Thread: A Murder In Accra.

A Murder In Accra.

The British Airways flight to Accra International was smooth & Rossow had been booked business class, in deference he thought to his long frame, or was the boss actually mellowing to him?

The plane came in on time in the middle of one of those rainy season downpours that gives you qualms that touchdown with a machine this size, at that speed will result in one God Almighty skid. But then; tyre contact was made, the weight of the moving plane gently lowered & the engines went into reverse to quickly bring the aircraft into a more sedate taxiing across the runway to the terminal.

Have you noticed how airports vary so much across the globe? Not so much in the architecture & layout as in the atmosphere they evoke as you enter their realms. In Frankfurt, passengers scurry like rodents from one side of the airport to another to get connecting flights. In Jamaica on the other hand you slow down immediately you leave the plane. No "yardie" is going to get hypertension for nobody. "Soon come" is the national standard.

But Mother Africa has an atmosphere of its own. And yet its hard to put your finger on it. Perhaps it's because you are suddenly the odd man out with the white skin, perhaps its the latent tension in the air almost as if you have arrived for the first time from another planet. Your senses sharpen up & you become so much more aware of that around you.

As Rossow was only carrying a holdall & briefcase he cleared Customs quickly, leaving in his wake the inevitable shake down of returning Ghanaians with multiple taped carton boxes & items that most Africans consider as hand luggage like; fold up prams, television sets & even a car windscreen if he was to believe his eyes.

Presenting his passport at the Immigration Desk there was too much eye contact & body language on their part.

"First time in Ghana Mr Rossow?"

"Yes, first time"

"Nature of your visit?"

"Business"

At that point he saw her.

Tall, dark, strong profile in the sharp crisp uniform of a Ghanaian woman police officer.

She stepped from wherever she had been standing behind the Immigration Desk & spoke gently into the official's ear, as if to say; "I'll take it from here"

The Immigration Officer nodded, gave Rossow another eye contact as if some clandestine pact had been acknowledged & stamped the passport.

Rossow stepped through to meet his benefactor.

"She was cool." That was the first thing he noted about her.

A little shorter than he was, with that striking calmness that some African women carry with such confidence.

"Good morning Detective Inspector Rossow. My name is Police Sergeant Emelia Banfo of the Ghanaian Police & I'm the liaison officer assigned to you."

Long slender fingers, cool to the touch were extended for a formal greeting.

"Please follow me. The car is outside."

Declining that she carried his holdall, he gave up his briefcase and followed her through the crowds, noting in transit the superb ass & long slender legs beneath the formal constabulary uniform.

I have an idea where this is heading...

Originally Posted by MANICHAEAN

superb ass & long slender legs

Grrrrrrrrrrrr

Part 2 soon ?

At last an interesting story, will Rossow get some brown sugar for his brekkie or will he be murdered ? and how will Man cope with describing either dirty deed ?

My own grammar is not up to much, but reading this piece is making the grammar nazi alarm bells start ringing . I cannot quiet put my finger on it, it's just
I keep getting the urge to start up the patrol car ,though they may all be false alarms.




For example your use of the semicolon seems suspect and not just once but three times, perhaps intentional for some reason, or maybe I'm wrong again .

THE FIRST DAY

It was a full day, first checking into the Labadi Hotel & then through the turmoil of traffic to meet Matthew Bennett, the touchstone of British Intelligence attached to the Embassy and loosely concealed behind some title of Research Officer or whatever. Then on to make contact with the senior Ghanaian police officer leading the investigation into the missing Ambassador and a local night club owner with dual Ghanian/British nationality.

Chief Inspector Kwesi Jay was a depressing prospect, the uniformed type so prevalent in some countries. Big office, upright stature, chest big enough to adorn with a box full of ribbons and the usual earnest platitudes as to what was being done to get things resolved in an expedient manner. London Head Office would have loved him! But you could sense he was not front line. In fact it reminded Rossow of a rerun of "Casablanca" and "Round up the usual suspects!"

Matthew Bennett was more useful if you adopted that peculiar British way of becoming attuned to what he did not say, as opposed to what he did say. Small and slightly chubby, he was not the type who would set the cosmos ablaze, but then after a very short time you sensed his sharpness, focus and the depth of his educational background.

