Chapter V

 

At exactly 02:00 in the morning, the call came as expected. She gave him the location and the car type the two were driving from Kitwe East Point heading to Nkana West dropping her at the friends’ boarding house. Subi was specific on what to get and the line of action Solo was to take. He was to carry a knife and only scare the educated man then walk away with whatever he had in the car. His girlfriend sounded sober though they were drinking till late in the morning. She was good at making her men get drunk meanwhile she remained sober and in control. He who is sober is in control and calls the shots so went the saying.

Subi was in charge and had spotted a gold mine in the doctor’s car. She waited patiently until the learned boyfriend was drunk, powerless and defenseless. She watched with an intelligence of an eagle at how he was buying beers in the night club and ensured that none of his friends were allowed to frustrate her plans.

From the time the two checked out of the Garden Court, they traversed the entire Kitwe from one drinking place to the other until finally settled in the most happening East Point at the City Square.

Meanwhile, a kilometer away Solo positioned himself at the junction where he knew traffic stopped to give way to other road users and waited patiently for the Honda Accord. As she promised, thirty minutes had passed before the targeted car came to a halt. With maximum agility, the lone criminal reached for the door and demanded for a hundred kwacha from the driver. He knew he needed to provoke the doctor for the results to be seen and so he violently banged the front passenger door until the man got out. Solo saw the drunken doctor approach him menacingly. He staggered round the front car and reached for solo’s neck.

Without panicking, the lone criminal stood still waiting for the drunken doctor. He knew how best alcohol did to people…it gave false courage and aspirations. The doctor approached with a guttural voice ranting Bemba words which his spirit meant as opposed to his flesh which was grilled by the volumes of alcohol he imbibed. He allowed him to grab his hood by the neck and instantly the doctor staggered backwards only to be helped by the criminal back up again. From the back of his pocket, Solo removed a knife and displayed it to the doctor and issued incessant threats which he knew were falling on deaf ears.

Without minding, the learned lecturer, reached for Solo’s neck once more and tried with all his remaining strength to strangle a sober criminal. The assailant repeated the threats thrice but the doctor was unmindful until he pushed him away and swayed his weapon on his face again. It was now Solo’s turn to grab the doctor’s shirt by the neck roughly and dangerously and pointed his weapon straight into his eyes and yelled at him to surrender everything he had in the car.

Helplessly, the drunken man dropped his hands and his knees almost giving up on him had it not been for the assailant’s stabilizing hand. Immediately, Solo sensed danger – the doctor was too drunk to reason or fear the knife in his hands. He wished his girlfriend could give him a signal to retreat and count it a failed assignment when suddenly like a typical drunkard, the man fell on the assailant for support and the knife pierced his left side of the chest. Instantly Solo realized the mistake and quickly let go of the learned lecturer.

Feeling the oozing blood from his chest, reality dawned on the lecturer and steadily stumbled back to the car. Started the engine, pushed the gear lever to drive and his right leg pressed the accelerator.

As planned, Subi sat quietly at the passenger’s seat watching her boyfriend in action. As she was busy checking all the contents in the car, she saw the doctor back at the driver’s seat groaning for help. It was then that she realized that it was a mission gone sour. Painfully, she saw her man start the engine and drove about hundred meters before he slumped dead on the seat.

Death was never part of their plan. Panic resulted and so the young girl came out and called her boyfriend who was still standing behind. She needed to be strong and design a way out of the death trap. The only and the hard option was for Solo to continue being a thug as designed. She asked him to smash the passenger’s window and drag her out to the nearby unfinished house for sex. The boy had no time to question her reasoning but only obeyed the girlfriend’s instructions. After forcefully raping her, she ran to the car with torn cloths and grabbed the bag she hid by the road side and dashed away.

Behind, Solo dressed up and went back to the car, checked the driver and for sure he was dead. Hastily, he searched the car for anything and grabbed the mobile phone and the laptop bag at the back seat when he suddenly saw a bundle of hundred kwacha notes at the center console. Without much time to check for more, the lone criminal jumped out and walked away.

