The Sacrificial Man (5 page)

“Pretty flowers,” she says. “And what a lovely vase.” One hand reaches out to touch the handcrafted swirls of white and blue glass in a delicate funnel, beautiful and fragile. “Thank you. It was very expensive.” She pulls her hand away but I lift it myself, holding it up so she can see the fine glass, the deep sea blue running throught it. “It’s my favourite possession,” I tell her, “If it broke I know I’d never be able to replace it.” Carefully, I place it back on the table positioned in front of glass doors, through which the daylight can be seen dying. It’s a small garden full of terracotta pots and a wooden bench, on top of which the black cat grooms himself, oblivious to the weather. It’s cold outside, bitter chill, but the cat won’t come in. He’s suspicious of strangers. Feeling himself observed he stops, paw still raised, and glances up, before dismissively returning to his ablutions.

Cate Austin is pulling a jotter from her bag. “Is it yours?” she asks, indicating the cat.

“By default. He belongs to a neighbour but she’s often away, so he comes here for company. Would you like some tea?”

“Coffee, please. Black, one sugar.”

“I don’t have coffee. Been having a lot of headaches recently, so I’ve given it up. Gunpowder tea is the closest I’ve got.”

“Thanks.” I see her glance at the novel on the table,
The Collector
by John Fowles. I move the book away. “Do you read, Miss Austin?”

“Not much. No time.” Everybody’s excuse. But we all have the same amount of time, don’t we? The only difference is how we use it. “I suppose you must do a lot of reading in your job?”

“It’s one of the perks. Reading is classed as work in academia.”

“How have the college taken your conviction?”

“University,” I correct. “It’s affiliated now.” I fill the kettle, flick the switch hard. “I’ve been suspended from any contact with students. The authorities have allowed me to keep my office, and have agreed I may mark essays, but that’s all. If I get a community penalty, they’ll consider reinstating me. That’s as far as they will commit.”

“You’re lucky they didn’t sack you outright.”

The cup in my hand clashes with the granite counter. “Lucky? Is that what you call it? I’m a first rate academic, and they’re not letting me have any student contact. It’s ridiculous! As if I’m a threat to anyone.” I feel heat bloom in my cheeks, and remember that it isn’t wise to be so transparent. I have to turn away, back to the kettle. My face is distorted in the stainless steel. We say nothing more as the water boils. I fill the two cups.

At the table, seating myself opposite her, I say, “So, what do you want to know?”

“As much as you want to tell me. More, probably. I have to recommend a sentence to the judge. The courts aren’t obliged to follow the proposal of a pre-sentence report, but they usually do.”

“That must make you feel quite powerful.” I push a cup and saucer across the table. “Mind, it’s hot.”

She sips her tea. “It makes me want to be sure I’m right.”

“And do you always get it right?”

She doesn’t answer. Instead she says, “Did your solicitor explain what a pre-sentence report is, Alice?” I notice she uses my name without asking. Impolite. “He did, Cate. But I’d still like to hear it from you.”

“It’s a report that can be requested by a judge after a conviction has been secured, and it’s to help him, it usually is a man, decide on an appropriate sentence. My job is to make enquiries and assess the case so that I’m able to propose a suitable outcome.”

“Suitable for whom?” I ask, taking a careful sip of my drink smelling the rising aroma of lemons.

“For everyone, hopefully. I have to consider what is commensurate with the crime. I look at what is usual for similar cases, and consider the victim, and his family… ”

“There was no victim!”

At my outburst, her face nips into itself, her mouth tight. She doesn’t believe me. Why is it so hard for her to understand? “It was a voluntary death. He was the one who sought me out. Don’t you believe in the right to choose life or death?”

She speaks slowly. “In the eyes of the law, David Jenkins is a victim. You may feel that helping him to commit suicide was morally defensible, but it was illegal.”

Are we not to question laws, which are made by people we elect? Who is to say that laws must always be obeyed? I don’t say this. Not yet. I bite back the words I would have used in a different place and time. Instead I say, “And what is the usual sentence for a crime like this?”

She lifts her biro from the table, moving it between her fingers. “Well, this is not exactly a common crime, so ‘usual sentence’ doesn’t really apply. Most cases of assisting suicide concern a partner, or other relative, helping a loved one who is terminally ill to die, as a release from suffering. Euthanasia, if you like. Since the 2009 laws on assisted suicide cases like that don’t result in any prosecution.”

“I shouldn’t have been prosecuted either! You’ve just described the situation between Smith and myself… ”

“Why do you call him that,” she frowns at her jotter, reads her notes, “when his surname was Jenkins?”

“It was what he wanted me to call him – but you interrupted. We may not have been married, but we were in love. It was euthanasia. The term derives from the Latin. It means an easy death. And last June that is what I gave him, just by being with him when he overdosed.”

“But he wasn’t unwell,” she clarifies. “That’s what makes this case different. As well as the way he died. That’s why you were prosecuted.”

“He may not have been ill but there are more reasons to wish to leave this earth than physical suffering. You must try to think more creatively, Miss Austin.” Her hand tightens on her pen. I’ve said too much but I can’t stop. “You said there were other considerations in deciding a sentence. What might those be?”

