Wife of the Gods (9 page)

Now it was Dawson who was puzzled. “I’m here regarding the
murder case? Gladys Mensah?”

Fiti looked blank. “I was expecting someone from Ho.”

“I don’t know much about that part,” Dawson said. “All I was
told by my chief super was that the minister of health wanted Accra
CID to be in charge.”

“Who is your chief superintendent?”

“Theophilus Lartey.”

“Oh, yes. I know him.”

A trim, clean-shaven, baby-faced man had been hovering behind
Fiti in the doorway of the office, but now he approached
Dawson.

“Welcome, Detective Inspector,” he said, shaking hands. His
voice was gentle but resilient, like the sensation of soft, wet
grass on bare feet, and his inflection hinted at some significant
stay in England. “I’m Timothy Sowah, program director of the Health
Service AIDS program in the Volta Region. Gladys Mensah was doing
volunteer work with us. She was the best. These past three days
have been horrendous.”

“Excuse me one minute,” Inspector Fiti said brusquely, returning
to his office and shutting the door.

“He doesn’t seem very happy I’m here,” Dawson said, lowering his
voice.

Timothy made a face. “No, he doesn’t.”

Seconds later they could hear Fiti on the phone asking someone
at the Ho station what was going on.

“Can I have a word with you outside?” Timothy said to
Dawson.

They stepped out.

“Don’t let this on to Inspector Fiti,” Timothy said, “but I had
a lot to do with your being here instead of the chap from Ho.”

Dawson was surprised. “You did?”

“Yes. Look, I was worried. I wanted to be sure we got someone
really good on the case. I know the CID chap stationed at Ho, and
I’m sorry, I’m not impressed. I couldn’t take the risk. I really
want this murder solved. So I called the minister, and he agreed to
have Accra handle it. So here you are. Trouble is, I’m sure
everyone thought everyone
else
was going to inform Inspector
Fiti, and so it ended up no one did. I apologize if I’ve caused a
bit of an incident.”

“It’s all right,” Dawson said. “At least now I’m clear how it
happened.”

“Let’s go back inside.”

Inspector Fiti had emerged from his office again. “Accra CID is
always doing this,” he said bitterly. “They think we can’t handle
our own affairs.”

“I’m sorry to have caught you unawares, Inspector,” Dawson said.
“I’m here to help, that’s all.”

Fiti heaved a sigh. “Okay. Anyway, you can come into my
office.”

It was small and jumbled, as untidy as Inspector Fiti himself.
Tilting stacks of papers on the desk were gathering dust, and there
was more chaos on the floor. There were only two chairs, and Fiti
asked Constable Gyamfi to bring in a third. It was hot and airless
in the room despite the whirring ceiling fan. Squashed close to the
other two men with the door shut, Dawson felt suffocated.

His first order of business was to let Sowah and the inspector
know the latest, and he told them about the autopsy on Gladys.

“Strangled
,” Timothy said, looking stunned. “Strangled,
my God.”

“Do you have the autopsy report?” Inspector Fiti asked.

“Yes, I do,” Dawson said, handing it over to Fiti, who read it
in silence.

“I see,” he said curtly when he was done. “I would like to make
a copy.”

“Of course,” Dawson said.

Fiti got up and removed some papers from the top of a small
photocopy machine.

“Can you give me your version of the chronology of the events
around Gladys Mensah’s death, Inspector?” Dawson asked as Fiti
began to copy the first page.

“Chronology,” Fiti said slowly, as if considering the nuances of
the word.

“When the body was found and so on.”

“Yes, I know what the word
chronology
means,” Fiti
said.

“I apologize, Inspector.”

“Today is Tuesday. Gladys went to Bedome on last Friday in the
afternoon. She was killed sometime during the evening or night of
Friday. On Saturday morning, Gladys’s brother Charles came to
report her missing, and on the same morning, Efia, a woman from
Bedome, found her body. Crime scene unit came in the afternoon and
took their photographs and all those things, and then the body was
taken to the VRA morgue on Saturday night to await the
postmortem.”

“Did the crime scene guys say when they’d be ready with their
report?”

“They said next week,” Fiti replied with a shrug. “They always
say next week. It could be next year.”

“You’re right,” Dawson agreed. “Back to Gladys, though. What was
she doing in Bedome?”

