Without prompting, Akosua served more soup to both the men and Dawson thanked her.
“What about Fiona Smith-Aidoo?” he asked. “Tell me about her.”
“She was an attractive woman about town,” Abraham said. “She liked being seen in public-fundraising and so on. She was also the first female chief executive of the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly-STMA. She displaced longtime chief Kwesi DeSouza, which shocked many people, not least DeSouza himself. He thought he was coasting to another term as chair. A rumor started-and some people think Fiona was responsible-that he had embezzled a few thousand from the STMA trust fund to build a new house on Beach Road, one of the posh areas in Takoradi. De Souza and Fiona had a strong rivalry.”
“Do you think DeSouza could have killed her?”
Abraham grunted. “I’ve never been inside the man’s mind, so I can’t say. He went on Skyy FM, one of our local stations, to deny the embezzlement allegations and blast Fiona and others for trying to destroy his reputation. He was obviously furious, but enough to kill? I don’t know.”
They finished the meal and Dawson thanked Akosua for the wonderful cooking. She cleaned up in the kitchen before rejoining the men in the sitting room.
“Akosua has her theory about what happened, and I have mine,” Abraham said.
“Okay, Akosua,” Dawson said. “Let’s hear yours first.”
“At the outset, only Charles was the target,” she said. “The killer knew Charles was going to be down at Cape Three Points that day, but he didn’t realize that Fiona was going to be with her husband. When this killer ambushed the vehicle, it took him by surprise that Fiona was there, and he had to kill both of them.”
“You think one man handled two people and ultimately two dead bodies?” Dawson said. “He’d have had to get them into his vehicle, transport them, get them into the canoe, take them out to sea, and so on. That’s a lot, even for a strong man.”
“Good point,” Akosua conceded. “Maybe two killers, then.”
“I think they did know that both Charles and Fiona would be in the vehicle,” Abraham said. “Someone had a contract out on both of them.”
“A professional job,” Dawson said.
“Yes.”
“Why both of them?”
“Maybe a family rivalry.”
“Interesting you say that,” Dawson said. “Are you aware there was a vendetta?”
“I’ve heard that a generations-long enmity has existed between members of the Smith-Aidoo and Sarbah families.”
Dawson was intrigued-Sapphire Smith-Aidoo had not mentioned that when she had been giving him her family history. “Where did you hear that?”
