The People on the List

'Fleur messaged,' Jasper said. 'Asked if I knew who'd brought those things. I was outside.'

He held a cardboard cup between his teeth while freeing a hand to shake the one Hester had offered. Sealant marked his knuckles. He had grown broader, and not just round the middle; his manner seemed to take up more space too. He used to move as though late for something enjoyable. Now he moved as though other people were holding him up.

'I can still take a call and park a car at the same time,' he said. 'That's not a crime yet.'

'Good. I'll email you a few practical questions shortly.'

He took the cup from his mouth. 'Starting as you mean to go on.'

'I'm starting with a rear exit that shouldn't have chairs in front of it.'

'I didn't put them there.'

'I'm less interested in who put them there than who's moving them today.'

He laughed, presumably at the joke. Hester pointed towards the hall, where Fleur had returned. Jasper said two board members knew nothing about it. The third was in France and not answering. He had ordered no printing. As far as he was concerned, the whole lot could go in the recycling. People got bored, he said. Put a building up for sale and suddenly everyone had a claim on their own youth.

'It hasn't been sold yet,' Fleur said.

'Thank you. I'd forgotten about the negotiations I'm in the middle of.'

Hester let him finish. His smile did not concern her, nor the way Fleur let it pass. She wanted to know who owned the place, who could commission work and who would actually be in charge of the building on Sunday. Jasper owned it with a business partner unconnected to the old group. The foundation was hiring the hall for the weekend; Fleur could approve programme changes on the board's behalf. The partner would not be attending. Hester put this in the event plan, with telephone numbers beside it.

'It's a small event,' Jasper said when he saw the page.

'Exactly. So it'll only take two minutes to agree who I ring if a door won't open.'

Fleur looked pleased. That was not entirely to Hester's advantage: a client who hid behind a coordinator might later forget which disagreements she should have settled herself. Hester pushed the book towards them both. Jasper read it and initialled the promise to remove the building materials before Saturday.

In the corridor they met Amir. A roll of white tape hung round his wrist, and he was peeling black markings from the floor. Jasper introduced him as the caretaker. Amir Benali, thirty, paid hours on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, eight to five. He had known the building since the last renovation. Amir immediately added that Jasper would need somebody else for structural questions.

'Exactly what I needed to know,' Hester said.

They checked the route to the back. Amir noted the damaged light above the storeroom and the barrier tape to be supplied by the stairs. He tested the door closer and said the towpath gate had barely been used for years. The yard was accessible for evacuation, but he would clear the whole path. Hester did not ask him to certify that everything was safe. She asked for a list of completed jobs and a time to check them herself.

'I'll be here if you want Wednesday afternoon,' he said. 'Friday I'm at another building.'

An answer she could use.

Fleur told her about Sanne de Boer, who would manage the floor during the set-up and the event. She was forty-two, worked regularly for the foundation and had no interest in vaguely defined volunteer hours. Saturday, half past one to six; Sunday, eleven to four. Hester wrote down her number. One paid person in the right place was worth six people promising to lend a hand.

Ruben came in through the foyer towards noon. Hester first heard him asking Amir where the storage area was. She saw a grey coat over his forearm, a folder with an elastic fastening and reading glasses he pushed up as he looked into the hall. He did not stop when he saw her. That unsettled her more than hesitation would have done.

'Hester.'

'Ruben. Good to see you.'

'I've brought the schedule Fleur asked for.' He put the folder on the table. 'Can't do the whole weekend, but a few bits. I have work on Thursday.'

His voice was deeper, or perhaps she only remembered the way he had tried to win arguments twenty-two years ago. He was a maintenance planner for a housing organisation in another town. Not a contractor with his own business, as someone had once told her. He coordinated engineers and deliveries. When a boiler broke down, he did not drive out himself with a toolbox. He explained the distinction without the apology people sometimes offered when their work proved less adventurous than expected.

'There's stuff to do round the back,' Jasper said.

'I'll see that in your email. I'll sort out my times first.'

Jasper squeezed his paper cup. Hester looked at Ruben's list. On Saturday he was free until one; on Sunday he would come as a visitor. He could also help with deliveries late on Wednesday afternoon. A limited offer. She copied it down exactly.

'Have you had anything in the post as well?' Fleur asked.

Ruben put his glasses in the folder. 'The normal invitation by email. Apart from that, just your message.'

'With a card like this?' Fleur pointed at the pile.

'So there's one here for me too.'

'And one for Brecht,' Jasper said.

Nothing around them fell silent. Amir kept pulling up tape in the corridor. A car door slammed outside. Ruben looked at the envelope Hester showed him, then at her.

'You haven't come up with this for the programme, have you?'

