Above the Hall

Halfway up the stairs Hester could see the little landing. Nobody was there. The old office door was closed, but did not sit tight in its frame; a narrow line of light fell across the floor beneath it. Behind her Sanne gave her name into the phone. She supplied De Werf's address and repeated that it was upstairs, not a quarrel outside. Hester also heard her say that both ordinary exits downstairs were open.

She kept hold of the handrail until she reached the landing. 'Robin. I'm outside the door.'

Something struck the inside briefly, low down. 'She's standing in front of it. I can't get past.'

'We're almost finished,' Marjan said. Her voice had the everyday indignation of someone interrupted by a child. 'Hester, keep out of it. This is between Robin and me.'

Hester put her hand on the handle. It moved normally. When she pushed, the door gave a few centimetres, then met something. She heard her mother shift.

'Move back,' Hester said. 'I'm opening it.'

'You're giving her the very idea that something's wrong here.'

'Something is wrong. She's said she wants to leave.'

Hester pushed against the wood with her palm. She heard Marjan take a sharp breath and eased off a fraction, afraid of trapping her between the door and the desk. She was instantly ashamed of the reflex: Mum mustn't get hurt. Robin was there too. 'Robin, where are you?'

'By the window. I can go round behind the desk.'

'Do that. Away from the door.'

Merel appeared on the stairs behind her. A helmet hung from her rucksack; she had cycled. Her eyes went to the door, to Hester's hands, then to the few centimetres of opening. She did not ask what she had missed. 'I'm here,' she told Hester. 'What do you need?'

'Stay out of the door's way. Sanne's called.'

Merel moved sideways against the wall, leaving the stairs clear behind her. Downstairs Amir was asking the visitors to return to the hall. Someone protested that help might be needed. Amir said it had already been called and kept the route through the foyer open. Their voices were loud enough to carry. There were people in the building who knew where Hester was.

'You're going to turn this into a whole performance,' Marjan said. 'When all I'm asking is that someone take responsibility for the damage she's done.'

Robin answered Hester rather than her. 'I'm clear of the door.'

Hester moved her foot further from the threshold and pushed again, harder. This time the wood gave. Marjan had to step back to save her toes. She caught the edge of the desk and stayed there, her mouth open, but no cry came. The door swung far enough for the chair behind it to be moved. Hester stepped in and held it open with her hand.

The office was smaller than she remembered. The cupboard was open; a half-used packet of paper lay on its bottom shelf. A desk chair stood at an angle behind the door, as if someone had pushed it away, then back again. On the desk was a sheet with a few typed lines and a large empty space at the bottom. A pen lay beside it. Hester read only the first words: Through my invitations I have. She did not need to touch it.

Robin stood by the window, not crying, with her rucksack on one shoulder and her phone firmly in her hand. There was a red mark on her other wrist. Marjan clutched a brown folder against her stomach. She was breathless from the effort at the door. She looked first at Hester, then much more briefly at Merel in the doorway.

'She only needs to acknowledge that she's been careless,' Marjan said. 'That's hardly unreasonable. You thought those cards were dreadful too.'

'You don't have that conversation by standing in front of a door.' Hester moved aside to let Robin pass behind the desk. 'Come on. Bring what you're holding. Leave everything else.'

Robin took a step. Marjan raised the brown folder. 'If you walk out now, you won't get this. Then you can find out for yourself who clears all this up later.'

Robin stopped for a moment. Hester saw it in her face, the instant reckoning of what she might lose in that folder. It could hold a drawing no one had copied. It could hold nothing. Hester did not know and would not decide for her.

'I want the folder,' Robin said. 'But I'm not signing anything. And you're not having my phone.'

'There are photographs of private papers on it. You've recorded everything without permission.'

'You showed me the folder. Then you wanted my bag. I said no.' Robin was speaking to Hester now. 'She grabbed my arm when I went for the door. I shoved a chair against the desk so you'd hear me.'

'You pulled that chair over yourself,' Marjan said. 'I nearly fell.'

Merel pulled the door further open and moved the chair aside. The gap was wide enough for Robin to pass now.

'Go on,' she said.

Robin went behind the desk, past a box left on the floor. Marjan stepped towards her. Hester put herself between them, her arm held low, not to seize her mother but to stop her. 'Don't touch her.'

Marjan stared at the arm as if Hester had done something improper. 'You don't even know what this is about.'

'I can hear she wants to leave. That's enough.'

Robin reached the doorway. She looked through it towards the landing and the stairs. Merel kept the way clear, stepping aside first so they would not jam the narrow opening together. Hester did not leave her mother at the open cupboard as though she had a job to finish on her own. She stayed between her and Robin, one hand still on the door.

'The police can see everything in that folder,' Robin said. 'The letter isn't here. You never had the original from me.'

'I know that perfectly well,' Marjan said. 'Not everything has to go through the police. Some things you can discuss with people yourself.'

'Then you let them go home when they want to,' Merel said.

Marjan turned towards her younger daughter. 'Don't start saying things you'll regret later.'

Merel let go of the door. 'I said what I needed to yesterday.'

Downstairs a chair scraped across the floor, followed by the sound of the front door. Hester could not see who had come in. She heard no siren. She did not want Marjan turning towards the sound and suddenly trying to shove past them. She kept her voice as level as possible. 'We're going downstairs. Not all at once. Robin first. Merel stays with her.'

'And I stay here to be collected like a criminal?' Marjan put the folder on the desk too hard. Dust came out of a fold. 'So that's what you want.'

Hester glanced at the paper on the desk. Below the first sentence was a second paragraph requiring Robin to acknowledge that her version of events rested on incomplete information. With her signature underneath, the sheet could circulate as a respectable correction. Hester looked back at Robin.

'I want you to leave her alone,' Hester said. 'The rest isn't my decision.'

Marjan pushed her arm aside, not hard enough to move her. She wanted to pass the desk towards the door. Hester stepped back to keep some space; she would not wrestle in that little office. Robin was already on the landing. Merel stood beside her, away from the top step.

Hester followed them out and saw the stairs. They were so close, just beyond the patch of floor everyone was trying to reach. She put a hand on the doorframe and told Robin she could go. Robin turned downwards and put one foot on the first step.

From behind Hester, Marjan reached out and caught the strap of Robin's rucksack. It was not a deft movement. She pulled at what she could reach, her other hand braced on the frame to keep her balance. Robin went no further down; she put her foot back on the landing and slipped the strap off her shoulder before it could drag her backwards.

'Let go,' she said, loudly enough now that Hester heard someone below answer.

Hester closed her hand round her mother's wrist. The bone was narrow, the skin smooth beneath her fingers. She did not need to win a contest of strength to know they needed room. 'We're beside the stairs,' she said. 'Let go of that bag.'

Marjan did not look at her hand. She looked at Merel. 'You say something, then. You know what happens if she goes public with this.'

Merel stayed where she was. She was no longer looking at the hand on the bag, but at her mother's face. Hester held the wrist and did not wait for an answer that would give Marjan permission to go on. She repeated it, more briefly: 'Let go.'