Obi was trembling. “But how… how did you understand what I was going to do with the charcoal stove?”
“Why do you need a charcoal stove? You told me yourself that Dr. Botswe bought you a gas one years ago. You needed the charcoal stove for the grate on the top. ‘Everyone climbs the ladder of death,’ the proverb goes. You were heating up the grate to brand the pattern of parallel lines into Akosua’s skin. If you look at the pattern with the lines going horizontally, it looks like a ladder.”
Obi nodded. “Yes.”
“Why did you kill with proverbs?”
“Anyone can kill, sir, but few people can kill and leave a mark of wisdom on the body. Ghanaian proverbs are the wisest in the world.”
“Leave a mark of wisdom on the body,” Dawson echoed. “That’s what you call all those mutilations?”
“Yes, sir,” Obi answered. “Please, how did you find me?”
“I called Dr. Botswe to find out where you lived. He told me Madina-but then he said he thought you had told him that you had some kind of house in Jamestown. I knew it would have to be the most deserted section of Jamestown. The only area like that is near the lagoon, where putting up new buildings has been banned and old ones have been closed down. I have been passing that Woodcrest Services factory for years, and I never gave it a second’s thought, but it is the only abandoned building that is completely closed, preventing people from seeing inside.”
Obi’s shoulders suddenly contracted and shrank, and he began to weep.
Dawson stood up. “Do you know why he’s crying?” he said to Chikata. “Because he was caught. That’s all he’s sorry about. As for the people he has slaughtered, he feels nothing for them.”
54
Dawson took Christine and Hosiah out for a celebratory dinner at Maquis Tante Marie. It was more than he could comfortably afford, but he didn’t care. He wanted this to be special, and what was one more day of being broke? He surprised Chikata by inviting him to join them. Par for the course, one of the female waiters simply could not keep her eyes off Chikata, and par for the course, he got her phone number as they left the restaurant. Dawson and Christine exchanged glances and a sly grin.
Walking out to the car, Hosiah suddenly put his hand in Chikata’s and said, “Uncle Philip, you can come to my house on Saturday and play with my cars if you like.”
Chikata at first looked dumbfounded, and then a big grin burst out on his face and he laughed. “Well, I have to ask your daddy first, okay?”
“The answer is yes,” Dawson said, smiling.
They said good night to Chikata, dropping him off at police barracks. Just after they passed the Ako Adjei Interchange, Dawson spotted someone at the side of the street and pulled over.
“Why are we stopping?” Christine asked.
“It’s Sly,” Dawson said, his door already open.
He ran back to where the boy was standing.
For just a moment, Sly stared at him as he approached, unsure. Then his face lit up.
“Mr. Darko!” he screamed and began running.
Dawson knelt down, opening his arms wide. Sly joyfully threw himself into his embrace.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Dawson cried. “Where have you been?”
He held Sly at arm’s length. The boy had lost weight, and his clothes were even more ragged than before, but that old spark in his eyes was still there.
“I don’t live in Agbogbloshie anymore,” Sly explained. “My uncle went to the north and left me and he never came back.”
“So where do you live now?”
“Oh, well, just on the streets, you know. I walk around during the day and try to do some jobs, and then I find somewhere to sleep.”
Dawson shook his head. Sly is not going to be a street child.
Christine and Hosiah had joined them.
“This is Sly,” Dawson introduced.
“Oh, yes!” Christine exclaimed. “The boy we went to look for. How are you?”
“Please, I’m fine.”
“Hosiah?” Dawson said, a touch apprehensively. He wasn’t sure what the reception was going to be like. “Say hello to-”
“I already know about him, Daddy,” Hosiah said in somewhat long-suffering tones. “I heard you and Mammy talking about him.”
“Oh,” Dawson said.
“Can you play soccer?” Hosiah asked Sly.
“Sure,” he replied, grinning. “I can dribble paa, and I’m a good goalie too.”
“I have a soccer ball at my house we can play with.”
“They look sweet together, don’t they?” Christine whispered to Dawson as the two boys talked. “He looks awfully hungry, though.”
“His uncle left,” Dawson said. “Deserted him without a word.”
“Ewurade,” Christine said, appalled. “So he’s on the streets with no one at all to take care of him?”
“Yes.”
They looked at each other.
“Well, we at least need to get him something to eat, poor kid,” she said. “And then we can see what else we can do to help him.”
“We may have to take a trip to the north to find his parents,” Dawson said, “which might be easier said than done. Beyond that, unless we take him in, he’ll become just like the other thousands of street children. And I don’t think I’m going to like that.”
“I know,” she said, hooking her fingers around his. “I know you won’t.”
“Come along, you two,” Dawson called out.
With the two boys in the backseat, Dawson was preparing to move the car into traffic when he realized he had a text message. It said:
Good news. Commitment from Dr. Gyan to make your boy whole. Whatever you can afford.
Call me. Dr. Biney
“Thank you, Jesus,” Dawson said.
“What is it?” Christine asked.
He passed the phone to her. She read the message and let out a small shriek, throwing herself at Dawson and holding him tight. Choking with emotion, they said nothing as they stayed together in a long embrace.
Behind them, Sly shot Hosiah a puzzled look.
“They’re like that sometimes,” Hosiah explained. “You just have to be patient and wait for them to stop.”
“Oh, okay,” Sly said. It was fine with him.
Acknowledgments
First, I must express my deepest gratitude for the friendship and professional advice of Detective Lance Corporal Frank A. Boasiako of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in Accra. Meeting him was a result of a confluence of events that might even have been called providence. He is a treasure of information. Without him, many nuances and technicalities of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) could not have been detailed in this novel, not to mention the guidance and protection he provided as I explored the darkest recesses of nocturnal Accra. Any variations from reality should not be attributed to “incorrect information” from Frank but rather to the creative and editorial process in my writing of the story.
There are others at Ghana Police Service (GPS) headquarters I must also thank: my old friend Ken Yeboah, Director-General of GPS Legal Services, who helped me get in touch with the right people; Detective Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Hanson Gove, who graciously allowed me to pick his brain while frequenting his office and the detectives’ room. Thanks also to DSP Solomon Ayawine, administrator of CID headquarters.
I’m very grateful to Joana Ofori of Street Academy in Accra for being so accommodating and helpful in setting up interviews and tours of some of the settings in this novel. Paul Avevor of Catholic Action for Street Children (CAS) in Accra coordinated my meeting with some of Accra’s street children, and I thank him and director Jos Van Dinther for allowing me access to their organization and for giving me a tour of its premises. Thanks also to Theodora and Michael, the fieldworkers I went with to the gathering places of the street kids in town, many of which are represented in this novel. The children I met at both CAS and Street Academy were terrific, including Ernestina Marbell, whom I’m honored and delighted to be able to support through school.