Temilade had barely slept.
The previous day’s discovery had followed her into the night.
The second file.
The archive register.
The receiving initial.
The 1997 correspondence.
None of it had given her an answer.
But for the first time, the investigation had given her something more useful than a mystery.
It had given her a direction.
Trace the initial.
Trace the correspondence.
Find out where the material had gone.
Temilade sat on the edge of her bed, staring at her phone.
There were no new messages.
She opened her notes from the previous day.
The last line she had written before going home was still there:
The initial is not an answer.
It is a place to begin.
She read it twice.
Then locked the phone.
She had spent so much of her life believing that the truth about Samuel was hidden somewhere.
Now she was beginning to understand that perhaps it had never been contained in one place.
It might have been scattered.
A register entry here.
A letter there.
A witness statement.
A missing page.
A reference number that appeared once and then disappeared.
She dressed and left.
By the time she reached the office, Damilare was already there.
Segun was standing beside the desk with several folders open.
Temilade stopped at the doorway.
“You look like you found something.”
Segun glanced at Damilare.
“Maybe.”
Temilade walked in.
“That’s becoming everybody’s favourite word.”
Damilare gave a faint smile.
“It is a useful word when we don’t know enough yet.”
“Then tell me what you found.”
Segun pulled a sheet from one of the folders.
“Something from Babatunde Akande’s records.”
Temilade took it.
At first, it looked ordinary.
An inventory page.
Several lines of handwritten entries.
Dates.
Reference numbers.
Descriptions.
Then she saw it.
Her eyes stopped.
Cassette — S.A.
She looked up.
“What is this?”
Segun pointed to the line beneath it.
Temilade read.
Do not play until the original file is found.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Damilare watched her carefully.
“You remember the reference?”
“The cassette.”
“Yes.”
“I thought it was only an old inventory reference.”
“So did we.”
Temilade looked at the page again.
“When was this recorded?”
“The original inventory entry is dated 1996.”
“Where was it kept?”
“That’s the problem.”
Segun turned another page.
“There is a later notation.”
He placed the document beside the first.
Temilade read it.
Transferred for safekeeping.
Below it was a date.
Nothing else.
No destination.
No name.
No receiving signature.
Temilade’s fingers remained on the edge of the paper.
“Transferred where?”
“We don’t know.”
“By whom?”
“We don’t know.”
“Why?”
Segun shook his head.
“Nothing here says.”
Temilade looked at Damilare.
“This is the same period as the 1997 correspondence.”
“Yes.”
“And the movement records we were tracing yesterday.”
“Yes.”
She looked back at the page.
The cassette suddenly felt different.
Not because of what it might contain.
Because it had moved.
Someone had recorded it.
Someone had later recorded that it had been transferred.
And somewhere between those two entries, a piece of the trail had disappeared.
Temilade sat down.
“Is there anything else?”
Segun nodded.
“There is a cross-reference.”
He opened another folder.
“This was found while we were checking the movement records.”
Temilade leaned forward.
The reference number matched the one connected to the 1997 correspondence.
Below it was a short handwritten notation.
Audio material transferred with related records.
She read it again.
“Audio material.”
“Yes.”
“Not a cassette.”
“Correct.”
“So we can’t say this definitely refers to the cassette.”
“No.” This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Temilade nodded.
That distinction mattered.
She had learnt that the hard way.
A name was not automatically an identity.
A reference was not automatically a connection.
A notation was not proof of what someone had intended.
And a possibility, no matter how compelling, was still only a possibility.
Damilare watched her.
“You were about to say something.”
“I was thinking that the timing is difficult to ignore.”
“That’s different from saying the records prove they’re connected.”
“I know.”
She looked at the cassette entry again.
“S.A.”
Segun said quietly, “It could mean Samuel Adebayo.”
Temilade’s eyes remained on the paper.
“It could.”
“But it could also mean something else.”
“Yes.”
Damilare nodded.
“We don’t have enough to make that identification.”
Temilade leaned back.
She had expected the investigation to become easier once documents started appearing.
Instead, every document seemed to create another question.
“Can we listen to the cassette?”
Damilare shook his head.
“Not yet.”
“Because of the instruction?”
“Partly.”
He pointed to the line.
Do not play until the original file is found.
“The original second file hasn’t been recovered.”
Temilade’s expression tightened.
“So the instruction still stands.”
“We shouldn’t ignore it.”
“Even if the cassette could tell us what happened?”
“Especially then.”
She understood.
If the cassette was genuine, whatever was recorded on it could be important.
But they still did not know whether it was connected to Samuel.
They did not know whether it belonged to the second file.
They did not know who had written the instruction.
They did not know whether the instruction referred to this particular cassette or to another recording.
The questions were multiplying.
But at least they were now the right questions.
Temilade stood.
“Let’s go back to the archive.”
Segun gathered the documents.
They spent the next hour examining the older movement records.
The process was slow.
Painfully slow.
Dates were compared against reference numbers.
Initials were checked against earlier entries.
Several pages contained handwritten additions that were difficult to read.
Then Segun stopped.
“Wait.”
Temilade turned.
“What?”
He had opened a movement register and was tracing a sequence with his finger.
