Kwei Quartey - Gold of Our Fathers

“Thank you, Mr. Sarpong,” Dawson said finally.

The manager cleared his throat. “Please, do you know whom I should contact regarding her belongings?”

“The Regional Headquarters will take care of it. I think they will inform the British High Commission as well as the family. I’m sure someone will be in touch with you very soon.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Oh, one more thing,” Dawson said. “Please give me the number of the manager who was here last night-Mr. Brooks, you said? I’d like to get a description of the men who were here.”

When Dawson got back to the jeep, he perched on the side of the driver’s seat with the door open and one leg out as he called manager Brooks. He tried the number twice before getting through. He introduced himself to Brooks, who confirmed the story of the visit by the so-called CID detectives.

“They were both dressed in black suits and black ties,” Brooks said, “and they were wearing sunglasses.”

Dawson almost laughed. It sounded more like that movie Men in Black than anything CID detectives would wear in real life. But it certainly appeared to have impressed Brooks.

“What else?” Dawson asked. “Age, height, body type?”

“They were both average height, one a little fatter than the other, with the belly sticking out. One had a mustache; the other did not. I would say they were in their thirties.”

“What names did they give you?”

“Only one of them, the fatter one, showed his ID, and he said his name was Hammond.”

“Did you stay with them while they searched the room?”

“Yes, sir. They were there for about ten minutes-that’s all. They took some papers from the safe.”

Dawson thanked Brooks and put in a call to Commander Longdon. He didn’t pick up, so Dawson began heading back to the Obuasi office. His phone rang about thirty minutes later.

“Yes, Dawson?” Longdon said. “You called me.”

“Good afternoon, sir. Please, were you made aware of any search of Akua Helmsley’s hotel room conducted by two detectives from CID?”

After a pause, Longdon said, “I don’t get you. You say what about Miss Helmsley?”

“Two men claiming to be from CID went to the Golden Tulip last night and ransacked her room. They took some documents from her safe.”

“Impossible,” the commander said at once. “No one in CID was authorized or asked to do that.”

“Perhaps from Regional?”

“No, no,” Longdon said firmly. “Someone else is behind this. I don’t know who, but it is not CID.”

“Then the only entity that comes to mind is the BNI,” Dawson said.

“The BNI are the last people on earth to impersonate the CID,” Longdon pointed out.

He’s right , Dawson thought. He didn’t have a high opinion of the Bureau of National Investigations, and had indirectly tangled with it before. If he had to write anything about it, he would describe the BNI as Ghana’s controversial internal intelligence agency whose authority overlaps with and sometimes unlawfully exceeds that of the police service. Not an auspicious designation.

“What do you suggest, sir?” he asked Longdon.

The commander didn’t speak for several seconds. “I will be meeting with DCOP Manu first thing in the morning, and we will come up with a plan, because this could potentially spark a political row between Ghana and the UK.”

What he was saying in essence was that this had to be kicked to a higher level, and in fact, it might end up, ironically, in the hands of the BNI in the end. In the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours, Dawson might well be officially removed from any investigation into Akua’s death. But Dawson didn’t care. He was going ahead with it regardless. Whether it was fair or not, he felt culpable for Akua’s death. He would not let the matter rest.

Emotionally wrecked and tired after waking up so early, Dawson had no interest in returning to Obuasi Headquarters. He simply wanted to go home. So early was it in the afternoon, the house was empty on his arrival, a rare experience for him. Sly and Hosiah had football practice until about five thirty, and it was Christine’s turn to pick them up.

First, Dawson called Armah.

“Oh, my Lord,” he said, when Dawson had told him the news of Akua’s murder. “I’m so sorry.”

Dawson described the precision of the execution-style shootings, and then the mysterious men who went to her hotel room.

“The whole scenario is sinister,” Armah said. “It sounds like she had a secret that someone didn’t want to get out. She has such a wide Internet audience.”

“ Who is that someone? is the question.”

“Yes, that is it,” Armah agreed. “During your conversations with her, did she hint at anything sensitive?”

“The one thing I know she was working on was the story that the PMMC fabricates mining statistics and buys illegal gold, but days ago when I met her at The View restaurant, she started to tell me about what she believed were armed robbery scams in the Kumasi-Obuasi area-well, anywhere that gold is mined and/or traded. She talked about investigating corruption surrounding gold dealings at the highest levels of authority.”

“I see,” Armah said. “Not good. People don’t like that.”

“I know. Which means they won’t like me either, because I intend to continue on the path Akua was headed down.”

“Be careful, Darko.”

Commander Longdon had kept the dockets on the armed robberies, but as was Dawson’s habit, he had taken a snapshot of the important pages with his smartphone. He had not done a transfer of pictures from his phone to a flash drive in a while, so he spent time doing that before deleting the images from the phone. No, he wasn’t supposed to do any of this, but yes, he did it anyway because of the way records tended to disappear in the impenetrable recesses of police exhibit rooms.

He turned to the docket of the American ex-basketball player, Beko Tanbry. The events had transpired about six months before. The first image was the front of the docket.

DOCKET

GHANA POLICE FORCE

Date of offense:12 March

Complainant:Tanbry, Beko

Principal Witness(es):Beko Tanbry; Kwadwo Yeboah (driver)

Accused:Unknown

Offense:Armed robbery

Victim(s):Beko Tanbry; Kwadwo Yeboah

Next was the report itself.

Police Report

Obuasi Divisional Headquarters Police Station

Date of Report:12 March

Time of Report:1823h

Date of Incident: 12 March

Time of Incident:1500 (approx.)

Reporting Officer:Detective Sergeant Augustus Obeng

At 1815h on Friday 12 March, complainant and victim Mr. Beko Tanbry reported that he and his driver Mr. Kwadwo Yeboah went to a certain place several miles off the main road at the turnoff before Pakyi to purchase gold in the amount of 100,000.00 (one hundred thousand) US dollars from a certain man whose name was given as Mr. Michael. The purchase was executed and Mr. Tanbry and Mr. Yeboah were returning to the main road when they were forced to stop by a Mitsubishi SUV that was on the road across their path.

At that point, two gunmen with their faces completely covered by masks jumped out of the Mitsubishi and approached Mr. Tanbry’s vehicle, demanding that Mr. Tanbry and Mr. Yeboah alight with hands raised. They demanded the gold that had been purchased, and when Mr. Tanbry stated that he was not in possession of said gold, he was assaulted by one of the robbers and threatened with death by the other. Mr. Tanbry then showed them where the gold was hidden in a compartment in the ceiling of the vehicle, and the robbers removed all the gold. They tied the two victims up and then escaped in the Mitsubishi. Neither Mr. Tanbry nor Mr. Yeboah was able to see a license plate on the vehicle.