The Missing American

by Kwei Quartey

  “We received a call from Sana Sana,” he told her. “He said he knew from reliable sources that an attempt on your life was imminent and the MO was likely to be the same as in the Tilson case. By the time we got the call, we were even afraid we were too late.”

  His two-way radio buzzed and he listened to it for a few seconds before turning back to Emma.

  “My officers have nabbed the twins at the other end of the bridge.” He chuckled. “They didn’t have many escape options.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Emma said fervently. “What about Mr. Ponsu?”

  “We believe he’s still in Accra. Someone will be dispatched to his compound. Do you wish to go to the hospital before we go to the station to take your statement?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, which wasn’t completely true, but she didn’t think a hospital would help. “I can’t thank you enough, Inspector. And you, Constable.” She turned to her new hero and took his hand. He wasn’t much older than Emma, and now, no longer in rescue mode, he was quite bashful.

  “Okay, then,” Bawa said to the driver. “Let’s go to the station.”

  As Emma wrote out her statement at the police station, another familiar face appeared: Mr. Labram.

  “How did you know I was here?” she asked in surprise.

  “News travels fast around here,” he said. “Inspector Bawa called to inform me what had happened. Thank God you are okay. When you’re done here, my wife says you must come to stay the night at our house and get some rest.”

  EIGHTY-SIX

  A light tap on the door of the Labrams’ guest room woke Emma in the morning. She sat up, forgetting for a moment where she was.

  “Good morning, Emma.” The voice on the other side of the door was Mrs. Labram’s.

  “Good morning, please.”

  “Sorry to wake you, but someone is here to see you.”

  “Okay, thank you. I’m coming.”

  Emma looked at her phone. Goodness, it was almost ten. She considered sleeping this long in someone else’s home to be poor form. She got up and realized someone had washed, pressed, and folded her wet clothes from the night before and set them neatly on the chair beside her bed. So nice of them, she thought. She went to the bathroom and washed up quickly. The left side of her face and head were still puffy from the impact of Clifford’s (or Clement’s) blow, and her wrists and ankles still raw and tender.

  As she came into the sitting room, Emma couldn’t imagine who might be waiting for her and she least expected Bruno, but there he was chatting with the Labrams. His face, too, was still swollen, but much better than before. He smiled and stood up when he saw her.

  “Ei, Emma! So good to see you, sis.”

  They embraced. Bruno took a step back and peered at the side of her head. “Ouch. Now we look more alike,” he quipped.

  She giggled. “Silly boy.”

  They sat next to each other and munched on the cookies with fruit punch that Mrs. Labram had laid out. Emma was still fuzzy about the sequence of events the night before.

  “Nii Kwei called me to tell me that Ponsu and the twins had kidnapped you,” Bruno explained. “There’s only one person in the world I know who can act fast enough, and that’s Sana. So, I called him. The only problem was that at first he wasn’t answering his phone, so I was very worried. Finally, he called me and I told him what was going on. He called the Akosombo Police. A lot of people may not like Sana, but when he says something is up, everyone knows it’s real. So yes, they moved quickly.”

  “Thank you, Bruno,” Emma said. “You really did save my life.”

  “Thanks, but in the end it’s Nii, actually, right? If he had not called me, you would now be at the bottom of the Volta River.”

  “You’re right.” Emma contemplated that scenario for a second and shuddered. “How did you get here this morning, Bruno?”

  “I needed to be sure you were okay,” Bruno said, “so I sneaked out of the hospital very early and took a tro-tro to Atimpoku. I went straight to the Akosombo police station to find out what had happened. I met Inspector Bawa there and he said you had survived and were staying with the Labrams.”

  “God bless you, Bruno,” Mrs. Labram said. “What you have done is noble—considering you yourself were still in the hospital.”

  He smiled coyly. “Thank you, madam.”

  “That’s my brother,” Emma said with pride, taking his hand and squeezing it. But the excitement of last night and the elation over being alive had begun to plunge and Emma began to experience an odd despondency in the aftermath. She concealed it from the Labrams, however, all smiles as she and Bruno thanked them and departed.

