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Three gentlemen,
smartly dressed in black suits and sunglasses, came upon a house. It was a
three bedroom bungalow. The house was in the middle of a paved compound and was
fenced with brick walls. The house looked abandoned, spooky, and puzzling. They
walked around the house taking notes and making references. When they got to
the back, three old metal cabinets stood abandoned with a litter of paper lying
around them. They thought little of the litter and moved on. Having gone round
the house, they stopped at the front door which was ajar and one of them knocked.
Pushing the door open, a boy in his early twenties appeared without his shirt on. He was putting on only shorts. The men introduced themselves and showed him a search warrant. Without uttering a word, the boy allowed them in without any resistance.
The smell in
house was tangible, stale, humid, and with an unnerving odour. They turned and
looked at the boy when the smell filled their nostrils. “What on earth goes on
in here?” they quietly asked themselves, as they put on hand gloves. The boy
innocently followed them as they strolled around inspecting the house. He was
obviously just a house keeper. They went through the different rooms which were
mostly empty. Medium sized wooden beds were in the rooms. The beddings were
unkempt and looked ragged. The odour they had perceived was stronger in the
rooms. With empty wardrobes and no litter, they didn’t know exactly what to
look out for. The toilets were the source of the unnerving odour they
perceived. They gasped for air when they opened any of the toilet doors. It was
obvious the house had an insufficient supply of water. Whatever happened in the
house was usually carried out quickly after which the house was abandoned. They
turned to the boy. Surely, he was going to tell them everything they wanted to
know. He stared at them with the innocence and curiosity of a toddler.
As they stood in
the empty living room, they beckoned the boy over. When they asked what the
house was for, the boy stared at them without a word. The men became cautious.
They perceived resistance and adjusted their positions thinking the boy might
take flight. The most senior of the three men asked the boy again, and moved
closer to him this time. The boy seemed unmoved and stared at them with even
more curiosity. Patience soon ran out. One of the men held the boy by the arm
and shook him vigorously while he asked the same question. The boy mumbled out gibberish
incoherently. The boy was deaf and dumb.
Through several
attempts of unorthodox sign language, the men were able to communicate their
question about the owner of the house. At that moment, one of the men opened a
door close to the entrance into the house. It was another toilet. After
overcoming the first pong, he peered into the small toilet with his nose and
mouth covered with his palm. After sighting what appeared to be the cover of a
double pill, he called the attention of the other men. They all saw the pill
cover close to the toilet seat. They collected the item and it was inspected. Several
nods after inspecting the item confirmed they had come upon the first tangible
evidence that something sinister went on in that house. They turned to the boy
again, and this time, they were more forceful and careless with the sign
language. The boy waved signs of denial and kept pointing towards the backyard.
Curiously, the men paced behind the boy as he quickly made his way to the
backyard. The boy took them to the three cabinets they had overlooked earlier.
They gestured to
the boy to stand aside without moving. One after the other, the cabinets were
pulled out and inspected. They only found some flimsy squeezed up pieces of
paper which revealed irrelevant information. Frustration began to grow on their
patience and the boy sensed it. The boy bent down quickly and started turning over
pieces of paper which had almost being buried in dirt. The men paid him little
attention and began to discuss their next strategy. Suddenly, the boy started
mumbling again and he gave a piece of paper to one of them. The boy chose the
man who shook his hands earlier. The paper was long beaten and had been worn
thin by weather elements. The man who received it held it with some care and
placed it on top of one of the cabinets. It was an overseas money transfer
receipt. It carried the name of what appeared to be a hotel in Paris and there
was a name on it. The name of the hotel was ‘Gotrede Pitch’, and the man who
made the transfer had a name they had come across before in their
investigation. He was the owner of the property they sought after.
The item they
found in the toilet was a notorious pill used by people who trafficked young
women abroad. The pill weakens female subjects and makes them vulnerable to
sexual advances. The pill made women unable to conceive after intercourse
without condom, eliminating the risk of pregnancies in the trade of sexual
abuse and trafficking. The men were special investigators that had been on the
trail of a notorious trafficking gang, and that dead piece of paper found by a
deaf and dumb boy who may have been intentionally planted in the house, had
finally provided vital clues for the first time. Any hurried intentions disappeared.
The men immediately called for a professional sign language interpreter and
some backup.
