‘So you let her “confess”? You sent the old woman into that little box—to drive me into saving her?’
‘I didn’t send her; I just let her go. I didn’t let them tell her there was no need to save you; that was all. I knew what she’d say; and—you or another—I knew that if she said it, the truth would come out.’
‘You could have waited,’ said Tedward, wearily.
‘No,’ said Cockie. ‘That’s what I kept saying to Charlesworth. We couldn’t wait. In a very little while you’d have been acquitted, you’d have been a free man; and all the truth in the world after that would not have prevailed.’
Tedward stilled for a moment his restless hands. ‘Do you think that the truth really mattered so much?’
‘Yes,’ said Cockie. ‘It’s something sacred. If you’re a doctor—you have only one idea, to preserve life. If you’re a policeman, ditto; to preserve the truth.’
The bleared grey eyes began to wander again, the restless hands itched and trembled on the little table, the haggard face jerked uncontrollably. ‘Have I been … Have they …? I can’t remember anything in the court …’ And the face was there again and the ash-grey hands. ‘Is Rosie here?’
‘No,’ said Cockrill steadily. ‘Rosie’s dead.’
‘If they kill me,’ said Tedward, ‘Rosie will be there. Wherever I go, whatever happens to you when you die, Rosie will be there.’ And he suddenly started up at the little table and stood there shuddering and shaking and cried out that they must not hang him, he did not want to die.…
‘They won’t hang you,’ said Cockie. ‘There’s no question of your dying. You’ll go somewhere—quiet; and forget all this and your mind will be peaceful again.…’
But Tedward went to the bars of the cell and thrust through his hands and caught at the ashen hands and held them close. ‘Don’t tell them, Rosie—keep it a secret for ever, don’t let them find out the truth and condemn me to die. Don’t tell a soul, Rosie, don’t tell a soul.…’
Don’t tell a soul, Rosie, that I stopped the car and got out to ‘try to find out where we were’ … Don’t tell a soul how long it seemed to you, sitting waiting there until I came back.…
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 1952, 1953 by Christianna Brand
Introduction copyright © 1979 by Christianna Brand
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
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Fog of Doubt Page 24