‘Cool down madam, you have reached the Police Station,’ said a uniformed officer. The policeman was dozing at the reception desk when he suddenly heard heavy foot steps approaching. It was not common to receive new cases at the late hour of the morning. Within a minute, the lady was staggering through the open door while panting profusely. She looked exhausted and was sweating all over her body with the dress torn apart and drenched. The sight was horrific and hair raising. The young woman couldn’t talk, she was too tired from whatever she was running from. As a caring police officer, he held her and slowly made her to rest on the wooden bench.

After ten minutes she stood up and started calling for Mark. ‘Mark…Mark where are you!’ she screamed hysterically. ‘Who is Mark madam?’ the officer inquired.

‘Doctor Mark…where have you taken him? I need to give him his change!’ she mumbled. ‘You leave me alone. Don’t touch me you son of a bitch! Get out of here.’ The Officer stood aside observing the comedy from the young woman. It was clear the girl was not herself and so he opted to act the counsellor. The girl was clearly running mad in his presence making him remember the little clinical psychology he learnt at Kamfinsa Training School ten years ago. He stood in front of her in his paramilitary combat and introduced himself as Mark. The officer mimicked the man he had never known in his quest to help the beautiful girl in his custody. Whoever Mark was, he meant a lot to the young girl.

Twenty minutes passed before the lady normalized and was able to have a meaningful conversation. The officer on duty recorded the statement and the lady quickly was rushed to the nearest clinic for medical checkups. A competent medical doctor was required to validate her claims of rape and generate a medical report which would be attached to the police report and open a docket against the perpetrator. The other team on duty rushed to the crime scene and retrieved the dead body which they quickly took to Kitwe General Hospital mortuary.

The preliminary investigation confirmed the young lady’s words. The passenger car window was smashed and the doctor’s laptop bag was not found. The rape scene was evident of the struggle which the girl made the rapist go through. Her Peruvian wig was found in the unfinished house and taken as exhibit together with a purse. Various pieces of information were adding up, the lone killer was at large, armed and dangerous. Six meters away from the car, a knife was recovered with much blood on its blade.

 

***

 

Four months later, Subi was walking to Kitwe Correctional facility. Her boy friend was locked up for murder of Doctor Mark Mainga of the Kalulushi Catholic University. In his effort to disguise himself, the boy had shaved his head, got rid of the dreadlocks, and boarded a bus to Mkushi to stay low until the case was forgotten. Then suddenly, uniformed policemen pounced on him and bundled him to Kitwe Central Police for interrogation.

Then Inspector Chisanga took charge and did what he knew best. The boy was tortured but never said anything beyond the girl’s testimony. He was true to their allegiance and waited for her to appear someday. His trial was one of the shortest in the history of the town. During extreme torture, the boy confessed to the murder and disclosed the Four Thousand Kwacha he got from the car. His mind was made up, there was nothing to defend him in spite of him claiming he had no intention to kill the doctor. He was simply there to scare him and rob whatever was in the car. After a thirty-day trial, the boy was found with a case to answer and was put on defense until life sentence was awarded.

While in a heavily congested cell, Solo heard his name being called to the visiting room. It was the first time his name was called in the four months of prison life. His family abandoned him the day the sentence was pronounced clearly not willing to be associated with a convicted murderer. His only hope was in the girlfriend he covered, with his testimony which if he wanted could have implicated her as well.

The two sat in the visiting room and talked about old stories. She updated Solo on all the happenings in the outside free world and how well she was doing at school. Since his imprisonment, her perspective of life had changed and was more engrossed in becoming a better person in a more respectful and honorable manner. She stopped fucking around for money. She considered it a short term investment but rather resorted to try investment which in long term would guarantee a better living standards for her and her single mother.

Subi was her mother’s only child and never had the chance to see her father. All her mother said was that her father died when she was a baby. Therefore, her mother was also her father. At first she wished to have a father like all her friends. She craved to call someone father and to have a masculine shoulder to lean on.

Subi was there to assure her boyfriend, she would do everything possible to have him pardoned and would soon be out. With the Twenty Thousand she collected from the late doctor, and other funds she gathered in the same manner, the young girl decided to invest in a money generation venture prevalent in her home time. It was a risky one but had excellent returns once done well. She took the risk and was surprised how lucky favored her. At the end of every month her money was increasing by fifty percent.