Children of the Street

by Kwei Quartey

  He couldn’t find the ignition key.

  He leapt out again, alarms screaming in his head as he dug in his pockets.

  What did you do with the key?

  Shit. The hole in the wall. He sprinted back to the side of the factory. At the hole, he saw the key where it had fallen out of his pocket on the other side. He went partially through the hole and grabbed it.

  But he had lost too much time. He shone his flashlight across the channel again and saw Obi getting out on the other side. He had slipped out of Dawson’s grasp. Dawson let out a long shout of rage and frustration. And then, as Obi came up to the top of the bank, powerful headlight beams switched on and silhouetted him. Raising his arms, he slowly went to his knees in surrender.

  “It’s okay, Dawson,” came Chikata’s cheerful voice from across the channel. “We’ve got him.”

  53

  “How are you, Obi?”

  “Please, I’m fine,” he said as Dawson and Chikata sat down opposite him. This time, he was in CID’s only official interview room, for his capture had indeed achieved the status of “national importance.”

  Dawson studied Obi for a while. “What do you feel right now?”

  He seemed puzzled. “I feel a little hungry.”

  Dawson grunted. “I see. You remember Akosua, the girl last night?”

  “Akosua? She told me her name was Jasmine.”

  “Jasmine, then. What did you plan to do to her?”

  “First to brand her with the hot iron grate of the stove. Then after that, I stick my knife in her back. One stab only, sir. Always just one stab.”

  “Why is that so important?”

  “Everything has to be neat. Have you ever seen anything at the doctor’s house that looks basabasa? Never. Everything I do is neat and clean.”

  “But you never scrub the blood off the floor of your killing place.”

  Obi frowned. “Blood itself is purifying, Inspector Dawson. It is not untidy, it is a pure thing.”

  “When you kill, what do you feel?”

  “Joy.”

  “Like the joy of the Lord?”

  “Yes. He guides me in all things.”

  “He spoke to you and told you to kill Jasmine?”

  “Yes.”

  “He also told you to kill Musa Zakari?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “And Ebenezer Sarpong.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Comfort Mahama.”

  “Yes, please. She too.”

  “Why do you believe God wants you to kill people?”

  “Not people, Inspector. Certain people.”

  “Street children.”

  “Certain street children.”

  “Teenagers?”

  “Teenage children of the street are a visitation of Satan and a pox on us.”

  “Why them in particular and not the young ones?”

  “The small ones come with innocence. They have a chance to return to their villages, where they belong. Those that return will be blessed by God.” Obi’s face clouded over. “But those that stay have made a pact with the devil to do evil things. Fornication and prostitution, lying, cheating, and stealing. Worst of all, when they come of age, they begin to mate, producing offspring. Some of those offspring too will become fornicators, prostitutes, cheats, and thieves as they come of age. Look at the shame and filth they bring. Look at the venereal diseases. Have you not visited CMB and Agbogbloshie? They defecate like animals wherever they like, these people. They are dirty. No one wants to cleanse the city of them, so I have to. They are crowding our streets.”

  “But the doctor who you admire so much does not seem to agree with you about the street children,” Dawson said. “He cares about them, does he not?”

  “The doctor is a good man, but sometimes I feel sad about what he is doing. He is trying to cleanse the children by showing them a new way of living. But, you see, Inspector, it is too late. If you put a new cloth on a dirty bed, the bed is still dirty.”

  “Were you a child of the street?”

  Obi stared at Dawson. “Please, the Lord blessed me when I was young and He took me out of the street. And He blessed me again and brought me to Dr. Botswe.”

  “Why can’t you feel sympathy for street children when you were one yourself?”

  There was a sudden flash of anger. Obi’s voice rose and cracked. “You don’t call me that!”

  He stood up, and Chikata, at the ready, did the same.

  “Sit down, Obi,” Dawson said.

  Obi did, hyperventilating. “Sorry, sir.”

