‘They’re telling me we shouldn’t rush any announcements,’ I said, now sounding slightly exasperated. ‘It’s too soon. Besides, there are other factors to consider. Other stakeholders. The divers who found it, for instance. The Texel community. It would be good if they had a chance to see it before it disappears into some vault for years. The Texel Historical Society have their own museum and the funding to host a short exhibition of the dress and the artefacts. They asked for our help so I took the liberty of calling Rob Disijk this morning and discussing the matter with him. He sounded keen, especially since the funding is already in place and the Noord-Holland government won’t have to provide any money. He’s going to talk about loaning out the dress and the artefacts with the other councillors at a meeting later today. Bram and the divers have been so helpful providing information about the location of the wreck. With their help, Rob’s hoping more shipwrecks might come to light. They’re even thinking about establishing a permanent beachcombers’ museum on Texel so there’s a properly equipped facility to store anything valuable until it can be assessed.’

Liam’s frown deepened. ‘You contacted Rob without telling me?’

‘I didn’t think you’d object,’ I said. ‘It’s a pretty harmless request, all things considered.’

‘Well, you thought wrong. I have to be honest, Jo, I’m having second thoughts about getting the divers and the historical society on board. If we allow the community to get involved, don’t we risk compromising our own scholarship? What if they refuse to give the dress back? And what about your book? Isn’t this dress research supposed to be the basis of the final chapter? What if someone writes up the findings first?’ He cleared his throat. ‘And there’s my own position to consider. Before all this nonsense happened with the vice-chancellor’s niece, I was headed for tenure. I was just waiting for the ink to dry on the offer. Now it’s all looking a bit uncertain. I promised the vice-chancellor that Glasgow School of Art would have first dibs on anything that came to light about the dress. He’s really excited about the possibility it might have belonged to Catharina. Apparently, she was a pioneer of women’s rights. He reckons the Me Too crowd are going to love her. I’ve already lined up a meeting with the director of Glasgow School of Art’s publishing arm. I can’t just ring him now and say he’ll have to wait because some senior citizen with an Ancestry account wants to show off.’