By eight, Lyra had the earlier contracts on the table.
By nine, the appeal officer had looked at the collection totals and asked why the borrowers had not paid.
“Please follow the dates,” she said.
Vera sat opposite him with her tool receipt folded beneath one hand. Dain and Anja had been placed under related collection holds that morning, their names carried forward from the same schedule. Anja’s temporary guard tag hung crookedly from her coat.
Sanna Firth had arrived on the morning carriage with her adviser. She identified the retained copies before anyone asked her to explain every decision made in the account office.
Felix supplied the signed handling record. Barnaby placed the duplicate pages on a board so the clerk could not keep covering the earlier figure with the later one.
“Start here,” Lyra said.
The accepted payment preceded the collection balance. It was present on the paired receipt and absent from the later total charged against Anja’s account.
