Eighteen

Stephen rose from his seat and joined Emily on the settee. He had an idea of what Kojo Ganyo was about to reveal because the two friends had discussed Kojo Ganyo's investigative work for months. He wrapped his arm around Emily as he settled down beside her.

"All things work together for good for those who love the Lord. I told you on several occasions that not everything that glitters is gold, didn't I? We are about to hear some whispers from Dr Newman's past and they may not be pleasant at all," he whispered and Emily nodded as she braced herself for the worst. 

Stephen knew how much Dr Newman had invested in Emily's grooming and he also knew that she liked the apparently kind affable old doctor. What they were about to hear might upset her and he wanted her to know that he cared about her, even though he disliked the man whom he felt had given him a run for his money. As they fixed their eyes expectantly on him, Kojo Ganyo deliberately chose to look around the tastefully furnished living room as he chose the seat directly across from his friends. "Oh I see," he said, nodding his head in mischief. "Paddy when did all these improvements take place?" He gestured with his arm at the furniture and furnishings while he continued to look around him. 

"Bobby, get it out and let's be done with it," Stephen said with impatience as he brushed the question aside. "We are all ears and we want to know why Dr Newman has been picked up by the police for questioning." 

"All right, folks, since you are very impatient, here we go," Kojo Ganyo stated and then edged forward in his seat. "The story began when we met your parents when your mother was taken ill long ago. While we were chatting with your father, he described Techiman as the village without babies and, if you remember, we were both very curious about that. When we quizzed him further about it, he told us about an age-old curse on the village which caused the women of the village to be barren. It was a strange story, but because you were so preoccupied at the time with your unrequited love, you quickly forgot about the curse which spawned childlessness at Techiman." 

He paused for his friend's reaction to his comment but when Stephen did not rise to the taunt, Kojo Ganyo was compelled to continue with his narration. "Although you allowed your curiosity to wane after their explanation, I didn't. I had a haunch that I had stumbled onto a great story so I decided to investigate the matter further. Emily's parents had told us that the village was under a curse, hence its women's inability to conceive or bear children, but when I began to investigate the matter further, I learnt that the so-called curse started taking effect about twenty or so years ago." 

"Hold on!" Stephen cut in, "That coincides with Dr Newman's philanthropic services to the rural community, doesn't it?" 

"Exactly!" Kojo Ganyo agreed. "At that time, I wasn't suspicious of him as being linked to the problem at hand but later something one of the villagers I interviewed said caught my attention and that, incidentally, gave me the lead I was looking for. I contacted the village's traditional healer and the old woman mentioned that up till the time the young doctor moved into the community and the surrounding villages to provide the much needed white man's medical care, there were pregnancies and childbirth taking place regularly, most of which she personally attended to. However, the white man's medicine, she said, had no power to check promiscuity and as a result it encouraged the village girls to become promiscuous.

 When I questioned her further, she explained that the gods usually directed her to the herbs she administered to her patients and, as a result of their direct involvement, there were rules attached to them. Girls who used her herbs and had sexual relations outside marriage died. That put fear in the youngsters and they remained chaste till they married. According to her, until Dr Newman moved into their village, there was just the odd one or two teenage pregnancies recorded in the village and even in those isolated instances the affected girls often disappeared from the village." Kojo Ganyo paused to sip water. 

"She told me that one of the girls from the village became pregnant just around the time the young doctor moved into their community and she tried to abort an advanced pregnancy. The girl used crude methods and when the foetus was expelled, she buried it on a farm. The following day, a hunter's dog unearthed the foetus as the hunter was going on a hunting expedition. The girl ended up at the doctor's clinic and, but for his timely intervention, she would have died. The gods, however, were enraged by the abomination and they placed a curse on the village: No babies would be born in the village for the next sixty years, the villagers were told. The foetus was believed to be six months old at the time it was expelled. So ten years was decreed by the gods for every month of the foetus' maturity, she explained. I did not believe one bit of that superstition and so decided to turn my attention to the doctor and not the curse. 

