Chapter 6
Clotilde remembered more once she was medically stable.
Before Fenella took her phone, Clotilde had photographed the first three pages of the Larkin report.
She tried to send them to Auberon.
The message failed because the shed’s Wi-Fi signal was weak.
Fenella saw the phone in her hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Sending this to my husband.”
Fenella’s expression changed.
“Do not involve him.”
“He owns forty percent of the land.”
“He owns what his father left him.”
“And you don’t get to decide what he knows.”
Fenella reached for the phone.
Clotilde stepped back.
Then said the sentence that triggered everything.
“If he signs that sale without seeing this, you’re using him.”
Fenella slapped the phone from her hand.
Clotilde bent to pick it up.
Fenella took it first.
Then ordered her toward the house.
Clotilde refused.
“I’m calling the buyer.”
Fenella stared at her.
“No.”
“I’m pregnant, Fenella. I’m not going to stand here and help you sell contaminated land to families.”
Fenella’s face went flat.
“You think because you married Auberon you get to become his conscience.”
Clotilde replied:
“No. I think he already has one.”
Then Fenella shoved her into the shed.
Not hard enough to injure her.
Hard enough to get her through the doorway.
She slammed it.
Locked it.
And said:
“Hunger teaches disobedient wives gratitude.”
The phrase was cruel.
But it also revealed how Fenella saw the conflict.
Not as environmental compliance.
Not as a business disagreement.
As hierarchy.
A wife was supposed to defer.
A son was supposed to trust his mother.
A family asset was supposed to remain family-controlled.
Anything else was disobedience.
Then the fake messages began.
Clotilde had a four-digit phone PIN Fenella knew because the whole family once used the same code for household tablets.
She had never changed it.
Fenella accessed the phone easily.
The messages were careful.
No dramatic breakup.
No accusation likely to make Auberon rush home.
Just enough wounded distance to buy time.
The hidden camera let Fenella verify Clotilde remained alive.
That fact became central to the criminal case.
Fenella’s lawyer later argued:
“She never intended Clotilde to die.”
Prosecutors answered:
Monitoring a pregnant woman while intentionally depriving her of food and freedom for five days did not make the confinement compassionate.
It made it supervised.
Then hospital records produced another fact.
Clotilde had gone five days without her prenatal vitamins and prescribed iron supplement.
Not life-threatening by itself.
But Fenella knew about both.
The handbag containing them was found in the main house.
May you like
On Fenella’s bedroom dresser.
Beside Clotilde’s car keys.
