by Kwei Quartey
“Inspector Dawson,” he said, “I’ve told you the truth.”
“We’ll see about that,” Dawson said. “Let’s pay a visit to your office in town.”
As Timothy Sowah sat sullenly in a corner, Dawson began to strip the GHS office down. First he emptied every drawer and checked that none had a false bottom. Then he started on the bookcases, flipping through every volume of mind-paralyzing GHS documents.
There was a locked gunmetal gray cabinet along the rear wall of the room. “What’s in here?” Dawson asked, rattling the door.
“Old files and things like that,” Timothy said.
“Would you open it up, please?”
“As you wish.”
The cabinet contained more daunting rows of folders, ring binders, and large envelopes. Dawson did not show it, but he was beginning to lose some of his confidence as he searched each item and found nothing. He turned away.
“I hope I’ve been able to help,” Timothy said as he locked the cabinet again.
Dawson said nothing. He scanned the room and reflected what an extraordinarily ordered person Timothy Sowah was—the type who, as a student, was always the first to get his textbooks and label them neatly with his name.
Once upon a time in primary and secondary school, the more compulsive pupils would design jackets to protect the covers of their new textbooks. Some jackets were fashioned most intricately, with precisely folded edges and self-locking corners. Plain wax paper and brown paper were common, but a colorful or unique jacket was prestigious. One made from old newspaper was laughable and considered bush, as in unsophisticated. Timothy would have been the type who made superior book covers.
Book covers.
Dawson inclined his head and stared at the cabinet.
“Something wrong, Inspector?”
“Unlock that again, please.”
On the top shelf, four ring binders. Dawson transferred them to Timothy’s desk. One of them had a white plastic jacket. Dawson pulled it off and looked at the edges of the binder’s hard covers. The back one was thicker than the front, and its edge seemed to have been tampered with. He pressed his fingertips into the edge and wiggled them in until the cover began to separate into two layers. He grasped with both hands and pulled hard. The binder’s cover came apart. A dark blue, embossed leather diary was tucked securely within.
Timothy’s head fell forward as if he had been guillotined.
In the center of the diary were two folded, handwritten letters. Both began with “Dearest Gladys” and ended with “Love from Tim.” One paragraph in one letter, written in February, stood out to Dawson. Timothy had written:
I love you, dearest, but I hope you understand I still have a family to take care of and I do have obligations. I can’t just leave my wife. My love, I’m not rejecting you, I’m just trying to explain the reality we’re facing.
Next, Dawson flipped through the pages of the diary. Gladys had made an entry almost every day, with few gaps. She gave accounts of her journeys and AIDS teaching sessions, but in other entries she poured out her feelings about AIDS, poverty, superstition, and ignorance.
Thursday, 20th March. I left him a message on his mobile. I told him he has to meet me tomorrow by the forest footpath after I’ve finished my work at Bedome, and that if he shuns me, he will regret it because I will be paying his wife a little visit. “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned.”
Angry. Very angry. A side of Gladys that Dawson was seeing for the first time. She was found dead two days later, on Saturday morning, but she was most likely murdered on the evening of Friday, the twenty-first, the day she’d wanted her lover to meet her at the forest path.
Timothy was staring at the floor with arms tightly folded across his midriff. He was rocking gently back and forth. Dawson came to his side and put his hand on his shoulder.
“Timothy Sowah, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murdering Gladys Mensah.”
MR. BOATENG HAD REQUESTED permission to visit with his son Samuel in his jail cell, but Constable Gyamfi was busy at the police desk, so Boateng had to wait. No one could visit a prisoner without an escort.
Finally Gyamfi beckoned to Boateng to follow him back.
“Tell your son to eat,” Gyamfi said. “He’s not taking anything, and that’s foolish. His bones are beginning to stick out even more than before.”
