“Now about the other matter. I realize I have been treating you badly. I’ve never had a case for which a petition was made. My cases solved rate is high, and I suppose I was too prideful. I apologize to you.”
He wants to be on my good side now, Dawson thought. What a difference a good threat makes. “It’s okay, sir. Thank you.”
“Is there anything I or ASP Seidu can help you with?”
“No, sir. Thank you. I’m waiting for Chikata to return from Axim.”
“Very good.” As Dawson stood up to leave, Hammond said. “Please keep this conversation strictly between us.”
Dawson couldn’t promise that far. “I’ll do my best to, sir.”
He left the room quickly to avoid making more of a commitment. He hadn’t yet decided what to do. The fundamental question he had been facing about whether the Tetteh and Smith-Aidoo cases were connected was even more pressing because now, there was the smell of a cover-up. If it wasn’t possible to solve one murder without solving the other, then Dawson could not avoid “getting mixed up” with Tetteh’s case, as Hammond had put it.
Under a flame tree, he stood pondering which MP could be involved in a corruption scheme with the oil companies. Technically, any of them. However, the most likely were those with direct dealings. He began checking off as many ministerial posts as he could remember: Finance, Environment Science and Technology, Lands and Natural Resources, Interior … For a moment, he drew a blank until a thought hit him like a brick to the head. Back at the Raybow Hotel when Dawson had met with Sapphire to talk, she had told him that Terence Amihere, the Minister of Energy, was the BNI director’s half brother. Dawson now saw a possible scenario. An oil company was paying Amihere a kickback to allow them to bypass regulations and cut environmental corners. When Tetteh took over the leadership of Goilco, he got wind of this corrupt scheme and confronted Amihere, who got scared of being exposed and turned to his brother at BNI. They come up with a plan to quickly and cleanly kill Tetteh. Either Amihere’s people or the BNI could carry out the assassination. The BNI director, through some wrangling at the top echelons, takes over the case from CID and pins the murder on poor Silas.
Then where did Charles come in? Suppose Tetteh talked to him as well, telling him what was going on. Would Charles be a danger to Amihere as well? Possibly. If the oil company involved in the kickback is a Malgam Oil competitor, it could be in Malgam’s interest to expose the corruption. Or, perhaps Charles tried to blackmail Amihere after having learned about the corruption scheme.
Dawson nodded to himself, so deep in thought that he had become unaware of his surroundings. Questions remained, however. Why was the signature in Tetteh’s murder so different from that of the Smith-Aidoos? Did the BNI stage it to look like some kind of bizarre ritual sacrifice?
Second, why didn’t the BNI wrestle the Smith-Aidoo case away from the CID the way they had done the Tetteh murder? Probably because they simply couldn’t, despite their efforts. Dawson saw Chief Superintendent Lartey’s possible hand in this. Lartey detested the BNI director and over his dead body would he have allowed yet another case to go to the Bureau.
Third, who had put pressure on Hammond to stay clear of anything to do with the Tetteh investigation? Most likely a BNI person, but it was possible that someone high up in the police service could be involved in the scenario Dawson was proposing. That worried him, because if he was going to expose the BNI and the web extended into the police force, then he was going up against two very large and powerful organizations that could crush him to pieces.
If someone had been watching Dawson from a distance, they would have seen a worried man with his hands in his pockets and his head bent in concentration. Every once in a while, he nodded or shook his head, muttering to himself. He looked like a madman.
Chapter 31
AS HE RETURNED TO Takoradi in a taxi, Dawson received a call from Chikata. He was back from Axim again and still with no interesting news. He had interviewed three members of FOAX to no avail. It appeared that this was a dead end. Dawson was sorry that Chikata hadn’t hit any leads, but it had been a good exercise for him. Dawson told him he would stop by the hotel in about twenty minutes, but as he ended the call, he received a text from Sapphire that she had left a pen drive with Gamal for Dawson to pick up. Instead of going to the hotel, Dawson asked the taxi driver to go straight through Shippers Circle to Beach Road. The gate to the Smith-Aidoos’ house was open, and Gamal had the pen drive ready and waiting.
