by Kwei Quartey
Just a little way past the gate was the Volta River Authority Hospital. Dawson parked and went in through an open-walled reception area. About fifteen patients, some with children, were waiting to be called in for treatment. As Dawson paused, wondering where Dr. Biney’s office was, a young woman with a brilliant smile and expensively braided hair approached him.
“Good morning, sir,” he said. “Are you Detective Inspector Dawson?”
“Good morning. Yes, that’s me.”
“Welcome to the VRA Hospital, sir.”
Dawson shook hands with her as she introduced herself as Victoria, Dr. Biney’s administrative assistant.
“He is expecting you,” she said warmly. “Please come this way. Did you have a safe trip up from Accra?”
He followed Victoria through a double door into the skylit, air-conditioned corridor within. Dr. Biney’s office was the third on the left, and his assistant showed Dawson in.
“Dr. Biney, Detective Inspector Dawson has arrived.”
As always in new surroundings, Dawson took a quick snapshot of the room. A full-scale model human skeleton in the far corner, bookshelf bursting with medical texts and journals, stethoscope and ophthalmoscope on the desk, piles of folders and papers everywhere, including on the floor. An outgrown office space of a busy man with too much to do and too little time in which to do it.
Biney rose from his desk. “D.I. Dawson, welcome!”
He was a hearty man with a voice to match, standing at least six two. He was taller than Dawson and heavier by far. He had a neatly cropped head of hair and an amazing salt-and-pepper mustache that sprouted straight out to the sides. When they shook hands, Biney’s palm dwarfed Dawson’s.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Dawson. I trust the journey was fine?”
“Excellent, thank you, Doctor.”
“Can we get you anything? Some refreshment, maybe?”
“No, thank you. I’m okay for now.”
“Come along, then. Shall we proceed to the morgue?”
They suited up—gown, apron, gloves, face shield, and shoe covers—and moved on into the autopsy room. Dawson had somehow imagined a long row of tables, but there were only two, and upon one of them lay the body of a young woman. Must be Gladys Mensah.
Arranging a tray of instruments nearby was a man in a heavy-duty apron and thick, knee-high rubber boots.
Dr. Biney introduced him. “Obodai is my most trusted assistant, and without him, this place could not run.”
Obodai laughed bashfully and offered a feeble denial, but Dawson had no doubt that Dr. Biney’s declaration was true.
“Are we ready to go?” Biney said.
“We are ready, sir,” Obodai said.
Dr. Biney turned to the body, standing to its right side as a doctor always does. Obodai stood at the head, near the sink, and Dawson took his position on the left. He looked down at the body. A courier had delivered the police file last night, complete with photographs of the body at the crime scene, but the Gladys Mensah now in front of him looked waxy and strangely unreal. He could tell she had been lovely alive, and he was trying to imagine her speaking, moving, animated.
Dawson lightly touched Gladys’s arm. “So cold,” he murmured. “Once she was warm and breathing.”
It was what he could never quite get his mind around—not just how complex life was, but why it was so easy for life to leave a person once so complex.
“Only twenty-two years old,” Biney said gently “It seems a shame, doesn’t it, Detective Inspector Dawson?”
“It does.”
Biney took a deep breath and let out a sigh as if to say, Be that as it may, we have work to do. He first brought his face closer to Gladys and examined her slowly from head to toe. He did not touch her yet.
“In medical school we were always taught to listen, look, and then feel a patient,” he said. “It’s no different dealing with a dead person.”
Dawson watched him, trying at the same time to spot anything on Gladys’s body that might be significant. She was lean, with perfectly smooth skin that had likely been the color of milk chocolate before death had darkened her.
“Anything catch your eye, Mr. Dawson?”
“Not yet.”
“Measurements, Obodai?” Biney said.
“She weighs fifty-two kilos, and measures one hundred and seventy-three centimeters long, sir.”
“Mm-hm. Thank you. No stab or puncture wounds that I can see so far. Nor contusions, or ecchymoses. No evidence for fractures of the skull or long bones …” He checked her fingers. “She kept her nails short—they look clean, but get clippings later, Obodai, would you?”
