Chapter 6: What Vanessa Had Been Keeping
Daniel didn't sleep.
I know because I didn't either.
I lay in my room listening to the house — the creak of the guest room floorboards, the tap running, the silence that followed.
At half past six I came downstairs and found him at the kitchen table with his laptop open and both their phones side by side in front of him.
He'd been there a while.
The tea I'd left out the night before was gone.
He'd made a fresh pot and drunk most of that too.
"You should eat something," I said.
"In a minute."
I made toast anyway.
Put it beside him.
He ate it without looking at it.
"She has a separate account," he said.
"I found it this morning.
Savings account in her name only.
She's been transferring money into it for fourteen months."
I sat down across from him.
"How much?"
"Forty-three thousand pounds."
I kept my face still.
"She has a separate account," he said again, like saying it twice might make it make more sense.
"She's been moving money out of our joint account.
Small amounts, irregular intervals, so it wouldn't flag." He turned the laptop to face me.
"She knew what she was doing.
This wasn't impulsive."
I looked at the screen.
Columns of dates and figures.
Transfers of two hundred, three hundred, occasionally eight hundred.
Nothing large enough to notice on its own.
"Have you spoken to your bank?"
"Not yet.
I wanted to — I don't know.
I wanted to understand it first."
"Daniel." I waited until he looked at me.
"This isn't something you can understand on your own at six in the morning.
You need a solicitor."
"She's my wife."
"I know she is."
"We have children."
"I know that too."
He closed the laptop.
Put both hands flat on the table.
"She said there was something else.
Last night, before she left.
Something besides Marcus." He looked at me.
"Do you think she meant the money?"
"I think she might have meant more than one thing."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Mum.
Is there anything you noticed?
Over the past year or two.
Anything that seemed off."
I thought about it carefully before I answered.
"There was a phone call," I said.
"About eight months ago.
She was in the garden with the children and her phone rang and she walked to the far end of the garden to answer it.
She was out there for twenty minutes.
When she came back in she said it was her sister."
"She doesn't have a sister."
We looked at each other.
The front door opened.
Vanessa walked in carrying two takeaway coffees and a paper bag.
She stopped when she saw Daniel's face.
"I went to get breakfast," she said carefully.
"For the children."
"Sit down, Vanessa."
She looked at the laptop.
At the phones on the table.
At me.
"Sit down," Daniel said again.
"And this time, tell me everything."
She put the coffees on the counter.
She didn't sit.
"How much do you know?" she asked.
"Enough," Daniel said.
"But I want to hear it from you."
She looked at the ceiling for a moment.
May you like
Then she pulled out a chair.
And she started to talk.
