Darren Craske - The equivoque principle

'Please, Cornelius…' pleaded Madame Destine. 'I am not your enemy. I did not commit his crimes! Until yesterday, I too thought Antoine dead.' She reached out to him, resting her hand upon his wrist. 'I could not have even guessed that he had returned. I did not set out to deliberately deceive you.'

'Oh, but you did deceive me none the less, Madame.' 'No! I merely did not mention all my feelings…my instincts.' 'Renard is alive, and you knew it! How many more times have you misled me over the years, hmm? Or chosen not to mention all your feelings, as you put it?' Quaint tousled his curled locks severely. 'I've known you since I was seven years old, and not once have I been forced to question your loyalty to me…until now.'

'Cornelius, no!' wept Destine. 'I have not betrayed you.' 'I don't know how to feel about you any longer, Madame…knowing how I feel about him!'

'I have been torn! Since I began sensing these feelings about my son, they have dominated my thoughts. Should I tell you my fears and risk you running off to your death? What if I was wrong? What if it was all a mistake and I had reopened old wounds for nothing? I did not know what to do for the best, Cornelius.' 'And so you did nothing?' 'Cornelius-please! I have been distracted.' 'No, Madame…you have been distracting me.' 'Only to keep your path from crossing Renard's!' Destine cleared her throat, the tears choking her, the guilt constricting her. 'I only wished to guide you away from him…keep you safe.'

Quaint grabbed her wrist, and forcefully removed her hand from his shoulder. 'Your so-called advice has been leading me astray all week, hasn't it? Sending me to the fish warehouse in search of Prometheus? Sending me off to Blackstaff instead of Crawditch? I take it that was designed to delay me too?'

'I…I had to make sure your path did not cross Antoine's until I could fathom whether it was real. I have only been trying to protect you, my sweet. If I had told you of Antoine's return we both know what you would have done.'

'I would have tracked the bastard down and squeezed the life out of him!' snapped Quaint.

'Oui, and what if he had done so to you instead? What then? How then would I have felt, knowing that I had led you to your demise? Think about it, Cornelius-this deceit may have you at the centre of the web, but the slightest touch to that web sends out shockwaves that cause disruption for all,' Destine dabbed her eyes. 'I…I had one such premonition that burned itself into my conscious mind.'

'What? A vision of me discovering the truth?' asked Quaint.

'No. It was of you and my son. You were both locked in an eternal combat. Surrounded by corpses-victims of the battle that raged between you-and you were blind to them all, Cornelius. All you could see was your rage…pure and unrestrained. I was lying there too…as were Prometheus, Butter, Ruby…everyone we love was dead-because of your and Antoine's conflict-now, if I had to risk your loyalty in order to prevent that future from coming to pass, then that is my fate! That is my punishment.'

Quaint wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. The afternoon light had faded completely now, and it was dusk. The cold wind bit at his tears, and his body felt weighed down by all that he had learned. He felt his age for the first time in many years. Quaint turned around and looked at the woman before him, a woman who had been an unfaltering constant in all his life. Now, it was like looking at a complete stranger. He wanted to run to her, to embrace her, and forgive her-but something inside his heart held him back. Something was tearing him away from her, and there was nothing he could do to regain his footing. Perhaps words were simply not enough.

'One question that I must know the answer to,' Quaint said solemnly. 'What can I do to mend this wound of ours?'

Destine walked towards him.

'One thing, my sweet boy,' she said. 'Hold me.'

Quaint threw himself into Destine's arms, and squeezed her so tight, never wanting to release her. The tears fell from both their eyes, seemingly from the very pits of their hearts. From deep down within their souls, they wept in unified pain. Their faces were painted with agony, as they released their sadness, together as one. Quaint choked like a baby, his body quivering and jolting as he let the tears flow. It was such a relief, as if he had kept every tragic memory from his whole life bottled away inside him behind an impenetrable wall, and now…that wall was gone.

Destine gasped, grasping him by his cheeks. 'Mon cher, doux Cornelius…I was a foolish old woman not to confide in you the very first moment. I had no idea that Antoine survived your previous encounter in Paris…please believe me.'

Quaint pulled away from her. 'Madame, I…I must go.'

'Go? Go where?' Destine called after him. 'Where are you going? What are you going to do?'

'Do you really have to ask?' said Quaint, his cold eyes scowling under his wind-beaten curls. 'I'm going to Crawditch, of course.'

'But, you can't go! Not there! I have foreseen your death, Cornelius.'

'Oh, really?' asked Quaint. 'Well, I have yet to live my death, so as far as I'm concerned, it can be averted. I wouldn't waste another tear on your son's resurrection, Madame, because after I've finished with him-he'll wish he'd stayed dead.'

COMMISSIONER?' CALLED Sergeant Horace Berry, as he strode out into the exercise yard of the police station. 'What on earth are you doing out here? Haven't you heard?' 'Haven't I heard what?' Dray asked, barely turning his head. A thin plume of cigarette smoke wisped from his mouth into the dark, early evening sky.

'Tucker just told me. There's been some kind of committee meeting or something. A group of locals have banded together and they're on their way here right now,' said Berry. 'Tucker says they want your head on a plate, sir.'

'Tell 'em there's already a queue,' said Dray.

Sergeant Berry walked around Dray, to stand directly in front of him, so he was unable to avert his eyes. 'Sir…Oliver…what's going on? Are you going to speak to those people, or not?'

'Me? Why me?'

'Oliver, you're the Commissioner. This district falls under your charge. It's up to you to set these people right. Surely you can see it from their point of view? They're half-petrified!'

'Horace, I'm not in the mood. You deal with it.'

Berry shook his head, pursing his lips as he selected his words carefully. 'Commissioner…sir…those residents-the merchants, and business folk that haven't already absconded from Crawditch, of course-have a grievance with our handling of these murders, you must be aware of that.'

Dray lifted his eyes to look at Berry. 'Horace, what can I do about it? Our men are doing the best they can to find that giant, right? If that's not enough for this damned committee, then why the hell don't they all leave town?'

'Yes, but what about that Mr Quaint's thinking…about this Irish fellow? Surely it's worth checking out? So far we've been concentrating all our efforts on Miller.'

'Horace, Cornelius Quaint is desperate to pin anything on anyone else other than his own people. You heard him, how he stuck up for his strongman, and all the while I'll bet he knew he was guilty as sin. Hell, he probably even helped the bastard escape!'

'How could he, sir? Quaint was with us both at the time. And that's the funny thing, isn't it? I mean, we checked the bars on that cell window…they looked like they'd eroded away, been eaten by rust or something, yet the rest of the cells were all fine.' Horace Berry was trying to appeal to the man he used to know, a man who up until a week ago was level-headed and strong-minded. Since Cornelius Quaint's arrival and the recent murders, Dray had become anything but strong-minded, and he was certainly not going to do anyone any favours by meeting with the soon-to-be arriving committee. 'Look, I'll do my best to fend off this baying crowd, please just do me a favour, will you?' Berry asked.