DAWSON WALKED INTO Chikata’s room and held the pen drive out to him.
“Massa, what’s on it?”
“I got it from the doctor,” Dawson said. “I’m hoping it has some information about her uncle that will help us.”
They sat on the love seat and perched the laptop on the coffee table in front of them. Chikata opened up the drive and went through the files. One PowerPoint detailed recent oil discoveries in African countries. The rest was a collection of photographs taken at different events focusing on oil production in Ghana.
“ ‘First oil,’ ” Chikata said, reading the caption below the image of the President of Ghana symbolically turning the wheel that had opened up the valve for the maiden flow of oil. The caption below another photograph described Roger Calmy-Rey and Charles meeting with the local press and the Parliamentary Committee on Energy Policy.
Dawson clicked through, coming to a set of images taken at a black tie event that Calmy-Rey had attended with his senior management team.
“That’s the Minister of Energy, Terence Amihere,” Dawson said, pointing to a man in the photograph holding a cocktail glass as he conversed with a white woman in an off-the-shoulder black dress.
“You know him?” Chikata asked.
“I’ve met him once. We’ll talk some more about him in a minute.”
Chikata shot him a quick, puzzled look, but said nothing.
In the next image, Amihere was in conversation with Charles.
“Who’s this guy?” Chikata asked, pointing to someone in the right background, and then referring to the caption. “Oh, it’s Lawrence Tetteh, the Goilco CEO. More evidence that he and Charles knew each other.”
Dawson peered at the image, first close up and then from a distance. “Tetteh seems to be looking directly at Amihere. How would you describe the look on his face? Questioning?”
“Maybe something like that,” Chikata said speculatively, “But to me it looks more on the side of contempt, or disgust.”
“That would fit.”
“Are you going to tell me what happened today, or just keep me wondering?”
Dawson related his confrontation with Hammond and then the revelation the superintendent had made. As he described the superintendent’s description of the MP corruption scandal, Chikata’s face reflected the seriousness of the implications.
“What do you plan on doing?” he asked Dawson.
“Well, in the first place, we need to be careful. If we are going to be dealing with thugs who assassinate their enemies and chop people’s heads off, then we need to ask ourselves if we want to get in the middle of this. What I fear the most are threats against my family.”
Chikata swore under his breath. “Oh, no. Not that. Dawson, I think we have to go straight to Uncle Theo. I’m positive he knows nothing about this.”
“We have to go to him, yes, but we need more information in order to make a strong and clear case to him.”
“All right, but how?”
“That’s the question.”
“Do you have the answer?”
Dawson delivered a brisk slap to the side of Chikata’s head and the sergeant fell over with laughter.
“Insubordination, Sergeant,” Dawson muttered, a smile playing at his lips. He grew serious again. “There’s something that connects the Tetteh and the Smith-Aidoo murders. We just haven’t found it. I was hoping this pen drive would shed some light, but it hasn’t added much.”
The two men sat back pondering for a while. F
inally, Dawson sighed and shook his head. “I’m not sure about the next step,” he said. “Anyway, leaving that aside for a moment, in the time being, I haven’t told you about my expedition to the rig.”
“Oh, yes!” Chikata said, smiling. “I want to hear about it. Were you scared when you were in the helicopter?”
“At first I was very nervous,” Dawson admitted, “but then I quickly got used to it.”
He gave the fascinated sergeant a detailed account of the journey to the rig and the time he spent on it, as well as his conversations with Mr. Glagah and Clifford. “What that trip impressed on me, Chikata,” Dawson said, getting to his feet and leaning against the desk, “is how impossible it would have been to carry out this murder without involving someone who knows the Atlantic backward and forward. So even though we’ve been going after possible suspects like Jason Sarbah and Reggie Cardiman who might have had a grudge against Charles—and we should—we have to start giving more attention to the strong possibility that there was also a fisherman who might have had something against them.”
