Chapter 5: Someone Is Still Watching
Daniel read the message twice.
"When did this number contact you before?"
"It hasn't." Sarah's voice was steady but her hand wasn't.
"This is the first time."
"Can I see it?"
She passed the phone across.
He scrolled up.
One message.
No history.
The number had a London area code but that meant nothing.
"Who knows you were at that park today?" he asked.
"Nobody.
It was spontaneous.
Lena wanted to go after lunch." Sarah looked at the window.
The street outside was ordinary — a woman with a pushchair, two men in work clothes, a cyclist.
"Daniel.
Victor said he told no one."
"Victor is gone.
But Victor had people." He set the phone on the table between them.
"He didn't run that scheme alone.
Someone helped him forge the documents.
Someone processed the transfers.
I've had a solicitor working on the financial side for three months and we've identified at least one other person involved."
"Who?"
"We don't have a name yet.
Just a set of account numbers."
Sarah looked at the phone.
Then at Lena.
Lena had abandoned the picture book and was now carefully arranging sugar packets into a small wall on the table.
"She doesn't know any of this," Sarah said.
"I know."
"She's seven."
"I know." He leaned forward slightly.
"Sarah.
I'm not going to let anything happen to either of you.
But I need you to understand that whoever sent that message knew you were with me today.
Which means they were either at that park, or they have eyes on me."
The sugar packet wall collapsed.
Lena looked up, unconcerned, and started rebuilding it.
"What do we do?" Sarah asked.
"First — don't reply to that number.
Don't delete the message either, I want my solicitor to see it." He pulled out his own phone and typed something quickly.
"Second — where are you living?"
"Forty minutes from here.
Small flat.
We've been there two years."
"Is it in your name?"
A pause.
"No.
A friend's name.
I was careful."
Something moved across his face — not quite relief, not quite pain.
The knowledge that she had been hiding, and that she had been good at it.
"That's something," he said.
"Stay careful.
Don't change your routine yet.
If they think you're spooked, they'll move faster."
"You sound like you've done this before."
"I spent six years trying to find a woman who didn't want to be found.
I learned some things." He said it without bitterness.
Just fact.
Sarah looked at him for a moment.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"For all of it.
I know that's not enough."
"It's not nothing." He picked up his coffee.
Drank it this time.
"We were both lied to.
I'd rather be angry at the right person."
Lena finished rebuilding the sugar wall.
She looked up at both of them with the calm authority of a child who has decided something.
"Are you coming to our house?" she asked Daniel.
Sarah started to answer but Daniel spoke first.
"Not today," he said.
"But I'd like to see you again soon.
If that's alright."
Lena considered this seriously.
"Do you like dogs?"
"Very much."
"We don't have one.
But I want one." She looked at her mother.
"He could help me ask."
Sarah closed her eyes briefly.
"Absolutely not," she said.
But the corner of her mouth moved.
Daniel smiled for the first time since the park.
It changed his face completely.
Then his own phone rang.
He checked the screen and the smile disappeared.
"I have to take this." He stood and moved toward the door, pressing the phone to his ear.
"Yes.
When?
— Are you certain it's the same account?"
He pushed through the door.
Through the glass, Sarah watched him pace the pavement outside, his free hand pressed flat against the back of his neck.
Lena watched too.
"Mom," she said.
"Yes?"
"Is he going to be okay?"
Sarah looked at her daughter.
At the dark ponytail and the careful eyes and the little crease in her brow that she had always assumed came from her own father, her own family, some gene she couldn't trace.
She could trace it now.
"I think so," she said.
"I think we all might be."
Daniel came back through the door.
He didn't sit down.
"That was my solicitor," he said.
May you like
"They've identified the second account holder." He looked at Sarah steadily.
"It's someone you know."
