Leila obtained authority to inspect Bahari Crown before noon.
Farid arrived with a lawyer.
“We will cooperate,” he said, “but I will not allow one family's grief to destroy an investment meant for the whole village.”
“Your investment has speakers buried beneath mangrove roots,” Rehema said.
Farid regarded her with patient contempt.
“Workers install communications equipment. Some play music.”
“This speaker faced the path Hamisi took.”
“Then find the worker responsible.”
Police excavated two waterproof speakers, batteries, a motion sensor, and a playback unit.
One memory card contained files named after Kizingo residents.
**SALMA_CALL_01**
**BIBI_WARNING_02**
**CHILD_CRY_CREEK**
**HAMISI_PATH**
Rehema opened Salma's file.
“Hamisi, my son,” the voice said.
Now she heard the edits: a clipped ending, repeated breath, artificial static.
“They built this from an old recording.”
Leila asked who had access to the equipment.
The site supervisor claimed ignorance.
On a construction map, Rehema saw the baobab and radio station circled in red.
“Why?”
“Phase two,” the lawyer said. “Cultural assets will be integrated into the visitor centre.”
“You do not own the station,” Yusuf said.
Farid smiled.
“Not yet.”
Outside, a frightened worker brushed Rehema's arm.
“They put the speakers there,” he whispered.
“But one night, the speakers called their names too.”
“Whose names?”
“The foreman. The drill crew.”
He walked away before she could ask more.
That evening, Leila confirmed that the files came from a computer registered to a Bahari Crown subcontractor.
“So Farid made all of it,” Rehema said.
“He made some of it,” Leila replied.
“Hamisi disappeared because of that voice.”
“Possibly someone drew him out and abducted him.”
“And the 1998 tape?”
“We still do not know.”
For a few hours, Rehema allowed herself relief.
Farid was human.
Humans had equipment, motives, and mistakes.
Leila questioned the site supervisor, the audio technician, and the young worker Juma in separate rooms. Farid complained that the police were staging a spectacle. Leila gave him two options: remain silent or leave the interview area.
The audio technician, Bakar, first claimed the buried speakers were for safety announcements. When Rehema showed him the filenames, he changed his answer and said the memory card had arrived ready to use.
“Did you hear voices before installing the speakers?” she asked.
“No.”
“Juma says the digging crew heard their own names.”
“Workers tell stories.”
“And you?”
Bakar rubbed one palm with the other.
“I heard my daughter.”
“Is she alive?” Leila asked.
“She died as a baby.”
“Was the speaker connected?”
“Not yet.”
Outside, Farid struck the door and demanded the interview stop until his lawyer returned. Bakar said nothing else.
On the card, Rehema found placement instructions. Each hidden speaker faced a home whose owner had refused to sell. Another file listed family routines, dead relatives, market hours, and private griefs.
This was not a worker's prank.
It was a targeted intimidation campaign.
Hamisi's folder contained photographs of his workshop, recordings of his arguments with land officers, and a map from Bibi's house to the mangroves.
A note read:
**SUBJECT WILL FOLLOW MOTHER VOICE.**
**SECOND VOICE IF RESISTANCE.**
“What was the second voice?” Leila asked.
The file was missing.
In the next room, Juma broke down.
He admitted helping bury the equipment.
Farid's men had planned to lure Hamisi out, photograph him near the station, and claim he was sabotaging the development. Two men waited inside the mangroves.
“They never found him,” Juma said. “The ground began calling their names. One ran.
Kassim followed Hamisi into the limestone opening and never returned.”
Farid claimed Kassim had gone to Mombasa for a family emergency.
Leila requested vehicle, payment, and phone records. Outside the fence, villagers argued. Some blamed Farid. Others blamed Rehema for bringing old fear back into the open.
Young men spoke about resort jobs.
Women whose family names appeared in Bibi's ledger asked what kind of job required the dead to remain unrecorded.
Rehema understood Farid did not need everyone to believe in ghosts.
He only needed the village divided enough to resist nothing together.
At 3:17, Leila's phone rang.
No number appeared.
She answered without speaking.
Her own voice said, “Inspector Leila Hassan.
We know your whole name.”
Inside a sealed evidence bag three metres away, one of Farid's speakers—its battery removed—began to shake.
Evidentiary details presented throughout chapter 7 reinforced the core position of the primary stakeholders involved.