Murder at Cape Three Points (17 page)

“I don’t say anything that isn’t true, do I?” she said heatedly. “Just answer my question.
Do I
?”

“You don’t have to spoil my name in front of my own daughter,” he said sharply. His voice had a nasal, stuffy quality. “You told Sapphire that everything she has become is because of Charles and not me.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me it’s not true,” she challenged.

“Of course it’s not!” he shouted. “Why are you trying to destroy any little chance I have with her? I did what I thought was best back then.”

“Best for you, not best for her.”

Dawson heard the sound of a hard slap and Eileen crying out. And another slap in quick succession. He stepped into the doorway,
expecting to see Eileen hurt by her brother’s hand. Instead, the two were grappling with each other, arms intertwined and hands at each other’s throats. She was taller than he was and quite possibly just as strong.

“
Stop
,” Dawson said. He came closer. “Stop, or you’ll both go to jail.”

That distracted them enough for him to sever the grip they had on each other and separate them.

“She’s a crazy woman!” Brian yelled, pointing at his sister as Dawson firmly pulled him back. “She’s a witch!”

“And you are a fool,” she jeered.

“You sit down here and don’t move,” Dawson told Brian. To Eileen he said, “Take a seat over there.”

“You must be Inspector Dawson,” Brian said dispassionately.

“Yes. What’s going on here?”

“He slapped me, and so I slapped him back,” Eileen said, almost casually.

“She insulted me,” Brian said.

“And so you think you can just slap me like that?” She looked at Dawson. “I didn’t even insult him. He’s angry because when his daughter was here a couple of days ago, and we were reminiscing about Charles. We agreed that she owed everything to her uncle.”

Brian aimed a finger at her. “No, that’s not all you said. You told her that I had just wanted to get rid of her, and that is not true. Why do you insist on saying that to her?”

Eileen turned to Dawson, almost as if her brother wasn’t there. “Brian conceived Sapphire out of wedlock when he was barely nineteen—a mere boy. He fell in love with this raving beauty of an Englishwoman, Constance, some ten years older than he, and she turned out to be crazy. Brian was immature and couldn’t handle parenthood, let alone a psychotic wife.” Eileen opened her arms with her palms up, as if appealing to a judge. “So Brian asked Charles for help, and he took over Sapphire’s care. That’s the truth, and it’s also the truth that he and Fiona shaped Sapphire more than Brian did. What have I said so far that is insulting?”

“But the way she’s expressing it to you is not how she says it to
Sapphire
,” Brian said plaintively to Dawson. “When it comes to her
niece, Eileen does her very best to paint me as some kind of criminal. And why does she do this? Because instead of asking her to take care of Sapphire all those years ago when I was having so much trouble with Constance, I turned to Charles for help. That’s why she resents me so much.”

“Oh, that is not true,” Eileen said, rolling her eyes.

“It’s very true,” Brian said quietly, leveling his gaze at her. “You know it is. And you became more and more resentful as the years went by because you were barren—childless to this day.”

That was new information for Dawson. He wondered, had the infertility been her’s or her husband’s, or both? In Ghana, being childless was very troubling for a woman, her spouse, and the extended family. Rumors of a curse on the woman could rise quickly, and an older woman who had never had children often fit the profile of a witch because as the theory goes, she kills the fetus in her womb and shares it with the members of her coven. As Dawson had discovered in Ketanu, it could lead to isolation of the barren woman, threats to her life, and ultimately murder. Witch sanctuaries existed in northern Ghana, but the word “sanctuaries” belied their hellishness.

“I have made my peace with it,” Eileen said curtly. “At least I don’t have a daughter who despises me the way yours does.”

With a kind of low whimper, Brian stood up again and began to menacingly approach her, but Dawson deflected him toward the door. “Let’s go outside. Come on.”

He took Brian out of his sister’s earshot. He was shaking and hyperventilating, his face swollen with anger.

“Relax, man, relax,” Dawson said, placing his hand on Brian’s back. “Take it easy.”

