Murder at Cape Three Points (15 page)

“Did you know Mr. Cardiman before you started with Malgam?” Dawson asked him.

“By name only,” he said, opening the small refrigerator and taking out a bottle of Voltic. “I’ve never even been to the resort although I intend to at some point.”

He poured the water out in a heavy glass and handed it to Dawson.

“Me too,” Dawson said, pausing to take a few sips. It was very good. Voltic had the market cornered in Ghana.

Sarbah returned to his desk, giving Dawson the pause he needed before tackling a delicate matter. “I know about the story of your daughter, Mr. Sarbah, sir. I want to offer my condolences.”

“Thank you.” Sarbah’s eyes softened and saddened, demonstrating to Dawson how deep his feelings went.

“Angela must have been very dear to you.”

“She was our whole world,” Sarbah said softly. “We adored her.”

“Did you—do you—hold Dr. Smith-Aidoo responsible for her death?”

Sarbah unconsciously fiddled with a pen on his desk. “The doctor could have helped us.” His tone was still professional, but it certainly was not neutral. Dawson heard the emotion creeping into it. “She should not have turned us away like that. I don’t know how she can live with herself, knowing what she’s done. Doctors are supposed to heal, not harm.”

“You were angry and hurt.”

“I think you would be too.”

“To make matters worse,” Dawson went on, so as not to lose momentum, “when you went to Charles Smith-Aidoo for financial assistance, he turned you down.”

“He made up some excuse that he had just invested money and that he didn’t have any liquid funds.”

“You didn’t believe that?”

Sarbah gave a small chortle. “No, of course not.”

“Were you close to Charles? Why did you go to him in the first place?”

“I wasn’t close, but he’s still my cousin, right?” Sarbah said, opening his arms. He had large hands. “If you are able to help a family member, you do so. It’s the Ghanaian way.”

“I don’t know any polite way to ask you this question, sir, but …”

“Did I want to avenge Angela’s death by arranging the murder of Charles and his wife?”

“Oh,” Dawson said in surprise. “Well, yes. That was what I was about to ask.”

“The question has preceded you.” Sarbah smiled. “Chief Inspector Hammond has already posed it and received the same answer. No, I didn’t kill the Smith-Aidoos. On Monday, the seventh of July, I was at my real estate office all day.”

His eyes were looking sincerely into Dawson’s, and he didn’t blink.

“Do you still have the real estate business?” Dawson asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“May I ask where it is located, and can you give me the name of someone there who can confirm your whereabouts on the seventh of July?”

“Sure. The name of the business is Sarbah Properties, and it’s on the second floor in the Providence Building not far from here. You can speak to my manager, or anyone in the office, for that matter.”

“Okay.” Dawson stood up. “Mr. Sarbah, thank you for taking the time.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, standing as well and seeing Dawson to the door. He hesitated. “Look, Inspector, I want this mess cleared up too, and it doesn’t do me any good to do a dance of deception around you. So, if there’s anything you think I might be able to help with, please call.”

“I appreciate that sir,” Dawson said. He was just about to leave when something occurred to him. “Actually, there is something you might help me with. I’d like to meet with Mr. Calmy-Rey for a chat. Can that be arranged?”

“Yes, of course,” Sarbah said. “I’ll set that up for you and give you a call.”

As he took the elevator down, Dawson reflected what a breath of fresh air Sarbah was, compared to DeSouza. Sarbah was open and willing. He had a smooth texture to his demeanor. DeSouza was the opposite—as rough and lacerating as barbed wire.

Nevertheless, as different as the two men were, they were both still suspects with strong motives. In both cases too, however, it would be difficult to prove their involvement because they appeared to have good alibis. If either of them had paid someone to carry out a contract killing, it would be tough to make that connection.

For a while at least, Dawson turned his mind to something soothing and joyful as he thought about the family joining him in a little more than a day. Christine and the boys would leave for Takoradi on Friday afternoon directly after school.

