On Monday, Vivienne asked me to collect the attendance notes for Priya. She had put them in a folder with the fund’s written arrangements. Priya wanted to establish who had actually agreed to what before requesting the rest of the accounts.
“The red book is in there too,” Vivienne said at the door. “Don’t lose that. It’s practically my second brain.”
She was wearing gardening gloves. Behind her, a half-filled sack of dead leaves leaned against the stairs.
“Does Priya need the whole book?”
“Only the marked pages. I thought you could photograph them for her.”
I set the folder on her dining table. Peter had covered one end with seed catalogues. There was something reassuring about a household still planning for spring.
The first marked page concerned a summer collection. The second recorded the decision to offer help with work equipment. The third bore the date 22 October.
Below the date, five names appeared in a neat column. A paragraph followed.
All present together from 7.30. Beth remained with the group. Celia briefly out on personal errand, back by 8.20.
I read the last sentence twice.
Vivienne came back carrying a pot without a plant.
“Something wrong?”
“When did you write this?”
She put the pot on a newspaper.
“After the meeting. I generally finish the notes afterwards.”
“Which day afterwards?”
“I can’t remember exactly.”
The book had been beside her chair that Thursday. I remembered her writing the date, then shutting it when Beth started talking. Later she had gone upstairs to look for a folding table and returned without it. I had not watched the notebook continuously.
“I didn’t see everything you wrote that night. But I don’t remember us establishing when Celia came back.”
“We discussed it.”
“When?”
Her gardening gloves lay palms upwards between us. One fingertip had split.
“Over the following days. People mentioned things.”
“Who mentioned twenty past?”
Vivienne reached for the book. I moved my hands away so she could take it without a struggle neither of us wanted.
She turned a page, then turned it back.
“I knew she wasn’t gone long.”
“That’s different.”
“I wasn’t preparing a witness statement, Nora. These are club notes.”
“Then they need to look like club notes written afterwards, not a clock somebody watched.”
Her face tightened. Through the window I could see the bare patch where she had pulled out the summer plants. A robin landed beside her trowel.
“Perhaps I should remove that line.”
“Please don’t.”
She looked at me sharply.
“You’re saying it’s wrong.”
“I’m saying we should keep what you wrote and explain when and why you wrote it. Changing it again won’t help.”
For a moment she held the pen lying in the spine of the notebook. Then she put it on the table.
“I haven’t sent this to the police.”
“Have you shown it to anyone?”
“Celia looked at it. Last week. She wanted to know what I’d remembered.”
The robin pulled something invisible from the soil.
“Did you write twenty past before or after that?”
“I don’t know.”
It came out quietly. I believed she didn’t know. I also understood how useful not knowing could become if we let the conversation end there.
We rang Priya. Vivienne explained that the folder contained notes added after the event. Priya asked us not to mix those pages with the older decisions she needed for the financial review.
“Keep the book as it is,” she said. “Tell the officer dealing with your statement. I don’t need a copy of everybody’s movements to check spending authority.”
Afterwards, with Vivienne’s permission, I photographed the dated page and the facing page. I recorded when I had seen them. She kept the original.
Peter came in looking for a catalogue. He stopped at the sight of our faces.
“Tea?”
Vivienne shook her head. I accepted because my hands were cold.
While he filled the kettle, she sat down heavily.
“I didn’t put her back before she left. I wasn’t trying to invent a whole evening.”
“Why that time, though?”
“Because Beth was with you in the kitchen. Because everyone kept asking where everyone was. Because I wanted something written down.”
She pressed her thumb against the corner of the page without turning it.
“And Celia said twenty past sounded right.”
There it was: not a recovered memory, but an answer offered into an empty space.
I took my tea from Peter and thanked him. Vivienne opened her phone to find the police contact. I waited while she searched, resisting the urge to do that small thing for her.
Before she made the call, she looked at the notebook once more.
“They’ll think I meant to protect her.”
I didn’t ask which woman she meant.
For the first time, I wasn’t sure Vivienne knew.