One Client Fewer

The man from Veldhof had changed his email's subject line. No house numbers now, just Thursday's appointment. Lena read the first two lines while the printer beside her fed out a sheet. She need not reach the bottom to know Thursday would be free.

He wanted another firm to carry out the inspection. Given the questions about her earlier reporting, he felt that was sensible. He requested his advance payment back. He wished her well in resolving the matter.

Lena put the printout for Anouk face down and read the email again. Twelve homes, and a regular client. Last year he had called because a larger firm had twice postponed its preliminary inspection. She had gone on a Saturday. The residents had made coffee; an elderly man had cleared his entire balcony, thinking she needed to run a machine over it. Afterwards the man from Veldhof had said he liked the way she let people finish speaking. That appeared nowhere on her invoice.

She drafted a reply. Naturally, I understand your decision. Too smooth. She understood it, but there was nothing natural about it. She removed the word, confirmed she would repay the advance that day and offered to hand over the appointments arranged with residents. Then her finger hovered over Send. She wanted to explain that the disputed export's text had never been hers. She had told him that yesterday. Another defence would not change his decision.

She sent the reply and opened her bank statement.

Only yesterday a Veldhof resident had emailed a photograph of his ceiling. Thursday's appointment was confirmed; he would keep the afternoon free. Lena looked at the message and rang the client. Someone had to tell them she was not coming.

‘We'll take care of that,’ he said.

‘I'll send the appointment list. The residents gave their numbers for this visit. Not for a general mailing.’

‘We understand.’

He sounded polite and hurried. Lena asked whether the replacement firm was available on Thursday. He did not yet know. She would not offer to go herself in the meantime. That would leave residents in a halfway arrangement, everyone still relying on her while no one wanted to use her work.

‘Will you let me know when they've been told?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Just send the list.’

Afterwards she removed a private remark a resident had made about his working hours. It was not needed to arrange access. She sent the remaining appointments with a short explanation, then cleared Thursday from her calendar. The gap was still large enough to fill with another list of things to do later.

Someone in the unit was hitting a metal strip against shelving. Twice, a brief pause, once more. Lena had always been able to ignore that sound. Now she counted along. After the refund, the rent and the money set aside for tax would still be due. Two smaller jobs remained. She herself had postponed one new enquiry. She had enough for the next few months, provided she stopped reassuring herself with figures she would earn only if other people still wanted to hire her.

She made the repayment, recorded the cancellation and rang the insurer about Monday's notification. She had more information, she said. The man asked when she had discovered the altered document. Her timeline lay beside her. Asked whether an employee of her business had produced the export, Lena first said yes.

‘An external colleague,’ she corrected herself. ‘We work together on individual jobs. She assembled the documents.’

He asked whether Lena had checked the final version.

‘No.’

The word hung over the table. She could explain how Jip had come off her bicycle on a bend on the evening of 7 May, how long they had spent in A&E, and how badly everyone had slept afterwards. It was on her timeline, under private. The man did not ask.

‘I'll send a form,’ he said. ‘Set out the facts of what happened and attach the originals. First we need to establish the situation. I can't give a decision on cover now.’

She asked whether she could continue sending corrections to those involved.

‘I'll ask your claims handler to contact you about that. In any case, keep everything you send and receive.’

When she hung up it was nine minutes past nine. She had lost a client, transferred money and said her own mistake aloud. The same sheet still lay on the table.

Eva called as Lena closed her folder. She looked at the name and let it ring twice.

‘I've set the messages aside,’ Eva said hoarsely. ‘The originals. I haven't forwarded them to myself or anything. I've called Anouk.’

‘Good.’

‘I don't know if she can see me today.’

‘You'll have to arrange that with her.’

Eva breathed against the microphone. Lena heard a chair move.

‘I've been so stupid.’

Lena zipped her bag. ‘You knew my report said Sofie lived there.’

‘I thought her departure had been arranged in the meantime.’

‘You thought that yesterday too. On 8 May you left a date in March.’

‘I know.’

Less than two weeks ago those words would have satisfied Lena. Eva could reduce a six-person meeting to two decisions, knew where she kept her spare tape measure and sent reminders of clients' birthdays. Their easy working relationship lay in small things. Even now Lena wanted to say they could discuss how to go on later. That would offer Eva a future Lena had no wish to offer.

‘I'm seeing Anouk shortly,’ she said. ‘I'll hand over my own material. You have to tell her what you did. Including the payment.’

‘I will.’

‘I can't vouch for that.’

The silence lasted long enough for Lena to hear the unit again.

‘No,’ Eva said. ‘I'm not asking you to.’

