“The charges were eventually dropped?”
“Yes, but by then, the investigation had dragged on, and Daddy had been in prison for three or four months. He lost friends; he lost his job. When he got out, he was a crushed man. He drank more heavily than he ever had and ate almost nothing. I saw him lose kilos by the day and wither away. In 1960 he committed suicide by hanging.”
In the gloomy room, Dawson could see Sarbah’s eyes moisten and swell. “I’m very sorry to hear that, sir.”
“In effect,” Sarbah said morosely, “the accusation, the imprisonment, the disgrace all slowly tortured him to death, and I blame Simon for it because he falsely accused Daddy.”
“Could it be that he did see someone in the room whom he misidentified?”
“No,” Sarbah said, his jaw set like stone. “He deliberately made it up.”
“Why would a boy make up a story like that?” Dawson asked.
“Spite,” Sarbah snapped, as though the word was poison he had to disgorge. “He was a malevolent child who hated me and hated my father, not the least because R.E. had a running tirade against Tiberius that he let his children hear and breathe day in, day out.”
In his mind, Dawson wondered instead whether Simon might have blurted Tiberius’s name under suggestive police questioning. Tiberius was probably a fairly strong suspect at the time, given the public displays of antagonism between him and R.E. Sometimes a frightened child says what he thinks adults want to hear. Apart from that, Dawson knew of many cases in which one detective, particularly the most senior on the team, pressures his junior officers to focus on a particular suspect and either get a confession or a solid accusatory statement from an eyewitness.
“The murder was never solved?” he asked Sarbah.
“Never,” he said, shaking his head slowly in sad disgust.
“Who then took care of you and your half brothers?”
“We were split up between R.E.’s siblings-I went to a sister of his, and Simon and Cecil went to a brother.”
“What was your experience like with your step-aunt?”
Sarbah curled his lip. “I hated it. She treated me as if I wasn’t there.”
“Did you see your half siblings much after that?”
“Yes, but we didn’t speak.”
Dawson reflected for a while on this man’s joyless life ridden with trauma, death, and neglect. No wonder he was angry. The question was whether he was angry enough to kill.
Sarbah stood up and went to the sideboard in his dining area and removed two framed photographs from the top of it.
“That’s my father and me,” he said, handing the first one to Dawson. “I was about six at the time.”
The picture was a rather faded one in sepia. Still, the resemblance between Richard and his father was easy to see. Tiberius was squarely built with widely set facial features. He and his son were smartly dressed for the picture and showed the usual solemn expressions of the time. People didn’t smile much for photographs back then.
Sarbah gave him the second picture, which was in full color and more modern in quality. “And that’s Barbara, my wife; Jason; and me.”
She was plump with a soft face. Jason, about nineteen in this photo, got his light skin was from her. Richard, well-built back then at around fifty, Dawson estimated, had evidently kept his strong physique and youthful features.
“That’s nice,” Dawson said, studying the photograph. “Do you have a lot of pictures?”
“Yes,” he said, opening one of the sideboard doors to reveal a stack of photo albums. “All in there. Perhaps one day when we have more time, I’ll show them to you.”
“I would like that,” Dawson said. He was thinking that much of the pictorial family history involving Tiberius, which Eileen so lacked, was probably all here with Richard Sarbah. “Is your wife around?”
“Barbara and I have been separated for years.” Surprisingly, Sarbah chuckled. “No sympathy required. It was for the best.”
“Besides Jason, do you have any other children?”
Sarbah’s face lit up. “No. He’s my only child. I’m proud of my boy and what he has done for himself. He’s a gem.”
That made Dawson think of Hosiah, then of Sly, and finally of children in general and what they did to a parent’s heart and soul. “I heard about Angela, your granddaughter,” he said quietly.
Sarbah stared at the floor, anguish in his face. “When she died, a part of me died with her. Jason was broken. I was afraid he might kill himself. I prayed to God-don’t let what happened to my father happen to my son. I persuaded Jason to stay with me here for a while so I could support him and keep an eye on him. I would do anything for my boy.”
“I admire you for that,” Dawson said. “You might even have saved his life.”
“But I couldn’t save Angela’s,” Sarbah said sadly.
“Maybe no one could have saved her.”
“There were people who could have,” Sarbah said dejectedly, “but they turned Jason away.”
“You mean Charles and Dr. Smith-Aidoo.”
“Yes.”
“Forgive me-I’m not trying to be offensive, but did Jason ever express a desire to take revenge on them?”
Sarbah dismissed that with a wave of the hand. “Not only is he not that kind of person, he didn’t even have the strength. He was in deep depression. He wouldn’t eat. He shed kilos the same way my father did. I was afraid.”
“Both of you went through a terrible ordeal.”
“As terrible as it was, life goes on. Have you spoken to my son?”
“I have. I can tell he is still in pain.”
“He is. I feel for him.”
“And maybe you were angry enough with Charles to hire two or three men to kill him?”
Sarbah snorted derisively. “If I ever decided to kill someone, Inspector, you can be sure that I wouldn’t hire anyone to do it.”
Dawson watched him carefully. “Mr. Sarbah, can you tell me where you were on Monday, the seventh of July and the following day, the eighth, when the bodies of the Smith-Aidoos were found?”
“That Monday Forjoe and I went to Tarkwa to look into buying some gold. We stayed overnight and returned Tuesday evening. Everyone was talking about the Smith-Aidoos when we got back. You’re welcome to check with Forjoe about the trip. He’ll confirm it.”
Dawson stood up. “Thank you for your time, sir.”
“Not at all. I’ll see you out.”
After Sarbah had said goodbye, Baah pulled out of the front yard.
“Drive slowly just a little bit and then stop,” Dawson told him.
He got out and walked quietly back to the house, listening for a moment for any conversation between Sarbah and Forjoe. He heard none. That’s what Dawson wanted-to talk to Forjoe alone.
“Forjoe!” he called out softly. “It’s me, Dawson.”
“Yes, sir?” Forjoe said from the other side. He opened the gate again a crack.
“I forgot to ask you something. Do you remember the day those people, Charles and Fiona Smith-Aidoo, were kidnapped and then killed? It was the seventh of July, and they were coming from Ezile Bay.”
“Hmm,” Forjoe said, considering. “Eh-heh, yes, I remember now.”
“It was a Monday. Do you remember where you were that day?”
“Yes, I went with massa to Tarkwa. We were looking into setting up some gold business, and we came back on Tuesday evening. I remember because when we came back, everybody was talking about what happened.”
Dawson nodded. “Okay, thanks.”
He trotted back to the car, satisfied. Richard Sarbah was not on his list of suspects.