The boys coordinated smoothly with each other. Kudzo shoveled soft, clayey gravel rapidly into a wide shallow pan, which Gbedema snatched from between his feet and lifted onto Dzigbodi’s head. On his way to the sluice box where Kweku washed the gravel, Dzigbodi would pass Kwame going in the opposite direction to pick up his new load from Kudzo. Throughout the day, they would rotate positions. It was like a dance.
At intervals, they chattered noisily with one another to break the grinding monotony, sometimes making crude jokes at each other’s expense, and at other times shouting encouragement when one of them flagged. They depended on each other to keep going. Occasionally an argument might break out, but it was seldom more than fleeting.
Kudzo glanced up to see Wei on his phone again-not talking, just calling, but then he put it away when apparently no one answered. He was probably trying to get hold of his brother again. Where was Bao?
At the top of the pit on the side where they were working, the earth was a light brown with an orange tinge, in contrast to the gray-and-black beneath it-as if someone had recently dumped soil taken from a different area. Kudzo was sure it had not been that way the day before, and he remarked on it to his friends. They concurred with him but there was no time to give it that much thought, and they soon forgot about Kudzo’s observation.
He might have put the light-colored soil out of his mind had some of it not caved in as the darker gravel was dug away from underneath. Kudzo didn’t want this kind of earth because it was usually poor in gold, so he began pushing it aside with his shovel. The blade struck something dull, relatively soft and immovable. He hit it a couple more times to dislodge it, but it didn’t budge. Now Kudzo saw a dark spot in the light soil. Frowning, he cleared some of the earth away.
“What are you doing?” Kwame shouted in Twi, annoyed at Kudzo’s break in the rhythm.
“Something is here,” Kudzo returned. “I don’t know what it is.”
Kwame joined his partner to help clear away the soil from around the object. The other two boys, curious, came over to watch. Kudzo felt a shiver travel down his back. Something about the object made him uneasy.
Wei, who was on his phone again and had seen them cease work, walked quickly in their direction. “Hey!” he yelled. “What you doing?”
Dzigbodi pointed at what Kudzo and Kwame were unearthing. Wei jumped down into the pit to get a closer look. “Dig more,” he instructed them, as if he were contributing anything new to what they were already doing.
As they saw what it was, Kudzo gave an exclamation of shock. Kwame tried to stand up, but slipped in the mud instead. It was clear now. The object was a human head. Wei grabbed a shovel and began to help scoop the soil away. As the eyes and nose came into view, he let out a cry. Kwame scrabbled out of the pit in fear, but Kudzo wrenched himself out of his paralysis and used his shovel to help Wei pull earth away from the head. Now one shoulder was visible. Wei was weeping and babbling hysterically in Chinese. Kudzo already knew the truth, but it had a dreamlike quality. The dead man buried deep in gold ore was Bao Liu, Wei’s brother.
ACCRA
CHAPTER ONE
“Now that you’re chief inspector,” Christine said to Dawson, “does that mean they won’t send you to different parts of the country as often as they used to?”
On a late Saturday afternoon at the Mmofra Park, Darko Dawson and his wife, Christine, were sitting in the shade of a neem tree watching their sons, Sly and Hosiah, playing with a group of kids.
Dawson grunted. “Not necessarily. One of our deputy commissioners, which is a very high rank, got moved up all the way up to Bolgatanga.”
Bolgatanga was a town in the very north of Ghana, some 460 miles away from Accra.
“I hope that happens to Theophilus Lartey,” Christine commented dryly.
Dawson laughed at her entrenched dislike of the man who had been Dawson’s boss for several years. She considered Lartey a domineering bully, particularly when it came to sending Dawson off to other parts of the country far from Accra, which was home to the family. For his part, Dawson had always resisted leaving his wife and sons behind for extended periods, only to go down in defeat after a stern warning from Lartey about insubordination and a threat of being fired.
During the last round of promotions two months ago, Lartey had been elevated from chief superintendent to assistant commissioner of police. Dawson had been promoted from detective inspector to chief inspector at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in Accra, Ghana. Dawson had mixed feelings about his imminent separation from Lartey. In the first place, although the man could be cantankerous, Dawson was accustomed to him, and he could always depend on Lartey to stand behind his junior officers-barring any malfeasance, of course. As grumpy as he could be, he was scrupulously honest. Dawson’s assistant on all his criminal cases, Detective Sergeant-now Inspector-Philip Chikata, also happened to be Lartey’s adored nephew. In the early days, that had worked against Dawson, but he had now mastered how to get what he wanted from Lartey through Chikata, and it had proved to be a powerful tool.
Dawson stole a glance at his wife, pretty in form-fitting jeans and a sleeveless Ghanaian print top. Her hair, cinnamon-colored and elaborately braided in the latest style, was gathered behind her neck in a loose bundle. She was never poorly turned out, and Dawson took a secret delight in showing her off.
He felt relaxed with her in this park, Mmofra, meaning “children” in Fante, which provided a safe space for children’s play and out-of-classroom learning with exposure to Ghanaian culture in a natural setting. A portion of the grounds was dotted with drought-resistant shrubs and cassava plants, but the rest was uncultivated and waiting for landscaping when funds came in.
Hosiah and Sly were engaged in a game of treasure hunt. The two competing teams, with the help of an adult chaperone, had to consult their table of Adinkra symbols to figure out each clue and how to proceed to the next station. Dawson, no stranger to clues himself, liked the idea of that game with its Ghanaian twist.
Not all the kids were participating in the game. Sitting in chairs carved from tree trunks, one group was poring over children’s books, and yet another was on the swings, watched over by a volunteer. A boy and a girl of about seven were playing the traditional board game of oware carved into a recycled log and mounted on a wooden pedestal.
Christine had volunteered herself a few times here after she had discovered the place. Before she’d known about it, she had lamented the lack of a functional playground in Accra. This was one of them, along with the new eco-park at the edge of the city.
Hosiah and Sly came running up, treasure hunt over and the team of the older brother, ten-year-old Sly, triumphant. Hosiah was slightly crestfallen.
“It’s okay,” Dawson said, pulling him close and hugging him. “Next time you’ll beat them.”
Hosiah was sweating and Dawson wiped his forehead with a washcloth he had handy. At age eight, Hosiah looked just like his father, with a large contribution from Christine to his deep, expressive eyes. But the incandescent smile that could light up a room and melt even a murderer’s heart was all Hosiah’s own. Skinny and loose-limbed, Hosiah had had a growth spurt over the last twelve months after cardiac surgery to correct a congenital defect. Sly’s physique contrasted with that of his younger brother’s. He was already showing the beginnings of teenage muscularity, as is common in boys who have lived on the streets, as Sly had done. Adopted at age eight by Dawson and Christine, it was clear he was not related by birth. Hailing from Northern Ghana, his face was more angular than anyone’s in Dawson’s family, wide cheekbones tapering sharply to his chin, and his lips were thinner.