Филиппа Карр - The Black Swan

There were two people who had rented rooms in the house; there were the pathologists and the doctor who had attended to my father; and a few others. I was to be the most important witness because I had actually been present at the time of the murder and had seen and identified the assassin. It was clear, even to myself-and I knew little of court procedure-that it was my evidence which would prove the case against Fergus O’Neill.

After the first day I arrived home exhausted. Rebecca and Celeste sat by my bedside and talked to me until I fell asleep.

But even in sleep I was haunted by that man. I knew that I had had to do what I did. I could not have withheld anything. I was as certain as I could be of anything that the man was my father’s murderer; but I kept imagining the rope about his neck, and I could not stop telling myself that I was the one who would put it there. When I told Rebecca this, she said, “That’s nonsense. He has put it there himself. The man’s a murderer and if he is guilty he must be punished. You cannot allow people to go free so that they can go round killing people just because they disagree with them.”

She was right, I knew, but how could one drive morbid fancies out of one’s mind? “As soon as this is all over,” announced Rebecca, “I am definitely going to take you to Cornwall. And you are coming with us, Celeste. You need a break. You need to get away from all this. And it is no use saying you cannot come, because I am going to insist.”

“I think I should be here,” said Celeste.

“And I think you should not,” replied Rebecca firmly. “You need not stay long, but it is necessary for both of you to get away from here for a while. It has been a great shock to you both. You need a break... right away.” We both knew that she was right and I must say that, for me, the prospect of getting away was enticing.

But the trial was not yet over. I should have to return to the courtroom. Mr. Thomas Carstairs thought that the Defense might want to put me in the witness box and endeavor to discredit my evidence.

And so it had to be. The solemn atmosphere of the courtroom was awe-inspiring with the judge sternly presiding over the barristers and the jury; but the one I was constantly aware of was Fergus O’Neill, the memory of whose face would, I began to fear, haunt me for the rest of my life.

The Defense, after all, did not call me. I suppose they thought that anything I could say would only be damning against the prisoner.

The Prosecution, however, put me briefly in the box. I was asked to look at the prisoner and tell the court whether I had seen him before.

I answered that I had seen him the night before my father died and at the time of the shooting. I told how I recognized him.

It was over very quickly, but it was the deciding factor.

The judge gave his summing up. The verdict was inevitable, he said. The case had been proved (not only, I kept telling myself, by me). The man was a fanatical terrorist and anarchist. He had very likely killed before. He was a man already wanted by the police.

I wished I was anywhere but in the courtroom when the jury came back and gave the verdict of guilty and the judge put on the black cap.

I shall never forget his voice. “Prisoner at the bar, you have been convicted by a jury, and the law leaves me no discretion and I must pass onto you the sentence of the law and this sentence of the law is: This Court doth ordain you to be taken from hence to the place of execution; and that your body there be hanged by the neck until you are dead; and that your body be afterward buried within the precincts of the prison in which you have been confined after your conviction and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.”

I took one last fearful look at him. His eyes were fixed on me-venomous, revengeful and mocking.

Rebecca wanted us to leave at once, but I could not go. I had to stay.

“Sometimes there is a reprieve,” I said. “I want to be here ... so that I know.”

“There would not be a reprieve in a case like this,” said Rebecca. “For Heaven’s sake, Lucie, the man deserves to die. He murdered your father.”

“It was for a cause. It wasn’t for personal gain. It’s different somehow.”

“Murder is murder,” said Rebecca firmly. “And the punishment for murder is death.

Let’s leave soon. The children and Pedrek think I have been away too long.”

“You go back, Rebecca. Celeste and I will come when this is all over.”

Rebecca shook her head. “I have to stay with you, Lucie. Pedrek understands.” Three weeks had passed since the judge uttered that sentence and the day for the execution came. There had, of course, been no reprieve; in my heart I had known there could not be.

I sat in my room. Rebecca and Celeste wanted to be with me. But they understood my feelings. I wanted to be alone, and they respected that.

So I sat there while it was happening. This man... this Fergus O’Neill, a man to whom I had never spoken, was dying and I was the one who, figuratively, had put the rope round his neck.

Rebecca was right. I was being foolish to think that. Her calm common sense should be like a douche of cold water to my fevered fantasies. And so it was ... at times. Yet at others these thoughts would come back to me.

Who would have believed this time last year that I, a simple girl, happy in the life she shared with her brilliant father, had lost him and gained a terrible burden of guilt?

How could it be possible for life to change so drastically in such a short time!

“There is nothing to detain us,” said Rebecca. “What we must do now is plan for the future. And you will do this better away from here. You will be able to think more clearly in Cornwall.”

I knew that she was right.

“So pack what you need,” she went on. “We’ll catch tomorrow morning’s train.”

“There is something I have to tell you, Rebecca,” I said. “It’s about Joel Greenham.”

She smiled and I saw the understanding in her eyes.

“Before he went away,” I added, “we became engaged... secretly.”

She turned to me, smiling. I had not seen her look so happy since the tragedy. “Oh, Lucie,” she said, “I am so pleased. This is wonderful. Of course, I knew there was something between you and Joel. He will take care of you. When is he coming home?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything yet.”

“These missions don’t usually last very long and he has been away some time. I wonder whether he will have heard ... he can’t have done so. If he had I am sure he would have come home right away.”

“It seems so long since he went away,” I said.

“As soon as he comes home you can go back to London ... or he could come down to us. Oh, Lucie, I can’t tell you how happy this has made me.”

“I should have told you before only we didn’t intend to announce it until he came back.”

“It will help so much. You’ll be able to start afresh. I can see that you don’t want to make too many plans until he is with you.”

Her mood had changed. She was clearly thinking what a help Joel would be to me.

She was right, of course.

“So,” she went on, “we’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

Celeste was coming with us. We had insisted that she did; and I think she was relieved to do so, although she was a little diffident, as was her way; she confided in me that she was not sure whether Rebecca really wanted her, but was asking her out of kindness.

Poor Celeste! Her life with Benedict had nurtured this feeling of being unwanted; although in the last years he had tried hard to make things different between them. So we prepared to leave. I was telling myself that, in the peace of Cornwall, I should see everything more clearly. I would be able to convince myself that I was foolish to harbor these uneasy feelings about a man who had deliberately set out to kill my father, shattering his life in a matter of seconds and bringing misery to his family.