The following afternoon, Zawadi and Doto reached an independent weighbridge beside the industrial road, where trucks queued beneath a corrugated-metal shelter. The former operator, Mzee Ndele, had officially retired, but people still called him whenever old records required someone who remembered the shift books. Amina came with a copy of the factory table and Mr. Kato’s paper on the verified deductions.
“I said the number ML-204 was not yours,” Mzee Ndele said after Doto showed him the ticket. “But I did not say the load was not yours.”
Doto opened his notebook. “We hired the Mamba Haulage truck that day. I wrote the number here.”
“And the gate operator wrote the number of your usual truck?”
“That is what it looks like.”
Mzee Ndele came out from behind the counter and brought a large shift book. Its cover was worn, but the inside pages had been kept in plastic sleeves. He opened the section for the date on the ticket. On the first line was ML-204, the Mamba driver’s name, and the entry weight. The second line carried Mavuno Link’s invoice number.
“The truck belongs to Mamba,” he said. “The load was delivered under the Mavuno Link account. So the mixed-up number is a records problem, not proof that the maize came from another company.”
Amina photographed the page. Zawadi asked Mzee Ndele to confirm with his signature that the book had not been opened since that day. He hesitated, then took the weighbridge stamp and put today’s date beside it, explaining that he was certifying a copy of the record, not changing the original.
“And the weight?” Zawadi asked.
Mzee Ndele opened another page. The ML-204 load weighed nineteen point six tonnes at the time it was measured. On the factory copy, nineteen point three tonnes appeared as the net weight. Doto tapped the number in his notebook.
“This is why I say the scales did not lie about everything,” Zawadi said.
“Where do you see the error?” Amina asked.
Zawadi took out the Mavuno Link copy. The figure nineteen point six tonnes was clear, but in the office delivery register they had once written nineteen point three by following the factory copy. Someone in the office had copied the figure without checking it against the original ticket.
“Our mistake was building the register from an unchecked copy,” Zawadi said. “We cannot say the factory reduced everything. For this load, our process was bad.”
Doto did not argue. “I should have photographed the scale display instead of trusting the paper alone.”
“And I should have created a process for matching a ticket before an invoice was issued.”
Amina wrote those words in the company-errors section. Zawadi knew that admitting a mistake in front of Doto and Amina was easier than saying it to Salma, but it was still important. She could not ask the factory to separate true deductions from false ones if she hid a difference from her own side.
Mzee Ndele took another paper from the plastic box. “Someone brought this copy here last month. I do not know where it came from.”
Zawadi studied it. It carried the North Flour Factory logo and a “corrected” stamp. On the ML-204 line, the truck number had been changed to ML-240, and the net weight was nineteen point three tonnes. The date was the same as the load’s date.
“Who gave it to you?” Amina asked.
“A factory driver. He said they wanted to check the file.”
“And this is the first copy?” Amina asked.
Mzee Ndele brought out the original sheet, creased and marked by the printer. On the original, the truck number was ML-204 and the weight was nineteen point six tonnes. On the corrected copy, the number was ML-240 and the weight had fallen by three hundred kilograms.
Doto looked at Zawadi. “That is not one typo.”
“Let us not judge yet,” Zawadi said, although her stomach had tightened. “We will record the difference and ask Salma to explain who made the correction, when, and why.”
Amina measured the papers with her eyes. “The three hundred kilograms are exactly what was used in the deduction we saw yesterday.”
Zawadi photographed the original and the corrected copy, then asked Mzee Ndele to sign a statement with three points: the shift book showed ML-204; the original net weight was nineteen point six tonnes; and the corrected copy showed nineteen point three tonnes. Mzee Ndele read the statement twice before signing.
“I do not want to enter a company dispute,” he said.
“We are not asking you to choose a side,” Zawadi replied. “We want your record not to be used to carry a number that was never there.”
On the way back, Doto drove slowly because the road was busy with trucks. Amina built an evidence table on the tablet. In the first column she wrote the truck-number error, explained by the Mamba Haulage rental. In the second she wrote the Mavuno Link register error, which the company had to own. In the third she wrote the factory’s corrected copy, which required an explanation because it changed both the number and the amount.
Zawadi called Salma from the car. “We found the original weighbridge record. There is a difference between the original and the corrected copy.”
Salma answered cautiously. “The factory may have corrected the entry.”
“Then we will need the correction history. We also accept in writing that our Mavuno Link copy contained an error when the weight was transferred to the register.”
“You will accept that in writing?”
“Yes.”
There was a short silence on Salma’s side. “I will ask accounts to produce the trail.”
“Do not ask as a favor. Put it into the reconciliation.”
After the call ended, Doto said, “Are you afraid of admitting the mistake?”
“I am more afraid of being someone who demands truth from others while hiding her own.”
Amina sent the statement to Mr. Kato and put the original in the evidence file. Zawadi signed the section saying Mavuno Link accepted the three-hundred-kilogram difference if the original was the valid measure. Then she added that it did not accept a truck number being changed without a correction record.
When they reached the office, Amina placed the two papers in the window light. She aligned their edges, called Zawadi over, and showed her the changed line. On the original it was ML-204 and nineteen point six tonnes; on the factory copy it was ML-240 and nineteen point three tonnes. The difference was not emotion or rumor. The original sheet and factory copy differed by exactly the quantity used in one disputed deduction.
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