“Well, your needs for one. It’s routine to consider if specialist treatment or therapy is required as part of any sentence. If any issues are pertinent, such as alcohol or drug misuse, any past trauma that may require counselling, anger management, sex offender therapy, anything like that.”

“Well, none of those apply.” Surely she can see that? “I rarely drink and don’t touch drugs. And I’m no sex offender.” She remains maddeningly silent, watching me carefully.

“Any mental health needs will also be considered, in conjunction with the psychiatric assessment ordered by the court. It’ll be completed by Dr Gregg, who’ll decide if you require treatment after he visits you. And if the judge feels you need a custodial sentence, his report may send you to a secure hospital rather than prison.” My hand stills on my cup, the only warmth as my body turns cold. Prison? “It may be possible to consider a community order, which could include a variety of conditions. I’ll go through my proposal with you before the sentence date, when the report is finished. But in order to write it, Alice, I need to ask you some questions.”

How can she carry on as if she hasn’t said that word? I can’t go to prison. Something hot rises in my chest and I want to shout, ‘How dare you suggest such a thing? I’ve done nothing wrong!’

“Alice?”

I fight my anger down. “More questions. I had enough of those from the police. And during the court hearing.” I can’t even pretend a smile now.

“I know that. I appreciate that you’ve said a lot already, but not to me. And I’m not here to interrogate you. You’ve already been convicted, and the fact that you pleaded guilty will go in your favour. The question now is how you should be sentenced. I want to know more about why David Jenkins killed himself in your home. How did it come to that? And I need to know more about you, Alice. Mariani’s an unusual name.”

“It’s Italian.” I stand, remove the cups and turn my back.

“Is that where your parents are from?”

“No. They’re Suffolk natives. But that’s not who gave me my name. Their surname is Dunn. It was mine, too, until I turned sixteen.”

“So you changed it?”

Is this what I have to do to be free? Purge my soul to a stranger? “That’s right. Wouldn’t you, with an ugly surname like that? I changed it to my mother’s surname. My mother had a beautiful name. Matilde Mariani. Taking her name seemed important at the time. I was going through that predictable teenage thing of rejecting those who love you. I know it hurt my adoptive parents, even if they pretended to understand. Now I think it was irrelevant, what was I trying to prove? Changing my name wasn’t going to change the past.”

“But you say it was important to you at the time. Was it a search for identity?”

“Nothing so meaningful, I’m sure. I was barely more than a baby when I was adopted, just a child. It’s so long ago, it feels unreal. It’s like a story I made up.”

I look into the garden, now in darkness. She nods, an acknowledgment that settles in the space between us.

As a lecturer I’m used to speaking to an audience, and I pull my shoulders back. I mustn’t show my fear. “What do you want me to tell you?”

She thinks, looks at her notes. “Can I ask you about your adoption?”

“Is it relevant? What can my being adopted have to do with Smith’s suicide?”

“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”

“That’s very cryptic. You’re asking me to bare my soul on the basis of a possible connection?”

“Everything is connected,” she says, evenly. “The difficult bit is working out how. An adoption is a major event. It must have been traumatic for you.”

“Not really. I was so young. I was adopted by a couple who wanted me. As long as you’re wanted, what difference can genetics make?”

Cate Austin leans back. She puts down her pen, and holds her hands in her lap. “I think we both know it isn’t as simple as that. It seems to me, Alice, that you have a choice. We will have a handful of meetings, at the end of which I will file a report with the court. Now, I’m the one that writes that report but the content, the conclusion, is down to you. So you can talk to me, and I realise this will not be easy, but you must trust the criminal justice system to be a fair process, and in the end the sentence will be one that helps you.” She pauses, takes a breath. “Or you can refuse to cooperate. That’s your choice. But remember when I come to recommend a sentence you will have forced my hand. And I hate recommending prison, especially for a woman, Alice. I really do.”

Neat anger prickles the back of my neck, and my hands are cold. She is threatening me. I look at the clock on the wall. “I’m afraid, Miss Austin, that I’m expecting someone to arrive very shortly. If you’ll excuse me, I need to start getting ready.”

She twists her mouth, and her hands rise to the table, to her pen. She had hoped her little speech would have me opening up like a Russian doll. “This feels like a bad point to stop,” she says, looking down at her jotter and I see a sentence, a question mark at the end. The tip of her biro draws a star next to it.

“What were you going to ask me?”

“I was going to ask about your situation now. If there’s another man in your life?”

I can feel my head start to ache. I stretch my feet into my slippers, and stand. “I think I’ve said enough for our first meeting. I’d like you to leave now.”

She hesitates, and then gathers her things. “Okay, Alice, I’ll go. But I want you to think about what I’ve said. And I’d like to see you tomorrow. I want you to come to the probation office.”

As I show her the door all I can think is that I must avoid prison at any cost.

There are things that I will tell only you. You have chosen to listen, and in return I shall be honest. But I won’t tell Cate Austin. If she knew that I have a lover, how could that benefit me? It will be our secret. My body is tourniquet tight, muscles quivering from work, the weight of my recent lover along my thigh and chest. My breath rapid while the evidence of lust spills from me onto the sofa. I luxuriate in the peace delivered only after orgasm. My thoughts, usually scratching tumble-weed, unravel and stretch flat. It’s what sex can give, like no other fix.