The detained manager asked for a glass of water before he asked for protection.
His name was Anton Harrow. He had managed reporting for one of the contractors whose threat notices were under investigation. The inquiry advocate had arranged a supervised interview at the records office, with an independent protection adviser present and an investigator taking the formal statement. Nora attended for the witnesses’ interests; Eli and the team waited in an adjoining room until the investigator could tell them what Harrow was prepared to share.
Through the closed door they heard a chair scrape and a brief exchange too muffled to understand. Eli checked the clock. Tessa had asked him not to build a picture of the man from the noise he made while sitting down. That had not stopped Eli from trying.
Kellan brought a site map from the public planning office. It showed the proposed Tower selection grounds, the roads around them and a set of published utility routes. Sera laid a notebook beside it and marked the places where independent readings had been taken during the neighborhood monitoring work.
“Why bring that before we know what he has?” Eli asked.
“Because if he names a place, I want to know what we can verify,” Kellan said. “And because staring at the clock won’t move it.”
