The Teacher (10)
The Hunt
Bola Ogunsanya Crescent,
Magodo, Lagos
5 am
The sky was still dark but the promise of morning was already gathering at the edges of the horizon. Shayo had woken from sleep over two hours ago, still haunted by memories that returned every night no matter how hard he tried to get away from them.
His wife too had woken, roused by the rhythm of household chores and the demands of getting their daughter ready for school.
Now fully rounded with a very progressed pregnancy, she moved with the careful economy of a woman carrying both child and time, her voice soft but insistent as she reminded him of the leave that had finally come through and the shopping that could no longer wait.
He watched her braid their daughter’s hair, her fingers moving with the ease of long practice. The child’s chatter rose and fell beside them. For a few moments, everything felt ordinary.
Then Shayo went to the window. Across the narrow road, four rough looking young men lay or sat among the concrete debris of the unfinished building. They appeared to be sleeping, but something about the stillness of their bodies made him pause.
He frowned, trying to remember if their presence had been long ignored or newly arrived. When he could not decide which, he began turning away when a deeper shadow held him.
Far inside the ruined structure a solitary figure remained motionless, face angled toward the house. Then the brief orange bloom of a cigarette flared, and the man turned his back as though the gesture itself were an afterthought.
Shayo told himself it was only another of the city’s discarded, yet the certainty refused to settle. Something older than caution stirred beneath his ribs.
Beads of perspiration stood out across his face as if he were looking at his nightmare come alive.
“Shayo?”
His wife’s voice cut through the silence, startling him.
“Yes?”
“Please help me watch Bidemi. I need to take my bath.”
Shayo nodded. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and let the curtain fall as he walked back into the room. Behind him, across the road, the cigarette ember continued to light up the dark entrails of the uncompleted building. It glowed for a few seconds, then disappeared.
****************************
Several years earlier.
Lagos State University
Badagry expressway
2 pm
The afternoon sun hung low over Ojo, turning the dusty edges of the LASU campus a pale, baked brown patch of scorched earth.
Students poured through the gates in waves, some laughing in clusters, others hurrying toward waiting buses and danfos, their bags slung over shoulders, phones pressed to their ears.
Hawkers moved between the traffic, calling out snacks and sachet water. A conductor leaned halfway out of a bus, shouting destinations above the noise of engines and impatient horns.
Across the road, Tomide sat behind the wheel of a parked car with the air-conditioning switched off. He had been there for nearly an hour. The heat was sweltering but the least of his concern.
Seun sat beside him, watching the campus through the windscreen. Two other men occupied the back seat.
They were not looking for a stranger.
They already knew where the man lived.
They knew his real name, his strong name, the house number in Iyana Oba where he lived with his parents and siblings, the people he moved with and the places he frequented. But Tomide had insisted they watch him first.
They were not going to make the mistake of finding him only to lose him again. Then Seun touched Tomide’s arm.
“That’s the Jew. That’s him in blue shirt coming.”
Tomide followed his gaze. A group of young men had emerged from the campus gates. The target was in the middle of them. He wore jeans and a blue T shirt, a backpack hanging from one shoulder.
He was laughing about something one of his friends had said, completely unaware that four men had been waiting for him.
They watched as he crossed the road.
He climbed into a silver Honda CR-V with three others.
Tomide eased into traffic, following behind. The Honda moved through Ojo, joining the afternoon stream of buses, motorcycles and cars. At one point, it disappeared behind a danfo.
Tomide’s eyes remained fixed ahead, calm and unwavering. The danfo moved, giving a clear view of the CR-V. They followed it beyond the familiar bustle of the campus and onto roads where the traffic thinned.
The city gradually changed character as they drove further into Iyana Oba. Dust rose behind passing vehicles and hung briefly in the hot air before settling.
The road narrowed as more streets lined with low walls, unfinished buildings and houses tucked behind rusting gates emerged from the dust. Shops became fewer. Buildings stood farther apart. Children played beside gutters.