  Bruno and Emma took a cab to Nii’s house from the tro-tro station. This being Sunday, traffic was thankfully light. Nii’s housemates were home, he was not.

  “He didn’t tell you where he was going?” Bruno asked.

  “No. When we woke up this morning, he was gone. We tried to call him but it seems his phone is off.”

  Emma tried Nii’s number, and so did Bruno, but neither received a response. According to the network, Nii’s phone was off.

  “Probably he might have gone to his family home in Bukom,” George, one of the housemates suggested. Bukom was one of the oldest parts of Accra and home to the Ga people, of which Nii Kwei was very much one.

  “Ah,” Emma said, lighting up. “Do you know where the family house is?”

  “Anyway, somehow.”

  “What do you mean, ‘anyway, somehow?’” Emma asked, frowning at George. “Do you know his place in Bukom, or not?”

  “He took me there one time,” George said vaguely. “We can go if you like and I can try to find it.”

  Emma looked at Bruno, who nodded. “Yes, let’s go.”

  EIGHTY-SEVEN

  That Sunday afternoon, Abena was with Kojo at Josephine Akrofi’s home where the documentary on Kojo was struggling to come together. The film crew had completed the sequences at the Center, but the segments with Josephine interacting with Kojo at home were proving to be a headache. For two days running, Kojo had been restless and difficult to manage with his hand flapping, finger rubbing, and high-pitched screaming disrupting the repeated takes. Abena and Auntie Rose had a lot of patience, but Mrs. Akrofi’s was wearing thin. Her idea had been to show Kojo interacting quietly with his tablet in her home. She would enter the scene, sit next to the boy, and explain how she often welcomed him and other children from the Center to her home (which wasn’t entirely true). The idea was to put an “international face” to the appeal and boost the Center’s new website and crowdfunding campaign. Josephine’s theory was that well-off people are more likely to donate if they could “see themselves” in the video—if they could “relate” to a well-heeled, fashionable woman contributing to such a noble cause.

  “It’s the very opposite of showing malnourished African kids in refugee camps with bloated bellies and flies buzzing around their faces,” she reasoned. “People in the West are tired of seeing all those images. They have compassion and donor fatigue. So now let’s put a splash of glamour into charitable giving.”

  However, nothing was working. The whole of Saturday, the day before, the director and camera crew had been at the Akrofis’ home, trying but failing to get some usable footage. They had returned this morning with hopes of knocking out a good video segment, but it looked like it was to drag into Monday. Despair and frustration had begun to take hold of everyone, including the object of their attention: Kojo. Abena and Rose agreed with each other that he could not take any more overstimulation.

  “I’ll take you home, Abena,” Rose said.

  “I have a better idea,” Josephine said. “Abena, you can stay in the servants’ quarters overnight. We have an extra room that’s not in use. That way we can begin the filming early tomorrow morning—no later than seven. My husband is away until tomorrow evening an
d I would like to have everything finished by then. He’s not particularly fond of disruptions in our home.”

  All parties agreed to that. Abena retired with Kojo to the servants’ quarters at the side of the home. Mrs. Akrofi provided dinner in containers that Abena took with her to the quarters. She bathed Kojo, fed him, and lay him down to rest. He was quiet with none of the repetitive behavior of before. Abena finally had a chance to eat in peace. Araba, Mrs. Akrofi’s house girl, had prepared sumptuous banku and okro stew.

  After dinner, Abena took a quick shower. Kojo wouldn’t wake up for another two hours. She tried reaching Emma, but the call didn’t go through. Abena lay her head down to sleep and she prayed this project of Mrs. Akrofi would end soon. She could understand the purpose and she approved of it, but the stress being put upon her and Kojo was beginning to wear them down.

