Chapter 4: The Man Who Left Without His Name
I sat in a café two streets away and ordered tea I didn't drink.
The man who had fled Claire's house was the detail I couldn't let go.
He'd moved too fast, grabbed his jacket with the practiced ease of someone who had rehearsed leaving quickly.
He hadn't looked at me.
Not once.
People who have nothing to hide look at the unexpected visitor.
They're curious.
He wasn't curious.
He was careful.
I opened my phone and pulled up the photographs I'd taken of the folder.
The solicitor's name on the letterhead was a Mr.
D.
Hargreaves.
The firm was called Hargreaves & Crane, with an address on Alderton Street.
I typed it into the map application.
Four minutes' walk.
I left the tea on the table.
The office was a narrow building pressed between a pharmacy and a letting agency.
A small brass plate beside the door.
I pushed it open and stepped into a waiting room with two chairs and a reception desk behind glass.
The young woman at the desk looked up.
"I'd like to speak with Mr.
Hargreaves," I said.
"My name is Ruth Calloway.
My husband was Frank Calloway.
I believe your firm recently handled a change to his will."
Her expression didn't shift, but her hand moved under the desk.
"Do you have an appointment?"
"I don't.
But I've just come from my stepdaughter's home, where I found a copy of the document.
I have questions about its validity."
"I'm afraid Mr.
Hargreaves is with a client—"
"I'll wait."
I sat down in one of the chairs and folded my hands in my lap.
Eleven minutes later, a door opened down the short hallway.
A man stepped out — mid-fifties, grey at the temples, good shoes.
He looked at me the way people look at something they were hoping wouldn't still be there.
"Mrs.
Calloway."
"Mr.
Hargreaves." I stood.
"Thank you for seeing me."
He had no choice and we both knew it.
His office was tidy in the way of someone who controlled what could be seen.
He gestured to a chair across from his desk and sat down without offering anything — no water, no pleasantry.
"I can't discuss the contents of a client's will with a third party," he said.
"I'm not a third party.
I'm his wife."
"His estate has a named beneficiary.
That beneficiary is not you."
"I'm aware.
I've read the document." I set my phone on his desk, the photograph of the signature page facing up.
"I'd like to know when my husband first contacted your firm."
He glanced at the phone.
"I can't—"
"Was it before or after his daughter contacted you?"
A pause.
Small, but there.
"Mr.
Hargreaves," I said.
"My husband engraved a message on the inside of his wedding ring before he d*ed.
He hid that ring in his own ashes so that I would find it.
Whatever happened in this office, he wanted me to look.
So I am looking."
The solicitor's hands were flat on the desk.
He wasn't reaching for anything.
He wasn't writing anything down.
"The will was signed voluntarily," he said.
"I witnessed it myself."
"Was anyone else present?"
Another pause.
Longer.
"His daughter accompanied him to the appointment."
"Did she remain in the room during the signing?"
He looked at the window.
"Standard practice is for the client to—"
"Did she remain in the room?"
He didn't answer.
That was its own answer.
I picked up my phone and stood.
"I'll be requesting a formal review of this document.
I wanted you to know that in person."
I was almost at the door when he spoke.
"Mrs.
Calloway." His voice had changed.
Lower.
Something in it that hadn't been there before.
"The man who introduced your husband to this firm — he's not someone you want to make an enemy of."
I turned around.
"What man?"
May you like
But Hargreaves had already looked away.
His hands were folded on the desk now, and he was done talking.
