Naserian brought a box of company files to the police station.
She came with her lawyer and Inspector Ruth. Kelvin had tried to block disclosure, but Naserian was the compliance director and Jonah’s final email fell within the investigation.
On the first page of an unsigned internal audit were the words:
**Batch M-27 — irregular pressure and certification mismatch. Suspend distribution pending independent testing.**
Jonah had added a handwritten note.
**Kelvin says already delivered. Samuel wants replacement labels. Do not sign.**
Samuel.
Dr Samuel Gichuru.
Wanjiku felt cold.
“Was my mother’s hospital on the list?”
Ruth stopped her.
“We search by records, not emotion.”
The delivery schedule included Kihara County Hospital, where Teresia Naliaka died.
The serial was from an earlier M-27 shipment three years before the newer audit.
The file showed complaints stretching back to that period. The first technical report had been closed as “user handling failure”. Later reviews found certificates issued through a laboratory that did not hold the proper licence at the time.
The intermediary supplier was **Northline Industrial Solutions**.
Its true owner, hidden behind nominees, was Kelvin.
Naserian closed her eyes.
“I signed compliance reviews for Rift Gas. I did not identify Northline’s beneficial ownership.”
“That may be negligence,” Ruth said.
“Then write it.”
Wanjiku looked at her differently.
Acknowledging that you had been part of a system did not make you innocent.
It was the first step away from lying about it.
The county archive produced the old delivery register. One M-27 cylinder had been used in Teresia’s ward. It was removed after a complaint and returned to the supplier.
The return note had no receiving signature.
Nurse Beatrice Njeri, who had worked that night, still owned an old phone containing a photograph of the cylinder and its serial.
“The gauges showed pressure,” she said, “but patients were not receiving reliable flow. We changed two cylinders. One felt heavy, as though full, but did not perform as it should.”
Her report had later been rewritten as an equipment-handling problem.
The photographed serial, **M-27-0418**, appeared on a company list of cylinders supposedly destroyed after valve damage.
Two years later, the same serial appeared on another clinic’s delivery sheet.
Cylinders had been moved, relabelled, and returned to circulation. Complaints were closed one facility at a time, preventing anyone from seeing a single pattern.
Wanjiku read the old incident record.
Three patients had deteriorated during the supply failure.
One died.
Teresia Naliaka.
Jonah had been chairman when the company issued a public statement saying the cylinders were safe and hospital staff had mishandled them.
Wanjiku left the room before her anger became another clip for Kelvin’s cameras.
She visited her mother’s grave carrying a flask of the strong tea Teresia loved.
She played an old voice note.
Teresia complained that Wanjiku worked too much and forgot to eat. Then she laughed.
The official report had reduced that voice to:
**Female, 56. Respiratory failure during supply incident.**
“I found the serial,” Wanjiku said beside the grave. “I still do not have the whole answer.”
She refused a television producer who wanted to film her there.
Instead, she issued one written statement:
**M-27 must be investigated for every patient, not because one of them was my mother.**
That standard would bind her too. If some deaths had unrelated causes, she would have to accept it.
Then a small clinic in Gatundu reported that it still possessed a cylinder linked to M-27.
The supplier called that same morning, asking to exchange it immediately.
Inspector Ruth ordered the staff not to touch it until qualified experts arrived.
Someone else was already following the batch.
Not to correct it.
To remove it.
The analytical review in chapter 6 ensured that all submitted records aligned with established operational guidelines.