The Murder on St Anthony Street

The water in the kettle on fire was drying up and Sarah had been dead for several hours before we came to understand the gravity of the situation on our hands.

I have always been a big fan of crime stories and mysterious tales. Stories that display the criminal nature of humans interest me a lot. But there is a borderline to my fascination, and it’s when stories become close-up, real-life events. I would never get a thrill out of seeing crimes play out before me. For the fact that I had little to no experience with such horrific events before, I couldn’t fathom the possibility. That was my belief until the cold murder of Omolara happened on that early Saturday morning.

My father got a government job after twelve years of trying and that single event sprung up a series of domino effects , including us relocating to Obatola town. There was insufficient budget to acquire a house that befitted my father’s new position, so we moved to the oldest storey building on Anthony Street in Obatola. That grizzled building was the last surviving of the sixty blocks of a two-storey housing project executed by the defunct government of Ogun state. The 59 other blocks had either been bought off by private buyers or completely demolished. Ours was still standing not-so-strong.

Peeled paints and thick brown leaky roofs were the standout features of our house. Our house stood as a physical representation of the past. Each floor had two apartments and that made four occupants in all — the down floor had Mrs. Ayedun and her children in one flat while Mummy Dayo occupied the other, top floor had my family and Maikudi, who lived alone, staying in the other.

Sarah Omolara Ayedun was my friend. The first child of her family; a family of three that lived from hand to mouth, every day. They stayed downstairs. Due to the demise of her husband, Mrs. Ayedun played the role of two over her children — Sarah (16) and Abiodun (9).

Sarah, as I preferred to call her, was my closest friend. She was in the same class as me. We would go to school together and make the return trip together, all afoot. Her mother sold fried fish by the roadside at Oja Oba. Iya Omolara did not have the wherewithal to rent a modest shop of her own, so she arranged her big bowls and frying pots under Iya Onigarri’s GLO umbrella.

Every day, after school hours, we would always stop at her shop where she would always serve us garri and small crumbs of fried fish. We loved our special afternoon meals like that. After having my portion, I would press on to the house while Sarah would take over frying and sales from her 63-year-old mother. They would do that till about past seven in the evening. It was a rigorously consistent cycle in her everyday life.

In school, Sarah frequented the library like someone on a mission. There were only two places Sarah could be found within the school premises — the classroom and the library. She had a special fondness for books. She led our class with very impressive margins, giving her closest competitor, Adewale, a run for his money and the rest of us grasping for breath. Sarah saw 96% as insufficient. She saw 89% as a failure. She was that brilliant.

But it was not her love for science that left the rest of us in awe, it was her affinity for broader knowledge. Omolara read on anything and everything. She knew history as much as Chemistry. She knew politics and religion as much as Biology. You can imagine a scientist telling you who the immediate past and present president of Bolivia is — that was who she was; she had the range in knowledge.

Omolara’s feet knew their way to the library. I marveled at how such a burdened girl could make time to study that hard. Teachers, students, other library visitors, and neighbors had all taken cognizance of her; she was a shooting star.

I could attribute my beyond-average academic performance to Omolara who was a year younger. She was enthusiastic about life and knew exactly where she was headed.

Sarah’s hygiene was top-notch; her hair never stank, and her nails were always clean. She was a shining light in her family. She was a leader. She always toted her brother along on her journey to become a great person. Abiodun’s life was a direct reflection of Omolara’s indelible influence. He was the most composed nine-year-old I’d seen anywhere.

It was Omolara who taught me that it was not what people said that mattered, that what mattered was what they did. She knew too much for her age. She had too much wisdom for her financial reality. Poverty could only deprive Omolara of money, she had every other invaluable asset in place.

Time spent with Omolara would guarantee personality changes. I started communicating thoughts and feelings that I had never previously paid attention to, and I did so with unrivaled wisdom. I didn’t see her as a classmate and neighbor anymore, at that point, I was quietly tipping on the verge of fandom.

Every afternoon at her mother’s roadside shop, she would always help me with my assignments. Fair enough, she was the genius. She usually would work out everything in my book, and then go home to rewrite hers. Sarah often helped seniors with their Further Mathematics assignments, too.

Her mother and my parents were inseparable friends. My father would sometimes help her with her shop materials on his Scooter motorcycle in the morning on his way to the Ministry of Environment where he worked as a level 7 civil servant. Aside from pointing out the damage that too much garri could bring to my eyes, my mother had no problem whatsoever with my daily afternoon soakings. She would always quietly admit that Mrs. Ayedun was only relieving her after all. She said I ate too much, that the food in the house was been preserved.

Life was all good for us, and we lived in utmost contentment. But the whole world came crumbling in an instant the day we found Sarah lying lifeless at the back of the house.

That Saturday was supposed to be a special day of reward for Sarah. The principal of our school had promised to set up a meeting between her and some representatives from the Ministry of Education. There was a scholarship slot that had been specially reserved for the genius in our school. The governor had taken knowledge of this exceptional being and was fully determined to acknowledge her excellence.

The principal had called Omolara to his office about two weeks before the day to inform her of the governor’s move. She was asked to come in the company of only one person, and that person would have automatically been her mother. But Abiodun had been under the weather for days, so Mrs. Ayedun had to take him to her sister, who was a practicing nurse, for proper treatment. They were not due back until Sunday evening which left Sarah as the sole occupant of their flat.

She told me on Friday that her mother would not be able to make it with her to school on Saturday, she asked if I could go with her and there was no way on God’s green earth that I was going to turn down such an honorable request.