“Look at these entries.”
She moved beside him.
Then another reference.
The sequence continued.
Then stopped.
Segun pointed to the edge of the page.
“This is where the next entry should be.”
Temilade looked closer.
The page had been torn.
Not completely removed.
But enough was missing to break the sequence.
“Can we find the corresponding reference somewhere else?”
“That’s what I’m checking.”
Damilare took photographs of the page.
“Don’t assume the missing portion concerns the cassette.”
Temilade glanced at him.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were thinking it.”
“Maybe.”
Damilare smiled slightly.
“That’s progress.”
She smiled despite herself.
For a moment, the pressure eased.
Then Segun spoke again.
“I found another reference.”
They turned.
He had located it in a separate index.
The number matched the 1997 correspondence trail.
Temilade’s expression changed.
“What does it say?”
Segun read the notation.
“Audio material transferred with related records.”
Temilade looked at Damilare.
“That’s the same wording.”
“Yes.”
“Where were the related records transferred?”
Segun shook his head.
“That part isn’t here.”
“Then what do we have?”
Segun thought for a moment.
“A record that something described as audio material was transferred with other material connected to the same reference.”
Temilade nodded.
“That’s all?”
“That’s all we can prove from this entry.”
She looked at the page again.
It was frustrating.
But it was also useful.
The trail was no longer only about a missing file.
There was now a separate movement question.
Something had been transferred.
The archive had recorded it.
But the destination was absent.
Damilare closed the folder.
“We need the external reference.”
Temilade looked at him.
“Meaning?”
“Whatever institution, office, storage facility or private record holder received material under that reference.”
Segun nodded. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“If we can identify the destination, we may be able to find the next movement.”
Temilade looked down at the cassette notation.
“Then that’s where we go next.”
“Not yet,” Damilare said.
She frowned.
“What?”
“We document everything first.”
He tapped the folder.
“We don’t chase the story ahead of the records.”
Temilade was quiet.
Then she nodded.
He was right.
That was how mistakes happened.
A compelling clue appeared, and suddenly every surrounding detail began to look like confirmation.
She opened her notebook.
At the top of a fresh page, she wrote:
CASSETTE — S.A.
Then underneath:
KNOWN:
She paused.
She wrote:
Listed in the 1996 inventory.
Then:
Later notation: transferred for safekeeping, 1997.
Then:
Cross-reference: audio material transferred with related records.
She stopped.
After a moment, she added:
Destination unknown.
Then she drew a second heading.
NOT KNOWN:
She wrote:
Who S.A.
refers to.
Whether the cassette is connected to Samuel.
Whether the cassette is connected to the second file.
Who transferred it?
Where it was transferred.
Who wrote the instruction?
She stared at the list.
It was longer than the first.
But for once, that did not discourage her.
It gave the investigation shape.
Damilare looked over her shoulder.
“That’s the right way to approach it.”
Temilade closed the notebook.
“Knowing what we don’t know.”
“Exactly.”
She slipped the notebook into her bag.
Before leaving, she looked once more at the cassette reference.
There was something unsettling about it.
Not because it proved anything.
It proved very little.
But because it showed that an object from the old investigation had survived inside the documentary trail.
Someone had recorded its existence.
Someone had later recorded its movement.
And then the record had stopped.
The unanswered question was no longer simply what had happened to Samuel.
It was what had happened to everything surrounding him.
The documents.
The recordings.
The property records.
The second file.
The people who had handled them.
The people who had chosen what to record and what not to record.
Temilade had once imagined that finding the truth would mean discovering one missing piece.
Now she understood that the truth might be a chain.
And if one link was missing, she would have to find the next one before she could understand the whole.
She was about to leave when her phone vibrated.
A message from Bolanle.
Temilade opened it.
She is waiting.
Temilade stared at the words.
For a moment, she did not move.
She knew exactly who Bolanle meant.
Simi.
Her mother.
The woman whose existence had once been a question.
The woman whose voice had already changed the meaning of the investigation.
Temilade put the phone away.
Damilare noticed.
“Simi?”
She nodded.
“What did she say?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why do you look like that?”
Temilade looked toward the closed archive door.
“Because I know there are things I still need to ask her.”
Damilare did not press.
She was grateful.
The meeting with Simi had already happened.
But the consequences of what Simi had told her were only beginning to settle.
Samuel had known she existed.
Samuel had made choices.
Simi had lived with the consequences of those choices.
And somewhere in the documentary trail, a recording might still exist.
A recording whose contents they had not heard.
A recording whose identity they had not yet proved.
A recording whose destination remained unknown.
Temilade picked up her bag.
“Let’s find the transfer destination first.”
Damilare nodded.
“And then?”
She looked at the notebook.
“Then we find out what happened to the audio material.”
She stopped at the door.
“And eventually, we find out who S.A. was.”
Damilare held her gaze.
“Carefully.”
Temilade nodded.
She had learnt that lesson already.
The truth was no longer simply something she wanted.
It was something she would have to approach one piece at a time.
Because knowing the truth could change everything.
And sometimes, the cost of knowing was not what the truth revealed.
It was how many unanswered questions remained after you found it.