He called her as he walked to the car. “Are you getting ready?”

“Yes. Sly and Hosiah are very excited about the trip. They can’t wait to see you.”

After hanging up with Christine, Dawson called Reggie Cardiman and introduced himself.

“Oh, thank
God
, Inspector!” Cardiman’s voice was as deep and projecting as if he were using a megaphone. “At last we have someone competent to clear this nasty thing up.”

“How do you know I’m competent?” Dawson asked in some amusement.

“Come now, Mr. Dawson. I know about your solving the serial killer case in Accra. You must come to Ezile Bay Resort. I would like to meet you for a good chat.”

Cardiman’s British accent incorporated heavy Ghanaian inflections. He sounded hearty and friendly, nothing like the impression Dawson had formed from the minutes of the STMA meetings.

“That’s why I was calling, in fact,” Dawson said. “When are you available?”

“I’m here all the time. Just let me know when you plan to arrive.”

“My wife and two boys are joining me from Accra tomorrow, and they would enjoy visiting Ezile Bay with me. What about Saturday? We could leave Takoradi in the morning.”

“That would be perfect. I’ll be looking forward to your visit.”

It was almost three thirty. Dawson wanted to add one more item to the list of the day’s accomplishments. He called the number Dr. Smith-Aidoo had given him for her Aunt Eileen. She didn’t answer the first time, so he tried again. This time, someone picked up the call.

“Hello?”

“Is this Eileen Copper?”

“Yes.” The voice was husky and monotone.

He introduced himself and told her he was investigating her brother’s murder.

“Oh, really.” Now her tone was cutting. “Well, I live in hope that you’ll rise above the mediocrity of the Sekondi Police.”

Everyone taking a swipe at Hammond and his team
, Dawson thought. “Then I’m sure you’re eager to help. I’d like to come and talk to you this afternoon.”

She hesitated.

“Around five,” Dawson pressed, not allowing her to stall.

“All right, Inspector.”

Good. He was thinking ahead and planning the next steps. DS Chikata would be arriving the following day, and Dawson was looking forward to it. Together, they could get a lot done much faster, clear this mystery up, and get back home.

Chapter 14

A
GIRL OF ABOUT
ten years old showed Dawson into a dark, stuffy sitting room with dusty stacks of papers, books, and folders. His nose tickled and he sneezed twice. The room had one window dirtied by the red dust kicked up from the unpaved road outside.

“Please, I will go and call Auntie Eileen,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

“Thank you.”

He chose not to sit on either of the two white plastic chairs, and instead peered at some of the dusty documents on the floor—psychology and biology papers taken from journals, and books on herbal medicines. With interest, he picked up a book called
A History of African Witchcraft
and skimmed through a few pages.

“Inspector Dawson?”

He turned to see a thin woman standing in the middle of the room.

“Mrs. Copper?”

“That is correct. How do you do?”

They shook hands. Hers was as rough as a dead leaf. He estimated her age around fifty. Her unprocessed hair was speckled with grey, and she wore a simple throw-on dress with a brown and white Ghanaian print. Obviously, she chose not to support her sagging breasts with a bra.

She pointed to the chair behind him. When he sat down, dust puffed up from the cushion and irritated his nose again. He suppressed an urge to sneeze.

“First of all,” he said, “I want to express my condolences for your brother’s death.”

“Thank you.” She half smiled, but it was bitter. “If only expressions of sympathy could resurrect a person. Next to my husband, Charles was the most important person in my life. So, yes, I am stricken, but I feared this was going to happen.”

“Why?”

She blew breath through her relaxed lips so that they made a soft, fluttering sound of weary disapproval. “You know how our fellow Ghanaians behave. People, even your own family members, would rather tear you down than cheer you on for your achievements.”

“Were there family members who were jealous of Charles’s success?”

“My ne’er-do-well brother, Brian.”

