A Fall Is Not an Explanation

A police officer's bicycle leant against the interview-room window. A thin layer of pollen covered the saddle. Lena had put her own bike in the rack when she arrived; only now did she notice another entrance on this side of the building. She had walked round past two glass doors and a sign directing visitors to a bell. Anouk van Dalen had come for her before she found out whether it worked.

‘Would you like coffee?’

Lena shook her head. She had already had two cups at the unit. Her bag stayed on her lap. A frayed bit on the strap kept finding its way between her thumb and forefinger.

Anouk pushed a glass of water towards her. There was a computer in the corner, but only a notebook on the table. She had read the initial report, she said. First she wanted to hear from Lena why she had contacted them.

‘I was in that house on 6 May. Sofie van Dijk was living there. The report being circulated now says it's been empty since the end of March.’

‘And you wrote that report?’

‘The original. Not this.’

Anouk waited. Lena heard how absolute it sounded and put her bag on the floor.

‘I sent my text to a colleague. She put the files together for the job. She often does. My daughter had an accident, and I didn't check what eventually went into the portal.’

‘When was the accident?’

‘7 May. In the evening. The email was that morning.’

‘Can you still access the email?’

‘Yes. The message and attachment. And my photographs.’

She had brought a folder of printouts. At home she had considered putting everything in order in plastic sleeves. In the end she had simply written the date and filename at the top of each printout. Anouk took the papers and set them face up without starting to read.

‘Paper helps us look at things together. We'll also need the original files, not just a forwarded copy.’

Lena took her phone out and placed it beside the glass. ‘I can show you here.’

‘That's fine. I won't search your phone. You show me what you mean. Then we'll agree how you can send us the documents.’

She opened her sent emails. The screen kept going dark as she explained the attachment. The third time, she did not change the timeout setting, though her finger had already reached for it. Anouk bent towards the phone, read the date, then looked back at Lena.

‘What were you asked to do on 6 May?’

‘Assess a leak. Damp at the junction with the rear wall. Establish where further investigation was needed. I found no reason to declare the whole house uninhabitable.’

‘You found no reason, or you established that it was safe?’

Lena drew her hand back. ‘I didn't write that it was safe. It was a limited inspection. Some things needed further investigation. But I didn't identify the defects described in this export.’

Anouk made a note and did not press the correction further. The precision gave Lena a little room. She did not have to supply certainty she lacked.

On the second page she pointed out the number of key sets. She described the two sets, the seven in the later version and the spare key still in the kitchen drawer. Anouk stopped her at the blue loop.

‘You saw that on both visits?’

‘On 6 May Sofie showed me her spare key in the kitchen drawer, then put it back. On 18 May it was still there.’

‘Did you take it?’

‘No.’

‘Who authorised the second visit?’

Lena explained about Pieter Drost, the inspection request and the access that came with the instructions. She described the point at which she had stopped. Once she realised the house might not have been vacated at all, she had inspected no further rooms.

‘But you had already been inside.’

‘Yes.’

She wanted to say any surveyor would have done the same. It was not true, and would not help. She had trusted an instruction because the names on her screen were familiar. Anouk underlined a word in her notebook.

‘There's a difference between the permission you're given and what you find when you get there. It's useful to describe where you became aware of that difference.’

‘So this is about my access?’

‘It's about what happened. That includes what you did.’

Outside, the bicycle slowly slipped off its stand and came to rest against the window. Lena watched until Anouk said her name.

‘I'd like the sequence now. Starting on 6 May. What do you know first-hand, and what have other people told you?’

They began again. The Wednesday visit, Thursday's email, Friday's new export. Anouk asked who had received the text and about the version code Lena had seen in the portal. She did not ask Lena to explain the code. When Lena said the time could prove Eva had intervened, Anouk put her pen down.

‘It may show that another version was saved. We still need to establish who saved it and what happened to the files.’

‘Eva had access.’

‘That's what you're telling me. You've spoken to her too?’

‘She says she hasn't changed the content.’

‘Put that down as well. The date of the conversation too, if you can. Don't try to reconstruct her exact words if you no longer remember them.’

Lena thought of the sentences she had repeated in her head over the past few days. Eva's tone had changed with each repetition. A question had turned into a warning. She might be able to recover the words, but could not neatly preserve the moment around them.

She turned her glass halfway round. A wet circle remained on the table.

‘I think Sofie was pressured into leaving. Other residents are being treated as though their departures are already settled. Mieke Kraan has seen documents.’

‘Does Ms Kraan have permission to share them?’

