Another year, he said the fund had declined a case because the evidence
did not support the claim.
That decision mattered to Mason just as much.
The fund was not created to declare everyone innocent.
It existed to check.
To verify.
To ask whether the official story survived contact with the evidence.
That was Arthur’s real inheritance.
Not the house.
Not the company shares.
Not the money.
A habit of checking.
Mason often thought about Victoria’s first sentence when he came home.
“Your father died a year ago, and this house doesn’t belong to you
anymore.”
Part of it had been true.
Arthur was dead.
Part of it had been misleading.
The house was governed by a trust Victoria did not own outright.
And the most important thing Victoria implied was completely wrong.
She wanted Mason to believe his father had died thinking his son was a
thief.