"Curiously, the effect of the curse coincided with his arrival at the village. I began to talk to parents first and then, as they linked me up with their children, most of whom were in their late thirties and forties, I discovered, after much coaxing, that quite a number of them had had abortions as they grew up in the village and they had all ended up at Dr Newman's clinic with complications. Strange indeed. It was all beginning to add up for me because my suspicion of Dr Newman by then had been aroused. The story at the next village was no different. None of the women who attended Dr Newman's clinic after experiencing abortion complications ever had children. The villagers had no idea that there was a linkage between their visits to the clinic and their inability to conceive. As I went from village to village in the communities, I encountered childless women who had, at one time or another, called at Dr Newman's clinic. 

"Everyone went to his clinic because he treated people freely if they had no money. He also took foodstuffs in lieu of cash. 'God bless that kind doctor; he also gave us herbs so we were very much at home with him,' one of the villagers confided in me," Kojo Ganyo said. 

"Yes, Dr Newman studied traditional medicine so he used to combine orthodox and traditional medicine," Stephen interjected. 

"Exactly so," Kojo Ganyo conceded. "I spoke to a doctor friend of mine who said it was not unusual for women who had abortions which were not performed by experts to be scarred for life or, worse still, have their wombs removed if that would save their lives." He took his time to explain it all to me and I realised that Dr Newman might have been doing what was right for his patients, after all. 

"However, strangely enough, just after I had concluded that the old man was not doing anything untoward, I began to encounter several women from the village who swore by their gods that they had not had any abortions but they were also barren. They described themselves as victims of the curse. When I probed further, it turned out that, that category of women had also attended Dr Newman's clinic. That was curious. If what they said was true, and I have no cause to suspect they were lying, then it means Dr Newman had by then become a serial abortionist. Whatever ailment a pregnant woman complained of, she ended up having her womb removed by the doctor. Two nurses who worked for him have both died and now I suspect some foul play there. What did those nurses know which could incriminate the doctor? They are gone, so whatever they knew has been buried with them. Dead men, they say, tell no tales." He paused again to sip water from the glass. 

Stephen rose to his feet. "Let me get you another bottle," he offered. 

After returning to his seat, Kojo Ganyo continued with his narration. "At Suhum, a man mentioned to me that the beloved doctor lost his pregnant wife while he was working in their community. I later discovered that the pregnant wife in question was the late Rose. I dug very deep and discovered that a week before the lady died, Dr Newman had quarrelled with her. A former neighbour of the old doctor told me that he always heard a loud exchange of words emanating from the doctor's bungalow most nights that he soon became accustomed to hearing the noisy argument most nights so he thought nothing of them. 

"Rose was asthmatic and had a crisis to which she succumbed. That was the story. I called a friend at Illinois in the United States where Dr Newman studied and asked him to find out more about him for me. Later, the information passed on to me indicated that he has an American father, Professor Samuel Newman and a Ghanaian mother, Susan Nsiah. Dr Newman married a very beautiful South African student but the lady ditched him when she was about five months pregnant. 

Newman, I'm told, had to go into rehab when Maya, his ex wife, left him. The story is that he often accused her of cheating on him with a wealthy South African politician who was on a short course in their state. The fights became so frequent and serious that Maya had not only packed out of their flat but also had a late term abortion to spite him.

 Newman took to drugs and he had to suspend his studies for about two years as his parents sought medical treatment for him. After rehab, he successfully completed the course and went through India to study herbal medicine before returning to Ghana years later to begin with his practice. The man, by the time he arrived on the shores of Ghana, had become obsessed with abortions." Emily sat up with recollection and Stephen, who still had his arm around her looked quizzically at her.

 "You remember my trip to North Kaneshie with him, don't you?" she asked Stephen. "Yes I do and you also remember how I hated it, don't you?" She smiled. "Well there was an incident on our journey back home which I considered very strange at the time. The mere mention of abortion by Dr Newman sent him into a fit. He choked and had to park the car to regain his composure. An oncoming vehicle nearly collided with ours as a result of his excessive anger. I was so alarmed that for days I couldn't get over it." 

