“Are you and the local police chief or head or whatever he’s called getting along?”

“No.”

“Something you think you can smooth over, or has it gone beyond the point of no return?”

“I don’t know, quite honestly. I was supposed to be here to clear up this case, but I’m beginning to think it’s really me making the blunders.”

“I wonder if…”

“If what?”

“If you might call Detective Armah, see if he has some ideas. After all, he was in Ketanu himself those years back-maybe he has some tips.”

“You see? This is why I married you. For your brains.”

“Oh, really. What’s wrong with my looks?”

They both laughed.

“You know what I want right now, don’t you,” Dawson said, lowering his voice.

“I have no idea,” she said airily.

He groaned. “Christine, I’m dying.”

“Focus, focus. Don’t you men ever get past adolescence?”

“Well, obviously I’m not getting any sympathy out of you,” Dawson said in mock resentment.

Christine giggled. “Sorry.”

“I’ll be going now. You’ll find me sulking in a corner.”

Christine let loose a peal of laughter.

“I’m glad you find it amusing,” Dawson said. “Good-bye, and kiss Hosiah for me.”

“Yes, of course I will. Be careful, Dark.”

“I will. Bye, love.”

After he hung up with Christine, he tried to reach Armah on his mobile, but the circuits were busy. He would try again later on.

No one was around as Dawson entered the station. The front desk was unattended. He heard an odd, low-pitched thud rather like the impact of a bass loudspeaker. Gyamfi suddenly appeared from somewhere in the back of the building, walking quickly and looking distressed.

“Gyamfi? What’s wrong?”

Gyamfi stopped, shoulders slumped, arms limp at his sides, as if all vigor had been flogged out of him.

“I tried to stop them, sir,” he said. “I swear I tried.”

Dawson heard another thud and then a muffled scream, and now he realized it was coming from the interrogation room. He moved fast. The door was shut. He shoved it open.

Bubo was whipping Samuel with a thin bamboo cane frayed at the tip to deliver maximum sting. He drew his hand back to strike again. Samuel, torso naked and trousers almost coming off, leapt away and collided with the wall. The cane hissed through the air and made contact, raising an instant stripe of inflamed flesh. Samuel cried out, lost his balance, and fell.

Inspector Fiti was watching from a corner of the room. “Are you ready to confess?” he asked Samuel calmly.

Bubo raised the cane, and Samuel cringed. “I beg you, stop, please. Stop.”

The cane landed again, and Samuel jumped as if jolted by an electric shock.

Dawson felt a tidal wave of rage rising and sweeping him along on its deadly crest. He knew the sensation well-the muffling of sounds around him, the crimson heat erupting deep in his chest and spreading quickly up into his neck while the surface of his skin turned cold with a thousand icy pins and needles. He could seriously hurt Bubo this instant. A good choke hold, he could kill him, and he felt a strong impulse to do it.

He moved in close behind the constable. “Beating him won’t bring your mother back.”

Bubo swung around like a whirling flywheel.

“Hey!” Fiti shouted at Dawson. “What are you doing?”

But Bubo was frozen in place. His eyes had gone wide with distress and astonishment. His eyelids twitched as he began to speak.

“You s-s-s-say what?”

“It won’t bring her back.”

“How do you know about my m-m-mother?”

“I lost mine too.”

Bubo jerked his head back, and his eyes narrowed as if an eerie suspicion was slowly dawning.

“Are you a w-w-wizard?” he whispered.

“Maybe.”

Bubo dropped the cane on the floor and scrambled for the exit, giving Dawson as wide a berth as he could in the small space. He pushed past Gyamfi, who was standing in the doorway.

Fiti gaped at Dawson. “What did you do?”

Dawson didn’t answer. He went to Samuel, who was on his feet again.

“Are you all right?” Dawson asked.

Samuel nodded.

“Let me see. Turn around.”

There was a crisscross pattern of welts and bloodied streaks of raised skin all over his back.

Dawson looked at Fiti. “You see this? You see what you’ve done?”

Fiti glared back defiantly, and without taking his eyes off Dawson, he said to Gyamfi, “Take the boy back to the cell.”

“Leave him alone,” Dawson said.

“I say take him back!” Fiti shouted.

Samuel’s face contorted with pain, and his body seemed to shrivel like a shrub dying under the scorching sun. “No, I beg you, please. I don’t want to go back-”

“Then confess and we will send you to a better place to stay in Ho,” Fiti said.

“Samuel, don’t say anything,” Dawson warned.

Gyamfi took Samuel by the arm to lead him away, but he crumpled to the ground weeping.

“I did it,” he moaned. “I did it.”

“Did what?” Fiti said.

Dawson crouched on the floor near him. “No, Samuel, stop.”

Samuel slapped his head repeatedly with both hands. “I killed her, I killed her, I killed her.”

Fiti knelt beside him. “Killed whom?”

“Gladys. I killed her.” Samuel’s body shook with sobs.

Fiti looked at Dawson and stood up with a grim smile. “There. Now you have heard him confess.”

“Because he doesn’t want to be beaten anymore,” Dawson cried.

“Look, I know this boy and I know how these people are in Ketanu.”

“You’re just a bush policeman, Fiti,” Dawson shouted. “You don’t have a clue. All you know about is children stealing chewing gum from the market-”

Fiti banged his fist on the table in fury. “Get out! Get out!”

Gyamfi looked pleadingly at Dawson, and at the same time he flicked his head to one side with an oblique glance meaning Meet me outside.

Dawson leaned close to Samuel. “I’ll do everything I can for you, do you hear? I’m not going to let anyone hurt you anymore. I know you can be strong.”

As he stood up, Dawson got his phone out, pointed the camera at Samuel’s back, and took three photos in rapid succession.

“What do you think you are doing, Inspector Dawson?” Fiti said.

Dawson brought his face within six centimeters of Fiti’s. “I’m reporting you for this, photographs and all. And if you lay one finger on Samuel again, I’ll drag you to jail.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” Fiti said, without flinching. “You’re a fool. You’re not above me. You think you are smart, but you are nothing but a fool. Now, get out.”

35

OUT OF SIGHT AT the side of the station, Dawson waited for Gyamfi. He paced, his pulse still racing from the confrontation and the pain of seeing Samuel being whipped.

Gyamfi appeared a few minutes later. He glanced over his shoulder to be sure he wasn’t being followed. “I want to make sure you believe me, Dawson. I tried to stop them from beating Samuel, but I couldn’t do anything against them.”

“I believe you.”

“But I don’t understand what you said to Bubo. You say he lost his mother? How do you know that? He’s never mentioned such a thing.”

“It was just a lucky guess. Something about him made me think he might have had some sort of tragedy as a child. And even if I was wrong, it would have been such a strange thing to say to him he would have stopped to ask me what I was talking about.”

“You’re right,” Gyamfi said. “And by the way, he still thinks you’re a wizard.”

They laughed, grateful for a chance to relieve tension.

“What are you going to do now, Dawson?”

“I want to work on getting Samuel’s name cleared, but for now I’m going to get him transferred to Ho Central. It’s too dangerous for him to stay here with Inspector Fiti.”

He pulled out his mobile and called Ho Central Prison. The constable who answered said the commanding officer wasn’t in. After some persuasion, the constable released the commander’s mobile number, which Dawson tried immediately. No answer. He left a message and made a note to himself to call again later.