Episodul 258 · Before, Not After

Krista moved her drawing aside when Soles came into the kitchen. He put the old terms on the cleared wood and the new order beside them.

She reached for the new sheet. Maxim brought his chair round to Soles’s left, where he could hear him. Tesa stayed by the window, her arms folded.

— What did he say? Krista asked.

Soles told them about the recommendation to suspend the pilot, then about Varren. He kept the words as close as he could remember them. When he reached the threat of charges, Maxim stopped turning the shackle in his hands.

— All of us?

— He said the team.

— Is that on the paper?

Krista ran her finger down the order and turned it over.

— It isn’t, she said. This asks for Varren. Alive. Nothing about what happens if we refuse.

— That part he told me.

She fetched her notebook. Soles watched her write the time and his name above a clean space.

— Again, please. What he said about us.

He gave her the sentence. Speaking it here was harder. At the desk he had been angry enough to answer; here he had to watch them hear it.

Krista finished, read it back to him and waited for his nod. Then she set the pen down.

— What did you agree to?

— Nothing. I said he’d get an answer from the unit.

Tesa came away from the window.

— Do you want to catch him?

He had expected a question about the man in gray. He looked at the empty chair beside her.

— I want to find him.

— I asked if you want to catch him.

— If that would get you out of this, yes.

Maxim laid the shackle on top of the order.

— That’s the part I don’t like.

— Which part?

— We’re sitting here and you’re already working out what you’d have to do for us.

Soles took off his coat. The cuff caught on the bandage, and he eased it free before hanging the coat over his chair.

— I came back before I answered.

— I know, Maxim said. Keep doing it.

Tesa sat opposite Soles.

— And when we find him? Say he comes quietly. You hand him over and he becomes somebody else’s problem?

— He is a problem.

— You know what I mean.

Soles did. A man in a cabin had once become the thing between him and home. He had listened, believed enough of what the man said, and killed him anyway. The others knew that. He wished, briefly and uselessly, that they didn’t.

— I’m not promising to deliver him because they’ve put your names behind mine, he said.

Krista pulled her chair in.

— Good. Because I haven’t given you permission to buy me out of anything.

Her voice was level. He wanted to tell her that wasn’t what he had meant. It was close enough that he kept quiet.

Maxim pushed his chair back.

— We could leave. Pack tonight, take the dogs. I can drive.

— And the inquiry? Krista asked.

— I said leave. I didn’t say disappear.

Lucky lifted his head at the sound of Maxim standing. Mina slept through it, her muzzle tucked against the radiator.

Soles could picture the van loaded, the road out before morning. Then the kitchen they would leave behind, the water running into its pipe. Whoever came after them would use the same taps.

— I want to finish what we came for, he said. But I don’t know whether we can. I’m asking you to stay without being able to promise that.

Maxim looked at the drawing. His chair remained pushed out.

— I don’t want to spend tomorrow pretending I’m testing rope for a fishing trip, he said. If we’re staying, tell me what the rope’s for now.

Soles spread his hand beside the line Krista had drawn under the mill.

— The same thing. We look at the channel tomorrow night. Before that, we find out whether Varren’s here.

— And catch him? Tesa asked.

— Find him. See what he’s doing. Then decide what we can do.

She pressed a finger against the mill.

— If something goes wrong down there, I don’t want him between us and the way out.

— Neither do I.

— So we look for him together.

Krista nodded.

— No cleaners. No help arranged through the chief.

— And if he’s hurting people? Maxim asked.

Soles thought of the strength Varren had held back against him. If the others had to stand in front of that, he wanted something better to offer than an order from the state.

— We stop what we can. I can’t tell you how before we find him.

Maxim sat down again. He took the shackle off the order and set it beside the drawing.

— Fine. Tomorrow I test the rope. After that, I’m coming.

Tesa reached for the kettle, then stopped with her hand over the handle.

— One more thing.

She looked at Soles.

— At the grate today, I knew I should move. It still took you touching me.

His eyes went to her right hand. She closed it and rested it on the table.

— If I say I’m fine tomorrow, look anyway.

— I will.

Krista turned the drawing toward herself.

— We start with Bram. People are still living below the road. Somebody buys their food, brings it in. If Varren comes to the river, somebody may see him. And we still haven’t found the man who came up those steps.

Soles looked at the worn heel she had drawn. He had wanted a place to begin; they had one already.

His phone lay beside the new order. He picked it up and opened the message that had called him to the detachment.

— We should acknowledge this, Krista said. Only that we received it.

He typed, then put the phone between them.

Order received. The team has not agreed to the change in terms.

Maxim leaned over to read it. Tesa read it after him, then Krista.

— That’ll annoy him, Maxim said.

— Yes, Krista said.

Soles kept his finger clear of the screen until she had finished reading. Then he sent it.

For a moment he waited for the phone to ring. Tesa took the kettle to the cold tap. Maxim got up to make room for her, and Krista pulled the drawing back under the lamp.

Soles left the phone where they could all reach it.