A neighbour tried to claim my dead father's land with a forged document at his funeral reception

The sausage rolls were still warm when Brett Hargrave cornered me by the urn of flowers. My dad had been in the ground four hours.

"Maya." He said my name like we were friends. "We need to talk about the fence line."

I stared at him. Black shirt, too-tight collar, sweat on his forehead from the February heat. He'd come to the funeral. To the *funeral*.

"Your father signed an agreement in 2019," he said, loud enough for Auntie Ling to hear. "Allowed me to build my shed one point five metres onto your property. I've got it here." He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it like it was a winning lottery ticket.

I felt my face go cold. "Not now, Brett."

"He owed me, Maya. After the dispute about the stormwater—"

"My father just died."

"—he agreed. You can see his signature."

A couple of mourners turned. Janelle Okonkwo, my work colleague, drifted closer with a plastic cup of punch. My boss, David, was frowning from the kitchen doorway.

I took the paper. It was cheap printer stock, folded four times. The text was a basic font—Times New Roman, maybe—and the signature was a wobbly blue ballpoint scrawl that looked nothing like my father's precise hand.

David pulled me aside into the empty study. "Janelle says Brett has a valid claim. She's seen the document. She's calling you unreasonable, Maya. This could affect your standing."

"David—"

"I'm just telling you what I heard."

Back in the living room, I held the paper up to the light from the window. The signature wasn't even on the paper. It was a photocopy. A cut-out. You could see the edge where someone had trimmed it, then glued it down. The font was wrong, too—my father used a typewriter for everything, not a word processor.

Janelle appeared at my elbow. "Maya, let it go for the sake of peace. Give me the original, and I'll hold it while you both talk."

She was already reaching for it. I saw her phone in her other hand, screen lit up, camera app open. Brett's name at the top of an unsent message.

I stepped back.

"I've sent a copy to a forensic document analyst," I said. My voice was steady. "They'll confirm the forgery. Then I'm filing a police report."

Janelle's face went still. Brett stopped mid-sentence.

I turned my back on both of them and walked to the urn of flowers. The sausage rolls were still warm.