Boateng saw the evidence for himself. A plate of rice lay untouched on the floor, not far from the filthy plastic bucket into which Samuel was supposed to empty his bladder and evacuate his bowels. The place stank, and the small barred window high up on the wall did nothing to improve ventilation.
Samuel was lying on his side, facing the wall with knees drawn up.
“Samuel, you have a visitor,” Gyamfi announced.
No movement.
“Samuel.”
He stirred and lifted his head.
“Get up. Your father is here to see you.”
As his son slowly stood up, Boateng’s stomach swooped. Samuel had changed drastically. His cheeks were sucked in, his eyes were bloodshot, and his ribs were sticking out like the slats of a louvered window. The boy was starving. He didn’t move to the jail bars in one easy stride as he normally would have. He took three shuffling steps, holding on to his trousers so they wouldn’t slip off his sparse hips.
Gyamfi stood discreetly to one side.
Samuel leaned against the bars, and his father tried to smile at him. The bars weren’t far enough apart to admit a full hand, so they shook fingers.
“How are you?” Boateng said softly.
“Fine, Papa.”
“They say you’re not eating.”
“Mm. Not hungry.”
“You have to eat something. What about if I bring some food for you?”
Samuel shrugged. “If you like, Papa.”
Constable Gyamfi spoke up. “No outside food allowed. Sorry.”
“Oh, okay, sir,” Boateng said.
“Papa, have you talked with Inspector Fiti?”
“I haven’t seen him.”
“Try to talk to him today,” Samuel said weakly. “Ask him when he will let me go.”
Boateng swallowed. “Samuel, have you told them everything? Have you told the truth?”
“Of course.”
“If there’s something more to tell, you should tell it.”
“There’s nothing more.”
“They said you were talking to the girl near the forest. That evening, I mean.”
“Yes, but I went away and left her alone. I would never do anything to hurt her.”
“All right.”
It seemed Samuel had all of a sudden grown up into a man.
“Time up,” Gyamfi announced.
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Boateng said. “But you have to eat, Samuel. Please. Look at your bones. They are poking out like sticks.”
Just before noon, a visitor arrived at the police station. Gyamfi knew Osewa Gedze fairly well. She was quiet and law-abiding, attractive in a full-blooded, mature way—not like some of the young girls these days who relax their hair and bleach their skin.
Mrs. Gedze asked for Inspector Fiti, and Gyamfi told her he wasn’t in the office.
“Maybe I can help you with something?” he offered.
“It concerns Gladys Mensah, Constable,” Osewa said.
“You can report it to me and then I’ll tell the inspector.”
He saw her appraise him quickly, and then she nodded. “All right, that’s fine. Maybe what I have to tell you is not important, or maybe it is. The evening before Gladys was killed, I saw something.”
“Go on.”
“I was collecting firewood to take home. First I saw that boy Samuel following Gladys. They started to talk, and then Isaac Kutu the healer came and he and the boy started to quarrel. He told the boy to go away, and after some time Samuel obeyed him. Then Kutu and Gladys conversed before he went back to his house. At that time,
Gladys began walking back to Ketanu.”
“Yes? Continue.”
“I was finishing up tying the firewood, when I saw Samuel come out of the bush and again he started to walk and converse with Gladys.”
“And then what happened?”
“He tried to hold her hand and put his arms around her, but she didn’t let him. But after a while he went into the bush with her.”
“Did he force her?”
“No, she just followed him.”
“And you? Did you follow them?”
She looked puzzled. “Why should I follow them, Constable?”
“I’m just asking.”
Gyamfi looked up, and Osewa turned around as Inspector Fiti came into the station. He stopped when he saw her at the desk. “Mrs. Gedze,” he said. “It’s been a long time. How are you?” “I’m fine, thank you, Inspector.” “She has something you should hear, sir,” Gyamfi said.
TIMOTHY SOWAH WAS BOOKED into the Ho Central Prison. Dawson tried several times to reach Inspector Fiti on the phone. The line was busy until his seventh attempt, when he got through and told Fiti about Timothy’s arrest.