'No.'

'Good.'

Jasper said people were using the old accident to interfere with the sale. Hester asked which people. He shrugged. That was the problem, he said: you never knew who would decide to get involved. Ruben stood and put his hands in his coat pockets.

'The sale has nothing to do with it,' he said. 'Not everything's about your finances.'

'I'm only trying to keep something going here.'

'Then talk about that.'

Fleur brought up lunch, as though sandwiches could move a disagreement to a more convenient time. Hester asked Ruben if he would look round the back with her later. He said he had half an hour and wanted to find Amir first. Jasper took his cup upstairs to the office. On the third step he turned.

'I don't want a circus on Sunday. That's not in the hire agreement.'

'Fleur approves the programme,' Hester said. 'We've both got the terms of use.'

She heard him turn a key upstairs. For the first time since arriving she was glad she was charging for this job. An invoice did not make relationships easy, but at least it gave her one clear reason to be somewhere.

Merel rang while Hester was eating her sandwich outside. On the pavement along the side of the building stood a bench with a foundation planter beside it. They had never managed to keep plants alive in the old place. Hester had been about to make a joke about that when she saw Merel's name on the screen.

'So you've actually started,' her sister said.

'That was the plan.'

'Mum's asking if you'll come to dinner tomorrow. Six o'clock. Apparently she's already bought food for us.'

'She can ask me herself.'

'That's what I said. But I was ringing anyway.'

Hester asked what about. Merel was at work, she said, and would pop in later to look at the kitchen. Perhaps her cooking programme could contribute something on Sunday, but only if their own budget allowed. She was not asking her participants to rescue an event from the past for nothing.

'Fine,' Hester said. 'I was just going to tell you there's no need for you to cook.'

'I'll decide that myself.'

The tone surprised her. Or rather, surprised her too late. She knew that quick correction of her sister's, but in the past she had readily mistaken it for tiredness. Hester picked a stray seed off her trousers.

'I mean we've budgeted for a caterer. If you'd like to do something, we can discuss payment.'

'That's better.'

She heard a door in the background and Merel told somebody the big pan needed another quarter of an hour. When she spoke again, she did not lower her voice.

'Have you seen that strange invitation?'

'Yes.'

'Fleur told me there was a packet. Bram thought it was rather dramatic.'

'There's one for Brecht here as well.'

Merel asked nothing. Hester heard her shift the phone. 'I'll come this afternoon,' she said. 'I have to get back.'

After the call Hester sat a little longer. She had not asked her sister about that brief pause. She would see her soon. A question was not improved by making someone answer it beside a boiling pan.

Marjan rang before Hester had finished her sandwich. Of course Merel had already told her she had called. Their mother could send family news travelling like a parcel that needed signing for at every stop.

'Tuesday, then?' Marjan said. 'I'll make something you can eat too.'

'I eat almost anything, Mum.'

'You didn't want sauce last time.'

'I had to drive straight afterwards and I was already late.'

'So sauce tomorrow. How's the building?'

Hester told her about the clear back door, the staffing and the schedule. Marjan knew Sanne, of course she knew Sanne; she had once helped with an application for her association. Hester learnt that a neighbour could provide cakes on Saturday. She said Fleur was arranging the catering and all offers needed to go through her.

'You're not going to make me fill in a form for a cake, surely.'

'A message to Fleur will do.'

'Well, Madam Director.' Marjan laughed. 'Still, I'm glad you're getting things organised. Fleur cares very much, but she can be rather…' She left it there. There was no need to finish. Anyone who knew her could supply the missing failing.

Hester said the work was going well. That could have ended the conversation. Instead, Marjan asked about the packet.

'It's painful for everybody, inviting someone who's dead. Who thinks up these things?'

'We don't know yet.'

'Please throw it away. You've got an ordinary afternoon to organise.'

'Perhaps somebody wants to say something about Brecht.'

'Then they could have rung us.' Her mother was calm now, almost practical. 'We can't keep going over that loose railing. What happened was awful enough.'

Hester looked at the plastic wrapper on her lap. Jasper had mentioned building materials, not the old staircase. Fleur had only said accident. Hester herself had examined the railing without putting it into words.

'Who said it was about the railing?'

'Hester, what else would it be about? I know what happened there.'

A cyclist asked if he could leave his bike beside her. She nodded and lifted her bag off the bench.

'I need to get back to work,' she said.

'Six tomorrow. And bring your sister with you. It'll be nicer.'

Hester confirmed only the time. Then she folded up her sandwich wrapper. Inside, she could hear Ruben explaining something to Amir, practical and patient. She put the wrapper in the bin and went back to the hall, where her envelope still lay beneath the programme folder.