“What do you suggest, sir?” he asked Longdon.
The commander didn’t speak for several seconds. “I will be meeting with DCOP Manu first thing in the morning, and we will come up with a plan, because this could potentially spark a political row between Ghana and the UK.”
What he was saying in essence was that this had to be kicked to a higher level, and in fact, it might end up, ironically, in the hands of the BNI in the end. In the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours, Dawson might well be officially removed from any investigation into Akua’s death. But Dawson didn’t care. He was going ahead with it regardless. Whether it was fair or not, he felt culpable for Akua’s death. He would not let the matter rest.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Emotionally wrecked and tired after waking up so early, Dawson had no interest in returning to Obuasi Headquarters. He simply wanted to go home. So early was it in the afternoon, the house was empty on his arrival, a rare experience for him. Sly and Hosiah had football practice until about five thirty, and it was Christine’s turn to pick them up.
First, Dawson called Armah.
“Oh, my Lord,” he said, when Dawson had told him the news of Akua’s murder. “I’m so sorry.”
Dawson described the precision of the execution-style shootings, and then the mysterious men who went to her hotel room.
“The whole scenario is sinister,” Armah said. “It sounds like she had a secret that someone didn’t want to get out. She has such a wide Internet audience.”
“Who is that someone? is the question.”
“Yes, that is it,” Armah agreed. “During your conversations with her, did she hint at anything sensitive?”
“The one thing I know she was working on was the story that the PMMC fabricates mining statistics and buys illegal gold, but days ago when I met her at The View restaurant, she started to tell me about what she believed were armed robbery scams in the Kumasi-Obuasi area-well, anywhere that gold is mined and/or traded. She talked about investigating corruption surrounding gold dealings at the highest levels of authority.”
“I see,” Armah said. “Not good. People don’t like that.”
“I know. Which means they won’t like me either, because I intend to continue on the path Akua was headed down.”
“Be careful, Darko.”
Commander Longdon had kept the dockets on the armed robberies, but as was Dawson’s habit, he had taken a snapshot of the important pages with his smartphone. He had not done a transfer of pictures from his phone to a flash drive in a while, so he spent time doing that before deleting the images from the phone. No, he wasn’t supposed to do any of this, but yes, he did it anyway because of the way records tended to disappear in the impenetrable recesses of police exhibit rooms.
He turned to the docket of the American ex-basketball player, Beko Tanbry. The events had transpired about six months before. The first image was the front of the docket.
DOCKET
GHANA POLICE FORCE
Date of offense: 12 March
Complainant: Tanbry, Beko
Principal Witness(es): Beko Tanbry; Kwadwo Yeboah (driver)
Accused: Unknown
Offense: Armed robbery
Victim(s): Beko Tanbry; Kwadwo Yeboah
Next was the report itself.
Police Report
Obuasi Divisional Headquarters Police Station
Date of Report: 12 March
Time of Report: 1823h
Date of Incident: 12 March
Time of Incident: 1500 (approx.)
Reporting Officer: Detective Sergeant Augustus Obeng
At 1815h on Friday 12 March, complainant and victim Mr. Beko Tanbry reported that he and his driver Mr. Kwadwo Yeboah went to a certain place several miles off the main road at the turnoff before Pakyi to purchase gold in the amount of 100,000.00 (one hundred thousand) US dollars from a certain man whose name was given as Mr. Michael. The purchase was executed and Mr. Tanbry and Mr. Yeboah were returning to the main road when they were forced to stop by a Mitsubishi SUV that was on the road across their path.
At that point, two gunmen with their faces completely covered by masks jumped out of the Mitsubishi and approached Mr. Tanbry’s vehicle, demanding that Mr. Tanbry and Mr. Yeboah alight with hands raised. They demanded the gold that had been purchased, and when Mr. Tanbry stated that he was not in possession of said gold, he was assaulted by one of the robbers and threatened with death by the other. Mr. Tanbry then showed them where the gold was hidden in a compartment in the ceiling of the vehicle, and the robbers removed all the gold. They tied the two victims up and then escaped in the Mitsubishi. Neither Mr. Tanbry nor Mr. Yeboah was able to see a license plate on the vehicle.
Mr. Tanbry is a retired American professional basketball player in the US, age 42. He resides in Atlanta.
Were Mr. Tanbry’s route and destination the same as Akua’s? As far as Dawson knew, there was only one turnoff road just before Pakyi.
He went to the next page. It was a short entry from May 6:
Mr. Beko Tanbry stated his wish to return to the USA. He is available by phone and email. Mr. Kwadwo Yeboah is also available by phone.
Dawson saw the phone number and hoped it was both correct and still valid. He dialed it. It was around noon in Atlanta, so the timing was right. He got voice mail and left a message, wondering if people in the US checked their voice mail. In Ghana, one seldom did.
Meanwhile, Dawson tried to do a search on this Beko Tanbry, but the URL got stuck and would not budge because of the all too common network congestion. Dawson sighed. It was so tiresome.
He thought he might as well take a look at the other armed robbery case-that of the Englishman, Charles Wilshire-but just as he was about to start, his phone rang and he saw it was a US number.
“Hello,” Dawson said. “Please, are you Mr. Tanbry?”
“Yeah,” he said, sounding wary. “Who’s this?”
Dawson introduced himself and told Tanbry he was investigating a series of armed robberies in the Ashanti Region in which gold or its proceeds were stolen.
“Yeah, well if you think you’re going to investigate me, mister,” Tanbry said, “you’re dead wrong.”
“No, not that at all, sir,” Dawson said evenly. “I’m making this call because I’m the new crime officer in Obuasi and I need to close some cases. I’m just asking for your help.”
“I hope you’re better than the crime officer who was there before,” Tanbry said.
“He died of a stroke,” Dawson said. “He had been sick for some time.”
“Oh, damn. Sorry. Is that guy Longdon still there?”
“The commander? Yes, he is. Did you have contact with him concerning the robbery you experienced near Pakyi?”
“Yeah. After weeks of the crime officer at the time doing practically nothing-I guess he was sick, like you say-I went upstairs to see the commander to ask what gives with the investigation. ‘Oh, we’re working on it,’ he says. ‘We have several leads,’ blah blah. Lyin’ through his teeth.”
“Please, can you describe the robbery incident in your own words, sir? It would help me a lot.”
“Okay, but I gotta give you some background first, okay?”
“Thank you.”
“So here’s the deal,” Tanbry said. “I have a clothing line and retail business in Atlanta. The last four years or so have been really tough. Last year, a Ghanaian friend of mine-I won’t name him-started telling me about some scheme he had to make a lot of money buying and selling gold via an American contact there in Ghana named Granger.”