"Strange bedfellows actually, Tan & Kretzler" he said.

"Night club owner & British Ambassador"

"Could never in reality see what they had in common. But they were in each other's company a lot"

"Did they mix socially?" Rossow asked.

"Depends what you mean by socially. Kretzler's wife could not abide Tan. He was not invited round for dinner with the Ambassador you understand. But then you can sympathise with her priorities. Tan with his business dealings and his ownership of a night club in Jamestown were not exactly on a par with drinks & nibbles at the Embassy do's. But then Tan had some sort of hold over him."

"What about Tan? Whats the story on him?" Rossow asked.

"You had to tread carefully" Bennett said.

"He was amiable enough, but you never really knew what his motives were. It was almost like some kind of game he was playing, one against the other. Not sure he understood it himself. He just played his funny little Chinese game as the cards were dealt. Pretend to be a friend, impart a confidence on someone you both knew & then absorb into his memory whatever response you came up with. Next thing you know, he is going through the same ritual with the same mutual friend you were talking about in the first place. Except this time you are on the agenda."

"Thanks Matthew" Rossow said.

"If you don't mind I'm not going to get bogged down in day to day enquiries. I would like to dig around the edges and see what I can uncover."

"Fine" said Bennett. "But if you are poking around locally, take Police Woman Banfo with you. In uniform or casual as suits your purpose."

Do I detect the last four words as having a hidden depth of meaning ?
"Just dress casually, but bring your handcuffs with you anyway".

You been on the oysters again?

Methinks he doth protest too much.
"noting in transit the superb ass & long slender legs beneath the formal constabulary uniform."

"Bring the handcuffs and a feather for a little role-playing exercise I have in mind, constable".

Sorry if I'm stealing your thunder.....we wait with bated breath to view developments.

THE NIGHT CLUB.

He held a Benson & Hedges between the precise fingers of one hand. He put the other hand flat on the white tablecloth, then he looked across the busy tables towards the heart-shaped space on the floor where the dancers prowled under shifting coloured lights.

The righteous loath these dives. They appear as if only existing after dark, like ghouls. The people seem dissipated without grace, sinful without irony.

Tobacco smoke laced the air.

A group of Ghanians smartly attired stood drinking- the women sipping cocktails, the men apparently on scotch. They were at one side of a curtained opening that led to the gambling rooms. Beyond the curtains, light blazed down on one end of a roulette table.

Twin negresses writhed their bodies on the aluminium central stage, the perceptable sweat from the spot lights highlighting the suppleness and flexability of their muscle tone.

Pelvic contortions; slow, deliberate & mind controlling were executed, the male patrons being both focused & aroused by the performance.

No contrived smiles from either dancer. The bodies belied the faces. The mouths implied, "I won't give you a damm thing". The bodies with strong breasts and proud hips said " You can have anything you can take."

Rossow shot a look at Banfo to determine if she were shocked, but no, this cop making up the female Trinity was a trooper too.

A look of mild amusement on her lips as she watched the billed Renee & Rosie arching their backs on the stage floor, the dark, almost purple sheen of their tight buttocks clenched together as they attained an inverted "U". Slim, dark and lovely. reeking with sex.

Utterly beyond the moral laws of this or any world Rossow could imagine.

At midnight Rossow & Banfo left for his hotel, suspicions unaroused by the Club's management & staff. Another white man with his attractive indigene girlfriend indulging a taste for late night drinking and amusement in seedy Jamestown environs.

Back at his suite Rossow discussed with Banfo on how to proceed. Some shake up was required to open windows in this enquiry.

One thing Ghana was not, thought Rossow, was Columbia, Mexico or any of the other kidnap capitals of the world.

And then again, if it was a kidnapping, then going for the British Ambassador was top dollar, and what was this connection with Tan, the local business guy?

Both according to reports had left Accra's Sagittarius Club in Tan's Mercedes on Wednesday morning around 1am two weeks ago and had not been seen since.

The file given him by London was sparse regards relevant detail and not much help either, except as background information.