“You’re making a mistake, Inspector Dawson,” Fiti said coldly. “Why would Mr. Sowah do such a thing?”
“Because he was having an affair with Gladys. She wanted it to be more serious than he did, and she began to threaten him.”
“Inspector Dawson, that happens every day. It doesn’t make him a murderer. I’m warning you, okay? Sowah knows people in Accra. You could get in big, big trouble.”
“So be it.”
“You sound so confident. Maybe you won’t be when I tell you your aunt Osewa has just come and told us she saw Samuel and Gladys going into the forest together that evening. That may have been the last time anyone ever saw Gladys.”
Dawson was momentarily stunned. “Auntie Osewa told you this?”
“Yes, sir. I tell you, this boy Samuel is guilty—no one else. He has done the thing. Mark my words, he will confess.”
“Inspector Fiti, I hope you remember that you can’t hold Samuel longer than forty-eight hours without charging him.”
“He will confess today, and he will be charged today And my advice to you is to release Mr. Sowah before—”
At that point, the connection was lost.
At the other end of the line, Fiti shook his head as he hung up.
“They say we need someone from Accra to help us investigate,” he muttered, gesturing at the phone as if Dawson was still there, “and this is the fool they send. Forty-eight hours. Okay, you will get your forty-eight hours.”
Constable Bubo, who was manning the desk while Gyamfi went on an errand, said, “What’s wrong, sir?”
“Never mind,” Fiti said. “Bring Samuel up to the interrogation room and lock him inside until I’m ready to question him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Inspector Fiti went back to his office and studied Osewa’s signed statement. Gyamfi had written it out for her, and she had signed her name to it. Fiti had never had any problems with the Gedzes. They were honest, hardworking people.
The statement was very detailed. The most important item was that Osewa had seen Samuel return to Gladys as she walked along the pathway toward Ketanu. Samuel had tried to embrace her or something like that, and then they’d disappeared together into the bush. This was crucial. Osewa didn’t use a watch, but the description of the sun’s position in the sky put it at around a quarter to six. Osewa had even described what the two had been wearing. Fiti believed her. She had stuck to the facts and had not changed any of the details, even when questioned repeatedly.
There was no doubt in Fiti’s mind that Samuel had killed Gladys. He just had to get that confession out of the boy.
Bubo knocked and put his head in.
“He’s ready.”
Fiti nodded. “Let him be there for a while.”
The more uncertain and anxious Samuel became, the better. It was only a matter of time before he broke down.
On the way into the interrogation room, Inspector Fiti called Constable Bubo to assist. The man was not as good a constable as Gyamfi, but he was big and intimidating and useful for generating fear when needed.
Fiti sat down opposite Samuel at the interrogation table, but Bubo stood behind Samuel, deliberately just within peripheral vision. It was more nerve-racking that way.
Samuel had become gaunt. His eyes were oversize full moons in his face, and his cheekbones were knife-sharp ridges.
“Samuel,” Fiti said softly, “I want to talk to you about what you did to Gladys Mensah.”
“Please, sir, I didn’t do anything to her.”
“Listen to me. Someone saw you go into the forest with her, and that was the last time she was seen.”
Samuel sat up straight. “Who said that? It’s a lie.”
“Stop calling people liars and tell the truth yourself. If you continue to lie, the gods will curse you and something bad will happen.”
“Who is the person who said he saw me with Gladys? Let him come here and say that to my face.”
“We know what happened. After Mr. Kutu chased you away from following Gladys, you came back and accosted her as she was on her way to Ketanu. Not so?”
“No, Inspector. You have to believe me, please.”
“And then you made her go inside the bush with you.”
“No, no, no.”
“You wanted her to be your girlfriend, we know that already, and you tried to force yourself on her, and when she refused, you killed her.”
Samuel put his face in his hands and groaned over and over, as if in physical pain.
