Kwei Quartey - Murder at Cape Three Points

Dawson liked Baah, so he made him an offer to engage his services on a daily basis. They haggled a little and then came to an agreement on the price.

Dawson went directly to the Homicide Division on the first floor, where the front room was equipped with six desks, four of them with computers. No one paid much attention to Dawson as he came in except one of the men, who looked up at him over the top of his glasses.

“Morning. May I help you?”

“Detective Inspector Darko Dawson, from CID Headquarters.”

The man jumped up to salute. “Oh, fine! Good morning, sah. You are welcome, sah. Superintendent Hammond is expecting you. Please, if you can have a seat. I will tell him you have arrived.”

He went to a door a few steps behind him, knocked lightly, and then opened it.

“Please, Inspector Dawson is here from HQ.”

Dawson heard the reply, “Show him in.”

The sergeant opened the door wide and stepped partly into the room to allow Dawson to pass and then left, quietly shutting the door behind him.

Superintendent Hammond looked up as Dawson came in.

“Good morning, sir,” Dawson said.

“Good morning. Please, have a seat.”

He indicated the chair opposite his desk. His grey-peppered hair, which hadn’t been trimmed for a while, was receding from his furrowed brow, where one especially deep crease cut sharply into the middle of his forehead like a canyon. The cold absence of a smile and his failure to make eye contact alerted Dawson that something was wrong.

“So,” Hammond said with a tense, one-sided smile, “you’re here to show us how to solve a case, is that right?”

“Pardon?” Dawson said.

“The Western Region has had thirty-four homicides this year,” Hammond continued in a flat tone. “Headquarters won’t give us a regional crime lab, we don’t have enough crime scene technicians, and there’s a hiring freeze. Our resources are stretched to the limit, yet we’re expected to clear up all these cases in record time. Just four months on the Smith-Aidoo case and already Headquarters is breathing down my neck and sending a junior officer to supervise me.”

Stunned, Dawson struggled to find the right words. “Sorry, sir, but Chief Superintendent Lartey has sent me here in response to a petition and in assisting capacity only, not to disgrace or embarrass anyone, sir.”

They eyed each other in silence for a moment. Hammond heaved a sigh, as if he would rather not be bothered. “I see you have the docket with you. Do you have any questions?”

“Okay, thank you, sir,” Dawson said, now uncertain where to start. “I met Dr. Sapphire Smith-Aidoo last week in Accra. She told me about Jason Sarbah. When you spoke to him, did he blame the doctor or her uncle for the death of his daughter, Angela?”

The superintendent seemed wearied by the task of having to explain all this to Dawson. “Sarbah didn’t say that directly, but I know he is very bitter about the events that led up to Angela’s death.”

“Was he your prime suspect, sir?”

“At the beginning, yes, but his alibi is solid. The day of the ambush of the Smith-Aidoo’s vehicle, he was working at his real estate business. Two other people in the office confirmed that.”

Dawson had allowed his eye to stray as he tried to gauge what kind of man Hammond was. A folder with papers was in front of him, as well as a pen the superintendent had apparently been using to write some kind of report. His fingernails were medium long and cut square across, but like his hair, not that recently. His desk was piled with documents, but it was neither excessively jumbled nor chaotic. One drawer of a metal filing cabinet in the corner behind the superintendent was half open. Dawson decided Hammond was probably smart enough, but maybe not meticulous. He might be a little burned out too , Dawson thought. Or else I’ve burned him out because he’s just so disgusted to see me.

“What about a contract killing?” Dawson asked. “Sarbah hiring someone to do the job? Is that a possibility?”

Hammond appeared uninspired by the question and shook his head. “The signature-dumping these bodies in the canoe, the beheading, and all that, doesn’t seem like a contract murder. It looks more personal.”

“I see, sir.” Dawson paused. This was not a conversation. It was a question and answer session in which one party was uninterested in talking to the other. “The pocket watch in Mr. Smith-Aidoo’s mouth-what did you make of that?”

“It’s a very old watch. We took it to a watchmaker and he told us it was made in England in the nineteenth century. We don’t know if the killer was trying to communicate something. I asked Dr. Smith-Aidoo if she had ever seen her uncle with the watch, or knew that he owned one. She said no. Her uncle liked modern gadgets, nothing old like this.”

Dawson nodded respectfully. “Still, it might have been some kind of family keepsake. Maybe the murderer is saying something about family generations.”

“Yes, I know.” Hammond barely raised an offhand palm off the desk and let it fall again. “But we haven’t discovered anything in that regard.”

“What about at Malgam Oil? Did Mr. Smith-Aidoo have any enemies there, perhaps?”

“We interviewed several people, including the CEO, Roger Calmy-Rey. He appeared to think very highly of Smith-Aidoo.”

“Where is Mr. Calmy-Rey from?”

“I understand he’s half Swiss and half English. He spends most of his time in England, coming to Ghana every so often.”

“Is he in town at the moment?”

“I’m not sure. My ASP will know.”

Superintendent Hammond fished around for his mobile, found it under a stack of papers, and called the assistant superintendent.

“Seidu, come downstairs to meet Inspector Dawson when you are finished. He has arrived from Accra.” Hammond dropped the phone on his desk.

“And Mrs. Smith-Aidoo?” Dawson asked. “Did she have enemies?”

“The closest we could find to that was Kwesi DeSouza, whom she defeated in the STMA elections. He might have been bitter about that, but that motive doesn’t seem to match the brutality of the murder. And if DeSouza disliked Mrs. Smith-Aidoo, why would he behead her husband? It doesn’t make sense.”

Someone knocked on the door and stepped in. He was younger than Hammond, short and stocky with a clean-shaven head and smooth, coal-black skin.

Hammond introduced him. “This is ASP Seidu. He’s been working on the case with me.”

Seidu shook hands with Dawson and took a seat.

“Inspector Dawson was asking if Mr. Calmy-Rey is around,” Hammond told him.

“I believe he’s still abroad,” Seidu responded in a marvelous baritone. “I can email him to find out.”

Dawson’s phone vibrated, and he checked it.

“From Dr. Smith-Aidoo,” he told the other two. “She wants me to meet her at the Raybow Hotel. Where is that?”

“It’s not far from the Africana Roundabout in Takoradi,” Seidu said. “It’s not far from Shippers Circle.”

“Thank you, sir.” Dawson stood up. “I’ll go there now.”

“Okay,” Hammond said. “We’ll talk later, then.”

Seidu rose from his chair with conventional courtesy, but Hammond stayed right where he was. As Dawson walked back outside, he reflected that the superintendent seemed to be stuck in resentment thick as tar. He appeared to be taking the intervention of CID Headquarters as a personal insult. There’ll be little or no help from him , Dawson thought. In fact, he might be a hindrance. Dawson would have to be on his guard and ready for a fight. He was up to it, but he would prefer not to have to do it.

AS BAAH DROVE TO the Raybow Hotel, he showed Dawson more evidence that the oil industry was profoundly affecting Takoradi. The skeletal necks of building cranes dotted the skyline. The sprawling Best Western Atlantic Hotel with luxury chalets and hundreds of rooms had superseded the old military barracks on Officers’ Mess Road.