“Exactly. Now, let me introduce you to everyone else.”

The next hour passed swiftly and easily enough for Claudia finally to find herself starting to relax. The voices in her head and cruel memories had stopped, there were only these friendly people from all sorts of professions, trades, and callings and most of them around her age. In fact, probably thanks to the champagne, she was enjoying talking to Dan Collier again. She was no longer as unnerved by the way his eyes held hers as she spoke, never searching the room for someone more interesting to talk to. However, she knew he’d soon start asking about her past, so to prevent it she clumsily steered the conversation to the restorative justice program Andee had told her about.

“Ah, no, you’re just being polite,” he protested. “Unless Andee’s been on your case about becoming a practitioner? Has she?”

“No, she hasn’t, and I’m not sure I’d be right for it. I mean, the idea of it seems a good one, and if it works . . . Does it work?”

“In a lot of cases, yes.”

“But not in all?”

“I guess it depends on what you term to be a success. If it helps a victim to overcome the trauma of what’s happened to them, you’d have to agree that’s a good thing. Does it erase what happened? No. So really it’s about finding a way to unlock someone from a place of fear, or anger, injustice, revenge, so they can move on.”

Absorbing that, she said, “But it’s also about the person who committed the crime?”

“Absolutely. Understanding the impact of your actions, regretting them, and wanting to show remorse can put a perpetrator in a whole different place in his or her own mind, as well as in the mind of the person they’ve harmed.”

Unable to imagine herself ever wanting to come face-to-face with Marcus again, much less wanting to hear the excuses for his cruelty, she asked, “How did you get into it?”

His eyes flickered away for a moment as he said, “My wife was a practitioner and she persuaded me to become one too.” With a grim sort of smile he added, “That was back in a previous life, before I moved here.”

Wondering where his wife was now, Claudia started to speak, but as though reading her mind he said, “She died, three years ago.”

Sensing the devastation behind his words, Claudia’s heart melted as she thought of Joel. “I’m so sorry. I really am. Was it unexpected?” she asked gently.

“A car accident. Ice on the road, an oncoming lorry . . . It wasn’t anyone’s fault . . .”

Realizing he was still grieving, she said, “So you moved here. To try and start again?”