A Collection on Offer

Sanne had not opened the offer on her screen. She took it from a ring binder with the intake list. Vera recognised the sheet with twenty-eight entries. She had not read the full offer before. She had read Dorus's brief message: owner, a collection that belonged together. Now she had the complete signed document in front of her.

Two pages of plans, but Anouk stopped at the first paragraph. Dorus was offering a coherent collection for display, as its owner. Not simply his printing work, or the two photographs he had taken. The boxes of mounted prints were described as part of his collection. His signature was at the foot of the last page.

Sanne sat opposite them, her hands clear of the paper. She had asked Anouk to go through it before the board members arrived. Vera wanted to say something useful about Erik's receipt. But Anouk had already put it beside the offer and was still reading.

‘When did he write this?’

Sanne pointed to the date. Before the two boxes arrived, well before Anouk asked for them back. The intake photographs recorded that arrival.

Anouk took out her original commission. She unfolded it fully, including the reverse where the storage and copying terms continued. Vera could see more than five groups now. She saw the time between them: Anouk believing work was in progress, Sanne accepting an offer, Dorus heading for the community centre with both arrangements in his head.

‘Here he says it's his.’ Anouk kept a finger on the offer. ‘Then he tells me he returned it through Vera on the Tuesday.’

She laid the printout of his message beside it. The two accounts together. Vera looked at Sanne, who was looking at the signature beneath the offer.

‘I trusted his name,’ Sanne said. ‘And what he knew about it.’

Anouk did not ask whether she still did. Who had written “from the collection of Dorus van Esch”? Sanne took her pen and said she had passed that on. It was how Dorus had offered it. She had used his wording and adapted it for the announcement. Never asked Anouk. Nor the people in the photographs.

‘That last part wouldn't necessarily apply to every picture,’ Anouk said. ‘But you could have asked me what you actually had.’

Vera wanted to look away. The poster was in her window. She had not just put it up; she had read it to someone who asked whether the photographs came from the station itself.

Sanne wrote down what Anouk had said. The scratch of her pen went on a little too long. Then she put it down.

‘I've asked the board to suspend the presentation until we know what's going back and what, if anything, can be shown. I can't decide alone. They'll be here in fifteen minutes.’

‘I don't want them to keep using it “for the time being”,’ Anouk said.

‘That's not what I'm proposing.’

Sanne read her draft statement. They had not checked the provenance or the authority to exhibit it adequately. The advertised presentation should therefore be suspended. The material would remain safely stored while its return was agreed with the owner. Anouk asked her not to send out another vague certainty about “the owner”, but to name her and refer to the original commission.

‘You've got a signed document from me,’ she said. ‘I don't need to be called “someone claiming ownership”.’

Sanne revised it. Vera had been trying to protect herself from mistakes with ever more careful little words. Anouk was taking the roundabout wording out.

The first board member arrived with a loaf sticking out of his pannier. Could he leave it here, and was there really no way of sorting this by next week? Sanne made him hang up his coat first. The second arrived on the phone, finished in the corridor and sat beside him.

Vera knew neither of them. She introduced herself as the café owner who had taken in the presentation folder and explained that she had put up the poster. Not because she could decide Anouk's rights, but because she had advertised the event and had people asking questions. The woman asked whether the driver had now confirmed there had been no boxes.

Vera passed her the photograph of the full receipt and explained what Erik had said about this job. Anouk added the collection message. Sanne put the offer on the other side. The man fetched his glasses from his pannier and at last read without interrupting to ask how quickly they could do it.

He lingered over the seven different mounted prints. Vera let Sanne explain the comparison. When he asked whether the foundation had simply ordered fresh prints, Sanne produced her prior instructions and Dorus's preparation checklist. Anouk wanted her old pieces back, she said. Not merely the same pictures.

‘But he may have thought he was doing you a service,’ the man said.

‘He can explain that himself,’ Anouk said. ‘The question here is whether you'll keep advertising material you shouldn't have received on these terms.’

