Restricted Funds

Judith called as I was leaving college.

For a second I considered letting it ring. I had become suspicious of every conversation that began with somebody needing something from me. Then I remembered how often mine did.

“Bea, have you still got the cupboard key?”

“The equipment cupboard?”

“Yes. The one Val gave you.”

I checked the side pocket of my bag. It was there, attached to a red plastic tag that said SMALL STORE in letters almost rubbed away.

“I do.”

“Could you drop it at the library? We're using the meeting room. The centre's closed while they work, and we're trying to account for everything.”

“I have to be home by half one.”

“It'll only take a moment.”

People said that about keys, forms and favours. They rarely meant the moment would include only the thing they'd named.

At reception, I signed out for my police appointment. The administrator checked the message Mum had sent and wished me well in a voice that made me feel temporarily much younger. Outside, the sun had come out. I took off my jumper and tied it around my waist, then untied it because it made me look like a person on a school trip.

The library meeting room was behind the children's section. I had spent hours there when I was little, waiting for Mum to finish a shift nearby. Sam and I used to choose books for each other on the understanding that the choice had to be terrible. Once he gave me a gardening manual and I read thirty pages out of spite.

Now a printed sign on the meeting-room door said LANTERN ROOMS — TEMPORARY OFFICE. Beneath it, someone had taped a second sheet asking press enquiries to be directed to a phone number.

Inside, Judith sat at a table with a laptop, three folders and a sandwich still in its wrapper. A volunteer I recognised from the pottery class was copying numbers from one list to another. Val stood by the window with his hands in his pockets, looking as if he'd been brought somewhere he did not belong.

I put the key on the table.

“Thank you,” Judith said. “Could you sign here to say it's returned?”

I signed. The form had a line for the date, a line for the item and a line headed CONDITION. I wrote key under the item and working, presumably under the condition, then crossed out presumably because nobody was in the mood.

Val gave a short breath that might have been a laugh.

Judith checked her phone, put it down and looked at me.

“Have the police spoken to you about the recordings?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Gareth's very upset about the sound.”

“It wasn't on purpose.”

“Of course not.”

She said it quickly, almost gratefully, as if I had offered a principle she might later need for herself.

The volunteer gathered a stack of papers and asked Val to help her find the library copier. When they left, Judith and I were alone except for a child on the other side of the wall insisting that a dragon book was not the right dragon book.

“I gave the running order to the police,” I said.

Judith's hands became still on the keyboard.

“Yes. They asked me about it.”

“Was that all right?”

“You didn't need my permission.”

“I know.”

She looked at me for a moment, then took off her glasses.

“Sit down, Bea.”

“I have to go soon.”

“Then I won't keep you.”

I sat because leaving after she'd said that felt more like a statement than I was ready to make.

Judith folded the glasses and laid them beside the untouched sandwich.

“There are things Rowan didn't understand about keeping a place like this open.”

“He understood quite a lot.”

“Yes. He did.” She pressed her lips together. “That's not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

She looked towards the door.

The child's argument about dragons ended abruptly. A parent said thank you in the exhausted voice of someone who had agreed to take both books.

“The roof work couldn't wait,” Judith said. “There was water coming into the electrical cupboard. We were told to close that part of the building until repairs were made. Closing would have meant cancelling bookings, returning deposits, losing income we needed for the repairs.”

“So you used other money.”

She looked at me sharply.

“I moved funds temporarily.”

“From a restricted account.”

“Yes.”

I sat back. Until she said it, the note had still been capable of meaning something ordinary.

“How much?”

“I'm not going through the accounts with you.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

Judith looked tired enough that the question seemed to reach her slowly.

“Because you knew Rowan. Because I don't want you believing that a disagreement about finance explains—”

She stopped before the last word.

“Explains him dying?” I said.

Her face changed.

“No. It doesn't.”

I looked at the folders on the table. One had YOUNG PEOPLE'S ACCESS FUND printed on its spine. Another said BUILDING. Their labels were very clear. I wondered how much effort it had taken to stop seeing the difference.

“What was the money supposed to be for?”

“Course places. Transport. Materials for young people who couldn't otherwise attend.”

“People like me.”

Judith's eyes met mine.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “People like you.”

For a moment I could hear the centre as it had been on Saturdays: pottery wheels, somebody practising a trumpet badly, the scrape of chairs after the cheap film screenings. I had taken my first editing workshop there. Mum had paid five pounds because the access fund covered the rest. I had not known then that a line in somebody's account could be the difference between entering a room and staying outside it.

