Episodul 117 · An Agreement Signed

Maxim came down where Soles’s hand was, and the sheet metal boomed under the three of them, and the beam groaned along its whole length and held.

The man with the cord did not climb after them. He came out of the wall below the sill, the way they always came, and dropped onto the roof to cut them off from the yard.

He landed on the far end of the beam.

The rotten wood went with a soft, wet crack. The sheet metal folded in half under him, and he went through it into the dark of the shed with a crash of crates and tins.

Nobody stopped to look.

Soles went off the edge of the roof onto the stacked crates, then the trash can, then the yard, with the lawyer between him and Maxim. The gate to the side street was bolted from the inside. Maxim drew the bolt. The truck was where they had left it, half across the entrance, with both officers beside it now. The one with the broken nose was waving them on.

Behind them, inside the shed, something shoved at the bent sheet metal from underneath.

They were in the truck before it came out.

At headquarters, the investigator was waiting outside his office. He looked first at the envelope, then at Soles, who had one hand pressed beneath his ribs. Maxim remained near the door, rubbing the red mark above his wrist. His fingers still moved when he asked them to. The faces of the men from the corridor kept piling over one another in his mind although he no longer wanted to see them.

The lawyer took the envelope from under his coat.

— The agreement, he said.

The investigator showed him the document on the desk. The lawyer read it standing, one hand braced on the wood. He signed. Only then did he open the envelope and take out the two pages Kerr had written, folded together. He placed them in front of the investigator.

The investigator noted the time of delivery before reading them.

He set the pen beside the register and pulled the pages toward him. He still did not begin reading. Across the desk, the lawyer kept his right hand pressed to his overcoat, hiding a cut that had left blood on the cuff.

— You’re staying until I see what you brought me, the investigator said.

— I signed the agreement.

— And I received two pages. Now we verify that they’re the pages you were talking about.

The lawyer looked toward the door. People moved through the corridor; there were footsteps, a voice asking for a file, the phone at the officers’ desk. He stayed.

Soles took his hand from beneath his ribs when the investigator looked at him. It did not fool him. Soles had not tried very hard.

— Someone is coming to look at all three of you, the investigator said. The lawyer, you, and Maxim.

— I’ve got nothing wrong with me, Maxim said.

— Then that man will have less work.

Maxim wanted to answer. He stopped because, for a moment, he could no longer tell whether the officer passing in the corridor was the one who had come up the stairs after them or the one who had guarded the entrance. He knew both faces. He could see clearly the broken nose of one, the pale patch in the other’s eyebrow, where each of them had stood on the steps of the lawyer’s building. The more he tried to put them in order, the more other faces came to mind. He fixed his eyes on the door handle and kept them there until the door closed.

The investigator unfolded the two pages and spread them across the desk, keeping them away from the ring of water left by a glass.

The lawyer stepped closer.

— Those are the two, he said.

— I’ll ask you after I read them.

Tesa knocked at the door. She came in before the investigator answered, holding the arm in the cast close to her body. She looked at Soles, then Maxim. White dust covered one shoulder and the back of his coat.

— You went to his office, she said.

— He invited us, Maxim replied.

Tesa saw the lawyer and the pages spread across the desk. She understood how much had happened between Soles’s phone call and her arrival without asking another question. She touched Maxim’s arm lightly with her good hand to see if it hurt, then went to Soles.

— The rib?

— Still there.

— That’s not what I asked.

Soles tried to draw a deep breath and gave up halfway. Tesa saw his face before he could smile.

— Someone’s looking at you after we’re done here, she said.

The lawyer moved toward the door. Tesa made room, but he did not pass. He had stopped beside the signed agreement lying at the corner of the desk.

— That’s it? she asked.

The investigator looked at the document.

— Yes.

— The pages are with you.

— Yes.

— And he walks.

No one answered at once. The lawyer pulled his overcoat tighter over the cut on his hand. Tesa looked at the man who had once gone into the investigator’s chief’s office and left behind her brother’s statement, filed away. She wanted to feel something at the sight of him hurt. All she had was the fatigue in her arm and the wish that the pages on the desk would tell the truth.

— You have questions for me, the lawyer told the investigator. You can ask them after you verify the handwriting.

— I will.

— Then I’ll wait outside.

The investigator called an officer and asked him to take the lawyer into the adjoining room. They could look at his hand there and stay with him until the investigator finished reading. The lawyer left without looking at the pages again. Tesa followed his steps down the corridor. Even now he did not walk like a man in a hurry.

When the door closed, the investigator took Kerr’s last signed statement from the file. He placed it beside the two pages. Soles had never seen the signature. When the investigator read him the fraud story, he had kept the file turned away.

— Is that his handwriting? he asked.

— It looks like it. I want it checked, but we can read what he left here.

The investigator pulled the first page closer. Kerr had written tightly, the lines dropping toward the margin. On the second page he had pressed harder. The impressions of some letters could be felt through the paper. The investigator read the beginning in silence, then looked up at Soles.

— You can step outside until I’m finished.

Soles looked at the pages.

— Because they’re my parents?

— Because I haven’t read all of it either. I don’t know what’s on the second page.

Soles pulled the chair in front of the desk toward him. He sat carefully, turning the backrest aside so it would not press his rib.

— I’m reading it here.

Maxim remained standing beside him. Tesa went to the window and back. There was nowhere in the room she could stand without seeing the pages. She leaned against the filing cabinet and waited.

The investigator gave Soles the first page. He did not point to where he should begin.