But his eyes were sharp.
When he saw me, he smiled.
“Eleanor.”
I stopped.
“You remember me.”
“I remember everyone who ever cost me money.”
Daniel stood beside me.
Richard looked at him.
His smile vanished.
“My God.”
Daniel said nothing.
Richard whispered, “You have your mother’s eyes.”
Daniel laughed harshly.
“That’s all you have to say?”
Richard closed his eyes.
“I wondered if Arthur would ever tell you.”
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“And you left me?”
“I was not a father.”
“No,” Daniel said.
“You were a coward.”
Richard accepted that without argument.
Then he looked at me.
“Arthur was better than me.”
“Yes.”
He smiled weakly.
“That must be difficult for you to admit.”
“It isn’t.”
We questioned him for an hour.
He told us Martin had grown ruthless.
More ruthless than Richard himself.
The guardianship network had begun as opportunistic fraud but expanded into systematic theft.
