The Soul of Discretion

by Susan Hill

  Shelley woke from dreaming about the buildings of her old school, long closed and demolished.

  ‘I’m sorry … I overslept …’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. But I need you to come in as soon as possible.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Richard Serrailler was arrested late last night, and charged with rape.’

  It was terrifying to hear the words spoken. Shelley was shaking.

  ‘What happens now?’

  ‘He’ll appear before magistrates, he’ll ask for bail which will almost certainly be granted. Then it goes to the Crown Prosecution Service and they decide whether there’s a case to answer.’

  ‘And … and how long does that take?’

  ‘Usually between a week and ten days – the CPS in this area are actually pretty quick. Once they decide there is a case to answer – that’s when the waiting starts, I’m afraid. It could be quite a long time.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Six months or more before a hearing is set.’

  ‘But … what happens to him in the meantime?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘But I might meet him … he might come here.’

  ‘No, he won’t be allowed to – one of his bail conditions will be that he doesn’t come near you. If you meet by chance, you just turn round and walk away.’

  ‘But – if the CPS decide if … that …’ She gripped the phone.

  ‘Listen, Shelley, it would be best if you came in to see me and we can talk about this face-to-face. Can you do that?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course … I’ll … I just feel …’

  ‘If you think you’re not safe to drive, get a taxi. All right? I’ll see you in half an hour?’

  As she put the phone down, she heard the front door.

  ‘Only me. I need to get my head round all this paperwork in peace and quiet so I’m doing it at home. Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. No … Yes, of course I am.’

  Tim came closer. ‘You’re white and you’re trembling. What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing. Can you take me into town?’

  ‘Not if I want to get this finished. Something wrong with your car?’

  ‘No … I just felt a bit … sick. I think I’ve eaten something.’

  ‘Well then, don’t go into town, silly girl.’

  She stood, not knowing what to say, do, decide.

  ‘Where were you going, anyway? Can I do it for you?’

  ‘Oh no. No, it’s fine. I’ll be all right.’

  She picked up her bag and the car keys. But she knew she wouldn’t be safe to drive.

  ‘I’d like a taxi please, to –’

  ‘Shelley?’ He took the phone from her and disconnected. ‘Of course I’ll take you in if you really have to go but not before you tell me what on earth is going on.’

  She told him.

  ‘You’re really going ahead with this charge? For God’s sake, Shelley, what’s this about?’

  ‘It’s about him raping me.’

  ‘He didn’t rape you. Listen – sit down. Now listen to me … please, drop all this!’

  ‘Well, it’s too late. He’s been charged. The case is with the CPS. I can’t.’

  ‘Yes you can. Just go into the police station.’

  ‘At St Catherine’s –’

  ‘Bugger the rape crisis centre, leave them out if it – they’ve got a vested interest.’

  ‘Don’t be so stupid.’

  ‘As I say, go to the police – I’ll take you and I’ll come in with you – and simply say you’re withdrawing the charges. All charges. That you won’t proceed, there’s no case to answer, you won’t appear in court – make it crystal clear. They’ll tear it up. They’ve no alternative. And then it’ll be dealt with and you and I will go away and you’ll start to get over it.’

  Shelley looked at her husband’s angry face. He loved her, she had no doubt of that, but he had not for one moment believed what she had told him and he cared too much about the things that did not matter. About reputation. Public show. Appearances.

  Quite suddenly, everything fell into place and she was calm again. She redialled the taxi firm and walked out of the front door, to wait for the five minutes they had said it would take.

  Sixty-three

  No news. There had been no news for two weeks. She had telephoned every hour, then every few hours, then twice a day. They were very patient, very kind. She should ring whenever she felt the need. But there was still no news.

  Hannah and Felix were in bed, Sam at his friend Jake’s. The house was quiet. She sat at the kitchen table with her laptop, because it was more comforting than the study which in any case was on the cold side of the house. It was still quite warm and she had the window open to smell the second flowering of the Cecile Brunner rose. And the night. The smell of the night.

