Still Unsettled

At eight o'clock the exhibition labels were still in two different fonts. It was the first thing Tessa noticed when she came back for her lamp. Hester already had her coat on to leave and took it off again. At the back of the hall Jasper was unscrewing a hook intended for a banner they would no longer be using. They had agreed that he would remove only that fitting; the rest of the setup was for Saturday.

'Nobody ever died of two fonts,' he said.

'They have of indifference,' Tessa said. Then she looked angrily at her own hands. 'Forget it. That was cheap.'

Jasper dropped the screw into an empty matchbox. He said nothing. In the last few days Hester had learnt that a justified reproach did not have to be repeated every time to remain justified. She picked up the labels and put them in order. Tessa would fix the error on her own laptop and send the file. Nobody needed to stay for that.

Hester heard Daan arrive in the foyer. He carried a folder too small for the papers inside it; one corner was folded over. Ruben came in behind him, held the door with his foot and told Fleur he had come for the tape measure he had lent them. For a moment it looked as if they had all turned up for another meeting. Nobody had called one.

Daan stayed by the table. 'I've brought that expenses form. And I wanted to say they've rung again. The police. I'm going on Monday.'

He was looking at Ruben as he said it. Ruben did not put down the tape measure. 'Make sure you do.'

'I've said I saw you on the path.'

'You've said that already.'

Daan tugged at the projecting corner of paper. Hester looked at the curled doormat; she wanted to flatten it to give her foot something to do. Making Ruben's answer kinder was not her job. Daan had chosen to speak. He was allowed to discover for himself that speaking and being welcomed were different things.

'I'm not saying it so you'll thank me,' Daan said. 'I just don't know how to talk to you normally about this any more.'

'Perhaps not normally for a bit,' Ruben said. 'Tell them what you know. And let me finish those light fittings tomorrow without hovering beside me.'

Daan nodded. He asked Fleur where to leave the folder and went into the foyer. The door did not slam. He kept his hand on it until it settled quietly into the frame. A small difference from the old days, when every departure had been a message to the rest.

Jasper climbed off the ladder. 'I've been in touch too.' He addressed Hester, not Ruben. 'They know about the things I moved. And that I didn't ring straight away.'

'Good,' Hester said.

'That doesn't mean she's right about everything.' He glanced towards the corridor, where Robin passed carrying two empty frames. 'I wasn't standing upstairs watching their row. I'm not having anyone tell me I was.'

'Nobody's asking you to,' Hester said. 'Tell them what you did and saw. Nothing more.'

'And nothing less,' Ruben said.

Jasper was still holding the ladder. 'No. I understand.' He hesitated, then set it against the wall. 'That business with you this week. That was me. I'm not pretending I spoke for somebody else. I wanted you to shut up because I was afraid I'd have to talk myself otherwise.'

Ruben looked at him. It lasted long enough for Hester to think he would walk away. 'You could still stop standing in doorways when you want something from people.'

Jasper stepped aside, although he was not in a doorway now. Ruben passed him, peeled the piece of tape off the tape measure and put it on the table in front of Hester. Then he slipped the measure into his coat pocket. He said he would come at half past eight tomorrow, until twelve, and left. Jasper looked at his matchbox, shook it and put it in his trouser pocket.

Hester did not follow Jasper when he too left shortly afterwards. She simply noted that the ladder remained and the hook was gone. He didn't need everyone's approval for speaking to the police. Tessa took her lamp; Fleur stayed for one last round. It was getting dark outside. The foyer windows had become mirrors in which Hester could no longer see who was walking on the other side of the street.

Robin came back along the corridor with her coat over her arm. 'Gran does want to come on Sunday. Just not if she has to say anything.'

'She doesn't,' Fleur said.

'I've said I'll fetch her. But if she changes her mind at the last minute, I'll be late too. I'll stay with her for a bit first.'

Hester entered it in the schedule without asking how late. She needed a slot for the handover of keys, not for Else's grief. Robin saw her note and said she would come at eleven on Saturday to hang the small works. She wanted to go to the printer first. Some of the new captions could be done on their own machine, but she did not want to improvise the thin backing mounts for the sketches.

'I won't be working upstairs,' she said. 'Everything's downstairs in the storeroom. I emptied that cupboard today.'

'Good.' Hester picked up the instructions folder. 'Sanne will be keeping track of people at the door from half past one. Before that, if you're working with materials elsewhere in the building, tell me or Amir where. It goes for all of us. Especially if anyone else brings work we haven't seen.'

Robin put on her coat. 'You mean your mother.'

'Among others. She said today she still had something. I haven't seen it. New handovers happen downstairs, and we need to know about them beforehand.'

'She's sent me a message.' Robin took out her phone and showed her. Marjan wrote that she might have found the original little folder the blue sketch had come from. She would let her know whether there really was more of Brecht's work inside. Underneath it said: I'd like to hand this over to you properly, not through an entire committee.

Hester read it twice. It was a request to separate them, put reasonably enough to make an objection seem childish. She thought of Ellen: report specific pressure, take a direct threat seriously. This was not yet a threat, but she could not let it pass carelessly either.

'I want her to know where it's happening,' she said. 'Down here, with us present. You don't owe anyone a favour for something that belonged to your mother in the first place.'

Robin took back the phone. 'I'm not promising her one.' She typed while Hester waited, then read it aloud: 'If you have work of my mother's, you can show it to me at the reception table tomorrow. Hester knows. I'd like to look at it with someone else and make a list of what's handed over.'

She sent it and pocketed the phone. 'I'm not going upstairs on my own to look. But I'm not going to act as if that message gives her a say in what I do or don't accept.'

'I understand.' Hester wished she were more certain of it. She wanted to forbid Robin every meeting and knew how easily such a ban could take the form of all the protection she had been struggling against this week. She could make sure people knew where Robin was, that somebody stayed with her and that a reasonable agreement was actually kept.

Fleur had joined them at the table. 'If she comes, I'll get you,' she told Hester. 'And if you're busy, it stays on the table until you're back. No quick little detour into another room.'

Robin nodded. 'You can say that to me too if I get impatient. I just really want to see those things.'

Hester understood that desire better than her own caution. It was not about proof that would solve everything. There might be a second sheet in that folder where Brecht had crossed out a mistake or chosen a peculiar colour. Something Robin did not yet know of a person everyone else believed they remembered.

They closed up together. Hester shut the rear door and tried the handle; Fleur checked the storeroom and switched off the main lights, leaving those in the foyer on. Robin waited by the street door. Hester went to the stairs once more and moved the closed sign so that a visitor could not pass without seeing it.

'I've put it in my message to her too,' Fleur said. 'No access upstairs.'

Outside they went in different directions. Hester returned to the studio, where the two mugs from that morning were still on the dining table. She washed them before sitting on the sofa. Her phone showed two missed calls from her mother. No voicemail. She wrote: I'm not available tonight. Arrangements for De Werf go through Fleur. She deleted the sentence that had automatically followed, asking whether it was urgent. If it really was, Marjan could write it down.

She sent the message and laid the phone on the sideboard. No answer followed. She did not ring Merel to ask whether she had had calls too. Her sister would get in touch if she wanted. Instead Hester put on her nightshirt, set the alarm and searched her bag for her earplugs. At the bottom was Robin's little sheet of dimensions for the captions. She smoothed the folded corner and left it by the door, on top of the key she would need in the morning.