Murder at Cape Three Points (35 page)

B
AAH GOT
D
AWSON AND
Chikata to Accra in two hours. He didn’t know the big, messy capital at all, so they directed him to Labone Estates. The houses here were large and gated. The schools nearby, like Ghana International School, were posh and top of the line. They were looking for 27 Labone Crescent, Lawrence Tetteh’s address. After a bit of wandering around, they found it—a relatively short, curved street with a T-junction at either end. Between 17 and 23, no house numbers were evident, but 25 popped up all of a sudden and Baah overshot number 27. Dawson got out and walked back, gazing up at the high security wall, which was painted in rich tangerine. He pushed the button at the side of the sturdy double gate, and after a few moments, a woman cracked it open. She was slight, mid-thirties with coarse features, and hair singed by cheap relaxants.

“Good afternoon.” He greeted her with the smile he used when he thought the person he was addressing might prove useful.

“Good afternoon, sir.”

“I’m looking for one Charity. Is she here?”

“Yes? I’m Charity.”

“Oh, very good.
Mepaakyew
, my name is Darko Dawson. You were Mr. Tetteh’s housemaid, not so?”

“Yes, please,” she said, a little warily.

“Can I talk to you about what happened to him?”

Fear moved across her face like a quick wave. “Please, are you from the police?” she whispered, glancing surreptitiously behind her.

“I work at CID.”

She seemed unsure exactly what that meant. “Please, they told me not to talk about it to anyone.”

“Who told you?” he asked gently.

She swallowed and shook her head, backing up slightly. She had already said too much.

“I know you worked for him for many years,” Dawson said quickly to avoid losing her. “You were faithful to him until the end, and I admire you for that. We should keep caring about him, even though he is dead. We have to find out who really killed him.”

A woman’s voice yelled from the house, “Who is it, Charity?”

“Please, I’m coming,” she called back and then leaned toward him to whisper, “The Madam is calling me. I can’t talk now. I will close at six o’clock to go to my sister’s house in La. Wait for me near the Morning Star School, and I will come there.”

She shut the gate quickly.

Dawson trotted back to the car to report. Six o’clock was another four hours from then, so they went to the corner and bought some roasted corn from a vendor. They stood under the shade of a frangipani tree.

“Have you noticed,” Chikata said, munching hungrily, “that rich neighborhoods always look deserted?”

Dawson nodded, demolishing the last of his corn. “It’s because they’re all inside counting their money. Come on, let’s go to the Internet café.”

On the way there, they passed the highly rated Morning Star School, where they were to meet up later with Charity. Dawson prayed she would show up. He and Chikata entered the Danquah Circle Busy Internet and paid for an hour each of computer time. The gigantic, air-conditioned room was full of people furiously surfing at row after row of computer cubicles, including, no doubt, dozens of
Sakawa
boys, the infamous young Internet swindlers who could make as much as two thousand dollars in a good month. Dawson mentally shook his head at the thought of making that kind of money. He logged onto one of the machines while Chikata used the in-house Wi-Fi on his laptop.

Dawson did a search on Lawrence Tetteh and came across a You-Tube conversation between Tetteh and TV host David Ampofo. At
the time, Tetteh had just taken over as CEO of Goilco after having worked for oil companies in Dallas for a number of years. He looked distinguished and professorial in wire-rimmed glasses and a dark suit. He had a stubborn jaw and a pendulous bottom lip. He said he planned to make Goilco a world-class oil and gas organization. In doing so, he was committed to transparency and honesty.

“Do you believe you have an equitable relationship with your partners—Malgam Oil, for example?” Ampofo asked him with his legendary intensity. “And with your counterpart Mr. Roger Calmy-Rey?”

“Yes, I do. I believe that Mr. Calmy-Rey and I share similar values and goals.”

Standard party line
, Dawson thought, a little disappointed. He had expected something less conventional, more radical, from Tetteh. He looked up Roger Calmy-Rey and found a short Wikipedia biography.

Roger William Calmy-Rey
(born 1950) is the son of the late Ulysses Calmy-Rey, founder of Malgam Oil, one of Europe’s largest businesses.