  He could not see the sky or the outside world, and in his room there would never be dark, only bright white lights, and never silence, only the bleep of the machines, keeping him alive.

  Cat went back to her draft notes for the lecture. It was not happening for months but so many ideas seethed inside her head that she needed to get them down roughly every day. There was so much to say, but because of Simon, it somehow seemed both unreal and very temporary, as if what happened to him might change how she thought at any moment. But it wouldn’t.

  Mephisto bipped in through the cat flap, stalked about for a moment, then bipped back into the garden again. Wookie leapt up, chased his retreating tail, gave up on the game and returned to his basket.

  She had discovered an American research paper about how dying patients are affected positively or negatively by the voice tone of medical staff around them. It was not new but it was significant. She would print it off and read it later. The novels on her bedside table were gradually being pushed aside by medical papers, but she would always find time somehow to read fiction, she knew that. She had two collections of Alice Munro short stories waiting, plus the rereading of Middlemarch, and Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. It was not the fault of the research papers that she had neglected novels. Everything that had happened, not least the sudden absence of the bookshop, had somehow put her off fiction as viruses put one off food. At the moment, only clear, concise medical facts and deductions seemed acceptable and satisfying.

  She poured a small glass of wine. Work had always been her salvation and it would be now. Kieron Bright had called twice but what else could he do? Until there was news, nothing at all, and even then?

  The phone ringing suddenly in the quietness made her start and drop the glass. Wine mingled with shards spread over the floor.

  ‘Cat? Oh … sorry …’

  ‘No, it’s fine, just a spill, but I should clear it or the animals might cut themselves. Can I ring you back, Judith?’

  ‘I … yes … but – no, don’t. Can I just come over?’

  Tone of voice.

  ‘Of course. You don’t need to ask. Just come.’

  So, Judith knew. Had her father told her, or had she found out some other way?

  She dropped the fragments into the bin.

  Or perhaps it wasn’t that. Perhaps the hospital had rung – as they would, rung her father, Simon’s next of kin. That was why Judith was coming. To break it to her.

  Suddenly, what she wanted more than anything was for Sam to be there.

  When she heard the car she went to the front door. Face it. You have to face it now.

  Judith got out of the car but instead of coming straight to her, quickly, she went round to the boot. Opened it. Two, three suitcases. A holdall. A tote bag.

  ‘Here, let me …’

  It was difficult to read Judith’s expression but she was not distressed, not hurt. She was – angry. Yes. Angry and quite calm.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling. It’s only for now, until I sort something out. But I’m not going back, you see. My other stuff can wait and follow eventually.’ She put her hand on Cat’s should
er. ‘I’m not going back.’

  Cat felt tears in the back of her throat but pushed them down.

  ‘Good,’ she said.

  ‘You knew?’

  She nodded. ‘But I was told in absolute confidence. I couldn’t say anything. I’m so sorry …’

  ‘That’s all right, of course it is. What could you have done anyway?’

  Wookie, having managed to push the door open a bit wider, came racing towards them.

  ‘I need a drink,’ Judith said, bending to pick him up.

  ‘Does Dad know you’ve come here?’

  ‘I presume he’ll guess.’

  Cat handed her the glass of wine and Judith drank half of it before she sat down.

  ‘He’s denying all charges, did you know that as well?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’ll pay a fortune for a good QC of course and that will be that.’

  ‘No, a good defence is his right but money doesn’t automatically buy a not-guilty.’

  ‘Would you bet on that?’

  Cat sat down opposite her stepmother. ‘I am so angry with him,’ she said. ‘Not just this – I’m angry because he’s thrown away a good loving marriage, and for what?’

  ‘He threw it away some time ago, Cat.’

