The Key She Chose to Give

Lena put the new job file on the corner of her desk. The client had received the latest report, with the date and reference she had checked herself. He had emailed a question about a photograph. She opened it again, looked at the place he meant and rang him. It wasn’t a defect in the wall, but the shadow of the pipe beside it. She promised no faultless house. She explained what the photograph showed and what further investigation might be needed.

Afterwards she closed the file. Her workroom was smaller now. The table beside her desk had gone to another tenant in the shared unit. She had let it go when she realised she mostly used it to keep work nobody had scheduled any more. The files she still needed to read now fitted in one cupboard.

Not all her clients had returned. One had received her written correction and ended their working relationship. Another had engaged someone else for the next inspection. She had later needed to ring him about a missing attachment. He had been friendly and sent it over. His friendliness hadn’t brought the work back.

She had finished reviewing her old jobs as far as she could herself. Correspondence continued on two files about the consequences of the documents circulated. She had help with that and kept track of the deadlines. She couldn’t predict the final cost. But she had stopped trying to resolve every message herself the afternoon it arrived.

The coming week’s diary was pinned to the board. An inspection on Wednesday, a visit with an independent colleague on Thursday. On joint jobs, they checked one another’s final versions. Neither could simply send a document out under the other’s name. Their agreement had taken a page; the checks took time. Lena knew by now how much time. She had included it in her quotation.

Beside the work diary was a smaller sheet Jip had filled in. School was starting again and her shifts were changing. There were boxes for Mum and Dad, and a column her daughter had named herself: already sorted. Lena wasn’t to mistake that column for spare time.

Jip arrived at the unit that morning with a rucksack and a box on her bicycle rack. Her arm moved almost as it had before the accident. Out of habit, she still lifted the box carefully and a little unevenly. Lena went to meet her, taking it when Jip asked.

‘For Sofie,’ Jip said. ‘She wanted glasses. These were in Dad’s upstairs cupboard.’

‘Does he know you’ve got them?’

‘Yes. I haven’t kidnapped them.’

Lena set the box down and looked inside. Old tea towels were wrapped round the glasses. They had once used them at home, before dividing their possessions between two houses. Tom had never used half of his.

‘She asked for six,’ Jip said. ‘I found seven. One’s chipped round the rim. I left that one out.’

‘Good.’

Jip looked at the small diary sheet. ‘I’m going to Noor’s after school on Thursday. Dinner at Dad’s will be later. He knows.’

‘Change it here too, then.’

She wrote it in. Her daughter didn’t want every alteration turned into a discussion about how the family was doing. Lena picked up her coat and the bag of things for Sofie. Did Jip want to go in the car with Tom, or take her bicycle? She would stay an hour at Sofie’s, Jip said, then go on by herself. She was meeting someone elsewhere. She put the marker back in the mug on the desk.

Tom arrived in his own car. On the back seat lay a narrow shelf Sofie had asked for, the right size for the space above her kitchen table. He hadn’t cut it himself; Cor had prepared it to the measurements. Lena wasn’t going to measure it again before they took it. Sofie had measured her own space. Cor had done the job.

They stood by the bicycle rack to load the glasses. Tom asked whether Lena wanted a lift back afterwards. She was going home, she said; she had no other plans. He was working later, but could make the detour to her house if she wanted.

‘I’d like that,’ she said.

It needed no grateful explanation. Tom looked at the box, made room for the bag and suggested putting the fragile things behind his seat. Jip set off ahead on her bicycle. Lena watched her turn the corner, then got in.

Sofie’s flat was in another part of Rietdam, above a quiet shop with no night deliveries. She could get to her early shift without passing the back steps in Bremstraat. She had viewed other homes and turned down two: one bedroom was too close to a loading bay; at the other, the only space for her bicycle was in a storeroom she couldn’t easily reach on her own.

Mieke had obtained answers about the agreement before Sofie signed. The false departure date had been corrected. The arrangements for the new home and practical expenses were recorded separately. They weren’t a reward for Sofie’s statement. They were an agreed housing solution, made up of things she had spent months getting settled.

Yara was by the entrance when Tom stopped the car. She showed him where to leave the shelf temporarily so nobody would trip over it. Jip was already upstairs, sitting on a chair that wasn’t yet at a table. She waved through the open window.

Sofie came down with a pot of basil. It had kept getting in the way while she unpacked, she said. Would Lena take it upstairs? Lena held it in both hands, loose soil still clinging to the outside. Sofie went ahead and looked back on the second floor to check she was all right.

There weren’t half-unpacked rows of boxes along every wall. Sofie had done most of the unpacking before inviting them. Her sofa and her grandmother’s small table had arrived from storage at a time she had checked herself. Delivery costs were covered in the agreement. In the kitchen hung the curtains with the red patch. They didn’t quite fit; the hem brushed the sill. Sofie was leaving them until she wanted something else.