“Very good, sir.”
“Roll her up?”
Obodai smoothly and expertly turned Gladys’s body on its side so Biney could look at her back.
“Ah, Inspector Dawson, take a look. Here we see blanching at the shoulders and buttocks, indicating that she was lying on her back for some time postmortem. The weight of her body compresses the blood vessels in the areas in contact with the ground, preventing accumulation of blood there. I still see no wounds of any kind. The posterior scalp’s clear of contusions or hematomas. Interesting.”
“Let her back down, Doctor?” Obodai said.
“Yes, please. And we’ll put her on the head block now and open the skull.”
Obodai lifted the body at the shoulders and slid the wooden block underneath it. As he did that and Gladys’s neck became slightly more exposed, Biney seemed to notice something. He went closer and peered at her chin.
Dawson followed his lead. “What do you see, Dr. Biney?”
“It looks like an abrasion,” he said, with a tinge of excitement in his voice. “I’ve seen it before, in another case. The victim is being strangled, she lowers her chin to protect her neck and gets a bruise from the assailant’s hands. Strangling someone is not as easy as people think.”
“Strangling,” Dawson echoed.
“Indeed. Change of plan, Obodai.”
“Dissect the neck, sir?”
“Yes, let’s postpone the skull for the moment.”
“Very good. Your scalpel, sir.”
Dr. Biney began at Gladys’s chin and made a long, clean incision straight down the middle to the sternal notch. There was very little subcutaneous fat, and the muscle layer popped into view after minimal dissection.
“Do I see subtle hemorrhages in the soft tissues around the right sternomastoid,” Biney said, “or do my eyes deceive? I don’t want to be premature, but I think we may have something here.”
He continued carefully with short, precise incisions with the scalpel, peeling away the layers covering the larynx.
“Ah.”
“What is it, Dr. Biney?”
“Fractured thyroid cartilage. Gracious. Do you see it, Inspector Dawson? Let me show you. This is the thyroid cartilage. It looks like a roof we’re viewing from above. This is one side of the roof sloping up, this is the other, and where they meet is the prominence everyone knows as the Adam’s apple. We can’t see them, but the vocal cords are behind the cartilage—underneath the roof, so to speak. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Look at the left side of the cartilage here. It looks smooth. When I poke it, it moves in one piece. Now look at the right. I depress it firmly, and what happens?”
“It bends in the middle.”
“Yes. Why?”
“Because it’s cracked.”
“Ten points. There you have it. Fracture of the thyroid cartilage.”
“Besides strangulation, is there any other possible cause of a thyroid cartilage fracture?”
“There are—such as falling against something and striking the front of the neck,” Biney said. “The armrest of a chair, for instance. Another would be a karate chop to the neck. But fractures of the larynx in circumstances like this mostly result from strangulation, and my finding of perilaryngeal focal hemorrhage—in other words, bruising—is consistent with this. I w
onder if the hyoid bone was damaged as well.”
He returned to Gladys’s neck and moved upward from the thyroid cartilage to the apex of the throat.
“Dissecting around the hyoid bone now,” he said. “It’s a much harder structure to fracture because it’s protected behind the lower jaw.”
A few minutes later, Dr. Biney said, “It’s intact. No fracture. But, there’s swelling and hemorrhage around it. Again, consistent with considerable force applied to the neck over some sustained period.”
Dawson gazed at Dr. Biney, and their eyes met. It was, quite frankly, breathtaking.
“What you’re saying is—”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying, Mr. Dawson. In the case of Gladys Mensah, the cause of death is asphyxiation by strangulation. Manner of death is homicide.”
VICTORIA TYPED UP THE official autopsy report in no time at all and gave Dawson a copy.
“Would you like to meet my wife and have some lunch before you set off to Ho?” Dr. Biney suggested as he saw Dawson out. “We have a place on the water and a floating gazebo on the river, and my wife makes an exquisite grilled tilapia.”
It was certainly tempting, but Dawson declined with thanks. “I should get to Ho without delay,” he explained.
