Chapter 121: Statement with a Control Line
A corrected number mattered less than the line that required the next one to arrive.
On Thursday morning, the draft quarterly statement waited on the accountant's review screen.
The missing German audio receipts appeared in their proper quarters rather than as one convenient adjustment.
Each row carried the foreign statement date, sterling conversion date and North Quay posting reference.
I checked the client-account allocation against the reconciliation I had approved the day before.
My half remained my half.
Oliver's half had not become a penalty fund for me.
The interest calculation followed the same division, while the audit fee remained separately shared.
Those numbers were now correct.
The control line beneath them was not.
It said future foreign reports would be added to the next available statement after receipt.
“Next available” was how three blank quarters could become somebody else's later problem.
North Quay's rights manager offered to replace it with a fixed quarterly reconciliation.
Every active sub-licensee report would be matched against bank receipt, rights entry and title schedule before statements closed.
An absent report would require an exception entry, named owner and due date.
Silence would no longer look like zero income.
My solicitor asked who received the exception notice after the joint administration ended.
Neither Oliver nor I wanted an eternal shared inbox merely because old editions kept earning.
The rights manager proposed separate copies to our nominated rights addresses and our solicitors, generated from one closing file rather than two manually prepared summaries.
Each copy would carry the same report list, omissions and closing timestamp.
Neither party could delay the other's statement by refusing receipt.
The accountant added an annual audit right limited to the six old titles and their authorised sub-licences, with source access routed through the same independent review process.
It did not open our new books, household accounts or private tax records.
Exercising it would still cost money unless a material reporting failure shifted the agreed fee allocation.
I asked for that cost to remain visible.
A right that looked free on paper could become unusable through invoices.
The final annex stated the request route, scope, response deadline and source categories. It also required a written refusal if any requested category fell outside the old contracts.
It did not promise that every query would prove an error.
North Quay finance then reran the corrected statement through its closing checks.
The three formerly blank periods now showed receipt, deduction and distribution lines, each tied back to the quarter in which the money had actually arrived.
The control page showed quarterly matching, separate simultaneous notice and the limited annual audit route.
Two reviewers signed the process certificate.
The accountant locked the calculation workbook behind its existing hash.
No one reopened the amount to make the procedure sound more impressive.
I signed receipt of the corrected quarterly statement at 9.43.
My signature confirmed the figures and control process, not a release of unrelated rights, liability claims or future reporting duties.
The rights system issued identical completion notices to both solicitors.
The corrected statement became final before the ten o'clock deadline.
I kept the annual audit cost that came with the protection.
That was less satisfying than forcing North Quay to monitor itself for ever.
It was also a process another rights holder could actually use.
The rights manager closed the German audio query without closing the six-title reporting duty.
As the screen returned to the retirement package, a new permission request entered the contract queue.
It had been submitted through Oliver's solicitor and copied through the proper channel.
The request named one supporting character from the Blackwater Rooms novels.
It proposed a limited appearance in Oliver's next book under his own name.
No draft pages or character material were attached.
The form asked for permission before any use.
For the first time, Oliver had asked whether he could take something before taking it.