by Kwei Quartey
He nodded, glad in a way that she had guessed correctly.
“I knew I shouldn’t have asked you anything about transfers on Saturday when we were at the park,” she said regretfully, wiping her hands on a towel. “I put juju on us.”
She sat at the table, as though she thought it best to be sitting down as he delivered the brunt of the bad news. “Where is it this time?”
“Obuasi.”
“Oh,” she said, cocking her head. “Well, I guess it could be worse. You could be going to Bolgatanga.”
“It’s not the distance,” Dawson said moodily. “It’s the duration.”
“How do you mean?”
“I could be there for up to a year.”
She pulled back as if someone had tried to jab her in the face. “A year!”
Dawson winced. “Yes,” he said, not meeting her eyes. The timer was ticking down to the explosion.
“So you’re going to be away for a year,” she said flatly.
“Well . . . basically, yes.”
“A year is a long time.”
“Yes, it is. I was thinking . . . what do you think of the idea that all of us move to Obuasi—or Kumasi?”
She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it as she began to consider that as an option. Dawson felt encouraged that she hadn’t immediately rejected the whole idea, and pushed on. “I mean, for the boys, I don’t know the school situation in Obuasi, but there’ll be something good for them in Kumasi, so maybe we could stay there. It’s only about one hour drive north of Obuasi.”
She was pondering. “And Mama has a place in Kumasi,” she said.
Dawson stiffened inwardly. He had not even thought of that, and it should have occurred to him long before now. Dawson and his mother-in-law, Gifty, did not get along. To him, she would not be an asset in this already tricky situation. He couldn’t say that to Christine, though, and his face grew hot as he realized she was scrutinizing him, waiting for a response that was clearly taking too long to materialize.
“Dark,” she said reproachfully. “My mother’s not going to ruin everything.”
“Did I say that?” he protested.
“You were thinking it.”
“Not at all,” he denied, lying badly. “But do you think she can really accommodate us?”
“Why not? I don’t think she has a tenant in the guesthouse right now.”
Gifty lived in Accra, but she was a proud Ashanti woman. Kumasi was her hometown and she had a lot of family in that city as well as some property. Gifty, who was quite well off, used the guesthouse from time to time as either a rental or a place for family members to stay, or both, perhaps.
Dawson had never been able to shake the feeling that his mother-in-law condescended to him. Before Christine had met him, she had been dating a doctor whom Gifty highly fancied as her future son-in-law. A policeman was a big step down in Gifty’s eyes, and Dawson was convinced that she had never gotten over her daughter’s change of mind.
All this mutual resentment between Dawson and his mother-in-law had come to a head years ago when Gifty had decided she would take the troubling problem of Hosiah’s heart disease into her own hands. Acting without the permission of the boy’s parents, she took him to a traditional healer—with disastrous consequences. That had sealed Dawson’s discomfort with Gifty.
“I’ll call her to ask if she can accommodate us,” Christine said, bringing him back to the present.
Dawson was surprised at the way she was taking this. “So you would actually consider moving to Kumasi for a year?” he asked in surprise. “In the past, you were fit to be tied whenever I had to go somewhere on assignment. What’s changed?”
She leaned back, contemplating. “I still don’t like it, but ever since your promotion, I’ve been thinking differently and realizing maybe this is the price we have to pay for your moving up in the force. It was different when it looked like you were stuck at the same rank and getting nowhere. So I’ve decided to have a positive outlook on it. Within reason, of course.”
“But what about your job here?” Dawson asked. “You don’t want to leave that, surely?”
“I can get a leave of absence and then find a job in Kumasi.” She thought it over for a moment. “But for the kids’ sake, we have to secure some good schools up there before we do move. Maybe I should go up for a few days and see what I find. Hopefully we can get them in for the start of the school year in September.”
Dawson agreed. As a schoolteacher, Christine was the ideal person to look into this.
“What about relocation expenses?” Christine asked. “Has the Ghana Police Service gotten any better at paying for that?”
Dawson shook his head in annoyance. “No. They’re supposed to, but it never happens in practice.”
Christine sighed. “This is not a family-friendly organization,” she observed.
“You’re right,” Dawson said, gazing at her in admiration. “You know something?”
“What?”
“You have no idea how relieved I am at the way you’re taking this. It’s wonderful. I love you, woman.”
He dived across the table and planted a fat kiss on her lips. She began to giggle as he awkwardly slid onto her side of the table and pulled her onto the floor on top of him in a heap.
“Darko!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing?”
“Making love to you,” he said, nuzzling her neck in her ticklish spot.
Convulsing with laugher, she wriggled out of his clutches.
“You’re terrible,” she said, staggering to her feet.
Flat on the floor, he extended his right hand to her. “Help me up.”
“Oh, no,” she said, knowingly. “You think I’m that stupid? You’ll just pull me right down again.”
He watched her as she left the kitchen. “Hey, where are you going?” he called out in protest.
“To bed,” she said. “Good night.”
“I’m still coming to get you,” he said, getting up.
