Signed in Black Ink

How it begins

The marriage proposal arrived in the same envelope as the overdue invoices.

Clara sorted the invoices first.

It was a matter of professional pride.

The hotel owed its laundry supplier nine thousand pounds. Its owner, according to the next sheet, wanted to marry her.

She called the number at the bottom.

"Mr. Shaw?"

"Julian."

"This is Clara Mills. I believe your solicitor has mixed up two letters."

A pause.

"Which two?"

"One asks me to audit your inheritance. The other asks me to become part of it."

"They're connected."

Clara put down her pen.

Through her office window, the fishmonger across the street was washing yesterday's prices from a board. She envied the simplicity of his accounting.

"I'm a forensic accountant."

"I know."

"Not a solution to a family dispute."

"I'm hoping you're both."

She should have ended the call. Instead she turned to the unpaid invoices again.

The oldest belonged to a woman who had cleaned the hotel's rooms for thirty-two years.

"Why does marriage matter?"

"The trust gives a spouse access to the original ledger. It gives an external auditor a summary."

"And you think the summary is false."

"I know my signature is."

Clara read the proposal more carefully.

Independent legal advice. Separate rooms. No control over her income. An unconditional right to leave. Whoever drafted it had anticipated sensible objections while missing the largest one.

"Why not challenge the trust?"

"I have. The hearing is in eighteen months. The staff accommodation is being sold in six weeks."

On the last page, somebody had written a note in black ink.

Ask him about room nineteen.

Clara looked at the hotel's floor plan.

There was no room nineteen.

"Who wrote the note?"

Julian stopped breathing loudly enough for her to notice.

"What note?"

She held the page against the light.

The ink was still fresh enough to shine.

"Before we discuss anything else," she said, "I need to see your hotel."