There were images she needed to face and thoughts which had come unbidden which she needed to deal with here in this austere and peaceful place. She was back with Clara at the Old Bailey. She thought of the young man who had attacked her and of that moment when she turned her eyes to the dock and faced him. She couldn’t remember what she had expected, but it was not this ordinary-looking lad, obviously ill at ease in the suit worn to impress the court, standing there without apparent emotion. He pleaded guilty in a sullen unemphatic voice and expressed no remorse. He didn’t look at her. They were two strangers linked for ever by one moment of time, one act. She could feel nothing, not pity, not forgiveness, nothing. It wasn’t possible to understand him or to forgive, and she didn’t think in those terms. But she told herself that it was possible not to cherish unforgiveness, or find vengeful consolation in the contemplation of his imprisonment. It was for her, not him, to decide how much she had been harmed by him. He could have no lasting power over her without her connivance. And now a verse of scripture remembered from childhood spoke to her with a clear note of truth: Whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him; Because it entereth not into his heart.

And she had Clara. She slipped her hand into Clara’s and felt the comfort of her responsive squeeze. She thought, The world is a beautiful and terrible place. Deeds of horror are committed every minute and in the end those we love die. If the screams of all earth’s living creatures were one scream of pain, surely it would shake the stars. But we have love. It may seem a frail defence against the horrors of the world, but we must hold fast and believe in it, for it is all that we have.

A Note About the Author

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

P. D. James is the author of nineteen previous books, most of which have been filmed and broadcast on television in the United States and other countries. She spent thirty years in various departments of the British Civil Service, including the Police and Criminal Law Departments of Great Britain’s Home Office. She has served as a magistrate and as a governor of the BBC. In 2000 she celebrated her eightieth birthday and published her autobiography, Time to Be in Earnest. The recipient of many prizes and honors, she was created Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991. She lives in London and Oxford.

Also by P. D. James

ALSO BY P. D. JAMES

Fiction
Cover Her Face
A Mind to Murder
Unnatural Causes
Shroud for a Nightingale
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
The Black Tower
Death of an Expert Witness
Innocent Blood
The Skull Beneath the Skin
A Taste for Death
Devices and Desires
The Children of Men
Original Sin
A Certain Justice
Death in Holy Orders
The Murder Room
The Lighthouse