She shrieked as she saw him coming and raced to the bedroom to lock him out.
OBUASI, ASHANTI REGION
AUGUST
CHAPTER FOUR
Six a.m. on a Thursday morning, Dawson got out of bed bleary-eyed and weary for his first day at work. Leaving Accra the day before had been chaotic and delayed as Dawson had scrambled to tie up all the loose ends at CID Central. There’s always more than you think to do. He had taken the last-scheduled VIP bus, the most comfortable intercity service available, from Accra to Obuasi via Mankessim, getting into his hotel at almost midnight. Miners’ Lodge was the cheapest place that Dawson had found with the help of Google Maps, and it was on the same street as Obuasi Divisional Headquarters, meaning he could skimp on transportation costs.
In the dead of night, the surroundings had not meant very much to Dawson, but he began to get his bearings in the light of day as he dropped his key off at the front desk and stepped out onto Obuasi High Street—the main thoroughfare of the city. It ran east to west flanked on either side by neighborhoods like Wawasi, where Dawson’s hotel was, and Tutuka, the location of the police station to which he was about to report.
Dawson glanced at the gray sky, wondering if it would clear. Heavy rain earlier on, and now the drizzly remnants, made High Street slick and glistening. The morning was cool, so the walk of less than one mile to the station, even at a slight incline, would be pleasant. He took mental snapshots of the town. Ordinary, clean, and quietly paced. Open-fronted, canopied stores with corrugated metal roofs, sidewalks better constructed than many in Accra. On Dawson’s side of the street, a group of navy-and-white uniformed girls hurried to school while on the other, a young woman walked by a fast-food kiosk called David & Goliath, a wide tray of pots and pans balanced easily on her head. She moved nimbly aside without having to steady the tray with her ha
nds as a passing car splashed muddy water in her direction. She was unfazed.
Dawson skirted a row of kids’ bicycles for sale on the pavement and made a mental note of the Cool Cuts Barbershop—he would soon need his fade refreshed. Behind the pavement was a small Airtel mobile phone station underneath a wide red-and-white umbrella, right beside a vendor of cheap knockoff Coach and Michael Kors bags from China, and a secondhand TV and appliances shop next door to that.
The sign ahead on the right said obuasi divisional police headquarters. Dawson remembered seeing the building on the way in last night, but in the darkness he had not appreciated how small and unlike a headquarters it was. It could have been a largish two-story house or a store. The basic yellow-and-blue GPS color scheme was there, but several shades of faded, chipped paint did not quite do the job. The upstairs windows were barred with hideous metal burglarproofing, which led Dawson to believe that the building had indeed once been a retail outlet or home. On the upstairs balcony, a policeman and two civilians leaned against the balustrade and placidly watched the goings-on below.
Half a dozen cars or so were parked in front, including a black Tata SUV belonging to the GPS. Several people were standing around waiting their turn to report their issues to the charge office behind blue double doors that looked more like the entrance to a warehouse. Citizens and uniformed policemen walked in and out. Dawson approached the charge office, but paused to one side for a moment to get an idea of how the officers were conducting themselves.
A buxom female lance corporal behind the high counter stifled a yawn of utter boredom as the two people in front of her—one a skinny, shifty-eyed young guy and the other an older, wizened man with a deeply lined face—argued vociferously about what seemed to be a circular dispute over a plot of land.
The lance corporal couldn’t take any more. “Okay, okay,” she bellowed. “Go and wait outside. I will call you.”
The two men left, barely skipping a beat in their argument.
“Stupid people,” the lance corporal muttered.
The male sergeant next to her grinned as she sighed heavily and looked despondently down at the daily diary open in front of her. It was the large recording book into which every event during each shift at the station was recorded, even the weather. “I don’t feel like writing any report down,” she said. “Waste of time.”
Dawson stepped up to the desk and took note of the lance corporal’s nameplate. “Even if you think it’s a waste of time, Dodu,” he said, “you are still obligated to write a report.”
She looked up at Dawson, eyes blazing. “And who are you?”
“I am a well-informed citizen.”
“Eh? You say you are what? An informed citizen.” Dodu sucked her teeth and began to laugh. “You are funny. My friend, who are you, and what do you want?”
“I am your chief crime officer,” Dawson said.
Dodu and the sergeant looked at each other and went into hysterics. Dawson smiled and waited patiently for the hilarity to run its course, and then took out his ID badge and showed it to them. The grin disappeared from the lance corporal’s face as if Dawson had ripped it off. Dodu leapt to her feet, almost falling over her capsized stool as she staggered back and began to salute. “Sir, please, sir. I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t know—”
Her colleague was standing to rigid attention as if turned to stone, but Dawson could see he was shaking slightly. As a sergeant and the more senior of the two, he was the more accountable, and was supposed to be setting an example of correct conduct.
“Do you know the motto of the Ghana Police Service?” Dawson asked him.
He swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”
“What is it?”
“‘To Protect and Serve with Honor,’ sir.”
“And is that what you were doing just now with me?”
“No, sir. I beg you, sir.”
