Warily, he turned to Fiona’s details. She, too, was bound at the wrists behind her back. Her outfit was purple and pink with pink undergarments. Beach sand had soiled the clothing of both victims, suggesting that the perpetrator(s) had dragged both of them along the sand for some unknown distance. The pathologist’s report also noted: A large silver hoop earring hangs from the lobe of the right ear, but no corresponding earring on the left is present.
She had sustained a gunshot wound to the right temple. The bullet had tracked across her brain to shatter the left cheekbone, where it had emerged. No bullet or fragments were present, nor did the report mention whether or not gunpowder stippling accompanied the entry wound. Had there been none, or had Dr. Cudjoe inadvertently omitted that detail? He had indicated the wounds on the standard schematic drawings always provided on a postmortem form. Photographs were not included with the documents, which was common. Most of the time, no camera was available, and in any case, the mortuary personnel, including the forensic pathologist, often took photos at a bad angle or in poor light.
Next to the name George Findlay, Offshore Oil Installation Manager, a telephone number had been circled, with a red arrow pointing to it. Dawson had no idea what an oil installation manager was. He was about to find out.
Chapter 4
GEORGE FINDLAY PICKED up the call almost immediately. Dawson introduced himself and told him he was taking on the Smith-Aidoo case.
“I’m very glad to hear that,” Findlay said. He had a light Scottish accent and a pleasant voice. “We need someone to solve it once and for all.”
“Do you have a moment to answer some questions?”
“No more than about ten minutes. I’m at Kotoka Airport getting ready to leave for Glasgow.”
“I’ll be quick, then. By the way, what does your job entail as an oil installation manager?”
“I’m the most senior manager on the rig, ultimately responsible for day-to-day operations and safety of everyone on board. For example, that morning the canoe with the dead bodies drifted into the rig area, it broke everyone’s focus on their jobs, and it was my responsibility to marshal everyone back to work. There could have been a breach of safety and security.”
“I see,” Dawson said. That gave him a clear picture.
“People were coming up to the pipe deck to see the spectacle,” Findlay continued. “Eventually, Michael Glagah, our safety officer put a stop to that, but in the midst of all the confusion, Dr. Smith-Aidoo came up from the medic room to see what the commotion was about. The tragedy is that I had no idea that it was her aunt and uncle in the canoe, so I let her use my binoculars to get a better look. She stared for a wee bit and then let out a strange cooing noise, rather like a pigeon, and then she fainted. Fortunately, someone was right next to her to catch her. She seemed to recover somewhat a few seconds later, but she was still staring glassy-eyed as though in shock, and I couldn’t understand why Michael took another look in the binoculars and said something like, ‘Oh, my God,’ and whispered to me that the corpses looked like Charles and Fiona Smith-Aidoo. He had met them before, but I had not.”
“Do you think the display was aimed directly at her?”
“If so, it takes a diabolical mind to conceive of and execute something as gruesome and abhorrent as that.”
Dawson could not have said it any better. “What happened next?”
“We took Dr. Smith-Aidoo downstairs to rest and radioed to shore for an emergency chopper to come in and take her back to the mainland.”
“She will never forget that horrible day,” Dawson commented.
“Never,” Findlay agreed. “To see her beloved uncle decapitated… I can only begin to imagine how awful that was.”
“What was Mr. Smith-Aidoo’s role at Malgam? What does a corporate relations director do?”
“It’s a delicate job of juggling government and public affairs, media relations, internal relations, liaison with the CEO and the board, response to external pressures, managing company image, and so on.”
“Not easy, in other words.”
“Not at all. I don’t know how he did it.”
“Do you think he made enemies?”
“Maybe he did; I don’t know, but even if that was the case, I find it difficult to imagine anyone, enemy or otherwise, doing something this vicious and cold-blooded to him and his wife. From what I heard about him, he was well-liked.”
“Still,” Dawson said, “the job description sounds like every once in a while, he would have had to tell people things they didn’t want to hear.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Findlay said, “but companies like Malgam always try to stay on a positive note and make a favorable public showing-you know, refurbishing a school here or building a hospital there, repairing a stretch of road or roundabout, and so on.”
Dawson heard the airport announcer in the background over the phone. “Sounds like they’re calling your flight, sir. I appreciate your time. Have a safe journey.”
BEFORE RETURNING HOME, Dawson rode the short distance from CID headquarters to a district of Accra called Osu, where his older brother, Cairo, owned a curio shop. Besides trying to stop by to see Cairo at least once a week, Dawson made it a rule to do his best to visit anytime he was going out of town. He supposed it was a kind of superstition that if anything happened to him on the road, Cairo would at least be able to look back and say that he had spent time with his younger brother, Darko, not long before he died.
Cairo had been a paraplegic since he was a teenager. In a tragedy that had occurred in just a few seconds but would affect him for the rest of his life, a car had hit him as he crossed the street on the way to buy some provisions. Flying up over the roof of the car and down the back, he had severed his spine and become paralyzed from the waist down.
In years past, he had relied heavily on the care of others, but the Cairo of today was fiercely independent, far from helpless, and doing very well for himself. His curio shop was located along the tourist trap, clustered around Oxford Street. It was packed with souvenir vendors, restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, banks, and telecom giants like Vodafone. During the global economic downturn, Cairo had fallen on a rough time, as had other merchants, but he had survived and trade had picked up again. Until only a couple of years ago, he had been single, but now he was married to Audrey, a gem of a woman, and they had one daughter.
The shop, Ultimate Craft, was air-conditioned and filled with the sweet smell of wood and leather goods. Recently Cairo had expanded, buying out the neighboring shop and annexing it. Georgina, his faithful store manager, greeted Dawson and told him his brother was in his office.
Dawson poked his head around the door. “Busy?”
Cairo looked up and grinned. “Darko, come in! Not really. I’m only pretending.”
Dawson laughed and leaned down to hug his brother. “How are you?”
“Fine-just going over the books,” he said, waving at the laptop on his desk. “You know how that is.”
He was three years older than Dawson and had the same closely shaved hairstyle. They resembled each other in the face, but the physiques differed. Cairo, athletic as a boy before the accident, was now chunkier than his younger brother, although he had recently lost weight on the orders of his doctor.
He swung his lightweight wheelchair around to face Dawson as he took a seat. “So, what’s up, little brother?”
“I’m off to Takoradi on Tuesday,” Dawson said.