Episodul 115 · Before Noon

At the traffic light, Soles asked for the phone. He called Tesa first. She answered after several rings, footsteps sounding around her. Soles told her only what they knew: the lawyer claimed to have the pages, wanted immunity, and had not turned them over yet.

Tesa was silent for as long as it took Maxim to cross the intersection.

— And what is the investigator doing?

— Trying to get the agreement.

— I understand.

She did not sound as though she understood less. She sounded as though she understood everything.

— I’ll meet you there, she said.

Soles hung up and found Krista’s number. Maxim saw it before he pressed call.

— Are you telling Varren too?

— Krista can stop by his place more easily than we can.

— I didn’t ask who you were sending.

Soles looked at him. Maxim kept both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road.

— Yes, Soles said. We tell him.

Krista was putting her camera into its bag when the phone rang. She pulled it out from beneath the stack of papers she had brought from the archive and answered with the bag still open.

Soles repeated the news. At the word “immunity,” Krista took her hand off the camera latch.

— Has he handed them over?

— He didn’t bring them. He promised to bring them by noon if he gets the agreement.

— Where is he keeping them?

— We don’t know.

Through the phone, Krista heard the truck’s turn signal. Maxim told Soles they were two streets from headquarters.

— Does Varren know? she asked.

— Not yet. Can you stop by his place?

Krista looked at the papers on the table. Among them was the copy of the request for Key Fourteen, with her real signature. She had kept it there since finding it, though she knew by heart where every letter sat. Varren had told her why he had used the key and asked for time to speak to Soles himself. She had promised not to take that time from him. Kerr’s pages changed what Soles was about to learn today, though; Varren needed to know they were coming.

— I’ll go, she said.

After hanging up, she put the copy in the folder beside the photographs. She left the camera on the table. She took only the papers and the car keys.

Varren’s gate was open. The pool pump could be heard in the yard, its uneven hum louder for a few seconds, then nearly gone. Varren stood beside the chair under the eaves. He had an open toolbox on the table and was trying to fit a screw into the part he held between his fingers.

He looked up when he saw her.

— Is Soles all right?

Krista stopped a few steps away.

— Yes. He’s with Maxim. They’re going to the investigator.

Varren set the screw on the table. He did not let it roll; he placed the part beside it at the edge of the toolbox.

— What happened?

— Kerr’s lawyer was called in. He says he has the two pages Kerr wrote before he died.

The pump started again, covering the noise of the street for a moment. Varren waited for it to quiet.

— The ones they were looking for in the cell?

— Yes. He is offering them in exchange for immunity.

Varren looked at the folder Krista held beneath her arm. She tightened her grip so it would not slip.

— Has he given them to the investigator?

— No. He wants the agreement first. He said he would bring them by noon.

Varren turned his head toward the clock beneath the eaves. Krista followed his gaze. It was still morning; even if the lawyer changed his mind twice, there was time to reach headquarters.

— Does Soles know what they say? Varren asked.

— No. None of us does.

— Then I’m coming too.

He closed the toolbox. The screw remained on the table beside the part he had not managed to fasten it into. Varren took his coat from the back of the chair and came toward the gate with Krista.

— Should I wait for you? she asked, pointing toward the car.

— Go ahead. If the lawyer arrives, Soles shouldn’t have to wait for me before he reads them.

Krista nodded. Varren held the gate for her as she went out, then stopped with his hand on the wood.

— You did right to tell me.

— I knew you’d want to know.

He added nothing. He pushed the gate after her and left it ajar.

Krista started the car. At the end of the street, she waited for a cyclist to pass and looked in the mirror. Varren had come out of the yard with his coat over one arm. He was walking quickly in the opposite direction from headquarters. The cyclist passed in front of her, and by the time Krista could move, Varren had already disappeared around the corner.

The lawyer stopped in front of the building and called the investigator before going up.

The hour he had given him was approaching. He had chosen it himself so the answer could not be put off forever. After the morning visit, he found it harder and harder to believe the pages would stay hidden.

— I’m at the office.

— I have the answer to your request. Come with the pages and we’ll discuss the document.

The lawyer looked up at the second-floor windows.

— Send someone to escort me.

— Two officers are coming.

— Send Soles and Maxim too.

This time, the investigator did not answer at once.

— Are you sure you want them there?

— I’m sure a locked door won’t help me.

Soles and Maxim arrived before the two officers. They had left the truck on the narrow street in front of the building, blocking half the entrance. Maxim got out, looked at the upstairs windows, then at the lawyer waiting for them beneath the sign.

— Where are the pages? Soles asked.

— In my office.

— And until now?

The lawyer gestured toward the door.

— I didn’t want to go in alone to get them.

Maxim walked past him and opened the building door. Inside there was a staircase with an iron railing, two dried-out potted plants, and the woman at the front desk, who stood when she saw them. The lawyer told her to wait outside until they came back. The woman took her coat from the back of her chair and left without asking why.

The two officers arrived as they were climbing the first steps. Maxim asked them to stay downstairs by the entrance.

— If anyone comes out, one of them said, we stop him.

— Yes, Maxim said. Watch where he comes out from too.

The officer looked at him for a moment, then shifted his eyes to the walls of the house.

Upstairs, the lawyer unlocked the office and stepped aside. Maxim remained in the doorway.

Soles went in first. His rib and palm hurt when he breathed too deeply, so he tried to breathe shallowly. The window was closed. The cabinet beside it stood exactly where it had been, but in one corner, where its leg pressed into the carpet, the floor creaked without anyone touching it.

He raised a hand.