Mina came in her work clothes, carrying nothing for Nora.
It was a small thing to notice. There was no breakfast bag, no drawer, no cloth-wrapped sample. She had come because Nora asked, and would leave for the job she'd said she had. Nora put the borrowed fittings on the counter in a box and waited until her friend was inside before speaking.
“I stole it,” she said.
Mina stopped beside the counter.
“The money.”
“From Dominic Rusk. With Cal and Iris. I agreed. I wanted to finish this.”
Nora looked around the room so she wouldn't have to make the word mean anything smaller. It was the seventh day since the first police visit. In another version of the week she would be answering enquiries from people who liked the photographs. Now the cabinet was gone, the bench was still in a place no mover could visit, and Mina stood in a room which had used her belief as well as her work.
“Did you know when you paid me?” Mina asked.
“Yes.”
“When you said investment?”
“Yes.”
Mina put a hand on the box. She looked inside without taking anything out.
“Is any of that mine?”
“The fittings you lent me. The samples. I've listed them.”
“And the deposit?”
“I've set aside the same amount. The payment to you is in the account I'm sending the police. You'll need advice. I won't tell you what to do with it.”
“Good.”
“I'm telling them everything,” Nora said.
“Today?”
“Now.”
“Not after you've fixed this?”
“There isn't a way to fix it like that.”
Mina nodded slowly. She looked toward the shelf Cal had made, the light she'd admired, the place where her own cabinet had invited a woman in from the street.
“I thought you were being odd because you were frightened of her,” she said.
“I was. I was frightened of other things, too.”
“You let me stand here asking what was wrong with the money.”
“I know.”
“And you said I didn't need to worry.”
Nora's eyes filled. She wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand.
“I'm sorry.”
Mina picked up the list and read it. Her mouth tightened at one of the items.
“The brass ones aren't mine.”
“Whose?”
“The woman with the shop in Hackney. I brought them to show you. She asked for them back.”
Nora wrote the correction. She could do that without explaining, without turning a practical error into another expression of how hard things had become.
“I'll contact her.”
“I've done it. I'll take them.”
Mina closed the box. Nora offered to carry it to the door, then stopped herself before reaching. It was too heavy for one arm, and she didn't need another person to tell her that.
“What will you do?” Mina asked.
“I don't know.”
“With work.”
“Something I can get paid for.”
It sounded smaller than she wanted. The wanting didn't disappear because the room was lost.
“You're good at it,” Mina said.
Nora looked up, grateful before she could prevent it.
“That doesn't help me with what happened,” Mina added.
“I know.”
For a moment neither moved. Nora had wondered whether a final hug might happen, something which would let her say later they were still friends. Mina took the box instead.
“I'll speak to you when I can,” she said.
Nora opened the door for her. She watched Mina carry the work to her van, put it inside and check the time. There was another job to go to. Nora's disaster had not made the rest of her friend's life stop.
She shut the door and went to the counter.
The full account was on the laptop. She read the address at the top again, checked the unit number against the paperwork she had used to book transport and attached the receipts and payments. She sent it to the case contact Mercer had given her, then called.
There was a brief wait. Nora stood with the green key and the new padlock keys beside her hand, looking at the message which had left her outbox. It was no longer something she could edit until it said less.
When Mercer answered, Nora said, “I've sent you an account. I found Dominic yesterday. At Cal's storage unit. I think it's his body.”
Mercer asked her to repeat the address and describe what she'd seen. Nora did. She told her she had not moved anything inside, that she had locked the outside hasp with a new padlock and kept both keys, then left and waited overnight. The full account included the theft and her own lies. She gave her present location.
“Does your brother know you found it?” Mercer asked.
“No.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don't know.”
“Did you know he could still return there and force the padlock?”
“Yes.”
Nora pressed the edge of the counter with her hand. “I should have called from the yard. I kept the address from you when you asked about storage. I've put that in the account too.”
Mercer did not leave the report as an email someone might read later. She asked questions Nora could answer and explained that officers would be sent to the unit, that they needed to locate Cal and speak further to Nora. Nora could hear movement at the other end, the inspector speaking briefly to someone nearby.
“Stay available,” she said. “Don't contact him to ask what happened.”
“I won't.”
There was a sound from the back of the showroom. The service door, perhaps. Cal had a key; there had been deliveries all week. Nora turned her head.
Then she heard Hannah's voice.
“That isn't what you said.”
Nora's hand tightened on the phone.
“Someone's here,” she told Mercer.