The public foyer held fewer chairs than Rachel remembered.
That wasn't true, probably. They had left space for people to move through the entrance and kept the side doorway clear. A woman in the front row held a programme rolled into a tube. Behind her a man checked the time.
Rachel stood beside Mae with the papers folded in her hand.
She'd given the photograph to Ruth yesterday. Jo's jacket had been collected. Mrs Dawes had taken the suit, tried the trousers once more and thanked Rachel for the work. There was no unfinished repair here which she could use to delay the beginning.
Through the open door of the main room came a low guitar note, then two quick beats on a drum. A volunteer closed the door partway.
Mae looked at the clock.
“Ready?”
Rachel wasn't. She nodded.
Mae stepped forward.
“Thank you for being here.”
Conversations died unevenly, the people who noticed first touching the arms of those who hadn't.
The woman in the front row stopped turning her programme.
Mae explained that before the concert there would be a correction of the account given after her sister's death. People had been told as they arrived. This was still an evening for Celia and for the young musicians the fund supported. Music would follow. Later, Anna Bell would have her own opportunity to speak.
Rachel looked toward the back of the foyer.
Anna stood near the wall, wearing the black printed blouse. Her hands were folded. Rachel couldn't see Tess.
Mae moved aside.
Rachel unfolded the paper. It made more noise than she'd expected. Miles had told her she would want to answer questions. Already she was looking for Tess instead of at the words. She steadied the page with both hands.
“I lied about who I saw leaving Celia North's house.”
Nobody moved.
She went on.
“On the night she died, I saw Martin Hale. I knew it was him. I told the police I had seen Anna Bell. That was deliberate. It wasn't a failure to recognize somebody.”
The rolled programme slowly opened.
Rachel described the oath without making her own voice louder. She repeated the same false identification at the trial. She had wanted to protect Martin, who had been her partner and later her husband.
A man near the door said, “Jesus.”
She looked down, found her place and continued.
“In 2018 he wrote an admission to me. He said he'd been having an affair with Celia and that he'd killed her. I hadn't witnessed the attack. What I knew then came from what he wrote. I kept the letter.”
Her voice broke on kept.
She swallowed and waited until she could say the next part.
“I kept it after he died. I didn't tell Anna, her family, Mae or the authorities.”
Someone asked, “Why?”
Rachel looked up.
“I didn't want to lose the life I had.”
The person who'd asked was a woman Rachel knew by sight, though she couldn't recall where from. She waited as if there should be another answer.
There wasn't.
“The original letter is now with the police,” Rachel said. “I've given them my account and material that can help them examine it. Their work isn't finished. I can't speak for their conclusions.”
The paper shook enough that she set it on the little table.
“I also gave a false account this month. I told Leonard Bell that Anna had threatened to damage his van if Tess went on tour without her. She had not made that threat. I invented it. He withdrew the vehicle. I have corrected that directly with the people affected.”
The man's head turned sharply toward Leonard, who stood beside the entrance. Rachel hadn't noticed him arriving.
Leonard looked down.
“I was frightened of losing my place in Tess's life,” Rachel said. “That was my reason. It was not something Anna did to me.”
She reached the end of the page.
“I want to correct the things I made you believe. Anna did not leave the house at the time I claimed I saw her. I knew that then. She did not threaten the van. I knew that too.”
A woman at the side lifted her hand halfway, then let it fall.
Rachel waited.
The foyer smelled of coats warmed by bodies and tea being made somewhere beyond it. A child near the entrance whispered something and was shushed.
“Are they arresting you?” the man by the door asked.
“The process is continuing,” Rachel said.
“That's not an answer.”
Mae stepped forward.
“She can't give you a decision that hasn't been made.”
The man looked at her.
Mae held his gaze without offering Rachel anything.
Another woman said, “All that money raised. With you helping.”
Rachel turned toward her.
“Yes.”
“Did you use it?”
“No.”
The woman's face tightened.
“It was for Celia and the music fund,” Rachel said. “But I was there knowing things I kept from Mae. The fact the money went where it should doesn't make that all right.”
Mae reached for her own programme.
Rachel wanted her to say something, even something angry. Mae stood beside her in silence.
At the back Anna's expression had barely changed. Rachel had thought she might feel relief if she found her looking satisfied. Now she understood how little a satisfied face would have settled.
The man who'd checked his watch put it in his pocket.
“What are we supposed to do?” he asked.
Mae answered.
“I can't decide that for you. The concert is going ahead. The musicians have done their work and the fund still has its purpose. You're welcome to stay.”
She spoke about Celia for a moment, not as the lovely woman Rachel had helped make in programmes but as her sister, who had liked music loudly enough to upset people and had insisted on choosing the wrong song at family parties.
One person smiled and then stopped, uncertain whether it was allowed.
Mae didn't stop them.
“Thank you for listening,” she said.
It was clearly the end, but nobody applauded. Rachel folded the paper while people began to move.
A woman brushed past her toward the hall. She looked at Rachel's face, then away. Another stopped as if about to speak, thought better of it and followed the first.
Leonard didn't approach.
Anna walked toward the main room with her head high. Rachel saw the little effort it took to keep it that way. She let her go.
A volunteer came to ask Mae about the raffle books. Mae answered, then indicated a place by the side wall.
“Wait there.”
Rachel obeyed.
The chair was beside the entrance to the dressing corridor, in the public space. The inner door had a pane of glass and opened each time someone carried equipment through. Rachel could see a strip of wall, a hook with someone's jacket and, for a moment, the edge of a drum case.
She hadn't been given permission to go further.
Mae stood beside the programmes, sorting the ones disturbed when someone picked up too many. Rachel's hands itched to help.
She put them in her lap.
“Would you like tea?” a volunteer asked Mae.
“Yes.”
The woman looked toward Rachel and stopped.
Rachel said, “No, thank you.”
She wanted tea badly enough that her mouth had gone dry. She didn't want the woman having to decide whether kindness to her was a public act.
A laugh came from the corridor, followed by a low voice. The door opened and Eli passed carrying his bass case. He looked at Rachel, nodded once and went into the hall.
She heard Tess's voice beyond the door.
The words weren't clear. The sound alone made her start to stand.
Mae looked over.
Rachel sat down again.
People were taking their seats now. A burst of feedback came from the speakers and stopped. Someone in the hall called, “It's alive,” and there was a brief, ordinary laugh.
Rachel looked at the folded account on her knee.
She had said what she'd done. Tess on the other side of the door was still getting ready without her.