A woman stood outside a provision shop, pouring kerosene into a bottle. Somewhere nearby, a radio played Fuji through a speaker distorted by age.
The CR-V slowed. Tomide slowed with it. Then it turned into a compound. The target stepped out. Tomide drove past.
He did not look back until they had gone far enough.
A few minutes later, he pulled into a side street and stopped. Seun looked at him.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
Tomide killed the engine. For a moment, nobody moved. Then he opened his door. They all alighted the vehicle without saying a word. They crossed the distance quickly, first trotting and next, jogging.
The target had just entered the compound. Tomide, Seun and the others followed him. Hearing the footsteps behind, the target turned around, mild curiosity on his face. His expression changed when Tomide called him by his secret alias.
“Scorpion.”
The man spun like a startled animal and sprinted toward the door of an apartment on the ground floor of the building.
Tomide and his brothers were already moving.
The chase tore through the house in a blur of overturned furniture and frightened shouts. Scorpion disappeared down a passageway, nearly slipping as he turned. He reached a room and tried to slam the door.
Tomide got there on time. The door struck his shoulder. Using his height and strength, he shoved against the door, sending Scorpion stumbling backward.
Down the passage, a boy of about eleven stood, staring at them with frightened eyes. Tomide saw him. He pointed toward one of the rooms.
“Go inside.”
The boy didn’t move.
“Inside,” Tomide said again, his voice dropping dangerously low. The boy obeyed, leaving his cornered relative with the men who had come to extract justice.
Scorpion had backed into the bedroom. Tomide, Seun and the others had followed. Tomide spoke.
“You know why we are here.”
Scorpion’s knees buckled, but he caught himself against the wall.
“No, I don’t,” he said. His head shook quickly, almost desperately. But his eyes had already betrayed him. He knew.
“Last semester. OAU. Moremi Hall.”
Scorpion raised both hands.
“The executioner? I swear I didn’t shoot him.”
Tomide stepped closer.
“Alápa?”
“Yes. I….I didn’t kill him.”
Tomide studied his face.
“You hit the wrong man. That was not the executioner.”
“Ah! I didn’t know. And I didn’t even shoot him.”
“But you were there.”
Scorpion’s breathing became ragged.
“Please. I beg you. We were only told to go for the hit. I didn’t know anything. Please. I won’t do it again.”
Tomide looked at him for a long moment.
“You can’t kill a man twice.”
He stepped closer.
“Apologize to him when you get to the other side.”
Tomide raised the Beretta. Scorpion’s lips parted. Nothing came out. There was fear, realization, two loud pops, a recoil, and then silence.
Tomide turned away.
*******************************
Same day
Sabiu Ajose Crescent
Surulere
9:30 pm
By the time he returned to Surulere, the streets had gone dark. The house was quiet, but his aunt was waiting. She was almost always waiting now.
Since Seyi’s death, she had developed the habit of remaining awake until Tomide came home, no matter how late it was.
Sometimes she sat alone in the sitting room with the television playing a program she did not watch. Sometimes she stood behind the curtain and watched the gate.
Tonight, she was seated beneath the dim light, her hands folded tightly in her lap.
“Tomide, look at the time.”
Her voice carried irritation, but beneath it was fear. She looked at him for a long moment.
“Abi, you have joined those boys?”
He looked down at the carpeted floor.
“Tomide, have you joined those boys?” She repeated, her voice raising up a fraction. “Ṣé o fẹ́ kí ohun tó ṣẹlẹ̀ sí Seyi ṣẹlẹ̀ sí ọ?”
The name changed the room. He walked to sit beside her. Her eyes lowered.
“I am sorry. I was just out with my friends.”
His aunt’s eyes filled with tears and she looked away. She still mourned her son in small, private ways. His room remained closed most days. His clothes were still where he had left them.
Sometimes she would enter and sit on his bed, staring at nothing. She had become protective of Tomide in a way that bordered on desperation, as though the loss of one son had made the possibility of losing another unbearable.
