Chapter 4: Optics

The shop was so quiet I could hear the clock over the door.

"You've just told an investor," I said, "that you'd rather call me a thief than pay me."

Cecily smoothed her cardigan pocket over my folded demand.

"I've told your employer the truth, Nessa. What they do with it is up to them."

Cian Daly was watching her.

I picked up my bag and walked out under the brass bell.

My firm had the top three floors of a glass building at Grand Canal Dock.

By the time I got there, my pass still worked.

That told me they wanted to do it in person.

The managing partner was waiting for me in the open-plan office on the ninth floor, not in his own room.

He wanted it seen.

My team sat at their desks around us and stared very hard at their screens.

He held up a letter on Fitzsimons & Sons paper, with the silver crest at the top.

"Nessa. This alleges that you had access to a client's bank accounts for four years. That money moved through your personal account."

"Fitzsimons's was never a client. I helped my fiance for free."

"You advised them."

"I loved him," I said. "That isn't a service line."

Somebody near the window coughed into a coffee cup.

I opened my laptop on the nearest desk, logged into my own bank and turned the screen to face him.

"That's my salary account. Every transfer to Fitzsimons's left it the week after payday. Seventy-one of them. Match them to my payslips."

He bent and looked. He was a careful man. He read it properly.

"Every euro came from my wages," I said. "Your firm paid me that money. I gave it away."

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