PART 30 – What Andrew Mercer Remembered

Andrew Mercer’s second response arrived through Northbridge’s solicitor on Thursday afternoon. He had reviewed the manual payment instruction and the limited supporting records the company had provided. His statement remained cautious: he might have discussed a closeout adjustment during the relevant period, but he could not confirm that he had approved the specific Mercer Street transfer.

Helen read the statement with Claire beside her. Andrew had explained that he would ordinarily expect a supporting schedule before authorizing a substantial payment. He also recalled that Thomas Bennett had questioned Westmere Advisory Services’ charges because the available details were incomplete.

“He remembers Dad objecting,” Claire said.

“Yes,” Helen replied. “That supports the history of the project. But Andrew does not remember approving this payment, and he does not say that Thomas authorized additional security. Those distinctions matter.”

The statement included another detail. Andrew remembered Richard Cole discussing the project closeout as something that needed to be completed promptly. Andrew could not recall the precise wording, but he remembered the general impression that the project team wanted the accounts settled before the estate began reviewing them.

That recollection was consistent with several internal messages, but it did not prove that Richard had acted improperly. Andrew did not claim to have heard Richard say that the supplementary agreement had been signed. He also could not identify the person who had directed the payment to proceed while the supporting schedule remained incomplete.

Martin added Andrew’s statement to the timeline. He marked the recollection about the closeout as indirect evidence of the atmosphere surrounding the transaction, rather than proof of the payment’s purpose. The contemporaneous task records and emails remained more reliable for establishing the dates and the wording of the instructions.

“Andrew’s statement helps us understand what people were discussing,” Martin explained. “It does not tell us who ultimately authorized the transfer or who received the money beyond the intermediary accounts. Those are still separate questions.”

Claire asked whether the statement weakened Northbridge’s claim that the payment had been approved.

“It weakens the usefulness of the manual instruction as proof of Andrew’s personal approval,” Martin said. “It does not establish that no other authorized person approved it. We need the company’s actual authorization trail.”

Helen sent Northbridge a letter asking it to identify any person who had authorized the transfer before the bank processed it. If the company relied on a verbal instruction, she requested the date, the identity of the speaker, the person who received the instruction, and the contemporaneous note documenting it.

She also asked whether the payment had been processed under an existing project authority or under a proposed security arrangement. Northbridge had used both descriptions in its records, and the distinction mattered because Thomas had expressly refused to approve additional borrowing against Mercer Street without a full accounting.

The response came the following week. Northbridge stated that it had not located a separate signed authorization for the transfer. It continued to maintain that the payment was processed under existing project authority, but it could not identify a contemporaneous written instruction naming the individual who approved it.

The company also said that the supporting schedule had been expected to follow as part of the closeout process. It did not explain why the payment was allowed to proceed before the schedule was complete or provide the final document that supposedly justified the amount.

Helen placed the response in the evidence file. “This does not prove that no verbal approval occurred,” she told Claire. “But Northbridge has now acknowledged that it cannot produce a separate signed authorization, and it has not identified the person who gave the alleged instruction. That is a meaningful limitation in its evidence.”

Claire looked at the response. The company’s explanation seemed to depend on an approval that nobody could confirm and a schedule that had never been produced. She wondered how many other transactions had been handled in the same way.

Martin cautioned her against assuming that every project payment was questionable. He was examining the transaction that had been challenged, and he wanted to avoid extending the findings beyond the records available. The fact that one payment was poorly documented did not establish that the entire project had been mismanaged.

Instead, Martin focused on the relationship between the payment and the supplementary agreement. The finance note had referred to supplementary security, while the legal records showed that the draft’s execution status remained unresolved. Thomas had refused additional security without express approval, and the recovered draft required signatures and independent witnessing.

The records did not establish that the payment had been legally dependent on the supplementary agreement. Northbridge might argue that the transaction was a separate closeout adjustment under existing authority. But if that was its position, it needed to explain why internal records connected the payment to supplementary security and why the transaction had proceeded while the agreement’s status remained unresolved.

Helen prepared a focused question on that point. She asked Northbridge to identify the exact clause or obligation that justified the payment, provide the contract under which the amount was due, and explain why the finance record referred to supplementary security. She also requested the identity of anyone who had told the finance team that the payment could proceed despite the missing schedule.