‘I took the bed legs off myself in the end,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t fit otherwise. Yara said I should just buy a new bed. I said the bed wasn’t the problem.’

Yara came in with the glasses. ‘You did spend half an hour staring at that one screw.’

‘Because you were turning it the wrong way.’

‘Good thing you said so in time.’

They laughed. Lena put the basil on the windowsill. Sofie moved it to the other window, away from the radiator. Lena didn’t go and put it back in the light she had chosen.

A letter lay in a clear folder on the kitchen table. Sofie slipped it into a drawer when she brought the coffee. There were still messages from the detectives and further appointments with Mieke. The criminal investigation continued. No quick verdict had turned Henk’s death into a finished news item. Sofie had since answered another question about her statement. She had specified how she wanted to be contacted and when her work made that difficult.

‘Ruben’s coming this afternoon,’ she said. ‘Not while you’re here. I want to keep things manageable.’

Lena nodded. ‘Did he understand?’

‘He asked what time. At least it was the right question.’

She poured the coffee. ‘I told him I’d read his papers. But I’m not going to explain how he should forgive himself first. Sometimes he still tries to do that through me.’

Yara took a mug. She was returning to Duinwaard that evening; her ordinary working week began on Monday. Sofie would take her to the train, then spend an evening alone in the flat for the first time without boxes to unpack all night. She had a plan that had nothing to do with keeping watch: something from the fridge, a shower, set the alarm.

Ria had sent a message about visiting later in the week. Nora hadn’t arranged to come yet. Sofie knew how much she had to sort out, and didn’t ask her to see this new home as the end of what had happened to Henk. In Lena’s bag was a framed photograph for Nora that Cor had given her to pass on. She wouldn’t put it on the table here.

Tom and Jip came into the kitchen after looking at the space for the shelf. Sofie wasn’t having it fitted until next week, by someone she had asked to do it. No holes needed drilling today. Tom rested it against the empty wall, clear of the way, and washed his hands.

Jip showed Sofie where she had found the glasses. She took one from the box and held it to the light, checking for chips. Sofie had already discussed that with Tom, she said. Jip put the tea towels on a chair. Could she take them home later? They were just old enough, she thought, to go under her desk chair and protect the floor.

Lena listened with a half-smile. Nobody needed her to approve the handing over of the old glasses. She looked out of the kitchen window. In the square, a child played with an empty cardboard box. A woman pushed a bicycle to the rack and searched her bag for something she seemed to have forgotten.

‘What happened to the project?’ Tom asked while Sofie was with Yara in the living room.

Lena said the disputed files had been independently reviewed and safeguards put in place so further steps couldn’t go through the old process. Noordhuis couldn’t simply carry on with the housing plans as before. Proceedings and investigations into individual financial responsibilities continued. Marten’s name hadn’t disappeared from them.

Tom nodded. He didn’t ask whether that would bring her lost work back. He knew the answer. The previous month she had told him she needed to organise some of her work differently.

‘And you?’ he asked.

‘An inspection Tuesday. A final check together on Thursday. I’ve kept Wednesday afternoon free.’

‘Jip?’

‘Some of it. The rest for me.’

Tom put down his mug. He needed to leave in half an hour. Lena went with him into the living room, where Jip was putting her phone away. Could she go now? She was helping someone move a wardrobe, though she would leave the lifting to the others. Lena began a question about her shoulder and heard Jip answer it already. She could say if something hurt. She had arranged to go with people who believed her.

‘Will you message me tonight?’ Lena asked.

‘When I get home.’

‘To your dad’s.’

‘To Dad’s, yes. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Sofie walked Jip to the door and offered her a croissant for the journey. Jip said yes, then came back to give Lena a brief hug, her bag still on her shoulder. Lena let go when her daughter stepped back.

A little later they realised the last box of kitchen towels was still in the car. Sofie had a crate of empty bottles to take down to the recycling bins. Tom was already by the entrance. Lena offered to fetch the box while Sofie dealt with the bottles.

‘Would you open the front door for him when you come back?’ Sofie asked. ‘He’ll have his hands full with the box.’

Lena held out her hand. Sofie put her key in it, on a plain steel ring. No job sheet, no access on a client’s behalf. Sofie herself had asked her to go in.

Downstairs Lena took the box from the car. Tom held it while she put the key in the lock. By the bins, Sofie was talking to a neighbour. She looked up and nodded. It was all right. Lena opened the door and let Tom carry the box in first.

On the landing she gave the key back. Sofie hung it on the hook she had chosen beside the kitchen. Then she lifted the basil to make room for the towels. Lena pulled a chair out from the table and sat while Sofie opened the box.