Mrs. Dyer was standing in Tess's doorway when Mara arrived that afternoon. The older woman held a grocery bag in one hand and Tess's spare key in the other. She had called Tess after receiving the voice mail and would not discuss the visitor until Tess returned. Tess had called Mara from the bus and asked her to return to the building; Dyer had met her at the outer door and brought her upstairs to wait.
Mara offered to carry Dyer's bag. Dyer let her take only the heavy bottle, keeping the smaller bag with her. She said the visitor had stood where Mara was standing now, one foot close to Tess's mat. Mara moved aside, keeping the bottle against her chest.
“A woman asked for this,” Dyer said when Tess reached them. “She said you had called from work and needed someone to let her in for the case.”
“Did she say she was me?” Tess asked.
“She said Tess had sent her. When I asked why you hadn't called, she said you were too upset and I shouldn't make you come home from work.” Dyer held the key up by its ring. “I told her what you and I agreed: I call you on the number saved in my phone, and I don't give the key to a voice on the landing. She went away.”
Mara had been ready to say the attempt failed. Tess's face kept her quiet.
“What did she look like?” Tess asked.
Dyer gave what she could: dark coat, hair tied back, a face she might recognize again. She would not guess an age. Mara wrote the time and Dyer's words in Tess's notebook while Tess asked whether the woman touched the door or tried the handle. She had not. Dyer had remained between the caller and the flat. The spare key had stayed in Dyer's hand.
“I'm sorry you had to do that,” Tess said.
“Well, I wasn't giving it to her.” Dyer put it in Tess's palm. “Take it back until this is sorted. If you want me to hold a new one later, we'll choose a new way to check.”
“Did she seem angry when you refused?” Mara asked.
“She said Tess would be disappointed. That's not anger. That's a way of putting a worried thought in my head.” Dyer looked at Tess. “I was worried. I called you anyway.”
“Thank you,” Tess said. “I didn't want you to have to decide whether I was disappointed from her voice.”
Dyer adjusted the grocery bag against her hip. Mara handed back the bottle.
Tess looked at the key. “I need to change the lock anyway.”
“Then you can give me the new one if you still want me across the hall,” Dyer said. It was an offer made carefully enough that Mara felt Tess's delay answering.
“I do,” Tess said. “I don't want you to feel you have to watch my door.”
“I watch all the doors on this landing. Yours isn't special.” Dyer picked up her groceries and went into her own flat.
Inside Tess's place, the case remained on the dining table. Mara had brought the full gray folder this time. She set it on a chair, not beside the case. “I can stay while the locksmith comes,” she said.
“I called the building manager. He'll send someone today.”
“You did that before you knew Dyer had refused.”
“Jo said the caller asked about a key.”
Tess told Mara what Jo had heard and how she had delayed warning her. Mara knew Jo well enough to picture the way she would lean against a kitchen counter and refuse an easy apology. She was relieved Tess had a friend willing to say the hard part. She wished she were not the sister who had taught Tess to ration facts.
“The woman got nothing at the hotel and nothing from Dyer,” Mara said. “You can close these routes.”
Tess looked at her. “She got Jo's time. She got to this door. I don't know who told her where the case went.”
Mara did. Not who told her, but who had seen. The funeral had been open. Tess had carried the case from June's house to the car in daylight. Anyone on the street could have watched. Mara remembered the neighbor with the dish towel and several strangers near the gate. She did not have a name to put against the sight line.
“You brought it out after everyone left,” Mara said. “The street was still busy.”
“I know.” Tess took the case off the table and placed it in the cupboard behind the dining room door. She did not ask Mara to carry it. “I don't want a tour of all the ways somebody could have followed it. I need what I can change.”
“The key. The hotel record.” Mara stopped. Tess was already reaching for her phone. “I can help with the calls.”
“Write down what Dyer saw. I'll tell the hotel manager someone may have tried my home too.” Tess unlocked her phone. “I have no name yet.”
Mara opened the gray folder. “We have one possible name on a slip. Nora.”
“Possible. You said that number might be shared.”
“It might. I brought the rest.”
Tess looked at the folder but did not open it. “After the lock. I want you here when we decide what those pages can tell us.”
The building manager's locksmith came while there was still light in the hall. He changed the cylinder with Tess watching, gave her the new keys, and tested the door twice. Mara stayed inside by the dining table. She heard the metal scrape and thought of June giving out a code to a host because a driver might arrive after dark. Some of those shortcuts had saved someone a cold wait. A code could outlive the reason it was given.
When the locksmith left, Tess called Dyer across the landing and showed her the new key. Dyer did not take it yet. They agreed Tess would keep it until she decided how to share it safely. Tess held the new key a moment longer before putting it away.
“You don't have to give anyone a spare tonight,” Mara said as Dyer's door closed.
“I know. I wanted her to know I still trust her.”
“She knows. She may want a day when the new key is only yours.”
Tess put it on a ring with her library badge. Mara laid the gray folder beside her notebook.
They wrote down Dyer's account with the hotel call and Jo's call as separate entries, each with its own source and time. Mara offered to carry the folder back to June's house. Tess asked her to bring it back that evening. Neither opened it before Mara left.