Gold of Our Fathers - страница 13
Looking both bitter and sad, the commander was silent for a while, and Dawson said nothing. He was getting a picture of a divisional headquarters reeling from the tragic death of one of its own, and as a result suffering from low morale and disorganization.
“So,” Longdon resumed, recovering, “I will be depending on you to get the office back in shape. I have directed Sergeant Obeng to be at your service. You will also supervise the other detectives on their active cases.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Any problems, don’t hesitate to come to me.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“That’s all for now. I will have Sergeant Obeng take you around the division.
It was nothing much to see. The impression Dawson had formed that the building had not originally been built to house a police headquarters turned out to be correct.
“Before,” Obeng explained as they went downstairs, “it was a house belonging to a certain businessman who donated it to the Ghana Police.”
Nice of him, Dawson thought, wondering if the businessman could now build them a fresh and modern facility.
“But Ghana Police is building a new place for us,” Obeng said, as if reading Dawson’s mind.
The charge office, CID room, and Dawson’s office-to-be occupied the front of the building. At one end of the dim rear corridor was the court office, which faced the CID room. Dawson put his head in and found a couple of lawyers with three officers preparing a case for court.
In the tailoring room, a tailor at his sewing machine repairing a police uniform looked up absently at them and smiled. “Morning, sir.”
Next in the hallway, Obeng opened the door to the exhibit room. Dawson let out a low whistle. Items from machetes to stolen trinkets were thrown chaotically one on top of the other, mixed in with a jumble of dusty folders and manila envelopes from old cold cases.
“We have to work on this,” Dawson said, although he admitted privately to himself that even the exhibit room at Central was a disaster.
The jail was at the other end of the gloomy passage lit by a lonesome curly fluorescent bulb in the ceiling. An eight-by-six-foot cell, it was designed to detain a maximum of ten prisoners. By Dawson’s count, it contained seventeen at the moment. The powerful odor of unwashed bodies was supplemented by the stink from the rudimentary latrine. The prisoners regarded Dawson with a mixture of curiosity and hope. Could this be someone coming to rescue them from jail?
Dawson hated to disappoint them, but no. “Okay,” he said. “Thank you, Obeng.” He tried to sound upbeat, but in fact he was feeling profoundly depressed by the entire picture. The place felt fragmented and at a low ebb.
Returning to his office with Obeng, Dawson took a look at the documents the sergeant had been trying to sort out. Cold cases, interrogation transcriptions, documents, fingerprint records, DNA data here and there. It was a mountain of material, and in Dawson’s opinion, some of it would eventually need archiving in off-site storage. But what portion? He took a deep breath and blew it out through his cheeks, feeling daunted.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll take a closer look at everything tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” Obeng said enthusiastically.
Dawson sensed that the sergeant was grateful for his arrival, as though he had been overburdened without the guidance of a senior officer. He smiled at Obeng, studying him for a moment and noticing a few untidy stains on the sergeant’s light green shirt, which stretched to bursting point over the rotund belly. He wasn’t slovenly, but he didn’t have far to go. Troubled in some way? A chaotic home life?
“Everything okay with you?” Dawson asked.
“Oh, yes, please, sir,” Obeng answered quickly.
His voice changed slightly, and Dawson’s left palm tingled for a second. He had synesthesia, where vocal qualities were experienced as a sensation in his hands, the left one in particular. Sometimes it meant an untruth was being told, and Dawson sensed that all was not well with Obeng. Whether it was, or would be, affecting his work, Dawson would no doubt find out.