When Dawson arrived, Auntie Osewa was outside hanging clothes on a line. “Darko!” she exclaimed, smiling broadly. “How are you? I thought maybe you had forgotten about your poor old aunt again!”

“No, Auntie,” he said, stooping to kiss her on the cheek. “Not at all. I had to go back to Accra on an emergency.”

“Oh.” Her expression changed to concern. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes, thank you. Took care of it.”

“Good. Come. Uncle Kweku is inside.”

He was listening to a news bulletin on a tiny portable radio, but he switched it off as Dawson and Auntie Osewa walked in.

“How are you, Darko?” he said, smiling broadly. “How is everything? Have a seat.”

They chatted for a few minutes.

“So,” Auntie Osewa said, “any news on the investigation?”

“That’s partly what I came to talk to you about,” Dawson said.

“Is that so?” she said.

“Inspector Fiti told me you’ve reported that Samuel went into the forest with Gladys that evening. Is that true?”

Kweku shot his wife a quizzical look. “You did? He did?”

She nodded. “I was collecting firewood when I saw them.”

“You never told me,” Kweku said evenly.

Osewa shrugged, unperturbed. “I didn’t even think it was important until some of the women collecting water at the pump said they had heard Samuel had been arrested and the police were looking for information about him.”

“Auntie, do you mind if I ask you a few questions and write down your answers?” Dawson asked.

“Of course I don’t, Darko. You have to do your job.”

He fished his notebook from his shirt pocket. “Can you say about what time you first saw Samuel?”

“Well, I don’t wear a watch,” she said apologetically, “but the sun was soon about to go down.”

“So maybe around five thirty or five forty-five,” Dawson said. “And where were you exactly when you saw them?”

“There is a place between Bedome and Ketanu where I get my firewood. I was collecting it when I heard some people talking. I went to see what was happening, and that’s when I saw them.”

“How far away from you were they?”

“When you were coming, did you see the two houses before ours?”

“Yes.”

“From here to the one farther away from us.”

“I see.” That was about three hundred meters. “Do you remember the clothes they were wearing?”

She laughed. “Ei, Darko, you are giving me a tough test. The boy-well, you know his clothes are nothing special. Just some torn khaki trousers and something like a red shirt, or orange, with no sleeves. And Gladys was wearing a blue and white skirt and blouse with Adinkra symbols. Very pretty. She always wore beautiful clothes.”

“You couldn’t hear what they were talking about?”

“No, too far away. Do you know the firewood place?”

“No, I don’t.”

“If you’re walking from Bedome, before you come to Mr. Kutu’s compound you will see it on this side.” Osewa indicated her left.

“I see. Thank you.”

“But anyway, after Samuel and Gladys had been conversing for a little while, Isaac Kutu came from his compound and told Samuel to go away and leave her alone.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t hear anything from that distance.”

“I could hear some of it now that Mr. Kutu and the boy were shouting at each other, and I could see what Mr. Kutu was saying because he was shaking his finger at Samuel like he was warning him. And so the boy went away.”

“Which way did he go when he left?”

“In the direction of Bedome.”

“And then what happened?”

“Mr. Kutu and Gladys conversed for a little while, and then he went back to his compound and she started walking back to Ketanu.”

“And then?”

“And then I saw Samuel come out of the bush and accompany her on the path.”

Dawson’s hand froze. He had picked up a tremor in Auntie’s voice, a ruffling of its smoothness. An eerie sensation came over him like a thousand creeping spiders. This has happened before.

The scene came flooding back. The evening Mama, Cairo, and Darko had visited Auntie and Uncle.

The game of oware was nearly over. Auntie Osewa had just come in from outside. Uncle Kweku asked her where she had been. “I went to set the rabbit traps,” she said. Her voice felt so strange to Darko that it jolted him.

Back then, he had not wanted to think she was lying, and now Dawson had the same disturbing feeling.

He recovered. He didn’t want Auntie Osewa to sense anything was amiss.

“And what happened next?” he asked.

“The boy held Gladys’s hand and tried to put his arms around her, but she didn’t want that. They stood there talking some more, and he was trying to persuade her. She would make as if to walk away, but he would always come around in front of her, begging her not to leave. And after a while, they went into the bush.”

“He didn’t take her by force?” he asked.

“No, nothing like that.”

“After they went in, did you see anyone else around?”

“Not anyone close by that I can remember.”

“Okay, thank you, Auntie.”

“Not at all, Dawson. Anything you want to ask, just tell me.”

“Oh, yes, now that you mention it, there is something else. Do you know if there was anything going on between Isaac Kutu and Gladys?”

“No, I don’t know anything about that.”

“I heard that she wanted to steal his medicines from him,” Kweku said.

“Really?” Dawson said. “Who told you that?”

“It was just some talk.”

“I don’t think it’s true,” Osewa said, shaking her head firmly. “She wasn’t like that, Kweku. She was a very good, honest woman. You shouldn’t say anything bad about her now that she’s dead.”

“I’m just telling you what I heard.”

Auntie Osewa turned dismissively away from him. “Stay with us and eat, Darko, will you?”

His salivary glands sprang into action at the thought of Auntie Osewa’s cooking.

“I’d love to,” he said.

And for now, he put the worrying questions out of his mind.

36

DAWSON LEFT AUNTIE OSEWA around seven that evening after a meal of goat meat stew and rice, and he made his next stop the Mensahs’ house. Lights were on inside. Dawson tapped on the side of the front screen door, which was tightly shut to keep the mosquitoes out.

“Who is it?” Charles’s voice answered.

“Inspector Dawson.”

Charles came to the door and opened it with a smile. “Good evening, Inspector. Come in. You are welcome. We’re having a family meeting. Gladys’s funeral is tomorrow.”

“Ah, I see.”

The front room was packed with people, and it was noisy and stifling with the heat of bodies. Several discussions were going on at once over the funeral preparations-the food and drinks, the drum and dance troupes, where the body would be placed, the seating arrangements, and so on.

Elizabeth spotted Dawson and walked over. “How are you?” she said, smiling sweetly.

“I’m well, Elizabeth. Can I talk in private with you and Charles and his parents?”

“But of course.”

Elizabeth extracted Mr. and Mrs. Mensah from the tumult, and they went into a room off to the side.

“I want you all to know that I’ve found Gladys’s diary,” Dawson told them. “At least for now, I won’t say exactly where I found it, but it’s safe with me and I’ll return it to you as soon as I can. I haven’t located the bracelet yet, but I’m still looking.”

“Thank you,” Elizabeth and Charles chorused, and Gladys’s parents echoed them.

“Please, Inspector Dawson,” Mr. Mensah said, “Inspector Fiti was here earlier on and he told us Samuel has confessed to killing Gladys.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Dawson said.

“Not sure about what exactly, Inspector Dawson?” Elizabeth asked.

“I have a problem with how the confession was obtained.”

“We don’t want the wrong person to be arrested,” Charles said, “but at the same time we want to be able to say who killed my sister, because the longer we don’t know who did it, the more people say bad things.”