Hell (34 page)

Judge Arthur Brazen nodded.

Made a number of notes.

Before looking up again.

‘I am going to take this under advisement,' he said.

If Grace could have, she would have screamed.

If Sam could have, he would have screamed louder.

‘I will give my ruling one week from today.'

The judge rose.

‘All rise,' said the court clerk.

FORTY-NINE

June 12–17

T
he longest week in the history of the Becket family.

The day after the hearing, Cathy and Saul had moved back into Névé.

‘There's no point our staying away,' Cathy had said. ‘Our heads are here.'

‘If Claudia and Dan and the guys don't mind,' Saul added.

‘The more the better,' Daniel said.

‘We thought David and Mildred might like to squeeze in too,' Claudia said. ‘But Sam thinks it would be too much of an upheaval for them.'

‘They're coming to dinner one evening,' Daniel said.

Mildred had been cooking.

Having lived for so many years without walls, let alone a kitchen, it had taken time for her confidence to grow, but the third evening after the hearing, she brought chicken soup.

‘Best I ever tasted,' Sam said.

‘Told you,' David said to Mildred.

‘You made her blush,' Cathy said.

‘Nonsense,' Mildred said. ‘I don't know how.'

‘So how are you doing?' she asked Grace later, finding her outside on the terrace.

Alone again, which was getting to be a habit.

‘Truth?' Grace said.

‘Of course,' Mildred said.

‘I have no idea how I'm doing,' Grace said.

‘Floating someplace over all this?' Mildred asked.

‘Drowning, mostly,' Grace said.

‘Please don't,' Mildred told her. ‘We all need you.'

‘You may have to manage without me.'

‘I doubt that, after what happened at the hearing.'

‘Apparently, the judge doesn't have to agree,' Grace said. ‘He could insist on a lesser charge, according to Jerry Wagner. I could still go to jail.'

‘I don't know why they'd bother,' Mildred said. ‘There's no one on earth who's going to be punishing herself more than you.'

Martinez came on the sixth evening.

‘I've been wanting to be there for you so badly,' he told Grace and Sam.

‘Not possible,' Sam said. ‘We knew that.'

One man down in the unit, a heap of work and Captain Kennedy in a grim mood. Nothing Martinez could do.

‘Cooper still says he won't talk to anyone but you,' he said now.

‘He will,' Sam said.

Which he thought was probably true, because the need to brag was part of the nature of his kind of monster, and maybe he'd just go on writing it down in his damned
Epistles
, but they'd get there in the end.

The image of Grace standing in court came back to Sam again.

It filled him with fury to think of her being put through the same legal processes as that beast.

She was reading his mind again.

‘At least I'm not in jail,' she said, quietly.

And then she knocked on wood.

‘Not yet, anyway,' she added.

FIFTY

June 18

‘
I
n light of Ms Bianchi's testimony,' Judge Arthur Brazen was saying, ‘and the circumstances outlined by the defense, and in the absence of objections by the prosecution, the charges against the defendant are dismissed.'

Grace stared up at him.

‘You're free to go, Mrs Becket.'

She wanted to speak, to thank him, but her voice was trapped in her throat.

Seeming to understand, he smiled down at her from his lofty bench.

It felt like a benediction of sorts.

That feeling did not last long.

Not once she saw the Bianchi family outside.

They were trying to leave swiftly, but Josephine Bianchi seemed to be having difficulty walking, and there were reporters in their faces.

Gina Bianchi was not with them.

‘You can write to them,' Sam told her quietly.

‘I guess,' Grace said.

And then the press were on them.

‘Be careful,' Jerry Wagner said.

He had told her back in the courtroom that he would remain at their side until they were safely in their car.

‘We'll issue a statement later,' he said. ‘We don't want anything coming back to hurt you.'

‘I guess not,' Grace said.

And allowed herself to be steered on, scarcely aware of cameras or questions or jostling.

Floating again, above the crowd.

But not in a good way.

She was not going to jail.

Which ought to have been making her happy.

She was certainly relieved beyond words, but she could not imagine ever being truly
happy
again.

It was still there. Would remain the elephant in every room she inhabited, and in her own mind, for a long, long time.

For ever.

She had killed a man.

The law might have found a way to forgive her, but she would never forgive herself for that. Not if she lived to be a hundred.

Though she guessed that at least by then, her memory might be gone.

She
guessed
.

The closest to clear thinking she was likely to achieve for some time.

Except for that one, repeating thought.

‘I killed a man.'

FIFTY-ONE

July 5

T
he Independence Day holiday was almost at an end, and Grace found, to her shame, that she was glad.

They had gone to Golden Beach, to David and Mildred, and everyone had made an effort to be light-hearted, but she knew she'd made it hard for them.

She was finding it difficult to eat much, had been losing weight ever since May 6, and David had remarked on that today.

Mildred had tackled her in the kitchen, a little more directly.

‘It's more than just weight you've lost,' Mildred had said. ‘It's your spark.'

‘What do you expect?' Grace had said, hearing her own defensiveness.

‘I think,' Mildred said, ‘you need to start helping yourself move on.'

‘I'm not sure I'm ready for that,' Grace said.

‘Joshua is more than ready,' Mildred said.

‘A little more guilt,' Grace said. ‘Just what I need.'

But she knew Mildred was right.

It was time.

‘I'm going to call Magda in the morning,' she told Sam that night.

They were back home on the island, with a brand-new bathroom, complete with Jacuzzi tub and new tiles on the floor and walls, and Sam had arranged for the whole house to be decorated while they were still at Claudia's. Even the deck had been pressure scrubbed with oxygen bleach.

Every trace of Cooper's presence wiped away.

Not from her mind.

Nothing felt the same.