  “It’s okay. You say you sometimes feel sad about what Dr. Botswe is doing. You mean bringing the children to his home?”

  Obi gripped the edge of the table so hard his nail beds turned bloodred. “Iniquity, sinfulness, and dirtiness defile such a home.” His chin and bottom lip were quivering with emotion. “Have you seen the doctor’s house? Have you seen how I clean it, how I make it more beautiful than even the best Lighthouse church? It is as a temple, Inspector.

  “And then he brings this filth, this refuse from the streets to sleep in the spotless sheets I wash with my own hands. No. Those children do not belong here. They belong in the gutter or the latrine. That is all they are worth. Let them be there, let them roll in the Korle Lagoon and eat from it like the pigs.”

  Dawson shook his head slowly. “If there is a hell, that’s where you are going. Dr. Botswe in heaven will never lay eyes on you there.”

  Obi inclined his head. “Dear Inspector, my heart is troubled for you. You know not of what you speak. Have you committed yourself to the Lord? Do you go to church?”

  Dawson curled his lip. “You think any of this redemption nonsense is fooling me? You are a psychopathic killer pure and simple, Obi. All this religious speech you’re making? False. Bogus. ‘Commit yourself to the Lord.’ You don’t believe a word of it. You’re a liar, just like any other psychopath. You dress up your murder in fancy language, but it’s not even that complicated. You enjoy killing. Teenagers are the people you like to kill because they trigger the murder machinery in your soul.”

  They stared at each other across the table, neither of them blinking.

  “They are so easy to get, these children,” Obi said softly. “Just walk around the Novotel Lorry Park, or on Tudu Road, or around the old UTC building. You can find them there by the hundreds. Just pick one and go to him and ask, ‘Do you want to make some money? Come and clean my house.’ They are so poor, so desperate, and they will come with you. Even, you can just offer them a ride in a beautiful car.”

  “Don’t you fear someone will see you take a child?”

  “And so what?” Obi laughed hard. “Please, Inspector Dawson, let me tell you something you should know by now. Accra is a perfect place for murder. It is so dark and so quiet at night. Street people are sleeping everywhere. Who knows they are there, and who cares about them? Who will report anything? Everyone fears you, the police. They say if you go to report something to the police, you are the one who they will arrest. I could kill one of these rubbish children around the corner from where the other ones sleep and I could walk away without worrying. No one will care.”

  Dawson shook his head. He didn’t want that to be true.

  “When I throw such a person into the lagoon, or into the latrine or the rubbish pile or the gutter,” Obi continued, “I can do it without any concern whatsoever. I go back to my bed and sleep without any problem. You think a policeman is going to come and get me? Ha.”

  Dawson leaned across the table and brought his face so close to Obi’s that the man drew back.

  “But Obi, my fool,” he whispered, “that is exactly what I did. I came in and I fished you out.”

  Obi swallowed.

  “It was you who was reading Dr. Botswe’s book of proverbs and taking your cue from them,” Dawson said. “Sankofa, the bird whose head is turned backward, so that’s what you did to Ebenezer. ‘The knee does not wear the hat when the head is
available.’ That was for Comfort, so you gouged her knees out. Musa: ‘We must count one before we can count two,’ so you chopped all his fingers off except the index. Right?”

  Obi averted his gaze.

  Dawson moved back again. “And last, ‘No one spits on the ground and then licks up the spittle with his tongue.’ You cut out Ofosu’s tongue. A sweet boy who loved to talk and joke around. And you, cold-blooded, and vicious.”

  Obi was trembling. “But how … how did you understand what I was going to do with the charcoal stove?”

  “Why do you need a charcoal stove? You told me yourself that Dr. Botswe bought you a gas one years ago. You needed the charcoal stove for the grate on the top. ‘Everyone climbs the ladder of death,’ the proverb goes. You were heating up the grate to brand the pattern of parallel lines into Akosua’s skin. If you look at the pattern with the lines going horizontally, it looks like a ladder.”

