By the time they returned to Lagos Island, Ade Senior had called Kolade six times. Kolade ignored the first five. On the sixth, he answered. Amara sat beside him in the back of the car, looking deliberately out of the window while every part of her listened.
“Yes, sir.”
A pause.
“No. I’m with the auditor.”
Another pause, longer this time.
“I authorized her access.”
Whatever Ade said next made Kolade’s expression change.
“No. I will not bring the folder to your office.”
Amara turned then. Kolade was looking straight ahead.
“It is now part of the forensic engagement.”
The voice through the phone rose enough that Amara could hear sound without words.
Kolade’s reply remained quiet. “If there is context, you can provide it formally.”
He ended the call before his father did. For several seconds the only noise was traffic.
“That went well,” Amara said.
Kolade laughed once. “You have an unusual definition of well.”
“What did he want?”
“The folder.”
“Does he know what is in it?”
“He asked whether you had reached the Malta instructions.”
Amara stopped moving. There it was. Proof that the chairman was not reacting to a vague historical audit. He knew exactly where the trail went.
“Then he knows about Greco Maritime.”
“Maybe.”
“No.” She turned fully toward him. “Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Giving your father the benefit of uncertainty after the facts have stopped earning it.”
Kolade’s mouth tightened.
“You asked me to investigate independently,” she continued. “That means I cannot spend the next six weeks dragging you toward conclusions you are emotionally unwilling to approach.”
“I am approaching them.”
“You are standing beside them and refusing to name them.”
He looked at her then, anger finally surfacing.
“You think this is easy because the man in those documents is not the man who taught you to drive.”
Amara held his gaze.
“No. I think it is difficult precisely because he is.”
The anger went out of him almost immediately. She did not soften.
“Your relationship with him matters. Your mother matters. Your memories matter. None of them change what the documents say.”
Kolade looked down at his hands.
“I know.”
“Then act like you know.”
The words were harsher than she intended. But something about the last twenty-four hours had made politeness feel like another kind of concealment. They said little else before reaching the office. At reception, Kolade stopped her.
“My father is going to try to narrow the audit.”
“He already has.”
“No. I mean formally. Board level.”
Amara shifted the folder beneath her arm. “Then I leave.”
“You would walk?”
“If the scope is compromised, yes.”
Even now, even with everything inside that folder, the answer came easily. Her work was useful only if the conclusion belonged to the evidence rather than the client. Kolade studied her for several seconds.
“Stay.”
“That depends on you.”
He nodded.
The board meeting was scheduled for five. By six-twenty, Kolade had preserved the original engagement by one vote. Amara learned that from his assistant, not from him. She also learned that he had threatened to resign as managing director if the board interfered with the forensic scope after authorizing it. When he finally came downstairs, his tie was gone.
“You could have told me you were putting your job on the line,” she said.
“Would it have changed what you did?”
“No.”
“Then I did not see the relevance.”
The answer irritated her and impressed her in equal measure. She looked at him more carefully.
“You meant it.”
“What?”
“When you said you wanted the truth.”
Kolade’s expression did not change much. “I’m trying to.”
That was not the same as certainty.
Amara trusted it more.