Gold of Our Fathers - страница 3
“What are you doing?” Kwame shouted in Twi, annoyed at Kudzo’s break in the rhythm.
“Something is here,” Kudzo returned. “I don’t know what it is.”
Kwame joined his partner to help clear away the soil from around the object. The other two boys, curious, came over to watch. Kudzo felt a shiver travel down his back. Something about the object made him uneasy.
Wei, who was on his phone again and had seen them cease work, walked quickly in their direction. “Hey!” he yelled. “What you doing?”
Dzigbodi pointed at what Kudzo and Kwame were unearthing. Wei jumped down into the pit to get a closer look. “Dig more,” he instructed them, as if he were contributing anything new to what they were already doing.
As they saw what it was, Kudzo gave an exclamation of shock. Kwame tried to stand up, but slipped in the mud instead. It was clear now. The object was a human head. Wei grabbed a shovel and began to help scoop the soil away. As the eyes and nose came into view, he let out a cry. Kwame scrabbled out of the pit in fear, but Kudzo wrenched himself out of his paralysis and used his shovel to help Wei pull earth away from the head. Now one shoulder was visible. Wei was weeping and babbling hysterically in Chinese. Kudzo already knew the truth, but it had a dreamlike quality. The dead man buried deep in gold ore was Bao Liu, Wei’s brother.
ACCRA
CHAPTER ONE
“Now that you’re chief inspector,” Christine said to Dawson, “does that mean they won’t send you to different parts of the country as often as they used to?”
On a late Saturday afternoon at the MmofraPark, Darko Dawson and his wife, Christine, were sitting in the shade of a neem tree watching their sons, Sly and Hosiah, playing with a group of kids.
Dawson grunted. “Not necessarily. One of our deputy commissioners, which is a very high rank, got moved up all the way up to Bolgatanga.”
Bolgatanga was a town in the very north of Ghana, some 460 miles away from Accra.
“I hope that happens to Theophilus Lartey,” Christine commented dryly.
Dawson laughed at her entrenched dislike of the man who had been Dawson’s boss for several years. She considered Lartey a domineering bully, particularly when it came to sending Dawson off to other parts of the country far from Accra, which was home to the family. For his part, Dawson had always resisted leaving his wife and sons behind for extended periods, only to go down in defeat after a stern warning from Lartey about insubordination and a threat of being fired.
During the last round of promotions two months ago, Lartey had been elevated from chief superintendent to assistant commissioner of police. Dawson had been promoted from detective inspector to chiefinspector at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in Accra, Ghana. Dawson had mixed feelings about his imminent separation from Lartey. In the first place, although the man could be cantankerous, Dawson was accustomed to him, and he could always depend on Lartey to stand behind his junior officers-barring any malfeasance, of course. As grumpy as he could be, he was scrupulously honest. Dawson’s assistant on all his criminal cases, Detective Sergeant-now Inspector-Philip Chikata, also happened to be Lartey’s adored nephew. In the early days, that had worked against Dawson, but he had now mastered how to get what he wanted from Lartey through Chikata, and it had proved to be a powerful tool.
Dawson stole a glance at his wife, pretty in form-fitting jeans and a sleeveless Ghanaian print top. Her hair, cinnamon-colored and elaborately braided in the latest style, was gathered behind her neck in a loose bundle. She was never poorly turned out, and Dawson took a secret delight in showing her off.
He felt relaxed with her in this park, Mmofra, meaning “children” in Fante, which provided a safe space for children’s play and out-of-classroom learning with exposure to Ghanaian culture in a natural setting. A portion of the grounds was dotted with drought-resistant shrubs and cassava plants, but the rest was uncultivated and waiting for landscaping when funds came in.