“Sit down, both of you,” Dawson said.
Mortified, they took their seats, hardly daring to breathe. Dawson went behind the desk counter and stood at one end. “Give me the diary, please.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” Dodu said, jumping up again and hastening to bring it to him.
Regardless of rank, high or low, one had to sign in for duty in the diary when visiting or taking on a new position at a divisional or regional headquarters. Dawson glanced at his phone and wrote in the time. He noticed that between midnight and 6 a.m., no entry in the diary had been made, suggesting that absolutely nothing had taken place during that time, which didn’t seem likely. More likely, someone on duty had been lazy.
“Where is the crime office?” Dawson asked, once he had signed in.
Dodu respectfully offered to show him, and he followed her outside to the left, passing the entrance to a small CID office where detectives sat to do their work. Above the second door was a small sign, crime officer.
“Please, it is here, sir,” Dodu said, opening up the locked door and standing aside so Dawson could get in. “Thank you very much, sir. You are welcome to Obuasi.”
“Thank you, Lance Corporal.”
She left him and he stepped inside to switch on the light. Ewurade, he thought. Look at this place. The musty room was about sixteen square feet. The desk was buried underneath stacks of paper and folders. A dust-coated computer monitor—the old type with a protruding cathode ray rear end—had been moved to the floor to make room for more junk. The folder-laden shelf on the wall near the desk was tilting dangerously, and Dawson decided that was the first item he should attend to before something snapped and sent the shelf’s contents flying. As he carefully removed the documents, he heard a movement behind him and turned.
The man at the door was potbellied with a melon-sized head and a jagged smile.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Good morning,” Dawson said. “You are?”
“Detective Sergeant Augustus Obeng, sir,” he said, bracing briefly. “Oh, please, let me help you, sir.”
He rushed forward to relieve Dawson of the weighty stack of papers, which he dropped onto the first available space he found on the seat of an old armchair.
Dawson shook hands and snapped fingers with Obeng. Dawson had been told that he would be his most direct assistant—equivalent to Chikata, but not even close in physical comparison.
“My condolences for the loss of Chief Inspector Addae,” Darko told him.
“Thank you, sir. It was a big shock.”
Dawson sensed pain in Obeng’s voice. “I understand he had a stroke?”
“That day,” the sergeant explained, “he was having a terrible headache. We took him to Obuasi Hospital and they said his blood pressure was very high. But before they could give him some medicine, he collapsed dead right in front of us and they said he had bleeding inside his brain.”
Dawson visualized and felt the intensity of what must have been a catastrophic scene. “I’m sorry.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is the commander in?” Dawson asked.
“Yes, please. I can take you to see him.”
Dawson followed Obeng up one flight of stairs. Compared to the constant buzz at CID headquarters in Accra, this place was as quiet as an empty church. The top veranda had a nice view of Obuasi High Street. The drizzle had stopped and it looked as if the sun planned to come out.
A corporal was on guard in the anteroom of the commander’s office. He knocked on the dark blue door and put his head in to announce the visitors.
“Please, you can enter,” he said, stepping aside to let Dawson through, but Obeng stayed out.
Assistant Commissioner of Police, Commander Ata Longdon, was tall, imposing, and hefty—too much sitting at a desk all day long. A thin Commander Longdon is in there somewhere, Dawson thought. He himself had always been thin, and though he was six feet tall, people sometimes underestimated his physical strength—a bad mistake f
or anyone who challenged him. But he had tamed his violent streak, or perhaps it had sputtered out under the pressures of parenthood.
Longdon looked up as Dawson entered and his face brightened—not a smile exactly, but something approaching it.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Dawson greeted him.
“How are you, Chief Inspector Dawson?” Longdon said. “Have a seat. Thank you for coming from Central to assist us here in Obuasi. Pascal Addae’s death has shocked us greatly.”
“Yes,” Dawson said with sympathy.
“I think you have already visited the crime office downstairs?”
“Yes, sir. I have.” Dawson wanted to put this delicately. “Seems like there’s some work to be done.”
“Yes, that is true.” Longdon was unconsciously drumming three fingers on his desk. “Months ago, I ordered Pascal and Sergeant Obeng to embark on a reorganization of the office, but then Pascal began to get sick. He didn’t know that he had very high blood pressure and kidney failure until it was too late. I appealed to Central for some assistance because Pascal was absent so often and the junior detectives were without guidance, but they delayed in taking action. I tried to fill in for him, but, well . . .”
Looking both bitter and sad, the commander was silent for a while, and Dawson said nothing. He was getting a picture of a divisional headquarters reeling from the tragic death of one of its own, and as a result suffering from low morale and disorganization.
“So,” Longdon resumed, recovering, “I will be depending on you to get the office back in shape. I have directed Sergeant Obeng to be at your service. You will also supervise the other detectives on their active cases.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Any problems, don’t hesitate to come to me.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“That’s all for now. I will have Sergeant Obeng take you around the division.
It was nothing much to see. The impression Dawson had formed that the building had not originally been built to house a police headquarters turned out to be correct.
