At half past eleven the meeting room of the north branch is already warm. The air conditioning is on. The window on the east side is open a hand's width and no one closes it.

There are seven of them. Kuo Wen-chi comes in last and sits in the second seat, which is not hers. She sets the folder of minutes down in front of her, the elastic still crossed. On the spine, in pencil, is written two thousand twenty-four.

From the corridor comes the sound of the utility knife. The carpet firm has been working since eight; it has unrolled the length along the whole right-hand side as far as the glass door and stopped there, because the stretch past the door belongs to another company and the order says up to and including the glass door. The new carpet is grey. The old one was grey as well.

There is one chair too many at the table. No one has taken it away.

The director hands out the photocopy of the ruling. It is four pages. Two lines on the third are underlined in yellow highlighter. The tea comes in cups with the agency logo, and one of them is chipped in two places along the rim.

"The court is not saying it did not happen," the director says. "It is saying we did not write it up properly."

Kuo reads the two underlined lines. She knows them. They come from the commission's report, page nine, and they are hers. The report states that the conduct cannot be proven and recommends the disciplinary sanction. The two things sit in the same paragraph, separated by a semicolon.

The deputy director asks how many measures have been taken on the same report template in the last three years. The director answers eleven. The deputy director nods and adds nothing. Then he asks whether eleven includes the ones that were shelved. The director says it does.

On the table, in front of the extra chair, there is a full cup that no one has touched.

The woman from human resources says that reinstatement means back pay from April. She works the sum out in her head and says the figure. No one writes it down.

"Back pay comes out of the staffing line," the director says. "That is not the point."

Lin had hanged himself in the office on the night of the fourteenth of November, on the floor below, in the room where they kept the files. It was a Wednesday. The file room is now a locked archive and the key is kept at the porter's desk, which in any case was already the case before.

Kuo had collected the statements over the following three weeks. Three colleagues had spoken. One had asked her not to be entered in the record by name. The other two had asked for nothing, and that did not mean they agreed. One of the two worked at counter nine and still works at counter nine.

In the report she had written the things the three had told her, without attributing them. She had written shifts assigned outside the system, work requested after nine in the evening for two months, a desk moved into the corridor with no windows. Then she had written that the evidence was not sufficient. Then she had recommended the sanction. The ministry commission had confirmed it in January. Director Hsu had been removed in April.

"We prepare the defence brief by Friday," the director says. "If anyone has objections to the report, now is the time."

No one has objections. The woman from human resources asks whether she is needed on Friday too. The director says no.

Outside, in the corridor, the knife stops. Then it starts again. One of the workmen calls another by name and asks him to hold the roll.

The director rests his forefinger on the photocopy and taps it twice, on the yellow lines.

"If we say it today, they go back three years," he says. He looks at the wall clock. "Eleven fifty."

Kuo takes the elastic off the folder. The elastic snaps against the cardboard. She opens it, looks for page nine and finds it at once, because the corner has been folded since two thousand twenty-four.

She reads the whole paragraph aloud. She reads the first part too, the part that is not underlined, where it says that the material gathered does not allow the conduct to be established. She reads the semicolon. She reads the second part, where the sanction is recommended.

"I wrote this paragraph," she says. "It is not a typing error. I wrote it because to establish the conduct I would have had to put on record who had spoken."

No one asks who had spoken. The director puts the cap back on the highlighter. The woman from human resources turns the photocopy over onto its blank side and lays her pen on top of it.

"Does it go in the minutes?" the deputy director asks.

"It goes in the minutes," the director says.

They vote by show of hands. The appeal carries six to one. The minutes of the meeting record Kuo Wen-chi's statement concerning the paragraph on page nine, and record the time as well, eleven fifty-six.

The director gathers the photocopies and squares them on the table, tapping them on edge.

"For the brief I need the three names," he says. "By tomorrow morning is fine."

Kuo takes a sheet of lined paper from the folder. She writes the three names in block capitals, one under the other, because block capitals are easier to read. Beside each one she adds the date of the interview. She folds the sheet in two and lays it in front of the director, who picks it up and puts it inside the photocopy of the ruling.

They leave in twos. The cup in front of the extra chair is still full.

Kuo stays seated. Nothing more comes from the corridor, the firm has stopped for the break. The window is still open a hand's width.

The doorman comes in with the bunch of keys and stops in the doorway with his hand on the switch.

"Is anyone taking the folder away?"