DAWSON’S DRIVE BACK TO Accra was painfully slow, with traffic particularly heavy on Independence Avenue. Lost in thought about the case as he inched along, Dawson paid little attention to the opulent buildings in this part of the city-the excessive presidential palace glittering in the sun like a diamond, the Mormon temple with its golden statue atop the tower, and the luminous College of Physicians and Surgeons.
He came back to earth as he turned left on Liberia Road and then left on the Kinbu extension to the ministries. He found parking next to the Ministry of Manpower and crossed the lot to the Ministry of Health, a cream-colored building with peculiar faded mauve trim. He started his search at the front lobby. If he had thought he would have an easy time looking for someone in a large government office, he would have been mistaken. Fortunately, he had readied himself mentally and physically. He went to a total of six departments looking for an employee by the name of H. Sekyi, each section directing him to the next.
He ended up in some kind of personnel office-or one of several, he wasn’t sure. The bulky man at the desk was tapping away at a computer keyboard.
“Good morning, sir,” Dawson said.
“Good morning,” the man said, giving him a quick glance and returning to his screen. Apparently he was finishing up some pressing document.
“I need some information, please.”
The man finished typing and looked up. “Yes? What kind of information, sir?”
“I’m trying to find an employee by the name of H. Sekyi.”
“And you are?”
“Detective Inspector Dawson, CID.”
“Let me check for you, Inspector.” He changed the window on his screen. “Is that Sekyi with k-y-i or c-h-i?”
“K-y-i,” Dawson said. The other spelling would be the anglicized form.
The man shook his head and got up.
“Let me try here,” he said, pulling a large ring binder from the shelf. “You don’t know what department he is?”
Dawson resisted the temptation to say “Pest and Parasites.” “No, I don’t know.”
“I can’t find any H. Sekyi,” the man said. “Please, Inspector, if you can wait a little bit for Agnes, my co-worker, to come back. She will know.”
Said Agnes walked in about ten minutes later, sucking on a Fan Milk strawberry ice, which, in the gathering heat of the day, looked very inviting.
“Agnes, this is Inspector Dawson. He’s looking for one H. Sekyi he says works here.”
Agnes, who obviously knew her way around, shook her head and clicked her tongue with regret. “Humphrey Sekyi? He used to work in Archives up until about six months ago, when he was sacked, and then only about one week after that, he was killed in a car crash. Poor man.”
“Killed,” Dawson echoed, drawing back in surprise. “He’s dead? Could there be another H. Sekyi?”
“Not at all,” Agnes said. “There’s Ruth and Kwame Sekyi. No H.”
“Who sacked Mr. Sekyi?”
“The Archives supervisor.”
“Is the supervisor still here?”
“No, he was transferred to Ho to be in charge of the Ghana Health Service AIDS program in the Volta Region.”
A smile of disbelief crept to Dawson’s lips. “Transferred to Ho. Do you remember his name?”
“Of course,” Agnes said. “I don’t forget such things. His name was Timothy Sowah.”