“We can always find out.” When Andee received no response to that, she said, “Would you like me to ask Dan to come and talk to you?” It wasn’t the way it was supposed to work, the offender’s practitioner engaging with the victims, particularly not at this stage, but since they’d hardly followed a conventional path so far it seemed pointless to start now.

Marcy raised her eyes from the table and gave Andee a half-smile. “Maybe we need to sleep on it some more,” she said.

As Andee drove away a few minutes later, she was asking herself what difference Archie’s regret, apology, or even his change of plea was really going to make to Marcy. Would any of it help her come to terms with what the fire had done to her face and hand, or alter how humiliating and painful it was to be stared at, avoided and pitied? She would still have to look in the mirror every day and see a hideous travesty of her former self looking back. Not that any of her friends ever thought of her that way, but it was inevitably how Marcy would see it, and how the hell must it feel to know that time was going to be no healer?

Connecting to Dan, she said, “It might be a good idea to prepare Archie for it not happening.”

His reply was slow in coming and she could hear the disappointment in his voice. “I’m guessing you’re no longer at the coach house?”

“I’ve just left. They’re going to think about it some more, but it’s not looking good.”

“What’s the objection?”

“I think it’s still Claudia who has the biggest problem with it. She’s afraid it’s not going to help her mother the way we all want it to, and we can’t blame her for that. Not after what they’ve been through. To be honest, I’m starting to have doubts myself. Are we really so sure this is the right thing to do?”

There was a long pause, and then—with a humorless laugh—Dan said, “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

Chapter Forty

When Dan warned me a couple of weeks ago that our meeting might not happen, tbh I wasn’t all that surprised. Not that I’d been planning how I’d cope if it didn’t turn out—making plans in here is a part of the lies you tell yourself—but I have to admit I went back to my cell feeling like I’d got proper kicked over for what I’d done, because nothing else—apart from a death sentence—could have made me feel that bad, and I even wondered if an end to it all might be better.