“Oh, very fine,” Mama said.

“How is Papa Kutu?” Kweku asked.

Isaac looked troubled. “Not well at all.”

“What a pity,” Osewa said. “I’m so sorry.”

“I am doing most of the work now,” Isaac said. “He is too tired.”

Osewa brought him a bowl of water to wash because he preferred eating in the traditional manner with his fingers-right hand only, left hand tucked securely out of the way. As they talked, it came out that the compound Mama and the boys had spotted on the way in belonged to Isaac’s father. Papa Kutu apparently had great prestige as a traditional healer.

The discussion moved to farming and the price of cocoa and other unbearably boring grown-up talk. Darko didn’t pay much attention to what they were saying, but for some reason he kept stealing glances at Mr. Kutu.

At one point, Uncle Kweku cracked a rare joke and the grown-ups burst out laughing. Darko didn’t get what was so funny, and maybe Mr. Kutu didn’t either because his chuckle seemed halfhearted or distracted. As Darko watched him, he saw something.

Mr. Kutu’s eyes flashed sideways at Mama, who sat opposite him at an angle. It was very quick-again without turning his head-and Mama returned the look. But Auntie Osewa was quicker still, and she caught that glance between Mama and Mr. Kutu. It all happened in a tiny fraction of time, but Darko captured it like a photograph and he reacted strangely to it. His stomach knotted up and he lost his appetite and stopped eating.

“What’s the matter, Darko?” Mama asked him.

“Nothing.”

“Eat up then,” she said briskly. “You don’t waste food, hear me?”

Darko felt Mr. Kutu’s gaze shift to him, but he never looked directly at the man again. He couldn’t face the eyes.

Evening had arrived when Mr. Kutu left. Uncle Kweku brought out a game of oware, and they played by the light of a kerosene lantern. Auntie Osewa went up first against Cairo and was soundly thrashed. Mama challenged Cairo and went down in flames in the same way.

“Okay, let someone else play,” Mama said. “Darko, play with your uncle.”

Darko squirmed with discomfort. He wasn’t terribly good at it-no comparison to his brother.

“Come on,” Auntie Osewa said, “don’t be so shy.”

Darko did better than he’d expected, or maybe Uncle was just being nice to him. The contest between Uncle and Cairo was fierce, and it seemed like it would never end. When Cairo got squashed, he couldn’t bear the defeat and challenged his uncle to a rematch. What intrigued Darko was the way Uncle Kweku had come to life with the game.

Laughing at the players’ antics, Auntie Osewa got up, said she would be back in a moment, and went outside.

Cairo and his uncle went another round. Auntie had been gone longer than Darko thought she would be. When she returned, Uncle Kweku and Cairo were just about ready to finish up the game.

“Okay, I’m tired now,” Uncle said. “Cairo, you’re too good for me.” He leaned back against the wall with a sigh. “Where did you go, Osewa?”

“I went to set the rabbit traps.”

Darko, startled, looked sharply at her. Her voice had changed. It wasn’t musical like before, and it shook slightly, like the tremor of a leaf in a brief stir of breeze.

“Those rabbits have been at our crops again,” she added. Her eyelids fluttered very slightly. Darko saw that. It wasn’t a mannerism. Auntie Osewa did not have such a mannerism. It was something else.

Whether a person’s voice felt like silk or sandpaper to Darko, the texture did not vary much. The pitch could change, and so could the volume or loudness, but the way it felt to him stayed the same… unless. Unless the speaker was holding back an emotion or hiding something.

Or lying.

Why would Auntie Osewa lie? Darko’s face grew warm, perhaps on her behalf, or maybe because such an embarrassing thought should even have entered his mind. No, she wouldn’t lie-not his Auntie Osewa. Would she?

6

AT THE END OF THE workday, Dawson went to the CID garage to get his assigned Toyota Corolla and put away his motorbike in a secure spot. Before he went home, he had two stops to make. The first was to his brother, Cairo, who lived with Papa in Osu, a south-central district of Accra.

Once robust and naturally athletic, Cairo had been a paraplegic now for twenty-five years. Whenever he thought about it, Dawson experienced an eerie moment of unreality. He could still barely believe it. The accident had happened in Accra three months after the trip to Ketanu.

Mama sent Cairo to the corner kiosk to buy a tin of sardines. He was starting across the street when she remembered something. “Get some bread too!” she called out through the window. He turned at her voice, walking backward and sideways at the same time.

“What did you say, Mama?”

She screamed as she saw what Cairo never did. The oncoming car hit him hard. He went up over the roof of the car and down the back.

Within seconds, Cairo was paralyzed from the waist down. Yesterday the master of his own body, today immobile and dependent on the care of others. Mentally the anguish was immeasurable, and if anyone suffered as much as or even more than Cairo, it was Mama. Her guilt was a living torment.

Two years after Cairo’s accident, she took a trip to Ketanu and never came back. She disappeared into thin air. Perhaps she could not bear ever to look Cairo in the eye again, but perhaps that was not it either. To this day, no one knew, and Dawson wondered about it over and again.

Jacob, Dawson’s father, was in his early sixties now, and he was Cairo’s sole caretaker except for the occasional member of the extended family who took over when Papa had to go out. Cairo made a little bit of money carving wood face masks-the kind popular with tourists. Dawson always felt guilty about how little he contributed to Cairo’s everyday needs. The one rule he kept firm to the point of superstition was he never left town without first stopping by to see his brother. In any case, as if sensing Dawson’s imminent departure, Cairo had called him on his mobile that afternoon to ask if he was going to drop in.

The house really wasn’t far from CID Headquarters, traffic just made it seem so. Dawson made his slow way down Ring Road to Danquah Circle, where policemen were directing the flow. He got around the circle to the segment of Cantonments Road aptly nicknamed Oxford Street for its density of shops, Internet cafés, glitzy stores and banks, and restaurants serving anything from sushi to pizza. Once he got past Oxford, things lightened up a bit and he arrived at Papa’s house and parked the car.

Cairo was in his wheelchair repairing a hole in the wood fence at the back of the house. He looked up and smiled.

“I thought you didn’t love me anymore,” he joked as they hugged.

“I do love you,” Dawson said sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I have no excuse and I’m not going to make one up. How are you? You’re looking good today.”

In fact, with inactivity, Cairo had become overweight, and bouts of infection had taken their toll. It was often painful for Dawson to visit him, especially when Cairo was having a rough time. It left Dawson with a lump in his chest and moisture in his eyes. His mother gone, his brother maimed-these things still hurt.

Dawson was glad to help Cairo repair the fence. Doing something active with him made the visit easier and more cheerful. They chatted happily. As adults they were intellectually equal and compatible, but Dawson always regarded Cairo as his older, wiser brother and he was comfortable with that.

“Listen,” Dawson said at length, “I have to go to Ketanu tomorrow.”

“What’s going on up there?” Cairo asked.

“Someone’s been murdered.” Dawson handed him a nail. “Lartey wants me to find out who did it.”