Chapter 5: The Man Who Brought Papers
I did not sleep that night.
I sat at the kitchen table with my laptop open and my phone beside it and I went through everything I could access — bank statements, property records, the business accounts I shared with my partner, the household accounts Vanessa had managed since we married.
Most of it looked normal.
Most of it.
There was a transfer I did not recognize.
Fourteen months ago.
Forty thousand, moved from the household account to a private account I had never seen before.
The reference line said *property deposit* but we had not purchased any property fourteen months ago.
I had been in Singapore for three weeks.
The baby had not yet been born.
I called my accountant at seven in the morning.
He picked up on the second ring, which told me he had already been awake.
"Marcus," I said.
"I need you to pull everything from the joint household account going back two years."
A pause.
"Everything?"
"Everything.
And I need you to trace an outgoing transfer from fourteen months ago.
Forty thousand.
Reference says property deposit."
Another pause, longer this time.
"Nathan," Marcus said.
"I've been meaning to call you about something."
I set down my coffee.
"Tell me."
"There have been three transfers in the last eighteen months that didn't match your usual pattern.
I flagged them internally but Vanessa called me directly after each one.
She said you had authorized them verbally and that the paperwork would follow.
The paperwork never followed, but she called again each time and I — I should have pushed harder.
I'm sorry."
"How much total?"
"Across all three." He paused.
"Just over a hundred and ten thousand."
The kitchen was very quiet.
Priya appeared in the doorway in her dressing gown, hair loose, holding the baby against her shoulder.
She read my face and stayed in the doorway.
"Marcus," I said.
"Don't touch anything.
I'm going to need a full audit and I'm going to need it documented properly.
Can you do that?"
"I'll start today."
"Thank you."
I hung up.
Priya came and sat across from me.
The baby was asleep, head tilted against her collarbone.
"How bad?" Priya said.
"Bad enough."
"The papers Rosa mentioned?"
"I think so.
Yes."
Priya was quiet for a moment.
She adjusted the baby's weight against her shoulder, slow and careful.
"Dad," she said.
"When Mum — when she left.
When you and Mum divorced.
Did Vanessa know about the settlement?"
I looked at her.
"She knew the general shape of it," I said.
"Why?"
"Because I found something last night.
After you went to bed.
I couldn't sleep either." She reached into her dressing gown pocket with her free hand and slid a folded piece of paper across the table.
"I found this in her bedside drawer.
I know I shouldn't have gone in there.
But I did."
I unfolded it.
It was a handwritten note.
The handwriting was not Vanessa's.
*V — the timeline only works if it happens before the anniversary.
After that the asset structure changes and we lose the window.
D.*
D.
Daniel.
I read it again.
Then I set it flat on the table and smoothed the crease with my thumb.
"The anniversary," I said.
"Your wedding anniversary," Priya said.
"Which is in eleven days."
I looked at my daughter across the table.
The baby stirred slightly and settled again.
Outside, the morning was grey and ordinary, birds in the garden, a delivery van moving slowly down the street.
"They were planning something," I said.
"Yes."
"Something financial.
Something that needed to happen before the anniversary."
"Yes."
"And the stroller—"
I stopped.
Priya met my eyes.
"If the baby wasn't here," she said quietly, "the asset structure would be different.
The inheritance clause in your will.
I found a copy of it in the same drawer, Dad.
She had highlighted three paragraphs."
My chair scraped back.
I was already reaching for my phone.
"Who are you calling?" Priya said.
May you like
"A lawyer," I said.
"And then the police."
