Chapter 4: The Cleaner Copy
He called a solicitor that afternoon.
A man named Gerald Fitch who had handled his mother's affairs for twenty years.
Daniel had met him twice — once at a boundary dispute over the garden wall, once when his father died.
Gerald picked up on the second ring.
"Daniel.
I was wondering when you'd call."
Daniel stopped walking.
He was in the car park outside his office.
"What do you mean?"
"Your wife contacted me three weeks ago.
She said she was acting on your mother's behalf and wanted to discuss transferring management of Margaret's accounts."
"She contacted you directly."
"She did.
She said Margaret had become forgetful and that the family felt it was time to consolidate." A pause.
"I told her I would need to speak with Margaret personally before any such discussion could proceed.
She said she would arrange it.
I haven't heard back."
"Don't arrange anything with her," Daniel said.
"Nothing.
Not a meeting, not a phone call."
"Understood." Gerald's voice was careful.
"Daniel — how much does your mother have in her accounts?"
Daniel leaned against his car.
"The house is paid off.
She has savings.
My father's pension.
Maybe two hundred and fifty thousand altogether."
Gerald was quiet for a moment.
"Then I'd suggest you move quickly."
That evening, Daniel sat at the kitchen table with a notepad.
He wrote down every conversation he could remember from the past six months.
The times Vivian had mentioned his mother's age.
The comments about the house being too large for one person.
The suggestion, made twice over dinner, that Margaret might be happier in a care facility.
The way Vivian had started referring to the house as *the property.*
Vivian came home at eight.
She dropped her bag on the chair — the same chair where the coat had been — and looked at the notepad.
"Working late?" she said.
"Making a list."
She poured herself a glass of water.
"Of what?"
"Things I should have paid attention to."
She sat down across from him.
For a moment she looked almost like the woman he'd married — composed, direct, unafraid of silence.
Then she looked at the notepad again and something behind her eyes recalculated.
"I want to talk about last night," she said.
"I think we both said things—"
"You said my mother won't be a problem much longer."
"I meant she's getting older.
It was a clumsy way to say it."
"You went to her house without telling me.
You brought legal documents.
You told her I already knew."
"I was trying to protect this family's future."
"Whose future?" he said.
"Because my mother's name was on those documents.
Not mine.
Not ours.
Hers.
And yours."
Vivian set the glass down.
"You're making this into something it isn't."
"Gerald Fitch called me back today."
Her face didn't move.
But her hand did — a small, involuntary press of her fingers against the table.
"He told me you contacted him three weeks ago," Daniel said.
"Before last night.
Before I found anything.
You've been working on this for months."
"I was doing research.
I was being responsible."
"You were building a case to take control of my mother's money."
"That is not—"
"She has two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, Vivian.
And you've been alone with her six times in the last six months without telling me."
Vivian stood up.
Her chair scraped back hard.
"I am your wife.
I am not on trial in my own kitchen."
"Then stop lying in it."
She walked to the bedroom and closed the door.
Daniel looked at the notepad.
He added Gerald Fitch's name.
He added the date of each visit to his mother's house that he could reconstruct.
Then he took a photograph of the page with his phone and emailed it to himself.
He slept on the sofa that night.
Not because he was upset.
May you like
Because he didn't want her to know what else he was planning.
In the morning, the notepad was gone from the table.