Ghana, as he knew, like so many African countries had its fair share of economic & social problems: poverty, corruption, decaying infrastructure, tribalism etc, but then kidnapping was not normally associated with it. Unlike Nigeria along the coast which had grasped the monetary potential of seizing foreigners.

If Ghana had its own more home grown demons it comprised scam artists, child prostitution, a growing underground porn industry & the still prevailing belief in juju or witchcraft.

The Ghana Police Service had no option but to confront these mediums, as they were highly feared in that society based on the belief that they could wage spiritual reprisals from their unknown and dark hideaways.

These exotic, yet sinister individuals mostly worked for the politically corrupt elites, criminals and gangs. Thus by playing the powers-that-be, the juju man invariably escaped the responsibility for causing social dysfunctions.

But it was still confusing and whatever angle one took, it came back full circle. In Rossow's professional experience of police work, as original sin is the mother-fluid of historians, so is human malice the staple of crime.

One can view it from an angle of calculation, or there are just people who commit crimes of passion or hatred. But then, once committed these characters just walk out, invariably not caring to cover their tracks.

This appeared not to be the case here.

"No quick fix" said Rossow.

"Last place that Tan & Kretzler were seen was the Club we just left."

"No option but to continue to visit, to mingle, to watch & see whats under any rocks we are obliged to lift and peer under."

THE NIGHT CLUB MANAGER.

Over the next few weeks, Rossow endeavoured to build up a close &, on the face of it, a surprisingly attainable relationship with the Club Manager, Obi Biston. The individual concerned was of a rotund & somewhat dubious disposition, as befits adequately the profession he had adopted. But he grew, apparently and genuinely, to enjoy the Englishman's company.

Rossow was a drinker. Likewise Biston, in spite of his weathered appearance, looked like and was a fellow traveller. He had the thickened and glossy skin, the too noticable facial veins, and the bright glitter in the eyes. There thus devoloped almost imperceptibily, a mutual male bonding affinity for the venial aspects of life whose foundations were securely laid in an appreciation of; good conversation, expensive alcohol & sassy looking women.

For some of the time Rossow drank for the pure glow of it, at other times back in London with associates & bureaucrats, for more palpable results. Like few others, he was capable of staying canny while drinking, of keeping his head. Although- under the narrow interpretation of morality- this is never an excuse for carousing, it was in Rossow's nature to believe that you could drink with the devil and adjust the balance of evil over a snifter of cognac. As a sideline it also was a means of celebrating the general succulence of life.

In addition, almost as a bonus, Rossow had the characteristic salesman's gift of treating men he might have disliked as if they were spiritual brothers and it would decieve many so completely that they would always believe him a friend.

Obi Biston, apparently suitably decieved, found him refreshingly different from the standard sleazy underclass of night club patrons, in his lack of pretentiousness uncommen in a white man and his freewheeling, imaginative manner of conversation. As the relationship developed, the two invariably sat at the same table & exchanged confidences in whispered tones, from which Emelia, (playing the secondary role), was excluded.

"Next week I'm going up to my place in Kumasi for the week end" Biston informed.

"How about coming up as my guest? No need to bring Emelia" he suggested.

"A bit of variety will do you no harm. Rosee & Renee will be there" he murmered with a knowing look.

'Sounds good to me" Rossow replied.

"Look forward to seeing a bit more of the country."

Biston looked him in the eye again; nothing furtive about this drunk. But he had that empty feeling of having miscounted the trumps. No reason for it at all. Maybe it was the steely quality about the man. No whimper, no bluster, just the smile, the voice and the unforgetting eyes.

That evening at their customary debrief in the hotel, Emelia was apprehensive of his intentions.

"What if things go wrong, what backup?"

Rossow took her head in his hands and kissed her.

That night he worked her body with an intensity & an ardour that left them both with the physical & mental limpness of damp rags. She initially assumed the role of a compliant body offered up & her eyes remained closed. But as he worked away, she affected initially, reluctant small moans until the suppresion was too much & then she broke. The cries became screams as she lost control completely and collapsed on the bed face down, rivulets' of sweat lay like a channel on the indent of her spine & her body convulsed in a series of climaxes.