Magda had called her last week, had told her plainly that if she did not embark on a course of counseling sessions soon, she might never feel able to get back to work.

‘I can't imagine ever being ready for work,' Grace had said.

‘You can't imagine it now,' Magda had said. ‘But you will.'

‘There won't be any patients,' Grace said.

No parents prepared to send their troubled children to a killer.

‘They'll forget,' Magda said, ‘in time.'

‘But I won't,' Grace said.

‘No, you won't,' Magda had agreed. ‘But you'll learn to live with it.'

Grace had not argued with that, had hoped her friend was right. Not for herself.

Her family needed her to feel better.

‘The trouble is,' she said to Sam on Monday night, ‘I already know the things Magda will be trying to help me believe. That I need to be kind to myself. That my pain is proof of my own humanity. That I'm a victim, too, in a sense. That I need to learn to forgive myself.'

Sam heard her irony, hated it.

One more thing for him to lay at Cooper's feet.

Martinez had said to him after the hearing that the killer must have been mightily pissed off at the dropping of the charges against Grace, had said too that he figured Cooper might have been surprised by Gina Bianchi's honesty.

Scum like that having no comprehension of the decency of others.

Another strike against Cooper, but not nearly enough for Sam.

‘I guess it's easier for me,' he said to Grace now. ‘I have my hate to keep me warm.'

‘I hope you have something better than that to warm you,' she said.

‘You'd better believe it,' Sam replied.

They got into bed, turned out the lights, held each other close.

‘What if I can't ever learn to forgive myself, Sam?' she asked.

‘One step at a time, Gracie,' he told her, softly.

‘What if I can't ever believe in myself again?'

‘I have more than enough belief in you for both of us,' he said.

FIFTY-TWO

August 5

A
month had passed.

Grace had been seeing Magda twice a week. The sessions were helping to a degree, she felt, because her friend was a fine therapist and because Grace trusted her completely.

Sara Mankowitz, who'd written to Grace after the hearing to apologize for her part in the tragedy, had called several times since then to ask her to consider continuing as Pete's psychologist as soon as she felt ready.

‘Pete really needs you,' Sara said.

It should have helped, Grace knew, but it did not.

Long way to go.

Sam was working, temporarily, with Joe Sheldon, hunting a violent serial mugger, while Martinez and Beth Riley, by order of the captain, continued to work at building up the Cooper case. Sam missed his partner, but knew it was the right thing. His own workload was under control, and he was home most evenings, had been with Grace and their son most weekends.

Nothing felt the same though, either at the station or at home, but in time, he hoped, they would settle, feel more
themselves
again.

In time.

One undeniably good thing.

They felt safe.

Cooper remained in secure custody, from which he would not emerge.

More good things, too.

Joshua had become confused for a while after their return, but as his routines had re-established and his parents' tensions had eased, he had relaxed back into his happy self, and Grace felt good about that, accepted it was the kind of thing she could allow herself to feel good about.

As time passed, she hoped there would be more.

Now and again, she would think back to some small thing she had done that day – laughing at something on TV, or walking into a local store without imagining that people had recognized her, were condemning her – and she would realize that she had done those things without shame.

Normality creeping back slowly.

And maybe the guilt well was starting to seal up.

FIFTY-THREE

September 5

C
ooper's mother had been coming to him.

Jewel.

Roxy the white-witch-bitch.

He thought he'd killed her back on board the
Baby
.

Over two years ago now.

Not dead enough.

She came to him at night, told him to lie down so she could
do
it to him.

Punish him.

The way she used to.

With a whip, most often, in those days. She'd thrash him and then she'd kiss the weals on his body and clean them with chlorine bleach, which burned worse than fire.

Purification was part of it.

Only part.

‘Take it like a man,' she'd told him sometimes.

He'd taken it, all right, until the night he'd stuck a knife into her heart.

‘I made you what you are,' she said to him one night, coming to him in his cell.

Like she was proud of the fact.

Jewel had never been proud of him in her entire life.

But she was right about that much. She had made him.

Made Cal the Hater.

‘You're finished now,' she told him another time.

‘I thought you were finished,' he told her back.

‘Not yet,' Jewel said.

‘I guess that means they won't be able to finish me either,' he said.

‘You've always been finished,' Jewel told him.

He'd said to Albert Singer that he'd decided it ought to be Cal taking the rap for the killings, not Jerome Cooper, but his bastard lawyer had told him that multiple personality pleas were hard to prove.

Albert Singer was a little prick.

‘What about Tom O'Hagen?' the lawyer asked him after that.

Cooper wasn't sure if lawyers were supposed to be sarcastic with their clients.

Singer would get his one day, Cal would see to that.

Not finished yet, good old, bad old Cal.

Whatever Jewel said.

FIFTY-FOUR

September 14

S
am had pronounced Joshua's third birthday a family holiday.

No work or college.

Claudia and Daniel were throwing the party, to which Grace had agreed because she didn't feel she was quite up to doing her son justice yet, and because Claudia said that since they'd all gone home, it seemed to her that everyone was staying away from Névé either because they thought they'd outstayed their welcome or, more probably, because of the awfulness of the associations.

‘Time to turn that around,' Daniel had agreed.

A party to remember, a bunch of Joshua's little pals from preschool turning the adults into semi-wrecks. A good time had by all. No one sick, no children injured and nothing of consequence smashed.

By six thirty, the little ones gone, they were all exhausted, and Martinez had only just shown up after a long day's work, but Joshua had fallen asleep, David and Mildred had gone for a nap up in the guest room, Cathy had gone for a run with Mel and Saul – not Saul's thing at all, but Mel had talked him into it – and the rest of the family were relaxing in the big, oval nook that overlooked the terrace and pool.