Malik bled from the cut and he turned to look at his assailant.
With his hands behind him, Hot-Temper continued to circle.
Malik kept turning, keeping his eyes on the sergeant. Without missing a step, Hot-Temper bent to the ground, almost kneeling before rising to his feet again. Malik cried out and fell to the ground, blood staining his trousers from a straight four-inch tear across his right calf.
Hot-Temper stood with his hands behind his back again; and again Malik didn’t see the blade that caught him.
‘Names and addresses,’ Ibrahim said.
Laying on his side in the sand, curled into a foetal position, his hands over his bleeding wounds, Malik squeezed his eyes at the pain. ‘Fuck you,’ he shouted, spittle shooting from his mouth.
‘Names and addresses.’
‘Fuck you. I don’t know who they are.’
‘Cut him,’ Ibrahim said.
Hot-Temper brought his hands forward from behind his back. In his hand he held a dagger. From the ground Malik looked at the blade that had inflicted his wounds. Hot-Temper stepped forward. Malik grabbed the sand and pulled himself away. Then he raised his hand. ‘Wait.’
Ibrahim held his hand up and Hot-Temper stopped.
Malik crawled further from the sergeant and closer to Ibrahim. ‘Wait,’ he repeated.
‘Go on,’ Ibrahim said.
Malik heaved himself up till he was sitting up, his injured legs stretched out before him. He bent over, wiped sand off his fingers and reached forward to touch the skin around his wounds. He shut his eyes and winced.
‘You are wasting my time,’ Ibrahim said.
‘OK. OK. What happens after I tell you?’
‘You have been arrested by the Nigerian police on suspicion of culpability in the murder of a police officer. After you tell us what we want to know, we will take you to the station where you will be formally charged. I will personally call your lawyer or whoever you want to come and bail you for the amount of money you have offered me and my colleagues today.’
‘So you will take my money?’
‘Yes. For bail.’
Malik sniggered. ‘For bail. What if I don’t have the names?’
‘Then you will not be eligible for bail and your case will go to court.’
‘OK. I don’t have names. I have a name.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘It was meant to be Amaka in the car. Someone wanted to know where she was. I told them. I didn’t know they would try to kill her. And I didn’t know your colleague would be in her car instead of her.’
‘So you made a call.’
‘Yes.’
‘Who did you call?’
Malik looked Ibrahim in the eye. He looked down and shook his head before he answered. ‘Otunba Oluawo. You need to keep me alive if you want me to testify in court.’
‘You already did.’ Ibrahim said. He nodded at a female police officer. She was holding her phone to Malik. Recording. She pressed a button on the screen and the video played back. From the tiny speakers came Malik’s voice: ‘It was meant to be Amaka in the car…’
Ibrahim stepped back. ‘Now we send you to hell,’ he said.
‘You motherfucker,’ Malik shouted. He looked around at the officers. ‘You fucking motherfuckers. You’re all going to die poor. You stupid motherfucking bastards. Take the fucking money and let me go. Otunba Oluawo killed your colleague, not me.’ The officers backed away. ‘Did you hear me? Oluawo killed your fucking colleague. I didn’t even know her. Fuck her. Fuck you. Fuck all of you. You will all die poor, you fucking illiterate fucking fools.’
The officers formed an arc around him and racked their weapons, the sliding and locking of metal the only sound on the deserted road. Ibrahim stood at one end, his sub-machine gun by his side.
Malik looked around at the faces gathered in a line in front of him, their guns ready to take his life, and he began to laugh. ‘Fucking illiterates,’ he said. He laughed from his belly.