KUMASI

The quartet of Biston, Rossow & the Twins arrived in the northern Ghana town of Kumasi on Friday evening, as the light crimson globe of the African sun disappeared with dying strength to somewhere below the skyline. As if the gods had thrown a switch, darkness followed hard on the heels of dusk, suitably accompanied by the insect night symphony.

Biston's SUV had been light and spacious as he had deftly guided it upcountry for the last three hours through chicken scratching villages with open sewers & non descript towns with even more non descript inhabitants. Rossow had sat insulated from this external reality, aimiably chatting with Biston in the front, while the fragrence of the two females behind had caressed their nostrils and their senses.

The house was on the outskirts of the gold mining hub of Kumasi central, situated behind high walls, the large iron gates guarded by a sinister Taurag from the north of Niger or Chad. Swathed in a long blue robe & a black head turban wrap, equipped with a crude sword & steel cable whip, he seemed to symbolize an earth bound angel of death.

The garden was rich in foliage and luxuriant in variety, obviously tendered on a regular basis. Once past the gate guard post, the main house structure came into view; spacious and two storeys with a balcony on the first floor and a tiled veranda on the ground. Burglar bars on every window.

Like most African households of any substance, it was organised. An elderly steward greeted them at the entrance and two muscular young boys were already emptying the SUV of luggage and carrying it to the rooms. No doubt in the background was a retinue of: cooks, house servants, gardeners and drivers somewhere around, all intent in making an impression on "Olga Obi" & his baturi guest.

Upstairs, Rossow was shown to his room. King sized bed in purple with crisp white sheets turned down, marble floor with beige rugs, soft bedside lamps & over adequate heavy drapes that led out onto the balcony & the Ghana night.

The dining room was substantial and impressive. There was a lot of teakwood and red lacquer. Gold frames glinted high up on the walls, and the ceiling was remote and vague, like the recent dusk of the hot day.

Over a traditional dish of egusi & pounded yam eaten by hand, Biston was noticeably more relaxed than normal. The outward facade of affability associated with running the night club were left three hours down the track in Accra. This is where he inhaled the provincial air, took the waters, did his thing & to Rossow, more importantly & with a bit of luck, let his guard down.

The girls looked great, spoke or murmured approvingly when appropriate by African standards to do so & added to that almost homely occasion an indespensible something that women of beauty have.

After dinner, the two men repaired on their own to the veranda where the steward brought two beers on a silver tray. Biston, ostensibly leaning to measure the coolness of the bottles with the rear of his hand, lowered his head towards Rossow conspiratorially.

"I'm glad you came up Gary. I like your company.
I would guess our tastes are very much the same."

Small red veins were visible on the periphery of his eyes.

"Thanks for inviting me Obi. It's always a pleasure to relax in good company" said Rossow with more than an element of conviction.

Biston leaned in even closer, almost as if the entire army of domestics were hidden in the bushes, metres from their feet, their ears attuned to the latest in gossip & intrigue that is the staple diet for those whose daily existence is lacking in excitement.

"Which of the girls would you like tonight?" Biston asked.

Rossow somewhat flippant, the result no doubt of the drink & a natural indolence replied; "If they are identical twins I really don't see the distinction!"

Biston gave a laugh deep in his leathery throat.

The drinks over, they rose like two soldiers embarking on a joint mission & warmly shook hands. They ascended the stairs to their respective bedrooms & shook hands again before parting, wishing each other good night.

I just find your stuff really ponderous and hard to get engaged with.
You should read some Somtamslap.

Clumsy and over reaching.

THE JU JU MASK.

Rossow slipped noiselessly out of bed & gently lifting the large briefcase from beside the wardrobe he entered the bathroom. Once inside, he retrieved a small flat object, in its turn concealed in a coarse embroided cloth bag. Opening the bathroom door he surveyed the sleeping form on the bed. Slow, methodical breathing. The nadir of infinity. Not a muscle moved. With the grace & fluidity that big men are sometimes endowed, he put the briefcase back in its original place, slipped on his shorts & left the room.

