The Six Strips

The sales entry fitted on one sheet. Bente had covered the rest of her list and put the relevant confirmation alongside. Vera saw the amount first. Ninety-five euros. Then the description: six negative strips from the work sequence, with their six matching contact sheets. Not the whole box, not six loose photographs.

Anouk stayed standing until Bente drew out a chair. She had her inventory ready. The numbers they had established on Thursday were there in Vera's handwriting. Seventeen to twenty-two. Bente pointed to the same numbers in the entry.

‘Otto Koster,’ she said. ‘He collects photographs of everyday railway work. He paid and took the lot. On Thursday I asked him not to pass anything on for now. We spoke on Friday. He agreed.’

Vera checked the sale date. An ordinary transaction, before the poster in her window, before Ria stood on the bridge at her usual time. She needed none of those events to understand the route. The material had gone from a workspace to a shop, then some of it to a person who wanted it.

‘Did he know it was mine?’ Anouk asked.

‘He knew some of the work was yours. Not that Dorus was only keeping it for you.’

Anouk read the confirmation. The agreed group, a reference to the bicycles and baskets, a price and a collection appointment. No sitting rooms, no family table, no old mounted prints. These six strips held photographs in which Vera's first glance had found mostly hands and the edges of things. Evidently somebody had found something there worth keeping in his own collection.

‘Why these?’ she asked Bente.

‘Because he looks at the work. How things were loaded. Where people put their hands, what fitted on a cart. He doesn't just buy trains.’

Anouk kept her eyes on the sales entry. Vera could not tell whether that comforted her or made her angrier. Someone had seen her work in a way she recognised, through a sale that should never have happened.

Bente left the sheet where it was. She did not open the next drawer to show more customers. First she would ring Otto, as agreed, and ask to give Anouk his details and let her speak to him directly. She had told him the original photographer was coming. Nothing had been agreed about a refund or the material's return.

‘I don't want to hear what he thinks through you,’ Anouk said.

‘That's why I'm asking him now.’

Bente drew her phone towards her and rang. Anouk Meijer and Vera were here, she said. The described group matched the missing numbers; Anouk wanted to speak herself. She did not turn on the speaker before Otto knew there were others at the table. Only when he agreed did she set the phone down.

A man's voice said good morning. Not alarmed, not especially warm. Anouk introduced herself. Vera did the same, her role in one sentence: she had taken in the presentation folder and was helping Anouk follow the routes at her request.

Otto wanted to know exactly what was wrong with his purchase. Looking at the original commission in front of her, Anouk explained that she had handed over five boxes for storage and copying, not sale. Bente had bought two of them, and sold him the six strips and six contact sheets. Anouk wanted that material back. First, could he confirm it was still together?

‘It's here,’ he said. ‘I haven't taken anything out for anyone else.’

Bente's shoulders dropped a little. Anouk did not move.

Could he see the commission? Anouk would send the relevant section, describing the work box and her arrangement with Dorus. He gave his email address and agreed that Bente could pass on his telephone number. Vera wrote it on a separate sheet for Anouk, not the café's general list of interested visitors.

‘I paid for it in the ordinary way,’ he said.

‘Bente has shown us,’ Anouk said.

‘I didn't set out to take anything from you.’

‘I'm not saying you did. But my material's missing and you've got it.’

A pause. Vera heard a chair shift, then paper. Perhaps he was already consulting his own folder. She could not know. Was Anouk asking about the six contact sheets as well, he asked, or just the negatives? Both. The sheets belonged with the strips. She wanted the material back together.

‘You'd better come and look, then,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow. Not this afternoon.’

Anouk opened her diary. Tuesday morning was possible. Vera checked hers; an early appointment would get her back to cover the usual break. Where did he live, how long should they allow to get there, and would ten suit him? He gave his home address. The collection was in a room of its own. They could ring at the front door.

‘Could you have them ready?’ Anouk asked. ‘The six strips, the six sheets and your purchase confirmation.’

‘Yes. But I'd like that document about the commission first.’

