“That explains it.”
“No.”
Dapo shook his head.
“It describes it.”
Fari studied his father.
“What about the waitress?”
“That is what interests me.”
“She defended you.”
“She did not know me.”
“That helps.”
“That is exactly why it matters.”
Dapo walked toward the window.
“Pull her employment file.”
“Do not tell the restaurant who I am yet.”
“And review every guest complaint Meridian has received in the last twelve months.”
Fari nodded.
“What are you looking for?”
“The truth.”
“About one rude dinner?”
Dapo turned.
“No.”
“About what the company looks like when nobody recognizes the owner.”
The employment file reached Dapo the following morning.
Nkiru Eze.
Thirty years old.
Bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Management.
Three years of supervisory experience at a hotel in Abuja.
Joined Meridian seven months earlier as a waitress.
Excellent customer reviews.
Two internal commendations.
No disciplinary record.
Fari frowned.
“Why is someone with supervisory experience waiting tables?”
The HR director checked her notes.
“Applied for floor supervisor.”
“Was not selected.”
“Why?”
“Previous employment gap.”
“Family financial difficulties.”
Dapo looked up.
“What difficulties?”
The HR director hesitated.
Fari noticed.
“Say it.”
“Her husband is Tobechukwu Eze.”
The room changed.
Dapo recognized the name.
Fari did too.
“Toby Eze?”
“Yes.”
“Finance division?”
“Former finance division.”
The HR director spoke carefully.
“He was dismissed eight months ago after the forty-two-million-naira vendor fraud investigation.”
Dapo looked at Nkiru’s photograph again.
The woman who had defended him at risk to her own job was married to a man Akinwale Group had publicly accused of stealing from it.
“Did she disclose the relationship?”
“Yes.”
“Any evidence she was involved?”
“None.”
“Then why was her management application rejected?”
The HR director became uncomfortable.
“Nobody wrote that it was because of her husband.”
“That was not my question.”
Silence.
Dapo leaned back.
“Find the original fraud file.”
Fari said:
“Dad.”
“What?”
“That case was closed.”
“So was last night’s restaurant shift.”
Dapo looked at him.
“Apparently we are reopening things.”
Nkiru did not know any of this.
Saturday morning began with her calculating whether two weeks without Meridian wages would put their rent behind again.
The answer was yes.
She sat at the small dining table in the apartment she shared with Toby in Surulere.
Bills covered one side.
Rent.
Electricity.
School fees they helped pay for Toby’s niece.
A cooperative loan.
The final balance on a piece of jewelry Nkiru had pawned months earlier.
Toby entered from the bedroom.
He looked tired.
He always looked tired now.
At thirty-four, he had once been the kind of man who ironed shirts before hanging them.
Now some mornings he barely shaved.
“What happened?”
Nkiru handed him the suspension letter.
He read.
His face tightened.
“Why?”
She told him.
The old customer.
Renée.
Sola.
The insult.
The apron.
When she finished, Toby did not say she had done the right thing.
He said:
“Renée Balogun?”