“Take the camera out,” Daniel said.
Julian looked at the mirror, then at him.
“Why?”
“Because you put it there.”
Julian set his hand on the frame. Daniel took the laptop off the bed and lifted the canvas bag by its strap.
“Where are you taking that?”
“Out here.”
Daniel stepped backwards onto the landing, carrying both. He put them down beside the living-room door. Julian turned away from the mirror.
“Daniel.”
He pulled the bedroom door shut and turned the key from outside.
The bolt slid home with an ordinary little click.
For a moment he felt relief. The most frightening person in the house was on the other side of something solid. Ada stood in the living room. The archive was at his feet. He had made everyone stop.
Julian tried the handle.
“Open it.”
Daniel put his hand flat against the door.
“Tell me where the rest is.”
“I've told you.”
“No. You keep telling me some.”
“There's the laptop. The card. I haven't kept an inventory to please you.”
Daniel looked down at the laptop, shut now. His hand had left a damp mark on its lid.
“You can look,” Julian said. “You don't need to do this.”
He could look. He could sit in the living room with the machine and find whatever Julian had not chosen to show. Ada might leave, but the pictures would stay. Nobody in them could refuse to answer him.
The thought frightened him less than it should have.
Ada came onto the landing.
“Give me my bag.”
He didn't turn.
“And my phone.”
“I need to—”
“I heard you.”
Julian struck the door with his palm. Daniel flinched. Then he was angry at being made to flinch in his own house.
“Stop that.”
“Let me out.”
“You can wait a minute.”
He heard himself. The little reasonable minute. All the things he'd meant to mend before Calla stopped asking. Ada's face when he'd put his arm across the door.
He turned towards her. She had moved to the top of the stairs.
“Your things are in there.”
“Then you'll have to open it.”
“I don't want him coming out yet.”
“Then keep me here without them. Or get them. I'm not sitting down again.”
She held out her empty hand. Her bag and phone were behind the door he had locked.
Julian said through the door, “You can have her things. Open it and I'll pass them.”
“Stay back,” Daniel said.
He turned the key. He opened the door just wide enough to put his hand through, then saw what he was doing: asking someone to remain confined while he took what he wanted from the room.
Julian stood beside the bed, empty hands in front of him. The mirror behind him held a thin reflection of the landing and Ada at the stairs.
Daniel pushed the door fully open.
He crossed to the bed, picked up Ada's bag and phone, and came back out. Julian stayed where he was.
Daniel handed them to Ada. Her fingers brushed his. He could feel nothing in that touch he could use.
She put the phone in her bag and checked the borrowed one.
“You've got the card?”
“In his bag.”
“Don't watch it.”
Daniel looked at the laptop. He hadn't opened it again. He could still open it as soon as she left. It would have been easy to promise, then do what he wanted in private.
Instead he pushed it away from the edge of the landing with his foot.
He took the key from the lock and set it on the floor beside the machine.
Ada turned towards the stairs.
Julian came to the doorway.
“Ada. Wait.”
She kept moving.
He looked at Daniel, as though there were still something they could decide together.
Daniel said, “Let her go.”