It started with an accident or so they say. The driver and the Minister were making their way to a function when two vendors approached their vehicle. It was at night. They were selling groundnuts according to the Driver’s statement, but he’s not sure. The lights had turned red and they had to slow down. One man hit his side mirror and the he heard a loud bang bang bang bang. When he stepped on it he realized that the Minister was already dead his blood pooling the seat and pieces of glass all over the vehicle.
Geoffrey went through his notes again.
He had a meeting with the Editor in an hour, but he still had nothing to prove his suspicions.
Why did the men ambush and kill the Minister? Why did the Driver go on a trip two weeks after talking to him? He looked at the word document before him, the cursor blinked at him but he had nothing to type. He’d followed every lead he had on the case. He even made a few friends in the police force, but nothing came out of the late night meetings and cryptic whatsapp messages.
The Driver had said, “You should stop looking! Listen, what I know is that he was a good man, an honest one,okay not as much but compared to all those Mweshimiwas we have running around, he was good. And for someone to do that to him was wrong. I have a family and for them to hear I was killed would hurt me, but there’s something else that happened that night. His other team was held up. We had to go to the Civil Society Award function and in the last minute all his guards were withdrawn, like something came up.”
“Didn’t he have his  own bodyguards?”
“He did, but since he’d pressed for action about the drug cartels at the parliament,his life was in danger. He said it on TV. Then he got called and he was assigned six bodyguards, now on that night, all six were suddenly called apparently to attend some state function, but the thing is there was no function that night!”
“I see, and who called them?”
“Hey, I have said enough, but those are just my thoughts now please, stop this, because you won’t find anything. Hawa watu watakutema kama mate na kisha wakukanyage kama mende. Go home, let the police investigate.”
“Wait, I have one last question. Please!”
“Okay.”
“Did he ever tell you anything about the information he had on the drug cartels in Kenya? Especially something about the issue at the port last year and the death of a certain Mr. Musila?”
“No, he never told me anything about that, but it’s funny that these people beg for our votes, they even buy our mothers lessos and sugar, and they come home and promise us our own dreams, and when they hold that Bible and cross the podium to sit on those state seats made by prisoners, they suddenly become exterminators. Do you know what they call anyone who questions them? Mende. And you know what you do to cockroaches, so if I were you, I would write about some pastor caught sleeping with a parishioner and wait for my salary.”
“The cockroaches have to be such a nuisance for them to be exterminated you know. Thank you.”
“Good bye, Mwanahabari.”

He thought of their conversation and felt like there was more to it than he got. The Minister’s death was a distraction and now time was running out on the issue he dealt with. The parliament talked of insecurity in the country and the  police were called to be vigilant in ensuring no one was attacked in traffic. The Minister had been buried a day his family still mourned, but no one talked about the drug business.
He looked up at his screen and hit CTRL+A then hit the delete button.

The story did not begin with the Minister’s death, it began with fear. He knew he could look into the Minister’s report which had been  tabled at the parliament and then pick it up from there. As he opened his browser for details on this story his Editor called him. He smiled and walked into that office aware of the  eyes on him and the murmurs. Fear kept them in their seats, but it did not deny them sleep, but for the sake of that Driver who had probably been murdered after talking to him he knew he had to do something.
If he died, at least he shall have tried.
Isn’t that why there were more pawns in the game of Chess?

As he took the seat offered to him, his Editor adjusted his glasses and said, “Geoffrey, I want you to look into a story. A fresh insight might be helpful, there’s something going on in our prisons, and you’re the man  for it.”
“Can I do it after the story on the Minister?”
“No, you’ll hand over your sources and notes to Jael.”
“Yes, Sir.”