“Were you going to put it back?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“From the fundraiser?”

“Some from that. Some from a grant we expected to come through.”

“Did it?”

“No.”

The answer sat between us.

I thought of Sam in the kitchen saying he had only needed the camera temporarily. I hated the resemblance, partly because Judith was old enough to have recognised it before me.

“Does the board know?”

“They do now.”

“The police?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did you say Rowan didn't understand?”

Judith leaned back in her chair.

“Because he came to me with a page of figures and asked why the numbers didn't match the promises. And I was tired. And he was right in a way that didn't tell me how to fix anything.”

“You could have told him that.”

“I should have.”

It was the first thing she'd said that didn't sound like a defence.

On the laptop screen, an email notification appeared and faded. The subject began URGENT BOARD DISCUSSION. Judith didn't open it.

“I've given twenty years to that building,” she said.

I waited.

“I don't mean that as an excuse.”

It had sounded like one, but I didn't say so.

“When the pool closed, they wanted to board it up and wait for a buyer. We found money for heaters, chairs, insurance, everything. Val worked weekends without claiming pay for the hours. People brought tools from home. I spent years telling everyone we could make it work.”

“And then you couldn't.”

“Not with the money we had.”

She looked at her hands. Her nails were short, one cut painfully close at the corner.

“If I'd said that out loud, there were people ready to use it as proof the whole idea had failed.”

“Tarrant.”

“I didn't say that.”

“You didn't need to.”

Judith let out a slow breath.

“The councillor has his own views about the site.”

“So did Rowan.”

“Yes.”

Neither of us spoke for a while.

I had arrived wanting a simple answer about a note. Instead I had a woman who had done a wrong thing for reasons she could explain very well. The explanations did not make it right. They also refused to turn her into somebody I could hate without effort.

“Did Rowan know about Finn's bursary application?” I asked.

Judith looked up.

“I assume so. They were friends.”

“Did he ask you about it?”

“He asked how the Harcourt support was administered. I told him the centre wasn't involved in deciding who received it.”

“What did he say?”

“I don't remember exactly.”

“Try not to make it neater,” I said, then realised how much I sounded like the inspector.

Judith gave me a tired, surprised look.

“He said someone was treating a need-based award as a prize for wanting something badly enough. I assumed he was upset about the access fund. He could move between subjects without warning.”

“Did he mention a name?”

“No.”

“Did he say Finn?”

“No, Bea.”

I looked down at the returned-key form. My crossed-out presumably seemed suddenly childish.

Judith opened a drawer in the plastic document box beside her and took out a Harcourt leaflet.

“This is public information. You can read it. Please don't start asking students about their family's income.”

“I wasn't going to.”

She looked at me long enough that I added, “I won't.”

The leaflet described a six-week residential media programme for young people finishing school or college. There were full and partial bursaries. The full awards depended on financial need as well as the application. Applicants had to provide supporting documents. A small note at the bottom said provisional offers would be confirmed after final checks.

I thought of Finn saying he was still filling things in. I thought of Clare speaking as if the place already belonged to him.

Then I thought of how often parents announced their children's futures before the children had worked out whether they wanted them.

None of it was proof of anything.

I folded the leaflet and put it in my bag.

Judith watched me.

“The police have asked for all our relevant records,” she said. “They will get them.”

“Good.”

“I didn't hurt him.”

The sentence was so direct that it left me unprepared.

“I didn't say you did.”

“No. But I can see you trying to arrange things into a shape.”

I looked away.

She picked up her glasses but didn't put them on.

“Be careful what you do to people while you're trying to understand them.”

I would have resented the advice less from somebody who wasn't asking to benefit from it. That didn't make it bad advice.

Val and the volunteer returned with a warm stack of photocopies. The room became an office again. I stood, thanked Judith for the leaflet and checked the time.

I had six minutes to get home.

On the way, I called Mum to say I would be a few minutes late and told her why. All of it, not the shortest acceptable version. She listened, then asked whether I'd passed on anything relevant to the police.

“Judith says they already know about the money.”

“That doesn't answer what I asked.”

“I'll mention the conversation.”

“Good. And Bea?”

“Yes?”

“You aren't responsible for keeping that centre open either.”

I stopped beside the library garden.

“I know.”

This time, I was less certain than I sounded.

When I got home, Mum had put a glass of water on the table beside my written notes. Sam had gone upstairs to give us space. My phone was nearly flat, so I plugged it in and sat down.

Mum read the first page without taking it from me.

“Is this everything you remember?”

“No,” I said. “It's what I've written so far.”

“Then let's start there.”