Gold of Our Fathers - [5]

“Later,” Dawson said to him, turning back to Chikata to ask him about a cold homicide case they were working on. Cold as the corpse itself. No new leads had materialized over the weekend with Chikata’s investigations.

“What should we do next?” he asked Dawson.

“Let’s wait for the DNA report.”

Chikata sucked his teeth. “This DNA lab. So slow. It’s been four weeks now.”

“It’s not so much the slowness,” Dawson said. “It’s the backlog.”

Chikata conceded the point. Ridiculously handsome and powerfully built, he was sporting a neat regulation mustache these days.

Dawson turned his head toward a loud bang, unmistakably the impact of flesh on flesh. The handcuffed suspect, who could not have been more than twenty-three or so, was reeling from an open-handed slap delivered to his right cheek by a detective sergeant. “Please, I beg you, no-”

“No, what?” The sergeant hit him again. “How do you think your victim felt when you were assaulting him, eh?”

“What’s going on over there?” Dawson asked Chikata

“Armed robber,” he answered. “They caught him red-handed attacking an elderly man.”

The kid was crying and some of the officers began to laugh and derisively call him kwasea, a word for “idiot.” Yet another officer whacked him on the back of the head, making the boy shriek and attempt to get away.

“Where are you going?” the sergeant asked, pushing him back into the chair. He raised his palm up again, and the suspect cowered and began pleading again.

Dawson glanced around and saw that for the moment, no one in the room was senior to him in rank. “Jess,” he said, quietly.

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, turning.

Dawson transmitted the message with his eyes. It’senough. “Have you completed the paperwork on the suspect?”

“Almost, sir.”

“Okay, then proceed.”

The sergeant took his seat and the other officers dispersed. It would have been poor form to chastise an officer in front of a prisoner, but Dawson hadn’t wanted the beatings to continue. Vigilante justice was common in Ghana, But as police officers, let’s be at least a little above it, he thought. There was one hopeful sign these days: compared to fifteen years ago when Dawson had joined the force, the quality of new police recruits had improved, with many of them holding bachelor’s degrees. Perhaps their approach would be more intellectual and less physical.

“Chief Superintendent Oppong is in, by the way,” Chikata said, referring to the man who had taken over from Theo Lartey. Dawson detected an over-casual inflection in the inspector’s tone. He was going to miss the uncle who had always been like a father to him, but he was being brave about it.

It was perhaps this separation from Lartey that was prompting Chikata to stray in other directions, which concerned Dawson a good deal because he did not want to lose his partner. Chikata had developed an interest in the Panthers Unit, an elite strike force based at CID Central Headquarters. Trained in the use of firearms and tactical maneuvers, the Panthers’ officers were the very best: fit, fast, and fierce. Chikata was all that, and that’s why Dawson feared he would one day be snatched away.

“You’ve met the chief super?” Dawson asked.

“Yes,” Chikata said, without much enthusiasm. “This morning. He told me to ask you to go up to his office when you get in.”

“I will,” Dawson said. “What is he like?”

Chikata shrugged. “He’s okay.”

Dawson smiled slightly at the tepid endorsement. “All right,” he said, standing. “I’ll go now.”

He went one flight up to the chief superintendent’s office. He couldn’t count the number of times over the years that he had made this trek to face Theophilus Lartey, almost invariably a firing squad experience. It felt strange to be going to someone new. The brass nameplate on the solid door now read chief superintendent joseph oppong. Dawson knocked and heard the faint “come in” from the other side. As he entered, Dawson immediately took account of the scrupulous tidiness of Oppong’s desk, a transformation from Lartey’s chaos. The man in the leather executive chair was different too. He was tall and bone thin, whereas Lartey had been diminutive.

Oppong looked up over a pair of half spectacles. He was probably in his midfifties, but his hair was a premature and shocking white. He wore an impeccable dark suit and tie.

In a condensed form of a salute for non-uniformed officers, Dawson put his hands at his side and braced.

“Good morning, Dawson,” Oppong said neutrally. He gestured at the chair on the other side of the desk. “Have a seat.”

Dawson sat. He didn’t know Oppong at all, since the chief superintendent had been stationed outside Accra at different divisional headquarters of the GPS for at least a decade. Dawson’s first impression was that he was methodical and quiet-another contrast to Lartey. Anticipating a lecture about what was expected of him, Dawson waited while the chief super flipped the pages of a large notebook in front of him.

“I’ve just been reading through the hand-over notes from my predecessor, now Assistant Commissioner Lartey,” Oppong said, looking over his glasses again. “I have reviewed your file. You’ve shown good work-apart from some growing pains in the beginning.”