“Oh, really?” Dawson said with interest. “That’s the second time I’ve heard reference to her possible involvement with a businessman. Did she give a name?”
“No. She said she had heard it was a banker, then she changed it to an oilman, then a bookstore owner, and all this time she was leaning on me and giggling and breathing her alcohol fumes on me. I couldn’t keep her on the subject. She kept asking me if we could go upstairs to my room.”
Chikata pulled a face, indicating just what he thought of that idea.
“Come on, let’s go.” Dawson said as he heard the sound of Baah’s taxi pulling up. “I’m going to introduce you to Superintendent Hammond.”
“Ah, right. Is he going to be glad to see me?”
“I doubt that very much.”
BAAH PULLED up in front of the police headquarters, and Dawson and Chikata alighted. They went inside where Dawson knocked on Hammond’s door, opened it, and put his head in.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Morning. Come in.”
Dawson introduced Hammond to Chikata, who received only a curt nod from the superintendent.
“Kwesi DeSouza called me this morning to lodge a complaint against you,” Hammond said to Dawson.
“A complaint? Regarding what?”
“You made sarcastic and discourteous comments to him, you insisted on repeating questions that we have already dealt with, and after you saw him in his offices at STMA, you hounded him at TTI while he was supervising exams.”
“Questioning possible suspects is harassment? In that case, we might as well do nothing, sir.”
“There you are,” Hammond said, flipping his palm up demonstratively. “Did you hear what you just said and how you said it? Exactly the sarcasm Mr. DeSouza is talking about. Coming from CID Headquarters doesn’t give you any right to insult people. We are a closely knit community here, and we behave differently than people do in Accra. You have to respect that.”
“I was in no way discourteous to the man,” Dawson said coolly. “He felt insulted because he has an overinflated opinion of himself and thinks that as the chief executive of the STMA, he’s somehow above being questioned. He could be the president of Ghana, for all I care. If there’s a need to interrogate him fifty times, I will go back and do so fifty times.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Dawson saw Chikata freeze and hold his breath. For several moments, Hammond stared at Dawson in consternation. “What about you, Inspector Dawson?” he said finally. “Do you not have an inflated opinion yourself?”
