To Dan Richie said, “And what did you think?”

Wryly, Dan replied, “Let’s say there was a certain amount of editing necessary for the first few letters. Archie’s language at that time was a little more colorful than Marcy would’ve been used to, or even able to understand.”

With lively eyes, Archie said, “He didn’t change the basics of what I was saying, or anything like that, he just got me to clean it up and make it more mainstream.”

“So, in the course of Archie producing these letters,” Richie said to Dan, “you decided that his remorse was convincing enough for you to take them to Marcy.”

“Eventually, yes. Although Archie wasn’t pouring out regrets and apologies in his letters, the essence of it was powerfully there, mostly in the way he was engaging with Marcy in spite of never having met her. He created a relationship, and an attachment, that meant a great deal to him long before he realized it himself.”

“And what did she think when she read them?”

“I think initially she was quite resistant—not so much to reading them, but to engaging with them on any kind of emotional level, particularly one that involved forgiveness. In our conversations since, she’s admitted that she wasn’t anywhere near ready to forgive at that point, but after reading the letters she decided that there might be something to be gained, for them both, if they met.”

“Was that a big deal for you, Archie? Meeting the woman you’d caused such serious injury to, and who you’d been writing to all this time?”

“It was major,” he replied, “and I don’t mind admitting how scared I was before it happened. Part of me wanted to pull out, I didn’t want to see what I’d done to her, but then I told myself that if she was willing to face me, I had to do the same for her. I swear it wasn’t about me trying to get off my sentence, like some of the papers have said, it was all about trying to do what she wanted me to do.” He swallowed awkwardly. “I knew if Dan came back and said she wasn’t interested in having anything to do with me I’d be totally gutted. I wouldn’t have blamed her, obvs, but I knew it would floor me like nothing else if she’d told Dan to forget all about it.”

“But she didn’t, and you met and now we’ve got to where we are, with you having served eight months on remand before being found not guilty of recklessly endangering life. There’s been a lot of criticism of that verdict, as I’m sure you know.”