  Voices from behind the servants’ quarters woke Abena. What time was it? Her phone said ten minutes before midnight. From one of the two windows in the room Abena looked out several meters to the hibiscus garden, which—as was the case with most well-appointed homes—was illuminated brightly with security lights installed along the enclosure wall. She saw Mrs. Akrofi in her dressing gown speaking to a man. She seemed upset. Her chin was thrust forward, her voice rose and fell in both pitch and volume, and she gesticulated with her hands. They were both speaking in Twi, but from where Abena stood, she could make out only a few words here and there.

  The man had an odd-looking facial scar. His hand gestures indicated defensiveness and frustration as Mrs. Akrofi argued with him. Toward the end of the almost ten-minute discussion, the man’s head dropped, and he appeared crestfallen. Mrs. Akrofi did an about-face and marched away back to the house, leaving the gentleman to see himself out.

  Who was the man, Abena wondered, and what had the heated discussion been about? The question didn’t occupy her mind for very long, however. It wasn’t really any of her business. She went back to bed and fell asleep again.

  EIGHTY-EIGHT

  On Monday, CID Headquarters in Accra brought in Clifford and Clement from Akosombo Police Station, which didn’t have enough space to keep the twins much longer. Aware of the strong bond between the twins, Commissioner Andoh kept them apart to throw them off balance and render them more vulnerable to questioning.

  A constable brought Clifford to the commissioner’s office and stood to one side to keep watch over the handcuffed muscleman. Clifford appeared sullen but nervous. The commissioner told him in Twi that anything he said might be taken down and used later as evidence in court. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes please,” Clifford said, but he looked uncertain. He was out of his depth. A person of means might have refused to answer questions without a lawyer present, but Clifford didn’t know anything about that.

  “How old are you, Clifford?” Andoh asked.

  “Twenty-four, please.”

  “Where did you attend school?”

  Clifford muttered a name and then admitted he and Clement had never completed high school.

  “You are always together, you and Clement, eh?” Andoh asked.

  “Yes please.”

  “You feel like you are one person—or part of each other.”

  “Yes please.”

  “Well, I will do my best to bring you together again,” Andoh said, “but only if you are honest with me and you don’t waste my time. You understand me? In other words, if you and Clement tell the truth, all will be well, and you will be with each other again. Otherwise, we will have to keep you apart and keep questioning you.”

  “Yes please.”

  “Clifford, I want to ask you about last Saturday night. Where were you and Clement?”

  “Please, we were at Kweku Ponsu’s house.”

  “Where? In Accra or Atimpoku?”

  “Accra.”

  “But we know you also went to the house of one Nii Kwei on Saturday night.”

  Clifford stared at the ground and didn’t reply.

  “We don’t want Clement to get hurt,” Andoh said. “Some of my men are not as kind as I am, so I don’t know—they might beat him or something like that. But if you tell me everything, I will order them not to beat him or harm him.”

  Clifford flinched with visible pain at the possibility of causing the infliction of pain on his brother. “Yes, we went to Nii Kwei’s house,” he confessed.

  “You and Clement and who again?”

  “Mr. Ponsu.”

  “And what were the three of you going to do there?”

  Clifford searched Andoh’s face, appearing unsure what to say.

  “I’m here to help you,” the commissioner pressed gently. “I know that you and Clement are good people. You always do what your boss tells you, so no one is going to blame you and Clement for doing what your boss said. Probably he was even shouting at you and telling you he won’t pay you anymore if you don’t do what he says. Do you think he won’t try to blame you for everything? He will! So you better tell the truth before we catch him and he gets a chance to tell lies.”

  Confused, Clifford rubbed the back of his head.

  “Would you like some water to drink?” Andoh asked. “Constable, bring Clifford some water.”

  “Yes, sir.” The constable left.

  “Relax, okay?” the commissioner said, smiling at Clifford. “Let’s wait for the water first before we continue.”

  Clifford drank down most of it. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re welcome, my friend,” Andoh said. “So, you were saying you and your twin brother and Mr. Ponsu went to Nii Kwei’s house, and then what happened?”

