Darko Dawson 01; Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey

Author:Kwei Quartey [Quartey, K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: [2011.12.10]
Publisher: [Côte d’Azur]
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

∨ Wife of the Gods ∧

Twenty-Three

Togbe Adzima had been right – there wasn’t much to his living quarters: one room with two wooden stools, one small table, and a deteriorating foam bed mounted on planks and old crates. He kept his clothes in a cardboard box or hanging from nails in the wall. There was a pair of sandals near his bed and a selection of alcoholic drinks, mostly gin and schnapps, in another box. The place smelled musty and pungent.

Adzima leaned against the doorjamb and glowered at them as they searched. Fiti looked desultorily underneath the foam mattress while Dawson checked the sleeping cloth on top of it. If only he could find that silver bracelet, get a confession from Adzima, and wrap this case up. He would love that.

He went through the priest’s few clothes, digging in pockets. Fiti leaned against the wall and folded his arms, apparently done with his search, and Dawson reluctantly admitted to himself that he was about done too. He looked around. There had to be something.

“Are you satisfied now?” Adzima said with a slight smirk.

“No,” Dawson said. He was staring at the box of booze and thinking it reminded him of the way Daramani kept his own stash of toxic elixirs in a portmanteau. He hid things in there too – stolen watches, for instance.

And so might Adzima.

Dawson reached into the box and began pulling the bottles out – gin, schnapps, whiskey. Fetish priests and village chiefs received an impressive amount of alcohol as gifts.

Ah.

Under the Beefeater gin, Dawson found a small, locked, rusty tin. He shook it gently, and it rattled.

“What’s inside?” he asked Adzima.

“Coins.”

“Would you open it, please?”

The priest gave Dawson a slow, seething look before removing a small key from his pocket. He unlocked the box.

Dawson found some coins, safety pins, and a watch. No silver bracelet. Disappointing, very disappointing. He gave the box back. “Thank you.”

Before he and Fiti left, Dawson said to Adzima, “We’ll be back.”

He liked telling suspects that. It kept them off balance.

Dawson and Fiti walked back to the dancing circle, and Togbe Adzima returned to his spot. As Dawson watched and listened, he saw in action the Ewe people’s long-held fame for the drumming tradition, and he made a mental apology to the village of Bedome for having dismissed it as underdeveloped. In the realm of drumming and dancing, Bedomeans were unmatched by anything Dawson had seen before. He was not the only one impressed. Many in the thrilled audience had evidently come from Ketanu and other surrounding towns.

Dawson spotted John in the crowd, and as he smiled and waved, he saw something else out of the corner of his eye. A man appeared next to Adzima and whispered in his ear. Dawson’s heart stopped. It was the same man who had passed by while Dawson was talking to Efia in the bush. The man cast a furtive glance at Dawson, and the priest followed his lead. Dawson looked straight ahead, as if he had not seen them.

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