Tikhomir Ashets has been standing outside this door for six minutes and has not put the case down.

It is not heavy, and that is not why he is holding it. A case on the floor belongs to a man who has been given a room; a case in his hand belongs to a man with an address.

The fox has a key. Tikhomir has a folder, a signature three days old, and an officer beside him who has explained the words erroneous assignment to nobody yet.

the fox says.

He looks at the key first, because the key is the fact. Then at the man holding it: ears gone flat, weight forward, a jacket good enough to have cost somebody a month.

he says. He means it as a fact. He hears, too late, how it lands as something else.

The tablet turns. A red notice. Registered residents, a period of three hundred and sixty-five days, and at the bottom a direct number for Halloway, who has not slept.

the fox says slowly,

Tikhomir has read the brief. He has not read her: she has not said anything yet, and he will not be the man who fills her hallway with his own opinions in the first minute.

He sets the case down one boot-length outside the threshold, where it can be picked up again, and when the fox laughs he picks it up and puts it back.

he says to her, not to the officer.

He waits. He is good at waiting. He is discovering he is worse at being looked at while he does it.