The Radiator Won't Fit

The new Room 4 smelled of fresh paint and sawdust, and it was so bright that Kai had to stop at the door and blink.

It was nine o'clock on a Thursday morning in March, three months before the opening. The walls were white. The floor was pale wood, still covered in places with protective paper. Two big windows looked out on the side street, where the snow was melting into grey slush. And on the long interior wall, five metres of it, exactly as the plan had promised, there was a new chalkboard, black and smooth, waiting.

Under the chalkboard, the space for the radiator.

Kai had taken the day off from the plant. So had Ade, who was there officially, as the electrical supervisor for the building's finishing work, wearing a hard hat with his company's logo and an expression of great importance. Dolores was there, because nothing involving a building happened without Dolores. Hannah was there, with her campaign phone in one hand and her personal phone in the other. And two men from the city's heritage salvage team, the same two who had delivered the crate to the Blue Plate in the summer of 2027, stood beside a wooden crate on a trolley.

Frank was not there. Frank was in Portugal.