JIJI NDOGO: Sophia left clues of disappearance

Dear Makini,

Our man marriage is staling because you crossed words with another woman. I see us stuck between ending up dead or worse.

So, I have decided to leave fore ever.

Don’t look for me. Sophie.

When I say the note is a clue, my seniors don’t agree with me. Not right away, at least.

“We all agree she wrote the note in a hurry,” says Snr Inspector Simon Noklu, who is leading the investigation. “How can typos be clues?”

I had already told them there was no way Sophia would write “fore ever” unless she had a gun to her head, so to speak. Now I analyse the note deeper.

“I don’t think she wrote the word ‘man’ by mistake,” I say.

“But she struck through it,” the Inspector says.

“That’s the point. It’s still there and I believe it’s a clue saying she was abducted by a man. And I think there’s another clue in there, in the sentence ‘I see us stuck between ending up dead or worse’. That has nothing to do with us, as in me and her. I think she means there is an ‘s’ stuck—”

“An ‘s’ stuck between dead or worse?” the Inspector interrupts. “How does that make sense?”

Inspector Tembo, my boss and Sophia’s father, is scrutinising the note and has caught on. “Maybe he’s on to something,” he says. “The first letters of the words ‘dead’ and ‘worse’ are the same as the words ‘crossed’ and ‘words’ in the second line of the note.”

“So what?” asks Inspector Noklu. “You stick an ‘s’ in there and you get what – ‘crossed s words’? And that is supposed to make sense how?”

“The only thing that makes sense,” I say, “are the words ‘crossed swords’.”

Inspector Noklu shakes his head. “That still means nothing and I think we’re only wasting time here.”

I look to my boss, because since he’s seen it my way, I would rather the next bit of information comes from him.

“What Sgt Makini is trying to say is,” says Inspector Tembo, “in her note, Sgt Sophia is telling us the man who is responsible wears uniform bearing the crossed swords insignia.”

Noklu’s face goes solemn. He’s finally realised what I’m implying. “Let me get this straight. Are you insinuating that Sgt Sophia was kidnapped by either the Inspector General, the Deputy Inspectors General, the Senior Assistant Inspector General or the Assistant Inspector General?”

“Well,” I say, choosing my words carefully, “only the AIG is at the meeting.”

Inspector Noklu tries to say something, then he starts laughing. “You’re not serious, are you? You want me to accuse the Assistant Inspector General of Police of kidnapping a low-ranking female sergeant at a police convention?”

Inspector Tembo sees red. “The fact that she’s a female means diddly. She’s missing and she left these clues.”

“She’s also your daughter,” Noklu erupts. “So you cannot be expected to be objective. You should stay out of this.”

“With all due respect sir,” I say, “my boss has a point. The other clue she left, the lipstick in bed, we had been fighting over her re-applying make up in bed after we… you know.

“The last day of that fight, she told me she was under Witness Protection for a case against fellow officers. I think the AIG has something to do with it.”

NEXT WEEK: I’m in hot water with the AIG.