Kwei Quartey - Gold of Our Fathers

She leaned back, contemplating. “I still don’t like it, but ever since your promotion, I’ve been thinking differently and realizing maybe this is the price we have to pay for your moving up in the force. It was different when it looked like you were stuck at the same rank and getting nowhere. So I’ve decided to have a positive outlook on it. Within reason, of course.”

“But what about your job here?” Dawson asked. “You don’t want to leave that, surely?”

“I can get a leave of absence and then find a job in Kumasi.” She thought it over for a moment. “But for the kids’ sake, we have to secure some good schools up there before we do move. Maybe I should go up for a few days and see what I find. Hopefully we can get them in for the start of the school year in September.”

Dawson agreed. As a schoolteacher, Christine was the ideal person to look into this.

“What about relocation expenses?” Christine asked. “Has the Ghana Police Service gotten any better at paying for that?”

Dawson shook his head in annoyance. “No. They’re supposed to, but it never happens in practice.”

Christine sighed. “This is not a family-friendly organization,” she observed.

“You’re right,” Dawson said, gazing at her in admiration. “You know something?”

“What?”

“You have no idea how relieved I am at the way you’re taking this. It’s wonderful. I love you, woman.”

He dived across the table and planted a fat kiss on her lips. She began to giggle as he awkwardly slid onto her side of the table and pulled her onto the floor on top of him in a heap.

“Darko!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing ?”

“Making love to you,” he said, nuzzling her neck in her ticklish spot.

Convulsing with laugher, she wriggled out of his clutches.

“You’re terrible,” she said, staggering to her feet.

Flat on the floor, he extended his right hand to her. “Help me up.”

“Oh, no,” she said, knowingly. “You think I’m that stupid? You’ll just pull me right down again.”

He watched her as she left the kitchen. “Hey, where are you going?” he called out in protest.

“To bed,” she said. “Good night.”

“I’m still coming to get you,” he said, getting up.

She shrieked as she saw him coming and raced to the bedroom to lock him out.

Six a.m. on a Thursday morning, Dawson got out of bed bleary-eyed and weary for his first day at work. Leaving Accra the day before had been chaotic and delayed as Dawson had scrambled to tie up all the loose ends at CID Central. There’s always more than you think to do. He had taken the last-scheduled VIP bus, the most comfortable intercity service available, from Accra to Obuasi via Mankessim, getting into his hotel at almost midnight. Miners’ Lodge was the cheapest place that Dawson had found with the help of Google Maps, and it was on the same street as Obuasi Divisional Headquarters, meaning he could skimp on transportation costs.

In the dead of night, the surroundings had not meant very much to Dawson, but he began to get his bearings in the light of day as he dropped his key off at the front desk and stepped out onto Obuasi High Street-the main thoroughfare of the city. It ran east to west flanked on either side by neighborhoods like Wawasi, where Dawson’s hotel was, and Tutuka, the location of the police station to which he was about to report.

Dawson glanced at the gray sky, wondering if it would clear. Heavy rain earlier on, and now the drizzly remnants, made High Street slick and glistening. The morning was cool, so the walk of less than one mile to the station, even at a slight incline, would be pleasant. He took mental snapshots of the town. Ordinary, clean, and quietly paced. Open-fronted, canopied stores with corrugated metal roofs, sidewalks better constructed than many in Accra. On Dawson’s side of the street, a group of navy-and-white uniformed girls hurried to school while on the other, a young woman walked by a fast-food kiosk called David & Goliath, a wide tray of pots and pans balanced easily on her head. She moved nimbly aside without having to steady the tray with her hands as a passing car splashed muddy water in her direction. She was unfazed.

Dawson skirted a row of kids’ bicycles for sale on the pavement and made a mental note of the Cool Cuts Barbershop-he would soon need his fade refreshed. Behind the pavement was a small Airtel mobile phone station underneath a wide red-and-white umbrella, right beside a vendor of cheap knockoff Coach and Michael Kors bags from China, and a secondhand TV and appliances shop next door to that.

The sign ahead on the right said obuasi divisional police headquarters . Dawson remembered seeing the building on the way in last night, but in the darkness he had not appreciated how small and unlike a headquarters it was. It could have been a largish two-story house or a store. The basic yellow-and-blue GPS color scheme was there, but several shades of faded, chipped paint did not quite do the job. The upstairs windows were barred with hideous metal burglarproofing, which led Dawson to believe that the building had indeed once been a retail outlet or home. On the upstairs balcony, a policeman and two civilians leaned against the balustrade and placidly watched the goings-on below.

Half a dozen cars or so were parked in front, including a black Tata SUV belonging to the GPS. Several people were standing around waiting their turn to report their issues to the charge office behind blue double doors that looked more like the entrance to a warehouse. Citizens and uniformed policemen walked in and out. Dawson approached the charge office, but paused to one side for a moment to get an idea of how the officers were conducting themselves.

A buxom female lance corporal behind the high counter stifled a yawn of utter boredom as the two people in front of her-one a skinny, shifty-eyed young guy and the other an older, wizened man with a deeply lined face-argued vociferously about what seemed to be a circular dispute over a plot of land.

The lance corporal couldn’t take any more. “Okay, okay,” she bellowed. “Go and wait outside. I will call you.”

The two men left, barely skipping a beat in their argument.

“Stupid people,” the lance corporal muttered.

The male sergeant next to her grinned as she sighed heavily and looked despondently down at the daily diary open in front of her. It was the large recording book into which every event during each shift at the station was recorded, even the weather. “I don’t feel like writing any report down,” she said. “Waste of time.”

Dawson stepped up to the desk and took note of the lance corporal’s nameplate. “Even if you think it’s a waste of time, Dodu,” he said, “you are still obligated to write a report.”

She looked up at Dawson, eyes blazing. “And who are you?”

“I am a well-informed citizen.”

“ Eh? You say you are what? An informed citizen.” Dodu sucked her teeth and began to laugh. “You are funny. My friend, who are you, and what do you want?”

“I am your chief crime officer,” Dawson said.

Dodu and the sergeant looked at each other and went into hysterics. Dawson smiled and waited patiently for the hilarity to run its course, and then took out his ID badge and showed it to them. The grin disappeared from the lance corporal’s face as if Dawson had ripped it off. Dodu leapt to her feet, almost falling over her capsized stool as she staggered back and began to salute. “Sir, please, sir. I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t know-”

Her colleague was standing to rigid attention as if turned to stone, but Dawson could see he was shaking slightly. As a sergeant and the more senior of the two, he was the more accountable, and was supposed to be setting an example of correct conduct.