Kwei Quartey - Gold of Our Fathers

“Yes, please.” Okoh said, and his wife murmured agreement. “God bless you, Owura Dawson.”

Dawson sat a little forward. “Is there nobody else that you know who might have wanted to kill the Chinese man?”

Okoh looked at him with weary eyes. “Please, I can accuse someone just to get my son out of prison, but that won’t bring me any peace either, will it?”

Dawson didn’t need to answer that. “I will do my best to free your son.” And he added, importantly, “By His Grace.”

In the evening, while Christine and the boys played a noisy board game, Dawson sat at the table in the sitting room and went back over his notes page by page. This is exactly why he jotted things down. Once something was said, done, or observed, it was over forever. One might think one has a good memory, but the mind always distorts, regardless.

Dawson read through Wei Liu’s interrogation after the man had almost assaulted Kobby. He could understand why the Chinese man, in his distraught state, had done that, but it was absolutely not an acceptable excuse. Again, he wondered how these Chinese illegals viewed Ghanaians. With disdain?

Some of Dawson’s notes were short-like those about his chat with Danquah at Ofin Trading. Not that they weren’t important, just that Dawson didn’t think their content was as crucial as that of others. He read over what he had quickly written down after he had visited Wei at his home.

misses Bao

grief stricken, if only heard alarm and Bao trying to call

denies he knew about police raids b4hand

Dawson went back to his interview with Wei at the police station and frowned. He skipped forward again. And then back.

Discrepancy. His heart began to thump in his chest. Was he mistaken? He looked again. No, there was a discrepancy. He leaned back and for several minutes watched Christine, Hosiah, and Sly as they moved pieces and counted out spaces on their board game. Christine groaned as she was returned right back to the start. “Oh, goodness,” she said. “Why can’t I ever win this silly game?”

Dawson got up and went to the bedroom to lie down for a while and stare at the ceiling as he tried to tie everything up. He must have dozed off for a while, because the next thing he knew it was 10:25. The boys were already asleep, and Christine was watching the news in the sitting room. Dawson came around to her and kissed her on the cheek. “I have to go out,” he told her. “Something has come up in the case, and I might not be home tonight.”

She looked a trifle anxious, but it wasn’t as if she weren’t accustomed to Dawson’s episodic late-night police operations. “Please be safe, Dark,” she said.

As he drove to Kwadaso Estates, Dawson thought about the questions he had for Wei Liu, questions that could be crucial to solving the case. As he approached the house, a glistening silver Mercedes pulled up in front of the gate from the opposite direction. Was that Bao’s car that Lian was now driving? Dawson stopped the Corolla and watched as a woman got out. Yes, it was Lian.

She unlocked the door to the side of the gate and entered. Seconds later, she pulled open the gate with some effort, and Dawson deduced that David the watchman had Sunday off. Dawson parked quickly as Lian got back in the Mercedes. He jumped out, stayed low, and trotted up behind the car at an angle as Lian drove through. The motion sensor lights in the yard lit up as the Mercedes parked next to the Kia.

Dawson scuttled right to hide behind the wooden shed in the corner of the yard. Lian returned to the gate to close and padlock it, then went to the front door of the house. Wei opened it, greeted her, and she entered. The door shut firmly behind them, and Dawson heard the turn of two locks.

What is she doing visiting her brother-in-law at this hour? The sensor light turned off, but Dawson had spotted more along the side of the house underneath the eaves. He hoped he was right that the sensors were probably set so it would not be triggered by something moving close to the ground, like a dog or cat. Still, approaching the building was risky, and he hesitated to do it.

Try it. He got down on his belly and slowly pulled himself along the ground like a crab until he reached the house. From his previous visit, Dawson figured out that the window above him belonged to the sitting room. An external AC compressor was on full blast a few feet to his left. The window was heavily curtained, and Dawson could see nothing inside, but he could hear Lian and Wei chatting and laughing with the TV on in the background. A pleasurable visit for both of them, obviously , he thought. He soon heard the clink of bottles and glasses. Bao’s wife and brother seemed to be extraordinary happy so soon after Bao’s death. Or perhaps they were drinking in his honor-some kind of Chinese custom. Not that Ghanaians were any better-drinking to oblivion at funerals.

After twenty-five minutes of crouching by the wall and hearing no change in the pattern of conversation and drinking, Dawson was getting stiff and began to wonder if this move had been wise. He’d learned nothing all that special, and worst of all, he was trapped inside the compound. The wall and gate were topped by an electric fence, so he could not get out that way.

Then, the TV went off, and the voices faded. They must be leaving the room . Dawson reversed his position, crept back in the direction he had come, made a right-angled turn along the next wall, and traveled laboriously at a crawl to the other end. It was exhausting and he was breathing heavily. A bulky generator stood at the rear of the house. This time he saw no sensor lights mounted along the wall, but the darkness was more pronounced than at the front of the house, so he wanted to be sure. Fumbling for his miniature Maglite, he realized he had forgotten it.

No matter. Skirting another droning compressor mounted on the wall, Dawson ran low along the ground until he reached a lit, tightly shut window. He could hear muffled music from within, and Chinese dialogue that he guessed was a TV movie. He stood up slowly, off to the side of the window.

Just as he was to take a peek, an electric power cut plunged the house and the yard into darkness, and the compressor went silent. Shit. An alert went off in Dawson’s mind. If the generator wasn’t wired for an automatic switchover from the grid, Lian or Wei-or both-would come outside to turn it on. That meant Dawson had to be ready to bolt in whichever direction would keep him hidden.

He waited, counting out fifteen seconds, which was the usual interval for a switch from the grid, and to his relief, the generator wheezed, and the engine started up and roared into action. The light in the room came on again, and the AC started up. Good , Dawson thought with relief, bringing one eye level with the window frame.

Curtains partially blocked his view, but Dawson saw enough. Intently watching their briefly interrupted TV movie, Lian and Wei lay in bed in each other’s arms. At intervals, he pulled her close and gave her a kiss on the lips. Dawson had begun to suspect something was going on as Lian arrived at the house, but actually witnessing the event was still startling. Wei and Lian were seriously involved with each other. For how long? If they were adulterers before Bao’s death, it changed everything.

Dawson took photos of the couple’s tender embraces, as well a short video segment, stopping as Wei began to get more aroused and the TV movie faded from their attention. Dawson felt a little perverted, but business was business.

The light in the room went off, and Dawson heard the couple murmuring and moaning. He called Manhyia Station for assistance. The Lius’ lovemaking was about to be rudely interrupted.