In Her Own Words

Merel had driven. In the car park outside the station, she still had the keys in her hand once they were standing beside the car. She did not check that the door was shut, as Hester expected. She unhooked the car key from the ring and gave it to her sister.

'If I leave with Bram later, you can take this. He can collect the car tomorrow.'

'Don't you want to keep it yourself?'

'I don't want to sit inside chewing my car key. Give it back when I ask.'

Hester put it in the little pocket of her bag. They went to the entrance. The glass was covered with opening hours, a warning about scams and an arrow towards the out-of-hours bell. Merel pulled the door open and went in. Hester followed.

At the desk Merel gave her name. The receptionist looked up the appointment and asked them to take a seat. A man with a cycling helmet under his arm had questions about his case number; he repeated three digits as if someone had taken against him personally. Hester studied the posters. She wanted to remind Merel that she only had to say what she knew herself. She had said it already. Saying it again would mainly reveal that Hester did not know how to wait.

Ellen came to fetch them herself. She greeted Merel as the person she had spoken to on the phone, and only then asked whether Hester was coming too. 'What do you need at the moment?'

Merel looked at her sister, then back at Ellen. 'I'd like to begin without her. I might need to ask something later about what happens afterwards.'

'That's fine. We'll take it a step at a time. Ms Koster, you don't have to wait here if you'd rather be somewhere else. Your sister can reach you.'

'I'll stay for a bit,' Hester said.

Merel took a crumpled piece of paper out of her coat. 'I've only written names down. Not an account. Can I bring it?'

Ellen nodded and held the door. Merel went through without looking back. It took more effort than Hester expected to stay seated. She had brought her sister as far as the door. That was where their agreement ended.

She chose a seat by the window. Outside, someone strapped a bin bag to the back of his bicycle with two elastic cords, put on his helmet and left. The man at the desk finally received confirmation that the number was correct. Hester could hear nothing from the corridor down which Merel had disappeared. She could picture the room she had sat in herself, but it need not be the same one. She did not know what questions were being asked. Not having access was part of what she had decided to respect.

A message from Finn appeared on her phone. He had sent a photograph of a hob, asking whether the black ring round the burner came off. Hester typed that he should let it cool completely first, and that the manual was probably online. She wanted to ask about his day at work, but knew she would end up awkwardly suspended between two conversations. She said she would ring later and put the phone away.

After half an hour she went outside. Not far, only to the low wall beside the bicycle racks. She messaged Merel to say where she was and that her phone was not on silent. Sunlight fell on a blank side wall, picking out the shadows of old bolts. Hester counted them without meaning to. She had already given her own statement. This new interview made her lie neither worse than it had been nor less serious. There was nowhere left to hide behind the excuse that she had wanted to save her sister.

Ruben rang. She hesitated, then answered because he would not force her to explain where she was. He asked whether the light fittings in the hall had to stay up for Sunday too. Amir wanted to know whether to keep the ladder available for them.

'Yes,' she said. 'But not over the visitors. That corner stays empty until they've been checked.'

'That's sorted. I'm asking because Jasper wanted them back in storage.'

'They're on the list of borrowed equipment. I'll remind Fleur.'

There was a short pause. She heard a door close at his end. 'And how are you?'

Hester looked towards the station entrance. 'I'm waiting for Merel. At the police station.'

'Good that she's going.'

'Yes.'

He did not ask what she was telling them. Hester had not told him either. She had spread enough of other people's lives in the name of explanation. Ruben added that on Saturday he was only coming to help set up, not staying for the whole preview. He had arranged to see a friend. When he rang off, it was not a rejection. It was a man with a weekend of his own.

She took a five-minute walk and went back inside. When she asked for water, the receptionist pointed out the tap behind the machine. She filled a paper cup and took it back to her chair. She remembered Merel as a child, on the way home from hospital once, saying the worst part had not been the injection but their mother talking to the doctor as if Merel were not there. Hester had thought it funny at the time. She could not remember doing anything herself except laugh.

It was almost five when the door opened again. Merel came first. Her face was red, her hair tucked behind her ears again, less neatly than when she arrived. She was holding her own piece of paper. Ellen remained by the corridor door so they would not inadvertently begin another conversation in the waiting area.

