Free The Pool of St. Branok by Philippa Carr

is always so in these cases. Consider all your legends. How they have grown up through distortion and exaggeration. We should be branded forever and they would punish us in some way … even though they would have hanged him … which would have been far worse for him than the way he died. So we’ve got to think of a way out of this. We have to think of our families. It’s the only way. I know what we must do.”
    “What?” I asked.
    “We must get away from here at once and not let anyone know we came here. We must say nothing about what happened. Can you do that, Angel? Not to anyone … not a word.”
    “Yes … yes, I think so.” But I looked down at my sodden clothes. There was blood on my jacket.
    “We’ll have to give some sort of explanation,” Ben went on. “We’ll say you had a fall. That’s the answer. It will account for the state you are in. But there must not be a word about what actually happened … about him.”
    “There’ll be some way they’ll find out.”
    “Not if we play it carefully. Stop shaking, Angel.”
    “I can’t help it. I just feel so cold.” I started to sneeze and for a few moments could not stop.
    He looked at me anxiously and said: “Listen, Angel. This is terrible, but we’re in it now and we have to get out of it.”
    “When they don’t catch him …?”
    “They’ll think he’s got away. It will be as easy as that.” Ben was beginning to regain his confidence. There was even a look of excitement in his eyes. “We’ll do it. But we’ve got to plan very carefully. He’s gone. He won’t be able to murder any more young girls … never again. We’ve done a good thing. No one will ever know that he is at the bottom of the pool. His clothes will be waterlogged. He’s right down at the bottom. He’ll never be found. We’ve saved him from the hangman’s rope, and that was what he deserved and what would have come to him. We’ve done him a good turn. We’ve done all those little girls whom he might have murdered a good turn. …”
    Cold and shivering as I was I felt better. Ben was so convincing. I began to believe that if he decided what we must do was the best thing for us, it would be for everyone else too.
    There was nothing I wanted more than to get away and forget.
    He was talking coaxingly. “You see, Angel, how awful it would be for us and our families if it were known. I don’t know what they would do to us. They wouldn’t let us go off scot free. When people are killed there is always trouble. But we mustn’t stay here. What are we going to do? You’re wet through … and so am I. We can’t say we’ve been in the pool. We’ll have to say we were wet through by the sea. Look. It happened this way: You were galloping along the beach. You know how you like to do that. Glory stumbled over a boulder and threw you. You were close to the sea and the waves washed over you. You hurt yourself on a rock. That will account for the blood. You just went over Glory’s head. You lost consciousness for a few seconds. Thank goodness I was with you. That’s how it will have to be. Can you do it?”
    “Yes, Ben, I think I can.”
    “Then let’s get away from here. The sooner the better.”
    He took my hand. I was still trembling.
    “You’d better not ride,” he said. “We’ll get you up on Glory and I’ll walk you home.”
    He was right. I realized I could not have ridden. There were times when it seemed as though the earth were coming up to meet me and I was shaking all over.
    Ben murmured soothingly to me as we walked along. “The thing is not to talk too much about it. Make yourself believe it happened the way we said it did. You can come to believe it. …”
    “I’ll never forget it … the way he looked at me. Oh, Ben, it was so horrible.”
    “You’ve got to forget it. It doesn’t do any good to go on remembering that sort of thing. We did the best possible thing … the only possible thing … and now we’ve got to forget it and make