When backup
arrived, a comprehensive search was conducted. The house was turned upside
down. Apart from finger prints and beddings stained with fluids, very little
else was revealed. However, the professional interpreter gained ground with the
boy. The boy revealed some information about the rate at which young women were
brought in and taken out. The practice had stopped for some time now the boy
revealed. However, the boy couldn’t say exactly how long. He too was a victim
of trafficking but was abandoned when it was discovered he was deaf and dumb.
He goes out to beg for food in the day time, and comes back to the house to
rest his body at night. The investigators
went into a small meeting and paid no further attention to the boy for a while.
By the time they needed the boy again, he had disappeared. He may have played a
script all along, and had run away into dusk. The house was cordoned off and
put under surveillance.
Back at the
office, the transfer receipt handed to them by the boy was investigated, and was
discovered to be authentic. Why would the boy hand them evidence about his
master and run away? This baffled them. They made arrangements with contacts in
Paris and prepared for a trip to Paris. Few days later, a phone call informed
them that the boy’s corpse had been found. He was strangled to death. A sad end
indeed. The murder of the boy provided further motivation for the detectives. They
left for Paris without delay, for the arrow-head they sought after may have
been put on alert.
Paris was filled
with its usual fanfare. Every day was party. They checked into a hotel close to
Gotrede Pitch under various aliases. They monitored the place for days and
collected several photographs which they analysed with intelligence officers
from Paris. They however could not tell who the owner was. They needed to force
out the owner soon or they may hit a dead-end again. It was time to make a bold
move. One of them dressed casually and entered Gotrede Pitch one evening to
look around. It was a club. An exquisite club. A well decorated club with so
many VIP rooms. The man noticed some armed guards located strategically. The
dance floor was railed with extravagant lightings, and an impenetrable crowd
remained on the dance floor. The blast of music was deafening. The man
patiently made his way through the crowd on the dance floor and into the VIP
area. There were several rooms. Each room had a green and red bulb by the door.
Some rooms had red bulbs on and some others had green bulbs on. There was a
door at the end of the corridor. A big brown wooden door with carved images on
it. The man used his discretion and opened one of the doors with the green
light on.
The door opened
and revealed a colourful interior with an upholstery chair. He went
in and sat down. A poster on the wall with explicit sexual content explained
the services available. There was a maiden behind a dark tinted glass in front
of him. He looked around for closed circuit cameras but found none. He inserted
the amount requested for full private service into a slot machine by the chair.
Soon after, light music streamed down from some overhead speakers and the lights
behind the dark tinted glass came on. The maiden on the other side of the glass
door was a goddess. Dressed in only lingerie, she had a litter of jewellery to
match her fiery makeup. To the man’s excitement, the glass opened and she
actually came out. She wiggled and wriggled slowly mimicking the movement of a
snake before she rested her huge waist on his laps. Her perfume was heavenly. As
she continued her very tempting dance, he whispered into her ears, “I am here
to take you back home.” She brusquely stopped, and in one sweeping motion, she
grabbed all his private package in one firm palm grip. “Don’t play with me and
be careful with your answers.” “Who are you, and what do you want?” She spoke
so softly that the words gently sailed into the man’s ears. He knew she was serious. After a hard swallow,
he looked straight at her, and in a flurry, revealed everything about him and
his mission. She stood up and told him to leave or he would end up dead like
all who had come before him. He told her they killed the deaf and dumb boy and
assured her it would be different this time. He told her that he was only there
to ask about the owner and possibly get a description. “He never comes out of
that room at the end of the corridor. The door is always locked. I think he has
another way out which he uses. I have only seen him once, and that was the day
he raped me at the house were they held us in Nigeria before they brought us
here.” “You have to go because your time is up” she said quickly and got up.
“Wait” said the man, as he held her hand. “How many of you are here?” he asked.
She tried to smile but her smile was empty. She had been bled of all emotion.
After an instant thought session, she sadly whispered “about twenty.” She
shrugged off the man’s arm and walked back through the glass door. “What does
he look like?” the man uttered quickly before she closed the glass door. She
looked at him for a bit and said, “stocky, short, black, and with facial
marks.” The tinted glass door closed then went dark.
In the cover of darkness later that night, about
twenty women were hurried off into a bus through a secret passage way by armed
men. As what used to be their home disappeared behind them, one of the ladies
remembered a gentleman had told her earlier that evening that “it would be
different this time.” Well, not that time it seemed. “When will this end?” she thought
silently.