  Obi nodded. “Yes.”

  “Why did you kill with proverbs?”

  “Anyone can kill, sir, but few people can kill and leave a mark of wisdom on the body. Ghanaian proverbs are the wisest in the world.”

  “Leave a mark of wisdom on the body,” Dawson echoed. “That’s what you call all those mutilations?”

  “Yes, sir,” Obi answered. “Please, how did you find me?”

  “I called Dr. Botswe to find out where you lived. He told me Madina—but then he said he thought you had told him that you had some kind of house in Jamestown. I knew it would have to be the most deserted section of Jamestown. The only area like that is near the lagoon, where putting up new buildings has been banned and old ones have been closed down. I have been passing that Woodcrest Services factory for years, and I never gave it a second’s thought, but it is the only abandoned building that is completely closed, preventing people from seeing inside.”

  Obi’s shoulders suddenly contracted and shrank, and he began to weep.

  Dawson stood up. “Do you know why he’s crying?” he said to Chikata. “Because he was caught. That’s all he’s sorry about. As for the people he has slaughtered, he feels nothing for them.”

  54

  Dawson took Christine and Hosiah out for a celebratory dinner at Maquis Tante Marie. It was more than he could comfortably afford, but he didn’t care. He wanted this to be special, and what was one more day of being broke? He surprised Chikata by inviting him to join them. Par for the course, one of the female waiters simply could not keep her eyes off Chikata, and par for the course, he got her phone number as they left the restaurant. Dawson and Christine exchanged glances and a sly grin.

  Walking out to the car, Hosiah suddenly put his hand in Chikata’s and said, “Uncle Philip, you can come to my house on Saturday and play with my cars if you like.”

  Chikata at first looked dumbfounded, and then a big grin burst out on his face and he laughed. “Well, I have to ask your daddy first, okay?”

  “The answer is yes,” Dawson said, smiling.

  They said good night to Chikata, dropping him off at police barracks. Just after they passed the Ako Adjei Interchange, Dawson spotted someone at the side of the street and pulled over.

  “Why are we stopping?” Christine asked.

  “It’s Sly,” Dawson said, his door already open.

  He ran back to where the boy was standing.

  For just a moment, Sly stared at him as he approached, unsure. Then his face lit up.

  “Mr. Darko!” he screamed and began running.

  Dawson knelt down, opening his arms wide. Sly joyfully threw himself into his embrace.

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Dawson cried. “Where have you been?”

  He held Sly at arm’s length. The boy had lost weight, and his clothes were even more ragged than before, but that old spark in his eyes was still there.

  “I don’t live in Agbogbloshie anymore,” Sly explained. “My uncle went to the north and left me and he never came back.”

  “So where do you live now?”

  “Oh, well, just on the streets, you know. I walk around during the day and try to do some jobs, and then I find somewhere to sleep.”

  Dawson shook his head. Sly is not going to be a street child.

  Christine and Hosiah had joined them.

  “This is Sly,” Dawson introduced.

  “Oh, yes!” Christine exclaimed. “The boy we went to look for. How are you?”

  “Please, I’m fine.”

  “Hosiah?” Dawson said, a touch apprehensively. He wasn’t sure what the reception was going to be like. “Say hello to—”

  “I already know about him, Daddy,” Hosiah said in somewhat long-suffering tones. “I heard you and Mammy talking about him.”

  “Oh,” Dawson said.

  “Can you play soccer?” Hosiah asked Sly.

  “Sure,” he replied, grinning. “I can dribble paa, and I’m a good goalie too.”

  “I have a soccer ball at my house we can play with.”

  “They look sweet together, don’t they?” Christine whispered to Dawson as the two boys talked. “He looks awfully hungry, though.”

  “His uncle left,” Dawson said. “Deserted him without a word.”

  “Ewurade,” Christine said, appalled. “So he’s on the streets with no one at all to take care of him?”

