Children of the Street - страница 13

“I see it now,” Dawson said. “And that’s where the body was found.”

“Aha. Now you’ve got your bearings.”

Because the Agbogbloshie Canal was upstream from the interceptor, Dawson now saw that the dead body could not have got there if it had been dumped in the sea or even the lagoon. Even if an extremely high tide had washed the corpse in, the interceptor would have done exactly that: intercepted the body before it got to the Agbogbloshie Canal. Which brought up the next logical question.

“Could the body have floated down the Odaw River into the Korle Canal and then the Agbogbloshie Canal?” Dawson asked.

“I doubt it, sir,” Cuthbert said, shaking his head. “More likely it would have ended up at the boom with all the rest of the floating debris. Maybe, just maybe, that could happen if there was an extreme flood situation, but that hasn’t occurred recently.”

“So the body had to have been dumped right where it was found.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dawson turned and gazed as far as he could see down the lagoon. “It could be a beautiful place. But then there’s that.” He gestured toward Agbogbloshie. “Seriously, Mr. Plange, what are we going to do about it?”

“The government is moving all these squatters out.”

Dawson was incredulous. “Moving them out? To where?”

“To a place outside of the city. Everything. The yam market, the timber market, everything going.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Cuthbert looked intently at Dawson. “I understand your skepticism, Inspector, and I’ve heard it a lot. Many people say to me, ‘Aren’t you just wasting your time dredging this place when trash is being dumped faster than you can remove it?’ But my answer is, Can we really afford not to try? One day in the future when I’m old and gray, I’ll come down here and look at the beautiful, clear water of the lagoon where people are fishing, swimming, and sailing, and I’ll feel thankful and proud that we never gave up.”

The sky opened up that evening and dumped a torrent on the city. Just in time, Dawson cleared out the channels he had constructed to divert rainwater from the house.

With the first jagged flash of lightning, electric power went out on Dawson’s block and in the entire area between Awudome Circle and Kaneshie Market. It was lantern time. Dawson and Christine had decided to have kenkey with fish, the latter prepared by Christine without salt because of Hosiah’s dietary restrictions. They went traditional, using their fingers to eat from one large common bowl. It was a social and intimate way to take a meal, even more fitting by lantern light.

“This is all it takes to make me happy,” Dawson said between mouthfuls. “Kenkey and fish. And Malta.”

“The way you love kenkey, you’d think you were a Ga,” Christine said.

The Ga, Accra’s original people, had a legendary love of kenkey, but Dawson was half Ewe and half Fante. Nevertheless, he was fluent in Ga, as well as Ewe, Fante, and Twi, which took care of most of the lower half of Ghana. He had only a rudimentary knowledge of Hausa, one of the major languages spoken in the north.

As they talked, Dawson was putting up a cheerful front, but a lump formed in his throat every time Edith’s words from earlier that day came back to him. I’m so sorry. They turned it down.

When was he going to tell Christine? Tonight?

Hosiah let out a cheer as the lights suddenly came back on. While Christine washed dishes, Dawson took him to have his bath in preparation for bed.

As Dawson was toweling him dry, Hosiah asked, “Daddy, if the hole in my heart gets bigger and bigger, will I stop growing?”

“No, that won’t stop you from growing.”

“I want to be big and tall like you.”

“You will. Probably even taller.”

He was thrilled. “Really?”

“Mm-hm. Your ears dry?”

Hosiah checked. “Yes.”

“No little tadpoles inside?”

Hosiah cackled as he went to brush his teeth. I want to be big and tall like you. What if he never made it? Dawson turned away, pretending to fuss with the towels. His forehead was furrowed and his lips tight as he gulped his emotions down.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, champ?” Dawson’s voice wobbled just a bit.