CHAPTER 2

The warm December air whipped through the wind screen of Dr. Franklin’s car as he sped to his house, it was Christmas season and everyone in the country was trying to get something for their families as surprise gifts. Of late, people had been complaining that the economy was not well supportive to their day to day activities and that the government had failed them. In the passenger’s seat behind him sat his youngest son, Edward.

Doctor Franklin drove to the Senior high school where he dropped his son and went straight to the hospital. It was almost 8 in the morning when he got the hospital. The nurses at the reception approached him and took his lab coat and his brief case. He took his stethoscope and headed straight to the wards hall to check on his patients.

One mile away from the hall, the door to the entrance seemed opened, the doctor moved to the hall in a speedy way. As he approached a ward, his heart panicked, he saw blood on the floor, and he could feel his veins trying to pull out from his skin. He dashed in with fear in his eyes and suddenly, a momentary pause came over him, as if for a prayer.

“Who could possibly do this?”

 The doctor checked around the room and shouted the name of the nurse in charge of the hall. The nurse rushed into the hall and nearly knocked down the doctor. “How did this happen?” the doctor asked.

The nurse looked puzzled “doctor, I have no idea, I was in the lower hall when I heard your car screech in”. 

The nurse moved out of the room as the doctor looked around the hall; he picked his phone from his pocket and called the police. Doctor Franklin moved to where the professor was and realized he had been murdered. He was shocked. Right on the left side of the professor’s bed was a piece of note.

 The doctor took the paper and was shocked to see what was written on it. Although the doctor had no idea what it actually meant, he strongly believed that it was very important. The police executed their checks on the body of the professor and took the body away as some of them continued with the investigation.

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 Moving into the wards hall, Lesley pretended to be a hospital assistant cleaning the floor, Awodome polyclinic was a well known clinic; it had been built three years ago by Doctor Franklin. Turning his head to the left, Lesley saw whom he had come to kill, the professor.

The celebrity.

 Embedded on the white bed sheet that covered the professor were the name of the clinic and its symbol of a snake circulating around a tree. Slowly, Lesley picked the knife from his pocket, moved closely to and checked the breath of the professor and stabbed him in the heart.

Slicing the knife across the left and right atrium, he pulled the knife from the side of the man and covered him with the blanket. He moved out of the clinic in a hurry. On his way out on the car pack, he met the doctor and greeted him and passed.

    As the doctor moved into his office after the police had left, he could not help but feel a sense of loss at the professor’s death, a celebrity murdered in his hospital. Despite the professor’s reputation for being very creative and excellent, his recognition in the doctor’s son’s school made him an easy man to revere.

Again the image of the inscriptions on the paper flushed in his mind, he picked up his phone to call but quit as he realized that the call will not make any sense. Outside, the city of Accra was closing down as the traffics in circle to kaneshie started booming like the arrival of foodstuffs at Mokorla.

Beggars stretching their hands and asking for money and pedestrians forcing their way through other users, taxi drivers squeezing their way through road necks and commercial urvan drivers jumping into the road without care, unlike the Nigeria, the Police men were somehow conducting the flow of traffic or were seen staring at nothing but looked focused.

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 “The police are here to see you again sir” the nurse spoke as it frightened the doctor who was not paying attention. “Doctor, are you ok?” The doctor nodded his head in affirmation that he was ok. “Ask them to come in”.

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    Edward sat in front of the television as he listened to the evening news which was all about the death of the professor. He felt in tensed and intimidated for the loss of the Professor. As someone who had loved reading the professor’s genuine way of presenting the truth to marvel people was more entertaining than educating.

Edward now viewed the world as a web of profoundly intertwined histories and events. “Who will ever be so inhuman to kill such a generous man”, he asked himself. “I assume” Edward said, “that the person who killed him had a reason”.

 There was a sudden knock on the door. There have been several but since he was not focusing he couldn’t hear. Doctor Franklin bucked into the building as he kept on reading what the professor had written on the paper. “Dad, why do you think someone will murder the professor?”  Edward asked his father.

“I wouldn’t know son, maybe the people don’t want the professor to expose them”, the doctor answered as he removed his coat and put it on the chair.

He sat down and asked Edward to get him a drink from the fridge. The doctor sat in the chair as he paid more attention to the paper. “Can the professor be communicating to anyone who could get the paper?”

Edward came in with the drink and saw his father speaking to himself. “Dad, what do you mean by the professor communicating to you…… and what is that sheet in your hands?”

Doctor Franklin tried to hide the paper but Edward was too smart to be fooled. He saw the coat of arms on the paper and asked his father what was actually happening.

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The story continues…