“Do you mean I should keep searching for connections in Axim?”
“I’d like you to go to Cape Three Points village tomorrow and ask around. You might come up with a possible lead—maybe someone who had a confrontation with Charles. You’ll probably have to visit the chief to introduce yourself, just like we did at Akwidaa.”
Chikata nodded. “I’ll do that.” He made a face. “I’ll have to buy some gin.”
Dawson smiled. “Yes, you will.” He returned to his seat and shifted the laptop over. “Let me check if Dr. Taryque has emailed me the postmortem pics.”
Chikata reached over to the refrigerator while Dawson logged on and went to his web mail. “Do you want a Malta?”
“Yes, thank you. You sure your uncle is paying for all this?”
Chikata snorted. “He’d better be, because I certainly am not.”
“Ah, the doc has sent me a message.”
Dawson turned the laptop slightly so Chikata could see better.
Dear Inspector Dawson,
Here are the images you requested. As you will observe, powder burns are present around the head wound of the male but not the female.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
WT
Dawson opened the file and went through the fifteen slides—seven for Charles and eight for Fiona. Each of them had descriptive captions. Two slides each pictured their full-length bodies lying on the autopsy table. In Charles’s case, one was the headless version and the other was with his head placed contiguous with his neck.
“Oh, dear Jesus,” Chikata said, shaking his head and clicking his tongue. “Terrible.”
Another image was a close-up of the ragged decapitation site. Dawson shuddered. On the close-up of Charles’s right side head wound, the ring of soot was visible even against his dark skin.
Even in death, Fiona’s body was curvaceous with large, firm thighs. Besides the bullet wound to her head and the ligature lines at her wrists, she was unmarked. Most importantly, in contrast to Charles, no soot appeared around the entry wound at her left temple. She was lighter in color than her husband, so there was no question about it.
“The way I see it,” Dawson said, “two men took part in the murder. They ambush Charles’s vehicle on his way back from Ezile with his wife. They kidnap them that afternoon and transport them to a spot near a secluded beach somewhere. Night comes, they take Charles and Fiona down to the beach and order them to kneel or lie on the ground.” Dawson formed the shape of a pistol with thumb and index and aimed downward. “The gunman stands at Charles’s side, presses the nozzle to his temple, and shoots him, but with Fiona, he stands where he is and shoots her from a distance of two or three meters. Then one of them decapitates Charles. It takes a strong stomach and a cold heart to do that. It’s not easy, and it’s a bloody mess.”
“If only we knew what beach the kidnappers took them to,” Chikata said, perching on the arm of the sofa.
“Why?” Dawson asked, studying him.
“Then maybe we could locate the place where they held the Smith-Aidoos throughout the afternoon and evening. It might be close to the beach, and it might have been some kind of house or shack or enclosed structure where they could keep them concealed.”
“Go on,” Dawson encouraged him.
“I asked people in Axim if they knew of any beach that was exclusive—just one or two houses, for example. No one gave me any useful answers.”
Dawson snapped his fingers and sat bolt upright. “I’m such a fool.”
“What, what?”
“I’ve been thinking the kidnappers took the Smith-Aidoos to some faraway place like Axim in order to make it harder to track them down, but no. What do you meet on the road just before you get to Axim?”
Chikata thought about it for barely a second. “Oh! I went there twice and didn’t think of it. I’m the fool, rather. There’s a customs checkpoint. Not even an idiot would take the risk of trying to get through that with two kidnapped people in the boot of the car.”
“Exactly,” Dawson said, nodding. “In fact, Chikata, it’s the opposite. The kidnappers would want a spot as close to the ambush point as possible.”
“But not Ezile Bay, because there are people there at the resort.”
