The flood had receded, but the names remained on the shelter wall. Families wrote them in chalk as they arrived: who was safe, who was missing, who needed a place to sleep. Each morning Sima, the archive clerk, copied the list for the relief office.
Then the office posted a new register. Six families who had spent the night on the shelter floor were gone. In their place were names nobody at the shelter knew. The payments had already been approved.
Sima called Marek because Ada had told her what he had done at the hearing. He came to the shelter and watched a child trace her mother's name in chalk. The name was still on the wall. It was absent from the register.
That evening the broker called. He spoke as if they were old friends. He wanted Marek to produce a statement saying the wall had been changed after the official count. He offered enough money to pay Marek's legal bills from Ada's case. If Marek refused, the broker would make sure the investigator saw the rest of his old work.
"She has already seen it," Marek said, and ended the call.
Sima had saved the shelter's daily lists. The volunteers who wrote the names were willing to speak, and several families had photographs of the wall from the first night. None of those things alone could settle the dispute. Together they gave the relief office a reason to stop payment and examine the register.
At the meeting, the broker held up the official page. It looked clean. He asked why anyone should trust chalk and photographs over a signed record. Sima answered before Marek could. She named each missing family and the volunteer who had admitted them. Then she placed the earlier lists on the table.
Marek stood when the broker challenged her. He told the room about the call and the offer. He said the broker had paid him in the past to make a false record appear settled. This time there would be no replacement page from Marek, only the people who had been there and the records they had kept.
The office suspended the disputed payments and opened an inquiry. The families' claims would take longer. Sima knew that. She also knew the names could no longer be dismissed as a clerk's mistake.
Late that night, Marek returned to the shelter with fresh chalk. He did not write over anyone's name. He left it on the windowsill for the next family through the door.