Victoria did not sleep that night. At four in the morning she sat alone in the kitchen with a glass of water and remembered Amara's name for the first time without trying to push it away.
Mrs. Eze had told her not to ask questions after Daniel's delivery.
"The mother became a problem," she had said.
Victoria had known something was wrong. She had known with the primitive certainty of a person choosing not to look directly at a fire because looking would make her responsible for calling for help. A week after Daniel's birth, Mrs. Eze admitted there had been an "accident."
Victoria screamed.
Threatened police.
Mrs. Eze laughed.
"And tell them what? That the baby you are presenting as your son was purchased through me? That your pregnancy was false? That your doctor falsified records? Go. I will come with you."
Victoria had stayed silent.
Every year afterward silence became harder to undo. Now Grace Williams had a daughter inside her house saying truth as if she already knew where to dig.
At nine, Victoria drove to Surulere without telling David. She passed the turning twice before entering it. Twenty-two years earlier, she had driven roads like this with an artificial belly under her dress and believed fear could justify almost anything if the consequence frightened her enough.
Now the same city looked ordinary. Children in uniform waited beside danfos; a woman argued over tomatoes; hawkers moved between idling cars while Victoria's air-conditioning kept the heat outside. Somewhere, Daniel was probably at work complaining about a design review.
Victoria wondered when a crime stopped feeling like the worst thing you had ever done and started feeling like the architecture of your life. She parked outside the bungalow and sat for one minute longer than necessary. Then she went in.
Mrs. Eze lived behind a rusting gate in a bungalow smaller than Victoria remembered. The older woman opened the door wearing a wrapper and an expression of irritation.
Then recognised her.
"You should not be here."
Victoria pushed past. "We have a problem."
"We have not had a problem in twenty-two years."
"Grace Williams."
Mrs. Eze stopped.
"Her daughter is in my house. Joyce Williams."
For the first time, the old midwife looked afraid.
Victoria saw it.
"You know the name."
"I know nothing."
"She is asking questions about Daniel."
Mrs. Eze closed the curtains before answering.
"Grace saw too much that night."
The room tilted slightly.
"What exactly did she see?"
"Enough."
"You told me there was no witness."
"I told you the problem was handled."
Victoria stared at her.
"Amara was not a problem. She was a mother."
Mrs. Eze gave a short laugh. "That conscience is twenty-two years late."
"I never asked you to kill her."
"No. You only asked me to steal her child."
Victoria flinched.
"I paid for an arrangement."
"You paid me so you would not have to know how it was arranged. That is what people like you pay for."
"What happened to Amara was your doing."
Mrs. Eze stepped closer. "And Daniel Adebayo happened because of yours. You wanted a boy. I got you one. You wore the stomach. You lied to your husband. You took the child into your arms and called yourself his mother. Do not come here twenty-two years later and pretend your hands are clean."
Victoria's eyes filled with tears she refused to shed. Outside, across the road, Joyce sat low in the driver's seat of a rented car.
A small directional recorder was connected to her phone. She had followed Victoria from Ikoyi after seeing her leave the house minutes after a tense call. The bungalow windows were partly open against the heat.
Joyce could not hear every word.
She heard enough.
Grace.
Amara.
The child.
I never asked you to kill her.
Her hands began to shake.
For five years her mother's story had been memory without proof. Now Victoria Adebayo had spoken the dead woman's name herself.
Joyce stopped recording only when Victoria left. Then she saw movement behind the curtain.
Mrs. Eze was looking directly toward the rented car.
Joyce ducked instinctively.
Too late.
When she looked again, the curtain had closed. Inside the bungalow, Mrs. Eze stood very still.
Grace had finally spoken.
Victoria was frightened.
And somebody else was digging.
Survival, Mrs. Eze saw, might require more than silence.