I Gave Him Half My Liver, Then He Sold My Father's House novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Woman Elena Remembers

Nell refuses to sign Cormac's undertaking, forcing him to admit that Gregor cannot clearly sell the house before Elena reveals the buyers already flagged the defective title before Cormac arrived.

Cormac lays the undertaking on Elena's desk before I can take off my coat.

Elena steps between us and the chair beside her desk.

'You take this one,' she tells him. 'He can stand.'

Cormac's hand remains on the chair back. Snow melts from his shoes onto the carpet, leaving dark marks around his polished soles.

'I had no intention of taking anything from her,' he says.

'You are a solicitor. You take seats, files, and the last word. Find somewhere else to stand.'

He moves beside the filing cabinet. His satchel bumps against his knee. The undertaking stays on the desk between us.

Elena turns to me. 'Tea, coffee, or the brown liquid I keep for emergencies?'

'What qualifies as an emergency?'

'You being here.'

I sit. The vinyl chair has split along one arm. Behind Elena, someone has scraped my name from the drawer of my old workstation, leaving a pale rectangle in the dust. A Christmas card leans against the dead printer. The desk has been cleared, but the drawer still holds my old pens.

Elena catches me looking.

'The firm cleared your desk when you left,' she says. 'I kept the property precedents.'

'How generous.'

'I am known for it.'

She pours coffee from her flask into a paper cup and keeps it for herself. The smell is burnt and bitter. I drank coffee like that during late filings because it cost less than sleeping.

I want her to stop protecting me like I am still the junior clerk who found a mistake and had to be hidden from the partner who made it. I want one person in this room to say my name without deciding what it is worth first.

Cormac watches me inspect the office. The missing label. The visitor's pass near his hand. The empty space where my coat should have gone. He has not brought the complete file into the room.

That is deliberate.

'You said the matter was urgent,' he says.

'I said your buyer's completion date was urgent.'

'You knew that already.'

'I read the notice.'

'And the release?'

'I read that too.'

Elena sets her cup beside the keyboard. 'Good. We have established that Nell can read. It saves us several hours of professional theatre.'

Cormac looks at her. 'I am trying to determine what she intends to do.'

'You could ask her.'

'I am asking her.'

He says my name without warmth or suspicion. Gregor used it as a softener before every insult. Cormac uses it as a label on a file he has not opened.

'You have until tomorrow afternoon before the proposed completion,' he says. 'Your refusal to sign may prevent registration, but it may also expose you to costs if your claim has no foundation.'

'You are concerned about costs.'

'I am concerned about giving your position a shape the court can recognise.'

'How kind.'

'It is my job.'

Elena leans against the desk. 'He is better when he stops pretending this is a social visit.'

Cormac ignores her. 'What is your connection to the property?'

I look at the dark crescent forming beneath Elena's cup.

'I lived there,' I say.

'As Gregor Vale's wife.'

'Among other things.'

'Were you ever named as an owner?'

'Not on the register you have seen.'

His eyes stay on my face. Elena notices the answer too. It gives him no confession and gives me no lie.

'Possession alone does not defeat a registered disposition,' he says.

'I understand that.'

'Authority can be inferred from conduct.'

'It can also be invented after the fact.'

'Are you saying Gregor had no authority to sell?'

'I am saying the sale is being presented as simpler than it is.'

'That is not a claim.'

'No. It is an observation.'

Cormac folds his arms. 'You have legal training.'

'I had a placement here.'

Elena lifts her flask. 'She also found a missing restriction in a conveyance that three qualified people had approved.'

'I remember,' Cormac says.

Elena studies him. 'You were not here.'

'I read the report.'

'You read the version where the partner took credit.'

I remember the restriction on a scanned page nobody had rotated. I found it because the signature was upside down. Elena bought me a cheese sandwich afterward and told the partner I was the only person in the room who had read the whole document.

Now she is treating me as if I have arrived from the street with no name, no training, and no reason to be believed.

I understand why. I still dislike it.

'What do you want from me?' I ask.

'Clarity.'

'You want a confession that I have no claim.'

