Seyi continued his work while Detective Okoye sat on one of the chairs, lost in thought. How would he know the last person to enter the admin block that night when the security cameras aren't even working?

   "Is there a way to access the footage from the time before the camera was damaged?" Okoye asked Seyi. The engineer nodded quickly and Okoye sat up.

   "Yes Sir. We can even access up until the wires were cut. The footage was already saved to the system so the damaged wires didn't affect those ones." Seyi replied, turning on the laptop on the table. After a few clicks, he carried the laptop to where Okoye sat. 

    Okoye quickly took it from his hands and pressed the play button. Twenty minutes before the CCTV cameras were messed with, a boy was captured entering the admin block. Five minutes later, a girl came into view, she looked at the camera and entered the admin block. The clip ran for more fifteen minutes before it ended.

    "Omo these children eh." Seyi said in surprise. Okoye turned his sharp gaze to the engineer and he backed out and returned to the wires he was replacing. The case was getting deeper.. there was a possibility that the two students in the footage were suspects. They wouldn't have just planned to damage the cameras if they didn't have any hidden agenda. And the closest agenda in the option was to steal the exam papers.

    "One more thing Sir." Seyi spoke up, bringing the detective out of his thoughts. "When I was outside checking if the camera at the entrance was fixed, I saw something else." He said nervously. He didn't know if he was crossing the boundary this time. Playing cop was fun but if it had to do with his life then he should be careful.

    "What did you see? Speak up already." Detective Okoye said impatiently.

   "I saw another camera." He said, "it is much smaller than the usual one that is all over the school. I tried to connect to it but it is already connected to another computer in this school." He explained.

   "That's great. Was the camera turned on?" The detective asked and to his relief, the engineer nodded. That means the second camera captured everything; from the night the security cameras were messed up to the night of the murder. "I need to do something first. Thanks for your cooperation." He said and the engineer smiled nervously. "I promise your name won't be mentioned anywhere else for your protection." He added and Seyi sighed in relief. Okoye connected his phone to the laptop and sent the last footage to his phone. 

    He quickly made his way to the vice principal's office when the video sent. He knocked twice and he heard a faint voice ushering him in. The vice principal looked at him in confusion and he greeted her.

    "Ma'am I need the pictures and names of the students in the school currently. Is there a way I can get it?" He asked and she thought for a moment before nodding. She opened a drawer and took out a year book. The year book was from the recently concluded graduation of the former SS3 students. She turned a few pages and stopped at the page she was looking for.

    "These are the pictures and names of the newly elected prefects. It has most of the students in their class but if the person you are looking for is not there, then I can answer what you want." Mrs Isioma said. The detective thanked her and took the year book. Immediately he stepped out of the office, he played the video one more time and stopped at the girl's part since she looked at the camera. He paused the video and searched the yearbook for her face. 'Bingo!' he thought as he saw the picture of the fair skinned girl staring back at him.

Name: Joy .M. Enahoro

   He wedged the yearbook between his left hand and his chest and took out his pen. He circled her name and searched for the second suspect. He paused the video on the boys face and checked the yearbook for him.

Name: …..

**

7 days before the murder cont'd.

    "Sam?! What are you doing here?!" Joy yelled in a whisper as she saw her class prefect in the control room. The boy jumped when he heard her voice and cursed under his breath. His eyes wandered down to the plier in her hands and he smiled.

   "The same reason you are here apparently." He replied and she saw the plier on the table. "Out of everybody, I didn't expect you to have this in mind." He added, turning back to the wires.

   "Says the prefect of the class." She retorted. Sam dropped the plier and faced her again.

  "And you are supposed to be one of the best students of our time." He replied. She was about to give her comeback when she remembered that time was being wasted.

   "Let's end it there." She said and he shrugged. "Which wire exactly are you cutting?" She asking, walking closer to where he stood. He shifted a little so she could see what he was doing.

   "Unless you know what to do, I'm just cutting all the wires connected to this computer." He said pointing at the bunch of wires along the wall. "They should definitely affect the cameras." He said and Joy nodded.

    "Where do I start? It'll be faster if we both join hands together and cut the wires." Joy suggested. Sam pointed at some wires and Joy dropped the hammer she was holding and started cutting the wires.

  "Speaking of joining hands together," Sam started, "if I'm correct, we both want to get our hands on the mock question paper, we can just work together and get the paper instead of working individually." He said. 

  Joy weighed the options carefully. If they both worked individually, either of them might get busted and Sam could use her to save his image. She knew that the story of the dutiful class prefect would be more believable than the class nerd. But if they worked together, she could keep tabs on him and someone would have her back.

    "Deal." She said finally and Sam grinned. "But how do you plan on getting the papers?" She asked and he shrugged.

   "I haven't thought of that yet," He replied, "have you?" He asked and she shook her head.

   "I was going to take one step at a time." She replied.

   "Me too." Sam said and they both continued cutting the wires. "We can meet up another day and brain storm on ideas."