“Very well—perhaps another time. You are always welcome.”
They exchanged calling cards as they continued on to Dawson’s car.
Just as he was about to open the door, Dawson thought of something. “You know a lot of people, Dr. Biney. Would you mind taking a look at this?”
He dug into his pocket and fished out the gold watch he had confiscated from Daramani. “Stolen item, seems it belongs to a doctor. Do you know this name?”
Biney looked at the engraving on the back plate. “Good gracious,” he said in surprise. “I most certainly do know this fellow. He and I were classmates in med school and we’re still in touch.”
“Any idea where he lives or works?”
“In Accra. As a matter of fact, I have to be in Accra in two weeks and I can see to it personally that he gets it back—if that’s okay with you, that is.”
“It’s a million times better than okay. A huge relief, really—one less thing to do.”
“Consider it done, then.”
“Thank you, Doctor. For everything.”
“You’re most welcome, Inspector Dawson. If there’s anything I can help you with, please don’t hesitate to call. Good luck, and drive safely.”
To get to Ketanu from Akosombo, Dawson went south again to Atimpoku and took the Adomi Bridge across the Volta River. He fiddled with the radio dial until he found a station playing hip-life music—something to keep him company for the hour-long journey. Much of that time was taken up by slowing at police checkpoints. Togo, Ghana’s neighboring country, was not far away, and as Dawson knew only too well, the Volta Region was a hub for illicit drugs going back and forth across the border.
No drug-sniffing dogs at the checkpoints, thank goodness. Dawson had a little marijuana on him, and though his CID badge would get him easily past the human police, nosy canines were another matter altogether.
Traffic was light up to Ketanu. Along the road, pedestrians trudged between one town and the next, and not for the first time, Dawson marveled at the stamina of even small children carrying firewood or buckets of water on their heads.
By the time he reached Juapong, he was good and hungry and kept thinking about Dr. Biney’s alluring invitation to dine on grilled tilapia. Dawson would have to settle for something gastronomically simpler, and he pulled over to buy golden-roasted plantain and groundnuts from a roadside trader.
On the way again, Dawson noticed how the vegetation began to change from open bush with isolated skyscraper trees to denser semi-deciduous forest, but that in turn gave way to buildings as Dawson approached Ketanu. He passed a sign announcing YOU ARE ENTERING KETANU and slowed down over the brain-rattling speed strips.
If Ketanu had been an impressionist painting, it would have been dots and daubs of tan and brown. Buildings were a cream color or darker, and the rusted tin roofs exactly matched the color of the ground. Tro-tros and taxis plied the streets, and shops and trading kiosks lined the roadside with entertaining appellations like Nothing but Prayer Electrical Goods and the God Is Great Hair Clinic. Dawson loved these names.
He was looking for something recognizable from long ago, but nothing familiar had struck him so far. Even the road he was on was newly constructed and not the same one he had traveled with Mama and Cairo.
Dawson was to meet an Inspector Fiti at the police station. The directions were in his head. He turned right onto a fitfully paved road, drove slowly up a small incline, and pulled up to a small, stand-alone square building painted the signature dark blue with the words GHANA POLICE SERVICE—KETANU across the top in white.
Before the entrance itself, there was a small covered veranda, where three people were seated on a wooden bench. As he walked in, Dawson saw a counter at the front with space to fit no more than two people behind it. To his left, down a couple of steps, were two small jail cells, and to his right was an office whose door was shut.
Two constables in the standard GPS gray-and-black camouflage-like uniform were behind the counter doing some paperwork. The younger, round-faced one, who looked to be in his mid-twenties, looked up inquiringly.
“Good afternoon, sir. You are welcome.”
“Good afternoon. I’m Detective Inspector Dawson, Accra CID.”
The constable stood up even straighter.
“Yes, sir, Inspector Dawson, sir. I’m Constable Gyamfi.” They shook hands. “That is Constable Bubo over there.”
“Good afternoon, sir,” Bubo said, standing up with an acknowledging nod.
