Chapter 8: Patricia
The meeting took place in Daniel's solicitor's office on a Tuesday morning.
Wood-paneled walls, a long table, water glasses nobody touched.
Patricia Hale arrived with two lawyers and sat across from Daniel like she had done this before and found it tedious.
She was sixty-one.
Silver-haired.
The kind of composed that takes years of practice to wear that naturally.
"I don't know why we're here," she said.
"Victor is gone.
Whatever grievances you have about the company died with him."
Daniel's solicitor — a compact, precise woman named Grace Adeyemi — set a folder on the table.
"Mrs.
Hale.
We have account records showing forty-seven transfers over a period of twenty-two months, each countersigned by you within twenty-four hours of execution.
The total is just over eight hundred thousand pounds."
Patricia didn't look at the folder.
"I signed what my husband asked me to sign.
I was a supporting spouse.
I didn't manage the accounts."
"You were co-signatory."
"As a formality."
"A formality you exercised forty-seven times." Grace opened the folder.
"We also have a witness statement from a former employee who was present in your husband's office on an occasion when you were overheard discussing—" she glanced at the page, "—ensuring that, quote, 'the wife needs to believe it completely.'"
The first crack.
Barely visible.
Patricia's left hand moved slightly on the table.
"That could refer to anything."
"It could," Grace agreed pleasantly.
"We're prepared to let a judge decide what it refers to."
Patricia looked at Daniel.
Not at Grace.
At Daniel.
"You were never right for this," she said.
"Victor built that company.
You came in with your ideas and your ambition and you pushed him to the edges of something he'd spent fifteen years creating."
"So you helped him steal from it," Daniel said.
"I helped him survive." Her voice was still controlled, but something had shifted underneath it.
"You have no idea what it costs to maintain a life like ours.
The expectations.
The appearances.
Victor was under pressure you never saw because you never cared to look."
"He destroyed my marriage," Daniel said.
"He took six years from my daughter."
"He made a decision.
I supported my husband."
"You forged documents," Daniel said.
"You paid someone to make me look like something I wasn't.
You sent threatening messages to my daughter's mother last week."
Patricia's chin lifted.
"You can't prove that."
Grace set a second sheet on the table.
"The number the messages were sent from is registered to a pay-as-you-go SIM purchased at a shop in Kensington eighteen months ago.
The purchase was made on a card linked to a household account in your name."
The room was very quiet.
Patricia's lawyers leaned toward each other.
A brief, low exchange.
Then Patricia looked back at Daniel.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"Money?
An apology?"
"I want you to answer for it," Daniel said.
"In the appropriate place."
"That will cost you more than it costs me."
"I know." He didn't look away.
"I'm still doing it."
Patricia studied him for a moment.
Then she looked at her lawyers.
Something passed between them that Sarah, watching from a chair along the wall, couldn't read.
Then Patricia looked directly at Sarah for the first time.
"You," she said.
"You left.
You took the child and you disappeared.
You could have stayed.
You could have asked him.
You could have done any number of things before you ran."
Sarah met her gaze steadily.
"You're right," she said.
"I believed a lie instead of asking the truth.
I'll carry that." She paused.
"But you built the lie.
And you'll carry that too."
Patricia held her gaze for three seconds.
Then she looked away.
Grace closed the folder.
"We'll be filing this week," she said to Patricia's lawyers.
"If your client wishes to discuss terms before then, my office is available."
Patricia stood.
Her lawyers stood with her.
At the door, she paused without turning around.
"Victor thought you'd fall apart," she said.
It wasn't clear who she was speaking to.
"He said you weren't strong enough."
Nobody answered her.
The door closed.
Daniel let out a long breath.
Grace gathered her papers.
"She'll negotiate.
The messages alone are enough to make her lawyers nervous.
Combined with the financial records and Gemma's statement, she has very little room." She looked at Daniel.
"This is going to hold."
Daniel nodded.
He looked across the room at Sarah.
She looked back at him.
May you like
Neither of them said anything.
There was nothing that needed saying yet.
