Damptey had completed a couple of assignments on the old, slow laptop the CCD had provided. The office, with a desk each for her boss and herself, didn’t have much besides. An old photocopy machine, which was supposed to be a desktop model, sat squat on the floor in the corner of the room, not having worked in years. It had been a donation from the Dutch or Swiss or was it the Germans, but Damptey couldn’t remember if the stupid device had functioned even once. Sometimes the oburoni countries dumped old, worthless machines onto the third world, which accepted them with fawning smiles only to discover they didn’t work for more than a couple of months.

The CCD was supposed to be focusing on several areas—credit card fraud, gold, timber, oil concessions, romance cons, and so on. But actual prosecutions were few and far between because the division didn’t have enough resources and training to stand up against the perpetrators’ wide network, particularly since most victims were abroad.

The Bannerman government had also set up brand new anti-cybercrime channels with the US and Europe. That was smart, because it was one way to get funding for cyber training courses, a couple of which Damptey had attended. The farthest she had been was Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire, but she was hoping one day she’d get to attend a seminar in Germany or the UK.

She got to her feet and gathered up her handbag. Time to call it a day, even though she hadn’t gotten much done. She turned off the light in the office and stepped out into the warm equatorial dusk.

She joined Nii Kwei at Nkrumah Circle chop bar, where he had already placed two orders—fufu and light soup for himself, boiled yam and nkontomire for Damptey.

While they waited, they talked, Nii checking his phone every time a notification buzzed in. “You too, why?” Damptey snapped. “Can’t you leave that thing alone for even one minute?”

Nii smiled. “Okay, Mummy,” he said, putting the phone away. He called Damptey “Mummy” in a teasing, half-affectionate way.

“The American man you were getting money from—” she said.

“You mean Mr. Gordon?”

“Yes, him. His son is now here.”

They paused while their dishes arrived.

“What is he doing here?” Nii asked, washing and rinsing off his hands in the bowl of water provided.

Damptey did the same. “He came to CID to report his father missing,” she said. “I took his statement.”

Nii nodded and began eating with his fingers. “And so, what are you going to do, Mummy?”

“You don’t need to worry,” she said, staring at him. “I will be delaying the investigation until he gets tired, and then he will go back to the States.”

Nii said, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You always visit Kweku Ponsu, not so?”

“Yes,” Nii said warily. “Why?”