Webnovel Series by A Amankwaa
©2026 A Amankwaa. All rights reserved.
Inspector Ansah stood before the heavy mahogany door of the office at exactly 05:55. His uniform was fresh but the skin beneath it felt raw, as though the fire from the lab was still licking at his ribs. He did not knock. He waited for the digital clock on the wall to click to 06:00 and then pushed his way into the air-conditioned chill of the room.
DCS Brako was already there, bathed in the soft light of a desk lamp with a steaming bowl of Tom Brown in front of him. The rich, toasted aroma of the roasted corn, soybeans and groundnut porridge filled the room, providing a scent of domestic comfort that felt jarringly out of place. Brako stirred it slowly with a silver spoon. He looked rested. He looked like a man whose world was in perfect order.
“Sit, Kwame,” Brako said, his voice as smooth as polished stone. He did not look up from his breakfast. Ansah sat with his spine rigid. “The lab, sir. It was not an accident. We smelled petrol. We saw the SUVs.”
Brako finally looked up, dabbing a bit of the porridge from his lip with a linen napkin. His expression was one of paternal pity. “Petrol? In a forensic lab filled with volatile chemicals? Kwame, your imagination is as tired as you are. The fire marshal’s preliminary report already points to an electrical fault in the reception hall. It happens. It is a tragedy, but it is a closed one.”
Ansah’s jaw tightened until his teeth ached.
“Ntim knew I was going there. I told him in confidence. Did he inform you, sir?” The silence that followed was deafening. Brako did not deny it. He did not even blink. Instead, he slid a crisp, white envelope across the desk.
“The Big Tree file is being suspended indefinitely due to the total loss of forensic evidence,” Brako said. “And because I care about your health, I have arranged for a change of scenery. This is a transfer letter to the Jasikan district. It is quiet there. Green. You will take a month of leave starting today, and then you will report to the Jasikan post.”
Ansah stared at the letter. Jasikan was a remote post hundreds of kilometres away in the Oti Region. It was not a transfer; it was an exile. “You are moving me? Now?” Ansah’s voice cracked. “While the killers are still walking at large?”
“There are no killers, Kwame. There is only a tragic accident in the woods and an unfortunate fire in a lab,” the DCS replied, his eyes turning cold. “Take the leave. Spend time with your children. If I hear that you have been seen near Nhyira or that galamsey site again, the next letter will not be a letter of transfer. It will be an internal enquiry into your conduct in this investigation.”
The threat was naked. Brako was not just ending the case; he was holding Ansah’s entire life hostage. Ansah stood up, the chair screeching against the floor. “Integrity,” Ansah spat. He then murmured “tweaa” and took his cap off. He did not salute. He turned and walked out, throwing the door back with a violence that made the glass panels rattle. He did not stop to talk to Ntim, who sat at his desk with his head down, refusing to look up.
Inside the office, the rattle of the glass took a long time to die down. Brako sat motionless, the silver spoon suspended halfway to his mouth. The steam from the Tom Brown curled upward, but the porridge now had the flat, gritty flavour of dust on his tongue. He looked at the empty chair where Ansah’s cap had briefly rested.
Brako’s fingers began a steady, repetitive tapping against the mahogany, like the ticking of a countdown. He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a heavy, unmarked brown paper envelope. It was thick enough to keep a man’s family comfortable for a decade; thick enough to buy the kind of silence that Jasikan could not guarantee.
He weighed the parcel in his palm, then set it down. His gaze drifted to the window, watching the morning light hit the town. A transfer was a professional death, but dead men did not talk back. He opened a second drawer, a smaller, locked compartment, and retrieved a burner phone.
The “tweaa” still echoed in the room, a stinging reminder that Ansah was not just a subordinate; he was a loose thread. Brako’s thumb hovered over the burner’s keypad as he contemplated whether Kwame was a man to be bought with brown paper or silenced by a roadside accident on the long, winding drive to Jasikan.
The morning for Ansah became a blur of frantic apologies and rushed seatbelts. By the time he dropped the kids off at the school gates, the bell had long since rung. He watched them disappear into the building as small, vulnerable figures carrying the weight of a father who was slowly losing his grip.
On the drive back, the silence in the car was heavy. He reached out and turned the dial on his radio, tuning into Gyata Radio for the morning news highlights. He needed to hear something, anything, that made sense.
The presenter’s voice was crisp and cut through the static of his thoughts. “In a series of surprise government appointments announced just moments ago from the Jubilee House, the President has filled several key deputy ministerial roles. Most notably, the high-flying corporate executive Akosua Mensah has been named the new Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources.”
Ansah’s hands froze on the steering wheel. “This is unbelievable!” He screamed. He pulled the car over to the side of the road, the tyres crunching on the gravel. “Ms. Mensah,” the presenter continued, “is expected to lead the government’s renewed crackdown on illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey. Political analysts suggest her close ties to high-ranking security officials will be an asset in this role.”
Ansah stared at the dashboard. Akosua was Brako’s “private associate”. She was the woman whose expensive perfume he had smelled in the back of the DCS’s SUV. The pieces clicked together with a sickening metallic snap. The Big Tree investigation was not being shut down to stop galamsey or bring justice to the victims; it was being cleared so the new Deputy Minister could control the spoils. Brako had not just burned the evidence to protect himself; he had burned it to pave her way to the Ministry.
The Lion was not just guarding the den. He was building a throne.
Back at the headquarters, Brako stood by the window, the burner phone pressed to his ear. The call was answered on the first ring.
“The Caseline job was sloppy, Red,” Brako said, his voice a low hiss. “The Inspector smelled the petrol. Someone may have caught the vehicles on CCTV. Dispose of them tonight. Strip them and sink them in the Volta. As usual, travel to Dubai for some holidays with your family and please make sure your alibi is tight. No connection to the Boss, please. By the way, we will need a new mining concession cleared. We also have to work on getting Abudu out.”
He began to detail the transfer papers for Abudu, but his voice trailed off. A faint, clicking sound manifested in the earpiece, a metallic chirp that did not belong to the cellular network. It was the sound of a third party, a digital ghost sitting on the line.
Brako’s blood turned to ice. He pulled the phone away and stared at the screen, but it remained dark. As he prepared to snap the device in two, it vibrated with a sudden, sharp intensity. A text message appeared from an unlisted number.
The Tom Brown is getting cold, Brako. And the children are still counting the stars.
Brako looked back at his desk. The bowl of porridge was exactly where he had left it, but a single, small, star-shaped sticker was now stuck to the rim of the bowl. He remembered seeing similar stickers in Dr Nhyira’s office. He was suddenly drowned in his own sweat.
He was not alone in the room. He had never been alone.
Scientect 