I was at a party when I met Kweku. Mercy and Charity and June were dressed up in colourful trousersuits and wore sticky red lipstick. Mercy pointed Kweku out to me on the dancefloor. ‘He’s new, just arrived from the villages in the North.’ I looked at his hard farmer’s body, bopping to the beat. His friend said something and he threw back his head and laughed, his white, even teeth flashing in the darkness.

But then I saw the crowd was closing in, as though a show was about to start. And Kweku, punching him again. The skinny thief was sprawled on the ground now, his glazed eyes rolling back in hollow sockets, my handbag forgotten in the dust. Another man joined the brawl and another, and another. Women were screaming, but I couldn’t tell if they were cheering or wailing. I stepped forward, but it was already over. Kweku pushed his way out of the circle and came back to me, his face dusty now, a small cut above his right eyebrow. He held something white in his hand, which he held out to me. My bag, a few drops of blood on the strap, but otherwise untouched. I didn’t move.

‘Kweku,’ I began, then stopped. People were walking away now, the thief seeming to sink into the dusty street. ‘Kweku, there were only a few cedis in my purse’. He looked at me quizzically, then back at the dead man. He shrugged. ‘We do not tolerate thieves here,’ he said simply, holding out the soiled bag again. ‘I don’t want it,’ I said. I couldn’t touch it, I couldn’t even look at it. Kweku seemed more puzzled than offended. ‘I got it back for you.’

I turned back the way we’d come. ‘Goodbye, Kweku,’ I said.

I knew I would never see him again. I was going to go to London after all and suddenly I couldn’t wait.