Elena's POV
His name was Gerald Okafor.
Not Adaeze's father — I had asked her and she had laughed and said the legal world was smaller than people assumed but not that small. A different Okafor. Gerald was sixty-three, semi-retired, the kind of solicitor who had spent forty years doing the work nobody else wanted to touch and had developed for it a specific quality of stillness. The kind of stillness that said I have heard worse and I am still here.
Damian trusted him entirely.
That was enough for me.
The meeting was on Monday morning at Gerald's office in the city. Fourth floor, different building from mine, different street, a room with dark wood and two windows and a round table that seated six. Gerald was already there when we arrived. He stood, shook hands, poured water without being asked.
Damian and I sat on one side of the table.
Marcus, who had driven separately and arrived two minutes after us, sat on the other.
Gerald sat at the head.
He looked at each of us in turn. Not evaluating — settling. The way experienced people settled a room before beginning.
"Before we start," he said, "I want to be clear about what this meeting is and what it isn't. This is not a formal legal proceeding. Nothing said here today constitutes a statement to authorities. What it is — is a gathering of information that will help me advise you on what the correct next steps are and whether there is a foundation for any formal action." He looked at Marcus. "You are here voluntarily. You are not under any obligation to say anything. You can stop at any time."
Marcus nodded.
"I understand," he said.
"Good." Gerald opened a notebook. Uncapped a pen. "Then let's begin."
— — —
It took two hours.
Marcus went first. He gave his account in the same order he had given it at Carino's — the library, the conversation overheard, going outside, calling Catherine's name, her sending him back, the two hours in the library. He was more precise here than he had been at the café. Dates, times, details he had been turning over for eight years and had ready without prompting.
Gerald listened without interrupting. Asked three questions at the end, all of them about the timeline of when Marcus had returned inside relative to when the other guests were last seen in what locations. Marcus answered all three.
Then I gave my account.
The witness I had found — his name, his contact details, the content of what he had told me when I had tracked him down three weeks into the contract. The figure on the path after Catherine, the direction of movement, the description of the coat. The timing, relative to the accounts Marcus had just given.
Then I gave Victoria's account, as accurately as I could reproduce it.
Gerald wrote throughout. He was not a fast writer — not slow either. Deliberate. Each word placed.
When I finished he looked at his notes for a moment without speaking.
Then he said: "The figure the groundsman described was on the path after Mr. Blackwood had returned to the house."
"Yes," I said.
"And the description of the coat."
"Dark. Long. He described a woman's coat specifically — the cut of it. He had assumed it was a guest taking air, the same as Mrs. Blackwood."
Gerald looked at his notes again.
"Victoria Kane," he said.
Not a question. Just the name, said in the particular way of someone arriving at a conclusion they have been moving toward for several minutes.
"We don't know that with certainty," I said.
"No," he said. "But the circumstantial picture is —" he paused, chose his word carefully — "suggestive."
The room was quiet.
Damian had said nothing throughout both accounts. He had sat very still, the way he sat when something was large and he was deciding how to hold the size of it. His hands were flat on the table. Not tense — just present.
"What happens now?" Marcus said.
Gerald put his pen down.
"The groundsman needs to give a formal statement," he said. "To me first, and if the picture warrants it, to the relevant authorities. I will arrange that this week." He looked at me. "You have his details?"
"I'll send them this afternoon," I said.
"Victoria Kane will need to be spoken to formally as well," Gerald said. "She has given her account to you" — he looked at me — "but an informal account in a coffee shop is not the same as a formal one. I will need to contact her through the appropriate channels." He paused. "She indicated she was willing to speak formally?"
"She said yes if it came to that," I said. "I told her it would."
Gerald nodded.
"Then I will reach out to her this week as well."
He looked at the three of us.
"I want to be honest with you about where this is," he said. "What you have is a circumstantial picture. A witness who saw a figure. An account of a conversation overheard. A coat remembered. Eight years have passed. The original investigation found nothing inconsistent with an accident and that finding stands until something formal challenges it." He paused. "What you do not have yet is proof. What you have is enough to make the right people look more carefully. That is what I am going to help you do."
Damian spoke for the first time.
"Is it enough?" he said. "To get it reopened?"
Gerald considered it.
"Possibly," he said. "Cases are reopened on less. The question is whether the witness's account is strong enough to constitute new evidence in the legal sense. That is what I need to assess before I can tell you more." He looked at Damian directly. "I will be honest with you at every stage. If at any point it becomes clear that this cannot go where you want it to go I will tell you. I will not take your money and your hope and lead you in a direction that ends nowhere."
Damian held his gaze.
"I know," he said. "That is why I called you."
Gerald nodded once. Closed his notebook.
"I'll be in touch by the end of the week," he said.
— — —
We walked out of the building together, the three of us, into the Monday morning city.
Cold. Bright. The particular quality of a winter day that was not pretending to be anything other than what it was.
We stood on the pavement for a moment.
Marcus looked at Damian.
Something passed between them that did not need words — the specific acknowledgment of two people who have done a difficult thing together and are on the other side of it and do not yet know what the other side looks like but are standing in it.
"Thank you," Marcus said. To Damian, specifically.
Damian looked at his son.
"Don't thank me," he said. "I should have done this eight years ago."
"You couldn't have," Marcus said. "You didn't know what I knew. And I didn't tell you."
"No," Damian said. "We did that to each other."
Marcus looked at the street.
"We did," he said.
A pause.
"Come for dinner," Damian said. "Thursday. If you're free."
Marcus looked at him.
Not surprised — more like the look of someone who had hoped for something and had not allowed themselves to expect it and was now recalibrating.
"All right," he said. "Thursday."
He looked at me.
"Elena," he said.
"Marcus," I said.
Something in his face. Not quite the almost-smile — something newer than that, something that did not yet have a name because it had not existed long enough to earn one.
Then he turned and walked toward his car.
Damian and I stood on the pavement and watched him go.
When he had turned the corner Damian said: "Dinner Thursday."
"I heard," I said.
"I haven't had him to dinner," he said. "In a long time."
"I know," I said.
He was quiet for a moment.
"Clara will make too much food," he said.
"Yes," I said. "She will."
We stood there a moment longer in the cold bright morning.
Then we walked toward the car.
There was a Halcyon Media meeting at two. A call with Adaeze at four. The groundsman's details to send to Gerald. A first draft of the Vale Crisis Advisory methodology document waiting on my Alderton Street desk to be finished.
Life did not pause for the difficult things and the important things happened simultaneously.
I had learned that.
I was still learning it.
But I was learning it, which was not nothing.
Which was, in fact, everything.