No Brother to Hide Behind

Ruben waited by the square, an envelope between his hands. He held it folded despite something rigid inside that would not bend. As Lena approached he put the bundle on the planter's rim. The nails on one hand were bitten down.

‘Mieke's still on the phone,’ he said.

‘I know.’

‘I thought you'd left.’

‘You asked me to come back.’

He nodded, looking at her leg. Lena had told him about the attack on the phone, and that she did not know who was behind it. She would not explain again merely to ease the tension.

‘We can wait inside,’ she said.

He took the envelope. In Mieke's hallway they stood beside the coat hooks. A bicycle helmet with a white stripe hung there. Lena pushed up a loose strap brushing her shoulder. Ruben followed the movement. She could see he wanted to begin, but he kept looking at the closed door.

Mieke came for them. She had placed three chairs by the desk and laid out a notepad.

‘You asked for Lena to be here,’ she told Ruben. ‘Explain why.’

‘Because I lied to her last time.’

Lena sat. Her knee touched the underside of the desk and she shifted sideways. Ruben stayed standing until Mieke indicated the third chair.

‘About Sofie,’ he said. ‘When she'd left. I pretended she was moving and the date might be right. I knew she was there in May.’

‘Why?’ Lena asked.

He put down the envelope. ‘Because my name would come up somewhere too. I wanted to know how much you knew.’

It angered her more than another explanation about concern for his sister would have. At least he no longer gave her a kindly reason to soften his words.

‘So if I'd known less, you'd have left it there.’

‘Maybe.’

He looked down. Mieke let the silence stand. A click came from the kitchen, probably the fridge. He drew the envelope towards him and took out a folder of printouts, a small notebook and his phone.

‘I worked for Noordhuis. On the moves. Temporarily. They called it assistance. Helping residents look for somewhere else, collecting forms, sometimes arranging a van.’

‘We know,’ Lena said.

‘Yes. But I said it was only the practical things.’

He pushed a printout forward. Lena recognised Noordhuis's business stationery. Mieke read the top and asked whether this was his own agreement. He confirmed it.

‘I had a fixed fee, then extra for completed files. Completed meant a signed departure declaration. It didn't necessarily mean someone actually had another home.’

Lena thought of assistance. She used that word when helping a resident identify repairs before a handover. A word with coffee, explanations and time in it. In this agreement it had a deadline.

‘Who decided a file was complete?’ Mieke asked.

‘Marten. Sometimes through Niels. I'd email what I had and they'd say whether anything was missing.’

‘And you knew people felt pressured?’

He tugged a corner of the notebook. ‘I heard about it.’

‘That's a different question.’

‘Yes. I knew.’

He described a woman who had asked three times whether she could view another property first. He had told her the relocation payment would remain available only if she signed by Friday. Niels had told him that. Eventually she had called her daughter. Ruben had waited in the hall while they argued.

‘I thought at least she'd get the money,’ he said. ‘If she refused altogether, she might get nothing.’

‘What did you say would happen if she didn't sign?’ Mieke asked.

‘That the project would go ahead without her. That her house would have to be empty soon anyway.’

‘Did you know that?’

‘No.’

Lena watched his hands, now flat on his thighs. He could say these things calmly because he had evidently rehearsed them to himself. Calm did not diminish them.

‘And Sofie?’ she asked.

At first, Ruben said, he had been proud to tell her he was working on the project. He thought he could arrange something: a better home, removal money, a contact who did not send piles of letters. Sofie wanted to know where. He had shown her a picture of a new housing development to which she had no entitlement.

‘I didn't have an offer. Only a picture.’

‘Did you show other residents?’ Mieke asked.

‘Yes.’

‘What did you tell them?’

He looked at the printouts. ‘That the new homes would be better. I didn't say they'd get one. But I let them imagine it. If someone asked about a lift, I answered about the lift. I didn't say I had no idea whether they'd ever live there.’

Lena could picture it: a resident imagining a home without stairs at last, a relocation worker answering only the welcome part of the question.

‘One man asked if he could charge his mobility scooter there,’ Ruben said. ‘I said the design allowed for that. It was in the brochure. I didn't check if he'd qualify for the property.’

‘We need to record that person by person,’ Mieke said. ‘No new blanket promise to arrange it all now.’

‘I've got nothing to offer them.’

‘Then say so. To us, and in your statement.’