“I will let Inspector Fiti know you are here, sir,” Gyamfi said, coming around from behind the counter. He knocked on the closed office door, opened it, and put his head in.
“Please, sir, Detective Inspector Dawson from Accra is here.”
“Who?” Dawson heard the inspector say.
“D.I. Dawson, sir. From CID, sir.”
“From Accra, you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
There was silence for a moment. The door opened fully, and Inspector Fiti emerged. He was probably in his late forties, pointy-faced with a thick neck and sweat rings at the armpits of his olive shirt, which was coming undone from underneath his paunch. He seemed both puzzled and wary as he approached Dawson.
“Good afternoon, Detective Inspector,” he said. “Can I do anything for you?” His voice was coarse and sticky, like freshly laid asphalt.
Now it was Dawson who was puzzled. “I’m here regarding the murder case? Gladys Mensah?”
Fiti looked blank. “I was expecting someone from Ho.”
“I don’t know much about that part,” Dawson said. “All I was told by my chief super was that the minister of health wanted Accra CID to be in charge.”
“Who is your chief superintendent?”
“Theophilus Lartey.”
“Oh, yes. I know him.”
A trim, clean-shaven, baby-faced man had been hovering behind Fiti in the doorway of the office, but now he approached Dawson.
“Welcome, Detective Inspector,” he said, shaking hands. His voice was gentle but resilient, like the sensation of soft, wet grass on bare feet, and his inflection hinted at some significant stay in England. “I’m Timothy Sowah, program director of the Health Service AIDS program in the Volta Region. Gladys Mensah was doing volunteer work with us. She was the best. These past three days have been horrendous.”
“Excuse me one minute,” Inspector Fiti said brusquely, returning to his office and shutting the door.
“He doesn’t seem very happy I’m here,” Dawson said, lowering his voice.
Timothy made a face. “No, he doesn’t.”
Seconds later they could hear Fiti on the phone asking someone at the Ho station what was going on.
“Can I have a word w
ith you outside?” Timothy said to Dawson.
They stepped out.
“Don’t let this on to Inspector Fiti,” Timothy said, “but I had a lot to do with your being here instead of the chap from Ho.”
Dawson was surprised. “You did?”
“Yes. Look, I was worried. I wanted to be sure we got someone really good on the case. I know the CID chap stationed at Ho, and I’m sorry, I’m not impressed. I couldn’t take the risk. I really want this murder solved. So I called the minister, and he agreed to have Accra handle it. So here you are. Trouble is, I’m sure everyone thought everyone else was going to inform Inspector Fiti, and so it ended up no one did. I apologize if I’ve caused a bit of an incident.”
“It’s all right,” Dawson said. “At least now I’m clear how it happened.”
“Let’s go back inside.”
Inspector Fiti had emerged from his office again. “Accra CID is always doing this,” he said bitterly. “They think we can’t handle our own affairs.”
“I’m sorry to have caught you unawares, Inspector,” Dawson said. “I’m here to help, that’s all.”
Fiti heaved a sigh. “Okay. Anyway, you can come into my office.”
It was small and jumbled, as untidy as Inspector Fiti himself. Tilting stacks of papers on the desk were gathering dust, and there was more chaos on the floor. There were only two chairs, and Fiti asked Constable Gyamfi to bring in a third. It was hot and airless in the room despite the whirring ceiling fan. Squashed close to the other two men with the door shut, Dawson felt suffocated.
His first order of business was to let Sowah and the inspector know the latest, and he told them about the autopsy on Gladys.
“Strangled,” Timothy said, looking stunned. “Strangled, my God.”
“Do you have the autopsy report?” Inspector Fiti asked.
“Yes, I do,” Dawson said, handing it over to Fiti, who read it in silence.
“I see,” he said curtly when he was done. “I would like to make a copy.”
“Of course,” Dawson said.
Fiti got up and removed some papers from the top of a small photocopy machine.
“Can you give me your version of the chronology of the events around Gladys Mensah’s death, Inspector?” Dawson asked as Fiti began to copy the first page.