Chapter 7: What Gemma Saw
Gemma Thorp lived in a ground-floor flat in Lewisham, behind a blue door with a crack running through the lower panel that someone had filled with white sealant and never painted over.
Sarah knocked twice and waited.
The woman who opened the door was younger than Sarah had expected.
Late twenties, maybe.
Dark circles under careful eyes.
She looked at Sarah the way people look at someone they've been told to expect but aren't sure they trust yet.
"You're Sarah."
"Yes."
Gemma looked past her at the empty street.
Then she stepped back and let her in.
The flat was small and tidy.
A cat appeared from behind the sofa and assessed Sarah briefly before leaving.
"Tea?" Gemma asked.
"Please."
They sat at a small kitchen table while the kettle boiled.
Gemma kept her hands around her mug even after it was empty.
"Daniel's solicitor called me three times," she said.
"I didn't pick up."
"I know."
"I don't want to be in a courtroom."
"I understand that."
"Do you?" Gemma looked at her directly.
"Because I spent three years working for Victor Hale thinking he was a decent man.
I made his travel bookings.
I drafted his correspondence.
I ordered his wife's birthday flowers." She paused.
"When I left, I told myself I'd left because I wanted a change.
But the truth is I left because something felt wrong and I didn't want to know what it was."
"And now you do know."
"Some of it." She poured the tea.
Set a mug in front of Sarah.
"What do you want from me?"
"I want to know what you saw," Sarah said.
"Not for a courtroom.
Just — what you actually saw."
Gemma was quiet for a moment.
"Patricia came into the office," she said.
"More than Victor let on to other people.
She'd come in when he was out — said she was dropping things off, picking up files.
Once I saw her at his computer.
She said she was printing something." Gemma wrapped both hands around her mug.
"Another time I was working late.
She didn't know I was there.
She was on the phone in Victor's office with the door mostly closed.
I heard her say — and I remember this exactly because it was so strange — she said, 'The wife needs to believe it completely.
It has to be clean.'"
Sarah's hands were very still on the table.
"I didn't know what it meant," Gemma continued.
"I told myself it was nothing.
A conversation about something else.
A misunderstanding." She looked up.
"Then you disappeared.
And then Daniel fell apart.
And then the company started hemorrhaging money and nobody could explain where it was going." She set her mug down.
"I left four months after you did.
I told myself it was a coincidence."
"Was it?"
A long pause.
"No," Gemma said.
"I was scared.
I didn't know of what exactly.
But I was scared."
Sarah looked at her across the small table.
"Patricia sent me two messages," Sarah said.
"Telling me to walk away."
Gemma's expression didn't change, but something moved behind her eyes.
"She knows you're involved now?"
"She suspects."
Gemma was quiet for a long moment.
The cat came back and jumped onto the chair beside her.
She put her hand on it without looking down.
"If I speak to the solicitor," she said slowly, "what happens to me?"
"You give a witness statement.
You describe what you saw and heard.
The solicitor uses it alongside the financial records." Sarah paused.
"You're not the target, Gemma.
You're the witness."
"Patricia has money.
She'll have lawyers."
"So does Daniel."
Another silence.
"She said 'the wife,'" Gemma said quietly.
"I've thought about that sentence for six years.
'The wife needs to believe it completely.' I didn't know who she meant then." She looked at Sarah.
"I do now."
Sarah held her gaze and said nothing.
Gemma picked up her phone from the table.
Opened her contacts.
Found a number and turned the screen toward Sarah.
"Is this the solicitor's number?"
Sarah looked.
"Yes."
Gemma stared at it for another moment.
Then she pressed call.
She stood up and walked to the window while it rang, her back to Sarah, one hand pressed flat against the glass.
"Yes, hello.
My name is Gemma Thorp.
I believe you've been trying to reach me." A pause.
"Yes.
I'm ready to talk."
May you like
Sarah looked down at her own hands on the table.
They had finally stopped shaking.
