Page 281 of These Tears

His handwriting cuts across the page in that wonderful script which always appeared as if drawn with a calm hand.

My fingers coil until the corner of the page creases.

If you are reading this, I am already in England.

Conall found altered company accounts, false debts and route records Cromwell believed had disappeared with Arthur. The papers mean very little without someone who can identify the names, properties and transactions behind them.

I have agreed to return for a voluntary interview under caution.

If I stay with you, they will say I am hiding. If I bring you with me, I deliver you to the same men I dragged you away from.

So I have tucked you out of reach.

You need to know, however, that once I arrive in London, I may not be free to leave again.

Do not be angry with Anders. He knows very little of the plan. He will keep you fed, warm and furious. Sindre knows more, because he has always been the one I could turn to in a time of need. The Nielsens and Halvorsens will take care of you. Let them.

There is no right way to say this.

I should have told you I was leaving while I stood in front of you. I did not because if you told me to stay, I would have.

When Conall revealed that men had followed and frightened you, I understood that you were no longer merely the woman visiting me. You were a witness who could be silenced and the one person Cromwell could use to reach me.

After the incident with Isak and Melody, he began removing whatever could connect him to the company.

I believed you were next.

Conall would tell me not to put any of this on paper. I am doing it anyway.

Because there are many truths I could give you, but the plainest is: I panicked, Leah.

Conall has been taking pieces off Cromwell’s board, and men like him do not grieve losses.

You had no place amid that.

I made it for you. I have already apologised for that, but I had not told you why.

Using what I knew about you, I made you board the plane. I knew which fears to press and what sort of kindness you would follow. I told myself the circumstances justified it, but I couldn’t make myself believe that.

I have lived most of my life with men calling my fear rage because rage made a better story. It could be punished, locked away, chained to a floor and written into files.

Fear asked questions they did not want answered.

None of that excuses what I did. It just tells you where the worst decisions of my life began.

When I brought you home, I thought I could keep myself from you with rules, distance and work. Survival, made loud enough to drown out everything else. I thought I could make you hate me so I could make myself do the same and leave quietly.

That plan had already failed in Stonebrook, when you spoke to me as though you could see past the chains.

The photographs made it worse. The kiss ultimately ended the pretence.

By then, there was no distance left to hide behind.

But loving you only gave fear your name.

I had to go back because there is no later. If I wait until every road is safe, Cromwell may find us first.

I don’t write it now to scare you. You are a smart woman. I know you will understand.