Chapter 21
Four Minutes in a Potting Room
June spent four minutes becoming Beatrice.
She entered left-handed, laid the umbrella against the wall, took the map from Arthur, placed cordial by his right hand and turned the jar label inward. She could do it in ninety seconds. The remaining time allowed an argument and the ledger alteration after he fell.
Under the cabinet, Asha found one crushed fragment from an immediate-release capsule. In the sink trap, laboratory officers found coating from Arthur's extended-release drug.
Beatrice had opened the bottle at the scene too - perhaps checking her earlier substitution, perhaps replacing a damaged capsule. The fragment tied the council stock to the room.
Still, twelve people had used that stock.
Ravi arrived with the vote papers. Demolition would proceed unless the trust presented a lawful replacement deed before midnight.
"There is one," he said. "Arthur referenced it in the original catalogue. But the archive box is gone."
June thought of the different lies wrapped around the same seed packet.
"Then we tell Beatrice we found the box," she said.
"We haven't."
"She need not know that. She only needs to choose where she thinks we found it."