Robin

'Boon,' she said. 'Robin Boon. Brecht was my mother.'

Hester could have supplied the name herself by now, but it mattered that Robin said it. No account passed on through Daan, no explanation from Fleur. A young woman opposite her, red paint along the edge of a shoe sole and a watch too big for her wrist.

'I knew you when you were little,' Hester said.

'Fleur told me.'

'I don't know whether you…'

'No. I don't remember her. I was two. Whenever people say I must still feel something about this building, I have to work out how to answer politely.'

Hester nodded and abandoned the question. She remembered once watching Robin peel a mandarin. A child with a bright red face, furious because the fruit was falling apart. A real memory, but not one she could hand Robin as a gift. There was hardly any Brecht in it, only Hester's own place in the kitchen back then.

'You made the invitations.'

'Yes. All eight. And brought them this morning.'

'Your mother's too.'

'Yes.' Robin took her coat off the chair back and laid it on her lap. 'I shouldn't try to dodge that. I wanted you to see it. I even thought about what kind of paper people wouldn't throw away straight off.'

'What did you want us to do?'

'Stop pretending she was just part of a successful project. I heard about the reunion, and that my gran was invited. Nobody had asked if I wanted to show anything. I get paid to hang the panels straight, then everyone tells the rest themselves.'

'You could have come to me.'

'I didn't know you. Fleur only told me who was running it after I'd started.'

Hester looked at the envelopes. Spoken by this woman, the question seemed less calculated than on paper. Not innocent: Robin had known exactly what a dead person's name could do to a room. But there was no longer an invisible sender overshadowing every possible answer.

'I don't think it was a good way to go about it,' she said.

'You don't have to.'

'I do need to know whether anything else is going to happen on Sunday that isn't in the programme. No notes under chairs, no questions sprung on people from the stage.'

Robin looked indignant. 'I'm not going to film you all for the internet.'

'I didn't say that.'

'But you're already thinking of things that hadn't occurred to me.'

Fair enough. Hester folded her hands on the table. 'Let me ask more simply. Have you prepared anything else?'

'No. The envelopes. That's all.'

'And Fleur knew.'

'She gave me the addresses so I could reach everyone. In the end I chose one packet, here. She knew I was making an extra invitation. She hadn't seen the question.'

'She knew who it was for.'

'Yes.'

Fleur had stood in front of them all explaining that the board knew nothing. That might be technically true and still be a choice. Hester did not write it down, but knew she would reach for her notebook later to recover the sentence carefully.

'Why do you need Daan?'

Robin ran her thumb along her coat seam. 'I spoke to him a few months ago. He'd told my gran something. Not enough. But he did say he'd seen Ruben outside. Not upstairs, where everybody seemed to think he was.'

'Daan was your mother's partner.'

'I know. He's not my father, if that's what you mean.'

'No. I mean his relationship with Else is difficult.'

'With me too. He was around for a while. Then less and less. There are reasons, and some are probably fair enough. They didn't help me as a child.'

She stopped. Hester heard the fridge start up. Fleur was clearing the cups in the hall, audibly stacking them; nothing broke. The everyday sound gave Hester room not to answer at once.

'What exactly did he say?'

'That he saw Ruben leave. And that he hadn't made that clear enough at the time.'

'To the police?'

'He didn't put it like that. He started talking about arguments and everybody talking at once. I asked if he'd seen Ruben. Then he said yes. Then suddenly he had to go home.'

'So you thought we were hiding something.'

'I thought there was a difference between what you tell people and what you know.'

The accusation was simple. Hester could not escape it by pointing out how unreliable memories became after so many years. Her own memory was not the problem. She straightened Brecht's invitation and saw Robin follow her hand.

Robin smoothed the coat across her knees. 'My gran's also got a letter. From my mother. She wrote it when she wanted to leave here. Not an explanation of how she died. People act as though one exists: you just have to find a sheet of paper and then you'll know everything.'

'What's in it?'

'That she was fed up with the work. That her name wasn't on it, and she wanted to take her designs with her. That she was tired of Marjan.'

Until then Hester had mostly watched the table. Now she saw how young Robin was, and how little that diminished what she said. She had prepared for anger, for a question about whether they had missed Brecht. Not for her own mother's name spoken matter-of-factly in somebody else's dispute over work.

'I ought to read it,' she said.

'Perhaps. But not because you're organising the reunion.'

'You're right.'

'It's not my letter either. Gran kept it. She knew I wanted to get in touch with you. She didn't know about the invitations. She's angry about them.'