  “Yes.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Well, we at least need to get him something to eat, poor kid,” she said. “And then we can see what else we can do to help him.”

  “We may have to take a trip to the north to find his parents,” Dawson said, “which might be easier said than done. Beyond that, unless we take him in, he’ll become just like the other thousands of street children. And I don’t think I’m going to like that.”

  “I know,” she said, hooking her fingers around his. “I know you won’t.”

  “Come along, you two,” Dawson called out.

  With the two boys in the backseat, Dawson was preparing to move the car into traffic when he realized he had a text message. It said:

  Good news. Commitment from Dr. Gyan to make your boy whole. Whatever you can afford.

  Call me. Dr. Biney

  “Thank you, Jesus,” Dawson said.

  “What is it?” Christine asked.

  He passed the phone to her. She read the message and let out a small shriek, throwing herself at Dawson and holding him tight. Choking with emotion, they said nothing as they stayed together in a long embrace.

  Behind them, Sly shot Hosiah a puzzled look.

  “They’re like that sometimes,” Hosiah explained. “You just have to be patient and wait for them to stop.”

  “Oh, okay,” Sly said. It was fine with him.

  Acknowledgments

  First, I must express my deepest gratitude for the friendship and professional advice of Detective Lance Corporal Frank A. Boasiako of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in Accra. Meeting him was a result of a confluence of events that might even have been called providence. He is a treasure of information. Without him, many nuances and technicalities of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) could not have been detailed in this novel, not to mention the guidance and protection he provided as I explored the darkest recesses of nocturnal Accra. Any variations from reality should not be attributed to “incorrect information” from Frank but rather to the creative and editorial process in my writing of the story.

  There are others at Ghana Police Service (GPS) headquarters I must also thank: my old friend Ken Yeboah, Director-General of GPS Legal Services, who helped me get in touch with the right people; Detective Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Hanson Gove, who graciously allowed me to pick his brain while frequenting his office and the detectives’ room. Thanks also to DSP Solomon Ayawine, administrator of CID headquarters.

  I’m very grateful to Joana Ofori of Street Academy in Accra for being so accommodating and helpful in setting up interviews and tours of some of the settings in this novel. Paul Avevor of
Catholic Action for Street Children (CAS) in Accra coordinated my meeting with some of Accra’s street children, and I thank him and director Jos Van Dinther for allowing me access to their organization and for giving me a tour of its premises. Thanks also to Theodora and Michael, the fieldworkers I went with to the gathering places of the street kids in town, many of which are represented in this novel. The children I met at both CAS and Street Academy were terrific, including Ernestina Marbell, whom I’m honored and delighted to be able to support through school.

  My thanks to Colorado-Ghana Children’s Fund’s Edwin and Linda Vanotoo, whom I met in Sekondi-Takoradi and who helped me get in touch with the children they sponsor through their organization, and thanks to Mark, their fieldworker, who showed me around.

  My friend and former classmate Professor Nii Otu Nartey, CEO of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, was instrumental in securing a tour of the Department of Child Health, where the nursing staff was extremely accommodating, in particular Juliana Adu Danso and Deputy Director Rebecca Armah.

  Thanks also to Thomas Frimpong for welcoming me to the Police Hospital Mortuary and to the forensic pathologist and staff.

  I’m grateful to Ethelbert Tetteh at Korle Lagoon Ecological Restoration Project (KLERP), who gave me a wonderful tour of the facilities and explained the technical intricacies of the pump station.

  Seth Aheto took me through the bowels of Nima to places I would never have discovered without his assistance.

  Samuel A. Mensah, general manager of Citi-FM, was kind enough to give me a tour of his radio station.

  Thanks also to Bernard, my driver, who took me north, south, east, and west, to and through both the toughest and the loveliest parts of Accra as well as to the lush Western Region.

  Of course, none of the foregoing would have been relevant if I did not have a book to write and get published. Which would not have been possible without the advocacy of and guidance from the best literary agent in the world, Marly Rusoff.