  ‘Yes. But I thought …’

  ‘Did you? Yes, well, perhaps I did. In France we seemed to be back where we had been – but we weren’t and “seemed” so really is the word. There was some secrecy, some deception, always there.’

  ‘You can stay here as long as you like, that goes without saying.’

  ‘I know and you’re always generous but it won’t be for too long. I want to be independent and I can be.’

  ‘Just not yet. God, this has been a bloody awful summer.’

  She looked across at Judith. She had aged. Well, nothing stayed the same but did it have to change like this, overnight, everything gone?

  It had done so before and they were still here, somehow.

  But Simon?

  Sixty-four

  ‘Shelley?’

  She closed her eyes briefly. But then she clenched her fist. She had talked herself through this so many times, imagined standing in the witness box in front of judge, lawyers, jury. In front of him. She was ready to go.

  ‘Do you have any news, Lois?’ she said calmly.

  ‘Can you come in?’

  ‘No. No, I can’t right now.’

  ‘OK …’

  ‘Just tell me. It’s fine.’

  A pause.

  ‘Shelley, the Crown Prosecution Service don’t feel there’s a reasonable chance of conviction. I’m really sorry but the case can’t go forward.’

  Sixty-five

  He could not sleep. He usually slept for six hours without stirring, woke and got up. Now it was one thirty and he had been in bed, sleepless, since eleven o’clock. The bedroom felt chilly. He went downstairs and poured himself a whisky. Into the kitchen. Topped it up with a splash of tap water. Looked around.

  Tidy. Clean. Silent. Empty.

  He sat at the table.

  What should he feel now? Relief. It had washed over him briefly, when he had learned that the CPS had decided he would not be prosecuted, but it had slipped away like the tide and left him. He felt depressed. Irritable. And lonely.

  No. Richard Serrailler would never admit to loneliness, even to himself. He was self-sufficient, practically, emotionally. He had never needed others and yet he had been surrounded with them all his life.

  He was angry. He drank another mouthful. He was angry that Shelley had been so stupid and so deceitful, so manipulative, and so treacherous. She had always flirted, and the flirting had become more obvious. He could not have mistaken the signals she had sent out to him so often. Of course he couldn’t. He wasn’t a man who went looking for other women. But when a woman behaved as she had behaved …

  A corner of him felt disappointed that he had not gone into court, with his excellent defence counsel, and been able to watch Shelley backtrack, contradict herself and, finally, crumble under questioning. But on the whole, no. He would not wish that on her. Let it be. She must have learned a lesson, even from the process of bringing a charge.

  The tide of relief began to creep up towards him again. He had been spared not only a difficult hour or two in court, but also, far worse, having his name and reputation spread over the papers. It was unlikely to have reached the national press, but if it had, that hardly mattered. It was the local papers that would have hung him, and life in Lafferton would have become intolerable. He and Judith would have been forced to retreat, probably to France.

  Judith.

  He finished his whisky and poured another.

  Judith.

  He had loved her. Did love her. That was the truth. But marriage had been constraining, as it was with Meriel, except that they both had time-consuming, demanding work, the children had been growing up, there had been Martha … there had been no energy to spare on a marriage which had functioned well enough. Being retired, even if he had a few leftover jobs on the medical journal, and a couple of committees, had meant he and Judith had spent a lot of time together. Too much time.

  The house was too big for one man. But he shrank even from the suggestion that he might move.

  He wanted to be alone, but not alone.

  Shelley and Tim were happily together, so far as he knew, but the way she had led him on had cost him his own marriage.

  He put the glass in the sink and turned the tap on hard so that the cold water splashed up and soaked his pyjama jacket.

  He needed Judith back.

  Sixty-six

  Sam went quite slowly into the small room, his eyes flicking about anxiously before finally resting on the bed. Cat watched him. He looked much taller and as his face changed with adolescence he had also begun to look more like Simon. The same bone structure was coming out, the same nose, the same forehead. His hair was quite different and his eyes were darker but the resemblance was still strong.

