CHAPTER 23 #2
“Anika says you’re all at The Fig & Thistle tonight.”
Romy stared.
“Anika told you.”
“She mentioned it.”
“Are you coming?”
There.
Now she had asked.
Ellis looked at her.
“I have interviews.”
“Marcus?”
“Among others.”
“Right.”
“Another time.”
The words were ordinary.
They did not feel ordinary.
“Another time.”
He left.
Romy remained by the worktable long enough to become irritated with herself.
Then she opened the archive box and checked folders.
Work was safer.
At six thirty, The Fig & Thistle was full enough to feel cheerful but not loud enough to require shouting.
Nina had put them at the corner table.
Leo was already there.
So was Anika.
Anika wore jeans and a navy jumper rather than field clothes or laboratory layers.
Without the sample case, she looked almost suspiciously normal.
“You came.”
Anika lifted her glass.
“I was promised decent chips.”
Nina pointed toward the kitchen.
“They are decent.”
Anika looked at Romy.
“I have standards.”
“Your laboratory coffee disproves that.”
“That is survival fluid.”
Leo said, “She insulted the station tea too.”
“It deserved it.”
Romy sat.
Nina brought food without menus.
Steak pie for Leo.
Mushroom pie for Romy.
Fish for Anika.
Nina ate whatever remained available between serving other tables.
For nearly half an hour, nobody discussed murder.
They discussed a badly restored hotel staircase Anika had examined after the owner blamed “historic movement” for damage caused by a leaking plant pot.
Leo told Nina about his Pattern House key.
Nina immediately demanded to inspect it.
Romy objected.
Anika asked whether the handover had been documented.
Romy stared.
“You are joking.”
“Mostly.”
Leo put the key on the table.
Anika examined the green tag.
“Promotion.”
“Placement development,” Romy said.
“Emotionally defensive promotion.”
Nina laughed.
Romy ate a chip.
“I regret inviting all of you.”
“You did not invite me,” Anika said.
“Worse.”
The food came.
The day softened around them.
Halfway through her pie, Romy realized this was new too.
Not Nina.
Nina had been part of the architecture of her life for years.
Leo was new.
Anika newer.
People gathering around Pattern House without the gathering being about Elin, scandal, damage, or proving Romy deserved to exist professionally.
A team.
Perhaps.
The word felt too large.
She kept it anyway.
Anika took a drink.
“The panel examination is tomorrow.”
Romy looked up.
“Controlled removal?”
“Yes.”
“Iqra coming?”
“Yes.”
“Why Iqra?”
“Archive interpretation. She can compare marks and transferred labels against surviving Merewick records while I deal with the materials.”
“You enjoy dividing expertise.”
“I enjoy people staying in their lanes.”
Romy looked at her.
“That sounded aimed.”
“It was.”
Leo laughed into his chips.
The next morning, the disputed panel lay reverse-side up on a padded examination table inside a secured conservation room.
Police evidence officers controlled entry.
Anika controlled physical work.
Iqra controlled the records.
Romy controlled herself.
Mostly.
She stood on the permitted side of the table wearing gloves she had been instructed not to use because she would not touch anything.
“You gave me gloves.”
“For psychological support.”
“That is insulting.”
“Is it working?”
Romy looked down.
“Yes.”
Iqra arrived carrying a tablet, two archive printouts, and a folder large enough to suggest war.
“You owe me two lunches now.”
“I thought one.”
“Halden became complicated.”
“Fine.”
Iqra looked at the panel.
“So this is the famous object.”
“Unfortunately.”
The front remained beautiful.
The reverse was the argument.
Marcus’s recent backing layer had been attached over older support.
Modern adhesive labels sat where earlier marks had been obscured.
He had begun cutting away sections before police stopped him.
Anika photographed everything again before proceeding.
Measurements.
Fibre examination.
Adhesive testing.
Slow.
Controlled.
Nothing like Marcus’s knife.
Romy watched modern cloth lift millimetre by millimetre from older material.
Iqra reviewed the 2001 transport photograph beside the exposed sections.
“There.”
She pointed without touching.
“Same repair.”
Anika checked.
A narrow stitched repair along one side matched the earlier image.
Romy felt the object’s history return in fragments.
Old stitching.
Creasing.
Paper residue.
The partial collection mark seen in the 2001 photograph.
Marcus had not replaced everything.
He had covered enough.
Anika reached the modern Fenn Found inventory label visible in the police photograph.
It had been attached over a larger cream sheet.
She tested the adhesive edge.
“Recent.”
“How recent?” Romy asked.
“Do you want me to say Marcus o’clock?”
Iqra laughed.
“I want a useful answer.”
“Modern pressure-sensitive adhesive. Consistent with the Fenn Found treatment period.”
“Thank you.”
Anika worked the label free with solvent control along the edge.
Millimetres at a time.
The cream paper appeared.
Faded.
Fibrous.
Older.
Not eighteenth century.
Twentieth.
Iqra leaned closer.
“There is printing.”
Romy’s pulse rose.
“What kind?”
“Stamp.”
The modern label lifted farther.
A circular edge.