by Kwei Quartey
“Give us a moment, please,” Dawson said to Asase, who seemed grateful to leave. “How long since your last drink?” Dawson asked Obeng.
“Please, it was last night,” he said weakly, “but I don’t remember the time.”
His speech was not slurring, and the cadence of his speech was normal. Dawson judged that Obeng had slept off the intoxication. He helped him up so that he could sit on the bed. Dawson sat opposite him on an old wooden crate.
“How did this happen to you?” he asked the sergeant. “The drinking.”
“Please, when my wife left me. Three years ago now.”
When Dawson had first met Obeng, he had had the feeling that something about the man’s life was disturbed. Now he knew the origin of that turmoil.
“Where are your children?” he asked.
“In Kumasi,” Obeng said. “With the mother.”
“If you don’t stop drinking,” Dawson said quietly, “they might lose their father.”
Obeng nodded sadly, as if he knew it, but could do little or nothing about it.
“I am still on the Chinese man’s case,” Dawson said.
Obeng nodded. “Yes, please.”
“I need to know something. How far did you get in the investigation of the death of Amos Okoh?”
“Please, the death was an accident, so the case was closed.”
“How did the accident happen?” Dawson asked.
“Amos was walking on the bridge, and he slipped and fell inside the pit.”
Too easy. “Did something happen between him and Bao Liu before he fell in the pit?” Dawson asked.
Obeng hesitated, his bloodshot eyes shifting. “No, sir.”
“People say Bao Liu said something bad to Amos and his girlfriend, and so Amos became very angry and tried to attack Bao from the bridge. Bao shook the bridge and tipped Amos into the water in the pit below.”
“Please, it’s not true,” Obeng said dully. “It was just an accident.”
Dawson stared at him, and the sergeant began to wither. “Obeng, why are you protecting the Chinese man?” Dawson asked softly. “What is going on? He’s not even alive anymore.”
Obeng covered his face. “Please, I’m afraid.”
“Of what?”
“My family . . .”
Dawson understood now. It’s not Bao Liu he’s shielding; it’s someone else. “Has someone threatened to hurt you or your family if you tell the truth about what Bao Liu did?”
“Mepa wo kyew, I beg you, please,” Obeng said, appealing to Dawson not to press him any further. Obeng was terrified of something and or someone, and Dawson decided he would withdraw—but only for now. He would be back for another try sometime very soon.
Dawson stood up. “Come to me if you want to tell me something,” he said. He fished in his pocket and gave the sergeant five cedis. “You have to get something to eat now, but don’t drink any more beer.”
“Yessah,” Obeng said getting up himself, unsteadily.
Dawson got back home at a little past five in the afternoon and found Christine behind the house preparing fufuo with a young girl who was related in some distant way to Christine, although Dawson couldn’t remember how. The long pestle in both hands, the girl was doing the rhythmic pounding of the cassava and plantain in the mortar while Christine turned the glutinous mass in alternation with each strike. Dawson might have pounded fufuo no more than twice in his life. Traditionally, girls and women did it.
“Hi, love,” Christine said, looking up. She didn’t have to watch the pestle to keep the rhythm. “How was the day?”
“So-so,” Dawson said, eager to forget it for a while. “Where are the boys?”
“Sly went to play football with his friends,” she replied. She looked distressed. “But I’ve given Hosiah extra homework and told him he can’t go out to play until he learns to behave himself. You need to talk to him.”
Dawson frowned. “What’s happened?”
“He got into another fight at school. They were at midmorning break. The headmistress punished him by making him fetch five buckets of water for the toilets. Talk to him. I don’t know what else to tell the child.”
“All right,” Dawson said.
He found Hosiah sitting at the kitchen table staring with furrowed brow at the arithmetic problems on the sheet of paper in front of him as he sucked on his pencil in calculation confusion. He looked up at his dad apprehensively, expecting a scolding.
“Two-thirds plus three-quarters,” Dawson read from off the paper Hosiah had been studying. “Is that what is puzzling you?”
Hosiah dropped the pencil in frustration. “I don’t understand how to do it, Daddy.”
Dawson sat next to his son, picked up the pencil, and connected the two denominators with a curved line. “Remember how I told you that the two numbers on the bottom have to agree on one number? How do we get that?”
“Add them?”
“No. What else could we do?”
Hosiah thought for a minute. “Oh. Multiply them.”
“Good. So what do we get?”
“Um . . . twelve.”
“Right.” Dawson gave the pencil back to his son. “Draw a line and put twelve underneath. Now, what do we do with the top numbers—the numerators?”
He guided Hosiah through the steps until they got the correct answer.
“Not so bad, right?” Dawson asked, rubbing his son’s head.
Hosiah smiled. “Can I do the next one by myself, Daddy?”
“Of course. Go ahead.”
With only a couple missteps, Hosiah arrived at the correct solution. Dawson helped him with the remaining thirteen calculations.
“You’ve done a good job,” he said to Hosiah. “I’ll talk to Mama and see if you can go out and play now. First, you have to explain why you got into a fight today at school.”
