After Segun’s call, Damilare drove towards his office.
The morning traffic had thickened, and neither of them said much.
Temilade kept thinking about the envelope.
It was still sealed.
Nineteen years.
Someone had protected it for all that time.
Now they knew where it was, but not why it had been left there.
“You’re sure Segun didn’t say he found the file?” she asked.
Damilare shook his head.
“No. Another reference to it.”
“So we still don’t know where the second file is.”
“No.”
He glanced at her.
“But we may know where to look next.”
By the time they reached his office, Segun was already waiting.
He stood beside the window with a thin file under his arm.
“You found something,” Damilare said.
“A reference.”
“That sounds familiar.”
Segun placed the file on the desk.
“Then this may sound familiar too.”
Inside was a photocopy of an old office inventory sheet.
The paper had yellowed along the edges, and several lines had faded almost beyond recognition.
Damilare bent over it.
At the bottom was a reference number.
He compared it with the notes from Babatunde’s file.
The numbers matched.
Temilade watched him.
“What does that mean?”
“The second file wasn’t mentioned only once.”
Segun nodded.
“It was moved.”
“Moved where?”
“That is what I’m trying to establish.”
He turned another page.
It was an old transfer register from Babatunde Akande’s practice.
One entry had been crossed out.
Beside it, someone had written:
Transferred under S.A.
reference.
Damilare stared at the initials.
“S.A.”
“Samuel Adebayo?”
“Possibly,” Segun said.
“But initials aren’t enough.”
He removed another sheet.
“This was attached to the register.”
It was a handwritten note.
Do not release the second file without confirming the identity of the child.
Temilade read it once.
Then again.
“What child?”
“I don’t know,” Segun said.
“There is no name, no date, and no indication of who wrote it.”
Damilare studied the paper.
“Whatever the file contained, someone’s identity mattered.”
“Could it have been connected to the property?” Temilade asked.
“Possibly.”
“To Samuel?”
“Possibly.”
She looked at the note.
“And the child?”
Damilare met her eyes.
“That is what we have to establish.”
Segun reached for the photograph and placed it beside the note.
The four people outside the Yaba property in December 1995 looked back at them.
Samuel Adebayo.
Tunde.
Mrs.
Akinwale.
The unidentified fourth man.
Temilade looked at the photograph.
“They weren’t all family.”
“No,” Segun said.
“They were connected to the transaction in different ways.”
He pointed to the correspondence. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“Samuel and Simi were husband and wife.”
Temilade looked at him.
“And Bolanle?”
“One of the older family records identifies Bolanle as Simi’s younger sister.”
The words were enough.
Temilade sat back.
Bolanle.
Simi.
The connection she had never been given.
Damilare continued carefully.
“The same records identify Mama Sade as their mother.”
Temilade said nothing.
The pieces were becoming difficult to keep separate.
If the child in the note had been Simi’s, Mama Sade would have been the child’s grandmother.
And Bolanle would have been her aunt.
But the note did not name the child.
That was the part they still had to prove.
Temilade looked at the photograph again.
“And Tunde?”
“Tunde was listed as a family representative in matters connected to the transaction,” Segun said.
“The records don’t establish that he owned the property or that he was Samuel’s business partner.”
“So he had authority to act for the family.”
“In relation to this matter, yes.”
Temilade nodded.
That was enough for now.
Segun opened another section of the file.
“There is one more connection.”
Damilare looked up.
“Where?”
“In a separate matter file from 1996.”
“Whose matter?”
“Ademola Holdings and another party.”
“Was it the Yaba property?”
“Yes. The dispute arose from the 1995 transaction.”
Segun placed a photocopy on the desk.
“The issue was money. Payments made during the transaction were questioned, and there was an allegation that funds had been diverted before the property documents were completed.”
“Who made the allegation?”
“I haven’t found the original complaint.”
“But you found the response.”
Segun nodded.
“It was attached to the correspondence in Babatunde’s office.”
Several paragraphs had faded.
One remained legible:
The matter shall be resolved privately, without further disclosure.
Temilade read it.
“Was it?”
“We don’t know.”
Damilare pointed towards the bottom.
“Who signed?”
The signature was almost completely faded.
Underneath it was a typed name.
Tunde Adebayo.
Damilare studied the page.
“Tunde was involved in the settlement.”
“That’s what the document shows,” Segun said.
“Not necessarily that he caused the problem.”
“No.”
Temilade looked at the remaining correspondence.
“Samuel’s name?”
Segun turned a page.
“There.”
Samuel’s name appeared in a paragraph concerning the questioned payments.
“He challenged them,” Segun said.
“Formally?”
“Not from what we’ve found. He raised the matter privately.”
Temilade looked at the photograph again.
“So he knew.”
“We have evidence that he knew something was wrong,” Damilare said.
“We don’t yet know everything he knew.”
Segun closed the file.
“And that brings us back to the second file.”
Damilare looked at him.
“The original isn’t in Babatunde’s surviving office records.”
“Can you trace the transfer?”
“I’m trying.”
“The trail?”
“Stops.”
For a moment, nobody spoke. This story is hosted at g.com.
Then Damilare said, “We need to separate what we can prove from what we suspect.”
Segun nodded.
“The family?”
“Not yet.”
“Chainsworth?”
“Not yet.”
Temilade looked between them.
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t know what either side knows,” Damilare said.
“And we don’t have the original documents yet.”
She thought of the messages she had received.
The warnings had stopped feeling like coincidence.
“You’ve seen what happened to Mrs. Akinwale,” she said.
“And now we’re finding references to a child.”
Damilare nodded.
“We preserve what we have and verify everything.”
Segun gathered the papers.
“What about the church envelope?”
“We leave it sealed.”
“Agreed.”
Temilade looked at him.
“You’re both certain?”
Segun nodded.
“Mrs. Akinwale left it sealed deliberately. Until we understand why, opening it could destroy something she intended to preserve.”
Damilare picked up the photograph.
“We need to establish who the child was before we decide what the note means.”
Temilade looked at him.
“And if the child was connected to Simi?”
Damilare didn’t answer immediately.
“If the evidence points to you,” he said, “we deal with that when we have proof.”
That was all.
No speculation.
No reassurance.
Just the possibility sitting between them.
Temilade reached for her bag.
“I need to speak to Bolanle.”
Damilare nodded.
“I think you do.”
She stood.
For years, Bolanle had been the one person whose place in her life had never required explanation.
Now there was a question between them.
Not yet an accusation.
Not yet an answer.
Just a question.
And Temilade knew she could no longer keep it to herself.
They left the office together.
Behind them, the old documents remained on Damilare’s desk.
Ahead of them was a conversation neither of them could postpone much longer.
Temilade did not sleep much that night.
Damilare’s last words kept returning to her.
I think you do.
She had told him she needed to speak to Bolanle.
He had not tried to stop her.
That was what stayed with her.
For most of her life, Bolanle had been the person who knew when to speak and when to remain silent.
Questions about Temilade’s childhood had always met careful boundaries.
Not lies exactly.
Just enough information to keep the conversation from going further.
Now those boundaries had begun to crack.
The old records had connected names that had been separated for years.
Simi.
Samuel.
Bolanle.
A child.
And a missing file.
Temilade turned in bed and stared at the ceiling.
She could not yet say what the note meant.
She could not say who the child was.
She could not say what the second file contained.
But one thing had changed.
The question was no longer somewhere inside an old document.
It had moved into her own life.
And tomorrow, she would ask Bolanle for the answer.