“She was a volunteer with the GHS AIDS outreach program,”
Timothy explained. “We provide voluntary counseling and testing –
VCT – in both urban and rural areas, and we have a limited supply
of antiretroviral medicines to dispense to HIV-positive people,
especially for pregnant women.”

“You use a lot of volunteers?”

“A few. We have an arrangement with the medical schools. Every
year they provide us with three or four medical students who do
their electives with us. Gladys was one of them. Ketanu and Bedome
were on our VCT list this year, and she picked those.”

“Was she the only volunteer for the two towns?”

“Yes.”

“Might there be anyone in Ketanu or Bedome who didn’t like what
Gladys was doing?”

Timothy took a breath. “Unfortunately, yes. She clashed badly
with Bedome’s head priest – name’s Togbe Adzima – over this trokosi
business. Have you heard about it, Inspector Dawson? These women
they call trokosi? Supposedly wives of the gods serving at a shrine
as penance for a family crime? They’re often brought to the shrine
as girls as young as nine, and once they reach puberty, the fetish
priests begin to have sex with them.”

“I thought all that had been outlawed.”

“Technically, yes. There’s a law on the books, but not a single
person has ever been arrested in connection with trokosi.”

“Why is that, exactly?”

“Good propaganda is one reason, if not the only one. The fetish
priests – who, by the way, don’t like being referred to that way –
insist trokosi is an age-old tradition that should be respected.
And if anyone tries to eradicate it, they say, the gods will be
angered and take revenge in some way. That scares away even the
police. And then there’s AfriKulture.”

“Afri-who?”

“AfriKulture. It’s an organization dedicated to saving aspects
of Ghanaian culture and tradition that it claims are under attack
from the Western world, trokosi being one of them. I’m loath to
admit it, but their campaign is gaining strength. You can hardly
get to a shrine without going through AfriKulture.”

“What does AfriKulture say about the girls taken into the
shrine?”

“That they’re privileged young women who will learn the ways of
morality. They deny that any of them are cast into perpetual
servitude.”

“I take it you think that’s a load of nonsense.”

“Yes, I do. Look, this thing might have worked centuries ago,
but it doesn’t fit with modern times. I think these so-called
priests are con artists enslaving young women under the guise of a
so-called tradition.”

“Togbe Adzima being one of these con artists, in your
opinion.”

Timothy nodded vigorously. “Without a doubt. Gladys felt the
same way.”

“She confronted Adzima?”

“Not just confronted. She went head-to-head with him. I told her
she had to tone it down, but she wouldn’t. She kept telling him she
was going to bring down the hand of the law on him, and he kept
invoking the power of the gods against her. Told her she would be
struck down by them if she continued in that fashion.”

“And now she’s been struck down,” Dawson said.

“Yes,” Timothy said bitterly. “It really gets to me.”

“At any rate, it would seem to make Adzima a suspect. What do
you think, Inspector Fiti?”

“I think Togbe Adzima believes in his gods,” Fiti replied. “He
really would trust them to destroy Gladys on their own power, and
so I think he would leave it for the gods to do and not kill her
himself.”

Interesting point
, Dawson thought.

“The one I really suspect is Samuel Boateng,” Fiti went on.

“Who is he?” Dawson asked.

“This boy Samuel – he was constantly pestering Gladys to be his
girlfriend and, according to Charles Mensah, some farmers saw him
talking to her near the forest the last evening she was seen
alive.”

“You say ‘boy’. How old is Samuel Boateng?”

“He’s nineteen, something like that.”

“You’ve questioned him?”

“Yes, and I’m going to arrest him. I believe he became very
angry that Gladys was rejecting him and he killed her soon after he
was spotted with her that evening.”

Dawson nodded. “I see. What about Gladys’s family members?”

“All of them loved Gladys,” Fiti said, “and they were proud of
her because she was going to be a doctor. Only one thing – there is
some bad talk about her aunt Elizabeth. Some people say she killed
Gladys using witchcraft.”

“Witchcraft,” Dawson echoed in surprise. “Why do they think
that?”

“She’s a widow,” Fiti said, “she has no children, she’s an older
woman, and she makes money. Those things make people suspect
her.”

“The profile of a witch, so to speak. Did she have a
motive?”