He listened as his son stumbled through his account of what had happened. Abraham, one of the bigger boys at school, had cut in front of Hosiah as he waited in line for the midmorning snack. Hosiah had reacted by trying to push Abraham away, and a shoving match had escalated quickly into a full-blown fight on the ground.
This was tricky. While Hosiah should be able to stand up for himself, Dawson wanted to steer him away from fighting. “Did you say to Abraham, ‘I don’t like it that you got in front of me?’”
“No,” Hosiah said sulkily. “If I said that, then he would just hit me.”
“And that’s when you defend yourself. Remember some of the techniques I showed you?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“But instead what happened is that you started a fight.”
“He started it because he got in front of me!” Hosiah whined.
In some ways, he’s right. “Don’t raise your voice,” Dawson said quietly.
“Sorry, Daddy.”
“You always defend yourself, but you should never be the first one to hit, push, or kick another person. That’s not the way the Dawsons behave. Okay?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“In the end you didn’t get your snack. You and Abraham had to carry buckets of water, and Mama has now given you extra homework as more punishment, and you can’t go to play football with Sly. So you see what you ended up doing? You only hurt yourself.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
Dawson pulled him over to his lap, holding him close. “Remember when your heart was sick and you were so good and smart at the hospital?”
Hosiah nodded.
“Mama and I were very proud of you, because you handled your heart condition so well, and all the doctors and the nurses admired you. I even had doctors who weren’t taking care of you stopping me in the hospital to tell me how amazing my son is. And then they left me standing there thinking, ‘I don’t even know who that doctor was.’”
> Hosiah giggled.
“But fighting isn’t something that will make Mama and me proud of you,” Dawson said, “and nobody else will respect you for it. Okay?”
He nodded.
“Good,” Dawson said. “You want to go with me to the park and play some football together? Just you and me? ”
Hosiah looked up at his dad, eyes shining. “Yes!”
Later on, before bed, Christine asked Dawson what had happened with Hosiah.
“Actually,” Dawson said, “I’ve figured it out. Punishment is not what he needs more of.”
“Oh, really?” she asked, smoothing cocoa butter into her gorgeous skin. “Tell me.”
“Put yourself in his little shoes. It’s been about a year since your heart operation and you’re doing well. Now you play football, and you’re good at it, and you have new friends and popularity. Now your father comes along; uproots you from your environment, your school, and your friends; and takes you to a strange school, and a strange home in a strange city. Now you need even more support, especially from your father, but he’s so busy with work that he almost seems to be ignoring you. You’re angry, but you can’t take it out on your father, so you take it out on others.”
Christine tilted her head, considering. “Maybe. So what now?”
“I’ll try to get home earlier from now on,” Dawson said. “I’ll check both of their homework and talk to them about school, and then go with them to the football park.”
“Wow,” Christine said admiringly. “I like that! I’m assuming you’ve got the Obuasi office more organized now.”
“It’s much better,” Dawson said, pulling his T-shirt off and getting ready for a shower.
“And the case?” Christine asked, putting her hair up for the night. “All settled, or still having doubts?”
“Still having doubts, but I’m stuck. Don’t know where to turn.”
“Something will come up,” Christine said confidently. “It always does.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
It was only the following afternoon that Christine’s prediction proved accurate. Dawson was at the office digging up more reports of armed robberies of victims who were carrying gold or cash for gold, when he received a call from Chikata. He had visited Tommy Thompson at the corporate offices of PMMC in Accra.
“Something strange is going on, boss,” Chikata said. “Akua Helmsley said she talked to Thompson, right?”
“Correct.”
“I had a solid conversation with him. He was very cordial and open with me. You know what he told me? He said not only has Akua Helmsley never spoken to him, she has never visited PMMC.”
“What? Never?”
“He called each of his underlings separately into his office and all of them said exactly the same thing: they have never seen the woman set foot on the premises.”
Dawson frowned. “That can’t be, surely. You say Thompson didn’t seem evasive in any way?”
“Not at all,” Chikata said. “You know, when I asked him why Helmsley would have claimed to have spoken to him, he looked at me as if I had just come from another planet and said, ‘So you don’t know about Miss Helmsley’s MO?’ ‘What MO?’ I asked. ‘Miss Helmsley either deliberately makes up her facts or gets them wrong,’ he said.”
“Can he prove that?”
“The network was down for the moment,” Chikata said, “so he couldn’t get access to her articles, but he said several of the figures she cited in her article were wildly inaccurate, and on occasions when he’s tried to call her to object, she hasn’t taken his calls.”
At first, Dawson had been certain Helmsley would not do something like this, but now he was wavering. Could he have over-idealized her? What if her zeal for the truth had slipped down a slope of fabrication?
“So then I asked him about Helmsley’s claim about the PMMC and the Ministry of Lands, Forestry, and Mines,” Chikata continued, helping Dawson to focus, “that they use illegal gold earnings to inflate the official revenue figures, and he began to laugh. He said the idea is so ridiculous that if Helmsley publishes that she’ll be laughed out of town.”
Dawson remembered that he himself had been skeptical when Akua had stated the accusation to him, and he began to feel uncomfortable, experiencing doubts about her.
