The name was a whisper in the wind, a ghost in the hum of the city: Dayo. Ifeyinwa repeated it to herself, a mantra in the silence of her car. It was the only tangible thing she had, a thread leading from the depths of a five-year-old lie to the present. The Omololu family had tried to bury it all—the truth, the victims, the unwilling accomplice—but they had failed. Ifeyinwa, the girl who heard what was forgotten, was the proof.
Her architectural mind, so used to building from the ground up, now found itself in the business of demolition. She had to deconstruct a lie, brick by painful brick. Her first step was a search, not for a building, but for a person. A ghost named Dayo. She started with what she had seen in her vision: the tattoo, the terrified face, the old truck. The tattoo, she realized, was a traditional Yoruba symbol for resilience, Apoo , often worn by people who have faced and overcome great hardship. It was a common symbol, but in combination with the other details, it was a starting point.
Back in her office, Ifeyinwa ignored the buzzing phone and the pending emails. Her focus was singular, her resolve absolute. She began her search online, digging through social media, old news articles, and public records databases. She searched for anyone named Dayo with a connection to the Omololu family, but the name was too common. She added more keywords to her search: "Omololu construction," "truck driver," "Lekki incident," and "Chidi Omololu." The results were a sea of irrelevant links, a frustrating digital dead end. The hum of the city was no help now; it was filled with too many voices, too many false leads.
She needed to do something different. She needed to go off the grid. If the Omololus had been powerful enough to bury a murder, they would have been powerful enough to erase a truck driver from the internet. She thought of her aunt, Nnenna, a journalist who had spent her life uncovering the hidden truths of the city. Nnenna had said the city had a long memory, and Ifeyinwa knew she was right. The echoes were in the streets, in the markets, and in the faces of the people who lived there. She needed to listen to the living, not just the dead.
She drove to the bustling heart of Lagos Island, a place where the old and new collided in a vibrant, chaotic symphony. The air was thick with the smells of fried plantains, grilled fish, and the exhaust from countless motorbikes. The echoes here were a thousand times stronger, a beautiful and terrifying mosaic of lives lived. She walked through a labyrinth of narrow streets, her eyes and ears open. She looked for a tattoo, a face, a story. She walked for hours, her feet aching, her mind a blur of information. She listened to the vendors haggling, the children playing, the men arguing over a football match. She heard the echoes of past conversations, of forgotten secrets, but nothing about a truck driver named Dayo. She was about to give up when she saw an old man sitting on a crate, his face a roadmap of a long life lived. He was a mechanic, surrounded by a mess of tools and rusted car parts.
Ifeyinwa approached him, her heart thumping in her chest. She needed to be careful, to not give too much away. "Good afternoon, Baba," she said, her voice soft and respectful. The old man looked up, his eyes a tired, cloudy grey. "I'm looking for someone. A man named Dayo. He used to work for a construction company, Omololu Construction."
The old man's face, which had been a mask of indifference, now shifted. A flash of something—fear, recognition, or both—crossed his eyes. "Many Dayos in this city, my dear," he said, his voice a low rasp. "Many men work for many construction companies. It is a big city."
Ifeyinwa pressed on, her voice filled with a desperate urgency. "He was a driver. An old truck. He had a tattoo on his arm, a symbol for strength." She drew the symbol on a piece of paper she had in her purse. The old man looked at it, his hand trembling slightly. He looked at Ifeyinwa, then looked away, his gaze falling on the busy street. "He is not here. He is… gone."
His voice held a finality that chilled her. She knew he was lying, but she didn't know why. She had to make him talk. "I'm not a police officer. I'm not here to hurt him. I'm here to help. I am a victim of the Omololus. My family too." The word victim seemed to break through his defenses. His eyes, which had been so guarded, softened. He looked at her again, and this time, she saw a flicker of empathy.
"The Omololus… their power is like a net," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "It catches everyone. The man you are looking for… he is a good man. He did what he had to. They threatened his family. They threatened to make them disappear. He ran. He changed his name. He is gone."
The old man's words confirmed her suspicions. Dayo was a victim, a man forced into an impossible choice. He hadn't just disappeared; he had been erased. The Omololus were not just powerful; they were terrifying. They didn't just kill; they destroyed lives, families, and histories. She had to find him. She had to give him a voice.
She felt a new kind of echo in the air now, a new voice. It was not a voice of the past, but a voice of a man living in fear. A voice she had to find. The old man gave her a new name, a name that was not Dayo, but a name that would lead her to him. A name she would now have to follow into the dark underbelly of the city. He also gave her the location of a bar where Dayo had been last seen.
Ifeyinwa thanked the old man and gave him some money. She didn't want to leave. But he shooed her away. "Go," he said, his voice a whisper. "The city has many eyes. They are watching. You have to be careful." The old man's warning was clear. The Omololus were still watching. The past was not just a memory. It was a present danger. She had to find Dayo before they did. The race was on.