“Could he have killed Charles?”

“Could he?” She smiled. “Of course he could. Brian is a failure who was jealous of Charles and hated the fact that Sapphire’s uncle had more to do with her success than her father.”

“Doctor Smith-Aidoo told me about that,” Dawson said, nodding. “Her aunt and uncle essentially rescued her from self-destruction.”

“Yes,” Eileen agreed. “And put her on the path to academic success.”

“But I’m curious about something,” Dawson said. “Presumably Brian was jealous of his brother for a long time. What would trigger him to murder Charles? Why then and not some other time?”

“Ah, good question, Inspector,” Eileen said, lifting her index finger. “Did Sapphire also tell you all about the death of Jason Sarbah’s daughter, Angela, and how that made Sapphire want to leave the private clinic at which she had been working?”

“Yes, she did.”

“So once more, Charles came to her rescue and got her that job working on the rig.” Eileen crossed one leg over the other and smoothed her dress. “One day, Brian calls Sapphire to ask how she’s doing. Remember that they don’t talk to each other much—they’re practically estranged from each other. Sapphire lets him know that she has a new job, and Charles got it for her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Brian wants to know. ‘What difference would it make?’ Sapphire asks.”

“Ouch,” Dawson said. “That must have been hurtful.”

“Oh, yes—so painful that Brian calls his brother and begins to berate him for influencing Sapphire’s career while deliberately excluding Brian, which of course angers Charles, who ends up calling his younger brother worthless and a number of adjectives in Fante that don’t even have an equivalent in English.”

Putting himself in Brian’s position, Dawson could feel the kind of distress, even fury, that the man must have experienced. It wasn’t that Brian could have added anything to his daughter’s career move, it was simply the principle of being included in her affairs. And Dawson immediately thought of what he had done to
his
father: excluded him from his life. He didn’t call him or visit him. Cairo had asked Dawson to consider warming back up to their father, and Dawson was going to have to make a decision quite soon.

He forced his thoughts away from his personal affairs. “Your niece, Dr. Smith-Aidoo tells me that you’re a dedicated genealogist.”

Eileen looked pleased. “One of my many interests, yes.”

“To a large extent, Mrs. Copper, that’s why I’m here. Aspects of the murder signature suggested family and ancestry might have played at least part of the motive.”

“Call me Auntie Eileen. Everyone else does, even when I don’t ask them to.” She laughed, more like a dry cackle. “What do you know so far about the Smith-Aidoos?”

“Not much more than a little background on Charles and his wife, you, Brian, and Sapphire. She told me that after your mother was killed in a car crash in 1994, and she overheard Charles telling Auntie Fiona that there must be a curse on the Smith-Aidoo family. He said something like, ‘First my grandparents and now my mother.’ Sapphire wasn’t sure what to make of that.”

“We have shielded Sapphire from some of the more brutal elements of our family’s history.” Eileen paused, her eyes to the floor as she apparently deliberated on how best to frame what she was about to say. “Inspector, we don’t like to talk about family murder, madness, or marital infidelities, and we have plenty of that. The first half of our name, Smith, is from Bartholomew Smith, an
English seaman born around 1872. His ship docked at Takoradi for a few weeks when he met and fell in love with a Ghanaian woman and married her. After her death in about 1921, he returned to England with his daughter, Bessie, who got married there in 1925 to a Tiberius Sarbah.”

Dawson’s interest was piqued at that. Sapphire had told him that Jason Sarbah and Charles Smith-Aidoo were first cousins with a common grandmother, Bessie Smith. Now Eileen was going one generation earlier to Bessie’s father, Bartholomew. This was the kind of family history Dawson was looking for.

Eileen rose and picked her way through some folders and documents behind her chair. “I have a photograph of her I can show you.”

She brought out two manila envelopes, took out a picture from one of them, and handed it to him.

“As you can see, she was very beautiful,” she said, dragging her chair closer to his.