On came Saturday, I stepped out into the young morning and walked briskly with my heart playing sweet music. This could be the day that Omolara would have her biggest win and I was too hyped for her. She had worked for this moment and this was going to be one of those days that we can proudly call the day of her life.

The first few hours from 4 am beginning were as serene as you would have imagined. The only sound that disrupted the early morning calm was the intermittent loud crows of Mummy Dayo’s notorious cockerel which we had no issue with. Mummy Dayo was a friendly woman. She was the only reason we got to be familiar with television growing up as she was the only tenant that owned one and she never restricted us from coming in every Thursday evening to catch up on our favorite TV show. She also promised Sarah and me each of the chicken wings if our results met the required standard; Sarah was already used to gifts from different angles but then, I was in a race for my first academic-induced gift.

Another sound that joined with the chicken to alter the peace of the early morning was that of an elderly woman from the church down the street.

‘Give your life to Jesus today! Tomorrow may be too late, don’t postpone your salvation!’

Ring! Ring!

‘For the Bible says what shall it profit a man if he…’

It was not her first time doing the Lord’s work at such a time of the day. She would wear her complete white dress and put an off-white cardigan on top to offset the harsh cold breeze of the young morning. This bearer-of-good-news would not mind gainsayers in their attempts to put her off but instead, she would quietly turn the other cheek.

The time was 6:48 am and the meeting had been scheduled for 7:30 am. I wondered what had kept Sarah from filling the air with the fragrance of her perfume already. I thought by that time she would have climbed upstairs to hurry me up.

I put on a pair of black trousers that I had intended for the day with my white undersized singlet. With my hair as disheveled as a barrister’s wig, I stepped out to the balcony to peep downstairs, perhaps Omolara would be in sight. Being careful not to disturb any slumbering neighbor, I quietly took the steps to check her out.

Everywhere was unusually quiet. The stillness in those minutes was scary. I knocked on her door repeatedly but there was no response. Though I could hear the whistling sound from the kettle on fire; she couldn’t have gone too far.

‘She probably just went on an errand for her mother, maybe she would shout my name as usual by the time she got back to see how fast time had left her behind’ I explained to myself further.

But as I was about to take the first step up the stairs, something caught my attention. My left leg was still on the step as I stood wondering what it was. I had the most unusual nudge to check out the back of the house.

As I went around the staircase to the back of the building, I looked straight towards Maikudi’s generator spot and my eyes caught the most shocking image of my life. I saw Sarah’s legs muddled up in the black-oily sand on the very spot where Maikudi would always situate his better-pass-my-neighbor generator.

I halted my steps. I stood stagnated and looked from meters away. On any other day, I would have thought it was two logs of wood that I was seeing. But I knew what Omolara’s feet looked like.

Right there on my feet, I froze. A cloud fell on me. My body began vibrating. My palms had become sweaty. I couldn’t think of what to do.

Three slow steps forward and I caught a full glance of my friend lying in a pool of blood and murky, oily water. In a second, I ran to her and grabbed her, lifted her head and immediately let out the loudest scream that would ever come from my mouth. It was so loud that the echoes of my yell resonated through acres of space across Obatola.

Her eyes were not shut, they were directed at me. She had a mild smile on her face. Nothing about her expression showed that she was dead. She didn’t look dead to me at all.

‘Sarah, please get up’ I begged her with passion.

‘I beg you in the name of God’

‘God please let her stand up’

I kept saying whatever my mouth could find to say — I was not thinking straight at all.

My noise eventually smoked everyone out of their rooms. Maikudi was the first to arrive on the scene, followed by the ever-helpful Mummy Dayo. They had appearances like people who had not seen the light of the day before hasting out of their rooms at that moment.

Within a minute, there were over 20 people on the scene. My mum held me back from the body when it seemed like no one could detach me from her. Mummy Dayo rushed back inside and appeared again in a flash but this time with a blue lace cloth to drape the body, it covered the upper part of her body, leaving her legs in full display.

By that time, I was already drenched in thoughts. I remember looking down at my legs and wondering if it would look exactly like that if entangled in blood and oil and I no longer have the responsive stimulus to clean up.

Mum rushed to a phone booth to call my Dad. He rushed in in less than 15 minutes. Everyone was in utter shock and disbelief. What was most confusing was how they were going to break the news to her mother.

Time passed and the cause of her death was not discovered. It was mooted not long after that she was a victim of rape. It was said that two boys — Benny and his cousin’s brother, Emeka — were culpable for her rape and death.

The news of her death was not set free. There was no social media to propagate the news like we have now. No mobile phones with cameras either. Pieces of evidence that proved how devastating her story was were non-existent; they were locked up in the minds of only those who saw her body with their two eyes.

No justice whatsoever, instead, Sarah became a folklore for every growing girl in town. Her story became a lesson for girls and teenagers who loved explorations beyond permissible lines.

Mothers began to remind their non-challant children of The murder on St Anthony Street. It became a popular point of reference. Her death was a common maxim that parents used to poleax bad habits from their children.

Do you want to go out this night? Do you want to wear that skirt? Have you forgotten The Smart Girl on St Anthony Street? Don’t be unwise; it’s a cruel world we live in.

Eventually, we heard that Emeka was involved in a crash that happened along the Sokoto — Badagry road. He was the only fatality in the accident — it felt like a befitting comeuppance if you ask me.

Mrs. Ayedun and Abiodun moved out of the apartment four months after the incident. We didn’t hear from them again ever since. We can only hope that Abiodun has gone on to do greater things for the sake of his mother because the condition they were in when they left was dire. They could only survive by God’s divine intervention, and I deeply hope they found it.