Chapter 14
A Councillor's Good Cause
Beatrice's housing meeting began with a nurse, a teaching assistant and a father whose children shared one bedroom.
June listened from the back. The need was real. So were the applause and Beatrice's careful refusal to discuss the private annex.
Ravi slipped June a corporate search beneath the agenda. The annex developer, Wren Leisure Holdings, had been formed eight months earlier. Its director was another company. Behind that sat a trust administered by Beatrice's brother.
Thirty affordable flats made the project defensible. Twelve luxury cottages made somebody rich.
Arthur had discovered the structure and demanded removal of the annex. His reputation for blackmail allowed everyone to mistake leverage for greed.
During questions, June stood.
"Will you publish the beneficial owners?"
Beatrice did not blink. "I will publish every declaration required by law."
"That was not the question."
The room divided audibly.
Afterward Thomas waited beside June's bicycle. He handed her a memory stick containing Arthur's cloud ledger.
"You stole this?"
"I paid for it. Different moral category."
Rows were labelled with flowers: FOXGLOVE, IVY, MARIGOLD, WREN. Payments sat beside all but one.
The row marked BELLADONNA held only a date.
The date was tomorrow's demolition vote.