26

DAWSON CAME HOME A LITTLE before five, after booking Ayitey into Madina station. Christine stirred and asked where he had been.

“Taking care of some loose ends,” he said.

She grunted, muttered something, turned over, and went back to sleep.

Dawson checked on Hosiah, took a catnap for an hour, and was up again with the sun. He got dressed and shook Christine gently. She started awake.

He kissed her. “Have to go, love. Don’t get up.”

She propped herself on an elbow. “Be careful, Dark.”

“I will.”

He stopped by Hosiah’s room and gave him a kiss as well. His son’s smooth breathing pattern did not alter and he didn’t stir.

Before Dawson started the car up, he speed-dialed Chikata’s number, and it rang four times before he answered, voice thick with sleep.

“Wake up,” Dawson said.

Chikata cursed fluently in Ga.

“Did you have a chance to go to Gladys’s room?” Dawson asked, ignoring the profanity.

“I’ll do it today Dawson.”

“Don’t worry. I’m going to take care of it.”

“Where are you?”

“In Accra, but I’ll be returning to Ketanu later on.”

He headed for the University of Ghana campus at Legon. Since it was on the way to Madina, he took exactly the same road he’d been on just a few hours ago. Same road maybe, but Legon was a very different world from Madina. Oh, that Dawson could afford those six-bedroom homes in East Legon.

As he approached the arched front entrance of the university campus, a guard stepped forward and held up his palm. Dawson pulled up next to him and showed his CID badge.

“Carry on, sah.”

The campus was built on a hill whose pinnacle was topped by the vice-chancellor’s residence. Dawson drove past the buildings with their signature orange-tiled roofs. It was the end of March, a few days before the short Easter break. Students had begun moving to class, although Dawson imagined a few were still in bed trying to squeeze in another fifteen minutes of sleep after pulling an all-night cramming session. He could pick out the first-year students. Their faces were fresher, more eager and purposeful, and they walked faster. The third-years sauntered while affecting a bored look.

The clock in the tower of the pagoda-style Balme Library began to chime eight, sounding like Big Ben. Past the post office, Dawson turned right to the women’s hall and parked in front of the steps leading up to the entrance. At the top of the steps a sign read, PLEASE STOP AT RECEPTION FIRST.

A young, well-dressed receptionist was behind the counter. “Good morning, sir,” she said with a bright smile. “You are welcome. Can I help you?”

“Good morning. I would like to see the warden, please. Is she here?”

“I’ll see if she’s available,” she said, picking up the phone and punching in four digits. “May I tell her who’s calling?”

“My name is Detective Inspector Dawson.”

“Oh,” she said, her expression changing.

Dawson smiled. “Don’t worry. She’s not in trouble.”

“Oh, good.” She looked relieved. “Hello? Good morning, madam. This is Susan at reception. There’s a gentleman here to see you. A Detective Inspector Dawson. Yes. Of course. Thank you.” She cradled the phone. “She’ll be happy to see you. I’ll show you the way. Do you mind signing in first?”

Dawson scribbled his name, arrival time, destination, and purpose of visit in the large sign-in book on the desk.

Susan came around to the front and led him into the courtyard of flowering jacaranda trees, bougainvillea trailing up the walls of the dormitory buildings, clipped hedges, and neatly potted plants around a center fountain. It was pretty. So, for that matter, was Susan. Dawson had not let on, but he had already taken in her small waist and lovely, ample buttocks, which moved so succulently underneath her rather short skirt. Mercy. It should be against the law to torment souls in this way.

“What is it like working as a detective, Mr. Dawson?” she said sweetly as she walked alongside him.

He shrugged. “It’s all right. What’s it like working as a receptionist?”

She laughed. “I’m sure it’s not as stressful as your work. It must get very tense for you sometimes.”

“Sometimes.”

“Her office is just over there.” She pointed ahead a few meters to the warden’s clearly marked office door.

“Thank you, Susan.”

Her hand touched his and moved lightly up his arm. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Detective Dawson.”

“And you.”

“Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.”

He smiled and winked at her and stole one more glance at her lovely rear as she walked away. Anything else I can do for you. Several possibilities skipped devilishly through his head before he mentally slapped himself back to reality.

The warden, Mrs. Ohene, was Susan’s corporeal opposite. She seemed as wide as she was tall, and the fat had filled out all her curves so that she was squared off like a small bungalow. She had an attractive hairdo and wore a pleasant, light perfume. Her office-cum-residence was nicely furnished, and she had obviously been at work at the computer on her desk. They sat opposite each other at a comfortable distance.

“I’m sure I’m not wrong in guessing you’re here about Gladys Mensah,” Mrs. Ohene said.

“Yes, you’re not wrong.”

“What a loss, what a terrible, awful tragedy. Her brother and her aunt Elizabeth were here the day before yesterday to retrieve her personal effects. It was sad, so sad.”

“Elizabeth tells me Gladys kept a diary or a journal that has gone missing. Do you know anything about that?”

“She asked me about it too-but no, I knew nothing about the diary.”

“Could I take a look at the room Gladys occupied, Mrs. Ohene?”

“Yes, you can,” she said, hesitating, “although nothing of hers is left and another student has taken her place. There’s a huge demand for space, so it’s a matter of only a day or so before a vacancy is filled.”

“Of course. It’s just for the record. I’ll need to include a full description of the room in my report and say that I conducted a reasonable search.”

“Oh, I see,” she said. “Come along, then.”

Like most university dormitory rooms, this one was tiny. There were two narrow wood-framed beds and a small desk and chair at the foot of each. Mrs. Ohene stayed discreetly in the doorway while Dawson looked around. He opened the doors of the shared built-in closet packed with clothes. He checked the top shelf, where four books had been stacked, and he lifted each of them to see if the diary was hidden underneath. Nothing. He quickly flicked through the pages of each book-just in case. He didn’t expect to find anything, and he didn’t.

Dawson left the books the way he had found them and turned to the desks.

“Which side of the room was Gladys’s?”

“That one,” Mrs. Ohene said, pointing to the right.

“And none of the furniture has been changed since she left?”

She shook her head. “No reason to.”

The desk on the right had a single drawer that couldn’t hold very much-pens, paper, and a few folders. It had a flimsy lock, the type whose key is so small it’s barely worth the trouble, and Dawson noticed something wrong with it. The metal catch was up, in the locked position, and the corresponding slot in the underside of the desk was splintered apart. The drawer seemed to have been forced open. Interesting. He checked the drawer’s contents for the diary. Definitely not there, no matter how much he wanted it to be. Had someone broken in and taken it? He opened the drawer of the other desk. No diary there, either, but significantly, the lock on that desk was intact.

He lifted the mattress of each bed to look underneath and checked under both beds themselves, on the floor and on the wood planks that supported the mattresses. Nothing.