Sylvie had never rented an apartment.
She still owned the house where Damien had grown up.
“She’s selling it,” Claire murmured.
Damien remained silent.
– How much ?
— She expects to recover approximately €260,000 after repaying the loan.
— And how much is she putting into your operation?
— A part.
– How much ?
— €70,000 to start.
Claire looked at the man she had married.
— And Romain?
— He found the building.
— How much does he put in?
— It’s not that simple.
– How much ?
Damien clenched his jaw.
— Not much.
This time, Claire really laughed.
A brief, almost incredulous laugh.
His mother-in-law was selling her house.
Damien was risking his savings.
Claire had to mortgage a property that did not belong to them.
And Romain, for his part, essentially brought an address and an Excel spreadsheet.
— Have you already signed anything?
Damien did not reply.
— Damien.
— A promise.
— With what amount of money tied up?
He stood up abruptly.
— Why do you always try to turn everything into an interrogation?
— Because someone stole my papers, forged my signature and tried to put €380,000 of debt on my house.
He lowered his head.
— 62 000 €.
Claire felt her stomach clench.
— €62,000 deposit?
– Yes.
— With a deadline?
— Friday, 5 p.m.
It was Thursday.
That’s why they had arrived the day before with their suitcases, the locksmith, and their fabricated document.
They weren’t just greedy.
They were being held at gunpoint.
Their operation was expected to be completed in less than 24 hours.
If the financing failed, a significant portion of the sum paid risked being lost according to the conditions they had signed.
— And when were you planning to tell me all this?
Damien raised his face towards her, almost pleading.
– After.
— After what?
— After the purchase. When you’ve seen that it works.
Claire remains still.
This sentence managed to hurt him more than the falsification itself.
After.
He reportedly told her afterwards that her house had been used as collateral.
After his stepmother had moved in.
After Romain had obtained his building.
After they had taken away even the possibility of saying no.
— Did you really think I would end up thanking you?
— I thought you would stop seeing my family as freeloaders.
— They steal my papers to get €380,000 and what do you want me to call them?
Damien climbed one step.
Claire stepped back immediately.
The security manager, who had remained a few meters away, reached for his radio.
Damien stopped.
“I made a mistake,” he said.
— No. A mistake is forgetting to pay a bill. You asked me to leave my house so a locksmith could change the access points while your mother came in with her suitcases.
He couldn’t think of anything to say in response.
Before going home, Claire asked one last question.
— Did Romain come here while I was in Rotterdam?
Damien blinked.
One second.
No more than that.
But she saw the answer.
— He was only supposed to retrieve some golf clubs from the garage.
Claire opened the door.
— Don’t come back without going through the lawyers.
That same evening, the IT security manager found the access logs.
Three weeks earlier, while Claire was in the Netherlands, Romain had used Damien’s residential code.
He hadn’t stayed for 5 minutes.
He had stayed for 1 hour and 27 minutes.
The interior cameras did not cover the private floor, but the electronic logs showed the opening of the door leading to the office corridor.
The following morning, Maître Garnier passed this information on to the investigators.
Damien immediately hired a lawyer.
Through him, he claimed that he was unaware that his brother had gone up to the office.
Claire never knew if that part was true.
She didn’t even try to find out anymore.
The difference between “he knew everything” and “he only knew enough” seemed to him to have become insignificant.
At 3:18 p.m., the bank called back.
The fraud department had extracted the entire digital file.
Claire opened the attachments from her computer.
There were copies of his passport.
His old license.
A certificate bearing a reproduction of his signature.
Then a copy of an old professional document bearing the stamp of a notary from Lyon.
Mr. Garnier had already contacted the firm.
The notary existed.
The stamp too.
But the document recently presented by Romain had never been established by this study.
Someone had retrieved the references of an old authentic document to fabricate a document convincing enough to deceive, at least temporarily, hurried interlocutors.
Under French law, a genuine property transfer could not have been formalized so easily. A reputable notary would have required the necessary checks before any registration with the land registry.
But their goal was not to follow procedure.
Their goal was to complete enough steps to create an appearance of legitimacy, secure a funding agreement, enter the house, and place Claire in front of an already established chaos.
Then she reached the last piece of the bank file.
An identification photograph.
Claire stopped breathing.
A woman held her old driver’s license next to her face.
Brown hair.
With complexion.
Same age group.
But it wasn’t Claire.
— Léa…
– I know.
Claire enlarges the image.
— It’s Chantal.
Chantal was Sylvie’s younger sister.
Damien’s aunt.
A woman who, during family lunches, always spoke softly, cleared plates without being asked, and avoided conflicts.
She had been looking at a camera while holding Claire’s stolen ID.
The bank provided the image to investigators.
From then on, the case no longer resembled a simple marital dispute over a house.
The investigations focused in particular on the theft of documents, identity theft, forgery, use of forged documents and attempted fraud.
The bank permanently blocked the financing.
On Friday at 5 p.m., Horizon Patrimoine was unable to purchase the building.
