The next morning, Temilade barely slept.
By six-thirty, she had already made coffee, abandoned half of it on the kitchen counter, and checked her phone more times than she cared to admit.
Nothing from Damilare.
Nothing from Femi.
Nothing from Bolanle.
That should have made her feel better.
It didn’t.
She stood by the window of her apartment and watched Lagos wake below her.
Cars moved in uneven lines.
Commercial buses forced themselves into gaps that barely existed.
Somewhere in the distance, a generator coughed into life.
Her mind returned to one sentence.
Do not trust the silence.
Damilare’s father had written it.
But why?
And what exactly had he known?
Temilade picked up her bag.
Whatever the answers were, she was tired of sitting in her apartment imagining them.
She was going to Yaba.
By the time she reached the property, Damilare was already there.
The old building looked different from the photographs in his father’s files.
Not newer.
Just altered.
A faded sign bearing the name of Chainsworth Holdings had been fixed near the entrance.
Temilade studied it.
“So this is the property?”
Damilare nodded.
“This is what’s left of it.”
A security guard approached them.
“You’re Mr. Akande?”
“Yes.”
The man looked at Temilade.
“And she?”
“She’s with me.”
The guard hesitated before stepping aside.
As they entered, Temilade noticed something immediately.
The building had been changed in places.
Some walls were newer than others.
Window spacing didn’t match.
Sections of the structure appeared to have been modified without completely erasing what had been there before.
She ran her eyes across the interior.
Damilare noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That doesn’t look like nothing.”
“Some parts have been altered.”
“How can you tell?”
“I’m an architect.”
“I know.”
She looked at him.
“Then why ask?”
“Because I wanted to hear you say it.”
She smiled faintly.
They continued deeper into the building.
Damilare opened the file he had brought with him.
“Chainsworth wants to move forward, but the title history isn’t clean enough.”
“Meaning?”
“The recent documents point in one direction. The older records point somewhere else.”
“Ownership?”
“Partly.”
He handed her a photocopy.
Temilade read through it.
Survey information.
Transfer references.
Names.
Dates.
Then she saw it.
Ademola Holdings.
Her eyes stopped.
Damilare noticed.
“That’s the name.”
“1995?”
“Yes.”
“Who owned it?”
“That’s the problem.”
He turned another page.
“The registered records don’t give us a clean answer. Ademola Holdings appears in the older documentation, but later transfers don’t line up neatly.”
“And our family?”
“Your family name appears in supporting records.”
“As owner?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
“A family representative.”
Temilade frowned.
“Representative of what?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She looked at the document again.
If her family had not owned the property, why had somebody represented them?
And why had that representation survived in the records for more than thirty years?
She handed the papers back.
“Who was the representative?”
Damilare hesitated.
“That’s one of the things I’m trying to establish.”
She studied his face.
“You don’t know.”
“I know enough to know that I don’t know enough.”
That answer sounded honest.
They moved towards the rear of the building.
Temilade stopped.
A section of wall had recently been plastered.
She ran her fingers lightly over it.
“Fresh.”
Damilare looked at her.
“You’re sure?”
“Very.”
“How fresh?”
“Recent enough that I wouldn’t trust anything hidden behind it.”
He gave her a look.
“That was oddly specific.”
“I’m an architect.”
“Right.”
They entered a smaller back office.
An old cabinet stood against the wall.
One drawer was locked.
Damilare crouched beside it.
The lock had scratches around it.
He didn’t touch it.
“Someone tried to open this.”
Temilade looked down.
“Recently?”
“Looks like it.”
The security guard appeared in the doorway.
“You should leave that.”
Damilare stood.
“Why?”
The man looked uncomfortable.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, but you’re warning me.”
The guard rubbed his chin.
“Some things are better not touched.”
Damilare smiled without humour.
“That’s usually what people say when they don’t want somebody asking questions.”
The guard looked at him.
“Or when they know the questions are not safe.”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then the guard walked away.
Temilade watched him go.
“Fear is information too,” Damilare said.
She turned towards him.
“Did you learn that in law school?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“From my father.”
Before she could answer, a man’s voice came from the corridor.
“Mr. Akande.”
They turned.
The man approaching them looked to be in his early forties.
He was neatly dressed in a dark shirt and trousers and carried a tablet in one hand.
He walked with the ease of somebody accustomed to entering places where other people waited for permission.
“Damilare Akande?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Kunle Akinwale.”
They shook hands.
Kunle looked briefly at Temilade.
“And you are?”
“Temilade.”
He paused for half a second.
“Temilade.”
There was something about the way he said her name that made her look at him again.
Damilare noticed it too.
Kunle smiled.
“I’m representing Chainsworth on the development side.”
Damilare nodded.
“We’ve spoken with your office.”
“Yes. And I understand the title review is taking longer than expected.”
“It should.”
Kunle raised an eyebrow.
“Why?”
“Because the history is complicated.”
Kunle glanced around the building.
“History usually is.”
“We need to establish the chain properly.”
“We need to move the project forward.”
“I understand.”
“Investors are waiting.”
“Then they will have to wait.”
Kunle’s smile remained, but his eyes hardened slightly.
“Lawyers.”
“Clients hire us to be inconvenient.”
Temilade almost laughed.
Kunle looked at her.
“And architects?”
“We try to stop buildings from falling down.”
That earned a genuine laugh from him.
“Fair enough.”
He tapped his tablet.
“The project is important. The area is changing.”
Temilade looked around the building.
“So you want to demolish this?”
“Eventually.”
“What happens to the old structure?”
“If the assessment says it has no practical value, it goes.”
She looked at the building again.
“Practical value isn’t the only kind of value.”
Kunle studied her.
“No. But somebody has to pay for sentiment.”
Damilare closed his folder.
“This isn’t about sentiment.”
“Then we’re in agreement.”
“It is about title.”
“Which is why I need the review completed.”
“You’ll get it when the records are clear.”
Kunle nodded.
“Paperwork can always be corrected.”
Temilade looked at him.
“Can history?”
The question hung between them.
Kunle’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
“History depends on who is telling it.”
Silence.
Then he glanced at Damilare.
“Some things are better left in the past.”
He turned and walked away.
Temilade watched him disappear through the doorway.
“He knew my family name,” she said.
Damilare nodded.
“I noticed.”
“I never gave it to him.”
“No.”
She looked towards the corridor.
“Who is he?”
“Kunle Akinwale.”
“I heard the name.”
“I didn’t.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Damilare understood.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
Then Temilade looked back at the old building.
The scratched lock.
The freshly plastered wall.
The thirty-year-old records.
And now a man who seemed to know something about her family that she didn’t.
For the first time, the Yaba property no longer felt like an old legal problem.
It felt like a place where someone had been trying to keep something hidden.
And they had just disturbed it.