Mercy

“I had a feeling she’d meet him because of their past relationship. I didn’t know if anything would come out of such a meeting.”

“And you hated her so much that you couldn’t bring yourself to tell her that you were alive?”

“I didn’t, I don’t think. I mean, I hated her when she turned a blind eye to the way Edgar treated me. But … toward the end … I think I’d forgiven her.”

“Then why didn’t you go to her? Tell her … tell her that you’d forgiven her?”

Alex had been hesitant to ask this. He was afraid that Nat would break completely if he had to confront the fact that he too had inflicted torment on Esther, just as Edgar and Burrow had on him. But Nat held it together and even smiled.

“Have you ever read the story ‘Wakefield’?”

“‘Wakefield’?”

“By another Nathaniel. Nathaniel Hawthorne. He’s the author I was talking about before — the one my name is a tribute to.”

“No, I haven’t read it. Wasn’t he the guy who wrote The Scarlet Letter?”?

Nat smiled at the almost philistine way Alex had put it.

“Yes, he was the guy who wrote The Scarlet Letter. Anyway, ‘Wakefield’ was a story about a man who left his wife for no discernable reason, stayed away for years with no contact whatsoever, and then went back.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. I mean, I do, but barely. I couldn’t possibly do justice to it. You’ll have to read it to understand it. But the point is by that stage I no longer knew why I was doing it. I just was. Yes, I blamed her for letting Edgar abuse me. But more importantly I wanted to make Burrow pay. And for that I had to stay hidden from public view. I couldn’t admit my identity to anyone … just in case word got out and blew my cover.”

Alex was making a sharp right followed by a sharp left as the road took them across a small gully. Alex felt the vehicle shake awkwardly and realized in that moment that the tires were losing pressure — had already lost a lot of pressure. He realized what must have happened at the road block. The cops had used Stop Sticks. That’s what he had gone over when he swerved onto the grass verge at the last second.

“It’s a pity you had to stay away like that,” said Alex. “If you’d met Burrow — toward the end — you might have seen him differently.” Alex saw the pained look on Nat’s face. “I’m not trying to mitigate what he did to you. But he had changed.”

“I know. I suppose that living in fear of death was punishment enough for him. But it’s like … in that moment when he raped me … I swore that he’d pay with his life. And even though I mellowed over the years, I didn’t mellow enough to let him live.”

“And what about Jonathan? You didn’t tell him either.”

“No, but he found out. That’s why he came to the office yesterday.”

“How did he find out, by the way?”

“They showed some footage of the two of us coming out of the Supreme Court after the certiorari hearing. That was when they were reporting Dusenbury’s offer.”

“Which you leaked.”

“Which I leaked. He thought he recognized me, but he wasn’t sure. That’s why he came to the office. He wanted to see me in person to make sure. But I wasn’t there so he hung round and ambushed Juanita when she went out for lunch. Then he walked her back to the office and that’s when he saw me. That was when he knew for sure.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No, but we locked eyes and I knew that he knew and he knew that I knew.”

“And is that how you got the spectator’s pass?”

“Exactly. Later during the day he tried to call me. He didn’t have my cell phone number so he called the office. But Juanita kept answering, so he kept hanging up. She thought it was a crank caller, so I said I’d answer. When I did, he spoke. He told me that we had to meet.”

“And is that why you had to go out?”

“Yes. We spoke again before that. I couldn’t talk to him when Juanita was round, but she went out a couple of times after that. We arranged that I’d come round at some point. I was actually outside, watching, when you left his place.”

“What, after he told me about killing Edgar?”

“Exactly. After you left, I went in and we talked over old times. And I…”

Nat had to stop. His eyes were welling up with tears again.

“It was like the burden of all the years was lifted off my shoulders. By that stage I was ready to tell Mom.” His voice was cracking now. “But I stupidly — stupidly- waited. I wanted to wait till after the execution.” He could only dam up the tears long enough to add one more sentence. “And now it’s too late!”

Alex tried to offer some words of comfort.

“I’m so … sorry. I wish…”

He trailed off. It was foolish to wish. You can’t take back what’s already happened. Life doesn’t offer many second chances.

And he knew that in life — once you make a choice at the fork in the road — you can never go back. He had learned that from Melody — and Nat had learned it from just about every major event in his troubled, painful life.

But the other thing that Alex had learned was that if it’s a mistake to make a snap decision on what to do, it’s an even bigger mistake to rush to judgement over a fellow human being.

“There’s one thing I still don’t understand. You didn’t just get me to take on the Clayton Burrow case. You badgered your way into my office before that … before I got the case. Why did you do that? Why didn’t you just try to get a job with the law firm that already had the case? They were a much bigger law firm. They were more likely to have a vacant position. Did you try them as well? Didn’t they have a vacancy? Or did you mailshot a load of firms and just strike it lucky with me?”

Through his tears, Nat turned slightly in Alex’s direction and opened his mouth to speak.

Then it happened.

Alex was at the curve that overlooked Gull Rock. He had to make a sharp right turn to take him away from the cliff face and then a hairpin turn to the left to take him back to the cliff face, which was shallower from then on.

But he never even made it to the hairpin turn. It may have been the tires. It may have been oil on the road. But when he made the sharp right turn he lost control of the car and it skidded off the road and onto a steep decline. At this point, the cliff was bare of foliage that might offer traction or friction.

Nat screamed, while Alex struggled frantically to regain control as he saw the car heading for that sheer drop onto the rocks below. Somehow he managed to hold it together for a split second, so they missed the sheer drop.

They skidded sideways onto a slightly shallower drop where some foliage offered a trace of resistance, but then the car bounced and started tumbling sideways down into a steep gully, bouncing every time the roof or wheels hit the foliage beneath them.

Their seat belts held them in place but, even before they hit the bottom, Alex could see blood oozing from Nat’s head from the impacts.

And then — completely inverted — they hit rock bottom amid a shattering of glass. The rocks and the ocean waves lapping away at them and water flooding into the vehicle.

Alex looked round and saw in the dim light that Nat was unconscious, or at least dazed into that semi- conscious twilight world that made even the most basic life-preserving actions impossible.

He quickly unfastened his own seat belt, falling out of his seat in the process and then frantically struggled to unfasten Nat’s. He caught Nat to stop him falling and hitting his head. Then it was an even more frantic struggle to