They made no arrangement for coffee. Lena slipped the phone into her bag's outer pocket and stood still for a moment. On the wall was the list of jobs for which Eva still had documents to assemble. Lena crossed out her name and wrote beside each file: check myself. The red pen failed on the fourth line. She shook it until the ink flowed again.

At the police station's reception she started to produce her driving licence, although no one had asked. She put it away. The woman behind the glass asked whom she was seeing and indicated a chair. A boy beside her held a bicycle helmet on his lap, one trouser leg secured with yellow elastic. Further along, an older woman carefully sorted envelopes. Lena kept her bag against her ankles.

Anouk came for her. In the corridor she asked how things were. Lena said a client had cancelled.

‘I'm sorry to hear that.’

She did not sound surprised and kept walking.

A mug stood on the interview-room table, its teaspoon resting against the rim. Anouk moved it to the windowsill before sitting.

‘You said Eva told you yesterday she'd changed the report.’

‘At Niels's request. She said the extra fee came from Noordhuis, through him.’

‘That's what she told you. Was anyone else there?’

‘No.’

Anouk noted it. She did not ask Lena to imitate Eva, but to recount as precisely as possible what had been said. Lena consulted the notes she had made immediately afterwards. She described the changed report, the copied cover sheet and Eva's claim that she had believed the move was arranged. She gave the sum Eva had named. Anouk asked whether she had seen the payment.

‘Not myself. She said it had reached her account.’

‘Then that's how we'll record it.’

Lena passed over the documents. She had printouts, emails in their original form and a list of the different files. For the digital transfer she followed Anouk's earlier instructions. Anouk checked what was included and let Lena retain her own copies.

‘This helps establish what you sent,’ she said. ‘For other people's actions we need their records and statements. And examination of the files.’

‘I don't want it treated as just a dispute between Eva and me.’

‘You said that on Friday.’

‘She's admitted it since then.’

Anouk turned a page. ‘And you've heard Sofie is alive. Those are important developments. They make care more necessary, not less.’

Lena looked out. A van stood in the car park with one back door open. A man took a stool from it. She caught herself about to ask whether Anouk had spoken to Niels. At most, the answer would be that she did not need to know.

‘Sofie wanted to know if she could bring someone,’ she said.

‘She can arrange that directly with us. I've given her a way to get in touch. We'll discuss what she needs and whom she'd like there.’

‘She hasn't told me where she is.’

‘You don't need to know that to do this properly.’

Lena nodded. It meant something different from the reassurances of the past week. She need not press anyone for another missing piece.

Before she left, Anouk asked about new threats since their last meeting. Lena described the commercial pressure and the demand to withdraw her correction, showing the messages. Anouk distinguished an unpleasant response from a threat without making light of the former. If there was an immediate threat or danger, Lena must call at once. She pointed to the number Lena already had.

‘And don't visit people to force a conversation.’

‘I wasn't planning to.’

Anouk looked at her.

‘I'll share appointments in advance,’ Lena said.

‘Do.’

Outside, Lena took her bicycle from the rack. The rain had stopped, but water still dripped from the trees onto her coat.

At half past one a woman from RietWonen called. Lena recognised her voice from an appointment about a sagging floor. This time she explained that someone independent of the organisation would examine the disputed files. Which properties would be included had yet to be decided. They had received Lena's notification and original report.

‘I'd like to help,’ Lena said.

‘Initially we need a list of the commissions you worked on yourself. Don't send residents' documents without their consent.’

‘Even jobs where no problem's been reported?’

‘Especially those. We need to compare.’

Lena looked at the red lines on her calendar. ‘And someone else assesses my work.’

‘Yes.’

That was good. She had asked for it. Yet her stomach tightened when the woman asked how many files there were. Lena counted and gave the number. They arranged the handover of her own material. She asked how residents would be informed. Not everything was settled. She recorded what was definite and left the rest open.

Afterwards she opened the oldest file in the series. A signature was exactly where she expected it. The photographs were in the right order. She checked the conclusions against her notes. It took less than ten minutes. She had failed to spare even that little time on 8 May.

Late that afternoon she sent the list, explaining that her checks were continuing and additions would follow separately. She gave no guarantee that every report but one was sound. She would have to establish that first.

Jip sent a photograph of a cup held between her knees. The caption read: If you're late, I'll have eaten. With Dad. No drama.

Lena smiled and enlarged the picture. Behind her was the blue tea towel Tom never hung up. She typed that she was on her way, closed the laptop, locked away the papers and put on her coat. Outside the unit a narrow shaft of sunlight appeared. She decided to cycle by the harbour. It made scarcely any difference to the time, but for a while she wanted to avoid streets whose house numbers she knew by heart.