A New Conversation

A vase behind the reception desk held three plastic branches. Hester watched them while Robin put away her ID. There was no reason to study the branches, except that doing so saved her thinking about who had read her name on the screen. The receptionist pointed out two chairs and said someone would come for them.

Robin sat on the edge of a chair, her coat still fastened. Hester left an empty seat between them. On the walk over they had agreed not to answer for one another. Now the agreement seemed designed expressly to stop Hester supplying the very first answer herself.

Ellen Meijer came for them at ten. She wore a navy cardigan and took the pen from behind her ear as soon as she checked their names. She introduced herself without first remarking how hard this must be for them. Hester was grateful.

The room overlooked a courtyard full of bicycles. Ellen indicated two chairs side by side and asked whether they wanted to begin together. Separate conversations might be needed later. Hester said she was there to correct her own statement; Robin wanted to explain why she had raised questions. Ellen nodded and asked them to distinguish as clearly as possible between things they had witnessed and things they had heard from others.

'I'll probably ask about that a few times,' she said. 'Not to contradict you. I need to know where the information comes from.'

Hester pulled her notebook towards her. She had written one paragraph at home, not a whole reconstruction. She did not read it aloud immediately.

'On the twenty-fifth of September 2004, Brecht Boon fell down the stairs at De Werf,' she began. 'At the time I said my sister Merel was with me in the kitchen when it happened. That wasn't true.'

Ellen wrote down the names and asked their ages at the time. Then she asked how Hester knew when Merel had come in.

'I heard a crash. Not quiet. Something heavy. Then she came into the kitchen. I hadn't seen her before that. I don't know how long between the two. Not long, as I remember, but I didn't look at a clock.'

'Could you see where she came from?'

'The corridor. The kitchen opens onto the side corridor. I couldn't see the stairs from inside.'

'And when she came in?'

'She was crying. I sat her down. She was very upset. I thought I had to protect her.'

'Did she tell you she'd done something?'

'No.'

'Did you ask?'

Hester looked at her notebook. The question was not missing from her memory because she had forgotten it. She had never asked. She had given Merel no chance to answer in a way that did not fit her solution.

'Not directly. I asked if she was hurt. If she needed anything. I told her to stay with me.'

Ellen kept writing. 'So your reason for giving a different account was an assumption of your own.'

'Yes.'

Beside her, Robin did not move. Hester did not check whether she was listening as a daughter ought to listen. Nor did she need to arrange her own face to give Robin some useful response.

Ellen asked when Hester had realised her statement was untrue. An almost courteous way of putting it; Hester wanted no misunderstanding.

'When I gave it. I knew straight away. It's not a memory that's turned out to be different.'

'I'll record that.'

She asked why Hester was coming forward now. Hester described the job, the envelopes and her conversation with Robin. She mentioned Ruben's route, adding that Ruben should describe it himself. Daan had not confirmed seeing him on the towpath. She had investigated nothing else. Ellen asked about the invitations and Hester took the envelopes from her bag. She had brought only her own and Brecht's, with the card.

Robin said she had made them. She described the stationer's, dropping off the packet and what she had intended. She named Fleur as the person who had supplied contact details and said that in the end she had posted nothing. Ellen asked for her name and address on a separate form.

'I haven't threatened anybody,' Robin said.

'I'm asking how it happened. Sending an invitation to your mother, who has died, may bring up a great deal for other people. I understand that from what you're telling me. I'd like to hear what you intended, in your own words.'

'I didn't want her to become just a photograph on a wall.'

Ellen looked up and waited. Robin laid her hands flat on her thighs.

'And I wanted someone to explain why there are different stories about who was where. I didn't think somebody would confess on the spot. But I did want to make it uncomfortable.'

Ellen wrote it down. She made no gesture that turned sympathy for Robin's grief into approval. Then she asked about Else and the letter. Robin explained that her gran had the original. It concerned Brecht's intention to leave De Werf, and work for which her mother had not been properly credited.

'Have you read it yourself?'

'Yes. At her house. I can ask her to contact you.'

'That's a good first step. Ask her to keep the letter as it is. If she's willing to make it available, we'll arrange that with her directly. It doesn't need to go through Ms Koster.'

'I wasn't planning to.'

'Fine.'