Biston's suite was at the end of the passage. Rossow paused outside, stationary and to one side, lowered his head slightly and listened. Outside in the night the noise of the insects was still audible, a dog howled somewhere across Kumasi town triggering others off in successive canine wailing. Deep from downstairs in the kitchen, a fridge kicked & switched on, humming.

Rossow turned the handle gently, the touch applied by his grip as sensitive as his senses would permit. It swung open noiselessly two inches & on the bed he observed two dormant figures.

Biston lay on his back snoring through an open dry mouth, his arm across his midriff, the sheet up to his navel. One horny foot protruded from the bed edge. Adjacent, Renee (or was it Rosie?) was handcuffed to the head board face down. What appeared like welts on her buttocks were barely perceptable.

Rossow entered in slow movements from the side & drew from the bag an object which he laid beside Biston's face.

It had been drawn a week before from the Accra Police Depository by Emelia. As it lay there Rosso was struck once again by the revulsion it evoked. Composed of a stuffed fabric parody of a mans face, the entombed apertures of mouth, eyes & nostrils were all sealed up with heavy, distinctive black cord stitching. The unhealthy, greasy grey hue of the visage did not engender one to percieve an image of benevolence. That is, despite the cheeks having been splattered and enlivened with the blood of some ritualised, slaughtered cockeral.

Rossow turned to leave, but his eyes met those of the supposedly sleeping twin. He read pain, yet calm in them and she did not scream. He left the room.

THE TALK BEFORE DAWN.

Rossow slipped back into his room, too tense to sleep. He went out onto the balcony, ostensibly to think & reflect on what he had just seen.

The body on the bed, seen through the drapes, stirred and with casual abandon, threw an inner thigh and one long dark leg onto what she had anticipated would be the adjacent body of her recent lover.

Realising he was not there & awakened now by the breeze of colder air from the open balcony door, she sat up. Seeing him outside, she slid into a pair of green satin briefs & joined him.

She sat in a chair opposite.

"How now?" she whispered.

Gary smiled inwardly. How to ever understand a woman! An hour ago with total abandon she was unashamedly, even perversely naked. Now, almost as if formally appropriate for the occasion, she had clothed her lower half & yet still exhibited like a proud banner her unadorned breasts across from where he sat.

Gary asked; "What makes you tick Renee?"

"How do you mean?" she said.

"You and your sister act like upper class whores and yet there must be something more?"

"You do not understand whores batouri." she flashed back with anger.

"If so you would never have asked such a question!"

Renee leaned back contemptuously, stung by the suddeness of the earlier rebuke and a pulse beat in her throat, brown and supple in the moonlight. She was exquisite, she was dark, she was deadly. And nothing would ever touch her.

"You do not know much about whores, baturi." she repeated.

"They are always most respectable. Except of course the very cheap ones."

There was a refinement and a sharpness in her voice now and it intimated an impression of concealed intelligence that he had not percieved before. So effectively had she executed, with consummate felicity the role model of a compliant, almost submissive, African woman.

"I do not draw a sharp line between business and sex," she said evenly.

"And you cannot humiliate me. Sex is a net with which I catch fools. Some of these fools are useful and generous. Occasionally one is dangerous."

She paused thoughtfully, "I am beautiful and wicked - and lost."

"Sex is a wonderful thing," Gary responded. "When you don't want to answer questions."

She sighed loosely, slowly half hooded her eyes, then put her hand up almost as a casual dismissive wave.

She gave her head a toss and swung the soft, loose, jet black hair around her cheeks and watched him to see how hard it hit home.

All the dark sheen from her face had gone now. Her cheeks were a little flushed. But behind her eyes, something watched and waited.

She turned her head and looked at him squarely. She shook her head a little again. "Believe me baturi, I'm not worth it - even to sleep with."

"No matter how many lovers a woman may have," she said softly. "there is always one she cannot bear to lose to another woman. I had one once who was the one."

"I must have men, baturi. But the man I loved is dead. I killed him.That man I would not share."

"Obi saved me from being caught & therefore I owe him. And family being family, that includes my sister in his debt as well."

Gary looked at her.

Slim, dark, lovely and smiling now. Utterly beyond the moral laws of this or any world he could imagine.