Chikata continued. “And then Thompson made another comment that he was almost certain that if Helmsley really has a so-called inside source, it’s probably one of the three disgruntled employees they’ve sacked in the last year or so.”
“Who are they?”
“Thompson gave me the names and contact phones, so I’ll get onto that and see if I can interview them.”
“Good work, Chikata. Thanks.”
“Welcome, boss.”
Dawson was lost in thought for a moment. What Chikata had just told him was bothersome. “How are things with the new boss?” he asked, perhaps just to get away from the pondering for a moment.
“Hm. I wish my uncle was back.”
“That bad?”
“Not terrible,” he said, “but not great either.”
“You were spoiled by your uncle, don’t forget.”
“You always say that,” Chikata grumbled.
“Because it’s true,” Dawson said, laughing.
A moment after he had ended the call to Chikata, he received one from Commander Longdon. “You are summoned to Kumasi Regional Headquarters for a meeting,” he said.
He sounded grave, and Dawson had a plunging feeling in his stomach that he was in trouble. Again. “Summoned, sir?”
“Yes. So as not to waste time, I have sent my driver to pick you up. Please go with him as soon as he arrives.”
“Yes. Yes, sir.”
The vehicle was an SUV manufactured in India. Dawson sat in the front next to the constable driver and chatted casually all the way to Kumasi Regional Headquarters, belying his anxiety over what was going on. His stomach fluttered nervously. Was he in trouble, or was it something else? He searched his mind for some breach he might have committed. Was it the way he had engineered Chikata’s temporary transfer to Obuasi? No, that was unlikely, because Chikata’s uncle had played some part in that, and as Assistant Commissioner of Police, Lartey was highly placed. Dawson gave a mental shrug. Nothing could be done except to wait and see.
The meeting room was on the second floor of the sprawling Kumasi Regional Headquarters building. At the top of the flight of steps, Dawson faced the door marked regional commander.
He took a breath and knocked. When he entered, he saw Longdon sitting at the conference table with three other people, one of whom was Deputy Commissioner of Police Deborah Manu, one of the very few female regional commanders. She was sharp featured and thin. The second was the rarely seen Commissioner Fortune Dzamesi, Director General of CID. Dawson did not recognize the third person, however. Dressed in a camouflage uniform studded with medals, he was obviously military.
Dawson’s forehead became clammy with a light sheen of sweat. This is even worse than I thought. What have I done? He was fearful, not of them, but of his imminent fate. He had fleeting visions of his family’s marginal assets dwindling to a trickle or nothing at all as he endured unpaid leave, and struggles to take care of the boys’ schooling, food, and health.
Stopping about a meter away from the table, Dawson braced in salute of his superiors, stiffening with closed hands to his sides, knuckles forward.
“Please,” Longdon said deferentially to Commissioner Dzamesi and DCOP Manu, “this is Chief Inspector Dawson, our new chief crime officer at the Obuasi Division.”
“At ease, Dawson,” Dzamesi said with flick of the hand. “Have a seat.” He indicated the only empty chair, and Dawson took it, looking from one solemn face to the other. They each had important-looking three-ring binders in front of them.
“I have to warn y
ou, Chief Inspector,” Dzamesi said, “that this is a top secret meeting. Everything we discuss here must stay in this room. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Those you see around this table, including myself,” Dzamesi continued, “are members of the Task Force on Chinese Illegal Mining. The president has given us the challenge of bringing these galamsey activities to a stop. In order to do this, we must apprehend these illegal Chinese nationals so that they may be deported immediately. And that is what we have pledged to do.”
Lofty words. Dawson had his doubts. “Yes, sir.”
The military man turned out to be Brigadier-General Frank Bediako, who was in charge of the Ghana Armed Forces Northern Command based in Kumasi. His eyes were narrow, and his jaw looked as hard as a coconut shell. “Perhaps I have missed something,” he said in a voice as raspy as sandpaper, “but remind me what the chief inspector is supposed to be contributing to this meeting—or to the task force for that matter?”
“Sir,” Manu said, shifting in her chair to look at him, “we do like to have the input of our officers who are in the trenches, so to speak, so I asked Commander Longdon to invite Chief Inspector Dawson. Perhaps you can explain a little more, Commander.”
“Thank you, madam,” Longdon said, and to Bediako, “Since his arrival, I have directed Chief Inspector Dawson in the investigation of the death of an illegal Chinese miner. Along the way he has collected a lot of information that could be helpful to the task force.”
“Ah.” The brigadier-general nodded without much passion. “Very well. Carry on.”
“There is something I want to ask you, Chief Inspector,” Manu said, turning to Dawson. “At times, when our officers have visited these galamsey sites, they have met only the absence of the Chinese men. Have you located any hiding places to which they commonly disappear?”
“No, madam,” Dawson said. “No specific hiding spots. But more importantly, if the police are meeting their absence, then could it be there are informants within the police service?”
Dzamesi stiffened. “What are you talking about?”
Longdon was angry. “This is ignorance,” he snapped at Dawson. “You have no idea what you are saying. How dare you speak out of turn? Have I ever discussed any issue of police informants with you?”