Sterling went first. As expected, he was loud. Not in the sense of shouting—in the sense of volume. Lots of words. Lots of adjectives. Lots of posturing passed off as argument. He portrayed Kevin as a hard-working top manager being dragged down by a bitter wife who had brought nothing more to the marriage than a modest income from ‘light bookkeeping’ and domestic support. He presented the flat as a typical jointly acquired asset. The vanished savings were the result of market fluctuations and ‘unsuccessful speculative investments’. And he dismissed my request for a financial assessment as vindictive, excessive and unnecessary. He called me Mrs Bennett, the plaintiff, and—a fatal mistake—once called me ‘financially dependent’.
Whitman did not object. He let the words pile up like dry tinder.
Kevin then took the stand to give evidence—and did exactly what Whitman had hoped he would. He lied with confidence. He denied gambling. He denied having been unfaithful until they had actually separated. He described Sophie as a colleague and a ‘source of support during a difficult time in his personal life’. He claimed that the second mortgage had been taken out by mutual agreement and for ‘general family needs’. He stated under oath that the inheritance money had been invested in good faith and had been lost due to the market crash. And he said all this with that very serious expression on his face, which he had most likely practised in front of the mirror.
Then Whitman stood up.
He didn’t wave his arms about, nor did he pause for effect. He simply stood up, took the folder and walked to the podium with the patience of a man carrying not a drama, but a calculator.
‘Your Honour,’ he said, ‘this case is surprisingly simple. It is not about feelings. Nor is it about interpretations. It is about documents.’
He began with the inheritance.
‘Mr Bennett has just claimed that the disputed funds were lost as a result of market volatility. However, the history of the transfers shows the opposite. At the time of withdrawal, these funds were not held in market instruments. They were systematically and deliberately transferred from the account to entities linked to offshore gaming processors. The total amount is one hundred and twenty-four thousand dollars.
Sterling jumped up:
‘I object to the wording…’
Whitman turned the page.
— On page fourteen are the transaction classifiers and transaction identifiers. On page nineteen is the expert report confirming the link between these processors and online gambling platforms. If the defence requires further copies, I am happy to provide them.
The judge held out her hand.
‘Take a seat, Mr Sterling.’
He sat down.
‘Thus,’ Whitman continued in the same even tone, ‘Mrs Bennett’s inheritance was not lost on the market. It was squandered on gambling.’
The atmosphere in the courtroom shifted. You could feel it physically.
Kevin’s shoulders tensed ever so slightly. The first crack.
Whitman moved on to the flat.
‘Furthermore, Mr Bennett claimed that the second mortgage was taken out by mutual agreement between the parties. This is not true. The initial deposit for the property was paid in full from Mrs Bennett’s inheritance, which, in the circumstances, allows us to trace the separate nature of these assets. And, more seriously still, the second mortgage was taken out on the basis of a forged digital consent.
He handed over the new documents.
‘Here is the county record. Here is the log of entries. Here is the match of the IP address with Mr Bennett’s work computer. Here is the digital expert’s report. And here is the graphologist’s report, according to which the signature attributed to Mrs Bennett does not match her actual signatures and was likely forged.’
Kevin’s lawyer was already frantically leafing through the papers. Kevin himself shot him a sharp glance, but the lawyer didn’t even turn to look at him.
‘To put it bluntly, Your Honour,’ said Whitman, ‘Mr Bennett has encumbered property partly belonging to his wife with a mortgage, having forged her consent.’
The second crack widened.
Sterling tried to rectify the situation:
‘Perhaps there has been a misunderstanding regarding the procedure for executing the documents…’
‘Is the signature forged or not?’ the judge cut in coldly.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. And managed to say:
‘The defendant proceeded on the assumption…’
‘That is not what I asked.’
He sat down again.
Whitman turned another page.
— Now let’s move on to the defendant’s claim that a number of expenses were legitimate business expenses. Section C contains claims for reimbursement submitted by Mr Bennett to his employer. Among them is a purchase from Van Cleef & Arpels for $5,200, described as a gift to a client.
He held up a colour printout.