Death at the Voyager Hotel by Kwei Quartey Page B

size?” the girl asked.
    “No,” Paula
said, suppressing a laugh. “I just wanted to see what my friend said she bought
last week. Thank you.”
     On her way back
to the restaurant, Paula called Gale. “Come into work a little early,” she told
her. “I’ve just been talking to Amadu, the watchman on duty that night. He told
me some interesting things we need to discuss.”

    That night, it was Paula’s turn to put Stephan and Stephanie
to bed. They chose one of their favorite Ananse stories and leaned
against her on either side as she read. By now, she could almost recite the
thing by heart. As she was tucking Stephanie into bed, the little girl suddenly
asked, “Mummy, are you and Daddy angry at each other?”
    Oh, dear, Paula
thought. Nothing escaped the notice of her sensitive daughter. “Why do you ask,
sweetie?”
    She shrugged.
“I don’t know. I just thought you were.”
    “Well, sometimes,
even though Mummy and Daddy love each other a lot, they have disagreements. But
everything will work out fine, okay? Don’t worry.”
    “Okay, Mummy.”
    Paula kissed
her daughter on the forehead.
    “It’s just like
when Stephanie makes me angry in the nighttime but then I like her again in the
morning,” Stephan declared in a muffled voice from somewhere underneath his bed.
    “Stephan!”
Paula exclaimed. “What are you doing under there?”
    “I lost a Lego,
Mummy.”
    “You can look
for it tomorrow,” she said sternly. “You just had your bath and now you’re
crawling around on the floor? You’re going to get dirty.”
    “Found it!” he yelled
triumphantly, his little hand shooting out from under the bed with the recaptured
fugitive piece of Lego.

    Thelo was in his study working at his laptop. He didn’t look
up as Paula came in and sat down in the chair near his desk.
    She eyed him
for a moment. “Stephanie just asked me about what’s going on between you and
me.”
     “Mm-hm. And?”
    “I responded
that we were having a little disagreement but that we’d soon get over it.”
    “Okay.”
    “Okay, so can
we talk about it now?”
    He looked away
from the computer, but still not directly at her.
    “I know you felt
I excluded you when I went to see Edward,” she said, “and for that, I’m sorry.”
    “But then you
went and talked to Amadu today after my advising against it,” Thelo pointed
out. “You asked me to call someone at CID to see if the case could be looked at
again. I thought about it and decided you were right, so I contacted Dr. Biney,
because although he’s not a CID employee as such, his work is highly respected
and he’s very influential. Everyone listens to him. But after our long discussion
in which he promised to try and help next week, you go right ahead and do what you
had been planning to do in the first place. So what was the point of the whole
exercise? Why did I even bother?”
    “It’s still of
value,” she insisted, “and I really appreciate that you called him. We could do
with his assistance. But there are questions that bother me personally, and
I can’t rest until I get the answers—questions that men may not be so sensitive
about—like why Heather was naked in that pool.”
    “I see. So I
suppose now that you’ve spoken to Mr. Amadu, you have the answer?”
    “Well, no, I don’t.
But he had some interesting information I would like to discuss with you.”
    “Go ahead,” he
said in a supercilious tone she loathed but forced herself to ignore. “I’m
listening.”
    She swallowed. “For
one thing, he thinks the only reason Edward sacked him is because Heather was
very friendly toward him.”
    “Toward Amadu?”
    “Yes. He says
Edward was jealous of him.”
    “I would expect
Amadu to say something like that,” Thelo said, snorting with contempt. “Obviously
the boy is bitter about his dismissal and is trying to cast aspersions on
Edward.”
    “Could be,”
Paula said, but doubtfully. “Also, it appears the pool lights were off for