They discussed what they did not know. Robin knew nothing about the fall and did not remember the evening. Hester had seen the stairs only after leaving the kitchen, Merel still behind her. People had been round Brecht. Her mother had been giving instructions. Hester did not know how long had passed before anyone called for help. There had been phones, shouting, somebody fetching a coat. After all these years she refused to piece that into a chronology she could not support.

Ellen asked whether she had kept her old statement. No, Hester said. She had no file and did not know exactly which words had been recorded. She did know which untrue thing she had said. Ellen explained that the old material, where still available, would need to be examined by the police. She would not share a full file with them.

'I'm not asking for that,' Hester said.

'I'm saying it because you'll want to know what we find. We can't pass everything back to you. And I can't promise today that your correction will lead to a different finding about Ms Boon's death.'

Robin leaned forward. 'But someone will look at it.'

'Your information will be assessed. I'm recording that Ms Koster is correcting her own earlier account. Then I need to see the relevant material and decide who we should speak to. This conversation doesn't tell me what happened on the stairs.'

Hester thought of her mother, always trying to protect people from misunderstandings. This was a different sort of qualification. Ellen allowed the unknown to remain unknown without first making it less serious.

'Should I send my sister here?' Hester asked.

'You can tell her you've been. Don't decide on her behalf what she has to say. If I need to approach her, I'll do that myself.'

Hester felt caught doing something she wanted to unlearn. She said she understood. Robin glanced sideways at her, without triumph.

Ellen asked whether there had been threats. Jasper had called the invitations an attack on the sale, Hester said, but had made no specific threat. Her mother wanted her to throw them away. Robin shook her head when Ellen asked about her own experience. She had not been followed, nobody had tried to take her phone, she had received no anonymous messages. She had been angry and slept badly. That was not in itself a threat.

'Contact us if that changes,' Ellen said. She gave them a card bearing a reference number for the report. 'If there's immediate danger, call at once. For other incidents, note what actually happens as precisely as possible. Who, where, when, the words used. Don't try to persuade people to do things yourself.'

'And the open day?' Hester asked.

'That's for the organiser and owner. I'm not giving permission on behalf of the police. If there's a specific safety concern, report it. Keep your normal safety arrangements in place.'

She went over the contact arrangements again. Hester read the recorded correction and changed one sentence. She had not heard crying before Merel entered; she had first seen her sister crying when she stood in the doorway. Ellen amended it without comment. That small difference was exactly the sort of care Hester had always wanted to skip once she thought she understood the main point.

When she signed, her hand moved no differently than on a booking confirmation. She had expected to feel the act more sharply. Ellen pulled the paper back and asked whether there was anything else they had witnessed themselves and not mentioned.

Hester thought of the railing. She explained that her mother had used the word before she herself had heard anything about it from Jasper. She also said the old accident had been publicly known. Ellen asked for the exact context, noted the sentence and drew no conclusion. Hester was not ashamed of mentioning it. She was a little ashamed of the relief she had expected if somebody else heard something suspicious in it.

Outside, Robin took her phone from her coat. Three messages from her client, all about a discrepancy in the wall measurements. She read them and said a word she probably avoided at her gran's.

'I have to get back.'

'Will you make it?'

'Yes. Train in eleven minutes. If I walk.'

Hester wanted to offer food, then remembered the rolls. Instead she asked whether Robin wanted her to tell Fleur how long the appointment had taken. Robin said she kept her own hours.

'Of course.'

At the station square Robin stopped. 'I haven't decided what I think of you.'

'You don't have to decide today.'

'Convenient.'

'That's not how I meant it.'

'I know.' She put her phone away. 'I do think it's good you said it. At least I can do something with that, even if I'm angry about it.'

She went on towards the ticket readers. Hester did not wait to see whether she caught the train. She rang Fleur, who answered on the second ring and asked if the caterer meeting was confirmed. Hester said it was, then briefly explained where she had been. No answer.

'Fleur?'

'Yes. I hear you.'

'We need to talk about the programme this afternoon.'

'How many people know?'

Hester looked at the card with the reference number. It offered no reassuring answer.

'The people I needed to tell. I'll come to De Werf shortly. First I'll message Merel.'

She put down her phone and wrote that the appointment had taken place, that she had corrected her own words and had made no statement for her sister. Then she crossed to the baker's for a cup of tea she would finish while it was hot. In half an hour she needed to ring Tessa. For the first time that morning she owed nobody an explanation of where she had been.