Helen Cresswell - The Bagthorpe Saga - Absolute Zero

Grandma had gone very quiet and dignified. Mrs Fosdyke kept sniffing all the way to the station. Jack was torn between enjoyment of being in the novel situation of riding as an apprehended criminal in a police car, and a sinking feeling that he had let Uncle Parker and everybody else down.

At the station Grandma kept up her silent dignity for a while, but after a cup of tea seemed to thaw and consented to give her version of what had transpired. She stood up.

“I solemnly swear that all I shall say will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God,” she began. “Shouldn’t I have a Bible to hold while I say that?”

“Oh, there’s no call for that at all, Madam,” the sergeant told her. “Not at this stage.”

“I think I have seen enough television films about policemen and criminals,” Grandma told him, “to know something of procedure. I suppose I should not be surprised that the Bible is no longer required. It is yet another sign of the times.”

In the end she gave a very good account, Jack thought. And when she told what she had said to the Bingo man, and the requests she had made, they all sounded very reasonable, and nothing like riot-raising speeches. Jack could tell from the policemen’s faces that they were thinking this too.

“First time you’d played, then, was it, Mrs Bagthorpe?” asked one of them. “I can see how it must have been confusing.”

“Precisely,” she nodded. “I simply thought that some consideration should be shown to a beginner. And I thought that young man very rude indeed when he just carried on as if I had never spoken.”

All in all, the interview went very well. At the end of the day, it was clear that the only word Grandma had spoken which could be even loosely interpreted as riot-raising and provocative, was the single word “Stop!”, and even Jack could see that this would not stand up very well in Court.

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