As they bumped along the unpaved road, Dawson fed Baah the directions Eileen had provided, but the house with a green gate that she had described as their final destination never materialized. They pulled up alongside a lone pedestrian walking toward the beach and asked if he could help. The man gave them another set of tortuous directions to the residence he asserted was Richard Sarbah’s. Praying that the man was right, they set off again, and after one or two wrong turns, they found it. Baah pumped his horn twice. A man peeped out through the crack between the two halves of the gate and came out, approaching in the beam of the headlights and coming around to Baah’s window. Dawson realized with surprise that the guard was Forjoe.
“Forjoe!” he exclaimed, switching on the car’s interior light. “It’s me, Inspector Dawson.”
Forjoe peered in at him. “Ei, Inspector! Good evening!”
“You work here?”
“Yes, please,” Forjoe said, smiling.
“Is this Richard Sarbah’s house?”
“Yes.” A worried look came to his face. “Is there any problem?”
“Not at all. I’m just paying a visit. Is he in?”
Forjoe hesitated. “He’s in, but I have to check if he’s available. Please, I’m coming.”
He walked quickly back into the house, returning about five minutes later to open the gate so that Baah could pull into the front yard. The one-story house was a decent size with a white exterior tarnished by the red dust of the unpaved road outside. Within the compound, someone had been working on a water pipe in a deep hole underneath the wall that enclosed the property. A toolshed stood in the corner of the compound.
“Like I told you before,” Forjoe said, as Dawson followed him in, “the fishing business is not paying enough these days, so I do extra work as a watchman. I’ve been knowing Mr. Sarbah since I was a small boy. He’s a good man-something like an uncle to me.”
“I see,” Dawson said. “So is he the one you mentioned to me who is helping you with your daughter Marvelous?”
“Yes, please.”
“How is she doing?”
Forjoe was visibly troubled. “Not so well, but I pray that God will continue to help us.”
Dawson hoped the prayers were answered. He understood the kind of anguish the man was going through.
Forjoe showed Dawson into a dimly lit, stuffy sitting room.
“Please, you can have a seat. He will come just now.”
Dawson chose a pair of old angular wooden armchairs with square cushions. They didn’t make furniture like this anymore. Now it was all overstuffed sofas and chairs in imitation leather. He looked around the room. It was clean, if a little shabby. The building was obviously much older than the structures that now populated New Amanful. Some old family pictures sat on a bookcase, a small TV in one corner, a worn rug on the linoleum floor. The mosquito netting on the windows needed renewing.
