Priya called on Wednesday before I could ring her. Celia had told her I was unhappy with the pace of the review and thought professional pride was delaying clear answers.
“Do you?” she asked.
“No.”
“Have you said anything that might reasonably have been understood that way?”
I thought carefully before answering. I had been impatient for conclusions. I had asked how long checks might take. That was not the same as accusing Priya of protecting herself, but I didn’t want to erase the part that could have supplied raw material for the claim.
“I’ve said waiting is hard. I haven’t said your pride is the reason.”
Priya exhaled.
“Thank you.”
I told her what Vivienne had reported the previous evening. Priya said she had not told Celia that Vivienne had concealed further alterations to the notebook. She had said all later additions needed to be described accurately.
“Which is a different sentence,” I said.
“Rather.”
We agreed not to conduct the conversation through Celia. Priya would speak to Vivienne directly. I would answer Beth’s question about what Vivienne had actually said to me, without guessing at private views I could not know.
It should have been simple. It wasn’t. Each warning had found a place already sore: Vivienne’s fear of disgrace, Priya’s fear that competence looked like coldness, Beth’s fear that asking for freedom had cost everyone else too much.
Celia didn’t need to invent every insecurity. She only had to deliver a sentence to the place where it would hurt.
At the library, I nearly forwarded all the messages into one group chat. Then I imagined the replies arriving while people were working, frightened and unable to hear one another’s voices. I put the phone down.
By lunchtime, all four of us had agreed to meet briefly at my house after school arrangements were settled. We would discuss only the statements attributed to us, not compare witness accounts or decide what happened at the hall.
Celia called before the others arrived.
“I hear you’re gathering without me.”
“We’re checking things we’ve been told about one another.”
“You could ask me.”
“Priya’s coming. So is Vivienne. They can answer for themselves.”
“I was trying to stop you hurting each other.”
I looked at the chairs around my kitchen table.
“You told Priya I blamed her. I don’t. Now I have to tell her that.”
She said I was making an unpleasant situation worse. I replied that we would not discuss her police account and that this was not a meeting to accuse her of killing Martin. It was about what she had told us we thought.
“Everything’s about that now,” she said.
“This doesn’t have to be.”
She ended the call. I kept a note of it and went to put the kettle on.
Tom took Poppy to the swimming pool. Before leaving, he asked whether I wanted him to delay returning if the meeting ran over.
“No. We’ll finish when we said we would.”
He nodded. I liked having a reason to stop that wasn’t another person’s anger.
Vivienne arrived first, carrying no food. She apologised for that automatically, then laughed at herself and took off her coat.
Beth came next. Priya arrived last, having rearranged a call with a client rather than pretending she had no other demands on her time.
We sat down. For several seconds nobody began.
Finally, Vivienne looked at Priya.
“Do you think I’ve lied about more than the notebook?”
Priya took off her glasses.
“I said you had to explain the additions. All of them. I didn’t say I’d found another version.”
Vivienne nodded, hurt by the part that was true and relieved by the part that wasn’t.
Then Beth looked at her.
“Do you think I caused all this by leaving?”
Vivienne’s face changed.
The question had finally reached the person who could answer it.
Before Vivienne spoke, Beth held up a hand.
“I want to hear your answer. I don’t want everyone to tell me what you probably meant.”
I put down the teaspoon. Vivienne looked at Beth, and this time nobody spoke for her.