Ren arrived at the bookshop on Orrel Street at nine forty-three.
He ordered a coffee and sat between the stacks at the small table where Hunter had met Sable three months ago, in what felt like a different version of the same work — which it was, at every stage, the same work at a different scale.
Kofi Ackah arrived at ten-oh-two.
He came in the way he came into every space — reading it before committing to it, identifying the exits, noting the occupants. He saw Ren and came directly to the table without hesitation once the assessment was complete.
He sat down.
He looked at Ren the way he had looked at Hunter in the pool hall — not hostile, not deferential. The steady assessment of a man who had been making consequential decisions in difficult environments for a long time and brought