“Just be careful Mide. You already lost your mother. We have lost Seyi. It’s too much,” she said.
Tomide squeezed her hand.
“Go and sleep.”
“Promise me you won’t follow bad boys.”
Tomide looked at her. The answer was there between them, but neither of them said it. His aunt seemed to understand anyway. She lowered her eyes, gave a tired sigh and rose from the chair.
“Just be careful, Mide.”
She walked slowly down the passage toward her bedroom. Tomide remained where he was, listening until her door closed.
Only then did he look away.
That night, sleep took him quickly. In the dark solace of dreams, the Teacher came again. He stood in a vast, colourless space. In between a line of men stretched before him. Tomide looked at them. They all wore different expressions but each had his face.
A voice came from somewhere beyond the darkness.
“Who shall go with him?”
Nobody answered.
The figures remained still. Then the Teacher stepped forward.
“I will.”
Tomide woke. Morning light was spreading across the room. He lay still for several seconds, wondering about the dream. The Teacher has become a permanent feature of his dreams but the meaning of the previous night’s dream was lost to him.
It was Saturday. The slow beat of the weekend meant there was nowhere he needed to be and nothing demanding his immediate attention. He closed his eyes in a quiet meditation which lasted for a while before reaching for his phone.
A Facebook post appeared on his screen. A photograph of an elegantly dressed woman accompanied an article celebrating her as one of the city’s finest financial minds.
Florence Fabiyi.
Tomide stared at the photograph. Something about the name caught at him. He searched. Google filled the screen with information about her career, interviews, photographs and profiles. There were three children and a husband she had been married to for two decades.
Urged by a gut instinct, he continued to click, moving from one page to the other. He found another article about her children.
One of the names stopped him. Tomide stared at the screen. He read it again. Then he sat upright.
Runner.
For months they had searched through names, addresses and fragments of information, following leads that dissolved almost as soon as they appeared. Now, without looking for him, Tomide had found the man sitting plainly in front of him on a family profile.
He looked at Florence Fabiyi’s photograph again. A successful woman. A proud mother. An ordinary photograph on an ordinary Saturday morning. And beneath it was the name they had been hunting.
He called Seun.
“How far?”
“I found him.”
“Runner.”
“How?”
Tomide explained his morning’s investigation.
“I have been thinking,” Seun said in the end. “We shouldn’t keep wasting money trailing these people. One of the brothers told me about a sharp street guy in Yaba, in an area close to my place.”
Seun told him about Abule Ijesha and its kingpin agbero. He laid out the advantages of using the urchins for their last hunt. The timing was perfect. It was time to remove the burden of constant worry from his aunt. Seun agreed and said they could rent a room in one of the houses that belonged to a family friend.
Tomide ended the call and looked again at the round happy face of the woman that beamed proudly from his phone. In her face, he saw his mother and his aunt. He felt slight pity that he shrugged off. His lips thinned.
A debt is a debt.
*****************************
Primevistas Advisors
Victoria Island
3:15 p.m.
The request came gently. Mrs Fabiyi’s assistant appeared at Tomide’s desk with a soft smile and the simple message that Madam would like to see him when he had a moment. He finished the paragraph he was reading, closed the file, and walked the short corridor to her office.
The door stood open. Afternoon light poured through the floor to ceiling glass, turning the lagoon beyond into a wide sheet of silver. Mrs Fabiyi looked up from her desk the moment he appeared and rose at once, her face brightening with genuine pleasure.
“Tomide. Come in, please come in.”
She gave him a warm smile before gesturing him into the chair opposite.
“I have been meaning to speak with you all week. I saw the final papers on the mining company, the Dare Savage account this morning. Do you know how long this firm has tried to bring a man like that through the door? And you did it. Just like that.”
She shook her head, smiling.
“I am so proud of you. You have a gift with people.”
Tomide inclined his head and smiled at the older woman.
“Thank you, Ma.”
“I have other news. Happy news. Did Sonia tell you?”
