“We have to work on this,” Dawson said, although he admitted privately to himself that even the exhibit room at Central was a disaster.
The jail was at the other end of the gloomy passage lit by a lonesome curly fluorescent bulb in the ceiling. An eight-by-six-foot cell, it was designed to detain a maximum of ten prisoners. By Dawson’s count, it contained seventeen at the moment. The powerful odor of unwashed bodies was supplemented by the stink from the rudimentary latrine. The prisoners regarded Dawson with a mixture of curiosity and hope. Could this be someone coming to rescue them from jail?
Dawson hated to disappoint them, but no. “Okay,” he said. “Thank you, Obeng.” He tried to sound upbeat, but in fact he was feeling profoundly depressed by the entire picture. The place felt fragmented and at a low ebb.
Returning to his office with Obeng, Dawson took a look at the documents the sergeant had been trying to sort out. Cold cases, interrogation transcriptions, documents, fingerprint records, DNA data here and there. It was a mountain of material, and in Dawson’s opinion, some of it would eventually need archiving in off-site storage. But what portion? He took a deep breath and blew it out through his cheeks, feeling daunted.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll take a closer look at everything tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” Obeng said enthusiastically.
Dawson sensed that the sergeant was grateful for his arrival, as though he had been overburdened without the guidance of a senior officer. He smiled at Obeng, studying him for a moment and noticing a few untidy stains on the sergeant’s light green shirt, which stretched to bursting point over the rotund belly. He wasn’t slovenly, but he didn’t have far to go. Troubled in some way? A chaotic home life?
“Everything okay with you?” Dawson asked.
“Oh, yes, please, sir,” Obeng answered quickly.
His voice changed slightly, and Dawson’s left palm tingled for a second. He had synesthesia, where vocal qualities were experienced as a sensation in his hands, the left one in particular. Sometimes it meant an untruth was being told, and Dawson sensed that all was not well with Obeng. Whether it was, or would be, affecting his work, Dawson would no doubt find out.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dawson slept badly that night. The skeletal mattress was lumpy and smelled stale. He was almost glad to rise early and freshen up for the day. The bathroom was dingy, with mold growing in the grout of the shower stall. While the cool water trickled anemically over him, he kept his slippers on, not wanting to pick up some kind of infection on his feet.
He could not wait to be out of this hotel when Gifty’s Kumasi house was ready. As planned, Christine had traveled from Accra to take a look at the house her mother had offered them and to secure a school for the boys. She had been successful with the latter, but the lodgings had been in bad shape. Whoever was supposed to have been maintaining the property had been doing a terrible job and lying about it.
Embarrassed, Gifty had scrambled to find a foreman to get the place back in decent shape. It would take another two weeks, or so he had said. Dawson had been tempted to suggest to Christine that they simply look for accommodations elsewhere, but he knew what that would get him: a whole lot of trouble. He could hear his mother-in-law launching her high-pitched complaint, What, my house is not good enough for you? Besides, rents in Ghana had become exorbitant, some landlords demanding not one, but two years in advance. Dawson could not afford that.
Dressed and groomed, he felt much better as he left the hotel for the walk to the station. It was a little past six and he was eager to get a head start on the paper mess in the office.
At 6:18, with HQ within sight, Dawson’s phone rang. It was Obeng.
“Good morning, sir. Please, I have received a call from Dunkwa Police Station, sir. They say someone found a dead body at one of the galamsey sites.”
The town of Dunkwa was about forty kilometers southwest of Obuasi.
“Please, I am going to Dunkwa Police Station now,” Obeng continued.
“Have they secured the area in question?” Dawson asked.
“Well, they say they have a constable there.”
“Then wait for me at the Dunkwa station. I’ll join you there.”
Dawson felt excitement as he sprinted the rest of the way to HQ. A murder-barely a day after I arrived here. He was hoping the station vehicle was available, but it was not. Commander Longdon had it-a meeting in Kumasi, the desk sergeant said.
Realizing his expectations of transportation in an official police vehicle had been a little optimistic, Dawson flagged down a taxi, bargained the fare, and hopped in. For police officers everywhere in Ghana, especially in smaller municipalities, getting to a crime scene was always by a mishmash of means. Often, the detective took a taxi, or the family of the victim gave him or her a ride. Every once in a while, an actual police vehicle was available to transport an officer to the scene, but more likely than not, it was in use by the commander of the unit. Use was a loose term that included anything from legit police business to a shopping spree for the commander’s wife. As they left Obuasi, Dawson noticed a slate-gray hill towering above the outskirts of the town. “What is that mountain?” he asked the taxi driver, pointing.
“Be from digging the deep mines.”
Oh! Dawson thought in shock. It was an entirely man-made elevation.
“It be one of the AngloGold Ashanti mine,” the taxi driver explained further.
They drove along Obuasi High Street, which turned to Goldfinger West Road before a roundabout with a gold-colored statue of a worker drilling in a mine shaft.
“The old AGA office dey there,” the taxi driver said, pointing to a dilapidated AngloGold Ashanti sign to the right, in front of an equally run-down building with a rusty corrugated metal roof.
Leaving Obuasi, the taxi driver, whose name was Kofi, passed through Anyinam, a township that housed the mine workers in green, almost lush surroundings. The distinction between the workers’ quarters and the houses belonging to management was obvious to Dawson.
Turning his attention away for a minute as the residential setting thinned out and was superseded by bush on the open road, Dawson looked forward to meeting up with the most admired and influential man in his life-not his father, but a father figure. Daniel Armah, who lived in Kumasi, was Dawson’s mentor. He was the man who, as a CID detective some twenty-five years ago, had done his utmost to find out how and why Darko’s mother had mysteriously disappeared when Darko was a mere ten years old. Armah had not succeeded in his quest, but the care and doggedness he had shown had inspired Darko.
Through his teen years and into early adulthood as Dawson began training as an officer in the Ghana Police Service, the two men had remained steadfast friends. Reaching back into the long years of his experience as a detective, Armah always had wisdom and insight to share whenever Dawson discussed a case with him. Armah held a special place in Dawson’s heart. He had taught Darko about determination and tenacity of purpose, and provided to him the role model and father figure that Darko’s own father was not.
Dawson tried Armah’s number several times. It rang, but no one picked up.
•••
Dunkwa, another mining town, was one-fifth the size of Obuasi. It stood practically on the banks of the Ofin River, hence its full name, Dunkwa-on-Ofin. Dawson had never been there, but he knew it was one of the major destinations of thousands of illegal Chinese miners flocking into Ghana to get at its gold. Dawson wasn’t exactly sure how the whole phenomenon had even started, but a lot of them had subsequently been kicked out of the country, while many remained on the run or in hiding. Dawson thought of it in a funny way: thousands of Chinese people concealed in Ashanti forests like hidden colonies of ants waiting for the anteaters to lose interest and wander away. And then they’d come right back. He didn’t know every detail of how the Chinese came back so successfully, but he knew the general mechanism: bribery and corruption. It got you everywhere in Ghana.