While they waited for a response, Daniel provided an amended statement. He had reviewed the messages he still possessed and found a short exchange with Richard from the period before the transfer. Richard had asked Daniel whether he had copies of documents bearing Claire’s signature. Daniel had replied that he did and had later provided them.

Daniel acknowledged that he had not asked why Richard needed the copies. He had understood that Richard was checking project paperwork, but he now recognized that he had allowed his desire to resolve his debts to override his responsibility to Claire.

Helen asked Daniel whether Richard had ever shown him a document bearing Thomas’s signature on the supplementary agreement.

“No,” Daniel wrote. “I never saw a completed version. I cannot confirm that Thomas signed it, and I did not witness him signing anything.”

The statement was useful because it removed one possible source of supposed confirmation. Daniel could not support a claim that he had seen Thomas execute the document. His assumptions at the time were not evidence of execution.

Claire found the statement painful to read. Daniel’s conduct had created genuine risk for her, and his willingness to cooperate now did not restore the trust he had broken. But his admission that he had supplied the documents, without pretending to know what happened afterward, gave Helen a clearer record of his involvement.

The following day, Patricia Wells provided another piece of correspondence from her archive. It was an internal message referring to the need to complete the closeout before the estate requested a full accounting. The sender also instructed that the project file should remain together until the supplementary agreement’s execution status had been clarified.

Patricia could not identify the sender with certainty, but she remembered Richard overseeing the closeout at the time. Helen requested the original message headers and any related emails so that Northbridge could identify the account used and determine whether the message had been sent from a shared project address.

Martin compared the message with Andrew’s recollection. The two sources were consistent with a project team that wanted the closeout completed promptly, but they did not establish who had authorized the payment or why the missing schedule had not prevented the transfer.

“The most reliable conclusion is still narrow,” Martin said. “The payment proceeded before the supporting documentation was complete. The later instruction bears Andrew’s name but lacks his signature, and he has not confirmed approving the transaction. Northbridge has not identified a contemporaneous written authorization.”

Claire nodded. It was not the dramatic answer she had hoped for, but it was a documented position that the company could not easily dismiss.

Helen also reminded Claire that the guarantee dispute remained separate from the accounting inquiry. Northbridge had previously offered to withdraw the disputed guarantee if Claire signed a broad release covering claims against the company and associated parties. The offer would have prevented her from pursuing matters connected to the project, including unresolved questions about the payment.

“I want the guarantee resolved,” Claire said. “I do not want to be responsible for a debt based on a signature I never gave. But I will not sign away the right to ask where the money went.”

“That is a reasonable distinction,” Helen replied. “We can continue to seek a narrow settlement that resolves the guarantee without releasing unrelated claims. The company’s offer does not require you to accept every condition attached to it.”

Helen prepared a revised settlement position. It stated that Claire remained willing to resolve the disputed guarantee if Northbridge withdrew its claim and confirmed that she would not be pursued for obligations based on the forged signature. The proposed resolution expressly excluded the project accounting, the supplementary agreement, and any claims arising from the disputed payment.

Northbridge did not accept the proposal immediately. Its solicitor said the company would consider whether a narrower settlement was possible but maintained that the guarantee could not be separated entirely from the project dispute.

Claire understood why Northbridge wanted a comprehensive release. A broad settlement would bring the disagreement to an end and prevent further investigation into the payment. But the unresolved authorization and accounting issues made that condition unacceptable to her.

Later that evening, Claire visited Mercer Street. She stood in the empty ground-floor room where Thomas had once planned to meet contractors and review renovation estimates. She remembered him saying that a property could survive delays and repairs, but an owner should never surrender control of it without understanding the obligations attached to it.

She had once considered his refusal to approve the supplementary arrangement overly cautious. Now, after reading the records, she understood why he had insisted on independent advice and complete accounts. He had been unwilling to let the appearance of progress substitute for proof.

When she returned home, Helen had sent her a copy of the latest chronology. The entries showed a sequence of documented events, followed by a list of unresolved questions. Claire read the list slowly, accepting that some answers might remain unavailable. But she could see that the case was no longer resting on suspicion alone.

Northbridge had not produced a completed supplementary agreement. It had not identified the person who approved the payment before it was made. It had not provided the supporting schedule or explained the different accounting descriptions.

Those were not final conclusions about misconduct. They were the precise gaps the company still needed to address.

Claire saved the chronology beside her father’s notebook. The investigation had become a test of whether the records could support the claims being made against her. She intended to insist on that standard, even if it meant another month of waiting.