Career

Educated at Harrow School in Harrow, northwest London, and London University where he studied Political Science. He joined Malgam Oil in late 1973 at the urging of his father. He became the CEO in 1987 on the death of his father, Ulysses Calmy-Rey.

After that, Dawson found multiple interviews with and profiles of Roger Calmy-Rey by online publications like the
Independent.co.uk
. Calmy-Rey believed strongly in the future of oil in Africa, he said. He wanted his company to be in the continent for decades to come, while building relations of mutual respect between Malgam and its African host countries like Ghana and Uganda.

Dawson was now on a searching streak. He tried “Sarbah” and got a
GhanaWeb.com
article about Jason Sarbah’s appointment as Malgam Director of Corporate Relations, replacing the deceased Charles Smith-Aidoo. Other links to the Sarbah name were of no importance.

Dawson stared at the screen and brooded as doubts lingered about
what he and Chikata were venturing into. How dangerous might it be to delve into a corruption scheme involving the BNI and people in high positions? If Tetteh and Charles were killed for what they knew, was Dawson setting himself up for the same fate? Most of his panic had to do with his family. Was he being overdramatic in thinking he might be about to endanger the lives of Christine and the boys? He didn’t think so.

He got up, signaling he was stepping outside to Chikata, who was showing a pretty girl how to log on as she coyly feigned ignorance. Dawson went to the far brick wall of the car park to call his mentor, Daniel Armah, but he didn’t pick up. Armah had long retired from the police service, and now ran a private detective agency in the city of Kumasi.

Dawson was tempted to call Christine as well, but she would be able to tell from his voice that he was worried about something, and that would inject anxiety into her. He wanted to see her, but this was not the time.

He caught a whiff of smoke and immediately recognized its sharp sweetness. Someone was puffing on marijuana in the alley behind the wall. Dawson had an intense desire to smoke some himself. He went back inside the Internet café to get away from temptation.

S
TANDING NEXT TO
Baah’s taxi, Dawson waited at the north end of Morning Star School. He had sent Chikata to the opposite side of the building when it had occurred to him that he didn’t know which of the two approaches Charity would use. It was six o’clock. The schoolchildren were all gone for the day. Four staff cars remained in front of the building. No sign of Charity yet. He called Chikata. “Nothing?”

“Not yet.”

By 6:30, Dawson was becoming doubtful that she would show, and by 7:00, he was losing hope. He buzzed Chikata again and told him they would wait until 7:15 and call it quits if Charity did not show up.

Ten after seven, Dawson saw her hovering uncertainly at the corner of Labone Avenue and Cantonments Road. She spotted him and hesitantly began to walk in his direction. He closed the space between them and met her halfway.

“Hello, Charity. Thank you for coming.”

“Yes, please.”

She was jumpy and kept looking around. Taking a guess, Dawson asked her if she was a Ga. She said yes, and Dawson switched from English to Ga to help her feel more at ease. “Where do you want to talk?”

“Not here,” she said firmly. “Rather, let’s go to my sister’s house.”

“I have a taxi.”

They swung around to pick Chikata up, and Dawson introduced Charity to him, reassuring her that he could be trusted. Charity suggested Baah avoid the congested Ring Road and directed him through the twists and turns of the side streets, some of which were in a terrible, potholed state. Along the route, vendors sold
Kelewele
—ripe plantain crisply deep-fried with ginger, red pepper, and other spices—by fluorescent light or smoky kerosene lamps.

Charity’s neighborhood was relatively close to the beach, separated from it only by Labadi Road. She told Baah where to stop and Dawson asked him to wait, giving him a couple of
cedis
to get something to eat.

It was pitch dark as they made their way to the house, and although Charity knew every inch along the route, Dawson and Chikata thought it best to use their flashlights as they navigated clogged gutters and undulating terrain with sharp outcroppings of rock.

In her own environment, Charity seemed less diffident. Her sister’s house was small and square with a corrugated metal roof and hole-ridden mosquito netting on the windows. Outside, a young woman in her early twenties was crouched on her haunches frying fish on a charcoal stove by lantern light. Three small children ran up to Charity to hug her before going back to playing.

