They both sat down, and Mr. Scott folded his fingers together over his jolly tummy.
“So how can I help you?” he said. He sounded American to Dawson, but Akua Helmsley had said he was Canadian.
“I’m investigating the death of a Chinese miner by name of Bao Liu.”
“Ha!” Scott exclaimed. “I wish you the best of luck with that, Chief Inspector, but don’t get your expectations up too high.”
“Why do you say that?” Dawson asked with curiosity.
“No one’s going to tell you anything useful,” he said, chuckling. “Except me, maybe. Everyone’s going to keep their mouths shut.” He grew sober. “But yes, bad deal that murder, but”-he shrugged-“you reap what you sow.”
“How do you mean?” Dawson asked, interested.
“Well,” Scott said matter-of-factly, “if you run around trampling all over a country that doesn’t belong to you, destroying people’s farmland and their livelihood, then you’re pretty much setting yourself up to be well and truly whacked, aren’t you?”
“Whacked by whom?”
“Anyone!” he exclaimed. “The Ghanaian galamsey dispossessed by these Chinese marauders, the villagers and farmers whose land the Chinese guys steal-hey, if I was one of those cocoa farmers whose trees guys like Bao Liu bulldoze, I’d commit a couple of murders myself.”
“You look quite serious about that.”
“I am. Have you gone around to some of these mining sites, Chief Inspector?”
“I have.”
“Then you know it’s a goddamn shame,” Scott said, his jaw hardening. “I’ve lived in Ghana for more than twenty years, and I’ve never seen so much destruction in so short a time. And what are the police and the government doing about it? Nothing, because everyone’s palms are being greased-corrupt bunch of sycophants. They’re about as disgusting as these Chinese plunderers themselves.”
He certainly isn’t shy with his opinions, Dawson thought. “You had a guest here called Chuck Granger, is that right?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” Scott said with a toss of his head. “I threw him out. Obnoxious American. As bad as the Chinese.” He thought that crack was amusing too, so he rewarded it with his own laughter.
“What happened with Granger that you had to throw him out?” Dawson asked, smiling slightly.
“How about drunkenness, carousing into the wee hours of the morning with a bunch of women in his room, and disturbing my other guests? Is that good enough reason?”
“I would say so,” Dawson said. “Interesting place you have here, Mr. Scott. Why is it called Four Villages Inn?”
“We have four rooms,” Scott explained, “and each has the theme of an area in the Ashanti Region-for instance, one room has artifacts from the kente made at Bonwire.”
“I see,” Dawson said. “Very nice.”
“Thank you. But back to Granger. What did you want to know about him?”
“Did you ever hear him discussing anything to do with his mining site?”
“Did I!” Scott exclaimed. “Ha! How could I not? He sometimes paced up and down right here on the veranda or inside the hallway talking on the phone in the loudest and most profane tones possible. ‘Fuck this, fuck that. I need this piece of machinery right now!’ And then he had this reality show filming crew swarming around, and that was a real pain in the ass-even though the Explorer Channel was paying me quite handsomely.”
“I’m looking for names and connections, though,” Dawson said, wanting Scott to focus. “Did you ever hear him threatening to do something to Bao Liu directly or indirectly?”
“Look,” Scott said, “I don’t remember him mentioning this fellow Bao Liu specifically, but Chuck hated the Chinese miners around his site because they were all illegal, and Chuck had had to move heaven and earth to get all his papers-or so he claimed, but that’s another story in itself-and here were these Chinese miners all up in his face, sometimes walking onto his site with their pump-action shotguns and a bunch of Ghanaian thugs. So yeah, since Bao Liu was one of the miners next door to Chuck’s site, so sure, I would say you need to go after Chuck, because he’s a brute of a man who would kill someone and not think twice about it.”
So there was motive, Dawson thought-at least according to Scott. “Do you know where Granger is staying at the moment?”
Scott shook his head. “Don’t know, and don’t care. He could be resting comfortably in Dante’s Inferno as far as I’m concerned.”
He laughed at that too, his belly jiggling with his glee. Dawson couldn’t help joining in. Scott was certainly an interesting man.
Dawson stood up. “Thank you very much for your help, sir.”
“You’re most welcome. Anything else you think of, give me a call.”
He took a card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Dawson.
“By the way,” Dawson said, “just out of curiosity, how much is it per night to stay here?”
When Scott told him how much, Dawson almost laughed at how far out of his reach the price was.
Dawson decided to return to Dunkwa in an attempt to find either Granger or Yaw Okoh-or both, if he was lucky, but he had driven barely two blocks when Gifty called him and asked him to meet her at the guesthouse, where she was waiting for the foreman. She didn’t ask Dawson if he could meet her. It was more like a summons from a district court.
He gritted his teeth. “All right,” he said. “I’ll be there soon.”
When he arrived some twenty-five minutes later, Dawson found his mother-in-law in the living room berating a perspiring, sheepish-looking man who was wringing his hands and repeating at intervals, “Yes, please, madam.”
Gifty turned as Dawson entered. “Darko! How nice to see you again!”
They embraced, only barely. She was wearing a fragrance that he admitted was subtle and alluring, and her general turnout was flawless. Still keeping her slim figure, she was dressed in a one-piece iridescent blue and pink wax-print with the prestigious Woodin label. Pink lipstick against her dark, soft skin set off the colors of her dress and made the entire picture very fetching. She was, as always, wearing one of her wigs. Not just any old wig-this was the kind that you had difficulty deciding if it was real hair or not.
She introduced Dawson to the gentleman. “This is Mr. Nyarko, the foreman.”
Nyarko, who had taken the opportunity to mop his brow in the few seconds the heat had been taken off him, shook hands with Dawson. “Good morning, sir.”
“Let’s go to the kitchen,” Gifty said.
There, she directed what needed to be done, and Dawson added a couple words here and there. Nyarko’s basic reaction was, “Yes, I can do it, no problem, madam.”
“Look, Mr. Nyarko,” Gifty said after they’d gone through the whole house, “like I told you before, everything must be ready by Friday. If not, I won’t be using you again. Am I clear?”
“Yes, madam,” he said, nodding vigorously. “No problem, madam. Everything will be ready by all means.”
Dawson didn’t see it happening. It was too much to accomplish in four days. Outside again with Gifty, he said, “Mama, I think we need a plan B in case he doesn’t finish.”
“Oh, he will finish,” Gifty said, pressing her lips primly together.
“I think he’s making a promise he can’t keep,” Dawson said.
She smiled. “Darko, Darko. You can never stop doubting, eh? Always skeptical, never positive.”
“I’m not doubting you, Mama; I’m doubting him.”
“I will be here until the end of the week, don’t you worry,” she assured him. “I will make sure everything goes well.”
“Okay, thank you very much.”
“Because I know you’re busy with all your, em, police stuff,” she added. “What is it you’re doing here in Kumasi again?”