The wall had carried more than air
Lena moved the calendar and found two painted-over screw heads. She did not remove the grille; the workshop was not hers to dismantle. Instead she called Tomas and described it. He remembered a speaking tube that once connected the workshop to a storeroom across the courtyard. The buildings had belonged to one business long before the bakery arrived.
He had blocked the tube years earlier because cold air came through it. But a plumber had recently worked in the old storeroom, now rented by a flower seller named Noor. Perhaps the work had disturbed the covering at the other end. Tomas gave Lena permission to inspect the opening with Noor, and she crossed the courtyard after lunch.
Noor showed her a brass grille behind a shelf of ribbon. A loose wooden cap lay on the floor beneath it. Nearby sat a small electric door chime, installed so she could hear customers entering while she arranged flowers at the back. It made two clear notes. Lena recognized them immediately, though the question of the exact time remained.
Noor checked her order book. A restaurant collected a table arrangement every day at noon, and its driver used the rear entrance rather than the street door. The chime sat only a hand's width from the newly uncovered tube. The timing, at last, had an ordinary appointment behind it.