  Clifford cleared his throat. “Mr. Ponsu told Nii to call that girl, Emma Djan, to talk to her. At first, Nii didn’t want to do it.”

  “So, how did you persuade him?”

  “Well, Mr. Ponsu said by force, Nii had to do it.”

  “Did you beat Nii to convince him?”

  Clifford squirmed. “We just made some rough-rough on him.”

  “Like you pushed him around? To scare him?”

  “Yes please.”

  “And then?”

  “Then Nii called the girl, and she came to talk with him.”

  “Where were you and Clement and Mr. Ponsu at that time?”

  “Clement stayed with Mr. Ponsu, hiding in the kitchen to listen to what all she was saying. I waited outside. When Emma was leaving, I think Nii secretly told her we were there, so she tried to run away, but I was there.”

  “And what happened?”

  Clifford cleared his throat again. “I gave a blow here.” He touched his temple. “We tied her hands and her feet. First we went to Kweku Ponsu’s house—”

  “In Accra?”

  “Yes please. Mr. Ponsu said he was going to stay there, and then we tied a bag with some rocks around the girl’s feet.”

  “What was that for?”

  “Mr. Ponsu told us to drown her in the Volta River.”

  “By throwing her off the Adome Bridge.”

  Clifford kept his head bowed. “Yes please.”

  Two floors down in the DCOP’s office, Laryea was questioning the other twin.

  “Clement, on April third, a certain white man called Mr. Tilson was thrown into the river from the Adome Bridge. Was that what Mr. Ponsu told you to do? The same thing as the lady last night?”

  Clement leaned on his forearms and cracked his knuckles repeatedly, trying to imagine what Clifford would say. In his mind he could hear Clifford saying there was no point in trying to lie, especially if that would cause them to be separated forever. Clement could not bear to be apart from his brother.

  “Ponsu told us to go to the white man’s house in the night,” he began.

  “Around what time?”

  Clifford cast back. “Around two or three. In the morning
, I mean. He said we should go there and pretend we are Mr. Labram, the one who owns the house, so that the white man will open the door, then we should beat him and take him to the bridge.”

  “And throw him inside the river?”

  “Yes please.”

  “And so that’s what you did.”

  “Yes please.”

  “Where was Mr. Ponsu at that time?”

  “In the house. At Atimpoku.”

  “So, after you threw the white man in the river, what did you do?”

  “We returned to the house and report to Mr. Ponsu that we have done everything.”

  “And then?”

  “We went to sleep.”

  EIGHTY-NINE

  At Monday morning briefing, Emma was subdued and her heart was in her mouth. She was about to face Mr. Sowah to tell him the entire story of how she had disobeyed him and continued to investigate the death of Mr. Tilson. But she imagined Sowah knew something about it already because Dazz had heard her story from Laryea, and she was sure the DCOP had informed Sowah as well.

  At the end of the meeting, Sowah beckoned her to come with him to his office and she felt like she was walking to an execution.

  They sat down together on the sofa.

  “First of all,” Sowah said, “how are you feeling? Are you okay?”

  “Yes, sir. I feel fine. So, you know what happened?”

  “DCOP Laryea called me and gave me the gist, but you will need to tell me everything from the beginning. And don’t leave anything out.”

  Emma had a sense of relief to be unburdening herself. The day she stepped into the quicksand and found herself being sucked under was when she had seen Gordon Tilson’s emails that Derek had shared with her. Her discovery that Nii Kwei had met Gordon had intrigued her and she had asked Bruno if she could meet Nii. At the time, she had still entertained the possibility of mentioning the emails to Mr. Sowah. Then she had found out what her stepbrother was really doing—working undercover for Sana Sana. She hesitated sharing that with anyone, including, she confessed, Mr. Sowah, because she didn’t want to blow her stepbrother’s cover. Then, exactly what she didn’t want to happen did: Bruno was beaten up by, most likely at the time, the twins. One thing led to another—Emma’s night visit to Nii, the attack, the Adome Bridge, Emma’s brush with death. And now, here she was. Battered but alive.