the hunter greatly and told him she had to hurry to the station to report her arrival to Officer Adams.

"Janetta will lead you to the station. She knows the shortest route to the place"
Janetta, happily, led her through a narrow path, through the bush her father had almost killed her in yesterday night.
Wunmi noticed a silver bracelet dangling from her wrist.
"What a nice bracelet you've got there" She complimented.
"Ooh, I... " Wunmi realised she was blushing, "My boyfriend gave it to me" She added.
"Ooh, so you've a boyfriend....You must really love him" Wunmi tried to imagine what her own father would have done if she had told him her boyfriend had given her a bracelet.
"Yes, I really do"
Wunmi noticed her reply had been a sad one but she wasn't ready to pry into a young girl's personal affair.
"But my Parents don't know... I don't want them to" Janetta said.
"Your secret is safe with me" Wunmi promised.
Soon, they passed by Umuda's small church. Wunmi could see worshippers going in. Huge statues of Christ on the cross and Holy Mary, stood facing each other in front of the Church.
Wunmi didn't even know when she stopped to look at them. Her mother had been a Christian and she had trained Wunmi up in the way of Christ.
But Wunmi had not known much before her mother had been taken away from her.
Since then, she had always blamed God. How could He have allowed a sincere worshipper like her mother die a terrible death? She had heard of Heaven, a blissful place for the Righteous and Hell, an eternal burning place for the sinners but Wunmi knew she had seen more than hell in her mother's death. Her screams, the smell of burning flesh, the horrid faces of demons who were rioters in disguise on earth........
"Inspector Wunmi, are you alright?" Janetta's voice drew her back to the present.
"Yes, I am.....alright" She lied.
"This is Umuda's Catholic Church. The Priest there is Father Paul James" They began to move away from the Church. "Must be a good man, right?" Wunmi asked.
"Most of the people in Umuda don't like him"
"Why?"
"He is a good man though, he helps the poor people in the village by sponsoring their children's education in big cities"
"Then why do they hate him?"
"It's not everyone. It's the old people in the village who had been there when Paul...... Father Paul... I mean, was young. People like my parents. They said he was just being nice to cover up for what he had done so many years ago"
"What had he done?"
"They said.. he... he...." Janetta lowered her voice, "raped and killed a young girl when he was eighteen and ran away. People said he is being haunted by her ghost and most of the time, he is not in his right mind"
"Well, that's very sad. Were there evidences that he really killed the girl?"
"Actually, his own father confessed not too long ago that he had killed the girl himself, using her head as a sacrifice to appease the gods. But no one would ever believe that. They still point accusing fingers at Father Paul"
"Oooh... Where is his father now?"
"The man died a mysterious death. They found him hanging from a tree"
"Sad, sad"
"But Father Paul is not at fault. I don't blame him. I really feel his pain" Janetta said, as if she was that close to the man.
"What was the girl's name?"
"Chima"........