The morning after the documents were submitted, Temilade woke earlier than usual.
For several seconds, she remained still, staring at the ceiling.
Nothing had changed.
The documents had been submitted.
The questions had been recorded.
The people involved had been contacted.
Yet the feeling that had followed her home the previous evening was still there.
Something remained unfinished.
She got out of bed, showered, dressed, and made herself a cup of tea.
She barely touched it.
By the time she left the house, Lagos was already awake.
Buses pushed through traffic.
Hawkers moved between vehicles.
Danfo horns competed with impatient drivers, and somewhere beyond the walls of the compound, a generator coughed to life.
The city had no interest in the past.
Temilade did.
By the time she reached Damilare’s office, she had already opened her notebook twice.
The same questions were still there.
Samuel.
Simi.
Bolanle.
The Yaba property.
The disputed payments.
The missing second file.
And the question she had been trying not to ask too often:
What happened to Samuel after he left the property?
She entered the office and found Damilare already there.
He looked up.
“You came early.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
He studied her face for a moment.
“Because of the documents?”
“Because of what they don’t explain.”
Damilare leaned back in his chair.
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. Documents can tell you what happened on paper. They don’t always tell you what happened to people.”
Temilade opened her notebook.
“Then we need to find out what happened to the people.”
Before he could answer, her phone vibrated.
A message from Damilare.
She looked up at him.
“You just texted me?”
“I wanted you to read it before we started.”
She opened the message.
We need to talk before you go to the office.
She looked at him.
“We’re already in the office.”
“I know.”
“Then why send it?”
“Because I wanted you to know something before I said it.”
Temilade closed the message.
“What is it?”
Damilare picked up his phone.
“Segun found something.”
Her expression changed.
“What?”
“Not enough to explain anything.”
“Then what did he find?”
Damilare hesitated.
“A reference.”
“To what?”
“1997”.
Temilade stared at him.
“1997?”
He nodded.
“It appears in the archive trail connected to the old matter.”
“Samuel?”
“We don’t know.”
She closed her notebook.
“Then let’s see it.”
Damilare nodded.
“That’s what I thought you’d say.”
A few minutes later, Segun arrived carrying a thin folder.
He placed it carefully on the desk.
“I checked the archive index again.”
Temilade leaned forward.
“What did you find?”
Segun opened the folder.
The first page contained a photocopy of an old record.
At the top was a heading:
PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE
Beneath it was a brief description.
CORRESPONDENCE — EXTERNAL REPRESENTATIVE
Temilade read it twice.
“No name.”
“No.”
“No company.”
“No.”
“No address.”
Segun shook his head.
“Nothing.”
Damilare examined the page.
“Date?”
“1997”.
Temilade looked at him.
“That’s after Samuel disappeared.” This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
“Yes.”
“What does the correspondence relate to?”
“The reference connects it to the old matter.”
“The Yaba property?”
“That appears to be the connection.”
“Appears?”
Segun nodded.
“The archive entry doesn’t spell it out.”
Damilare looked at him.
“So we have a 1997 reference connected to the matter, but no identified sender, recipient, or representative.”
“Correct.”
Temilade took a breath.
“Why was it returned?”
Segun looked down at the page.
“That’s the problem.”
“What problem?”
“The entry says it was returned to the external representative.”
“Which representative?”
“There is no name.”
“Who authorised the return?”
“Not recorded.”
“Who received it?”
“Not recorded.”
Temilade leaned back.
“Then we’re looking at a record that tells us something happened without telling us who was involved.”
Damilare nodded.
“That’s exactly what we’re looking at.”
Segun turned another page.
“There is something else.”
Temilade looked at him.
“What?”
“The reference appears to have a related follow-up entry.”
Damilare’s expression tightened.
“Where?”
“Same archive section. Another reference number.”
“Does it contain a name?”
“No.”
“An address?”
“No.”
“Company?”
“No.”
Temilade frowned.
“What does it say?”
Segun looked at the notation.
“Follow-up correspondence.”
“From the same year?”
“Yes. 1997.”
Damilare held out his hand.
Segun passed him the page.
Damilare studied the reference.
“This could be important.”