"You did not mention it to me," Stephen accused her. 

"You hated to hear anything about him so how did you expect me to even broach the subject with you?" she countered. "The criminal!" Stephen fumed. 

"All right!" Kojo Ganyo cut in. "As I was saying, Dr Newman liked beautiful women but they, in a way, also negatively affected him because they constantly reminded him of Maya who was a university beauty queen during his student days. He met the late Rose when he went to the university to give a lecture on his pet subject, abortion. The young lady also happened to be that university's reigning beauty queen and he was struck by her exceptional beauty. He became attracted to her but the young lady was dating another student, Richie.

"Dr Newman used every arsenal at his disposal to wrestle Rose from the young man whom I learnt nearly committed suicide but for the intervention of the students' Christian Fellowship members who, I'm told, fasted and prayed for him. Each time Dr Newman competed with another person for a woman's attention, he gave everything he had to the fight. Someone had earlier taken his wife away from him and it destroyed him emotionally. He realised that money played a key role in that battle which he lost so he fought till the last drop of blood to win any woman he set his eyes on. Money is not spared." 

"I'm sure he planned to do the same thing to me with the tact connivance of Auntie Gloria but my God is bigger than a thousand new or old men," Stephen cut in and he and Kojo Ganyo laughed. 

Emily merely chuckled. 

"Unfortunately for the beautiful lady, she became pregnant and once more the accusations of infidelity started. Twice, the young lady had to go back to her parents at Akuse because Dr Newman never ceased accusing her of unfaithfulness. All his colleague doctors and friends who called on the couple came under his searchlight. A smile by Rose earned her a flirting accusation. Then, one day, the young lady died. Meanwhile, Rose was asthmatic so nobody suspected foul play. I intend to look further into that later. 

Now, this is the real disturbing part of my investigations. I decided to contact a gynaecologist friend for help. I sent some of the infertile women from Techiman to him for examination to find out about the possible causes of their infertility. It turned out later that all the women's wombs had been removed! I randomly selected six more women who had had no abortions but had been treated by Dr Newman and none of them had wombs! That was when the ladies let out that they had ceased menstruating after they returned from his clinic but they had not sought help for their problems because they knew about the curse. Your parents confided in me that even your aunt Ama suffered from the curse. Maame is not her biological daughter; she is her husband's daughter from a previous marriage." 

Emily's mouth dropped with amazement. 

"Yes, Pretty Lady," Kojo Ganyo nodded when he saw the expression on her face. "That was why your parents bundled you out of Techiman and would not let you set foot in the village. Even now they are scared you may not be able to bear children, although they sent you away from the village when you were a child." 

'I can see trouble looming in many families if these revelations are made public," Stephen pointed out. 

"Yes," Emily agreed. "Many women from the community who are childless may have some explanations to make to their husbands." 

'Why he has been picked up currently is not because of the crimes he committed in the villages; those are yet to be proven. He was arrested on drug charges. One of the couriers arrested at the airport yesterday mentioned him as his sponsor. How do you think the man was able to work for so many years gratis? He also, I'm told, still uses drugs," Kojo Ganyo said. 

Emily shook her head in disbelief. "You mean Dr Newman uses drugs? If he is in the drug business as a baron, I'll say that's possible, considering all that you are telling us about his past. But Dr Newman using drugs? No, that's not possible!" "Let's wait till the week is over because I learnt a search warrant has been issued to search his house and further charges may depend on what they find there," Kojo Ganyo assured her.

Emily was speechless. 

When she later returned to her room late afternoon, she spent the rest of her evening reading her Bible and praying for the man who had been her real benefactor. He might not be her choice of husband but Emily felt gratitude for the man whom God had used to transform her circumstances. Mrs Adams might have bungled their plan but she told herself that the two people had played a very significant role in her life, for which she had to be grateful.

At dawn the following morning, news reached the Adams household that Mrs Adams, together with Dr Newman, had been found dead in the latter's bedroom by his housekeeper. The workers in the household were stunned as they gathered in small groups on the compound.