Ruben opened the notebook at a page of house numbers, hesitated and slid it to Mieke. He did not want Lena taking away residents' names without their permission. A small boundary, this time stated by him. Lena kept her hand beside her own notes.

Mieke wrote something. Lena thought of people studying floor plans, fitting their beds into rooms before anyone had mentioned the rent.

‘I said she was being difficult. That's the worst of it. Other people were files to me. With her, I knew exactly what was at stake.’

‘Did you prepare her departure declaration?’ Mieke asked.

‘I brought a form. She didn't sign while I was there. I don't know what they later put under her name.’

‘Did you believe she'd left on 31 March?’

‘No. I ate at hers in April. Early May too. She'd been on an early shift and I brought food. She still lived there.’

He gave the dates he knew and left the others uncertain. Mieke asked him to preserve that distinction in his statement, not place meals on dates that would better suit another witness.

‘Why didn't you go to the police sooner?’ Lena asked.

He put his phone on the table. ‘Because there was money in my account. Because I'd sent messages I couldn't explain. And Niels said my sister wouldn't benefit if everyone heard her brother had been harassing residents.’

‘You had.’

‘Yes.’

He looked at her. She waited for something about his own troubles. Nothing came.

‘Sofie asked if I still worked for them,’ he said. ‘I said I'd stopped. But another payment came, for declarations already submitted. I didn't tell her.’

‘So you helped her decide whether she could trust you by leaving out part of the information.’

Mieke laid down her pen. He rubbed his palms on his trousers and nodded.

‘I called her yesterday. She asked the same thing. Had there been more money? This time I said yes.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Not to ring just to make myself feel better.’

The envelope lay open. A receipt protruded from the notebook. Lena asked why it was there. He removed it: a petrol receipt from another week. He had emptied his bag's compartment onto the table, no longer trusting an order in which he had decided what mattered.

Mieke said not everything was relevant. They would list his own documents separately; he must keep the original messages. She was not acting as his tenants' adviser, and a statement about his paid work could have consequences for him. He could seek independent legal advice.

‘I don't want you thinking I'm hiding things again,’ he said.

‘I won't think that because you seek advice. I will if all you offer afterwards is another tidy story.’

He did not smile. ‘Can I ring Anouk now?’

Mieke did not pass him her phone. ‘Use your own. Explain that you want to give a statement about your role and have documents of your own. She'll make the arrangements.’

He asked Lena for the number. She reminded him he already had the contact; after a search he found it. While he called in the corridor, she went to the window. The planter in the square was clear again. People passed carrying bags no one tried to take.

‘I don't want to thank him,’ she said.

‘You don't have to.’

‘He's doing something useful.’

‘He is. It doesn't undo the rest.’

Mieke picked up the agreement. With Ruben's consent she could copy it for the housing issue; he must hand the originals to the appropriate people himself. Lena could look at the clauses affecting her own commission. There was no button or set of initials that could put the whole thing right. Ordinary payments, ordinary descriptions. A contract that might have disappeared into the accounts had the houses been empty on time.

Ruben returned with an appointment to give his statement and discuss handing over his material. He told them when. Mieke asked him to list the people he had approached and the promises he had made. For the residents' benefit, not to persuade them again.

‘I still have some numbers,’ he said.

‘Don't call them to align accounts. Say what you have. Contact will be handled carefully, with consent.’

Lena looked up, relieved Mieke had said it. Ruben had just demonstrated how easily he confused helping with making sure other people chose the right words.

Before leaving he stopped beside her chair.

‘Do you know where she is?’

‘No.’

‘Neither do I. She told me she's with Yara. But Yara's moved. I don't want to go looking.’

‘Then don't.’

He nodded. ‘I wanted to bring her some things.’

‘Ask if she wants that, through the contact you have with her now. Not me.’

He pocketed the phone and tucked the envelope under his arm, the folder carefully folded back inside. At the door he asked whether to return the payment. Mieke told him to seek advice and preserve the information. A transaction in his account would not erase his earlier behaviour from the statements.

After he left, Lena took a bus to her workspace. Tom was still on a fare; she had told him not to make a detour. She messaged Mieke that she was on her way and sat near the driver. At each stop she watched people on the pavement. She was not only afraid. She was angry that she now imagined a person's way of carrying a bag might tell her whether they wanted something from her.

At the unit she found the insurer's form in her email. Against the question about checking the final version she wrote: Not carried out. I relied on the colleague who assembled the documents. Then she described the check she herself had failed to make. She did not mention Jip.