Beatrice (30 page)

“You
will have nothing, you know,” Beatrice declared firmly. “I have a
very valuable document, signed by Jules Sanders, Brian Mottram and
Bernard Murray that states quite categorically that you had nothing
to do with the creation of the rare plant species. They purchased
the parent plants off you, and declared the sums of money that were
handed to you in payment. It has been witnessed by to separate
people, and is a legally binding document. What Mottram and Sanders
did with the parent plants they bought off you is purely their
business, and certainly nothing that you should consider able to
claim as your own work. No matter how much you try to bully Murray
into helping you.”

Now that
she was talking about it, she was able to plot things out a little
more. It was a wild guess to insinuate that Murray was culpable in
the murders too, but she knew she had hit the nail on the head when
Browning’s lip suddenly curled at the mention of Murray’s
name.

“You
stupid woman, you know nothing at all. What do you know about the
world? You live here in this God forsaken place, all by yourself.
What have you seen of the world? What do you know about what it
takes to get a plant like the ones I find?”

“I know
that it costs a considerable amount of money to travel to somewhere
like Brazil, or Mexico, and even more money to transport rare
plants back into the country. Unfortunately for you, you cannot
afford to go anymore. You don’t have the money. My guess is that
once you found out that Jules Sanders and his friend had created
this rare species, you saw it as your meal ticket to travel abroad
and find yet more rare species to send home and sell for greedy
profit. Not only would it get you out of the country so you
couldn’t be arrested for the murders of innocent people, but you
would solve a lot of your financial woes.”

“Shut
up,” Browning suddenly yelled. The red veins in his eyes stood out
and his mouth flapped open several times as he tried to speak past
his rage, but couldn’t. The wild desperation she could see on his
face unnerved her greatly and she struggled not to allow the panic
to take hold.

“You
have a hold over Murray over something and forced him to vouch for
you, and help you lure people to their deaths. Unfortunately for
him, I have no doubt that you have him lined up as your next
victim.”

“Murray
is stupid. He borrowed some money off me but couldn’t repay it. It
was easy to get that fool to do as I wanted,” Browning boasted. “He
thinks I will let him off the hook. Hah! He knows
nothing.”

“I think
that you are going to spend a very long time behind bars, Browning.
Three murders mean three life sentences.”

“You can
make that four murders,” Browning whispered, and started to sidle
around the desk toward her.

Beatrice
side-stepped so that the length of the desk remained between them.
She simply refused to take her eyes off him. The next few minutes
of her life would decide whether she was going to live or die. At
some point throughout the last couple of minutes, some inner
survival instinct kicked in and demanded that she simply not give
in to this man.

When he
stepped toward her, she lifted the heaviest book within reach and
hurled it across the room. It didn’t move all that quickly though,
and unfortunately Browning had no difficulty in side-stepping it.
His smirk of pleasure made her shiver. When he eyed the length of
the table in consideration, she knew what he was planning to do and
glanced around for the next heaviest book she could
find.

In that
moment, a movement by the door drew both of their gazes. A sob
escaped her as Ben lunged into the room and threw himself at
Browning. Both men went down with a heavy thud, but Ben was too
angry to care about a few bruises. The last few minutes had been
the worst of his entire life, and he knew that the feelings that
swept through him would remain with him for the rest of his
life.

He had
seen enough of Beatrice through the crack in the door to know that
the bastard had tried to strangle her. The dark red marks across
her throat and mouth, along with the almost hunted look in her
eyes, infuriated him, and he took the opportunity to vent some of
his rage on the man who tried desperately to fight back, but was no
match for Ben’s fury.

Fist,
after fist, after fist, rained down on the man before him. Beatrice
stumbled and slid over the assorted papers and books on the floor
and finally reached the doorway. Once she was free of the mess she
raced into the sitting room and picked up the poker from the pot
beside the fireplace.

Unfortunately, by the time she returned, the situation in the
house had changed. A strange man now stood in the doorway. He was
bleeding heavily from a gash to his forehead. His slightly dazed
eyes were alight with anger, and he turned toward her with a feral
snarl of rage. She knew instinctively that this was Bernard Murray,
and didn’t think about what she was doing as she swung the heavy
poker at his head with as much force as she could
muster.

The
resounding thudding noise it made as it came into contact with his
skull was enough to make her wince, but lifted the poker again in
preparation to take another swing anyway. Two or three strikes
later, Murray surrendered to unconsciousness once more and
collapsed without a murmur.

Before
she even got to the hallway she could hear the grunts from the men
within the study. She glanced back at Murray, and briefly wondered
if she should restrain him in some way, but the need to help Ben
was more important. Her grip on the poker was so tight that it
started to make her knuckles ache, but the dull throbbing was
firmly pushed to the back of her mind as she entered the
study.

Ben had
received a couple of blows to his face, the small cuts from which
were oozing down his cheeks, but the man on the floor was
considerably worse.

“Ben,”
she snapped and hefted the poker.

It took
a moment for Ben to come out of his daze but when she repeated his
name, his head turned toward her. He spotted the poker she held and
landed one particularly heavy thump on the man beneath him before
he pushed to his feet. He took the poker off her and turned back to
the man on the floor who had yet to move.

“Get
up!” He snarled. “Get up now, or I swear to God that you will be
buried in the garden by tea-time.”

“No, he
won’t Ben,” Mark growled from the doorway.

Beatrice
screamed and spun around with such speed that the world swam
alarmingly. She swallowed around a suddenly painful throat and felt
the sting of tears at the sight of help in the doorway.