“Look at me, Samuel,” Fiti said. “Stop covering your eyes and look at me.”
Bubo stepped behind Samuel and pulled his hands away from his face. His cheeks were moist with tears.
“He’s crying,” Fiti said to Bubo. “Crying like a girl.”
Bubo laughed.
Fiti pushed a pen and a sheet of paper in front of Samuel.
“If you sign this, we will stop questioning you and you will feel better.”
Samuel frowned at it. He could read and write English, but this thing they were showing him was beyond his comprehension.
“What does it say?” he asked.
“It just says everything that happened. You only have to sign on the bottom.”
Samuel shook his head.
“If you don’t sign it,” Fiti said, “I’ll throw you in jail and keep you there until you rot. But if you sign it, I can tell the judge who takes your case to pardon you and then they will set you free.”
Fiti could see Samuel was thinking hard about what to do. He looked confused and afraid, which was perfect.
“If you don’t confess and sign this paper,” the inspector went on, “I will have to go to your father and tell him how you killed Gladys.”
Samuel stiffened, and his brow twitched at the thought. “I beg you,” he whispered. “Don’t tell my father.”
“Then sign the paper.”
“I can’t sign it, Inspector.”
“You can’t write your name? We can help you.”
“Yes, I can write my name, but…”
“But what?” Fiti handed him the pen. “Just write your name there on the bottom. You’re not really signing—just writing your name.”
Samuel held the pen for a moment, but then he put it down. “No.”
Fiti glanced at Constable Bubo, who delivered such a hard blow to the back of Samuel’s head that the boy was thrown forward and his face bounced against the table. Bubo planted a foot in Samuel’s side and sent him hurtling to the floor.
Fiti stood. He would not be staying for this. As Bubo picked Samuel up by the neck, the inspector said, “When you are ready to sign your name, just tell the constable.”
As he returned to his office, Fiti heard the heavy thuds of Bubo’s blows and the crash of Samuel’s body against the walls of the small room as he screamed and begged for merc
y After each round, Bubo could be heard asking the boy if he would sign the confession. He would not, and so the next round of beatings began. The boy would confess. He had to.
TIMOTHY SOWAH ASKED THAT his lawyer be present during his interrogation, but it turned out that counsel was in Lagos and wouldn’t be able to make it to Ho before the next day at the earliest. So Timothy would be spending the night in jail, and Dawson decided to find somewhere to stay overnight in Ho rather than go back to Ketanu. He called Chances Hotel but found their prices were far beyond his reach. Hence the name, he thought wryly. Chances are you can’t afford it. He should have known. That hotel was every tourist’s first choice when visiting the Volta Region.
He found another place called Liberty Hotel, an establishment of dubious credentials, but he wasn’t that bothered. After filling up with a meal of yam and fish stew, Dawson spent some time in his hotel room looking over Gladys’s diary and the two letters from Timothy that she had kept with it. The more Dawson read, the more it became clear that Gladys was smitten with the kind of infatuation that makes a person blind to reason and reality. The more she closed in on Timothy, the more he drew back in alarm, and that hurt Gladys, as it always does in these cases. Pain quickly turned to anger.
Something troubled Dawson, though. It was Timothy who had pressed for a detective from Accra because he doubted the abilities of the CID man stationed at Ho. If Timothy was the murderer, why would he have done that? Wouldn’t he have wanted a less competent investigator, to increase the chances that the case would go unsolved and he’d get off scot-free? The question didn’t blow Dawson’s case apart, but it did make him uneasy.
The mobile signal was strong in Ho, and Dawson called Christine to let her know how things were going. Hosiah was doing fine and spoke to Dawson briefly before his bedtime story. Six-year-old boys are short on phone conversation. After he had hung up, Dawson had a smoke and felt good, and then he played his kalimba. Marijuana made his fingers more nimble. He took a shower and then turned in to bed. He was bone tired.
