Helen opened the recommendation and its attachments. Nina found her own reference, then matched Adam's contribution against the café sheet. The same coordinated job.
Next Helen opened the client action. Nina began reading it aloud and stopped.
“What?” Helen asked.
“Directly confirmed. It isn't what his contribution says.”
She put the field account beside the stronger description Northreach had used. Neither contained a fresh conversation with Beth. Helen read them, then opened the sending receipt.
Martin Reed's name. A time. The confidentiality hold lifted and the forwarding attachment sent. Helen covered the address before turning the screen toward her.
Nina stared at the name. “They sent it.”
“We sent it,” Helen said. “I'll give Beth the action for her case.”
Helen wrote a short note to accompany the preserved material. She didn't describe Nina as an adviser. Nina noticed, felt the loss and didn't ask her to change it.
Ethan's authorized response arrived while they were still at the table. Helen read it first and showed Nina only the relevant sections.
Ethan confirmed one Fieldspan work account behind both submissions. Below it, he traced Nina's incoming notice through the special-case path Harbor. The sponsor field named Vivian's account.
Nina looked at that line for a long time. An account name. Not proof of whose hands had used it. Enough to ask.
Nina copied the supplier incident reference from the notice: 47-218. Then she took out the parking ticket she'd kept from the hospital, with Waymark's own support number and her separate review reference written on the back.
“Can I use somewhere quiet?”
Helen left her in the room with the door half closed.
Nina called Waymark through her existing review route, gave her own details again and asked whether the source incident on her restriction matched the received notice. The first person transferred her. While the hold music repeated, she could hear Helen and Ruth on the customer call outside. Helen was saying she would be there for tomorrow's answer too.
When she was connected to the review contact, the person could confirm limited source information for her own dispute. A Threadline-supplied incident. The same reference, 47-218. Waymark had made its own decision about recovery and online transfers after receiving it. Withdrawal or correction of the supplier claim would be considered; it didn't let the person promise an immediate result.
Nina asked for the source and reference in writing. When the confirmation arrived she compared 47-218 with Northreach's received notice. Her support number on the parking ticket was different; this was the incident that linked them. She saved the confirmation. The transfers remained restricted.
Helen came back with Ruth and read the matched numbers. She put her copy beside Nina's.
Ruth set down the list. “Four still here can be handled without Fieldspan. I'm trying to finish them before the desk closes.”
“And the others?” Helen asked.
“Scheduled calls. The woman you spoke to asked for the records. She wants what we actually sent, not just the correction. I've put that through.”
Helen took the callbacks Ruth couldn't cover and put them on her own list. Ruth went back to the room where four people were still waiting. Nina set her notice aside and put Beth's action uppermost.
Helen remained standing by the table.
“This goes back to Threadline,” she said. “We need an answer about who authorized these exceptions. Not just the two field submissions.”
Nina looked up.
“They can say a contractor exceeded instructions,” Helen said. “If that's their answer, I want the instructions. If the exceptions were authorized, I want the management account. We can't keep using this route because someone promises the bad people have gone.”
“You're asking about the sponsor.”
“Yes. And the source account. Those names won't stay private inside their business.”
“Gavin Leach,” Nina said.
“Among the people they'll ask.”
Nina looked at the contribution copy. At the party she'd wanted him to remain long enough to answer a question. Here, in the useful legitimate work she'd wanted to get back to, his name had become something a company might choose to cut loose.
“The officer has it. I'll tell him what the client request exposes.”
“Good. I can't keep a supplier from learning which work we're questioning.”
“I know.”
Helen gathered the affected references. “I have to say which part we can still buy. Send me your account when it's ready.”
Ruth called from the door. Helen went to her, carrying both the questions and the ordinary list.
Nina stayed to finish her own account. She included the two source descriptions, the fresh client receipt and the limit of what the common incident proved. She sent the permitted material through the channels already open, including the officer's, and told him the actual source name now exposed by Northreach's question.
When she finally left, the lobby was almost empty. The child had abandoned a sticker on the chair. A cleaner was trying to lift it without damaging the surface.
Nina's phone vibrated as she reached the car. Unknown number.
She let it ring once more, then answered.
“You gave them my name,” a man said.
She knew his voice now even without the photograph.
“Gavin.”
“Don't sound pleased.”