Two police officers entered Vianu Sub-County hospital. This is where Vicky was admitted. These female officers had become friends with her as they came to talk to her.
Vicky stayed at the hospital for a week, recuperating. During this time she recorded her statement with the police detailing what had happened on that day. The police were so inquisitive on their quest to find out the motive behind Tod's actions. They promised to net him sooner because all police divisions had been put on high alert and a manhunt had been launched. At first, Vicky didn't want to speak about the incident, but slowly and with encouragements from her mother and the kind nurses she slowly opened up to the questions.
"Hello Victoria, how are you doing?" a female police officer greeted her.
"I am doing well Detective Sarah," she replied, "I think I should be discharged today!" she added and looked at her mother who was sitting nearby.
"Oh my dear! Yes you look better now and I think once you are through with these officers we can ask to be let go, isn't it so officers?" the mother spoke and turned to the police. It was all in an effort to make Vicky shed more light on the ongoing investigations. Gloria herself was not believing that the person whom she had loved so dearly and given a chance to share her life with could turn out to be so cannibalistic. To think that she had fully trusted him and even allowed him to replace her late husband. Deep in her she felt guilty. She took it upon herself to shoulder the blames befalling her family.
"If I had not married that devil my family would be happy and peaceful. But see us now." That is what troubled her much. But many advised her and told her not to be so hard on herself. She too, like Vicky was recovering from the emotional shock and torture she was in.
"Do you still have more questions Detective?" Vicky asked, bringing her mother back from the trail of thoughts she was drowning in.
"Yes, Vicky, just a couple more and we will let you be, is that alright my dear?" Detective Sara
Asked. "The information that we are seeking will be very helpful in helping us to catch that perpetrator. So you will do well if you tell us everything the way you know them. You must then be as truthful as possible and do not leave out any part of the story." The officer added.
"And we also guarantee that you will be under our guard so that nobody hurts," the other officer added.
"Vicky, was this the first time your step father made sexual advances to you?" the first female police officer asked her.
Vicky was startled. She had not expected this question. She had not seen it coming and therefore, found it difficult to answer straight away. The difficulty particularly came from the fact that she had never told her mother of all that Tod had been doing to her for several months now. How could she just disclose it all so suddenly? How will her mother take it?
She fumbled for a little while and the lady police kept looking at her with those eyes that told you 'yes we care but you must speak the truth.' And so she spoke up.
"No. it was not!" she mumbled these words, looking down on the sheets covering her.
"What!" Gloria was stunned, as expected, "Has he been assaulting you my dear?" she asked standing up and coming over to her.
"Relax Mama Victoria. We have got the situation under control." The police told her.
She looked at her daughter for a while. Pain and anger could be seen flooded all over her visage. She had nothing to do or argue with the police, so she went back to her seat and kept quiet. Gloria folded her hands across her chest and looked down on the floor. She kept mumbling some indistinct words as if cursing or making vows.
"How many times before this recent one?" Detective Sarah asked her.
"Four times!" she answered, "The fourth time I actually went to him myself." Victoria added.
The police officers nodded while writing all this in a book that they had brought with them. The mother's reactions were beyond telling.
"And how many times did you two become intimate, engaged in sex?"
"None! All the times when he came to me I managed to outsmart him. The first time was when he pretended to have brought me a new dress. On that day I had gone to school then came back in the evening. I didn't know that he had bought a pink dress and had hidden it in my room. He had then waited for me to enter. He was hiding behind the curtains. So I didn't see him when I entered."
"But I thought your room was always locked when you were not at home!" the mother chipped in.
"Yes mam, it is a puzzle up to now how he got into my room up to now!" Vicky clarified.
"Then what happened after you entered?" the other officer asked.
"I went straight to the wardrobe to choose the clothes I was going to wear. That is when I saw the dress. It was lying there strategically inside the wardrobe. It was so nice, I got so excited and decided to try it on there and then. Mam I thought you are the one who brought me the dress, until when he came out of his hiding place." Vicky continued while everyone followed her so keenly.
"So he came and made some advances all of which I turned down and tried to run away from the room. Then I tripped and I fell. He then thought that he had gotten an opportunity to accomplish what he had desired. Lucky enough my little brothers just came at the right time. While he panicked, I got up and slipped out of the room." She paused for a moment.
Victoria went ahead explaining to the police the exact details of all that happened at those times when she was almost falling a victim to Tod. Everybody was so much surprised.
"You said the fourth time you went to him by yourself. Why was that and what happened?" the police continued interrogating her in a friendly way and Victoria narrated the whole event when she went to the market where Tod frequented and managed the society of passenger service vehicles.
"I knew he was hurting my family because I had refused all of his advances towards me. The previous day in the evening he almost broke Mike's neck. Then that night he almost killed my mother." She paused and looked at her mother for a while then continued. "Then he had left the house while it was still dark and he disappeared. That morning my mother's stall was sabotaged. The destruction was so magnanimous that mother became sick. On the very day someone lied to the school principal that mam had received so much money from the women's self-help-group to which mama is a member. This made the principal to send me away. When I witnessed and pondered over all that had happened I went to him myself. My reason for going there was to seek confirmation from the horse's mouth and also to find a way to trick him.
"To a large extend yes I was successful. He tried to make more advances towards me, I pretended to be unclean on that day and made him a promise that he will have the chance to explore what he wanted, he was so happy and that is why he returned to helping us again. However, I refused to lie with him because I hate him with passion and would never let him touch my body."
Vicky paused for a long while and seemed like she was going to cry. Detective Sarah came over and sat at her one side while her mother took over the other side. They each comforted and pacified her for a while.
