Episodul 24 · Say It First

Maxim put the truck in gear and joined the line behind a bus.

— There was something else, Soles said.

— What?

— I rushed things in there. At the beginning. I told him “explain it to me” as if he worked for me.

Maxim gave him a brief glance.

— And?

— I corrected myself. Krista stopped me later, when I pushed for a name.

— Then why are you telling me?

Soles looked out the window. He wanted to tell him about the curved wood beneath his palm and the feeling that had come with the word—that everyone in the room was supposed to stay silent until he spoke. He did not know how to say it without sounding like a man who was still waking from sleep.

— Because last time I didn’t tell you what I was planning, he said at last. Now I’m telling you what I did wrong too.

Maxim did not answer immediately. The bus moved off, and the cars ahead of them started forward one by one.

— Good, he said. I can use that.

They drove for a while without speaking. Soles opened the photograph of the appendix again and enlarged it until the letters began to break apart into pixels.

— Kerr’s company, he said. Serren said it worked on restoring the garden after the flood. That it shut down a year ago.

— I’ve heard of it.

— Did you haul materials for them back then?

— I didn’t. I was working elsewhere at the time. But I know someone who hauled paving stone and soil for them for almost two years.

Soles turned toward him.

— Bren.

— Bren.

— He doesn’t want to see us anymore.

— He doesn’t want us sending him out to ask questions without telling him what they’re about, Maxim corrected. Not the same thing.

Soles thought of Bren in the depot yard, telling Maxim he could have said what it was about.

— I’ll go to him, he said. Tomorrow. I’ll tell him from the start.

— I’ll drive you. But you do the talking.

— Fine.

— And you don’t leave there and go straight to whatever address he gives you.

— I won’t.

Maxim looked at him once more and turned back to the road.

The investigator called him around six, when Soles was already home and had fed the dogs.

Serren had already been in touch with him. The investigator confirmed that he had received the copy Soles had sent from the truck. He asked who had handed it over and whether the original was still at the committee office. Soles gave him Serren’s answers without adding his own conclusions.

Krista’s message came half an hour later.

I told the archivist where the copy came from. He asked whether the committee now answered requests faster than he did. I said yours had been an unusual one.

Soles checked that the message to the investigator had been delivered, then wrote to Krista to thank her. He deleted the message, wrote it again, and sent the same words.

For what? Ordering the water?

For starting it.

I started it and you finished it with Kerr. Serren wouldn’t have given us the page if you hadn’t told him about your parents.

Soles looked at the message longer than he should have. He did not know whether she was right.

Maxim was upstairs, checking the next day’s collections with the depot. Varren came after dark. For once he had brought no food; he took a bottle of water from the refrigerator with the ease of a man who knew which shelf it was on. Lucky sat beside his chair, hoping anyway.

— You went, Varren said.

— I went.

Soles told him. It came more easily the second time. Varren listened with the bottle between his palms, without opening it, and stopped him only once, at Kerr’s visit.

— Eight days ago?

— That’s what he said.

— At night?

— At night. Without warning.

Varren nodded and lowered his gaze to the bottle. He rolled it once between his palms, then set it down without opening it.

— And who’s looking for him? he asked.

— He didn’t say.

— But you think it’s you.

— Who else?

Varren shrugged.

— A man like Kerr usually has more people looking for him than he realizes. Debts. Promises. Things he’s done for others that those people would rather no one knew about anymore.

— How do you know?

— I don’t. That’s how men like him are.

He said it simply, then leaned down to scratch Lucky behind the ear. The dog rested his head on Varren’s knee with a long, satisfied sigh.

— And the man who asked Serren? Varren asked without looking up.

— Serren won’t name him.

— Did you push?

— Krista stopped me.

— Maybe she was right, Varren said. Maybe he really has nothing to do with it. People ask favors of one another all the time. It doesn’t mean they know what the favor will be used for.

— That’s what Serren said.

— Then maybe it’s true.

Soles looked at him. Varren was still scratching Lucky’s ear in slow, even strokes. There was nothing unusual in his face. His tone was the one he used to offer coffee on the terrace beside the pool.

— I’m going to Bren tomorrow, Soles said. With Maxim.

Varren’s hand stopped for a moment on the dog’s head, then continued.

— Good.

— I’m not going alone.

— I heard you.

Varren got up to put water on, taking two mugs from the cupboard without asking. Soles added a line to his note: Bren — the company after the flood. Who else worked there?

After Varren left, Soles sat on the chair by the wall, chosen without thinking. He laid his palm on the edge of the wood and waited for the other shape, curved and warm.

He felt nothing. The wood was straight and cold.

He did not know whether he was glad or disappointed.

Maxim started the truck at eight the next morning. Soles washed their mugs and brought his coat out to the gate. His cousin was leaning over the wheel, adjusting the passenger mirror.

— It vibrates when the engine’s running, Soles said.

— Only when someone’s trying to look in it.

— An excellent safety feature.

Maxim got out and pulled the loose bracket tight while Soles watched from the step. He tested it before climbing back in.

— Ready?

Soles checked his phone, the appendix and the company name. He had already told Bren they were coming and why. It was easier than arriving with the explanation hidden behind his teeth.

— Ready.

Maxim held out his hand.

— What?

— The sugar.

Soles felt the packets in his coat pocket, taken from the kitchen by habit. He handed them over.

— You could have said you wanted coffee.

— I’m waiting until you can carry it without decorating the seat.

He put the packets in the glove compartment and pulled away from the house.