The cafeteria was loud with the clatter of cups, scraping chairs, and oil snapping in the chips pan. Asha sat at a side table with Rehema. Between them were a copy of Mariam’s statement, a photograph of the lock screen, and Musa’s paper. They had not placed the hidden phone on the table; Mr. Juma was still keeping it.
Kelvin Mfaume arrived carrying a mango juice. He was a student at a neighboring institution and always looked like someone who knew the shortcuts inside a device. Rehema called him by name, without the sound of a trap. Kelvin stopped, studied the table, and set down his juice.
“Mariam said you were looking for me,” he said.
“We want to talk about the wearable pairing,” Asha said.
Kelvin sat in the chair a little away from them. “I do not have time for a college case.”
“We are not asking you to decide the case,” Rehema said. “We are asking what you did and what you saw.”
Asha took out the photograph of the lock-screen message. She did not hand him the phone; she slid the paper to the middle of the table. Kelvin’s name and the sentence about Asha’s number were visible in the picture. He looked at it briefly, then turned the paper over.
“Did you open the phone?”
“No. I saw the lock screen while the device was inside the pouch.”
“Then you do not know the context.”
“That is why I am here.”
Kelvin drank his juice. “Mariam was afraid. She wanted help with her notes. I showed her how to connect the device.”
“When?”
“Wednesday evening, not the day of the test.”
“Which phone did you use?”
Kelvin’s jaw tightened. “Her phone.”
“Asha’s phone?”
“She said it belonged to her roommate.”
Asha pressed her hands against her thighs so they would not look unsteady. “Did you recognize the case?”
“Blue, with a crack. Yes.”
Rehema wrote one word in her notebook: configuration. “What were you connecting it for?”
“I was testing whether notes notifications could appear on the wearable. I told her it was unsafe, and I did not want to be involved in cheating.”
“But you connected it.”
“Connecting a device is not the same as wearing it in an examination.”
Asha looked at him. The distinction sounded like the one she had written in her appeal: ownership, possession, operation. Kelvin was building his own boundary, perhaps from truth, perhaps for protection.
“Do you know who wore it?” Asha asked.
Kelvin looked toward the counter. “There was a student from our institution looking for a communication device. I did not give him your name or your phone.”
“But you were involved?”
“I configured the pairing. That is what I admit.”
“Who took it after the test?”
Kelvin fell silent. A line of sweat ran down his neck. “This is not a hearing.”
“It is a conversation to establish facts,” Rehema said. “You can say you do not know.”
Kelvin opened his own phone and showed them a screenshot of the log. Asha did not take the phone; she only leaned closer. It contained a device line, a time, and a disconnect mark. The time read 09:42, while the college screenshot she had received listed the active link at 09:47.
“That time is wrong,” Kelvin said.
Asha asked him to send the original. “A screen shot is not enough.”
“If I send the original, my name will enter the case.”
“Your name is already on the lock screen.”
Kelvin locked his phone. “Mariam told me not to mix things up. I returned the device after the connection. I was not in the examination hall that day.”
“Where were you at 09:47?” Asha asked.
“In our institution’s laboratory.”
“Do you have a record?”
“Perhaps an access log.”
“Then request it. Do not tell us you are the villain, and do not pretend you know nothing.”
Kelvin looked at her angrily. “You want one person to take the blame so you can return to placement.”
“I want the person who knows what he did to state it accurately.”
A student at the neighboring table lifted his head. Rehema moved the papers back into the folder and asked Kelvin to lower his voice. There was no camera and no crowd around him. He could leave at any moment.
“Did you give the device back to Mariam after configuring it?” Asha asked.
“I returned it.”
“Where?”
“Near the hostel.”
“What time?”
“09:42, according to my log.”
“And afterward?”
“Later I saw a message from her saying the device had disappeared. I did not answer.”
“Why not?”
“I thought she was joking.”
Asha remembered the lock screen: Do not use her number again. If Mariam had a second phone and Kelvin had configured the wearable with Asha’s phone, the chain did not end with one person. Mariam had held the phone, Kelvin knew the pairing, and a third person could have entered the hall. Every link needed its own record.
“Did you use Asha’s phone on the day of the test?” Asha asked again.
Kelvin shook his head. “No. I used it Wednesday evening. On the day of the test, the phone I saw was already paired.”
“That is different.”
“I told you.”
“Will you sign a statement?”
Kelvin looked at Asha’s file. “I will not sign a paper that could make it look as if I accepted cheating.”
“Then we will request the original logs through Records,” Rehema said. “Your statement can say you configured the pairing on Wednesday and saw the device disconnect at 09:42.”
Kelvin pushed his juice away. “Mariam was the one who asked me.”
“You said so,” Asha replied. “Do not name her as fact if all you know is that the phone was brought by someone who said it belonged to her roommate.”
Kelvin looked directly at her. “Are you still protecting her?”
“I am protecting the difference between fact and inference.”
For a moment Kelvin seemed surprised. Then he opened his email, sent one attachment to Rehema, and put his phone away.
“It is the device log,” he said. “Do not alter it.”
Rehema checked that the file had arrived. “We will keep it as you sent it.”
Kelvin stood. “Do not call me at the cafeteria again.”
“We will call you through the official channel,” Asha said.
After he left, Asha opened the attachment on her phone without editing it. The last line said device disconnected, 09:42. Beneath it was a timezone marker that did not appear on the college screenshot.
Rehema leaned across the table. “Now we have Mariam’s possession, Kelvin’s configuration, and an operation that still has no name.”
“And a time difference.”
“Do not say Kelvin did everything.”
“I will not.”
“But what do you know now?”
Asha looked down the cafeteria aisle where Kelvin had disappeared. “We know the chain has a third person, and we need to know who took the device after the pairing.”
Rehema closed the folder. “And 09:42 matters more than 09:47.”
Asha looked at Kelvin’s log again. In the bottom line, the location marker showed the hostel, not the examination block.
Before she put it in the folder, Kelvin sent one final message: At that time, the device had already been returned to the hostel.
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