   "How did you even get in here? You obviously didn't break in because the door is still fine." She inquired. She noticed the door was still in a good shape so she wondered how he had access.

   "Mrs Isioma forgot her keys in our class on Saturday morning. I wanted to chase after her and return it when I had the idea of getting rid of the cameras. Luckily for me, she went home straight so I tested all the keys on this door till one of them opened. I made a plan to sneak out today, get this over with and drop the key in our class like no one ever touched it." He explained and Joy looked at him in admiration. How could a boy who was not all that book smart be criminal smart?

~~

5 days before the murder.

    The three friends walked to the admin block during lunch period. They tried to get out of class earlier that morning but their maths teacher wasn't having any of it.

   "Thank heavens this yeye man came to school today." Brume said as the climbed the stairs to the principal's office.

   "Like seriously, out of all the days he had to miss school yesterday." Nini frowned. 

   "It doesn't spoil anything, does it?" Gabby asked. 

    "Remember if he tries anything out of ordinary, use your pen and stab him in the eye." Brume said and Gabby chuckled while nodding her head.

    Their plan was to be executed the previous day, Monday, but the principal was not in school. Gabby took a deep breath and walked toways the closed door and knocked. Her friends were at the end of the hallway waiting for her and praying that she'd be successful.

   The office bell rang signalling her to enter the office. Mr Martins was looking through some files when Gabby entered his office. He looked at her from her head to her shoes and smiled. It took everything in Gabby to stop herself from shuddering in disgust or even worse puking right there in the office.

   "Miss Gabrielle, how can I help you?" He asked, putting away his glasses. Gabby decided to put on her act; a desperate student.

   "Mr Martins." She started, frowning her glossed lips, "The exams are coming up next week Monday and I'm scared of the outcome." She complained, batting her lashes at him. She noticed the faint smirk on his face and almost rolled her eyes.

   "Then, go and read your books." He said.

   "Ahh Mr Martins, you know that one is out of the options." She pressed on. She knew that the man would cave in, the disgusting idiot.

   "Well," he started drawing his chair closer to the table, "I can give you the exam questions but you have to do something for me. Will you do it?" He asked and she nodded. She avoided speaking because this was the part she wanted. "Tell me when you are ready and I'll get the papers ready. I can even answer them for you." He offered, licking his bottom lip. 

   Gabby knew she hit the jackpot and that was all she needed. "During night prep on Sunday sir." She replied.

   "I don't stay in school on Sunday but I'll come just for you." He said and she nodded.

   "Thank you so much sir." She said in a fake sweet voice before leaving the office. As soon as she left the office, she felt nauseous. Never in her life would she ever do such a thing ever again. She remembered the principal's predatory eyes and shook. Her friends rushed to her side and they all left the block.

    "Did anything happen? You look shaken up." Brume asked in concern when they reached the compound, heading for the dinning.

   "Nothing happened o. It's just that I can't believe that the rumors were actually true. You should have seen the way he was looking at me. Just imagine if this was not a plan and I was that desperate. Men like him will definitely burn in hell." She said and her friends nodded in agreement.

    "They're everywhere and nobody even takes it as a serious issue." Nini said thoughtfully.

   "Anyway, I have the recording. We just need a small part and we can just cut out the rest." She said.

   Natasha passed the girls as she ran up to her boyfriend. Tobe was talking with Kelvin when she held his hand.

   "Is he your oxygen?" Kelvin asked jokingly and she rolled her eyes. Tobe playfully pushed him as he held his girlfriend's hand.

   "E dey pain you?" She asked him and he raised his hands in surrender. He sighted Damien walking out of the classroom block and he grinned.

   "Make I go look for trouble." He said before running to Damien. Damien heard someone running towards him, knowing fully well who it was, he ran the other direction.

    "Those two eh." Tobe said and Natasha smiled.

   "Have you eaten?" She asked and he shook his head.

   "I was waiting here for you before I started talking to Kelvin." He replied as they both headed to the dinning. "Where were you?" He asked and she grinned.

   "At the hostel mistress'. I was on the phone with mumsy." She replied. They both took a seat in an empty table. Tobe left to get their food trays while Natasha tapped a random beat on the table.

   "Here you go." He said, placing the tray in front of her. She thanked him before picking her spoon.

   "So this morning I was feeling bad about being dependent on you for the coming exam. I didn't want to stress you -" she started but Tobe cut her short.

   "I didn't say you were stressing me though." He said and she nodded.

   "I know babe, let me finish." She said, "I decided to call the most influential woman I knew and ask for her help." 

   "On how we can pass the exams?" He asked. Natasha nodded with a big smile on her face.

   "Yep. I told her that I was scared and my 'tutor' was stressed out helping the both of us and my mummy dearest told me not to worry. She has the phone number of one of the people marking the mock exam." She concluded.

*****†

As I mentioned in the intro, this is a short story so we have about three chapters to go guys.

A big thank you to all those that voted and commented in the previous chapter.

~Korisa🧡