Chapter 11 - BIANCA CHANGES THE STORY
The recovered email reached Marta's office before Bianca knew we had seen it.
That mattered.
For once, we were ahead of her version of events.
Alexander's employer preserved the original server record and provided only the information they were permitted to share with him at that stage.
The message had been sent from Bianca's personal account.
The attachment was a document downloaded using Alexander's credentials.
Peter Schumann had received it.
Ewald had later used similar material in a competing bid.
The company's investigators were now working with outside counsel.
Alexander remained on paid administrative leave.
He hated the word leave.
To him, it sounded like suspension with polite clothing.
Marta reminded him that panic would not shorten the review.
"You are cooperating."
"Keep cooperating."
"Do not demand that people reach conclusions before they finish checking facts."
Alexander nodded.
He had become much better at waiting in ten days.
Not good.
Better.
That afternoon, Bianca changed the story.
Her lawyer sent a formal letter alleging that Alexander had been the true source of confidential company information.
According to the letter, Bianca had only forwarded documents her husband gave her.
It claimed Alexander had discussed using Ewald as an intermediary because he feared violating company rules directly.
It claimed Bianca believed the arrangement was legitimate consulting.
It claimed her email to Peter had been written under Alexander's instructions.
I read the letter twice.
"She is putting everything on him."
Marta nodded.
"That is what the letter says."
Alexander looked almost calm.
"Good."
I stared at him.
"Good?"
"Now she has committed to a version."
Marta gave him a small approving look.
He was learning.
A story can move freely while it is only spoken in kitchens.
Once lawyers put it in writing, movement becomes more expensive.
The letter also addressed my apartment.
Bianca claimed I had verbally agreed to the residential option because I worried about future care costs.
She claimed Lydia witnessed me confirm the arrangement later.
She claimed my current denial was the result of pressure from Alexander after their marital dispute began.
I laughed when I read that part.
"Now Alexander is controlling me?"
Marta said, "Apparently the family has changed villains."
Lydia's lawyer received a similar letter.
Within hours, Lydia called Marta furious.
Her daughter had blamed her too.
Bianca now claimed Lydia prepared the false witness section on her own.
She described her mother as "confused, emotionally unstable, and desperate to punish Ewald."
The woman who had called me old and disposable on Mother's Day was suddenly discovering what it felt like to have age used as a weapon.
I did not enjoy it.
But I noticed the symmetry.
Lydia requested another meeting with her lawyer present.
This time, she brought a blue ceramic cookie tin.
I recognized it from Bianca's parents' kitchen.
Lydia placed it on Marta's table.
"Ewald thinks I threw these away."
Inside were old mobile phones.
Four of them.
Two belonged to Lydia.
One had belonged to Ewald.
One, she said, was Bianca's from several years earlier.
"Why do you have them?" Marta asked.
"Ewald never throws electronics away."
"He says somebody can recover things."
Marta looked at her.
"He is correct."
Lydia nodded miserably.
"I hid them when I rented the second storage unit."
The phones were not opened or searched by us.
Marta arranged to preserve them properly and to notify the appropriate investigators.
Lydia said one phone mattered because Bianca had used it during the first year Ewald's company began receiving money from Alexander's household.
"She used to message him constantly," Lydia said.
"About what?" Alexander asked.
"Money."
"Your schedule."
"When you traveled."
Alexander's expression changed.
"My travel?"
"She would tell Ewald when you were away."
"Why?"
Lydia looked at him with apology already in her eyes.
"Sometimes he came to your house."
Alexander stood so quickly his chair fell backward.
"You knew that?"
"Not at first."
"Stop saying not at first."
His voice shook.
"Every terrible thing you admit comes with not at first."
"When did first end, Lydia?"
"When did you actually know?"
She began crying.
Alexander did not soften.
"When?"
"About a year ago."
"And you said nothing."
"I was afraid of Ewald."
"So was my mother."
Lydia looked at me.
I said nothing.
This was not my argument to rescue her from.
Alexander picked up his chair and sat again.
"What did he do in my house?"
Lydia wiped her cheeks.
"He used your office."
"Bianca said he was printing documents because his printer was broken."
Alexander laughed bitterly.
"Of course she did."
"Did you ever see the documents?"
"No."
"Did Peter come too?"
"Once."
That answer froze the room.
"Peter Schumann was in my house?"
Lydia nodded.
"At least once."
"You were there?"
"I came with Ewald."
"Bianca made lunch."
"You were in Frankfurt."
Alexander checked his old calendar.
There it was.
A three-day Frankfurt trip thirteen months earlier.
The same month as the recovered email.