Mark
stalked into the room with a pair of handcuffs hanging from his
hand. “Richard Browning, I am arresting you for the murders of
Jules Sanders, Brian Mottram and Sigmund Hargraves, and the
attempted murder of Beatrice Northolt. Stand up.”

When
Browning didn’t immediately comply, Ben and Mark hauled him
unceremoniously to his feet and shoved him face first down onto the
desk. Once his arms were secured tightly behind his back, Browning
was then dragged toward the front door to Fred, and a small army of
constables who were waiting in the driveway.

Both
Beatrice and Ben stood to one side and watched solemnly as a dazed
Murray was also handcuffed and ushered out of the door. Mark
stepped forward and instructed one of the constables to fetch
Doctor Woods, before he turned toward them.

“Let’s
go and sit down, then you can tell me what happened.”

Beatrice
swallowed past the rawness in her throat and stared at Ben in
horror. “Maud? What about Maud?”

“She is
dazed but otherwise unharmed. I will feel better though once Doctor
Woods has seen all of you,” Mark replied with a sigh.

“Is she
outside now?”

“She is
in her room.” Mark waved them both unceremoniously into the sitting
room. “I know that this has been very difficult for you both but,
if I can get a gist of what happened this morning, I can go and
interview Murray and Browning at the station and formally charge
them knowing that I have included all of the charges. I can then
leave you to recover in private, and you can finally relax knowing
that this entire ordeal is now finally over.”

“How did
you get here so quickly?” Ben demanded.

“We were
on our way to pay an early morning visit to Murray’s house when
Fred saw Billy Green walking down the Main Street. He was counting
a large wad of cash and had a huge grin on his face. Because Billy
is one of the local scoundrels, Fred realised something odd was
going on and stopped him for questioning. He reluctantly admitted
that he had been paid to tell you that your house was on fire. We
asked him who it was who had paid him, but he said he had no idea.
However, the description he gave us matched that of Richard
Browning.”

Beatrice
stood on legs that trembled and had to wait a minute for the world
to settle again before she could walk across the room.

“Where
are you going?” Ben demanded with a scowl.

“I need
to fetch something,” she whispered and stumbled past Isaac, who was
now standing in the doorway. He shared a glance with Mark and
followed her, not because they suspected her of anything but
because she looked as though she was about to fall down.

Ben
swiped at the blood on his face but didn’t bother to look at it.
His gaze remained locked on the doorway and he willed himself to be
patient, he really did, but even the few short minutes she had been
gone felt like a lifetime to him. Right now he needed her to be by
his side, and nowhere else. His scowl was fierce by the time she
returned clutching a sheaf of papers.

She
handed them to Mark and slumped onto the sofa beside Ben, who
immediately swept an arm around her and drew her protectively
against his side. In spite of the presence of the police officers,
Ben kissed her temple and hugged her for several long moments while
Mark read the declaration the killer’s victims had made.

“Well,
we will need to verify the signatures are real, but I think that
this document alone is enough to make sure that he won’t escape
prison.”

“Can I
see?” Ben asked and took the papers off Mark to read them
briefly.

“I found
them once you had left for your house. I couldn’t settle and
started to rifle through the papers on uncle’s desk as we
discussed.”

Sensing
that they were waiting for her version of events, Beatrice quickly
recounted what had happened to her, and only stumbled when it came
to having to describe Browning’s attempt to strangle
her.

Ben took
over at that point and described what had happened to him,
culminating in his arrival moments before Mark.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Beatrice was aware of the
arrival of the doctor, who first saw to Maud before ordering her
off to bed to rest. He then examined first Beatrice, then Ben, in
the front parlour before declaring that their cuts and bruises
would fade, but they too needed to do nothing more than rest of the
next couple of days. Given the depth of the bruising on Beatrice’s
neck, he made arrangements to see her in his surgery in a few days’
time but, other than that, declared them well enough to go about
their daily lives.

Once the
doctor had taken his leave, Beatrice wondered how on earth they
could go about their normal lives now. So many bad things had
happened that she wasn’t sure what to make of it all. She knew that
at some point over the coming weeks she would have to think over
everything in more detail so that she could put it all behind her
but, right at that moment she wanted nothing more than to savour
the time she had with Ben.

Satisfied that he had all of the information he needed right
now, Mark nodded to Isaac, who secured the house before both men
took their leave. Ben left her long enough to slide the bolts home
on the front door, before he returned to the sitting
room.

“Come
on,” he ordered and held his hand out to her.

Beatrice
knew that she would follow him wherever he went, and didn’t
hesitate to do as he wished. She clung on to him as he led her
across the hallway and up the stairs to her bedroom.

Once
there, he carefully drew the covers back and tugged his shirt over
his head at the same time that he kicked his boots off.

She
watched him for a moment before she began to undo the long row of
buttons on her shirt. By the time the last of her clothing fell to
the floor, Ben was ready to sweep her off her feet. He carefully
placed her onto the bed with all the loving tenderness that was in
his heart. In one swift motion he climbed in beside her and drew
the covers over them both before he gathered her into his
arms.

“There
is just one thing I want to say,” he announced softly when they
settled into each other’s arms.

“I love
you, Ben,” she whispered.

“Thank
God for that,” he declared fervently. “I love you too. I thought I
knew what it was to love; what it felt like to care about somebody,
but I know now that I never really appreciated the emotion for what
it is. It is what makes me stronger. It is what makes me whole. You
make me whole. You make my life complete, and give me something to
wake up for each morning. I suddenly find myself looking forward to
each new day that I have you by my side, and I want that to
continue for the rest of my days. I cannot live without you,
darling. You are my everything. I adore you.”