Scientect

Webnovel Series by A Amankwaa
©2026 A Amankwaa. All rights reserved.

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Resting her head against the wiry curl of Brako’s chest hair, Akosua traced a circle on his skin. “Honey, I was thinking… don’t you think it’s time to retire from the police? I don’t think you even need any financial help from John anymore. Last I checked, you are already a millionaire o… not in cedis… dollars!”

Brako smiled, but the warmth didn’t reach his eyes. “Oh Ako… I know. But I for settle this case… you know.” He stroked Akosua’s box braids, his voice dropping to a low, heavy rumble. “For now, we leave everything in my brother’s name to avoid suspicion.”

“Victor is careless now a days… he bought a private jet. Can you believe it?”

There was a knock at the door, making Akosua stiffen.

“Good morning Mum, please, the breakfast is ready as requested.” The room service attendant said.

“Thank you, please set it on the dining table.”

The smell of Tom Brown was always a delight for Brako, especially when combined with toasted brown bread and an omelette. He headed to the bathroom to freshen up, leaving the breakfast prep to Akosua.

As she arranged the food and poured her tea, she smiled at the spread.

Breakfast at Afi Island Gardens always came with mixed fruit salad and a selection of pastries – the sweet, pastry scent stirring distant memories of growing up with a baker mum. Akosua was the firstborn and automatically the administrator and finance manager of her mum’s bakery business. She had to step into the role of motherhood at age sixteen, caring for her younger siblings while her mum travelled for deliveries.

Nothing had ever come easily. By the time she reached university, the financial strain was suffocating. It was her relationship with Brako during her second year that finally changed everything; his support enabled her to pay her hostel fees, keep her siblings fed, and lift the financial burden off her mum’s shoulders.

She was almost lost in thought when Brako’s hands found her shoulders, gently caressing them.

“I love the view here, babe,” he said, pointing out toward the balcony where birds and green monkeys played in the trees.

Akosua reached up, holding his hands tightly against her skin. “One day, we have to buy one of these houses on the island for vacations.” She pulled away gently to gesture toward the spread. “Nana, come, sit. Have your breakfast before it goes cold. We have to check out soon.”

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At the Koforidua hospital mortuary, Serwaa sat on the bare concrete floor outside, wailing uncontrollably with her hands clamped to her head.

“Buei… buei… how can you tell me my Ansah is no more? My darling Ansah… ah… ah!” she sobbed. “Who has done this to Kwame? Ah… ah… may your ghost never rest until you have dealt with everyone involved,” she cried out in Twi.

Her sister and in-laws crowded around her, desperately trying to console her, wiping her tears with a black handkerchief. Her dress was soaked with sweat from the brutal afternoon heat.

The police had summoned the family to identify the body, stamping the official certificate with a sterile cause of death: heart attack. But the family flatly rejected the report. Standing outside the mortuary walls, the family head (abusuapanin) fiercely disputed the findings, vowing to uncover the true circumstances of how their beloved Ansah had died while under the watch of the police.

As tradition demands, the one-week observation was set by the Abusuapanin to formally announce Ansah’s passing and plan his funeral at Akim Oda.

Helped to her feet by her sister, Serwaa stood shaking and sobbing uncontrollably. When they reached the van, she resisted, refusing to board the vehicle and leave her husband behind in the cold unit. It took the gentle force of the family to finally get her inside before they could drive away from the hospital.

The journey from Koforidua to Oda was heavy, draped in a thick dew of sorrow and agony. One could almost  smell the saturated emotional pain. Every few miles, Serwaa would scream and twitch, trapped in her grief, sandwiched tight between her sister and brother-in-law, who held her down.

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“Hello, I am Florence. Florence Nhyira,” Dr. Nhyira said, extending a hand to Ahmed. “How’re things going? Thanks for coming to see me.”

“Oh Doc, no need for introductions,” Ahmed smiled. “Everyone knows you in Ghana.”

Sharing a warm chuckle, they walked together into Nhyira’s office. Ahmed poured himself a glass of water from the dispenser and sat opposite her. He carefully lined up his laptop, a notepad, and a pen on the desk. Underneath the wood, his heart hammered against his ribs; he secretly rubbed his palms against his thighs to keep his hands from shaking.

“How’s the cybersecurity department at the bank?” Nhyira pulled a fresh notepad from her desk drawer, her sharp eyes fixing on him. “I really admire the hard work that goes into what you do in this cyberfraud, romance-scam world of ours.”

“Busy as usual, Mum. The BoG crackdown did not affect us, so we’ve still got a job,” he replied, both of them sharing a quick chuckle.

Ahmed opened and switched on his laptop. As the screen booted up, his smile faded. “I am very sorry about the fire at the East Legon building, Mum. I am glad you got this new place.”

“Doc, I have traced the unknown transaction code to several payments on the black market and overseas bank transfers,” Ahmed said, leaning closer to his laptop. “They are all linked to two names and one organisation. What is this for, Mum?”

Nhyira didn’t answer right away. Instead, she reached into a folder and placed a printed document on the desk, a company financial statement and an auditor’s report filed at the ORC.

“Could you confirm if this is the same company and the two names?” Nhyira asked.

Ahmed scanned the printed page, his eyes widening slightly. “Yeah, Doc. It’s an exact match.”

“Thanks, Ahmed. This is incredibly helpful.” Nhyira slid the paper back toward herself. “I would like printed copies of your findings, and please continue to monitor the transactions. I will let you know all the details later.”

Ahmed chewed the cap of his pen for a tense thirty seconds, aimlessly tracking the movement of the ceiling fan as Nhyira copied the files and hit print. He crossed his legs, the frustration of always being left in the dark suffocating him.

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Back at the FSL in Accra, Adusei stretched his arms and kicked out his legs in the empty cloakroom, the distinct crack of his knees echoing in the silence. He grabbed his lab coat, suiting up with practiced ease before washing his hands thoroughly at the stainless-steel sink. Snapping on a second pair of gloves to prevent contamination, he approached the metal table to begin his examination of the t-shirt recovered from Ato’s home.

He first wiped the lab bench clean with Virkon and overlayed the surface with fresh sheets of brown paper. Reaching for the packaged item, he signed the continuity form, and carefully removed the t-shirt from the brown paper bag, making a cut away from the original seal.

He began filling out his examination notes and photographed all sides of the t-shirt to document the visible bloodstain patterns.

He proceeded to fold a small filter paper to create a sharp corner and systematically sampled some of the reddish-brown stains, each time with a new paper, testing with a chemical that turned the paper bright pink.

Finally, he removed a few threads of the the tested stains, about one millimeter squared, and placed them in small tubes. His handwriting was very small on the tubes but one could make out the case details, the permanent marker ink bleeding out of writing zone. He marked all the samples to be sent to the DNA lab next door.