Chapter 7: Victoria's Last Move
She called at eleven that night.
I was in my hotel room, jacket off, the folder of Daniel's emails spread across the bed, when my phone lit up with a number I didn't recognize.
I answered anyway.
"I know what Harland told you." Victoria's voice was calm.
Composed.
The same voice she had used at my father's funeral when she thanked the guests for coming and didn't cry once.
"He's protecting himself.
Everything he said about me is a lie."
"Victoria."
"I want to meet.
Tonight.
Somewhere private."
"No."
"Alex." A pause.
"I have something that belongs to you.
Something your father left for you personally, before he became ill.
Something Harland was holding that I took from his office six months ago because I knew — I always knew — that eventually it would come to this."
I was quiet.
"What is it?" I said.
"A letter.
In your father's handwriting.
Unsealed.
I've read it." Another pause, longer this time.
"You should read it too.
Before this goes any further."
"Send it to my solicitor."
"I'll send it to no one.
I'll hand it to you directly, or I'll destroy it.
Those are the only two options."
I looked at the emails on the bed.
Eleven months of correspondence.
Harland's cooperation.
The frozen accounts.
Everything lined up, everything moving forward.
And Victoria, who never did anything without a reason, offering me a letter.
"Where?" I said.
She named a hotel bar two streets away.
"One hour.
Come alone."
I called Diane before I left the room.
"She wants to meet.
She says she has a letter from my father."
"It could be genuine," Diane said.
"Or it's a play."
"Either way, I need to know."
"I'll be outside.
Twenty meters.
You won't see me."
The bar was nearly empty when I arrived.
Victoria was already there, at a corner table, no luggage, no associates.
A single glass of water in front of her.
She looked, for the first time since I had known her, like someone who had not slept.
I sat down across from her.
She reached into her coat and placed an envelope on the table between us.
Cream paper.
My father's handwriting on the front.
My name.
*Alex.*
I didn't pick it up yet.
"Why?" I said.
"Why what?"
"Why keep it?
Why not destroy it months ago, when you took it from Harland?"
She looked at the envelope.
"Because it's the last thing he wrote," she said.
"And I couldn't."
Something in her voice was different.
Not performance.
Not calculation.
Something older and quieter than either of those things.
"He knew," she said.
"At the end.
He knew what I had done.
He didn't confront me.
He just — stopped talking to me.
In those last weeks, he would look at me across the room and say nothing.
And I knew that he knew."
I waited.
"He loved you more than he ever told you," she said.
"That's what the letter says.
I'm not asking for anything in return for giving it to you.
I'm not negotiating.
I'm just — " she stopped.
"I'm tired, Alex.
I'm very tired."
I picked up the envelope.
My father's handwriting.
The pen pressed hard into the paper the way it always did when he was writing something that mattered.
"The investigation continues," I said.
"The cooperation you give from this point forward will affect the outcome.
But the investigation does not stop."
"I know," she said.
"And the twelve million is recovered in full.
Every pound."
"Yes."
I stood up.
"Goodnight, Victoria."
She didn't answer.
She was looking at the table, at the empty space where the envelope had been.
May you like
I walked out of the bar and into the cold London night, the letter in my inside pocket, pressed against my chest.
I did not open it until I was back in my room, alone, with the door locked behind me.
