THE HEIR'S REVENGE

chapter 78

Her children?

She went through that to protect her children? My mother's death was all because she wanted to protect her children's future.

What about my future? Didn't I deserve a future too?

Everything she had written in her confession was made to sound like a reasonable thing a person would have done in that circumstances.

But I knew they were all lies. Every single thing she wrote.

The right person she wanted Margaret to give it to was not a lawyer.

It was a journalist.

A particular journalist. One that was known to write pieces about powerful women and how they are usually manipulated just because weak men can't ‘handle’ them.

She was Sandra wealth. A journalist who would not simply run the document as a confession but would make Victoria the victim in all of these. Of course, Victoria's choices were terrible but Sandra would make her look like she was just a complicated human who made those choices for only understandable reasons

Victoria was not trying to get away with what she had done.

She had accepted that she could not get away with it.

She was trying to make sure that the world felt something more complicated than pure condemnation when they thought about her name.

I took a deep breath. She did make a good plan. I put all three pages down on the desk and looked at the window.

The morning was grey and cold. The garden below was still. The butterfly garlands were not moving because there was no wind yet.

I thought about the past, the days when my mother cleaned floors at six in the morning while Victoria slept upstairs. When my mother would prepare breakfast and Victoria would pour everything on her face just because it wasn't sweet enough.

I thought about Lily's parents whose car did not crash by accident. Everyone knew that someone was behind that but no one knew who it was..

I thought about a temporary medical intervention and what the doctor had told

I breathed in slowly, then I breathed out.

"Who is the journalist she wanted Margaret to contact?" I asked, my voice completely even.

Henry told me the name.

Sandra.

I knew it.

She was a well respected name. A serious writer who had grown tremendously in the eyes of the public. She wasn't the kind of journalist who made things up but exactly the kind who would take a complex document seriously and treat it with the nuanced consideration that Victoria was counting on.

"Has Margaret contacted her yet?" I asked.

"Not as of this morning," Henry said. "But she has been in the city for two days. She will move soon."

I nodded.

I picked up my phone and dialled Patricia Osei's number.

She picked up on the second ring.

"Good morning," she said. She sounded like someone who had also been awake since early.

I told her everything immediately.

"Victoria wrote a private confession," I said. "Twelve handwritten pages. She gave it to her sister Margaret Vane to pass to a journalist. This document is all lies. It was meant to make her crimes look reasonable and understanding. I don't like that.” I said.

Everyone knew that when I didn't like something, something had to be done, urgently.

“I believe Margaret Vane is planning to hand it over in the next twenty four hours." I continued.

I didn't expect Patricia's silence. Patricia Osei did not need long silences to process information but soon, she talked.

"How did you obtain this?" she asked.

"Through a source I trust completely," I said. "I cannot give you the specific chain but I can tell you the information is accurate."

"Can you get me a copy of the document?"

"I am working on that," I said. I looked at Henry. He nodded once. "You will have it by this afternoon."

“Great.” Patricia paused. "If the document exists and says what you are describing then it is significant for two reasons. First it is an admission of involvement even if the language is designed to minimise guilt. Admissions are admissions regardless of how they are dressed up."

I liked it. She was already thinking ahead.

She continued. "Second, the fact that she arranged for it to be delivered to a journalist while under arrest and awaiting trial is itself a legal issue. It is an attempt to influence public perception of an active criminal case."

"I know," I said.

"If we can get the document before it reaches the journalist we can introduce it as prosecution evidence," Patricia said. "A private confession in her own handwriting is considerably more powerful than anything a journalist would do with it."

"That is what I thought," I said.

"I will contact the prosecutor immediately," Patricia said. "We may be able to have Margaret Vane intercepted before she makes contact. She has not committed a crime by carrying a document but if we can get to the journalist first and inform them of the legal implications of publishing material related to an active criminal case that may be enough to stop publication even if we cannot stop Margaret."

"Journalists do not like being told what they can publish," I said.

"No," Patricia agreed. "But they also do not like being in the middle of an active criminal proceeding. A serious journalist given a full picture of the situation will almost certainly hold the piece." She paused. "Especially if we approach her ourselves and offer her something better."

"What is something better?" I asked.

"The truth," Patricia said. "The full documented truth from the prosecution's perspective. Can I ask who the journalist is?”

I told her and I could feel that she smiled at the other end of the phone.

“Oh. I don't think that should be a problem. Even though Sandra can be a hard jut to crack according to what I hear. We could give her the actual story. She likes stories that get blown up and I believe this story would.”

“There's simply no competition between an actual story and a twelve page confession written by the villain."

I sat with it for a while.