"That is why he came to my room at night while I was fast asleep and did this," and she started sobbing again. The police concluded their interrogation for that day. The doctor in-charge came over and approved that Vicky was fit to be discharged from the hospital.
"Oh my girl we are finally going home!" her mother said cheerfully. "Now you can get to meet all your classmates and friends once again." But Vicky showed no sign of happiness. She looked down-casted once again. The mother was shocked.
"What is it again?" her mother asked, but Vicky continued looking downwards and tears welled up in them.
After some persuasions Vicky simply said, "I don't want to go back to that house mum!" She was understood at once, nobody dissented on that statement, but the question that now came forward was, "Where now would you go?"
Vicky seemed to have thought it out already as he said.
"Mam, I will stay with my cousin Caroline at her home, for a while. Then I will come back home. Please allow me."
"I know what you mean my dear and I am in full agreement with it. Will we just pass by to take your clothing?" the mother already agreed and planned on how they would coordinate everything between the two families. Luckily Caroline was also a final year student, studying in the same school as Vicky. But they lived near the market, on the other side of the village.
That is why after the hospital stay, Gloria took Victoria to Caroline's place. Of course they had heard one of the many versions of the story and had believed what they chose to believe and the rest left out of the math. Caroline was overjoyed to finally getting her friend and cousin staying with her, before this day she had been a sad, lonely girl but now she had hopes because she Vicky was a hilarious storyteller. Caroline's parents were also having their issues and Caroline often lacked a person with whom they could discuss their parents status without discrimination or rejection.
The two girls stayed together in harmony and a great bond developed in between them. Apart from being cousins they became the best of friends and each other's confidant. They assisted one another with all the chores and duties, whether household or school-wise. Caroline would tell Vicky anything in her mind and Vicky would do the same with Caroline. Soon their end year examinations came and the girls confidently tackled the exam.
It was a good thing that as time went by Vicky continued to heal. After the examinations she decided, in the company of Caroline, to visit her home. Her mother had always visited, bringing with her Steve and Mike, Vicky's small brothers. They were growing up so fast. They only understood that their sister was not coming home because she was needed to be closer to the school. Now, Vicky felt like going home.
"Some fears need to be faced head-on." She remembered what her guidance and counselling teacher had explained to her. In order to overcome that phobia, walk through it and literary trample upon it under your feet. Vicky went home with Caroline with the single thought of finding out if she had really healed. Seeing the scene of crime which directly involved you was not an easy thing. But as Vicky stood in what used to be her bedroom, she looked at it in a new perspective. At that very moment she made a resolution.
"Never will I allow a man play with me. It will be either my life for his or his for mine. From this day henceforth, I will belong to the one I love just as he will be mine and mine alone." Caroline watched Vicky's determination to rise above and against the past and she was so much impressed.
They returned to Caroline's home place later that evening. As they sat in the sitting room that evening suddenly Vicky started singing. The words and even the tune were new to Caroline. She sang the song with so much passion and emotion that tears rolled down her face. Caroline cried too. When Vicky sang the part that repeated itself severally as the chorus of the song, Caroline joined in and they sang it so well. The message of the song was thanksgiving.
"He doesn't regard my past, but gives me a hope that lasts, through terrible storms I've passed, in the end all shall be aghast!"
Those were the lyrics she repeated in the chorus. It was an inspirational song. It lifted up her spirits, soon she got the gist of it and stood up singing and dancing to it.
"You know what? I have a suggestion," Caroline said, "This song is so nice that it should not just end here. It needs to get out to the airwaves. So that all the many hearts out there that have been broken and shattered because of the terrible past could be encouraged to start living once again," she said. Vicky looked at her friend so adoringly. She smiled as she said;
"You are like number two in our numerical numbering. Anybody who associates with you is not reduced to zero like any number that is multiplied by zero is reduced to zero, neither are you like the number one. Any number multiplied by one remains of the same value. Such a friend doesn't add value to your life. But any number multiplied by two doubles up. You are that kind of a friend." The two girls embraced each other in love. And that is how they enjoyed life together.
"But now Caroline, how do we record the song? Who will be our producer?" Vicky asked.
"I don't know any studio or producer. But I know just the right person who would take us through that step; Belindah."
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Nick arrived at his house less than ten minutes after the call. His intuition told him that Jack and the rest of the team had already arrived at his house. Otherwise why would they want him to come over to this specific place? Or maybe he had sold him over to the police, informing them and so the police would lie in wait for him. But to what gain? If he, Nick, got arrested, what good will it do Jack? Nothing. So he ruled that possibility out of his mind.
Even as he tried to reason out why Jack would want him to come over to this house, Nick realized that what he really cared for most was Caroline's safety. He wouldn't have come here had she not been brought into the equation. He just wanted to ensure the one whom he loved was safe. For Caroline, Nick was ready to make any deal with Jack no matter how difficult or challenging it would be. In any case, he still had to be careful. So he alighted from the bike and approached the house with extreme caution.
Nick considered the possibility of someone emerging from anywhere and starting to shoot at him. These thoughts made him more alert as he finally pushed open the door into his house. The door alone was enough to tell him that someone had already entered the house.
He took in a deep breath and took three steps into the house. From experience, he sensed that guns were pointing at him, though he did not see anybody. As a precautionary method, he slowly lifted both his hands high in the air, a sign that he was unarmed and ready to cooperate. He stood still and just when he thought of calling out, Jack himself stepped out of his hiding and headed towards him. Then all the rest of the guys also rose with their guns pointed at Nick!