Her eyes lit with unmistakable excitement.
“I am having a party for my son who just came back home from America. He has been away for studies, and the usual things you young men do when you are finding your feet. But he is finally returning. He is coming with my grandchildren.”
She leaned forward slightly, her voice warm with anticipation.
“I want you to be there. And I was hoping we might invite Mr Savage as well, and one or two of the other clients you have brought in. It would be lovely for Joshua to meet people of substance, people who are building real things. I think you and he would get along too.”
She looked at him with open, uncomplicated affection. Tomide met her gaze and answered with the same quiet steadiness she was now accustomed to.
“I am sure Mr Savage would be happy to come.”
Mrs Fabiyi’s smile widened, delighted.
“Wonderful. I will have the details sent to you. And please, do come yourself. Joshua will be so glad to meet you.”
She stood again, walked with him to the door, and rested a light, motherly hand on his arm for a second.
“You are doing excellent work, Tomide. Keep it up. We are lucky to have you.”
He thanked her and stepped back into the corridor. For a moment he stood there, his expression unchanged.
Joshua.
The name remained in his mind as he walked back toward his desk. Behind him, Mrs. Fabiyi returned to her work, her office bright with the ordinary afternoon calm of a life untouched by what was coming.
**************************
Keffi Street
Ikoyi
8:40 p.m.
The apartment held the lingering heat of the day even as the air conditioner worked quietly against it. Outside, the evening traffic along Awolowo Road murmured like distant surf.
Inside, the only light came from a single lamp in the living room, its glow soft enough to blur the edges of things.
Sonia sat on the sofa in the same blouse and skirt she had worn since morning, one shoe kicked free, the other dangling from her toes.
The wine bottle on the table was half empty. She had told herself she was only passing the time until he arrived. She had not counted the glasses.
When the bell rang, anticipation edged with a faint, delicious nervousness fluttered low in her stomach. She rose, steadied herself against the wall for a heartbeat, and opened the door to admit Tomide.
“Sorry I got here late. Traffic,” he said.
For a moment they simply looked at each other in the half light, the air between them already charged, already remembering.
They sat. The sofa dipped beneath their combined weight. Neither spoke at first. Then her hand found his on the cushion. Their fingers brushed, hesitated, then laced together with a deliberate slowness that made her breath catch.
Like the last time.
She glanced sideways at him, a small, conspiratorial smile forming.
“I need a shower.”
He did not move. He only watched her, the warmth of his palm steady against hers. She was different from the woman she had been two weeks earlier, far more open now, less guarded about what she wanted. He knew why. Somewhere inside, he smiled at the dramatic change.
She stood, still holding his hand, and gave a gentle tug.
“Come with me.”
He rose. As they walked down the short hallway, he glanced at her, one eyebrow lifting in quiet amusement.
“Are you okay?”
A giggle escaped her, rupturing the facade of poise she had been trying to maintain since his arrival. She clamped a hand over her mouth, almost surprised by the sound herself.
“I am okay.”
He chuckled, unconvinced.
“You seem a little unsteady.”
“I am fine, really.”
She crossed to the kitchen on careful, slightly exaggerated steps.
“I bought a carton of your favourite Heineken. Look.”
He watched as she opened the refrigerator and returned with one cold can of Heineken Zero. She pressed it into his hand, then turned and headed toward the bedroom.
He followed, the soft hiss of his can opening the only sound between them.
In the bedroom the light was lower still, the city glowing faintly beyond the curtains. Sonia turned to him. The wine had loosened inhibition, caution and the careful distance she usually kept even from herself.
Her voice dropped into a softer register.
“I need to take my clothes off.”
She began to undress.
The blouse first, buttons slipping free one by one. Then the skirt, the fabric whispering down her legs.
She moved without hurry, without apology, letting him see. When only the last thin layer remained, she paused, looking at him through the gathering steam of expectation.
Tomide stayed where he was, drinking, watching. The quiet intensity of his attention felt more intimate than touch.
