She shook her head. “No. I don’t report you.”
He seemed surprised. “Why? Don’t I deserve it?”
“I think that you’ve already been punished,” she said. “You resigned. You lost your position—and your reputation. You feel all this shame.” She paused, watching him, watching the effect of her words. “And anyway, if I reported you, or if I urged you to report yourself, it would merely lead to more proceedings against you. You’d be struck off the medical register. And I’m afraid that you would kill yourself.”
He said nothing. He did nothing to confirm or deny what she had said, and that convinced her that she was right. The question over which this man ponders, she thought, sitting in that chair of his, is whether to kill himself.
“I don’t think that you could take any more shaming, could you?”
He moved his head slightly, but it was assent.
“And if you kill yourself, then what purpose does that serve? Stella is left behind. Her life is ruined. And we all lose a man who had a good few useful years ahead of him. So—in my view—there’s no point at all in more punishment. There’s such a thing as a just measure of punishment, and I think you’ve had it.”
He watched her closely. “You don’t think that I’m responsible for that man’s death?”
“No,” said Isabel. “On balance, I don’t. Not in any sense that really counts. And I think that because you had no idea that what you did could kill somebody. In your…your arrogance, you thought that you knew best whether it was safe to do what you did. You betrayed your training, your oath, everything; but you didn’t think that it would kill anybody.”
“I didn’t,” he said quietly. “I really didn’t.”
“No,” said Isabel. “And I believe you.” She hesitated. He was watching her, willing her to say something; but what?
“What do you think you can do now to make up for all this?” she said.
He looked perplexed. “I don’t see what I can do.”
“Couldn’t you get back to medicine?” she asked. “Not here, obviously. But somewhere where they might be glad of your services. Somewhere where they really need you?”
He sat quite still. “I never thought…”
“No,” she said. “But why don’t you think now? Why don’t you set yourself a penance? Penance comes in different forms—not just the mortification of the transgressor. It comes in doing something good for somebody else.” It was ancient language; people did not set themselves penances anymore. But did that mean that penance was no longer needed? Here, she thought, is a case which disproves that. And it disproves, too, the proposition that I am capable of finding things out. I’m not. I get everything wrong.
She made to leave him, and he rose to his feet. There had been crumbs of food on his jacket, and they fell to the ground like tiny hailstones. He called for Stella, and began to walk with Isabel.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You don’t have to thank me,” she said. “I found nothing out, and what I did find out I got wrong.”
He smiled. This time it was not weak, nor was it forced. “But you gave me the chance to confess,” he said.
“I have no power to forgive. I am not a priest.”
“It is too late for a priest in my case,” he said. “I lost that comfort a long time ago.”
“Then you have to make do as best you can.”
He nodded. “You’ve told me what to do,” he said.
She wondered whether he would do it.
JAMIE AND CHARLIE were waiting for her in Johnston Terrace. Charlie stared up at her from the padded cocoon of his travel seat. But he looked away quickly, distracted by a glint of sun on a silver door handle within the car.
“So what happened?” asked Jamie.
“I found out that I was completely wrong,” said Isabel. “And you were too.”
It reassured her that she could embrace Jamie in her error. “I’m a hopeless sleuth,” she said. “I really am.” She thought, though, that perhaps that did not matter; she had a vague sense of having just saved a life, although she was not sure exactly how she had reached that point, and of course one does not think of such things. The moral account book, wherever it is—in some distant metaphysical databank, or just in the heart—should never be contemplated, or dwelt upon.
Jamie leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek. He felt so fond of her; he loved her so, this interfering woman, this flawed but noble soul. “You always seem to sort things out,” he said. “Even if you get it all wrong, you sort things out.”
“You can do the right thing for the wrong reason, I suppose,” said Isabel. “Eliot says something about that, doesn’t he?”
“He might,” said Jamie. “He said all sorts of things.”
Isabel laughed. “Name one.”
It was a direct challenge. “ ‘A cold coming we had of it,’ ” said Jamie.
“ ‘Just the worst time of the year for a journey,’ ” continued Isabel. “ ‘And such a long journey.’ ”
Jamie laughed. “ ‘I will show you fear in a handful of dust.’ And that’s all the Eliot I know. Remember, I’m just
