She nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“As is punctuality and honesty,” he went on. “We have five detectives—you make six—and they all know that second to lying, what I hate most is lateness. I know people always say GMT means ‘Ghana Mean Time’ and you can therefore show up whenever you please, but we don’t go by that system here. I hope that’s clear. If you ever must be late due to unforeseen circumstances, you need to let me know as soon as you can.”
“Yes please.”
“Now, you will want to know about salary.” Sowah leaned to the side and took a sheet of paper from his desk. “Take a look at the breakdown.”
Emma studied the neat tables in the document. The remuneration was so much greater than what she had been getting at GPS—or working in an Apple store for that matter—she had to make sure she wasn’t reading it incorrectly.
“Please,” she said haltingly, “excuse me, this number here—is that per month?”
“No—every two weeks,” he said.
She tried not to let her jaw drop but he must have sensed what was going through her mind. “Don’t get a wrong picture,” he said. “You are being paid for very hard work. Sometimes you may be here till nine or ten at night as well as the weekends.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
“Oh, I forgot something,” he said. “In regard to what DCOP Laryea told me about you and your keen interest in homicide, I must be honest with you, murder cases don’t even remotely comprise the bulk of our work. Those tend to go over to CID. The world over, that is generally the case with private investigator agencies. That might be a disappointment for you, and I will understand if you would like to seek other opportunities.”
She shook her head. “No please. I want to work here.”
“Good,” Sowah said, looking gratified. “One of the reasons I want you to join us is that we have no female detectives, which is embarrassing in this day and age.”
Emma smiled with some pride. She was something of a pioneer, then.
“Now, do you have any questions for me?” he asked.
“Please, will I be with one of the other detectives to understand how everything works?”
“Good question. I will have you shadow all of them for a few weeks, but I will always be supervising and keeping a close watch. If you have any problems, come to me.”
“Yes please.”
“Last question. Can you start tomorrow?”
“Yes, sir.”
TWENTY-SIX
April 17
After church on Sunday, Nii joined a group of sakawa friends to hang out and work on their scams. They had a small place in the sprawling suburb of Dansoman. Except for an ancient, battered swivel chair with a wheel missing, and a desk with uneven legs, the room had no furniture, and the young men lay on the floor along with their phones, laptops, power banks, and a tangle of wires and connectors.
They chatted, joked around, and poked fun at each other even as they surfed and typed, trying to entrap potential victims. Bruno was here this time, staying close to Nii to learn sakawa fundamentals. One of Bruno’s first lessons was mastering the art of creating a fake person with the combination of a sham Facebook profile, a designated WhatsApp phone, and judicious use of fake webcam software on Skype. The profile pictures on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Skype all had to match, of course. The skill was in getting the mugu to believe what he or she was hearing, even if suspicious at the beginning. Most important was to be armed with the spiritual power bestowed by the traditional priest, in this case Ponsu, so that even the smartest oburoni would never be able to resist sending more and more money. That’s what started to happen with the white man, Mr. Gordon, before he traveled to Ghana. He thought he was conversing with a beautiful Ghanaian woman. Nii Kwei, with the spiritual powers invested in him, made Gordon believe he was seeing and hearing what he really wasn’t.