Setting Up

Amir already had the doors open when Hester arrived at eight on Saturday. His toolbox stood in the foyer with a note on top: do not move, hinge. He was on one knee by the door to the hall, checking where it caught. Hester had to step over his outstretched leg to hang up her coat.

'All the exits still working?' she asked.

'Tried them all. This one's just catching. I'd rather deal with it now than with someone's heel in the way.' He stood and swung it back and forth once. 'You've expanded the briefing quite a bit.'

'Too much?'

'No. I just wondered why it says three times that upstairs is closed.'

Hester put down her bag. 'Because people here think of upstairs as another room in their memories. They've always gone up, so they assume they still can. Not today. If we need something from the office, you fetch it. No tours.'

Amir nodded. He said he had managed plenty of buildings where everyone thought they were the exception. He asked who had authority to change anything; Hester named Fleur and herself. Then she briefly explained the tensions and the pressure people had been under. She gave no names for the sake of gossip, but told him enough to stop him treating an objection as a squabble among old friends. Marjan had no job in the programme.

At first the morning went exactly as a setup should. Ruben arrived, checked the lighting with Amir and handed Hester the broken part that needed replacing. He had brought a suitable spare. Jasper delivered the bill for a borrowed panel and took only what was no longer needed. When he pointed to a pile beside the stairs, Amir said he would carry it to storage himself. Jasper left it alone.

Robin arrived at eleven with the mounts for the sketches under her arm. She had a bread roll in a paper bag and began eating as she checked the dimensions. One mount had been cut wrongly. She swore, found a pencil and worked out where the error would not show. Hester did not ask whether she was nervous. She asked if the bottom edge should line up with the neighbouring work and held the tape measure while Robin marked it out.

Ruben left before twelve. He greeted Robin by name and paused beside Hester in the foyer. 'Tomorrow?' he asked.

'If you like. You won't have to repair anything.'

'I know. I was just asking if you'd be here.'

She gave him the time of the small gathering. He did not enter it in his phone straight away. He would see whether it fitted and let her know. Once he had gone, Hester returned to the hall, where Robin pointed out a centimetre's difference she had missed.

The first preview visitors were early. A former participant brought her sister, although only one name was on the list. Fleur met them, explained that setup was still in progress and showed them where they could wait outside. She did not open a door merely because someone was an old acquaintance. Hester saw it and could cross one task off in her head.

At half past one Sanne took over the table by the entrance. She shifted it a little to the left to keep the door clear and set out a list on which she could mark departure times. She had her own pen, bright green, which nobody would walk off with unnoticed. The works were now spaced out in the hall. Hester had not filled every empty wall. Visitors would not have to follow a prescribed route from then to now.

Marjan appeared at ten to two. She brought no box, but a flat black portfolio held in both hands. The same mended umbrella as yesterday hung from her arm. Sanne asked her name, although she knew it by now from the instructions. Marjan gave it with a little laugh, as if she found it funny anyone still needed to ask.

Hester came out of the hall and stayed at the reception table. Robin followed, rubbing pencil-grey from her thumb, and did not immediately pull the portfolio towards her. 'What did you find?'

Marjan laid it on the table. 'I think this is your mother's. There's other people's work in it too, so I'd like us to sort out what belongs to whom.'

'We can do that here.' Hester moved the visitors' list and laid down a clean sheet of card. Marjan undid the fastening. The sheets smelt of a cupboard that had been shut for a long time. The first two held charcoal studies; beneath the third was Brecht's name in small pencil writing. Robin bent over it, looked at the back and took out her phone to photograph it.

'Not me as well,' Marjan said.

'I'm photographing the work.' Robin took the picture and put her phone back on the table. 'I haven't seen this one.'

Hester saw her face change. Robin did not have to say anything for Hester to understand why she had stayed. It was a sketch of a table with an oversized lamp above it and a little person underneath, somewhere between a set design and a joke. A shopping list was on the back in the same hand. Marjan pointed at the paper as if they were admiring a garden plant she had kept alive.

'There ought to be another small folder. I thought it was in here.' She turned over a few empty sleeves. 'The one with the brown corners. I'm afraid I may have put it in the office cupboard here all those years ago. Amir, did you ever clear that cupboard out?'

Amir stood in the hall doorway with an empty crate. 'The big cupboard? There's only paperwork for the owner in there. I haven't thrown anything away.'

'There used to be a section behind that grey box. Perhaps I left it there.' Marjan looked at Robin. 'I'd hoped to give it all back in one go. So you wouldn't have to wait for me to search my attic again.'

'Upstairs is closed,' Hester said. 'If there's something there, Amir can fetch it.'

'I don't know exactly what it looks like,' Robin said. 'I'd like to see what goes with the folder.'

Hester felt impatience rise, partly with Robin, partly with herself for having to invoke a house rule as if that were the whole issue. 'Then Amir brings the box down. We agreed this yesterday.'

Marjan laid a hand on the portfolio. 'There may be other people's details in there too. I'm not having papers from an office spread out in a crowded foyer. If we can't do it, I'll come another time.'

Fleur called from the hall just then. Two visitors objected to the way their work was displayed: one title had been switched, and the owner of the other piece wanted to take it away at once. It was not an emergency, but Hester had to deal with it before an impatient man pulled a fragile panel off its support. She held up a finger to Fleur and stayed by the table.

'I'll go up with them and take it out of the cupboard myself,' Amir said. 'Then nothing's left open. Five minutes.' He looked at Hester, not Marjan. 'Just to see what's there. The handover happens here.'

Hester saw Robin's fingers on the edge of the sketch. A small deviation, with the caretaker present, in a building where she herself would be downstairs. She could still have said no. Later she would not be able to skip over that thought. 'Five minutes,' she said. 'I'll be in the hall downstairs. Come and get me if anything needs sorting out. No conversation up there.'

Robin nodded. 'We'll just bring the folder.' She picked up her phone and put it in her trouser pocket. The portfolio stayed on the table. Hester told Sanne where they were going and went to the impatient man. Behind her the stairs creaked beneath three pairs of feet, one after another. Marjan moved slowly; Amir offered his arm, but she took the handrail.

The wrong label was easy to find. The grievance beneath it was not. The visitor should not have to see his own design credited to a stranger. Hester left the panel on its support and removed the label. She offered to take the work out of the selection until they were certain. The man decided to collect it himself; Fleur would make out a receipt. There was no discussion of his gratitude or how hard the organisers had worked.

When Hester looked up, Amir was coming down the stairs with a grey archive box. He went to the counter. Hester excused herself to the visitor and went straight over. 'Where's Robin?'

'Still by the cupboard. Marjan wanted to point out the top shelf. I told them to come down if they couldn't see the folder.' He set down the box and looked at the stairs. 'I thought they were following me.'

Hester checked the clock. They had been upstairs four minutes. The agreed supervision had fallen away, and she had seen neither of them return. She took out her phone and rang Robin. A tune sounded faintly upstairs, then stopped. No answer.

She went to the lowest step. 'Robin? Come down now. We'll look at it here.'

From the office came a sound like a chair being dragged across the floor. Then she heard Robin's voice, louder than it needed to be over such a short distance. 'No. Give that back.'

Hester turned to Sanne. 'Ring the police. Now. Say someone's being kept upstairs against her will and there have already been concerns about threats. Amir, keep people away from the stairs and the exit clear.' She waited until Sanne had taken out her phone. Then she went up without running. On the third step she heard Robin again, perfectly clearly this time: 'I want to get out.'