My coworker forged a transfer and a confession, but the CCTV caught her at my desk

The wake was for Mrs. Kowalski, who’d been a client for twelve years. She’d died of cancer, and the whole office had come to pay respects at her daughter’s place in Brunswick. I was standing by the driveway, holding a plastic cup of warm white wine, when Maya materialised beside me.

“Liam,” she said, her voice low and almost gentle. “I know what you did with the Kowalski trust account.”

I blinked at her. “What?”

“The five grand. I’ve got the bank records. You transferred it to your personal account on the third of March.” She was smiling, but her eyes were hard and flat. “I’m not going to the police yet. I wanted to give you a chance to resign quietly.”

I didn’t touch that account. I hadn’t even reconciled it since February. But before I could get a word out, she’d walked back inside, leaving me standing on the gravel with my wine going sour.

That was Tuesday.

Wednesday morning, Angela called me into her office. She looked pale, and she had a letter from our legal counsel printed out on her desk. “Liam,” she said, “they’re demanding your immediate suspension pending investigation. They say there’s a forged withdrawal authorisation with your signature.”

I asked to see it. It was a photocopy of some form I’d never signed, with my signature scratched on in blue biro. It looked like someone had traced it from an old expense report. But the date stamp in the corner was 3 March.

“Angela,” I said, “I was on annual leave that day. I was at my sister’s place in Torquay. I’ve got photos, credit card statements, everything.”

She nodded slowly. “I believe you. But legal needs more than my belief.”

Thursday morning, Maya upped the ante. She came into Angela’s office and slid a printed email across the desk. “Found this in Liam’s sent folder,” she said. “He confessed to a mate that he took the money.”

The email was addressed to some bloke I’d never heard of, and it said, *“Yeah, I moved the Kowalski funds. Needed to cover a gambling debt. Don’t tell anyone.”* The language was stiff and wooden, nothing like how I write. The timestamp was 4 March, which was when I’d been driving back from Torquay.

Angela read it, then looked at me. I shook my head.

She stood up. “Right. I’m going to pull the CCTV from the office lobby for the third.”

The footage showed Maya at my desk at 7:47 PM on 3 March. She had a bunch of files under her arm, and she sat in my chair for eleven minutes. When she left, she was carrying a different folder.

Angela called the police that afternoon. Maya was suspended pending an investigation into document forgery, computer misuse, and attempting to pervert the course of justice. She didn’t get my job. She got a lawyer of her own.

I’m still here, still clearing my name. But every time I look at my desk, I change my password.