Just like his older brother, Charles, Brian had a bald patch beating a path through the center of his scalp with tufted hair on either side like the parted Red Sea.

“Why do you allow yourself to get so flustered?” Dawson asked.

“I don’t know,” he said with disgust. “It has always been this way. When we were kids, she teased and bullied me until I was sometimes in tears. And now she pounds it into me every chance she gets.” He smashed his right fist into his left palm repeatedly. “ ‘You’re a failure, you’re a failure,’ over and over again.”

Dawson noticed his slumped, resigned posture. “And do you think you’re a failure?”

His eyes clouded and became moist, and he withered some more. “I may not be one, but I feel I have let my daughter down. I feel I’ve lost her and will never get her back.”

“Not get her back from your older brother?”

Brian looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

“Charles has rescued your daughter a lot. He saved her in secondary school and put her on the road to success. You were left out of big pieces of Sapphire’s life while Charles took charge of her, and even in her adulthood, it has been happening. Earlier this year, it happened again. Charles got Sapphire a job on the Malgam oil rig, but neither of them told you about it.”

Brian looked away, a slash of pain striking his expression. “He deliberately excluded me as much as he could. He put the knife in me, and he twisted it side to side.”

Dawson paused, watching the spectacle of wretchedness before him. “You called him after you found out about Sapphire’s new job,” he said, “and when you tried to take Charles to task, he insulted you. Was that the last straw? Was that as much as you could take?”

“You’re asking me whether I killed my brother,” Brian said wearily. “Honestly, I felt like doing it. But no, I didn’t.”

“Where were you on Monday, the seventh of July, the day Charles and Fiona were killed?”

“At home.”

“Where is home?”

“The Cocoa Marketing Board flats. I work for the CMB. I stayed home that day. I suffer from gout and was having a bad attack.”

“Can anyone else confirm that you stayed home on both days?”

“I don’t think so. I live alone.”

“Do you own a pistol, or have you ever used one?”

“No,” he said, looking startled. “Never.”

“Did you hire someone to kill your brother?”

Brian pulled his head back. “Of course not.”

“Do you know anyone who wanted him dead?”

“Any of the people who hated him, Inspector Dawson.” He shrugged. “Environmentalists, fishermen and their advocates, all
kinds of meddling NGOs in Ghana and from abroad—the whole bunch of them. Basically, anyone who hates the entire oil industry. Charles was one of its most public faces.”

“What about a more personal vendetta against the Smith-Aidoo family as a whole?” Dawson asked.

“I don’t know anything about that,” Brian said, his voice weak.

“Do you know Richard Sarbah? The son of Tiberius Sarbah?”

“Sarbahs are all over the place in Takoradi, and whichever one that is, I don’t particularly care. Are you done with me, Mr. Dawson? I’m sorry, but my gout is beginning to flare up. I have to get home now.”

“Thank you, sir. Oh, one other thing—your phone number.”

Brian supplied it and then limped away as his gout got the better of him. Dawson watched the troubled, confused man leaving.

Chapter 16

D
ARKNESS HAD FALLEN BY
the time Baah and Dawson reached New Amanful. Its name spoke to its recentness as a suburb. Very little street lighting existed, and the brand new single-family homes and gated communities in the middle of untended, overgrown plots appeared as looming, bulky shadows. With its proximity to the beach, the suburb was prime real estate, but not all of it was newfangled construction. In contrast, the original Amanful was an old fishing community clinging to the shore with its shacks, canoes, and non-potable water.

As they bumped along the unpaved road, Dawson fed Baah the directions Eileen had provided, but the house with a green gate that she had described as their final destination never materialized. They pulled up alongside a lone pedestrian walking toward the beach and asked if he could help. The man gave them another set of tortuous directions to the residence he asserted was Richard Sarbah’s. Praying that the man was right, they set off again, and after one or two wrong turns, they found it. Baah pumped his horn twice. A man peeped out through the crack between the two halves of the gate and came out, approaching in the beam of the headlights and coming around to Baah’s window. Dawson realized with surprise that the guard was Forjoe.