'I want to know whether I can advise my clients to proceed.'

'Your clients are the buyers.'

'Yes.'

'Gregor is the seller.'

'Yes.'

'And you are asking me to prove that the seller can sell.'

'You appeared at the property and challenged the transaction.'

'I appeared at my home.'

His gaze drops to my coat. The dressing beneath it presses against my ribs when I sit. The scar pulls when I turn. I leave the fabric alone.

'You have come from hospital?' he asks.

'Rehabilitation.'

'For what?'

'That is not relevant.'

Elena looks at him. 'You have three questions left before I start charging you for her time.'

'I am not billing her.'

'You are using her as unpaid due diligence.'

His face tightens. 'If she is asking me to stop a transaction, she cannot object to being asked why.'

'I can object,' I say. 'I am choosing not to.'

The answer unsettles him. He takes a pencil from his pocket, though there is still no file in front of him. The tip rests against his thumb.

'You have settlement papers from Gregor Vale,' he says.

'Yes.'

'You accepted them.'

'I accepted the opportunity to review them.'

'You did not sign.'

'No.'

'You did not refuse the money.'

'No.'

'Why?'

'Because a document can be useful before it is accepted.'

His eyes narrow. He reaches into his satchel and removes the single-page undertaking. It has been typed, printed, and marked with a signature block.

'You can avoid a great deal of expense,' he says. 'Sign tonight. State that you claim an interest in the property, identify its basis, and confirm that you will provide supporting documents by nine tomorrow morning.'

I read the page without touching it. The wording gives his clients a record of my claim before I have seen the complete title. It also leaves room to argue that any later point was withheld.

'You prepared that before you came here.'

'Yes.'

'You expected me to sign it.'

'I expected you to understand the risk of refusing.'

'You want my position before you show me yours.'

'Your position is the reason I am here.'

'You are here because your clients want completion.'

'And because you may stop it.'

'You have not shown me the title.'

'You have not shown me the claim.'

Elena reaches for the undertaking, but I lift one finger. She leaves it alone.

Cormac presses on. 'Sign it and I can tell the buyers there is a defined issue. Refuse, and they will say you are obstructing a sale without evidence.'

'Will you tell them that?'

'If that is the position you choose.'

'You have already chosen the wording.'

'It protects my clients.'

'It protects your file.'

His thumb leaves a pale mark on the pencil.

'You are asking me to give you the sentence you need,' I say. 'Then you will use it to say I admitted the claim is mine to prove.'

'You are asking me to act without enough information.'

'You have enough information to demand my signature.'

'You have a choice.'

'I do.'

'Use it carefully.'

I push the undertaking back across the desk. It stops against his hand.

'I will not sign it.'

Elena's eyes stay on Cormac. The rejected page lies between them, useless now.

Cormac does not pick it up. 'Then tell me what you are relying on.'

'No.'

'You cannot ask me to stop the sale and refuse every reasonable request for detail.'

'I can refuse this request.'

'Why?'

'Because it serves your clients before it serves the truth.'

He looks from me to Elena. 'You think I am trying to trap you.'

'I think you prepared a trap and called it an option.'

His gaze drops to the rejected undertaking. When it returns to my face, the care in his expression has gone.

'You are right about the title,' he says.

Elena stops moving.

Cormac speaks toward the desk. 'The register does not support what Gregor told the agent. The transfer into his name is not supported by the document he supplied to the buyer's conveyancer. There is an unresolved restriction in the title history, and the completion information does not match the stated beneficial interest.'

'In plain English,' Elena says.

He looks at her. 'The paperwork does not establish that Gregor Vale can sell the house without another person's authority.'

The admission sits in the room. He came expecting my signature. Now he is explaining why his own clients may have bought from someone who lacked the right to sell.

'Your name appears in the underlying documents,' he says. 'Not as a registered proprietor. As a person whose consent may be required.'

I leave the undertaking where it is.

Cormac reaches for the thin file beside it, but Elena puts her hand over the cover first.

'You are late,' she says. 'The buyers' own conveyancer flagged the defective title with the Land Registry before you arrived. They already knew.'

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