She moved toward the bathroom, still holding his eyes. He followed as far as the open doorway and leaned one shoulder against the frame.
His eyes never left her.
She stepped into the glass shower and turned the water on. Warmth cascaded over her shoulders. Steam rose, softening the edges of the room. Through the beaded glass, she looked at him.
“Come in.”
He laughed once, low and unhurried.
“I don’t play bathroom games. Easy to fall and break something.”
The words were dry, almost reproachful, yet the way he said them sent a small warmth through her. She smiled, unoffended, and reached for the soap.
“How was your day?” he asked.
She worked the lather slowly over one arm, then the other, her movements languid beneath the warm spray.
“Busy.”
Soap slid along the inside of her wrist.
“Mrs Fabiyi called me in this afternoon.”
Her hands moved to her collarbone, tracing slow, glistening circles.
“Her son is back to Nigeria.”
Tomide took another drink.
“She’s bought him a nice house in Lekki Phase One,” Sonia said.
Tomide’s attention shifted almost imperceptibly.
“Where?”
Sonia smiled through the steam.
“Why? You want to visit?”
He gave her a look that made her laugh.
“I am only asking.”
She told him the location, describing the quiet street, the layout of the house and the waterfront beyond it. Tomide said nothing. He listened, storing each detail without appearing to.
Sonia continued speaking, unaware that the conversation had ceased to be casual for him.
“She’s having a party for them. She asked if you would come. She wants you and some of the firm’s clients there.”
She rinsed the last of the soap from her skin, the water running clear now.
“Will you be there?”
He set the can down on the sink countertop near him and reached for the towel folded on the rail. He held it open just as she stepped out of the shower.
“She already invited me.”
Water still beaded along her shoulders. She took the towel from him but did not wrap it around herself at once. Instead, she stepped into the narrow space between his body and the doorframe, close enough to feel the warmth of him through his shirt.
She rose onto her toes and kissed him.
The kiss was slower than the first night, deeper, carrying the accumulated weight of waiting and the new permission they had given each other.
Her hands moved over his chest, down the hard plane of his stomach, feeling the solid warmth of him. He answered without hurry, one hand settling at the small of her back, steadying her as the last of the day’s careful distance dissolved between them.
Then the restraint broke entirely.
They moved together toward the bed in a sudden, shared urgency, mouths still joined, hands finding skin, the towel falling forgotten to the floor, until the only light left was the soft glow of the city beyond the windows and the only sound was the quiet, urgent language of two people who had discovered how easily desire could make strangers of them to themselves.
*****************************
Lavender Suites
Off Admiralty Way
Lekki Phase One
9:25 p.m.
The three bedroom shortlet apartment sat only a few streets from the house his mother had prepared for them, close enough that the same salt wind reached both buildings, carrying the low, restless breath of the Atlantic.
Joshua sat alone on the narrow balcony, a glass of dark red wine cradled in his hands. Behind him the flat was quiet. His wife and the children had gone to bed an hour earlier, jet lagged and deep in the heavy sleep of travellers.
Beyond the railing the ocean stretched black and endless. Distant ships rode at anchor, their lights trembling like small, uncertain stars. The shoreline curved away in a long dark arc, the same shoreline he had known as a boy, only busier now, more restless.
High rises had risen where empty plots once slept. New roads cut clean lines through what used to be sand and scrub. Yet the essential texture of the city remained unchanged: the thick night air that clung to the skin, the low mechanical heartbeat of generators, the sense that Lagos never truly slept, only shifted its weight from one restless foot to the other.
He lifted the glass and drank. The wine was good, but it could not quiet the thought that had begun to circle.
If so little had changed on the surface, why would the deeper currents be any different?
He looked out across the lagoon again.
Somewhere in the darkness, a vessel sounded its horn.
Joshua closed his eyes.
Ife.
Moremi Hall.
Then the memory was gone, leaving only the night, the dark water and the distant lights of the city.
He opened his eyes and finished his wine.
© Umari Ayim.
2026