I closed the National Gallery job the way I like to close jobs — quietly. The provenance memo ran to three pages: ledger, carrier, warrants; the equerry's name where it needed to be; a chain that wouldn't wobble when counsel pressed it. Facts first, adjectives later.
Mercer read it standing up. “This will hold,” he said, and meant it.
“Good,” I said. “One more favour.” He tilted his head.
“You're cross-wiring with Berry Bros. for '23,” I said. “Someone is also moving their archive through a camera right now or has just finished doing it. If you know the vendor — or if the vendor knows you — put me in a room with them for ten minutes.”
“To do what?” “To make them faster,” I said. “They'll be drowning in miscellaneous. I'm good at pulling signal out of boxes that say they don't have any.”
“Whoever is actually digitising,” I said. “You'll have a name in your calendar invites. I'll take a short contract — metadata triage, anomaly QC, misfile detection. Throughput without drama.”
He watched me for a moment, weighing risk against inconvenience. “And why,” he said, mildly, “am I doing this for you?”
“Because it helps you,” I said. “They want clean stories in '23. Better metadata now means fewer last-minute fires later. And because I've delivered everything you asked for, inside the time, without noise.”
He smiled, thin and real. “Five minutes,” he said. “If they like you, it's theirs to take.” “That's all I need.”