Chapter 7: What Roy Saw
I had known Roy Denton for twenty-two years.
He lived in the house directly opposite, a widower, a retired postman with a vegetable patch and the unhurried habit of sitting by his front window with a cup of tea most mornings.
He had shoveled my path after the heavy snow in 2021 without being asked.
He had brought me soup the week after my husband passed.
He was not the sort of man to involve himself in other people's business.
Which meant, if Vanessa was worried about him, he had seen something worth being worried about.
I was at his door by eleven o'clock.
He answered quickly, as though he had been expecting me.
He looked past my shoulder toward my house, then stepped back.
"Come in, Margaret."
His kitchen smelled of toast and the paper.
He poured tea without asking and set it in front of me, and then he sat down and folded his hands on the table in the careful way of someone who has something to say and wants to say it correctly.
"I was going to come to you," he said.
"I wasn't sure when."
"Tell me now," I said.
He nodded.
"Three weeks ago.
A Thursday, early evening.
There was a car parked outside your house — a grey saloon, I didn't recognize it.
A man got out and rang your bell, but you weren't home.
You were at your sister's, I think.
The Tuesday club."
"I remember.
I was there until six."
"Daniel let the man in.
They were inside for about forty minutes." Roy paused.
"When they came out, Vanessa was with them.
They stood by the car talking.
I didn't think much of it at first, but something about it bothered me — the way they kept looking up and down the road, the way the man kept showing Daniel something on his phone."
"Did you recognize the man?"
Roy reached across to the counter and picked up his own phone.
"I took a photograph," he said.
"Through the window.
I know that might seem odd, but like I said, something bothered me." He turned the screen toward me.
The image was slightly blurry — taken through glass at some distance — but clear enough.
A man in a dark coat.
A briefcase.
And beside him, unmistakably, Daniel and Vanessa.
The man had a document folder open in his hands, and Vanessa was pointing at something on one of the pages.
"Do you know who he is?" Roy asked.
"I think I might." I looked at the image more carefully.
The briefcase had a small embossed logo on the clasp.
I couldn't read it in the photograph, but the shape and color were familiar.
I had seen that same briefcase in a letterhead image when I had searched the name online the previous evening.
Hartwell & Associates.
"Roy," I said, "would you be willing to share this photograph with my solicitor?"
"I've already got two more." He swiped the screen gently.
Two more images, different angles, one of them showing the document folder open and Vanessa's finger on a page.
"And I've got a short video.
My grandson showed me how to use the burst setting last Christmas.
I was trying it out when they came out of the house, so I kept recording for about thirty seconds."
My hands were completely still around the teacup.
"The video is clear," Roy said carefully.
"You can hear Vanessa say — and forgive me for repeating it — you can hear her say, *she's not going to notice until it's too late, and by then we'll have everything signed.*"
The kitchen was very quiet for a long moment.
"Roy," I said.
My voice was steady, which surprised me.
"Can I call Geoffrey Marsh from your kitchen?"
"You can use my landline," he said.
"Take as long as you need."
Geoffrey answered on the second ring.
I told him about Roy.
I told him about the photographs and the video.
There was a pause.
"Don't go back to the house until I get there," he said.
"I'm leaving now."
"How long?"
"Forty minutes.
Roy's address?"
I gave it to him.
He ended the call.
Roy topped up my tea without being asked.
He sat across from me and didn't say anything for a while.
"Are you all right?" he asked finally.
I looked at the photograph still on his screen.
Daniel standing beside a solicitor outside my front door, three weeks ago, while I was at my sister's Tuesday club, while the roses were bare against the wall and the house was full of plans I hadn't been told about.
"I don't know yet," I said honestly.
Roy nodded.
"That's fair," he said.
And we sat quietly together until Geoffrey's car pulled up outside.
May you like
Geoffrey came in, took the phone from Roy's hands, watched the video twice without expression, and said one quiet sentence.
"This changes everything."