  Hair.

  Simon’s head had been shaved and the white-blond hair was only just coming through again.

  ‘Hi,’ Sam said, but the words barely came out. He cleared his throat. ‘Uncle Simon? It’s me. It’s Sam.’ He looked round at the machinery, lights, tubes, wires, monitors.

  Beep-beep. Beeep. Beeep. Beep-beep.

  ‘You can sit down on the stool there,’ the duty nurse said.

  Cat was looking at the stats. No change. No change. No change.

  Sam leaned forward. ‘Hi.’

  Bipbipbipbip.

  After twenty minutes they went to get drinks.

  ‘He’s going to be OK,’ Sam said, nodding.

  ‘Well – every day that goes by means he’s survived a bit longer but he’s still in danger, Sammy. His brain recordings – but no, I’m not a neurologist, I shouldn’t try to draw conclusions.’

  ‘I just think he’ll be OK. Thing is – will be go back to his job or what?’

  ‘Long way ahead.’

  ‘Who else has been to see him?’

  ‘Just your grandfather and Judith.’

  ‘You know what? It just makes it really, really clear.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘About what I’m going to do.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘No, you didn’t, you left me to guess … which I can, obviously.’

  ‘I thought of going to uni and then doing a fast-track, but then, I could go straight in when I’m eighteen. I talked to the Chief about it.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me that either.’

  ‘Oh. Well, I did. I emailed him and he said to go and see him so I did. Obviously, if Uncle Si hadn’t been in here I’d have talked to him.’

  Cat looked at the boy who was poised between child and adulthood, now a seven-year-old, now a grown man, according to how he turned his head, the way he looked at her.

  ‘So … what’s the plan?’

  ‘Kieron
says uni.’

  ‘Did he ask him to call you that?’

  ‘Yes. So what do you think?’

  ‘Fine. It’s your future, Sam. Do you agree about university?’

  ‘I reckon.’

  ‘What would you read?’

  ‘English. Or English and history. Or just history.’

  ‘Where?’

  Sam shrugged. ‘Wherever they’ll have me. Can I have another Coke?’

  They went back to the room, before setting off home. No change. No change. Bipbipbipbip. Bleep. Bleep. Bleep. The nurse looked round.

  ‘The neuro consultant is around if you want a word.’

  They waited in the corridor, but when he appeared he led them into the relatives’ room.

  ‘No change,’ Cat said.

  ‘No, but that cuts both ways – no change for the worse either.’

  ‘I presume everything else will heal?’

  ‘Not my area but it seems likely everything will be fine bar his arm. The leg will recover though it will take a long time but the arm is still a major cause for concern. You’ll need to ask the orthopods about that. It’s a long road, either way.’

  ‘What’s your best bet?’

  ‘I never bet.’

  ‘No. I understand. Thanks.’

  ‘But you should keep coming to see him, keep talking to him, touching him … it’s surprising what’s registered. I’m an old-fashioned believer in the power of the familiar voice to work miracles in this sort of case.’

  ‘Come on,’ Sam said, ‘we’re going back.’ He led the way.

  No change. No change. Bipbipbipbip. Bleep. Bleep. Bleep.

  ‘Hi,’ Sam said, and put his hand firmly on Simon’s forearm. ‘It’s me, Sam. We’ll keep coming back to see you … as often as we can. I’ve got loads to tell you. Good about work and stuff. Cricket, erm, not so good this season. You won’t want to know. Only two people can come here at once, but maybe next time Mum will bring Hannah instead. She can yatter away to you. You’ll get so cheesed off you’ll wake up just to tell her to shut it. So … hang on in there, Uncle Si. Love you.’

  At the door, he said again, ‘Love you.’

  Cat put her hand on his shoulder as they went away down the corridor, but he only let it lie there until they were in the main concourse full of people, when he dodged away expertly and then over to the shop to buy yet another can of Coke.