‘Some of them. She's getting consent from each resident.’

‘That matters. Your observation on 6 May is separate from what other people tell us about their homes. We won't combine it all into one account before we've heard from each of them.’

Anouk turned to a fresh page. She left the notebook open as she asked when Lena first heard that Henk Roos had died.

‘This week. From Cor Meijer, the locksmith. Then I spoke to Ria.’

‘Did you know Mr Roos?’

‘No. Cor told me about him. I recognised the surname, but I couldn't put a face to it.’

‘What connects his death with these documents for you?’

Lena did not point at the printouts. They said nothing about Henk. She explained that he helped Sofie with letters, that he had still been helping her on 14 May and had been found by the back steps. Halfway through she heard herself state a possibility in the past tense: he had challenged someone about the keys.

‘I don't know that,’ she said. ‘That last bit's my own idea.’

Anouk nodded and stopped writing.

‘An older man falls down some steps, and it's easy to leave it there,’ Lena said.

‘Easy for whom?’

‘The people who want those houses empty.’

‘I mean, whom can you say that about for certain?’

Lena sat still. She had not expected this woman to be indifferent. Yet she had prepared for a door closing, for a conversation she would have to keep open by putting the emphasis in the right place. Instead she kept having to make room for what she did not know.

‘Nobody,’ she said.

‘A fall can be an accident. But the word fall doesn't explain how somebody ended up there either. I can't discuss all the information about Mr Roos with you. We'll consider what you've told us alongside what we already have. An accident looking possible at first doesn't mean new information gets discarded.’

‘And Sofie?’

‘We want her to be able to let us know how she is. Has anyone had direct contact with her since 14 May?’

‘Not anyone I've spoken to.’

Anouk asked about family and work. Lena knew of the bread factory only from their conversation during the inspection. Sofie worked early shifts and sometimes struggled to arrange an appointment in the middle of the day. Lena did not know her brother. She had asked Mieke to help make contact; Mieke wanted to reach him herself first.

‘Don't go to her employer asking for her shifts,’ Anouk said. ‘You aren't entitled to that information. If she contacts you but doesn't want to say where she is, she doesn't have to. She can speak to us, or ask her own adviser to make contact.’

‘What if she's afraid of someone who has keys?’

‘Then we want to hear what she's afraid of. From her. She can keep any messages, where possible. You don't need to prepare her statement.’

Prepare stung. It was what Lena had done throughout her working life: make a visit useful, ensure no unanswered question cost them another day later. She picked up the phone and closed the email.

‘I corrected the file in writing last night. The reply came this morning. Noordhuis wants to take me off the job.’

Anouk asked whether it contained a threat.

‘It's a business reply. Payment depends on a completed file. They say I'm causing confusion.’

‘Keep that too. I can't assess your contract. If anyone threatens you or comes looking for you, tell us. You don't have to decide whether it's serious enough first.’

They discussed how to send the material. Lena received an address for the documents she was entitled to share and a reference number for further contact. Anouk asked her to list which files were originals and which she had downloaded from the portal. For now, the printouts stayed with Lena. Nobody took any papers without agreeing it first. Less impressive than a sealed box, and probably more useful.

At the door, Lena asked whether she could still contact Niels. Anouk said she could not forbid an ordinary business enquiry.

‘But what do you expect another conversation to achieve?’

Lena looked at her folder. She wanted to ask the same questions as yesterday, only with less patience.

‘For him to stop using my text.’

‘You've sent the correction. Make sure you can show what you know now. Don't set things up to catch him out.’

Someone had straightened the bicycle outside. Lena walked round to her own rack. Her phone showed a missed call from Mieke. With one hand on the handlebars, she listened to the message.

Mieke had reached Ruben van Dijk. He wanted to speak to Lena about his sister's house. He had agreed to her passing on his work number. He could spare half an hour that afternoon, but not at Mieke's office.

Lena did not put the appointment straight into her calendar. First she sent Anouk the files in the way they had just agreed. In the comments field she briefly identified the text she had written herself. She deleted the sentence about what Henk might have known. For now it belonged nowhere among the facts.

Then she rang Ruben. He answered with a van reversing somewhere close to the phone. Four beeps.

‘I can do three,’ he said. ‘But I'm not sitting there listening to what everyone says about my sister.’

‘I'd like to hear what you know yourself.’

He named a café by the business park. Lena wrote it on the back of her acknowledgement letter. When she pulled her bicycle from the rack, the back wheel caught in the low hoop. She had to lift it again with both hands before it came free.