“Could be,” Temilade said.
He looked at her.
She shrugged.
“We’ve learned not to turn possibilities into facts.”
A faint smile crossed his face.
“Good.”
Temilade looked down at her notebook.
“What exactly do we know?”
Damilare answered slowly.
“Let’s separate what the records establish from what we’re assuming.”
She wrote.
WHAT WE KNOW
1995 — Samuel challenged the financial figures.
1995 — Samuel refused to sign until the figures were reconciled.
1996 — The matter was handled through a private settlement.
1996 — A second file was collected.
She paused.
Damilare continued.
“The original connected to the collection was not returned.”
She wrote it down.
Then she added:
Samuel was last reported in connection with the property before his disappearance.
She looked up.
“What about the unidentified man?”
Damilare was quiet for a moment.
“We know there was another man associated with events around the time Samuel disappeared.”
“Not who he was.”
“No.”
“Not why he was there.”
“No.”
Temilade wrote that down too.
Then:
1997 — Private correspondence connected to the old matter existed.
1997 — The correspondence was returned to an unidentified external representative.
She stared at the list.
“What don’t we know?”
Damilare gestured toward the opposite page.
She turned it.
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW
Who warned Samuel?
Who was the unidentified man?
What happened after Samuel was last seen?
Who collected the second file?
Who the external representative was.
What the 1997 correspondence contained.
Why it was returned.
Temilade looked at the page for several seconds.
Then she added another question.
Why was there a related follow-up correspondence?
She stopped.
After a moment, she added one final question:
Whether any of these people or events were connected.
Damilare read the list.
“That’s the important question.”
“Because they could all be connected?”
“Because we don’t know whether they were.”
Temilade looked at him.
“You really won’t let me make the story easier.”
“No.”
She smiled faintly.
“Good.”
For a moment, the room was quiet.
Temilade looked at the two pages.
The list of what they knew was beginning to grow.
But so was the list of what remained unanswered.
She had once believed that finding the truth meant finding one missing document.
Now she understood that it might be more complicated than that.
A document could point to another document.
A reference could point to another reference.
A name could disappear while the transaction remained.
And sometimes the most important evidence was not what a record contained.
It was what the record showed had happened to it.
She looked again at the 1997 reference.
“What do you think happened?”
Damilare shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t have a theory?”
“I have possibilities.”
“Such as?”
“That the correspondence was part of routine follow-up.”
“And the other possibility?”
“That someone was trying to keep the matter moving without putting a name to it.”
Temilade studied him.
“Which one do you believe?”
“I don’t.”
She nodded.
“Fair enough.”
Segun looked at the documents again.
“I can trace the reference further.”
“How?”
“By checking the movement records.”
“What would those show?”
“Who handled the correspondence? Where was it transferred? When it was returned. Whether another department received it.”
Temilade leaned forward.
“And if the movement record has a name?”
“Then we have something concrete.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we know that too.”
Damilare nodded.
“Do it.”
Segun gathered the papers.
Before he left, Temilade stopped him.
“Segun.”
He turned.
“Don’t just look for names.”
He waited.
“Look for changes in the record. Crossed-out numbers. Different handwriting. Transfer notes. Anything that tells us how the reference moved.”
Segun nodded.
“I understand.”
He left.
Temilade remained seated.
“Movement records,” she said quietly.
Damilare looked at her.
“If something was returned, somebody had to handle it first.”
“That’s reasonable.”
“Not a conclusion.”
“Exactly.”
She closed her notebook.
Outside the office, Lagos continued as though nothing had changed.
Traffic moved.
Phones rang.
People hurried through the streets.
But inside the room, the past had opened another door.
Not to the second file.
Not yet.
To something that had happened after the matter had supposedly been settled.
A record from 1997.
A private correspondence.
An unidentified external representative.
A related follow-up reference.
And somewhere in that trail, there might be another reference.
Temilade looked at Damilare.
“Let’s follow it.”
He nodded.
“Carefully.”
She picked up her notebook.
This time, she did not write a conclusion.
She wrote only one line:
TRACE THE 1997 REFERENCE.
Then she closed the notebook.
The silence was still there.
But now it had a direction.