And yet, the edifice had crumbled slightly. Like a muted whisper, or the subtle awareness of a light breeze on the cheek, there were bits of this jigsaw that were being coerced to assume their allotted positions and thus reveal to Rossow flickerings of the composition reality he was determined to view.

Are you still here?

Yep. Alive and kicking!

I enjoyed the story, a little wordy at times but not over the top as some beginning writers seem to think necessary. Obviously English but not stuffy!

Good effort.

Jim

Thank you Jim.

Your comments are much appreciated.

Regards

M.

THE CHINESE MIRROR.

Sam Tan was the smoothest-looking Chinaman that you had ever seen. He talked in a disparaging way like an Englishman and was dressed in a white suit with a silk shirt and black tie. Ostensibly, he was the missing, kidnapped night club owner from Accra, but to anyone who may have been present that evening, he was far removed from that adverse set of circumstances.

He was in a basement room in Kumasi, the door was secured and there were two other persons present. One was an exhausted looking British Ambassador, who for the record was kidnapped. The other was a second Chinaman, except for the fact that he was a mirror image of the Ambassador. Plastic surgery had seen to that, and for now, the new Rob Kretzler was studying even closer, the original version to add further to his repertoire of acquired speech, gestures & mannerisms.

It was a forced dialogue that lay between them, like the breath of a jackel in the company of man. Sam Tan, who the Ambassador had thought was his friend, had betrayed him.

Sam himself, caring little for such sentiments endeavored to treat it all rather superficially.

“Rob, don’t be silly. Just see our point. We require your cooperation. Just talk to my colleague here”.

Betrayal is an ugly word. But then the Ambassador was pragmatic enough to realize that although you may not like evil, it should still be recognized. He was only too aware of his circumstances. He was a prisoner and a lot of work had been put into the unnerving caricature of himself that sat opposite, watching with an intense predatory focus his very being.

Keep it coming........... :-)

Jim

EAST MEETS WEST.

The real name of Samuel Tan’s colleague in that Kumasi basement, on that particular evening was Han Fei Tzu. Back in China he had occupied many positions ranging from a lecturer, to undertaking itinerant civil engineering work. What was not common knowledge was his graduation in this latter discipline from England quite a few years earlier.

“Yes,” he thought “Civil engineering. Considered mentally but not physically competent. I had to give up the work. Now, I'm an outward facade of all that is distasteful. But then I'm not noble, so my honourable ancestors will not turn over in their graves."

He had not liked the English, but was adept enough to conceal it. For he possessed those Chinese virtues of reserve and patience which sat well upon the immobility of his yellow countenance. Now he was obliged to employ these traits in dealing with the Ambassador seated in front of him. From time to time the latter uttered old-fashioned words which forced him to grope mentally, and of course he could feel the chilling contempt and insolence to his person.

“Ah these English” he thought. “They travelled all over, up and down the world, not to acquire information but rather to leave the impress of their superiority as a race. It was most amusing. They would suffer amazing hardships to hunt the snow-leopard; but in the Temple of Five Hundred Gods they would not take the trouble to ask the name of one!”

The Ambassador knew that his safety lay in pretense. That and the phase of mental activity that men called courage: to summon this energy which barred the ingress of the long cold fingers of fear? He possessed it and immeasurable was the calm evolved from this knowledge. After all public school had been much worse than this!

He knew also that he was getting under the skin of Han, for, unlike Tan, you could sense that he seemed more susceptible to slights, however tangentially they were delivered. Thus Kretzler made sure to play on that breach of Chinese etiquette to wear spectacles while speaking to an equal. The Chinese invariably remove their glasses when conversing. One thing is quite certain: they do not like being looked at through a medium of glass or crystal, and normally it would cost a foreigner nothing to fall in with this harmless prejudice.

Whereas Tan was but a caricature of a Chinaman, having wallowed so long in the lower pits of Western surroundings, Kretzler felt that this image of himself opposite, had been at some stage in his life one of the literati. That likely meant his mental makeup was based on the deathless philosophy of Confucius, which, summed up, signified that the end of all philosophy is nothing.

“It is strange,” he reflected “That men of education and apparent good birth will invariably fall the swiftest and the lowest.”