Chapter 60: Copy-Edit Day
One tide table was wrong enough to sink three chapters and my only free afternoon.
On Monday morning, the copy editor projected the final two episodes beside their source file.
Carys reached the harbour gate at 02:14 in my manuscript.
The official Saltmere notice placed that night's usable high-water access at 02:56. Its datum note sat directly above the table I had copied.
I had converted the table from chart datum twice while moving the scene.
The forty-two-minute error did more than change a clock. It altered what the harbour gate could physically permit.
It let Carys see a vessel before the harbour procedure would have admitted it.
That sight supported an alibi repeated in three later chapters. Moving only the time would leave those later statements false.
The editor could preserve my schedule by treating the time as fictional.
Every surrounding harbour procedure, however, claimed documentary accuracy.
Calling one inconvenient number invented would protect delivery and damage the book's rules.
I chose the factual correction.
The source packet linked the harbour notice, licensed tide extract and my mistaken worksheet. The error remained attributable instead of disappearing inside revision.
We changed the gate entry to 02:56.
The vessel sighting moved to the later quay scene.
Carys's first alibi question shifted after the insurance-register discovery.
The third affected clue changed from moonlight on a hull to a wet mooring receipt. That object could exist after lawful access began.
Each alteration preserved the culprit and outcome while repairing how Carys could know them.
The copy editor opened three linked queries rather than approving isolated substitutions.
Proofreading, continuity and reflow all needed to inspect the corrected chain. A copy-edit tick alone could not prove the dependency repair.
Their original remaining hours could not complete that work safely.
North Quay offered forty-eight hours if I released one reserved non-production day.
The day held my first filmed interview as Grace Ellison for the retail campaign.
Its studio, crew and distribution window could not be moved inside the current budget. Cancellation meant losing the asset rather than postponing it.
Cancelling it would reduce the new-name material available to shops.
Keeping it would leave the editors with an error or push the protected production schedule.
I released the marketing shoot.
North Quay reassigned Tuesday's studio window and marked the asset CANCELLED — AUTHOR FILE PRIORITY.
The release converted that working day into editorial and reflow capacity. North Quay documented the exchange instead of calling it free time.
It did not extend the press decision or authorise machinery.
At 11:22, the production plan granted the file team forty-eight hours.
The reserved slot remained conditional on complete print-ready approval. Forty-eight hours protected review time, not press authority.
I spent the afternoon reading the three revised clue positions aloud.
The new sequence made Carys slower to accuse and more precise when she did.
My editor checked every time reference against the corrected source.
The continuity report found no surviving 02:14 dependency. Search results and manual scene checks were attached.
At 16:48, the factual queries changed to RESOLVED.
The final two episodes received copy-edit approval under the corrected version hash.
North Quay stored the source packet, queries, redline and reflow proof together.
My cancelled shoot remained visible as the cost of the added forty-eight hours. The marketing calendar showed no replacement exposure.
No publicity team could later describe the lost interview as delivered exposure.
The manuscript now told the harbour truth I had intended to borrow.
It also occupied more pages after the three clue movements reflowed.
The production calculator turned amber beside the complete-edition total.
One optional bonus chapter pushed the book into another eight-page signature.
That signature exceeded the held page count and provisional cost model.
The editor opened two mutually exclusive approvals.
DELETE BONUS CHAPTER — RETAIN PAGE COUNT AND SLOT.
KEEP BONUS CHAPTER — RELEASE HELD PAGE COUNT AND PRODUCTION SLOT.
My decision was due Tuesday at 16:00.