The Letter in the Folder

Denise had put the papers in a biscuit tin.

It was an old Christmas one, red with a picture of a house whose windows glowed yellow. Rowan had once said the people inside were probably arguing about who had eaten the good biscuits. Now the lid lay upside down on the kitchen table, holding paper clips and two dead pens.

“I don't know why I'm sorting them,” Denise said when I arrived. “They told me not to throw anything away, and I haven't. But I keep wanting to put things in the right place.”

“I can sit with you.”

“That would be nice.”

It was different from being useful. I was beginning to understand how often I had confused the two.

Alice was at school. Denise had wanted to keep her home; Alice had wanted to go, then called at lunchtime saying she wished she hadn't. Her aunt had collected her and taken her to buy a sketchbook because nobody could think of a better plan.

“Everyone's trying,” Denise said.

“Yes.”

“Sometimes I wish they'd stop for an hour.”

I looked at the plate of biscuits beside the tin. At least three kinds, still in their wrappers. The house was filling with food other people could bear to choose.

“We don't have to talk,” I said.

Denise smiled faintly. “You're allowed a biscuit without earning it.”

I took one.

The papers came from a shelf in Rowan's room. There were event programmes, rough sketches for signs, notes on printing costs and a half-finished application for an animation workshop. Denise had separated things with dates from things without them. She wanted to know which names were students and which were adults from the centre.

I pointed out Gareth's name, Val's initials and the abbreviation for the college events team. I did not read every margin. When something looked personal, I turned the sheet towards Denise rather than deciding for her.

At the bottom of the pile was a photocopy of a form with Finn's name at the top.

Harcourt Young Media Programme — Financial Support Declaration.

I recognised the address before I understood why it was there.

Twenty-one Birch Road.

Finn's grandmother's house.

“What is it?” Denise asked.

“Do you know where this came from?”

She looked at the page.

“He mentioned finding something in the centre printer. I thought it was a donation form. There were always papers left in that tray.”

“Did he say whose?”

“No. He didn't show me. I was trying to finish an order for the stall, and he said he'd sort it with the person.”

I looked at the form again. It was not a bank statement. It was a declaration of the household used to assess support, with names, a total and a signature. I had seen enough similar forms while researching my own course to understand what it claimed without knowing whether the claim was accurate.

Finn's name appeared beside an address where he did not live, as far as I knew.

That last part mattered. As far as I knew. Families changed arrangements. People stayed with relatives. A familiar house did not make me an authority on somebody's household.

“That's his nan's address,” I said.

“Finn's?”

“Yes.”

Denise frowned.

“Perhaps he was staying there.”

“Perhaps.”

I turned the sheet carefully. On the back, Rowan had written three short lines.

Ask F first.

Not my story to tell for him.

Monday is the last check.

The second line made my face burn.

Denise read it over my shoulder.

“Oh,” she said.

I didn't know which part she meant.

“Did he talk about this on Friday?” I asked.

“He said he needed to have an awkward conversation with someone. I told him most conversations were awkward if you went into them expecting a fight.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he wasn't expecting a fight.”

We both looked at the paper.

For a moment the kitchen seemed to contract around the table. I could hear the clock above the door, the faint hum of the fridge, a car braking outside the shop below. All the ordinary sounds were still there. They had simply become difficult to bear.

“I should have asked more,” Denise said.

I looked up quickly.

“You couldn't have known.”

“Neither could you.”

I didn't know what to do with her saying that to me. I had arrived with my own guilt carried carefully under everything else, and she had noticed it without asking to take any of it away.

“This should go to the police,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Do you want to call, or shall I?”

“I will.”

She reached for her phone, then paused.

“Bea. This doesn't mean Finn did anything to Rowan.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

I looked at the handwriting again.

“It means Rowan had a question,” I said. “And he planned to ask it.”

Denise nodded.

She called the family liaison officer. While she spoke, I moved my chair back and looked out of the window. Across the street, somebody was washing the upper windows of the solicitor's office with a long brush. Water ran down the glass and caught the light.

I thought about all the times I'd been to Birch Road. Finn's nan kept boiled sweets in a tin shaped like a postbox. There was a piano nobody played well and a wooden ruler by the kitchen door on which she'd marked Finn's height until he became too embarrassed to stand still. The house had been empty lately while she stayed with her sister after a burst pipe. Finn had mentioned moving boxes there. I couldn't remember when.

I took out my notebook and wrote down only the facts I was sure of. The address. My visits as a child. The recent arrangement I had heard about but not verified. I left a space beside that last item.

Denise finished the call.

“They'll collect it this afternoon.”

“Good.”

She put the form in a clean envelope without folding it again. Then she sat with her hand resting on top.

“I keep finding plans,” she said.

I waited.

“A list of things to take to college. A reminder to fix his bicycle light. A recipe he said he'd make when he had time. I don't know what to do with plans.”

I looked at the biscuit in my hand, which I had bitten once and forgotten.

“Keep them for now?”

“For what?”

“I don't know.”

Denise nodded, as if that was an answer she could finally trust.

We sat for a while without sorting anything.

Before I left, she asked whether I could help Alice put some of Rowan's drawings into sleeves. Not today. Later, when Alice wanted to. I said yes, and this time I did not try to turn the future task into something bigger.

Outside, I called Mum and told her what we'd found. She listened, then asked whether the police had it. I said they were collecting it from Denise.

“Good. Come home before you decide to visit anybody else.”

“I wasn't going to.”

“You were thinking about Finn.”

I stopped walking.

“Yes.”

“Then come home first.”

On the pavement beside me, two girls in uniforms from the secondary school were arguing about a group project. One said she was tired of doing all the work. The other said she hadn't been told what to do. I wanted to tell them to write everything down, to ask the obvious questions, to stop assuming friendship made the details unnecessary.

Instead I let them be fourteen and walked past.

At home, I put my bag on the table and opened my notebook.

Under the address, I wrote a question.

Why did Finn say they hadn't talked about Harcourt?

Then I wrote another.

What don't I know?

There was much more room for the second one.