Chapter 19: CANKERWORM

Mariam slept uneasy that night. Something about the whole matter had sunk into her skin and would not leave her. She tossed and turned, her thoughts colliding with one another in the darkness. Her

husband’s side of the bed was warm, his breath rising and falling in steady snores, but that rhythm gave her no peace. She stared at the ceiling until her eyes watered, and only a few hours before dawn did exhaustion overcome her. Even then, the sleep was shallow, laced with restless dreams that dissolved the

moment she opened her eyes.

The morning came, and life continued as though nothing had happened. The chickens still squawked outside, neighbors still greeted her at the well, and Samuel prepared for work as he always did, leaving with his tools balanced against his shoulder. Yet the unease remained with her like a stone lodged in her chest. She could not shake it, though she tried.

Far from their modest home, the men assigned to the investigation sat together in a smoky office. Papers were strewn across the table, statements stacked high yet saying nothing. Every lead they had chased had turned to mist. The case of the murdered family had spiraled, not only because of who the victims were

but because of who their connections were. Jemima’s

parents belonged to old money. They had weight. They had friends in government, and they demanded answers. The kind of answers that could not be delayed.

Moses Agbor sat at the head of the table, his shirt pressed sharp, his eyes hard, his fingers drumming the wood as the others spoke in circles. Daniel Okoro shifted in his chair, trying to keep his calm. Jude Ogbonna cursed under his breath. Kola Ademola, older, leaned back with his arms crossed, waiting for someone to say something meaningful. Musa Yahya was the only one who betrayed himself, his leg bouncing, his eyes darting as if to find an escape hatch in the room.

“This is going nowhere,” Okoro muttered, running a hand down his face. “Weeks, and what do we have? Nothing. A few vagrants picked up and released,

rumors from villagers, shadows on the road.”

“Not nothing,” Jude corrected sharply. “We’ve interrogated over fifty people.”

“Fifty nobodies,” Moses cut in. His voice was cool, each word deliberate, as though the others were wasting his time. “Tell me—do you want to take this to the Commissioner empty-handed? Do you want to tell him you’ve been chasing ghosts?”

Silence fell over them. Musa cleared his throat, but no words came. His palms glistened with sweat. He

hated meetings like this, hated the pressure, hated

how Moses’ eyes bored into him like a hawk.

Finally, Kola leaned forward. “What are you suggesting, Moses?”

Moses stopped drumming his fingers. He straightened, fixing his gaze on each of them in turn. “We don’t need the truth. We need results. They want someone to pay for this, anyone. The public needs a culprit. The family needs closure. Our superiors need names on paper.”

The others exchanged uneasy glances. Jude leaned

back, shaking his head slowly. “Fabrication? That’s a dangerous road.”

“Dangerous?” Moses scoffed. “What’s more dangerous—handing the Commissioner nothing, or handing him a file with signatures and confessions? This case is burning at our feet. If we don’t act, it will consume us. You think they’ll spare us when they need scapegoats? Better some poor b@stard than our careers, than our lives.”

Musa opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again.

“But—but what if the real killers—”

Moses slammed his hand on the table. The sound cracked through the room. “The real killers don’t matter! Don’t you get it? This isn’t about justice. It

never was. This is about survival.”

The room went quiet again. Their breathing filled the space, uneven, unsettled. Musa’s hands trembled on his knees. He had always hated this part of the job, the bending of truth until it snapped, the knowledge that a man’s fate could be rewritten with ink and violence. But his voice caught in his throat. He said nothing.

And so it was decided. Not in words, not in a formal agreement, but in the silence that followed Moses’ declaration. One by one, they looked away, unwilling to meet one another’s eyes. Complicity bound them tighter than any oath.

Samuel Abati was at the farm when they came for him. Not in chains, not dragged like a thief, but called, summoned. They told him to leave his tools, that he was needed at the station. He obeyed without complaint, thinking it would be an hour or two. He kissed his little Aisha on the head before leaving, promising her roasted corn on his way back. She smiled, toothy and bright, and Mariam watched them with her heart swelling at the simple tenderness of the moment.

At the station, the hours dragged into days. Samuel was questioned again and again, their voices growing sharper with each round. He insisted he had only found the girl. He had done nothing wrong. He had

no reason to harm anyone. But the beatings came all

the same. Slaps first. Then fists. Then worse. Days blurred into weeks. His cries echoed in the dark rooms of the station, muffled by concrete walls, lost in the night.

Mariam waited. She cooked his favorite yam porridge the first evening, expecting him home. The food cooled, uneaten. She carried it to the neighbor’s son instead. By the second day, whispers started at the well. By the end of the week, everyone in Ojo was talking. The news had spread—first from the station, then onto the radio, then television.

Headlines screamed about “Arrests Made in High- Profile Murder Case.” Samuel’s name was there, bundled with four others. Murderers, they called

them. Cold-blooded killers.

Mariam could not breathe when she read it. She screamed until her throat gave way. The neighbors gathered, some whispering sympathy, others muttering that perhaps it was true. But she knew her husband. She knew his hands, his voice, his heart. He was no killer.

Little Aisha stood in the doorway that night,

clutching her mother’s wrapper. Her eyes were wide, her voice small. “Mama… when is Papa coming

back?”

Mariam crumbled at the question. She gathered her daughter into her arms, rocking her, tears falling onto

the child’s hair. How could she explain to a ten-year-

old that the world was not fair, that the good were often the ones broken?

At the station, Samuel held out for as long as he could. He thought of his wife, his child, his parents. He thought of the farm, of the soil under his nails, of the simple joy of returning home after a day’s work. But pain erodes even the strongest resolve. They beat him until his body was a map of bruises. They starved him until his stomach screamed louder than his voice. They whispered promises of relief if he would just sign, just confess.

One night, broken and delirious, he took the pen. His hand shook as he scrawled his name under words he

had not written. The ink bled like betrayal.

When they dragged him to court with the others, he could not even lift his head. His parents cried from the benches, begging the judge, begging anyone who would listen. His employer stood, voice trembling as he vouched for Samuel’s honesty, his loyalty, his innocence. None of it mattered. The confession sealed his fate.

“Life imprisonment,” the gavel fell.

Mariam fainted. Aisha screamed.

The cankerworm had eaten through everything.

Back in their homes, the officers carried on. Moses sat in silence, his face unreadable. Musa drank himself to sleep, his hands shaking. Jude shrugged, telling himself it was done, it was necessary. Kola retired early that night, his stomach tight but his conscience buried. And Daniel Okoro, ever the pragmatist, thought only of the empire he would build with his hands freed of this burden.

But for Mariam and her daughter, life had cracked. Their home felt empty, haunted by the absence of laughter, by the shoes Samuel never wore again, by the corn he never brought back. And for little Aisha, the world had shifted forever. She would remember the day her father walked out with his tools, never to

return. She would remember her mother’s tears. She

would remember the silence that followed.

And Jemima—fifteen, lost, angry—would remember too. She would remember the men who twisted truth into shackles, who turned grief into signatures, who buried justice beneath lies.

The cankerworm had burrowed deep. And from that day, it began to eat