The following morning, Bayo arrived at the Surulere office before most of the staff.
The city was already awake.
From the road outside came the familiar mixture of engines, horns and voices.
A danfo pulled away from the junction with a burst of smoke.
A woman selling akara arranged freshly fried pieces into a metal tray while calling to passing commuters.
Somewhere farther down the street, a generator coughed into life.
Bayo stood by the window with a cup of coffee in his hand.
On his desk lay three documents.
The first was the old permit.
7A-214.
The second was the approval record bearing Balogun’s confirmed signature.
The third was the transportation reference Tope had found the previous evening.
He looked at them again.
The signature had answered one question.
It had created several others.
His phone rang.
“Tope.”
“I’m already downstairs.”
Bayo looked at the clock.
“Come up.”
A few minutes later, she entered carrying a brown file.
“I found it.”
Bayo looked at her.
“Found what?”
“The archive reference.”
She placed the file on his desk.
“The old transport records from Marina.”
Bayo opened it.
Inside was a photocopy of a handwritten route sheet and a typed administrative index.
Tope pointed to the index.
“Permit number.”
His eyes moved down the page.
Then stopped.
7A-214.
Beside it:
CRESTLINE LOGISTICS.
And beneath that was a route description.
Bayo read it twice.
“Apapa.”
“Yes.”
“Industrial Waterfront”.
“Yes.”
“Elegushi Storage Yard.”
Tope nodded.
“And Ikorodu.”
Bayo looked at her.
“That is a long route.”
“Long enough.”
He studied the dates.
The movement had been authorised for a specific period.
Temporary storage was listed at Elegushi.
Forty-eight hours.
“Why would material coming from Apapa go through Elegushi before Ikorodu?”
“We don’t know.”
“Was there a reason?”
“Not on this copy.”
Bayo turned the page.
There was a handwritten note in the margin.
ROUTE CHANGE APPROVED.
Below it was a signature.
The initials were faint.
A.
ADEYEMI
Bayo leaned back.
“Tope.”
“I saw it.”
“That’s the same name.”
“The same name we found yesterday.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
Bayo tapped the paper.
“We still don’t know whether it’s the same person.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
She nodded.
He read the route again.
Apapa.
Industrial Waterfront.
Elegushi.
Ikorodu.
A route was more than a line on paper.
It told them where a vehicle had been expected to go.
It told them where something had been loaded, moved, stored or transferred.
But it did not tell them what actually happened.
That was the problem.
“We need the original.”
“I thought you’d say that.”
The old transport archive was in Marina.
Getting there took longer than Bayo expected.
Traffic had tightened around the island as the morning advanced.
Commercial buses pushed forward impatiently while private cars competed for every available gap.
When they finally reached the old government complex, Bayo parked outside and looked up at the weathered building.
The structure had once been imposing.
Now parts of the exterior showed years of rain, dust and neglect.
Inside, the corridors smelt of paper.
Old paper.
The kind of smell that belonged to records nobody had opened in years.
A records officer introduced himself as Hassan.
“You’re looking for a permit?”
“An old transport movement,” Bayo said.
Hassan looked at the reference.
“Seven-A-two-one-four?”
“Yes.”
He checked the register.
Then another.
Then disappeared into a back room.
Bayo and Tope waited.
Ten minutes passed.
Then twenty.
Finally, Hassan returned carrying a thin grey file.
“This is what we have.”
Bayo opened it.
The original movement register was inside.
The handwriting was faded, but the details were clear enough.
PERMIT 7A-214
ROUTE: APAPA — INDUSTRIAL WATERFRONT — ELEGUSHI STORAGE YARD — IKORODU
Bayo looked at Hassan.
“Is this the complete route?”
“For this record, yes.”
“What does ‘Industrial Waterfront’ mean?”
Hassan shrugged.
“It may have been the receiving or temporary handling location.”
“Which waterfront?”
Hassan looked at the page.
“There were several industrial areas along the waterfront.”
“So the record doesn’t identify it?”
“Not clearly.”
Bayo nodded.
“What about the route change?”
Hassan turned the page.
“There.”
A small notation appeared beside the route.
CHANGE APPROVED — A.
ADEYEMI.
“Do you know who A.
Adeyemi was?”
Hassan smiled.
“Not from this.”
“Can you find out?”
“Maybe.”
“How?”
“Older personnel records.
Administrative files.
But that will take time.”
“How much time?”
Hassan looked at him.
“You people always ask that question.”
Bayo smiled faintly.
“Occupational hazard.”
Hassan laughed.
“I can search the index.
But don’t expect miracles.”
“We’ll take whatever you find.”
Hassan turned back to the file.
“There is something else.”
Bayo waited.
Hassan pointed to a small mark beside the route-change notation.
“See this?”
Bayo leaned closer.
The mark was almost invisible.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you identify it?”
“Not from this copy.”
