“Did you return to your dad?”
“Physically, but not in spirit. I was miserable with him. He didn’t give me a fraction of the love and warmth that Auntie Fio and Uncle Charles had given me. By fifteen, I was acting out-misbehaving, smoking, and all that mess. I was at Accra Girls’ High, and the headmistress told my father that if I didn’t straighten out, she would expel me. Again, he turned to Auntie and Uncle for help. They took me out of boarding and made me a day student. Uncle Charles took me to school every single day and Auntie brought me home when classes were over, keeping me in check, and yes, I did straighten out.”
“You must have,” he said. “You’re a doctor now.”
She smiled, clearly glad that her fate had been shaped this way. “All due to Uncle Charles and Auntie Fio. And I tell you all this not to bore you with my life story, but to show why they were so important, so precious to me.”
“I understand now. You said your father and his brother became rivals. This is a tough question, and I’m sorry to ask it, but I have to. Could your father have had anything to do with the murder of your aunt and uncle?”
“He doesn’t have passion or courage for anything, let alone murder. Seems odd to put it that way, but there it is.”
Doesn’t think much of her dad, Dawson thought but then neither did he of his.
“How did he react to your uncle’s death?”
“He was devastated. He went into deep mourning, as did I. This has been the most awful year of my life. Only two months before my uncle’s murder, another tragedy took place. You should know about it because it might have some bearing on the case.”
She slumped very slightly, as if a heavy load had been set upon her shoulders.
“Jason Sarbah is a name you will become familiar with,” she continued. “After Uncle’s death, Jason became the new director of corporate affairs at Malgam Oil. Uncle was Jason’s first cousin-same grandmother, Bessie Smith, but different grandfathers. Bessie was first married to a Tiberius Sarbah, whom she divorced for Robert E. Aidoo, which is how the Smith-Aidoo surname came about. Bessie gave the hyphenated name to Simon, her only son by the second marriage.”
“So, to get this clear in my mind,” Dawson said, “Bessie and Robert Smith-Aidoo are your great grandparents.”
“Yes, the Sarbah and Smith-Aidoo lines are connected through Bessie. Up until the time of his death, Uncle Charles worked for Malgam Oil as their director of corporate affairs. I didn’t know Jason Sarbah or much about him until the end of February, this year, when he approached me. I had just finished my national service and joined a private clinic in Takoradi. Jason and his wife, Sylvia, had a sixteen-year-old daughter called Angela who was very ill. In spite of multiple visits to several hospitals in Accra and Takoradi, doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. They were watching Angela die. She was severely jaundiced, so her eyes turned yellow. She was losing weight every day and having unbearable abdominal pain. He brought her to see me. By then, he was in a state of despair.”