Hester started to ask whether Else was afraid of what might come out, then stopped. She barely knew Else now. She did not need to turn her objections straight into fear to make Robin's plan understandable.

'Can I ring her tomorrow?'

'I'll ask. I can go with you on Wednesday morning, if she wants. I'm working part of tomorrow.'

'What kind of work?'

'Putting up walls in a small exhibition space. They need someone who'll pick up a roller, not just say the colour's wrong.' For the first time she smiled a little. 'Here too, actually.'

Hester began to understand what the evening had cost Robin. She had not spent twenty-two years waiting for people to repair her childhood. She had training, jobs, bills; she had made an effort to fit this into her week. It did not make her method right, but it made her presence harder to dismiss.

'I can't tell you how your mother fell,' Hester said.

'What can you tell me?'

She could tell her Merel had not been with her. The sentence was ready, familiar and yet too large for this kitchen. If she said it here, she would again be choosing a place and a person and a moment without her sister. But silence had not become neutral simply because Merel might object.

'I gave a statement at the time that wasn't true.'

Robin let go of her coat.

'About Ruben?'

'Not directly. About where my sister was. I said she was with me in the kitchen when Brecht fell. She only came in afterwards.'

She had said it. No door flew open, no protest came from the corridor. Robin simply watched her with such attention that Hester did not dare move her hands from the table. Then she moved them anyway, onto her thighs.

'Why?'

'She was upset. I wanted to protect her.'

'From what?'

'I didn't know. I thought she might have done something. I saw nothing. Only that she was crying.'

'You thought she'd done something to my mother…'

'I didn't know anything. That's all I can honestly say. I said something I knew was untrue.'

Robin stood and went to the worktop. Hester let her. There was no way to make this sound better without making it less true. A chair moved in the hall, and she wished Fleur were not so close. Then she realised how quickly her attention had returned to who would hear the story.

'I don't want you questioning Merel,' she said.

Robin turned. 'You tell me you lied, and your next sentence is an instruction.'

'Yes. You're right. Sorry.'

'I'm not going to corner your sister. But you can't tell me to wait quietly now until you've all found a nice way to put it.'

'I don't want to.'

'What do you want, then?'

Hester took out her phone, laid it still locked on the table and said they should contact the police. Not through a public gathering, not by having Robin collect evidence for Hester to approve. She could correct her own statement. Robin could explain why she was asking questions. The police would have to assess what could still be done.

'Do you think they'll listen?'

'I don't know. I'm not going to say there's nothing they can do, or promise they'll solve everything.'

Robin sat down again. She asked whether her gran would have to hand over the letter. Hester said she did not know, and did not want the original herself. If Else wanted to show it to them, they could read it together. For an official investigation Else could make arrangements directly. Robin nodded slowly. She did not look reassured. Hester was glad she had not offered false reassurance.

They looked up the non-emergency number. It was late enough for Hester to keep the report brief, asking how to correct an old statement and making an appointment for Tuesday. The staff member asked whether anyone was in immediate danger. Hester looked at Robin and put the question to her aloud. Robin shook her head. No threats, she said. Only people who would rather she did not make things difficult. Hester passed on the distinction.

At the end of the call, both their names were on an appointment confirmation. Robin asked whether Hester really would come. No hostility, just a necessary question.

'Yes,' Hester said.

'Even if your mother thinks it's a bad idea.'

'It's about my statement.'

Robin picked up the paper roll. 'I need to catch my train. Will you send me your studio address? I'll be there at a quarter past nine tomorrow, then we can walk together.'

Hester sent the address and took her to the front door. Fleur still sat at the table with her laptop open. She saw their faces and asked nothing. Robin said tonight's hours would be on her invoice, including the half-hour she had been unable to work. Fleur said that went without saying.

Outside, Hester pointed the way to the station. Robin already knew it. She walked off without looking back. Hester did not wait at the door for a final sign. She returned to Fleur, who had taken her hands off the keyboard.

'You knew who'd sent the invitations.'

'I didn't know exactly what she was going to do.'

'That's not what I asked.'

Fleur nodded. 'Yes.'

Hester picked up her bag. It was too late to tack a discussion about her job onto this. 'We'll talk tomorrow. I've got an appointment first.'

In Nieuwstraat she set her alarm and laid her notebook on the small table. She did not write down what Merel might have done. She wrote one paragraph about her own words in 2004, with a second sentence correcting when her sister had come in. Then she closed the book. Tomorrow she would take it with her, without turning it into a better story.