When Kwame Mainu was a student at Warwick University in the 1980s he had helped the British authorities interpret messages passed in his native language, Twi, between members of a Kumasi-based drugs cartel operating in the English midlands. Now six years later, having returned from Ghana and taken up an academic post at the university, he was hoping to avoid being drawn back into what his friend, Tom Arthur, called sleuthing; but when the call came to meet his tiny countrywoman, Auntie Rose, he was unable to refuse.
This time the little woman was waiting for him in the same office they had used before. Akos Mary was not around and Kwame wondered how Auntie Rose had arranged the one-to-one meeting. After the usual greetings, Kwame sat in the only chair and Auntie Rose perched herself on the desk with her tiny feet swinging to and fro in an arc that bisected the space between desk top and floor. He noted with relief that her feet really did point forwards.
‘Leon wants you to help him with just one more thing’ said Auntie Rose.
‘You all know I want nothing more to do with it,’ Kwame replied, annoyed that the sleuths wouldn’t leave him in peace.
‘But this is connected to your old assignment.’
‘How can it be, the people here are all in prison?’
‘That’s what puzzled us, but the messages have resumed.’
‘What messages?’
‘The telephoned instructions in Twi to the drugs sellers.’
‘You can tell Leon what’s being said.’
‘Yes, but I don’t know the old Twi like you do, and I didn’t hear the messages that you interpreted last time.’
Kwame couldn’t see any problem that necessarily involved him. It was obvious that some new people had taken over the drugs trade and had adopted a similar means of communication. ‘Why does Leon want me to get involved again?’ he asked.
‘Because as far as we can tell, it’s the same voice.’
‘You mean the voice of Kofi Adjare?’
‘Yes.’
When Kwame recovered from the shock of this revelation he realised that the information gleaned from Comfort’s letter was relevant to Leon’s quest, after all. So he told Auntie Rose about the possibility that Kofi Adjare, the albino okyeame, might have put the cocaine snails in Akosua’s suitcase. ‘If it is Kofi Adjare sending the messages,’ said Kwame, ‘he’s sending them from Ghana. He must be using a mobile phone like I was using before I came here. He can use it anywhere around Accra, Tema and Kumasi and soon the coverage will be extended more widely.’
‘Leon’s interested in who’s giving him his instructions,’ said Auntie Rose.
‘That could be any one of the recently released drugs bosses in Ghana.’
‘Will you listen to some of the new messages?’
‘OK; shall I come to the police station in Warwick?’
‘Yes, please.’
