Death at the Voyager Hotel by Kwei Quartey

anything?” she asked Amadu.
    “Yes,
sometimes. Maybe to tell him if something is not working in her room—say for
example the toilet have broke or hot water finish. Sometimes he use to go to
her room.”
    Paula felt a
shot of adrenaline in her chest. “He went to her room? For what?”
     Amadu
shrugged. “Maybe to ask her if everything was okay. He like her.”
    “Did he ever
spend a long time in Miss Heather’s room?”
    “Maybe some five
or ten minutes,” Amadu said. “Or maybe twenty.”
    That seemed a
long time for a manager to spend in the room of a hotel guest. “Twenty minutes?
Amadu, are you sure?”
    “Let’s say
ten,” he backpedaled.
    Paula moved on.
“That Sunday night, did you see Miss Heather go to Mr. Edward’s office?”
    “No, madam. I
didn’t see her.”
    “You say Mr.
Edward liked Heather. What do you mean?”
    He smiled
one-sidedly and looked away. “He like her. That’s why he sacked me.”
    “I don’t
understand.”
    “Because she
always talk to me and make friendly with me. That make Mr. Edward jealous. Because
he want her for himself.”
    Paula
considered Amadu carefully. This palm soup was getting thicker by the minute.
    “Did he tell
you that, Amadu? That he wanted her for himself?”
    He shook his
head and pushed his bottom lip out. “No, but I can see how he look at her that
he want her too much.”
    “What about
you?” she asked. “Did you also want Heather?”
    “Me?” he said, touching
his chest in surprise.
    “Yes. You.”
    He began to
laugh.
    Paula couldn’t
help smiling. “What’s funny?”
    “Oh, no,” he
said, shaking his head. “Allah did not plan for Miss Heather and me to be
together. I just like her and respect her. She was a very kind woman.”
    “She was,”
Paula agreed softly. “Amadu, tell me what happened the morning Mr. Miedema
found Miss Heather in the pool.”
     “It was almost
five minutes to six,” he began. “I was waiting for the day guard to come and
relieve me. Then the desk clerk shouted at me that someone drown in the
swimming pool, so I start to run there. Before I reach, the gardener too came
running and tell me make I call the doctor. So I ran to the doctor room and
wake him.
    “When we return
to the pool, Mr. Miedema was pressing on Miss Heather’s chest. How she looked
like, I never saw anything like that before. The arms and the legs”—Amadu bent
his wrists and drew his forearms stiffly to his torso—“they were like this.
Then the doctor tell Mr. Miedema to stop and he put his hand on Miss Heather
neck, and say she dead already.”
    Amadu put his
hands on his hips and looked at the ground, shaking his head.
    “It was a
terrible experience, eh?” Paula said.
    “Yes, madam. I
feel very bad, because maybe if I went to patrol the back of the hotel during
the night, maybe I can save her.”
    “You can’t be
in two places at one time,” she said. “And even if you went back there every
hour, you might still not have been able to save her because it takes only a
short time to drown.”
    “Yes, I know.
But…”
    She put a
friendly hand on his shoulder. “I understand how you’re feeling. Me too, I
worry if maybe I missed something about Heather that I could have done
something about.”
    He looked
warmly at her and smiled.
    “Let me ask you
something else,” she said. “When you went to the back of the hotel at ten
o’clock in the night, were the lights on around the pool?”
    He nodded. “Yes
please.”
    “And I know
they normally stay on all night. I wish at least some one had looked out
of his or her hotel window that night. Maybe they might have seen something.”
    “But, madam, I think
the lights went out sometime during the night. Or someone turn them off.”
    Paula looked at
him sharply. “Why do you say that?”
    “When I first see
the pool that morning, the lights already turn off. By that time, it was four
minutes before six. Normally they go off at six, automatic.”
    “How could
someone