Kwei Quartey - Gold of Our Fathers

Huang nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

He spoke quietly to her, and she nodded.

“Is she okay?” Dawson asked.

“She’s fine,” Huang confirmed.

Minutes later, Nkrumah emerged and beckoned to them. Dawson and the Chinese trio walked down to join him, and the sickly, fetid smell of the mortuary room grew stronger. A large space with only three tables, the autopsy room had an open door on the far end to facilitate ventilation.

Lian drew in her breath sharply, pressing a kerchief to her nose. Wei tucked her arm into his to steady her. What she had seen was shocking: a corpse occupied each one of the tables, but six or seven of them were on the floor. No one should see that, Dawson thought. But the reality of most hospital mortuaries around the country was that capacity was inadequate. The bodies on the floor were up next for autopsies-or maybe they weren’t-and there was nowhere to put them.

Bao Liu was not one of those corpses on the floor, and thank God , Dawson thought. Nkrumah took them into a smaller room where Bao’s body lay on a table more modestly with a sheet covering him from the chest down. He had turned a mottled gray, an awful hue under the fluorescent lighting.

Dawson moved around to Lian’s unsupported side just in time for what he had anticipated. After she had looked at Bao’s face for a few moments, Lian collapsed like a sack of cocoyams . Dawson grabbed her on his side, as did Wei on his. Huang hurried to help.

“Let her rest her head on your lap,” Dawson instructed him, as he and Wei let her down slowly to the floor.

Nkrumah, who had evidently seen this before, lifted Lian’s feet up and seconds later she opened her eyes, looked up with a bewildered expression, and murmured something.

“What did she say?” Dawson asked Huang.

“She ask if it all a dream.”

“Okay, let her rest there.” He looked at Nkrumah. “Let’s talk for a moment.”

The two men stepped outside.

“When do you think the postmortem might be done?” Dawson asked.

Nkrumah angled his head, considering. “Please, maybe in about… three weeks?”

Dawson had feared as much. “Can we do better than that?”

“If only you want to talk to our physician on duty, Dr. Prempeh.”

“Where is he?”

“He is in. I can take you to his office.”

“Okay-after we check how the lady is doing.”

They returned to the room to find Lian at least partially recovered. She was standing, leaning against Wei, and slowly he walked with her out of the room and the morgue, settling them on the two chairs in the hallway.

“I’ll be back,” Dawson told Huang. Nkrumah led him up the hall, knocked on a door marked dr. prempeh, and opened it. The room was full-Prempeh was at his desk addressing five other people, three standing, two sitting. He was in his early thirties with trendy glasses, a white shirt and checkered tie, and black slacks. He looked up at Nkrumah. “Yes?”

“Please, I have Detective Darko Dawson here regarding the Liu case.”

“Oh, yeah, come in.”

“It’s okay,” Dawson said hurriedly. The room was too crowded for comfort. “I’ll wait outside.”

Dawson thanked Mr. Nkrumah, and the tech went off about his duties. Dawson checked his phone messages to while away the minutes. Not too long after, the five people filed out. Two of them were women, one much older than the other, dressed in black; the men were in normal, rather tattered attire, and they appeared crestfallen. Dawson’s guess was they were having a difficult time getting their relative’s body released for funeral rites.

Prempeh’s head popped around the door. “Still there? Oh, good. Come in. Sorry about that.”

He and Dawson shook hands. “Please,” Prempeh said, “do have a seat.” He went back to his own and leaned back. “You said you’re Inspector who?”

“Dawson. Darko Dawson.”

“Okay, cool. How can I help?”

Dawson gave him a quick rundown of the case so far. “The problem is,” he said, to the doctor, “Mr. Nkrumah is saying it will be about three weeks before we can get an autopsy on Bao Liu.”

“Is that what he said?” Prempeh asked. “Ridiculous.” He sprang up, jumped to the door, and yanked it open, poking his head around the frame and bellowing, “Nkrumah!”

“Sir!” a voice answered from the distance, and Dawson heard footsteps running down the corridor. “Yes, sir?”

“Why is it going to take three weeks to do the post on the Chinese man?”

“Please, we are very backlogged.”

“We’re always backlogged, so what’s the difference? When is this alleged forensic expert coming from Accra to help us?”

“Please, I don’t know. The director says he’s working on it, please.”

“Okay, okay. Go back to work.”

“Yes, sir.”

Prempeh, looking annoyed, pushed the door closed and flopped down in his chair again. “Do you know why it is going to take three weeks?” he asked Dawson fiercely. “Disorganization, that’s all. Disorganization and inefficiency. All morning long I’ve been waiting for my cases to come up and they’re not ready.”

He looked up at a knock on the door, which opened to a woman and two men who slowly filed in and stood against the wall with hands crossed in front of them.

“Excuse me one moment, Mr. Dawson,” Dr. Prempeh said. “Yes, how can I help you?”

The woman was dressed in deep red. The older man, about sixty, was in traditional swaddling black cloth that covered the left chest and shoulder with the right exposed. Dawson guessed the younger man was a son or nephew. He was about twenty-six in calf-length cargo shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt that looked like it hadn’t been washed in several days.

Beginning with a salute of deference to the doctor and an imploring “mepa wo kyew,” the older man launched into a complicated explanation in Twi as to why they had come. It appeared to Dawson that they had been given the incorrect information that their relative, who had suffered a premature and unsuspected death, would not need an autopsy. The man was appealing for the release of the body, repeating his plea multiple times.

The woman added to this by curtseying several times to the doctor while elaborately performing the traditional supplicant gesture of gently patting the palm of the left hand with the back of the right.

“What you have to do,” Dr. Prempeh said with patience that surprised Dawson, “is go back to the one who told you no autopsy is needed, and tell him to write a letter to the mortuary director explaining why. Then the director will make the final decision.”

They thanked him profusely and left. Prempeh looked at Dawson. “If I had said no, I won’t release the body, they would blame me. Now I’ve tossed the ball back in the other guy’s court. But honestly, they are never going to get the body released without the postmortem, and the trouble is they have no money to pay for it. It’s sad, but there it is.”

Dawson agreed-the sad, battered life of the poor and powerless in Ghana: wasting time and money traveling back and forth to no avail.

“On the other hand,” Prempeh continued, “there should be no problem with this Chinese guy going to the top of the line. I’m assuming his folks have money.” Prempeh leaned back. “Well, let me ask you this, Inspector. How important is this case to you?”

“How do you mean, Doctor?”

“I mean, realistically, this is not really a high-profile case to you, is it? Some illegal Chinese guy murdered? These galamsey people are murdering each other every week for some stupid reason-both the Ghanaians and the Chinese. You want to move fast on the case, or would you rather put this on low priority and get to something else?”