Bayo nodded.
“Then we’ll leave it unidentified.”
Hassan looked at him.
“You’re careful.”
“I have learned to be.”
They left the archive shortly after noon.
The heat outside was heavier than it had been when they arrived.
Bayo stood beside the car while Tope checked her notes.
“So”, she said, “we now have the route.”
“We have a recorded route.”
“Fair enough.”
“We still don’t know whether the vehicle followed it.”
“True.”
“We don’t know what was carried.”
“True.”
“We don’t know why the route changed.”
“True.”
“And we don’t know who A.
Adeyemi was.”
Tope closed her notebook.
“That’s four things you don’t know.”
“Five.”
She looked at him.
“The final destination.”
She smiled.
“Five.”
Bayo opened the driver’s door.
“Let’s find the next record.”
They stopped briefly at a small roadside restaurant in Marina.
Bayo ordered rice and grilled fish.
Tope ordered beans and plantain.
For several minutes they ate without discussing the investigation.
The restaurant was crowded with office workers.
A radio played quietly from somewhere behind the counter.
A Fuji song drifted through the noise of plates and conversation.
Bayo watched people moving around him.
Lagos did not pause because someone was investigating something.
The city carried on.
People went to work.
Children went to school.
Traders opened their stalls.
Drivers fought traffic.
Millions of ordinary lives continued while old decisions made fifteen years earlier remained buried inside government files.
Tope put down her spoon.
“You’re thinking again.”
“I usually do.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Bayo looked at her.
“You think this is beginning to affect you?”
She considered the question.
“I’m not sure.”
“You can step away.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
She picked up her water.
“But I’m not stepping away.”
Bayo said nothing.
She looked at him.
“You’re not the only one who wants to know where this leads.”
He nodded.
“Fair enough.”
They drove toward the older commercial district later that afternoon.
Bayo wanted to verify something before they returned to the office.
The address connected to A.
It was not enough to establish who Adeyemi worked for.
But it gave them somewhere to look.
They found the building after asking twice.
It was older than Bayo expected.
The caretaker, an elderly man named Eze, sat beneath a shaded veranda reading a newspaper.
When Tope showed him the name, his eyes narrowed.
“Adeyemi?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“M.
A.
Adeyemi.”
Eze thought for a while.
“I have heard the name.”
“Do you remember him?”
“Maybe.”
Bayo exchanged a glance with Tope.
Eze continued.
“Many people used this building.”
“Was he involved in transportation?”
“I cannot say.”
“Did he work for Crestline?”
Eze shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see him carrying documents?”
Eze smiled.
“Everybody carried documents.”
“What about a brown folder?”
The old man laughed.
“Half of Lagos carries brown folders.”
Bayo smiled despite himself.
“Fair point.”
Eze returned to his newspaper.
“I remember people coming and going.
Vehicles.
Drivers.
Some men used to wait outside.
But that was a long time ago.”
“Do you remember route instructions?”
“Sometimes.”
“Who gave them?”
“I don’t know.”
Bayo thanked him.
As they walked back to the car, Tope shook her head.
“Not much.”
“Not nothing.”
“What did you get?”
Bayo looked at the building.
“Confirmation that memory has limits.”
“That is not very useful.”
“It is.”
“How?”
“Because we’re learning what we cannot safely claim.”
She looked at him.
He continued.
“We have a name.
We have a route change.
We have a record that connects them.
But we don’t yet have the person.”
Tope nodded slowly.
“That’s the difference between evidence and assumption.”
“Exactly.”
Back at the Surulere office, Bayo went directly to the whiteboard.
He erased nothing.
Instead, he added another section beneath the existing notes.
PHYSICAL MOVEMENT
APAPA
↓
INDUSTRIAL WATERFRONT
↓
ELEGUSHI STORAGE YARD
↓
IKORODU
Beside the route he wrote:
ROUTE CHANGE — A.
ADEYEMI
He stepped back.
Then added:
WHY?
Tope stood behind him.
“We’re getting closer.”
“Maybe.”
She looked at the board.
“What do you think happened?”
Bayo turned toward her.
“I don’t know.”
“You have no theory?”
“I have several.”
“Which one do you believe?”
“None yet.”
She smiled.
“That sounds frustrating.”
“It is.”
Bayo looked again at the route.
The paper had given them something the earlier records had not.
Movement.
Not just names.
Not just companies.
Not just money.
A path.
But the path still ended somewhere they could not see.
He picked up the marker.
Under the route he wrote:
FIND WHERE THE RECORD STOPS.
Then he circled IKORODU.
“We go there tomorrow.”
Tope nodded.
“And we find out what happened after the transfer.”
Bayo capped the marker.
“Exactly.”
Outside, Lagos continued to roar.
Inside the office, another piece of the old story had moved into place.
Not enough to explain what happened.
But enough to show them where to look next.