Chest tight, he shot up in bed, groped for the lamp, but knocked it over instead. Christine’s light came on. He looked at her but saw her only indistinctly.
“I’ve sent Antwi straight into the arms of the killer,” Dawson said. “Issa will kill him. I have to go and get him before it’s too late.”
He started to get up, but she held him back.
“Dark, stop. It’s a nightmare. It’s not happening.”
“What?”
He stared at her for a moment, then he groaned and fell back.
“Relax, relax,” she whispered, cradling his head.
“It can’t be Issa, can it?” Dawson muttered.
“In the morning, things will look different by the light of day,” she said confidently.
He sighed. “I want some Malta. With a scoop of ice cream in it. Do we have any ice cream?”
“A little. I don’t know why I spoil you like this.”
43
Monday morning, the Graphic’s headline was SERIAL KILLER STALKS ACCRA. The corresponding photo was the Novotel Lorry Park latrine, which would undoubtedly become a new Accra landmark. Lartey was reading the article when Dawson came into his office.
“If we let the press take control of this,” the chief supol said, “they’ll cause all kinds of panic and hysteria among the public. We have to wrestle the control back from them.”
“How should we do that, sir?”
“We’ll talk about that in a little while. Right now, I want you to summarize everything we know about the case.” Lartey checked his watch. “We’ll wait a few minutes for Philip.”
Just as he said that, Chikata hurried in, mumbling an apology. “Have a seat, Philip,” Lartey said. “Go ahead, Dawson.”
Dawson took his position in front of Lartey’s giant wall map of the Accra metropolitan area. Using an erasable marker on the map’s coated surface, he circled the sites of the four murders: Musa, dead in the Korle Lagoon, Ebenezer in a muddy ditch in Jamestown, Comfort at the rubbish dump at the railway station, and finally Ofosu in the Novotel latrine.
“With Musa’s murder,” Dawson said, “I thought it might be a ritual killing because his fingers had been cut off, but Dr. Allen Botswe didn’t think so. When Comfort’s murder occurred, we became certain that there was one killer responsible for all three-hers, Ebenezer’s before her, and Musa’s before Ebenezer. The M.O. of targeting street people and the signature of striking them down with a single deep and fatal stab to the back, along with an additional mutilation, is consistent throughout. Musa’s and Ebenezer’s locations are only a kilometer apart or so, and both are south of Comfort’s and Ofosu’s.”
He connected his four points on the map with lines.
“The area is within Accra Central and is approximately the shape of a parallelogram. There are at least a couple possibilities. One, the killer lives within the perimeter of the parallelogram and murders his victims there. Two, he chooses victims outside the parallelogram but chooses to dump them within it.”
“What is special about the parallelogram area?” Lartey asked.
“Excellent question, sir. Very likely it has special significance to the killer because it includes major areas where poor children of, or on, the street live-Jamestown, Agbogbloshie, the railway station, CMB, Tudu, and so on. In other words, these are the places that set him alight and get his motor running, that stimulate him to kill.
“At any rate, we believe he is highly mobile with a pickup truck, a van, or a large car with enough room in the boot to hide a body-because as far as we can tell, the four victims were not killed where they were found, they were transported.”
“How did you come to that conclusion?” Lartey asked.
“A couple reasons,” Dawson said. “The first is that at the spots the victims were dumped, there hasn’t been the amount and severity of bleeding one might expect from their stab wounds, suggesting that most of the hemorrhage occurred prior and elsewhere. Second, part of the killer’s signature is to dump his victims in specific places that convey filth-rubbish dump, gutter, latrine, and so on. It would be difficult to choose victims who are at those locations at exactly the right moment. He kills them and then he places them where he wants.”
“Has a specific truck or van been detected that’s common to the murder sites?”
“No, but Antwi and his late friend Ofosu reported a vehicle a short time before we believe Comfort was killed. However, they couldn’t make out the vehicle or the driver.”
“That could be something,” Lartey said. “Or not. All right, so what are you going to do about finding this killer?”
“We need to concentrate on people and places that have contact with street children. We already know one place, SCOAR, but there are other organizations in Accra that advocate for the kids. We need to go in and look around and talk to people. We’ll focus on employees who live within our parallelogram, and employees who have left the organizations or been sacked for some infraction, like abuse of the children.”
“What else are you planning?”
“I had an idea when Dr. Botswe told me that the killer might try to involve or inject himself into the investigation. I was trying to think of something that would engage him, make him come forward in some way.”
Chikata snapped his fingers. “What about call-in radio programs? People love them. He might be tempted to call a station so he can be on air.”
Lartey beamed at his nephew. “Brilliant, Philip. You could get that set up with Joy FM and Bola Ray.”
“Sure.”
“How would that work?” Dawson asked. “He’d call in to the station and then what?”
“The number would show on the studio screen, and then we can have the phone company either trace the call or check phone records.”
Dawson was doubtful. “Are you sure the caller’s number shows on the studio screen? I don’t think so. The call screener doesn’t need your number when you call the studio, she just needs to know from where you’re calling.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Chikata conceded. “Still, they could trace the call for us.”
Dawson shook his head. “How? The phone companies haven’t started registering people to their phone numbers.”
“I thought they had.”
“They’re supposed to be doing it soon,” Dawson said, “but they haven’t yet. Think about it. You just walk into a phone store and buy a SIM card, which has your new phone number on it. The store gives you a receipt that may or may not have your name on it, but they don’t connect that SIM card phone number to your name in a computer system, or any system, for that matter. Some people even have more than one SIM card, or lend SIM cards to their friends. So how can anyone be reliably traced?”
“I still think there’s a way,” Chikata insisted.
“I’ll bet you lunch at Papaye’s,” Dawson said.
“Okay, look,” Lartey interrupted impatiently, “just find out if it’s possible, one of you, would you? I’m not going to sit here and listen to you argue all day about phones.”
“I need something else, sir,” Dawson said boldly.
Lartey’s brow clouded like a darkening sky. “What exactly do you mean?”
“I need people. Nighttime surveillance for the whole parallelogram area.”
Lartey looked about as happy as a child swallowing bitter medicine.
“You’re always asking for things, Dawson,” he complained. “All right, I’ll see what I can do.”
44
Later that morning, Lartey granted Dawson four detective constables for his surveillance plan, for one week only, understood?