It was a damn melancholic night.

Train 709 chugged through the dark like a scalpel. Somewhere between Lagos and Ogun, a foreboding event had just taken place.

Detective Ojo Wasiu stepped gingerly onto the dining car. The small space was sparsely furnished, dimly lit, heavy silence, and a cold inert body. He lit a cigarette.

A woman. Late 30's. Throat slit clean, dress drenched in crimson. Slumped over a half-eaten steak. No ID. No purse. Just a broken string of pearls on the floor like tears frozen mid-fall.

He scanned the scene and took a long drag of the cigarette.

“Who the hell killed you, sweetheart?” He muttered. A cloud of smoke,curling from his flaring nostrils like a spectre.

He paused to reflect momentarily.

There were six people on board besides the conductor. None with clean hands.

Professor Bashir Musa. Academic type, tweed jacket, glasses thick as bottle bottoms. Word from the conductor was that he's an expert in medieval theology.

“I was in my cabin reading Queen India of Benin,” he said, hands trembling.

Ojo stared him down immediately. “And the blood on your sleeve?”

He blinked blankly. “Tomato sauce.”

“From the warrior cum queen, Idia?” Ojo chortled with a grin.

The Professor stuttered expectedly. "Certainly not, Detective."

Calderon moved away from his coach and halted next at the The Smuggler's cabin.

His name, Agbo Luka. Big tattoos, crawling over his thickset body, bloodshot eyes appeared like a bad habit.

“Never saw the woman o” Agbo said with an Igbo accent, shrugging his broad shoulder “I mind my own.”

“You mind other people’s goods for a living.”

"But you know how.” He said with a smile tugging suspiciously at the sides of his lips.

A long pause followed.

The widow was next - Lady Itoro Ima. Clad in a silk dress. Perfume oozing from her statuesque physique like wilted roses, lips blood-red.

“She was loud. Rude. Said I reminded her of her mother-in-law.” Lady Itoro smiled faintly. “I didn’t kill her. But I didn’t cry either.”

The Priest, Father Rogers Eberechi's cabin was next. He exuded a quiet demeanor with cold expressionless eyes. The ones that stared at a penitent parishioner from a dark confession booth.

“Sin travels faster than this train,” Ojo said firmly."Did you hear anything?”

He paused. “Heard someone crying. Around 11:40. Couldn’t tell who.”

“Why didn’t you check?”

“I’m not a savior anymore, detective."

The Ex-Mobster followed. Dino Omar, a towering figure with a brutish countenance.

Ojo lit another smoke. He took one long drag. “Old habits die hard, Mr. Omar?”

“I’m clean. Been clean since the death of Anini.”

"You still carry?”

Dino glared at him. Remained pensive.

The Stockbroker, Waribo Green was next in line. He spotted a hair that glittered under the lights embedded to the roof of the train. A sign that meant he loved to look good. However, his palms were damn clammy along with an expensive rolex around his wrist felt more like fetters than luxury.

“She came on to me,” Waribo muttered. “I told her I was engaged.”

“And she slit her own throat in protest?”

“I didn’t touch her.”

“Stock’s falling, Mr. Green .” Ojo said, arching his brow.

Waribo grimaced, almost turning green like Banners behemoth.

Ojo stepped back into the dining car. His mind befuddled. He took a brief moment to glimpse at the body again.

No signs of struggle. No broken nails. Slit was surgical. Precise.

He looked under the table and spotted something, glimmering - pearl number seven. Had tiny blood smear speckled over it.

He walked back through the car and stopped at Professor Bashir's cabin.

Bashir grinned broadly. “Doesn’t mean I cut throats.”

“Funny thing, Professor. That wasn’t tomato sauce. By the splatter, I daresay it’s blood. Tomato sauce would never make such an impression."

The Professor gulped suddenly. “It’s not hers.”

“Who’s then?”

His voice drops. “Mine. I get nosebleeds. High altitude.”

Ojo watched him crumble.

It was back to the widow - Lady Itoro

“You said she reminded you of someone.”

“Yes.”

“You kill people for nostalgia?”

“No. But I know who did.”

He leaned in.

“Say it.”

She muttered, her voice a whisper. “The priest.”

He stopped at the door to Father Morani’s cabin and eased it open.

His cabin was empty. Window open. Blinds flailing with the wind showing the night veiled in a cloak of impenetrable darkness. Someone had gotten out of the train. He wondered if it was Father Rogers.

He bolted to the window, sprightly.

The train screamed into a tunnel. He heaved his way to the top of the train. His matte black trench coat lashing with the rush of the wind.

The gusty wind howled eerily. Slapping his face,viciously.

He spotted a stocky figure silhouetted against the lights that were seamlessly affixed to the hood of the train darting between cars.

Gun drawn. Heart pulsing with an irregular beat

He arrived at the rear. It's Father Rogers. His sable coat flapping, eyes wild.

“Why’d you kill her, Father?” Ojo enquired. Voice lusty, almost drowned by the wind.

“I absolved her. The rest… she deserved.”

“What for?”

“She was no lady. Her sins made men burn. I was no exception."

“And you think God wanted you to gut her?”

Rogers stepped back, mindlessly. “God’s not on this train. The devil is."

He jumped and vanished into the impenetrable darkness below.

Ojo just stood there.The wind continued howling like a ghost let loose from hell.

Back in the dining car, he noticed that the body’s gone.

Just the pearls remain.

Seven now.

He scooped one up. Cold as ice.

A message played over the intercom. Garbled. Mechanical.

“…next target... Port Harcourt…”

Ojo's hands trembled. He exhaled deeply.

Game’s not over.

Not even close.