“Why? What is this for, Socrate? Are you selling information to someone?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Then what? How long have you been doing this?”
Socrate kept his head down. “I started a few months after I set up the sound system.”
“Oh!” she cried. “Oh, Socrate, no.”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“Is this why you stay late? So you can watch me? Watch your day’s film of me?”
He nodded. Genevieve shuddered, wanting to get out of her own skin as though it had been coated with filth.
“Why, Socra?”
“You don’t understand,” he said.
“No, I don’t.”
“I care a lot about you.”
“And this is how you show it?”
“I know things aren’t going so well with you and your husband-”
“That’s my business, not yours-”
“There are too many men who want you. I need to keep an eye on them.”
“Socra, I can take care of myself.”
“Yes, but it’s always good to have a guardian angel. Someone to watch over you.”
“Watch over me?” she said, bewildered.
“Yes. For instance, I know Inspector Dawson wants to have an affair with you. Be very careful of that man.”
“Socra, the man is happily settled down with a wife and a seven-year-old boy.”
“If it were not for you,” Socrate said, looking wistfully at her, “I would never stay in this job. You think I care about these worthless children? You think I really enjoy going around town taking pictures of them as if they were movie stars? I do it all for you, Gennie. That’s all. Just for you.”
Worthless children. The words stung her like a whip on wet skin. Tears poured down her cheeks.
“Gennie, please…”
He came toward her.
She put a palm up to stop him. “No, no. You stay away from me. Stay away.”
Socrate stopped where he was.
“It’s true then,” Genevieve said. “What Inspector Darko said is true. You did lock Antwi in that storeroom.”
“He’s a nasty little liar, that boy.”
“And the stories of your torturing them-those must be true as well. Oh, my Jesus Christ.”
She put her face in her hands.
“So now you trust Darko’s word more than mine? Does that mean you like him more than me?”
Genevieve was agape. “Socra, what fantasy world are you living in? This isn’t about a contest between you and Dawson. It’s about what you’ve done. You’ve betrayed my trust and that of the children. You’ve abused them. But why do you detest them so much?” Her eyes widened as something hit her. “Those four murdered street kids…” She stopped and drew in her breath.
He looked away. “I didn’t kill them.”
They said nothing for several minutes.
“I’m sorry, Socra,” she said.
He nodded. “I know. I have to leave.”
He picked up his satchel, opened it to show Genevieve that he wasn’t stealing anything from SCOAR, slung it over his shoulder, and slowly walked out with his head down.
46
In the morning, Socrate woke with a heavy heart. He had a relentless headache and no appetite. The vision of Genevieve’s pained expression kept coming back to haunt him.
He sat on the edge of his bed in his underwear with his head bowed. The radio was on in the background. He paid little attention until he heard something that made him sit up. It was a promo announcement for Bola Ray’s Drive Time show that evening. Detective Inspector Darko Dawson would be on with Dr. Allen Botswe discussing serial killers.
Beautiful, Socrate thought. He sprang up with renewed vigor. Before this evening, he had a lot of work to do and some electronic gadgetry to design. This was where his genius came in. He would need a throwaway phone and a voice disguiser.
Dawson met with the surveillance officers who had been on duty overnight. They had little to report. No suspicious vehicles had been spotted cruising. The clusters of sleeping street kids had been quiet. But Detective Constable Juliet Quaynor brought up an interesting point.
“Since Comfort was a prostitute,” she said, “should we also be watching places like Nkrumah Circle, or even Danquah Circle, where many of these ashawos loiter?”
“I see what you’re saying,” Dawson said, “and it’s a good thought. But that assumes the killer is specifically targeting ashawos, and we don’t think that’s the case. He’s after street teenagers, and although some of them hang around the circles, we just don’t have enough people to cover those areas in addition to the key spots we’re already targeting.”
As the officers left the room, Dawson made a mental note that Quaynor should be watched as a detective with great potential.
In Joy FM’s purple and white four-story building in Kokomlemle, Dawson sat in the studio with Bola Ray and Allen Botswe. Like all FM stations in Accra, there wasn’t a separate control room, so the Joy engineer was stationed in the studio itself while Chikata and Carlos, the Tigo phone technician, stayed in the adjoining all-purpose greenroom visible from the studio through a glass window.
After the intro music, Bola Ray, with his round face, trademark glasses, and broad, easy smile, pulled the mike closer to his mouth and began the segment.
“First on this evening, we’ve got a very interesting show,” he said. “Dr. Allen Botswe, the renowned University of Ghana professor and criminal psychologist, is here with us to talk about a serial killer roaming the streets of Accra. Some in the press have even dubbed him the Latrine Killer because he murdered one of his victims in a latrine. To give us the perspective of the law enforcement side, we have Detective Inspector Darko Dawson in the studio as well.”
As the discussion proceeded, the calls began to come in fast and furiously, handled in his usual deft fashion by Bola.
“Salifu from Koforidua,” he said, looking at his console, “you’re on the air, go ahead.”
“I want to ask the doctor and the inspector who are talking about this thing, how are you so sure that it is one person alone who is committing these terrible killings?”
“It’s because of the signature, as we call it,” Botswe said. “Although we can’t reveal details, we see a unique pattern to the murders that could not have been so exactly duplicated by more than one person.”
“Inspector Dawson, do you have anything to add to that?” Bola said.
“Dr. Botswe is correct. It’s what we see in the characteristics of the murders that leads us to conclude that there’s a single perpetrator.”
“Erica is calling from Labone. You’re on air.”
“So does it mean that this man, the Latrine Killer, will only kill certain types of people like these street children? In other words, should I worry about my teenage girl who is well taken care of and is nothing like a street child?”
“I don’t think you need worry about this particular offender, the Latrine Killer as you call him,” Botswe said, “but you should continue to exercise the sensible precautions that all parents should take to protect their children.”
“Next we have Samson in Central Accra.”
“Good evening, gentlemen. How are you?”
The voice made Dawson sit up straight. It sounded like an empty oil drum rumbling down an echoing cobblestone alley.
“Doing well, thank you,” Bola said. “Go ahead.”
“The perpetrator will not necessarily confine himself to these street children, as you call them.”
Dawson signaled to both Carlos and the Joy FM tech that he wanted this one tracked. The tech went to work on a row of switches. Outside, Carlos was on his mobile to another engineer at Tigo HQ.
On a scrap of paper, Dawson scribbled “keep him on air as long as you can” and slid it in front of Bola. He nodded.