Emma was nervous, and she didn’t relax much when she saw Yemo Sowah. He reminded her of an uncle she had. Sowah was compact and dressed in a bright white shirt and dark tie. His crown was completely bald, leaving only trimmed, graying hair on each side of his head.

He got out of his chair. “Good morning, Miss Djan,” he said. “Sorry, is it ‘Miss’?”

“Yes please. Good morning, sir.”

They shook hands. His palm was small but rather rough. He gestured to a striking ruby-red sofa in the corner. “Let’s sit and talk, shall we?”

He took a seat opposite her in an office chair with a straight back. She noticed how impeccably polished his shoes were.

“Thank you for being on time, by the way,” he said with a smile. “It’s a good start.”

“Thank you, sir,” Emma said, her hands tightly folded in her lap.

Sowah read her body language. “Relax, Miss Djan,” he said. “It’s not that bad.”

She laughed nervously.

“Where did you school?” he asked.

“Kumasi Wesley Girls High,” Emma replied.

“Oh, nice,” Sowah said. “And your father was at Manhyia Headquarters in Kumasi, I understand. With the Homicide unit there.”

“Yes please.”

“When did you move to Accra?”

“After he died about six years ago, I moved here to find better work and support my mother. I stayed with one of my aunts for a while. My mother remained behind. I tried to persuade her to come with me to Accra, but she loves Kumasi too much.”

“Did you consider going to university?”

“Yes please. But money problems.” Emma made a face of regret.

“Understood,” Sowah said, nodding. “At any rate, here you are, a relatively recent police academy graduate. Congrats.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“How did you like working at the Commercial Crimes Unit at CID?”

This was where it was going to become uncomfortable. “The work was a little bit tedious,” Emma said, but hurried to add, “the people were fine, just the work.”

“Sure,” he said.

She was dreading his next question. He’s going to ask me why I left.

But Sowah didn’t. “I was with CID for about ten years,” he said. “DCOP Laryea was my very good mate and we have kept in touch all these years. But I left CID because I wanted the freedom to work without bosses constantly looking over my shoulder and curtailing my every initiative. So, I founded this agency. It will be thirty years this year. Older than you.” He gave a one-sided smile.

“We do a lot of paperwork here,” Sowah continued, “but the foundation of our activities continues to be contact with people. In missing persons cases, we sometimes must go as far as the Northern or Upper East Regions not only to find someone, but to locate another person who knew or knows the missing person. You know, here in Ghana we haven’t quite reached the point where addresses are connected with driver’s licenses or voter IDs and so on—although we are headed in that direction. But we Ghanaians move all over the place and sometimes never inform anyone. When we do background checks for banks, we talk to people in person or on the phone. Sometimes you’ll be calling them every single day and they won’t even mind you. You must go to find them. So, patience and curiosity are two qualities you need to work here.”