“I don’t mean to belittle anything you’ve been through,” said Banks, “but everyone’s going to know what he did, and he’s not going anywhere. He’s too old to recover from what happened to him, even if he survives for a while longer. That’ll have to be enough.”

“Do you think it has all been worthwhile?” Linda asked. “Has justice been served?”

“I think that’s a question you should be answering. Has it?”

Linda seemed lost in thought for a moment, her brow furrowed, then she said, “I don’t know. Not yet. Maybe it’s too soon. I just feel numb.”

“Well, perhaps his stroke is justice of a kind,” said Banks.

“But it isn’t, really, is it?” Linda replied. “I mean, it’s the sort of thing that happens to all of us in one way or another, at some time—strokes, heart attack, Alzheimer’s, cancer. There’s no justice in that. Just arbitrary endings. We all die, some of us in great agony, so how can Caxton’s stroke be anything like a judgment, or justice?”

“Do you want more?” Banks asked. “Do you want him to suffer more? If he’d gone to jail before he had his stroke, he’d be spending his time on the hospital wing. Would that really make a scrap of difference to you?”

“No. I’m not saying I want him to suffer more. I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m confused. It doesn’t feel like I thought it would. I’m not jumping up and down for joy because the man who raped me has had a stroke. Maybe I should be. I’m not one of those people who thinks criminals should be hanged, drawn and quartered. I don’t know. It just feels sort of meaningless.”

“Perhaps it is, then,” said Banks. “But it might mean more to some of his other victims.”

Linda lit a cigarette and regarded him through lowered eyes. “Are you saying I don’t make a good victim?”

Banks smiled. “‘Victim’ isn’t the word that comes to mind when I talk to you,” he said. The sun was at such an angle that the river looked like a burning oil slick and the undersides of the overhanging trees were lit by its fiery light. Banks finished his wine and put his glass down. “I should be going.”

Linda didn’t react for a moment, then she leaned forward and said, “Do you mind if I come with you to the Dog and Gun? I really don’t feel like being here on my own tonight. I want people and music and dancing.”

“Not at all,” said Banks, standing and offering her his arm.

“Are you sure it’s OK, me being a witness, a victim? You won’t get into trouble?”

“I’m already in trouble. A bit more won’t make much difference.”