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Andoh served her the trouble. “DCOP Laryea tells me you want to transfer to the Homicide Division. Do you know you can’t do whatever you want here at CID?”
“Yes please,” she whispered.
“You think you’re special just because your father was a homicide detective?” He sounded contemptuous, which made Emma want to shrink.
“No please.” ….
He inclined his head. “Are you sure you can look at dead bodies? You look too soft.”
“No please,” Emma said with a tinge of indignation. “I’m not soft.”
“Come here and let me show you some photographs of homicide crime scenes and we will see how you react,” the police commissioner said. “Bring the chair over with you.” ….
“What about this one?” he asked, clicking to another image and at the same time resting his large hand on Emma’s right thigh.
She flinched, startled. The police commissioner’s attitude toward her had transformed. Now was friendly, even intimate. ….
“You remember how I said you must perform well to my satisfaction?” he said, caressing her face. …
“Take off your dress,” he ordered. …
Like a striking cobra, she jabbed her right index finger into his left eye socket hard and quick. ….
Run, she told herself. Run.
from: The Missing American
Emma Djan and the Jungle of Accra
Emma’s career at the police of Accra is short and ends abruptly. When she defends herself against a sexual assault of a superior, a man high up on the career ladder, she loses her job, her career plans and her dreams. When she was a child she admired her father, a police detective, and she never wanted to become anything than a police detective herself. Now she lives in Accra, in a somewhat dilapidated apartment and has to work as a sales assistant to make ends meet – and she is unhappy.
Fortunately she has some friends at the police and one of them suggests that she shall start a new career as a private investigator at an agency with impeccable reputation. Furthermore he makes contact with the head of the agency. Some time later Emma gets an offer and doesn’t hesitate to accept. It seems that in the space of a minute her life is livable again and a bright future is on the horizon.
Emma has to deal with the police on and off – she meets former colleagues who like her work and her contribution as a private investigator to their daily mess of crime, however, there are also police detectives who do everything in their power to obstruct her actions and inquiries. The police is a world of its own in Accra. There are fully-fledged officers who like their job – and there are lazy guys who like a casual and easy life. Of course there is also corruption, a lot of corruption. There seem to be many police detectives who are happy to find at once a culprit without alibi, but motive – and they arrest him and bring him to trial. If there is sufficient evidence will be irrelevant: the pospective culprit is finally convicted or waits at least for his trial for long months resp. years, the case is closed and it’s a positive contribution to the police crime statistics.
The agency where Emma is busy is specialized in background checks for business people, divorce affairs, missing people, however, every now and then some bigger crime evolves out of a at first sight obviously simple case. Even murder cases appear at the agency – and Emma is always avid to get involved.
At the agency there is a team of investigators controlled by their boss, a former police officer, who is now approaching retirement. The agency works not only in Accra resp. Ghana, but also for foreign clients. Because of their background checks there is an Internet specialist although all investigators work appropriately with modern technology. Emma is fond of her colleges and her tasks.
Because of the immaculate reputation of the agency one day the case of a missing American ends up on their desks, especially on Emma’s desk. It turns out that the American is the victim of an Internet scam where a beautiful woman asks for money … and the American full in love sends money without ever having met the woman. Finally he embarks to Accra to meet his beloved woman … and vanishes into thin air. His son, worried about his father’s disappearance, contacts the agency. Emma and her colleagues make a Depp dive in organized Internet scams like the love affair, the stranded US soldier affair, the low-prized gold offer affair etc. All these scams are operated by organized crime gangs using the most elaborated software products to pretend fake identities. If someone is so starry-eyed to meet the fake reality in Ghana he will get into serious trouble.
Also when a sad lady appears at the agency who thinks that the murder of her niece hadn’t been investigated thoroughly assuming that the murderer is at large because his parents are influential and powerful people Emma starts reevaluating the case and the evidence. She has to move in upper class Ghanaian society – nevertheless also here is fraud, malevolence and violence up to murder.
Later on Emma has to deal with illegal migration and trafficking, with violence and murder in the LGBT community. Of course she isn’t alone, but the power of the agency backs her. Until now crime in Ghana isn’t so far from any crime in any other Western country. Of course it’s on the background of an African country with its special customs and practices. Churches are an important player in public life, but there is also superstitiousness, native priests, sacrificial offerings, fortunes telling as well as getting natural powers and gods favorably disposed toward an undertaking. Also in Accra there is a clash of rich and poor, of very rich and very poor, of educated and illiterate people – all of them living either in a paradise of worldly goods and beautiful homes with extraordinary cars in front or in poor conditions what doesn’t mean that there are no glamorous cars in the backyard.
Emma emancipates herself. She moves in a nice house, she meets a nice young man working in the SWAT division of the Ghana Police … She even leaves behind her rigid education abut having sex only when married … in short: she moved on and is happy with it.