Mercer called the following morning and asked whether Nora had met Iris.
Nora was in the apartment. Both mugs were clean and put away. She had washed them the night before, then caught herself looking at Iris's as if it ought to contain something useful after the coffee was gone.
“Yes,” she said.
“When?”
She gave the time.
“Where?”
“Here.”
“Who arranged it?”
“I did.”
The answers were short because making them longer would make them worse.
“You knew about the condition.”
“Yes.”
“Did you discuss what she'd told us?”
Nora looked toward the chair where Iris had sat. There was no scarf on it now, no coat, no phone with Cal's lie waiting on the screen.
“We discussed what happened.”
“You'll need to speak to your solicitor. We need another interview about your own involvement.”
Nora felt the cold beginning in her stomach.
“Has she been arrested?”
“She's been re-arrested following the contact breach. She's provided a fuller account. We are pursuing that, including what happened at the house and the money taken.”
Iris had gone away and done what she'd said. Nora had spent the same hours arranging to bring a bench into the showroom.
“I asked her to come,” she said.
“You've told me that.”
“She didn't just turn up.”
“I understand.”
Nora wanted the distinction to move some of the cost from one woman to the other. Mercer would write it down. That did not let her decide where either of them spent the day.
She rang the solicitor. This time she told him about the theft.
The words were difficult for the first minute, then became frighteningly easy. She had agreed. She knew it was cash. She wanted the business. They had gone expecting Dominic absent. She did not know what Cal did after getting her to hospital, except that he now admitted going back for money. She had invited Iris in spite of the condition and offered her money not to say more.
The solicitor asked her to stop and repeat the last part.
Nora did.
“Don't contact her again,” he said. “Or ask anyone else to contact her. We'll talk properly before you answer further questions.”
“I didn't give her anything.”
“The conversation itself matters. You need to stop trying to resolve this privately.”
There was no scolding in his voice. That made her hear it more clearly. He had a job to do, and she was finally giving him something close to the whole of it.
They arranged the interview and advice. When she set the phone down, she had not been forgiven or protected from the facts. She had given another person enough to make the next step possible.
Mina rang a few minutes later about the walnut piece. Nora didn't answer. She wrote I'll ring you and sent it, already knowing the promise was another thing she couldn't make small.
At the station, she sat with the solicitor and went through the account again. He asked what she'd seen, what Cal told her and what she had assumed. The separation was painful. She had built her certainty from all three without marking which was which.
She had seen Iris take the bag. She had seen Iris leave after the glass broke. She had seen Cal when he found her, seen him at the hospital later. She had not seen his return to the house. She had accepted the amount he said he'd recovered, then used it. She had not checked where the rest was.
“Where does your brother keep things he collects?” Mercer asked in the interview.
Nora pictured the green-ring key in the shallow tin at the showroom. Cal had left it there with her other keys.
“His van. His flat.”
“Anywhere else?”
“No.”
Her solicitor turned slightly toward her. Nora looked at the table. She had told them about the money; she was still keeping one door for Cal.
“And Dominic?”
“I didn't see him.”
“Did you have permission to take the money?”
“No.”
“Did anyone tell you that you did?”
“No.”
“All right.”
It was an ordinary phrase. Nora had never heard it sound so unlike reassurance.
The interview was harder than the first because she could no longer pretend the questions were about her injury alone. There were parts on which she followed advice not to answer immediately, parts which needed documents she didn't have, and facts she supplied without trying to make them attractive. Mercer asked about the money offered to Iris. Nora admitted the amount and that it hadn't been transferred. She admitted asking Iris not to disclose the cash.
Saying it aloud with the recording running made the apartment conversation sound stripped of all the things she'd used to soften it. The fresh coffee, the room Iris wanted, the work Nora loved. None of those things changed what she had asked.
“Was she willing?” Mercer asked.
“No.”
“Did you persist?”
“Yes.”
“Did you threaten her?”
“I said she'd be arrested for coming.”
“In what circumstances?”
Nora described the end of the meeting as precisely as she could. She had not meant the words as a threat. Iris might have heard them differently. The solicitor asked for a pause when the account began looping back on itself.
Nora wanted to ask whether Iris was all right. She couldn't ask the woman, and Mercer couldn't give her the kind of answer she wanted. Nora looked at the clock on the wall and tried to remember what Iris had sounded like saying she wanted somewhere decent to live.
Before she left, Mercer asked her to supply the payments and the business records she could access. Officers were obtaining Cal's account and checking his home and van. The inspector returned to the question of material kept elsewhere. Nora repeated the two places she had named.
She left the station later that afternoon with further enquiries continuing and instructions to keep available. Her solicitor would speak to her again.
The update about Iris came through Mercer's team before the end of the day. She had been charged in relation to the serious assault and theft. The court had initially remanded her in custody. The details were given plainly, as an update to a woman injured in the case, not as something Nora was being invited to contest by sending another message.
Nora stood in the apartment kitchen and listened. She asked whether the contact breach was the charge. The officer clarified that the breach and renewed custody had led into further enquiries; the charges concerned the underlying acts. Nora thanked him. Her voice sounded as if she were receiving a delivery time.
Afterwards she opened the cupboard where the mugs were stacked. She took Iris's down and put it on the counter, then put it back. There was nothing she could do with it which would reach the woman she'd invited here.
Mina rang again. Nora answered.
“I'm sorry,” she said.
“For not ringing, or for what you're about to tell me?”
Nora leaned against the counter. Her arm hurt, but she didn't mention it.
“Can we meet at the showroom tomorrow?”
“I need an answer about the work today.”
“Then I'll come now.”
Mina paused. “I'll wait for you.”
Nora put her coat on. At the bedroom door she saw the pale wall patch and stopped. Iris had offered a repair, Nora had criticized it, and it had stayed there after every larger thing went wrong. She turned the lamp off and left it in the dark.