She would send it that morning. A visit to inspect and talk. Otto was not promising on the phone to hand everything over. Anouk offered no money to secure the appointment either. Bente would be available to discuss the purchase; she would not deny the ninety-five-euro payment.

Vera looked at the amount on the table. She had thought mentioning it would start another argument. Instead it sat within a practical arrangement that still guaranteed nothing about getting the material back. Tomorrow Otto might ask for things Anouk would not give. Bente might have to pay something she wanted to recover from Dorus. Vera could not make a bargain of it in advance.

After the call Bente repeated the arrangements and sent Anouk the contact details with Otto's permission. Anouk checked the email address by sending a short confirmation. Bente put her phone beside the sales entry again.

‘I'd like a copy of that entry,’ Anouk said.

Bente made a separate record of just this transaction and showed her before printing it. Date, description, six numbers and their sheets, amount, buyer's name. Not the customers above and below the entry. A confirmation of what she had sold.

Anouk put her copy with her inventory. Vera looked at the box on the low cupboard. The remainder was still here. They had spent so long with it on Thursday, understanding the ordinary work in the waiting room and its sequence. Now the route led to someone who had found a different bit of that work worth buying. One day the complete box would stand beside the domestic one again. For now the appointments barely fitted side by side in Anouk's folder.

‘And the fifth?’ Vera asked.

Bente shook her head. ‘I never bought that. I saw these two and took them. No box of loose working prints.’

Anouk closed her folder. ‘I'll have to ask Dorus about that one.’

She did not claim to know what was in it now. Her original inventory described twelve working prints and the papers with them. The seven old mounted prints were still unlocated. Vera looked at the numbers she had written at De Werf. Nine to fifteen did not show a route. They were gaps occupied on the table by different pieces.

Had Bente spoken to Dorus yet? She had messaged him about Anouk's commission and asked about the sale. He wanted to explain, he had said. No solution to Bente's payment yet. She would pursue that herself. Anouk asked her to keep the message about the actual purchase and his response. She would. No request for Anouk to withdraw her report to keep matters friendly.

The conversation did not carry them straight to the door. Bente stayed seated, looking at Dorus's old offer, which Anouk had brought. She knew the photograph of the repaired corner. On the strength of it she had asked for details, then seen the boxes and paid. Tine had passed over that same photograph. Such a small difference between the responses, Vera thought. Such large consequences.

‘He could describe it well,’ Bente said.

‘Because he knew it,’ Anouk said. ‘That knowledge was part of what I trusted him with.’

Bente looked up. This time no explanation of her own experience with collections followed. She got up to let them out. The boxes remained locked in the back room, as agreed. Before leaving Anouk asked when they could discuss returning what was here. Bente wanted the meeting with Otto first, and to finish taking her own advice. They would speak again this week. Nothing else sold, nothing moved in the meantime.

Outside Vera put on her gloves before unlocking her bicycle. Anouk had her phone ready to send the commission to Otto, but said she would rather do it at home with the correct document in front of her. Vera offered to stop somewhere on the way. No. Not crossly. Anouk wanted the original text beside her, not another photograph of a photograph in the wind.

They cycled together to the junction. Anouk stopped and read Tuesday's arrangement aloud once more. Ten o'clock. Ring at the front door of the house. Six strips, six sheets, purchase confirmation. Vera repeated it, saved the route on her phone and said she would be at Anouk's at nine.

‘I'll send the documents myself,’ Anouk said.

‘I know.’

‘I'm telling myself too.’

Vera smiled, put away her phone and got back on her bicycle. The café window was clear except for its name and opening hours. Yasmin was taking an order inside. No fresh poster covering the gap.

Vera went in through the back, hung her coat and took her apron from the hook. Tomorrow's appointment was in her diary. She arranged no further investigating that evening; she would be behind the bar until closing. When Yasmin asked what they knew now, Vera named no culprit she had unmasked. They had located the six strips sold on, she said, and Anouk was seeing the buyer tomorrow. Yasmin nodded, slid a plate towards her and asked her to finish this order first.