Vera looked at the woman, who had put the offer's two pages back in order. She asked Sanne which announcements had gone out and where publicity was on display. At last a list Vera could help complete.

The foundation had contacted its usual visitors. The community centre had put the announcement on the hall noticeboard. Vera had put up the poster and spoken about an evening at the café. No tickets sold, but people had put their names down. She made a point of that but. She did not want the names on her list to become proof that little harm had been done because nobody had paid.

The board decided to suspend the presentation. Sanne put the decision into words, read it back and got both members' approval to send it for the foundation. They did not choose a date for a smaller display later. Anouk would discuss that when her archive was together again and the credits were right.

The board member with the bread wanted to ring Dorus. Of course he should discuss their own arrangement, Anouk said, but he must not offer a solution on her behalf. For a moment he looked as though she had accused him of something improper. Then he nodded and wrote the limitation above his call notes.

At Sanne's request Hugo came to clear the noticeboard. He lifted the four magnets from the poster and clicked them together. Someone had left a mark trying to push a drawing pin through before realising it was not a cork board. Vera knew the photograph. Flat on the paper, with the title beneath, it looked like a finished plan. In the room the same pictures were part of a set whose other pieces were still elsewhere.

As Vera and Anouk packed up, Sanne rang the person who managed the website. Replace the announcement with a factual notice: the presentation was suspended because questions remained about the right to exhibit the material. She promised no swift replacement. Then she rang a volunteer who had already invited people. This call lasted longer. The volunteer felt responsible for an older visitor who had arranged transport.

Vera heard Sanne offer to ring the visitor herself. She was not standing about with her coat on, treating the rest as mere follow-up work. She sat down again and took her own list of names from her diary.

A woman answered immediately. At the bar she had said her father might be in one of those photographs and she did not want to miss the evening. Vera had told her to come and look. Now she had to explain how readily she had offered it.

‘Is something wrong with the photographs?’ the woman asked.

‘With who had the right to offer them, and with the actual prints we've got. Not with your father. I don't know whether he's in any of them.’

Silence. Vera pictured her with the phone at her ear, in the middle of her own day, not a day set aside to hear Vera's complicated explanation.

‘So I needn't come.’

‘Not for the evening we advertised. I'm sorry I told you to.’

‘I'll tell my sister. We were coming together.’

Vera did not thank her for understanding; she had offered no understanding. Could Vera contact her later when there was something definitely available to view under the right arrangements? Yes, the woman said, but not another possibility.

The second number went to voicemail. Vera left a message and sent the factual notice in writing too. A digit was missing from the third number. Her stomach tightened. So quickly, so ordinarily, she could still fail to get something right. Milan might know the name from an order. She wrote it separately, without a tick.

Meanwhile Anouk was speaking to the woman on the board about storage. Who would have access while the boxes remained here? No new keys, no move to some unspecified store. Sanne agreed to keep them in the same locked room, with nothing used for display without consultation. The actual return would be arranged against the full inventory.

Vera checked the clock. Nearly twelve. She had to go, not because the investigation needed her somewhere, but because Yasmin depended on her for her break. She said goodbye while the conversation continued. Anouk would cycle home on her own. They need not take every step together.

On her way out Vera saw Hugo with the rolled poster under his arm. Did she want it for the café? She shook her head. Hers was still up. She had to take that down herself. Hugo stretched the elastic round his roll without making a joke.

The streets were quiet, yet Vera had to wait twice at the first junction. She thought of the woman ringing her sister. There would be more calls than the ones on her list, without Vera there to improve her wording.

Back at the café Yasmin handed over the till. Vera asked about the name with the missing digit, but Yasmin did not know it. She could message Milan later. Vera left the list in sight beside her diary and took the order pad to a table that had been waiting. Passing the window, she saw a man outside looking at the poster. She opened the door and told him the advertised presentation was not going ahead for now. Why? She explained, empty tray still under her arm. Then she put a white notice over the announcement so nobody could read the old promise unobstructed. It covered the photograph and title. Removing the whole poster and its adhesive would have to wait until after the rush.