The digit that differed was not a mistake.
Yara said it as soon as the conservator laid the comparison sheets on the table. She did not touch the protected pages. She kept her own calendar open in front of her and used the capped end of a pen to indicate the column she meant.
“The last digit identifies the transfer route,” she said. “It changes when the package goes to a different queue.”
Nadir leaned closer. “Does that tell us where it went?”
“Not by itself. The route list was updated when departments changed. I’d need the list in force on that date.”
The pages under comparison were historical transfer records Nadir had attached as background to his recent shelter report; they dated from Yara’s employment more than a year earlier. Amelie, the conservator, placed a transparent cover over the fragile pages before turning one. The ink on the original had survived the water better than the edge of the paper. A pale stain crossed the lower half, stopping just short of a timestamp. Amelie had prepared a reference copy and photographed each page separately. Nadir had reviewed the copies and could recognize his own writing, but he had not claimed to remember every number in the source material.