“My grandchildren,” she told the two men with a smile. “That’s my daughter who is cooking. Please, let’s go inside the house.”

In the sitting room dimly lit by one anemic bulb, a boy of about thirteen was sitting on a lopsided couch watching a small TV with grainy reception. He got up immediately without prompting and turned off the set before leaving with a respectful “good eve’ng” to the two guests.

Charity pulled up some plastic chairs, and the three of them sat down at a slight angle to each other.

“Thank you for bringing me to your house,” Dawson said in Ga. “I told you I’m trying to find out what happened to Lawrence Tetteh, and I hope you can help me.”

“Yes, please.”

“Can you tell me a little bit about him?”

“He was a good man. He always tried to help me. I stayed in the servant’s quarters, but every Sunday, he told me to take the day off to go to church and visit my family.”

Dawson sat forward with his elbows on his knees. It was a more relaxed pose, which tended to put people more at ease. “Who is living in his house now?”

“His uncle and his aunt, their son, and the son’s wife. And another woman too, but I don’t even know who she is.” She shook her head as if she was talking about a den of thieves.

“How did Mr. Tetteh treat you?”

She clasped her hands together, and her face took on heavy sorrow. “He respected me and trusted me even more than his own family.”

“What about his wife?”

“He married some woman when he was in States. She doesn’t live in Ghana.” Charity looked down at her fingers. “Different women always used to come and visit him.”

“What happened that day when he was killed?” Dawson asked her gently. In the corner of his eye he saw Chikata watching with his usual stress-free pose, arms open, legs apart. “It was a Sunday, correct?”

“Yes please,” she said, nodding. “He had been in Côte d’Ivoire since Monday of that week, returning on Friday night. He spent the whole of Saturday at home writing something on the computer. On Sunday morning, I came to him to ask him if he needed anything.” Charity rubbed her hands back and forth over the top of her thighs, revealing the stress she was feeling telling the story. “He said no and told me I can go to church and spend the day with my family. That was the last time I saw him alive.” Charity’s bottom lip began to tremble. “When I returned in the evening, I went to check on him and found him dead in the sitting room.”

Ah, this is what I want
, Dawson thought ecstatically. “So, it’s not true that you welcomed Silas to the house in the afternoon or that
you were home when you heard a gunshot and saw Silas running from the house?”

She bowed her head. “Yes, please. It’s not true.”

“It’s okay.” Dawson didn’t want her to feel any shame or embarrassment. He could tell she was the kind of person who easily accepted undeserved blame. “Who told you to say that you were home that day and that you saw Silas?”

“Two policemen,” she said softly, almost fearfully. “They came to see me the next morning to ask me what happened. I said to them that I had already told an inspector from the police station what had happened the night before, and they had already taken my statement. They told me that the inspector was not working on the case anymore and that I had to sign a new statement.”

Dawson exchanged a glance with Chikata. These two so-called policemen had probably been imposters or BNI guys.

“Did they tell you their names?” Dawson asked.

“No, please. They told me to come with them and they took me inside their car. One was driving and the other one sat with me in the back. They drove me far to somewhere around the Trade Fair site, and they didn’t say anything. I was afraid to ask where they were taking me.” Charity’s voice was shaking with emotion. “They found some lonely place and parked the car there. They told me I was in trouble because since I was the only one who found Mr. Tetteh dead, then probably I was the one who killed him. So they’re going to arrest me.”

She sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand and brushing tears away.

“I told them I can never kill Mr. Tetteh. I begged them for mercy. Then they said they had to arrest me, and the one who was driving said he was going to handcuff me, and the other one said, ‘No, don’t do it.’ And I begged them,
ofaine, ofaine
, don’t take me, please. They said they knew Silas killed Mr. Tetteh, and they could arrest him if I confirm it for them. If I don’t confirm, then they have to arrest me rather.”

Charity was wringing her hands and curling her feet inward. Dawson could see how much anguish the story was causing her. “They said I should make another statement saying that I saw Silas coming
to kill Mr. Tetteh. They would write it for me, and I would sign it. Then when the time came to testify in court, I have to say the same thing as I said in the statement, and they said they will teach me how to say it. So I signed the statement, and they let me go.”