“Forjoe!” he exclaimed, switching on the car’s interior light. “It’s me, Inspector Dawson.”

Forjoe peered in at him. “Ei, Inspector! Good evening!”

“You work here?”

“Yes, please,” Forjoe said, smiling.

“Is this Richard Sarbah’s house?”

“Yes.” A worried look came to his face. “Is there any problem?”

“Not at all. I’m just paying a visit. Is he in?”

Forjoe hesitated. “He’s in, but I have to check if he’s available. Please, I’m coming.”

He walked quickly back into the house, returning about five minutes later to open the gate so that Baah could pull into the front yard. The one-story house was a decent size with a white exterior tarnished by the red dust of the unpaved road outside. Within the compound, someone had been working on a water pipe in a deep hole underneath the wall that enclosed the property. A toolshed stood in the corner of the compound.

“Like I told you before,” Forjoe said, as Dawson followed him in, “the fishing business is not paying enough these days, so I do extra work as a watchman. I’ve been knowing Mr. Sarbah since I was a small boy. He’s a good man—something like an uncle to me.”

“I see,” Dawson said. “So is he the one you mentioned to me who is helping you with your daughter Marvelous?”

“Yes, please.”

“How is she doing?”

Forjoe was visibly troubled. “Not so well, but I pray that God will continue to help us.”

Dawson hoped the prayers were answered. He understood the kind of anguish the man was going through.

Forjoe showed Dawson into a dimly lit, stuffy sitting room.

“Please, you can have a seat. He will come just now.”

Dawson chose a pair of old angular wooden armchairs with square cushions. They didn’t make furniture like this anymore. Now it was all overstuffed sofas and chairs in imitation leather. He looked around the room. It was clean, if a little shabby. The building was obviously much older than the structures that now populated New Amanful. Some old family pictures sat on a bookcase, a small TV in one corner, a worn rug on the linoleum floor. The mosquito netting on the windows needed renewing.

He heard a soft sound and turned to see Richard Sarbah entering the room. He was of average height but exceptionally solid in the
chest and shoulders. His hair was jet black, and Dawson thought he must dye it. If his son, Jason, was in his mid to late forties, Richard had to be in his early seventies, at least. On the other hand, he appeared youthful in posture, and his age was difficult to place from his appearance alone.

“Mr. Sarbah?” Dawson rose from his chair.

“Yes, please. You say your name is?”

“Dawson. Inspector Darko Dawson.”

“Ah, I see.” He had a slightly hoarse voice, but it didn’t trigger Dawson’s senses. They shook hands.

“Please, have a seat.” Sarbah sat in a facing chair. “I don’t usually accept visits from strangers, especially at this time of the night, but Forjoe tells me you’re a friend.”

“Yes,” Dawson said, going along with it. “I’m investigating the murder of Charles and Fiona Smith-Aidoo.”

His face revealed a flicker of interest. “So what can I help you with?”

“Jason Sarbah at Malgam Oil is your son, is that correct, sir?”

“Yes. Is something wrong?”

“Not at all,” Dawson said pleasantly. “Just checking that I have the right Sarbah. As part of my investigation, sir, I’ve been looking into the Smith-Aidoos’ and Sarbahs’ past. I understand Tiberius and Bessie were your parents?”

“Yes.”

“Your father was once accused of killing Bessie and Robert, is that correct?”

Sarbah closed his eyes and rubbed his brow slowly, as if he had a headache. “Please, Inspector Dawson, this is not a memory I enjoy discussing.”

“I understand it must be painful,” he said gently. He was going to be empathetic, but he wouldn’t let Richard evade any questions either. “However it’s important. I was ordered here by CID Headquarters to assist the Sekondi police with the investigation, so that’s what I must do. Any details you can provide are much appreciated, Mr. Sarbah.”