When I heard Ado’s voice, I sensed what the problem was. Ado was the water supplier whom we all referred to as Mairuwa. He brought us water every day in trucks which he pushed from house to house. The closest borehole to my house was about twenty poles away. There was no way I was going to subject my beautiful young wife to the torture of fetching water from such distance. It was for this reason that we patronized Ado. However, I did not realize that this would make us vulnerable until the day my wife and Ado had a brawl. I quickly rounded off and hurried out to find out what was amiss. Ado had gone by the time I got outside. My wife was still sulking and grumbling like a child whose favourite toy had been damaged by another. She was washing her underwear. “What happened?” I threw. “Why were you screaming early this morning?” She pointed at the tank. “Do you know that Mairuwa has been cheating us all this while? He said he usually filled the tank with six trucks but I took my time to count this morning and discovered that it was five trucks that filled it up. I gave him one thousand naira but he insisted that he brought six trucks and not five. He began to insult me in Hausa when I pointed it out to him that he brought five trucks and not six. He wanted me to give him one thousand two hundred and when I refused, he raised his voice and flung the money at me.”