Tarasha

the junior Pharmacist"s office***

"Do you recall any student that visited Dr.

Hammed last week?" James began the

questioning section.

"Student? Dr. Hammed rarely has visitors" the

receptionist replied, narrowing her eyes, she

struggled to remember those who visited the

past week

"But a student visitor was with him in his office

last week" James pressed on. "Precisely on

Monday"

"Yeah! That"s true!" She exclaimed, remembering

a certain pharmacy student who visited. "There

was a Unilag girl who was here to see him last

week"

"Who"s she? Was that the first time you saw her

here? Do you know what she came for?"

"No, I saw her for the first time on Thursday the

previous week, she came asking about Dr.

Daniel Umaru and I told her that he doesn"t have

her time"

"So?"

"She was making trouble with me when Dr.

Hammed saw us, he then asked her to come

back on Friday to see him"

"What did she want to see want to see Dr.

Umaru for?"

"About the conference and I told her to check

our website for more information but she

insisted on seeing the Doctor"

"Hmmm, the conference" James glanced at

Segun who nodded; it seemed they were making

progress already. "Did you suspect anything

unusual about her?"

"No, she was just a stubborn University student"

"Nothing unusual happened when she was here?"

"No except on Friday when Dr. Hammed slept

off during work hours, that was very unusual of

him"

"He slept off after meeting with her?"

"Yes, he slept off after she left his office and…"

she paused, she narrowed her gaze. "We had to

remind him about a lot of things when he woke

up"

"How did you know that he forgot a lot of things"

"I know" she sounded confident. "For example,

he came to ask if some of our clients which he

was expecting to visit him came that day,

whereas they met him when he came, he even

followed them out to the reception when they

were leaving"

"You saw him come down with them?"

"Yes, he came down with them and went back to

his office with Tarasha" she affirmed. "I was

surprised when he came down several hours

time to ask if I had seen any of the clients or if

they had call to inform us that they were not

coming anymore"

"Interesting" James nodded slowly, thinking

deeply about all he heard and trying to draw a

conclusion from it.

"You said she is a student of Unilag, what"s her

name and what course does she study?"

"She didn"t tell me" the receptionist lied, not

remembering if the Unilag girl mentioned her

name. "But she"s a student of pharmacy"

"Okay, thank you very much. We"ll get back to

you if we need more information and please,

don"t hesitate to provide us with any you

remember" James concluded.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++

**5pm**

Benny grouched within himself as they drove

past the developed areas of Orugb.u.m, he

glanced at the compa.s.s application on

Tarasha"s device; they were still on track, now

very close to their new lodge. He wondered

what kind of job they came to do, which

required a desolate place like this to work from.

At five pm, they finally got to the place which

the compa.s.s was indicating; it was a large

bushy compound, with a hold rickety house in

the middle. A water well with several green

plants grown on it was at the left side of the

house. They drove in through the widely opened

rusted black gate.

Cole and Aisha also drove into the compound in

a Benz after Benny brought the truck to a halt

at a far distance from the house. The vehicles

couldn"t go close any further because of the

thick bushes that had grown in front of the

house.

Tarasha was the first to jump down from the

truck, she placed her both hands on her waist,

turning round as she surveyed the place with

her eyes. She walked to Cole and Aisha,

demanding that the boot of their car be opened.

Her request was granted immediately, Cole

came out of the car to join her, Benny was also

trudging towards them.

Tarasha brought out three tools bags from

booth, dropping them on the floor. She opened

one which contained machetes and some other

clearing equipments.

"I believe you know the reason we need this

now" she said smiling, motioning Cole and Benny

to grab their tools. "Make a clear path to the

entrance of the house

Benny and Cole obeyed the order while Tarasha

opened another bag, a bigger one. She brought

out some satellite devices and scattered them

on the floor, carefully selecting the ones she

needed . Aisha came to join her.

"We"ve got no foodstuffs here, start making a

list of everything we need. Someone would go

to the town with you to get them" Tarasha said

to Aisha. She picked up another machete and

put some of the devices in an empty bag, then

she proceeded to the various sections of the

compound she had already selected to install

the GPS and network devices, clearing the way

with the machete as she walked.

They all converge where there vehicles were

parked after completing their tasks. All looked

dirty except for Aisha, who as a result lost

confidence to talk them about eating seeing

their condition.

"We need water " Tarasha stated an obvious

fact.

"I have only little water here" Aisha said, she

opened the car and brought out a 100cl bottle

of water

"We need more" Cole said sharply after taking a

glance at the bottle.

"There"s a well over there" Benny joined, pointing

to the left side where the well was.

"What do we use to fetch from it?" Cole

questioned.

"Let"s check the house" Benny replied him, "we

may be lucky to find something to use"

With that, the group proceeded into the house

except for Cole who went to first inspect the

well.

The entrance door gave way easily to a soft kick

from Tarasha. The sitting room had been taken

over by cobwebs, dusts and several other

impure particles. The black turned grey old

fashioned sofas had already become a habitat

for little flying insects. Red headed lizards,

c.o.c.kroaches, ants and rats of various sizes

were also seen sprinting in different directions

for safety as the group walked in.

A look of disgust appeared on Benny and

Aisha"s faces while Tarasha remained

indifferent. The chaotic condition of the house

was little compared to several other situations

she had experienced during her training, so it

didn"t mean much to her.

"The water in the well is so dirty, I don"t think…

" Cole was saying as he walked in through the

entrance, he stopped abruptly on noticing the

condition in which the house was. He gave a

prolonged whistle and stood dumbfounded,

forgetting temporarily about the need for water.

"Huh? What tha h.e.l.l is wrong?" Tarasha slammed

glancing at their faces one after the other, she

turned to Aisha. "Where"s the list I asked you to

make?"

"Here is it" Aisha handed a piece of paper to

her.

After scanning through the list, she spoke out,

"by now you guys should understand why I

asked us to bring a lot of things you thought

are going to be useless. I"m going to town it

some of the things we need, you guys should

clean up this place for us to sleep tonight"

"I thought you said I"ll go with someone" Aisha

cried as Tarasha folded the paper and tucked it

in her pocket.

"Yea, I changed my mind. I"m going now, you

stay with Cole and Benny and help them clean

this place" Tarasha smirked, she stretched out

her palm to Cole, demanding for something.

Cole understood and handed her the car keys

before she could voice out her demand, "are you

going like this, you look dirty?"

"I can clean up with the water Aisha has" she

answered. "I"ll get more water for everyone"s

use tonight"

"Tonight?" Benny stressed, "you"re talking about

tonight only, does that mean we"re leaving here

tomorrow? Won"t we use water for the rest of

our stay here?"

"We"ll have to dig out a new source of water

tomorrow or better still clean up that old well"

She replied calmly, smiling as she looked at

their faces.