“Are you okay, Inspector Dawson?”
He started slightly. Dr. Smith-Aidoo had returned. “Yes, thank you, Doctor.”
“Find anything of interest?”
“Who owned these phones, do you know?”
“This was Uncle’s before he got his iPhone. The other one belongs to Auntie Fio.”
“Do you know if your uncle knew the CEO of Goilco, a man called Lawrence Tetteh?”
She shook her head slowly. “The name doesn’t ring a bell, no.”
Dawson wondered what Lawrence Tetteh had wanted to discuss with Charles. He had sounded serious and terse in his text. “In person” could have signified that he didn’t want to risk speaking or texting about the subject on the phone for security reasons. Dawson checked his ruminations. Before he began all this speculation, he needed to find out if this was really the Lawrence Tetteh of Goilco. Neither “Lawrence” nor “Tetteh” was an uncommon name, and he wasn’t going to embarrass himself by getting the wrong LT.
“Can I take the phones with me?” he asked the doctor. “I’d like to look through the calls and text messages. I would also like the STMA box. There’s more in there that I need to look at.”
“Yes, of course. Whatever you need.”
“Thank you.” He looked around the room again. “Please, Doc, don’t forget to let me know if you come across your uncle’s laptop.”
“I won’t forget.”
“Do you mind if I look in their bedroom?”
He followed her out of the office to the master bedroom at the other end of the hall. A large mask on the wall by the bed startled Dawson. Made of matte blackened wood, it looked at him from dark triangular eyes set below a dome-shaped forehead and smiled at him with jagged teeth.
“What kind of mask is that?” he asked, moving closer to it.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” She came up behind, and he became aware of her lingering fragrance. “Uncle told me it’s a ceremonial mask from the Dogon people of Burkina Fasso.”
“Was he particularly interested in the Dogon?”
“Yes, but he and Auntie Fiona simply liked to collect masks, as you can see.”
He looked around. Several masks of various sizes hung on the walls. To Dawson, many were beautiful, but others were not what he would like to see late at night.
“Do you know what all of them mean?”
“Not really.”
He looked at her. “Were your aunt and uncle superstitious at all?”
“No.”
“Did they have any dealings with fetish priests or traditional healers?”
She laughed. “No, they were thoroughly modern, especially my uncle. Liked all the new gadgets-iPhone, i-this, i-that.”
“They could still have some traditional beliefs,” Dawson pointed out. “Many modern Ghanaians do.”
“Not Uncle Charles, though.” She appeared both puzzled and amused. “Their being mask collectors doesn’t mean they were superstitious-or even spiritual, for that matter. Why do you ask?”
“I was just curious.”
“Oh,” she said, as it dawned on her. “I see. You’re wondering if the beheading was related to some kind of… magical powers, or juju.”
“Yes. I’m sorry to bring up the beheading again.”
“It’s okay, Inspector. You’re doing your job.”
She turned to gaze out of the window at the view of the back garden and the beach. Dawson looked around the room. The open closets were full of male and female attire. A magazine was open on the bed, as was a container of face powder on the makeup stand, and towels were hanging on the rack in the en suite bathroom. The place looked like it was in use.
“Is someone staying here?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I left everything exactly the way it was when they left that morning for Cape Three Points. Their bedroom isn’t like the office-it’s much more personal, and I can’t bring myself to disturb anything. If you need to go through their effects, feel free.”
“Just one thing I’d like to check,” he said. “The pockets of his suits. Do you mind?”
“No, not at all.”
She watched him do that, and Dawson felt intrusive performing this necessary evil. He found nothing and was glad in a way. Some secret item in those pockets could have been awkward for them both.
“Thank you, Doc.”
She smiled. “You’re welcome. Do you need to see anything more?”
“I think I’m fine for now.”
He collected the boxes of documents from the office, and she accompanied him downstairs back to the taxi. He asked her to get in touch with him if she remembered or came across anything that might be important. As he and Baah left, Dawson called Jason Sarbah’s number and left a voice mail explaining who he was and requesting a meeting.
He thought about the potential suspects so far: DeSouza, Cardiman, and Sarbah. They all had reason to hate Charles and Fiona, but under different circumstances and for different reasons. According to Dr. Smith-Aidoo, Mr. DeSouza, the chief executive officer of the powerful STMA, hated and resented Fiona for unseating him and hated her husband for his hostile visit to DeSouza after the radio “tirade” was broadcast.
Reggie Cardiman, the Ezile Bay owner Dawson had not yet met, was evidently in fierce opposition to Malgam Oil because of its potential threat to the survival of the flora and fauna of the sea and coast. Charles Smith-Aidoo, whose job it was to show his company in the best possible light, embodied the public face of Malgam, and for Cardiman, he would have been the most accessible and symbolic target for murderous wrath. The killing occurred not far from Ezile Bay and not long after Charles and Fiona Smith-Aidoo had left Cardiman. What had happened at their meeting? Perhaps it was acrimonious, leaving Cardiman infuriated and motivated to kill.
Jason Sarbah, too, could have had a strong motive to kill if he viewed Charles Smith-Aidoo, his cousin, as the person most responsible for the death of Jason’s beloved daughter Angela. Charles had refused to help Jason out financially, and Dawson could imagine how much pain and fury that might have engendered in Jason. This hadn’t merely been an appeal for assistance with buying something or paying the rent, this was a cry for help in saving a life. Charles’s point of view was that there were other ways to solve the problem, but that could hardly have been any comfort to Jason.
What troubled Dawson most about these three as suspects was that he couldn’t see any of them committing the crime without assistance. First, it would have been difficult for one person to handle two dead bodies. Second, someone knowledgeable about sea navigation would have been needed to take the bodies out as far as the Malgam rig. That was why Dawson was eager to speak with Abe’s fisherman friend, Forjoe, who might have heard, for example, that a fellow fisherman had been hired for a “job” of some kind. Dawson would then simply make the connections. Who knows, he could be close to wrapping this case up in record time. Stop that, he scolded himself. It was exactly that kind of thinking that got him into deep trouble.
Chapter 10
ABRAHAM WAS ELATED AT the idea of Christine coming with the boys to stay at the lodge for the weekend. Putting down some extra bedding would not be a problem.
“Thank you, Abe,” Dawson said.
“Don’t thank me. You’re flesh and blood, remember?”
That oddly reminded Dawson of the inscription in the old pocket watch. Blood runs deep.
In the afternoon, having reached Forjoe by phone, Abraham took Dawson on a trip to Sekondi Harbor along the coastal road. Dawson gazed at the seawall of large boulders along the route. Glancing farther out to sea, he saw the dark, squat shape on the horizon.
“Is that an oil rig?” he asked.
Abraham glanced over. “No, it’s an accommodation barge for temporary workers who don’t need to stay on the rig.”
On their left, rows of faded old buildings appeared. Going up an incline, they entered downtown old Sekondi with its haggard British colonial buildings, including an ancient but still functioning post office. In the shadow of the seventeenth-century Fort Orange at the hill’s pinnacle, the fishing harbor came into view with large and small canoes adorned with colorful flags and religious declarations painted on their hulls.