Dawson ended the call as they reached the affluent neighborhood of Beach Road. After a few minutes, the Jaguar turned in at a gated entrance. Dr. Smith-Aidoo pumped her horn once and waited for the watchman to open up. He was a wizened little fellow, early sixties, dressed in a pair of shorts and an old orange T-shirt. With his knotted knees, bowlegs, and feet as broad as planks, he would likely remain physically durable well into his eighties, doing the same work he had done for most of his life. He saluted and smiled as they drove through and parked in the circular driveway.
“Wait for me, please,” Dawson said to Baah. “I’ll be here at least one hour.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dawson alighted as the watchman hurried to open Dr. Smith-Aidoo’s door.
“Good afternoon, madam. You are welcome.”
“Afternoon, Gamal,” she said, getting out of the car. “How are you?”
“Please, I’m fine, Madam.”
“This is Inspector Darko Dawson from Accra. He is here to help with the investigation. Answer any questions he may have of you.”
“Yes, Madam. No problem.”
“We will be here for about one hour. Wash the car, eh? Let’s go inside, Inspector.”
A luxuriant lawn with bougainvillea and hibiscus bushes flanked the maroon, two-story brick home on both sides.
“This is a beautiful place,” Dawson said.
“Thank you. The garden is all Gamal’s hard work. He’s been with us for about fifteen years.”
She opened up the front door. “It took me several weeks before I was able to face coming into the house.”
“I can understand. Did your aunt and uncle have children?”
“Yes, Paul and Paula, my cousins. They’re in college in the States. They went back about a month after the funeral.”
She switched on the light in the hallway and turned on the air with a remote lying on a glass table. Polished mahogany in the hallway, marble in the sitting room with white leather armchairs and sofas, expensive paintings on the wall-for Dawson, it was both impressive and too much. A slightly recessed area held the dining room, and the kitchen was beyond that.
“I have all their papers in the study upstairs,” she said, leading him up a spiral staircase to the second floor. “I might as well tell you that he left me some money as well as his house in Accra. Paul and Paula get this house.”
“No other beneficiaries?”
“No. Nothing went to their siblings on either side.” She stopped for a moment at the banister, looking down at the sitting room. “My uncle’s mother, Granny Araba, was killed in a car crash in 1994. After the wake, I overheard Uncle Charles say something strange to Auntie Fio about a curse on the family. He said, ‘First my grandparents and now my mother.’ Later, when I asked him what had happened to his grandparents, he was evasive. Always made me wonder if there was some dark secret.”