'I've told her,' Merel said.

Hester stood. 'Do you need anything else here?'

'I want that key back. And a walk.' She looked at Ellen. 'My sister can hear the practical things. What we agreed about those.'

The three of them went back to a small interview room, not to repeat Merel's statement. Ellen checked what she was permitted to share. Merel said she did not want to answer questions about the substance of it with Hester present; at home she would say what she chose. Hester sat without putting her folder on the table.

Ellen explained how they would keep in touch. There might be further questions. Merel should not try to work out a shared account with other people, and did not have to take calls from anyone involved. She could keep messages. If anyone put pressure on her, Ellen wanted to know. In immediate danger they should call the emergency services, not wait until they could reach Ellen herself.

'I'm not seeing my mother alone for the time being,' Merel said. 'I'd already decided that myself.'

'That's a sensible boundary. If you decide not to speak to her, you don't have to meet her to explain why.'

Hester asked whether the small gathering was still a responsible decision. She set out the staffing, the upstairs area closed to visitors, the revised times. She did not want the police to stamp it safe, but nor did she want to pretend it had nothing to do with the new statement. Ellen let her finish and asked a few factual questions: who was in charge, whether Marjan had a role, whether any current threats had been reported.

'She has no part in the programme,' Hester said. 'But for a long time she's had a part in everything. People who know her tend to let her walk straight through.'

'Make sure your staff are clear about who has authority. Report any new, specific threat. I can't assess or secure the event for you.'

'And now?' Merel asked. She did not mean the event. She looked straight at Ellen. 'Are you going to see her?'

'We're taking steps in the investigation. I can't give you a schedule of conversations with other people. That doesn't mean we're setting your statement aside.'

Merel pinched the piece of paper between her fingers. 'I don't want her coming to have a little chat with me first to put things right.'

'Then don't see her alone. You don't have to respond at all. If she approaches you and it feels like pressure, get in touch.'

Hester would have liked a decision that settled the rest of the evening for them. An arrest, an order, something to take their mother out of ordinary life and out of their phones with it. She understood why Ellen could not offer that certainty. It made the world outside the room no less uneasy.

As they stood, Merel asked whether her memory was worth less because she had waited so long. Ellen made no promises about the outcome. She said the time elapsed and the circumstances were part of the assessment, which made it important to record as precisely as possible what Merel had witnessed herself and what she had heard later. She had done what she came to do. Hester saw that her sister could accept that much.

Outside, Merel got the key back. She put it straight in her coat pocket and began to walk. Hester went with her to a bench beside the water. On the path a dog was sniffing a blade of grass so intently that its owner used his free hand to type messages. Merel sat. Hester stayed on her feet for a moment, until her sister patted the place beside her.

'She let me finish,' Merel said. 'Then there were questions. Some of them I didn't know. What time it was. I said I couldn't say. She just wrote it down.'

'That sounds good.'

'I kept thinking I had to give them something that would solve everything. If I could just bring myself to say her name, I had to know all the rest too.' She opened her bag's zip and closed it again. 'I don't know if I'm relieved. Mostly I'm angry that it could happen today. That I could have done this all along.'

Hester could have said she had not been able to at nineteen, that the years in between were real, that their mother would not simply have let her go. All true, and Merel did not now need a defender to take over even her anger at herself. 'Would you like me to stay until Bram gets here?' she asked.

'Yes. But I'll ring him myself.'

They did not get into a car together later. Bram came across the bridge and greeted Hester with a nod. He asked Merel whether she wanted to drive or walk. She chose to walk, at least part of the way, and gave him the car key. Hester watched him take it without pretending he immediately understood what the choice meant.

At parting Merel hugged her briefly. 'Don't tell Mum where I am tonight.'

'I won't.'

Hester did not wait for the two of them to disappear completely. She went the other way, towards Nieuwstraat. On the way she messaged Fleur to say the interview had taken place and that she wanted the agreed limits for tomorrow confirmed. No witnesses' names, no conclusion. At the studio she turned on the heating, took off her shoes and rang Finn back. The burner was clean now, he said. He had mainly wanted to know whether she was still eating anything.