Marta asked Lydia for the exact date if she could remember it.
Lydia could.
It was Ewald's birthday week.
She remembered because Bianca bought him a bottle of expensive whiskey that afternoon.
Alexander searched the home router records his employer had already helped preserve.
The suspicious download happened that night.
Not proof by itself.
But now there was a witness placing Ewald and Peter in the house on the same day.
Lydia's lawyer advised her to provide that information directly to the investigators.
She agreed.
Then Alexander asked the question none of us expected.
"Why are you really doing this now?"
Lydia blinked.
"I told you."
"You're afraid of Ewald."
"Yes."
"You're angry Bianca blamed you."
Lydia looked down.
"Yes."
"What else?"
She said nothing.
Alexander leaned forward.
"You were willing to let my mother lose her apartment."
"You watched Bianca practice her signature."
"You let Ewald use my house."
"You helped hide records."
"Fear explains some of that."
"It doesn't explain why you suddenly care about the truth."
Lydia's mouth began trembling.
Then she reached into her handbag.
Her lawyer immediately asked what she was doing.
She pulled out a folded letter.
"This came yesterday."
It was from Ewald's lawyer.
Ewald had filed for legal separation.
He claimed Lydia had mismanaged household funds.
He claimed she had concealed financial records.
He claimed several questionable transactions were performed without his knowledge.
In other words, Ewald had begun preparing to blame his wife too.
Lydia laughed through tears.
"Forty-seven years."
"I lied for him for forty-seven years."
"Now he says I did it alone."
The room was silent.
I finally understood.
Lydia had not found courage.
She had lost the protection she expected in exchange for cowardice.
That did not make her testimony worthless.
It made her motive human.
Marta asked, "Are you willing to tell investigators everything, even the parts that expose you?"
Lydia looked at her separation papers.
Then she nodded.
"Yes."
"Even if your own lawyer tells you the consequences may be serious?"
Her lawyer sighed.
Lydia whispered, "Yes."
That was the first moment I began to believe she might actually finish what she had started.
The next development came from an unexpected place.
Frau Keller knocked on my apartment door that evening carrying a grocery bag and a memory card.
"I think this belongs to your trouble," she said.
I stared at the tiny card in her palm.
"Where did you get that?"
"My hallway camera."
Frau Keller's grandson had installed a small camera inside her doorway after someone stole packages from the building.
The camera captured only the immediate shared hallway outside her apartment.
She had forgotten about it until she heard us discussing Bianca's visit to my apartment.
Her grandson helped her review old clips.
One showed Bianca entering my apartment using a key.
Another showed Bianca leaving twenty-two minutes later carrying a red folder she had not been holding when she entered.
Then, ten seconds later, Bianca returned.
She searched the floor near my doorway.
She looked under the hall bench.
She checked her handbag.
She appeared panicked.
The red folder had fallen somewhere.
It was the same folder I later found under my chair.
Alexander watched the clip without blinking.
"She stole it from your apartment?"
I shook my head.
"No."
"She brought it in."
"Look at the first clip."
We replayed it.
Bianca entered carrying a large handbag and a flat document case.
When she left, the case was gone and the red folder was visible.
She had likely opened or rearranged documents inside.
The camera did not show what happened in my apartment.
But it proved she entered with my spare key while I was away.
It proved she lied when she said she had never been there.
And it placed the red folder in her hands minutes before I found it.
Marta preserved the footage with Frau Keller's cooperation.
The next morning, Bianca's lawyer sent another letter.
This one demanded that I stop "harassing" Bianca and Ewald through repeated accusations.
It warned that continued defamation could result in legal action.
Marta read it calmly.
Then she placed it beside the hallway video.
"Do we answer?" I asked.
"Briefly."
Her response contained no insults.
No threats.
No drama.
It simply stated that I denied harassing or defaming anyone and would continue cooperating with lawful investigations regarding my signature and property.
Then it requested that Bianca preserve all relevant electronic communications and records.
Bianca's side went silent for two days.
On the third morning, Alexander received notice that Bianca had formally filed for divorce.
On page six, she repeated the accusation that he had supplied Ewald with company information.
On page nine, she claimed the €25,000 Mother's Day gift had actually been a planned repayment of money owed to her father.
Alexander stared at the line.
"Now the gift was a debt?"
Marta nodded.
"That is her filed position."
I opened my phone.
The Mother's Day recording still contained Alexander's voice.
"You gave up your whole life for me."
"I saved this for six months."
"Please take it."
No mention of Ewald.
No mention of debt.
No mention of repayment.
Only a son's gift to his mother.
Bianca had changed the story.
May you like
The recorder had not.
