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.
Dawson stood with arms akimbo and looked around.
“That’s about it, I think,” he said. “Not much to search, really. Can you think of anywhere else?”
Mrs. Ohene shook her head. “No, I’m sorry I don’t have any brilliant ideas.”
Dawson was rubbing his chin.
“To your knowledge,” he asked her, “did anyone besides Gladys’s brother and aunt come to this room after her death?”
“Not that I know of.”
“I signed in at the reception desk. Do all visitors do the same?”
“Because it’s a women’s hall,” Mrs. Ohene said, “I instituted that process for the security of the residents, and everyone is supposed to sign in, but I know people slip through from time to time.”
“Can I see the book?”
“Of course.”
They went back down to reception, where Susan was busy at the computer. She jumped up and came to the counter, eager and willing.
“Hi, Susan,” Mrs. Ohene said. “We need to look through the sign-in book.”
“All right, madam.”
The pages were much longer than wide. Each was headed by the date, with columns for name of visitor, time in, destination, purpose of visit, time out. Most were garden-variety family or friend visits, a few were to Mrs. Ohene.
“The room number is K-sixteen, correct?” Dawson asked. He had noticed the number on the door.
“Correct,” Mrs. Ohene said. “K is Gladys’s block.”
Dawson ran his finger down the page and stopped at his target. “Here’s Charles Mensah’s sign-in. Tuesday, eleven thirty in the morning. Let’s go to the day before.”
Susan was watching with interest, and Dawson suddenly realized how stupid he was not asking for her help.
“We’re looking for visitors who went up to Gladys’s room Sunday, Monday, or very early Tuesday, the twenty-fifth,” he explained to her. “It would have to have been before Charles and Elizabeth arrived. Do you remember anyone in particular?”
“Tuesday, I was off,” Susan said. “Monday I was here, but… no, sorry, I can’t think of anyone.”
“Any kind of visitor that seemed out of the ordinary,” Dawson persisted.
She pondered again but drew another blank.
“All right,” Dawson said patiently. “Let’s try something else. How about any unusual visit to any part of the residence, not necessarily to Gladys’s room? Anyone, going anywhere.”
She shrugged, taking a stab. “The only thing I can think of was the man from the Ministry of Health who came on Monday, but Mrs. Ohene knows about that already.”
Mrs. Ohene’s head snapped around. “What man from the Ministry of Health?”
Susan froze. “Didn’t you ask for someone to come and take care of a rat problem?”
“Rat problem! What rat problem? What are you talking about? We do not have rats in my hall, young lady.” Mrs. Ohene was appalled. “Someone came from the Ministry of Health and you didn’t notify me?”
Susan’s eyes went wide with something approaching terror. “Madame Ohene, I’m so sorry. He said he had already talked to you about it earlier in the morning and that I didn’t need to bother you.” Her voice was shaking.
“The Ministry of Health does not handle this sort of thing, Susan,” Mrs. Ohene said witheringly “They deal with serious national problems, like AIDS and malaria control, not campus rats. The campus has its own pest control. Isn’t that something you should know?”
“I do know that, I do, Madame Ohene,” Susan said, “but this man, he said he was from the Pest and Parasite section of the Ministry of Health.”
“Pest and Parasite!” Mrs. Ohene exclaimed. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”
Dawson knew they were onto something now. “You say the man was here on Monday, Susan?”
“Yes.”
Two days after Gladys’s body was found and the day before Charles and Elizabeth had been here.
Dawson went back a couple of pages to Monday and quickly scanned the sign-ins.
“Here it is. ‘H. Sekyi, oh-nine-twenty, K block, MoH Pest and Parasite.’” He looked at Mrs. Ohene. “He went to Gladys’s section.”
She stared at Dawson, mystified. “Who on earth is this man? What did he want?”
“Did he show any identification?” Dawson asked Susan.
“Yes. A badge that said ‘Ministry of Health’ and his name. He said there were complaints about rats in several rooms in the wing. He was very convincing.”
“Pest and parasite indeed,” Mrs. Ohene muttered.
“He asked you for a key to Gladys’s room specifically?” Dawson asked Susan.
“Yes,” she said, looking anguished. “He told me that’s where the complaint had originated and that he would send the rat catchers out with special equipment.”
Mrs. Ohene cringed. “Rat catchers? Oh, my goodness gracious me. Now I’ve heard it all.”
“Do you remember what this Sekyi man looked like?” Dawson asked Susan. “Tall, short, slim, fat?”
“Not tall, but slim. And quite young. Boyish.”
“Clean-shaven?”
“Yes.”
“Wedding ring? I’m sure you noticed.”
“Yes,” she said a little sheepishly. “He did have one.”
“Any distinguishing marks? Tribal scars on the face, for example?”
“No. Completely smooth skin.”
“Glasses?”
“No glasses.”
“One more thing. Try to picture him in your mind signing the logbook. Think carefully before you answer. What hand did he use to sign?”
“That’s easy-I know it was his left because that’s how I saw his wedding ring.”
“You’re brilliant,” Dawson said. “Completely brilliant. Thank you.”
“I am?” She was both relieved and incredulous, while the warden looked utterly unconvinced.
“Look at it this way,” Dawson said. “If you’d called Madame Ohene, this man probably would have bolted, but instead now we have a name, and-I’m praying-I can find him at the Ministry of Health.”