“But remember the spot Mr. Cardiman took us where we had a view of Ezile to the left and a second bay to the right?”
“Yes, yes,” Chikata said nodding.
“The second bay is mostly deserted—remember, Cardiman said only occasionally does someone walk along the beach between Cape Three Points village and Akwidaa. We need to go there. Call Baah and tell him to get down here quick.”
Chapter 32
AFTER THEY HAD CALLED Baah, Dawson had a brain wave that they should borrow Abraham’s 4×4 to tackle the unpaved section of the road to Cape Three Points. He was glad they did because Baah drove at a speed that would have split his taxi in two over the treacherous surface. In spite of his making it in record time, evening was fast approaching the way it always does at the equator. They reached the sign pointing to Ezile Bay Resort, and Dawson instructed Baah to keep going west.
“Slow down, though,” he said. “We’re looking for some kind of access on the left-hand side that someone could use to get to the beach.”
They went past an unbroken sequence of impenetrable bush.
“I don’t see any way you can get through this to the beach,” Chikata muttered.
They came to the crest of a hill, below which they could see Cape Three Points village in the distance.
“That means we’ve gone too far,” Dawson said, looking at the dashboard clock. It was almost five thirty. “Let’s go back, Baah. Maybe we missed it.”
They turned around in swirling red dust and slowly retraced their course.
“Oh, there,” Baah said, the first to spot a gap in the bush that hadn’t been visible from the opposite direction.
“Good work,” Dawson said. “Let’s turn in.”
Not a constructed road, it was more a vehicular path with a track for the wheels on either side of a crest of grass. The three men were silent, not sure what to expect.
“I can go small-small,” Baah said, slowing down, “but the bush start to make thick.”
Chikata drew in a breath as, after another 300 meters, the shell of a house appeared on the right side of the path as if it had sprung from the bush like a mushroom.
“Look at that,” Dawson said, almost not believing it.
The roof was in place, but the doors and windows were unfinished and the brickwork was raw and unpainted. It wasn’t uncommon in Ghana to come across a random, unfinished house in a relatively uninhabited area, but this was especially isolated.
“Let’s park and walk,” Dawson said. “I want to get to the beach first, before it gets dark, and then we’ll come back and look at this house.”
Wispy clouds glowed orange as
the sun began to set. They followed the footpath that led away from the house, noticing mangroves and hearing the sound of crashing waves as they got closer to the beach. They emerged abruptly onto the shore, surprised at how close the water was. The tide was evidently cresting. A few more meters and their ankles would have gotten a soaking.
The beach arced gently, terminating at each end with a peninsula. Dawson pointed to the promontory on their left. “On the other side of that is Ezile Bay, where we were. Cape Three Points village is over the peninsula on the right. This bay here is secluded, and it would be perfect for the killers to launch out to the oil rig in secret.”
The three men stood for a while, looking around. No one was in sight, only the beach with its cresting waves, coconut palms and mangroves—undeniably powerful yet soothing. But somewhere here, Dawson thought, a heinous crime may have been committed, the waves washing away the bloody evidence in the sand. “Come on,” he said, “let’s get back to that house.”
The sun was disappearing and light was fading. Both Dawson and Chikata switched on their flashlights as they walked around the rustic building, picking through scratchy brush. All the windows were frameless, open gaps. The interior was empty, although they could deduce which space would become the kitchen, dining area, sitting room, and the two bedrooms in the rear.
The cement floor was dusty. Dawson was intrigued by how engaged Baah was. He had taken out his cell phone and was using its small but respectable flashlight to shine into the window of the smaller of the bedrooms.
“Please, Inspector,” he called out, just as Dawson was about to move on. “Come and see.”
Dawson and Chikata joined him at the window. Baah’s flashlight beam caught three plastic water bottles tossed on the floor. They had a good coating of dust, meaning they had probably been there for a while. That wasn’t what had attracted Baah’s attention. It was a glint of metal in the right-hand corner of the room.
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