“Witches don’t need any motive,” Fiti said witheringly.
“Elizabeth’s husband died in his sleep years ago without any
explanation, and people accused her of the same thing.”

“I don’t know if you’ve ever been to this part of the world
before, Inspector Dawson,” Timothy said, “but belief in witchcraft
is very strong around here.”

“Believe it or not, I was here twenty-five years ago.”

“Oh, is that so?” Timothy said. “What brought you, may I
ask?”

“I came with my mother to visit her sister. She still lives
here.”

“What’s her name?”

“Osewa Gedze.”

“Oh, yes,” Fiti said. “I know her. Kweku’s wife.”

“Maybe later you can show me to their house,” Dawson said. “I’m
not sure if they live in the same place, and Ketanu has grown a lot
since I was last here.”

“Constable Gyamfi can take you there,” Fiti said.

“Did you also visit Bedome when you were here as a kid?” Timothy
asked.

“No, I didn’t. How far is it from here?”

“About a kilometer away on the other side of the forest. Shrines
prefer to be somewhat obscured by bush or forest.”

“Makes sense,” Dawson said. “Especially now with all this
scrutiny.”

“Indeed,” Timothy said. “Where will you be staying while you’re
here?”

“The MoH guesthouse,” Dawson answered. To Fiti he said, “Are you
all right with my being in Ketanu with the investigation?”

“Look, it’s no problem,” Fiti said. “Anyway, when we go and
arrest Samuel today maybe it will be all over and you can go back
to Accra and live in peace ever after.”

He suddenly grinned at his own verbiage, showing a set of
yellowed horse teeth, and Dawson couldn’t help smiling himself.

“Before arresting Samuel,” he said, “can we go to the scene of
the crime?”

∨
Wife of the Gods
∧

T
imothy Sowah lived
in Ho, and he had to get back. Dawson walked him to his car, a
sleek, silver Audi 80. Timothy opened the trunk and pulled out a
bag containing two bottles of liquor. Dawson took a peek. One was
Beefeater London dry gin and the other was German schnapps.

“Good heavens,” Dawson said. “Look at the size of these
things.”

Timothy affected a rueful look. “Standard gifts to take to a
fetish priest. Besides, I want to make sure Togbe’s tongue gets
loosened.”

“Thank you,” Dawson said. “Very thoughtful.”

They exchanged calling cards.

“I’ll put my personal mobile number on the back,” Timothy said.
“Just in case you need me.”

“Left-handed, I see,” Dawson commented as Timothy wrote it
down.

“Yes,” Timothy said. “Is that of particular interest?”

“Yes. My mother was left-handed, and my brother is ambidextrous,
so I tend to like lefties.”

“Oh, thank you,” Timothy said, looking pleased. “I certainly
hope we’ll meet up again soon in less unpleasant circumstances,
Detective Inspector. Best of luck.”

“Thanks, Mr. Sowah.”

“Oh, please – do call me Timothy.”

♦

Dawson and Inspector Fiti set out into the forest. The
midafternoon sun had fled from a mob of black clouds building up in
the northeast corner of the sky.

“We have to be quick,” Fiti said. “The rain is coming.”

They picked up the pace. Dawson caught sight of a compound in a
grove of trees in the distance to his right, and immediately his
recollection of it swept in.
Isaac Kutu’s place
. He
remembered it clearly, and Isaac as well. Deep, dark, flashing eyes
with secrets in them.

“Does Isaac Kutu still live there?” Dawson asked, pointing with
his chin.

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“I met him at my auntie’s house the time I visited with my
mother.”

“We can go and see him tomorrow if you like,” Fiti said. “He
knew Gladys Mensah very well.”

They turned left off the Ketanu-Bedome footpath into the forest.
What resembled a trail soon disappeared, and as the sky darkened,
the vegetation thickened around them and slowed their progress. Now
Dawson remembered the same padded and insulated quality of the
forest that he had experienced when here as a boy. Sound was
quickly muffled by the trees and undergrowth. Every footfall, every
scrunch of dead leaves or crack of a branch had a kind of nearness
isolated by the cocoon of the forest’s stillness.

After several minutes of tramping along, Fiti stopped, put his
hands on his hips, and looked around. “I think I’m lost.”

He turned one revolution, getting more confused. “Which way did
we come?”