Mae asked which box held the name labels.
Rachel knew without looking.
“Blue lid. Under the raffle things.”
“That's the books.”
“Below those.”
The phone went quiet while Mae searched. Rachel could hear someone talking at the other end, a question about the kitchen.
“Found them,” Mae said.
“There should be blank ones if—”
“Yes. I can see.”
Rachel stopped.
They were meeting at the Assembly Rooms at eleven. Mae had rung beforehand because the cupboard was full of things Rachel had packed last year. Knowing where the labels were had given her a moment of almost unbearable ease.
She put the phone down and looked at the pages on her table.
The account she'd drafted was short. Miles had read it and told her not to deliver it.
“You've been interviewed under caution. This isn't over because you've given them the letter. Anything you say publicly can become another account we have to deal with.”
“It's the same account.”
“You hope it will be. People will ask questions. You'll want to answer them. My advice is to let Mae correct the event's account and leave your own evidence to the investigation.”
Rachel had asked if he was telling her she couldn't speak.
“I'm giving you advice,” he said. “Don't turn it into permission.”
She told him she would speak. He asked her to think again, then wrote down the advice and her decision. He didn't approve the page.
She read the first sentence aloud.
“In 2012 I gave a false account.”
Her voice sounded like someone reading a notice.
She started again.
“I lied about who I saw leaving Celia North's house.”
That was the sentence she took with her.
At the Assembly Rooms, Mae was removing a photograph from a frame. The little metal tabs at the back had bent too far.
“Use something flat,” Rachel said.
Mae continued trying with her nail.
Rachel put her papers on the table and waited.
Mae freed the photograph and stood it beside a smaller one. Celia in the shop-opening picture, Rachel at the edge. Mae had chosen another photograph to replace it.
“This one doesn't have a reflection on the glass,” she said.
Rachel looked at the new picture: Celia at a family meal, leaning back with a half-empty glass held near her mouth. There was a hand in the corner of the image, belonging to someone beyond the frame.
“She always hated that one.”
Mae looked up.
Rachel wished she'd said nothing.
“Did she?”
“She thought her face looked round.”
“It was round.”
“Yes.”
“That's what faces do when people laugh.”
Rachel nodded.
Mae put the photograph in.
“She used to make us take three or four,” Rachel said. “Before she'd let—”
“I remember.”
Rachel stopped.
For years she and Mae had collected these little things between them. Celia being particular, funny, vain. The memories had belonged to Rachel too. She could still hold one accurately and have nowhere welcome to put it.
Mae set the frame down.
“The greeting table will be handled by Ruth and the others. I've taken your name off the list.”
“All right.”
“I've told them you aren't arranging anything.”
“What did you tell them about why?”
“What you told me.”
Rachel looked at the frame.
“Good.”
Mae's eyebrows lifted.
“I meant they should know.”
“They do.”
Rachel unfolded her pages.
Mae sat opposite her and read them. She didn't make encouraging noises at the more difficult parts. Her finger moved beneath one sentence.
“Here. You say you thought he might not have done anything.”
“At the time.”
“You did think that?”
“Yes.”
“But you knew it was him you saw.”
“Yes.”
“Then put that first.”
Rachel drew a line beside the paragraph.
Mae read on.
“You're saying the van thing too.”
“Yes.”
“People don't all know about that.”
“No.”
“They'll need to understand it.”
“I'll explain.”
“Without making it a long account of how much you cared.”
Rachel looked at the page. She had already taken out that paragraph, and Mae had heard it anyway.
“I will.”
Mae put the papers down.
“Before the music. We'll ask people to gather here first. I'll introduce it. Anyone buying a ticket will be told there is a correction of the old account. I don't want people coming in thinking we're going to spring something on them.”
“All right.”
“Anna's speaking after Low Weather. Separately. She's sending me her words.”
Rachel looked toward the closed doors of the main room.
“Will Tess—”
“Ask her own people anything she needs to ask.”
Rachel accepted the interruption.
Mae opened a notebook.
“I don't know what anyone will say to you. I'm not going to manage that.”
“I know.”
“If it gets difficult, the volunteers will keep the doorway clear. After you've spoken, you can wait here with me. Outside the dressing corridor.”
“Am I allowed to listen?”
Mae looked at her.
“To the music.”
“Yes. From the public room.”
“Thank you.”
Mae's mouth tightened, as if gratitude for that was another thing she didn't know what to do with.
They sat without speaking.
Rachel said, “I don't know whether you've got the copy yet.”
“I've had what I can have. I'm speaking to the people dealing with it.”
“Right.”
“I don't need you explaining his handwriting to me.”
“No.”
Mae looked down at the notebook.
“Did he ever talk about her? Afterwards.”
Rachel could have pretended not to know which afterwards.
“Sometimes.”
“What did he say?”
Rachel remembered Martin in their kitchen, irritated by the annual concert notice arriving, then recovering quickly enough to ask whether Mae needed any help. She remembered him saying Celia had always known how to make trouble.
“Ordinary things. About the shop. What she was like.”
Mae waited.
“He could be unkind.”
“About her?”
“Yes.”
“And you let him.”
“Yes.”
Mae closed the notebook so hard the pen jumped.
Rachel didn't pick it up.
“I loved her,” she said.
The words came out before she could decide whether they belonged here.
Mae looked at her for a long time.
“I know you did.”
Rachel felt hope move before Mae continued.
“I don't know how that helps me.”
Rachel looked down at the pen.
“It doesn't.”
She picked up her papers, folded them without creasing the words and put them in her bag.
At the doorway Mae called her name.
Rachel turned.
“Celia's photograph from the shop. I want the original of that. If I can have it.”
“Yes.”
“For me. It isn't going on the table.”
“I'll bring it.”
“Leave it with Ruth. Tomorrow.”
Rachel nodded.
Outside, she walked halfway down the steps, then sat on the edge of one. A man passing with a child glanced at her and looked away.
She had kept that photograph for fourteen years. There were other copies, other pictures, enough images that removing it wouldn't empty the shop. She could give it to Mae and still remember exactly the way Celia had turned her head toward the camera.
For a moment she wanted to take the paper out and add something about their friendship.
She held the bag closed until the wish passed. Then she went home to find the photograph.