Chapter 5: The Language of Remains
By 7:25 a.m., the police had blocked the Third Mainland Bridge. Traffic was backed up for miles as commuters leaned out of *danfos* to take pictures of the pylon.
Detective Anyi Izuora didn't wait for the ME. She climbed the scaffolding herself. Femi was at the top, watching a technician bag a small piece of white cloth.
Anyi knelt by the body. She didn't look at Amara's face. She pulled out digital calipers and measured the gap between the hip incision and the wooden beam.
"Seventy-six millimeters," Anyi said.
"Ma'am?" the tech asked.
"Three inches," Anyi corrected. She stood up and looked at the limbs. "The last crime scene was off by three inches. He came here just to get the measurement right."
The work was clean. The muscles had been detached from the bone to let the limbs rotate into a perfect spiral. No bones were broken; it was all surgical.
"Check the pulley and the wires," Anyi ordered. "This guy is using physics, not just strength. He knows exactly how much tension it takes to hold a body at this angle."
Femi pointed to the cloth on the ledge. "He left another tooth. But the victim's teeth are all there. This one is from someone else."
Anyi picked up the bag. The molar was scrubbed white. "It's a signature. He's showing us his collection. He's confident enough to start giving pieces back."
By noon, the campus was buzzing. Everyone knew the "Bridge Girl" was Amara from the Science Faculty.
George sat in his wheelchair in the cafeteria. He had a plate of jollof rice, but he didn't touch it. He just listened to the tables around him.
"I heard it's a professional surgeon," one girl whispered. "My brother saw the photo. He said it looked like a statue."
"Must be a foreigner," a guy added. "Nobody in this country thinks like that."
George looked at his rice. *Surgeon. Foreigner.* They were looking for a monster, not a student with a laptop and a steady hand.
Chris sat down across from him, looking stressed. "George. Omo, the VC just announced a 6:00 p.m. curfew. They are bringing soldiers to the gates."
George blinked. "Soldiers won't change anything."
"Why you say so? If they lock the gates, the killer is trapped."
"The person who did this doesn't use the main gate, Chris," George said. "He uses the gaps. The places people think are too small to matter."
Chris rubbed his face. "You talk like you know the man. It's creepy, abeg. Everyone is panicking, and you're talking about 'gaps'."
"It's just logic. If you want to move a body without being seen, you don't fight security. You bypass them."
"Whatever. I'm going home until this thing blows over."
"The midterm is on Monday," George reminded him.
Chris stared at him. "George, I swear... sometimes I think you're not human. School work? Now? I'm leaving."
Chris walked out. George didn't care. Panic was loud. Logic was quiet.
At Panti Station, Anyi had pinned the bridge photos next to the old cases.
"Toxicology says the sedative is a lab anesthetic," Femi said, dropping a file. "But it's been modified to work faster."
"So he has lab access," Anyi said.
"Or he knows how to cook it himself."
Anyi tapped her pen against the bag with the molar. "Femi, look at the locations. The bridge, the theater, the docks. They all have hard angles and concrete. He isn't dumping bodies in the bush. He's picking places that look like blueprints."
She drew a circle around the university on her map.
"The theater was the start. The bridge was the correction. He's practicing, Femi. But he's missing something."
"What?"
"Trophies. He took a tooth from the first girl. A finger from the second. But from Amara? Nothing."
Anyi's eyes narrowed. "He didn't take a trophy because the whole bridge was the prize. He's graduating."
That night, George sat by his window in the hostel. The campus was silent because of the curfew.
He pulled a plastic container from under his floorboard. Inside were three items: a gold earring, a lock of hair, and a molar.
He picked up the molar. It wasn't the one from the bridge. This one was older.
He turned it in his fingers. He thought about that feeling he had in the warehouse—that weight in the air. He wondered if someone else was watching him.
He put the tooth back and snapped the lid.
Anyi was looking for a pattern in the bodies, but the real pattern was in what was missing. He wasn't just killing. He was building a language. And she was the only one learning how to read it.
He opened his laptop. No CAD drawings this time. Just a list of names.
*Faculty of Science.*
*Senior Lecturers.*
*Office hours.*
He didn't need a body for the next phase. He needed a key. And he knew exactly where to find it.