Chapter 24
What Beatrice Meant to Do
Beatrice meant to make Arthur ill. Arthur died anyway.
She said it as Asha entered, and the recorder beneath the cabinet captured every word.
The Friday swap should have produced dizziness during the vote. On Sunday Beatrice saw Arthur take two capsules instead of one. She could have warned him. Instead she poured the cordial, took the map and let consequence impersonate accident.
"He would have destroyed the housing plan," she said.
"You added luxury cottages for your brother," June replied.
"To make the numbers work."
"For whom?"
Beatrice threw the memory card toward the heater. Asha caught her wrist. An officer recovered the card while June pulled the original conservation release from the umbrella sleeve hidden behind the cabinet.
Arthur had concealed it badly and labelled it worse. Across the bottom, an older deed released the car park for development if the meadow remained protected.
Ravi read it twice.
"The affordable flats can survive."
"If the trust files before two," Asha said.
It was one fourteen.
Beatrice left in handcuffs. June, Ravi and Mabel ran for the county registry carrying a deed Arthur had died trying to expose and a plan his killer had claimed only she could save.