Tony, a young entrepreneur, has experienced serious HR challenges in his business of just a little over one year. On-going investigation has revealed that this HR challenges which manifested in thefts of small quantities of his company products and then a large consignment worth over N3 million is not limited to only the prime suspect- his former operations manager. Interestingly, the man’s wife and her twin sister are directly involved in the robberies at Tony’s company.
So, Tony, his childhood friend and security expert, Kale, two policemen and two detectives are in the interrogation room of a police station listening to how the plot that led to the robbery in Tony’s company evolved.
They have just learnt that after committing a robbery at the bank where she worked, Anthonia, twin sister to Balogun’s wife had swapped with her sister. The police checked the twin sister’s fingerprints with the ones at the scene of the robbery and to the surprise of the bank staff, the finferprints did not match hers. They never knew she had an identical twin sister now acting as impostor.
Balogun, Tony’s former operations manager says, “She was also thoroughly investigated but the police concluded that she was not involved in the robbery.”
“Of course,” says Kale. Remember they were interrogating the twin sister who was definitely not part of the robbery and they did not know the real culprit had a twin sister.” Kale turns to Balogun’s wife. “I am sure you must have looked them straight in the eye and told them confidently you knew nothing about the robbery until after it took place, which is actually true.”
Balogun’s wife nods but says nothing. Balogun then adds, “And five years ago, biometrics were not so common.”
One of the detectives says, “I gathered that neither of the twin sisters had ever taken an international passport or drivers’ license prior to the bank robbery. Though the real Anthonia had taken a National ID card, there was no concrete computerised data base backing it, so Nancy that later became Balogun’s wife was able to use the real Anthonia’s National ID. card freely.”
“What a foolproof conspiracy,” Tony says. “It would have been really great if you women had used your intelligence towards something more productive.”
Balogun’s wife interjected. “My sister was under financial pressure because she had three children outside wedlock by three different boyfriends and each of those men refused to take responsibility for their child because they each doubted that they were the true father. And that is not surprising because she always had multiple boyfriends at each point in time.”
The real Anthonia had been eyeing her sister as she spoke. Balogun is sitting in between them. Anthonia reached out her hand and hit her sister hard on the face. She would have hit her again but was restrained by the policemen.
“Why didn’t you allow me to come back to my job then?” Anthonia scowls at her sister, getting up and spoiling for a fight. Her twin sister also gets up.
“Woops!” Balogun shifts his chair backwards, not making any attempt to defend his wife.
“Wont you protect your wife?” Tony asks
“Oooh, how can I possibly protect a witch from another witch?”
“Shut up, Balogun,” says Kale. “Why then did you choose to marry her?”
The policemen separated the women as Anthonia is now so close to her sister. The officers shifted the chairs far beyond arms length so none could reach out to hit the other.
“I didn’t know I was marrying an impostor,” Balogun says looking at Kale. “After several days of interrogation by the police, the one we thought was Anthonia was vindicated. The bank took her back. The manager was even somewhat apologetic that she had been made to go through the rigours of police interrogation.”
Tony looks exasperated. “Didn’t anyone suspect that she was not as capable at her duties as before?”
“ She was given some sort of promotion and her line of duties changed and she then had to work more closely with me,” Balogun replies.
“And thereby the flame of romance was lighted.” Kale puts in, in his usually joking tone.
“Not really immediately,” says Balogun. “I was very cool to her because I had heard from other colleagues that she was so nasty. But surprisingly to me then, she was very quiet and even very courteous not only to me but to everyone. We concluded that she had been made sober and humble by the ordeal she went through when she was interrogated by the police. Moreover, she had worked at the bank for only a few months before the robbery incident happened.”
“But what about her handling of her duties, didn’t you suspect?”
“As I said earlier, she had new set of duties and I thought that was the reason she had difficulties initially. I was glad to assist her because she was so courteous and she learnt fast.
“And that that when the fires of romance started to burn?” Kale interjects again.
Tony sighs, shaking his head at Kale’s keen interest in the romance aspect, in spite of the fact that the real issue at hand is a criminal investigation. Tony is more concerned about how all this led to the robberies at his own firm.
OLUYINKA ALAWODE
