Chapter 6: What Vanessa Knew
She was already at the café when I arrived — a corner table, back to the wall, a cup of tea she hadn't touched.
Vanessa was younger than I'd expected.
Late thirties, maybe.
No red nails today.
A plain grey coat.
She looked like someone who had spent the last week not sleeping, which made two of us.
I sat down across from her.
"Thank you for coming," she said.
"You said you had information."
"I do." She wrapped both hands around her cup.
"I want to say something first.
I didn't know about you.
Not really.
He told me you were separated.
That the marriage had been over for two years."
"It hadn't."
"I know that now." She looked at the table.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me.
I'm asking you to listen."
I waited.
She reached into her bag and set a folded document on the table between us.
"Daniel has a second account.
Not personal — business.
It's registered under a consultancy name.
Calloway Strategic Partners."
I looked at the document.
"I've never heard of that."
"Most people haven't.
It's a shell.
He set it up four years ago." She pushed the paper toward me.
"The cruise wasn't the first time he used company resources for personal benefit.
There are eighteen months of transactions through that account.
Vendor payments that went nowhere.
Contracts with companies that don't exist."
My hands were still on the table.
"How do you know this?"
"Because I'm an accountant." She said it without pride.
"I work for the same firm that audits Meridian Group.
I was assigned to a routine review eight months ago.
I found the discrepancy.
I flagged it to my supervisor." She paused.
"My supervisor told me to leave it alone."
"Why?"
"Because my supervisor plays golf with Daniel's division head." She looked at me directly for the first time.
"I didn't leave it alone.
I copied the records.
I've been sitting on them because I didn't know who to give them to — and then I found out about the compliance investigation, and I found out about you, and I thought—" She stopped.
"I thought you deserved to know the full picture."
I looked at the document again.
Eighteen months.
Transactions.
Companies that didn't exist.
"This is more than the cruise claim," I said.
"Yes."
"This is criminal."
"Yes." She held my gaze.
"I know what I'm doing by giving you this.
I know what it means for me professionally.
But I watched him stand in that airport and say what he said to you — someone sent me the video, someone filmed it on their phone — and I couldn't—" She pressed her lips together.
"I couldn't sit on it anymore."
Someone had filmed it.
I hadn't known that.
"Can I keep this?" I said, touching the document.
"I made three copies.
One for you.
One for the compliance team.
One I've already sent to the financial regulator."
I sat back in my chair.
"Why are you doing this?" I said.
"Not the moral reason.
The real one."
She was quiet for a moment.
"Because he told me the same things he told you.
About dreams.
About real love." She looked out the window.
"I want to know that I'm not the kind of person who lets that go just because it's easier."
I picked up the document and folded it carefully.
"Monday," I said.
"I have a meeting with the compliance team at nine.
I'd like you to come."
She looked up.
"You'd bring me in?"
"You have the records.
I have the history.
Together we have the whole story." I stood, tucking the document into my bag.
"He counted on both of us staying quiet.
I think we've both decided not to."
She stood too.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
"Your daughters," she said.
"In the stroller.
At the airport." She paused.
"They looked like him."
"They do," I said.
"They'll probably always look like him."
She nodded once.
"I hope they have your backbone."
I almost smiled.
"I hope so too."
I left first.
Outside, the afternoon was cold and flat.
I called my solicitor from the pavement and told him to clear his Monday schedule.
"How much time do you need?" he said.
"However long it takes to finish this properly," I said.
He was quiet for a moment.
"Helen.
How much do you have?"
May you like
"Enough," I said.
"More than enough."
