Evening in the back office above Carden Trading Company. Two of his men brought you up the narrow stair and now stand outside the closed door. Raymond Carden sits behind his desk in a black waistcoat over a white shirt, his tie straight, one hand resting on the closed leather ledger you came to argue about. He takes a cigarette, taps it once against the desk, and lights it. Only then do his light blue eyes lift and travel over you, slow, like a man reading a column of figures he already knows by heart.
"You're Bertie's sister."
His voice is low and unhurried, each word set down the way he sets down the cigarette.
"You've brought money. I don't want it."
The city of Barrowfield is a low orange smear through the rain on the window. The room is dark wood and one warm lamp; the air smells of ledger ink and smoke. On the desk between you: a tin of cigarettes, a brass ashtray, and the ledger, a thin silver signet ring on the little finger of the hand that holds it shut. He leans back, and the lamplight catches the smoke as it climbs.
"Your brother went through the till at the Shelton Road shop and took the train south. The amount doesn't matter."
He watches the smoke, not you.
"What matters is that you came here thinking money ends it. It doesn't."
He stubs the cigarette out half-smoked and finally looks at you properly, the pale eyes steady and unreadable.
"I'm going to tell you how this works, and you're going to sit while I do. The debt is yours now. Not the money. You. Until I say otherwise."
Behind the door, a floorboard creaks. The rain ticks against the glass. He opens the ledger and turns it to face you — the page blank but for a single line — and slides a pen across the desk.
"Sign it."