Episodul 17 · A Name on the Ledger

On Thursday, Krista met Soles at the public entrance after lunch. Their appointment was in the pavilion’s club archive, beyond the rooms being used for the exhibition.

Maxim had a collection to make. Soles sent him a message before they crossed the bridge, then put the phone away.

— No trucks inside? Krista asked.

— He considered applying as a delivery.

— He’d still need a name on the form.

— The truck has been called several.

She laughed and led him along the canal. Across a fenced lawn stood the rear of city hall; a locked gate joined its grounds to the garden. They stayed on the public path and reached the pavilion’s main steps.

The attendant checked their appointment and entered Soles’s name beside Krista’s.

Inside, the archivist rose from behind a desk. He was a small, narrow-shouldered man with sparse hair combed sideways, glasses low on a long face. He had cleared a table by the window and laid out the albums Krista had requested.

— You can look here, he said. Ask before photographing a page.

Soles thanked him. He wanted evidence of who had brought Kerr into the club, something more definite than a conversation through an open door.

Krista chose an album by its date. Soles held the cover while she turned the stiff pages, keeping his bandaged hand out of the way.

The first photographs showed guests on the terrace wearing masks of leaves and polished wood. Waiters moved among them bare-faced.

— The annual Garden Ball, Krista said.

Soles looked for Kerr’s broad face and found none. Some guests had even covered their hair.

— An excellent event for people who don’t want their photographs identified.

— They take them off to eat. We need to follow the clothes.

She pointed to a guest beside a column. Two kinds of wood met diagonally across his mask, with a budding branch along the join.

— The Graft. New members sometimes choose it. A branch joined to an older tree.

— Kerr was new?

— Around this time. That’s why I wanted this album.

The man wore a dark coat with a pale edge at the collar. Krista found the same coat in a wider photograph, then beside someone whose mask bore dark leaves and gold along the temples.

— Serren wore that one the last year I attended. The Autumnless.

— Autumn got at him a little.

She smiled.

— The leaves stay on. Constancy, continuity. He’d explain it for longer.

Soles followed the pale collar through the next pages. He thought he had found it near a doorway until Krista showed him both men in the same picture.

— Different coat, she said.

He let her turn the page. Wanting something to be true had nearly been enough to make him see it.

Inside the main hall, the guests were seated at dinner. Masks lay beside plates. The Graft rested against a glass, and Kerr sat behind it with his napkin folded near his hand.

Soles knew him before he leaned closer.

The man beside Kerr had turned toward him. The gold-leafed mask lay by his plate.

— Serren, the archivist said, coming over when Krista asked.

Kerr appeared to be listening to something amusing. Soles looked at the empty space between their chairs and imagined reaching through it to take hold of him.

— Can we have a copy? he asked instead. With the date.

While the archivist checked the photograph number, Krista kept the album open. Soles photographed the details with permission, then sent the investigator a brief message saying a dated copy was being prepared.

— What do you need to look at next? the archivist asked.

— Kerr’s admission. Krista heard that Serren recommended him. Would that be recorded?

The man took off his glasses.

— It would. That isn’t exhibition material.

— No, Krista said. We need to make the request in our own names.

He explained the consultation log. Soles gave his name first; Krista confirmed that she was requesting access with him. When the book came across the desk, they both signed.

Soles waited while the archivist checked what he could show them. He kept his hands on his knees rather than offering an explanation nobody had asked for.

The ledger was thin. The entry occupied only a few lines: Kerr’s name, the admission date, Serren’s recommendation and approval subject to conditions in a numbered appendix.

Kerr had needed more than an invitation. Someone had written terms for letting him in, and Serren had put his name to the arrangement. Whatever those men had argued about outside the office, there might be a record of it here.

— Conditions? Soles asked.

— They aren’t set out here.

The archivist checked the sheets filed with the ledger, then the list inside its cover.

— The appendix isn’t in this file. You need to request committee documents through the committee office.

Soles looked at the cabinet behind the desk. It was close enough to reach in a few steps. He had no reason to believe the missing sheet was there.

— May I copy the reference?

The archivist turned the ledger toward him. Soles wrote the number and date on his phone. Krista read them back without leaning over his shoulder; the figures matched.

They left with the photograph, its date and the permitted reference. The log stayed on the desk with their names in it.

Outside, children were calling to one another beside the bridge. Soles stopped clear of the path to let them pass.

— We ask Serren for the appendix, he said.

— And why he recommended Kerr.

— You think he’ll tell us?

Krista shifted the envelope under her arm.

— I think we’ll know what he chooses to say. Then we can check it.

Soles sent the investigator the new details before calling Maxim. He told his cousin what they had found, where he was standing and when he meant to leave.

Maxim said he would be there shortly.

Beside Soles, Krista watched a child retrieve a dropped coat from the path. She had work waiting in the pavilion. He could hear himself gathering another list of questions to keep her there.

— Could you come for dinner tomorrow? he asked. You and Varren. We could talk with Maxim about how to approach Serren.

— Dinner first?

He looked up from the photograph.

— Yes. Dinner first.