By Saturday, somebody had decided the missing money amounted to forty thousand pounds.
I heard the figure in the supermarket queue, from a woman holding two bags of frozen peas. She wasn’t speaking to me. She was telling the cashier, who looked trapped between professional friendliness and the need to scan the next item.
“Forty thousand?” I said before I could stop myself.
The woman turned.
“That’s what I’ve heard.”
“The total income over the period being reviewed was less than that.”
She looked disappointed rather than relieved.
“Well, whatever it is.”
“The amount matters.”
The cashier scanned the peas. I apologised for interrupting and paid for my shopping when my turn came. Outside, I rang Priya to tell her a false figure was circulating, not to demand a replacement number I could circulate myself.
“I’m drafting an interim update,” she said. “It will make the limits clear.”
That afternoon, Vivienne asked if I could help check the update for plain language. The people commissioning the review would approve it before it went to donors. I was allowed to comment on the words, not reinterpret the findings.
Priya had divided the expenditure into supported entries, entries awaiting specific confirmation and entries for which the supplied explanation did not match the evidence. Some costs remained under review. They were not all automatically losses.
“Can we say the amount is in the thousands, not tens of thousands?” Vivienne asked.
“We can state the total income and the scope,” Priya replied. “We should not minimise a loss because a rumour made it bigger.”
I changed one sentence containing three uses of the word reconciliation. Priya accepted the edit with visible gratitude.
Forty thousand belonged to a story people could gasp at. One hundred and eighty pounds belonged to a week in which someone might have gone without something.
“Can the money come back?” Vivienne asked.
“Some may,” Priya said. “I’m not making a recovery promise in a review report.”
Celia arrived while we were working. She had not been invited to approve the wording, but Vivienne had told her when the discussion was taking place.
She stood in the doorway, looking at the page between us.
“You’re preparing to ruin me.”
Priya moved the confidential folder into her bag. The public draft stayed on the table.
“We’re preparing an accurate update.”
“Before you’ve accepted my explanations.”
“I’ve asked for supporting documents. Several are still outstanding.”
“I did years of work for nothing.”
Vivienne’s hand went towards her, then stopped.
“Celia, that isn’t what the questions are about.”
“Isn’t it? Petrol. Time. Taking calls while everyone else was eating dinner. Nobody asked what it cost me.”
Priya’s voice remained level.
“Send me the petrol claim. I’ll check it. It won’t account for the flowers Helen never sold you.”
Celia looked at me.
“You must have made mistakes at work.”
“Yes.”
“You told me that printer story,” Celia said. “The time you sent the wrong report. You said Marianne gave you a chance to put it right.”
I wished I hadn’t told her. It had been a foolish little story over tea; now she wanted it entered on her side of the ledger.
“What would putting this right involve?” I asked.
For a moment I thought she would cry. Instead, she reached into her bag and took out an envelope of receipts.
“Here. More paperwork. Since that’s all anybody cares about.”
Priya accepted it, noted when it had been received and said she would compare it with the queries. She did not dismiss it because Celia was angry. That seemed to disconcert Celia more than an argument would have.
After she left, Vivienne sat down slowly.
“There are genuine expenses in there. I recognise some.”
“Then those will be recognised,” Priya said.
We finished the wording. The update said what had been checked, what remained unresolved and when another report was expected. It did not name recipients or suggest that every person helped had been part of a fraud.
On the way home, I saw Celia’s car parked outside her house. Andrew was taking shopping from the boot. She stood beside him holding a bag that had split at the bottom.
Oranges rolled across the pavement. I caught one with my foot and handed it back.
She thanked me without meeting my eyes.
Andrew held the torn bag while she transferred the fruit into another one. He asked whether Poppy was enjoying school. I said she was. Celia stood beside us, silent, while we managed a conversation about an ordinary child in an ordinary classroom. When I walked on, I could hear Andrew asking where the oranges belonged. Celia answered him sharply, then apologised before he had time to react.