Reflections
Page 26
Daniel said softly, “Say something. Please say something.”
Brodie didn’t know what to say. She’d known something was racking him. Knowing what it was hadn’t, as she’d hoped, put everything right. Instead, for a moment the rules of physics seemed to have been suspended. She felt as if she were turning inside out, the resilient core that was her sense of identity, of knowing who she was and how the world fitted round her, seeping out through her pores.
Daniel did that? Daniel?
But why was she appalled? She knew what those children were, for God’s sake they tried to kill her! When she thought they’d killed themselves what she mostly felt was. Fair enough. Back on the bridge she’d prayed for them jump as soon as possible, before Daniel could take responsibility for their deaths. And now? Clearly at least some of the responsibility was his. How much? And how much did it alter how she felt about what happened, about him? She didn’t know. She didn’t know.
“Brodie? Anything. Please/’
There was all the difference in the world between wanting something to happen, hoping it would happen, even praying for it, and taking steps to bring it about. It wasn’t murder, he hadn’t pushed them; but he’d pushed them into it.
She found a voice, even if it was one she barely recognised as her own. “You knew what would happen. You took away their last reason to live. You made them jump.”
He shook his head miserably. “I’d have saved them if I could. I couldn’t. The only one I had a chance of saving was Peris, and that was the only way I could see.”
“You weren’t concerned that the price was too high?”
“Concerned!” His voice broke on despair. “Brodie, they were going to kill her! She’d never done them any harm, but they were going to kill her just to make a point. And then they were going to kill themselves. If I’d done nothing, all three of them would be dead. But Peris is alive. I think—I think—her life is my justification.”
“Justification?” It came out half a snort, half a sob. “I dare
say it is. I dare say a court would think so. Jack wants you to know, incidentally, that there’s no question of that. As far as he’s concerned the matter’s closed.”
Daniel’s eyes on her face were hollow and hot. “You think I care about that? About what a court might think? About what Jack thinks? Brodie, you know me better than that! I did what I thought was right. After that, the only opinion I care about is yours.”
“Why?” she demanded angrily. “You don’t need my approval. Why does it matter to you what I think?”
“It always matters to me what you think,” he said simply.
Just in time Brodie tasted the tartness of her retort and bit it back. Why was she trying to punish him? If she knew one thing about Daniel Hood, it was that he was more than capable of punishing himself for transgressions, actual or only perceived. If he thought he’d got something this wrong he would crucify himself. She’d always thought she was the pragmatic one in their partnership. Daniel was gentler than her, truer than her—but also less likely to take the path of least resistance than anyone she knew.
He hadn’t acted as he had because it was the easy option. He’d believed there was no alternative. Brodie had known as soon as she saw them on the bridge that the girls would jump. She couldn’t have saved them and Daniel couldn’t. He had found a way to save Peris. If it had been Brodie on the bridge the woman would have died too. But when she tried to say that, even in her own head it sounded like a criticism. She hated the tiny, insistent voice deep inside her calling him a murderer.
This wasn’t why she was here, and it certainly wasn’t why Deacon had sent her. He’d been worried about Daniel wrestling with his conscience alone. Well, he wasn’t alone any more: now he was having to defend himself against the one person he might have expected to understand. Or, in the absence of understanding, to take his part anyway. Because that’s what friends do: support one
another, even when the cause is questionable, out of sheer love.
Daniel was in pain and she wanted to comfort him. She wanted to tell him that everything was all right. And she couldn’t. She’d have lied, happily, if she’d thought she could get away with it. But this was Daniel, and he’d know if she lied, and her lies would hurt him more than the truth. More than the silence.
She tried to explain. “I know you did what you believed was best. By any rational assessment it was. If you’d done anything else, three people would be dead now instead of two—one of them a woman who wanted to live and didn’t deserve to die.”
Daniel’s voice was so low it was barely audible. “But you don’t believe it.”
For most of her life Brodie had been a polite, compliant sort of person. She’d yielded to pressure, turned the other cheek, made peace not war, tried to meet other people’s expectations. When the reward for all this was to have her husband leave her for another woman, she changed. Radically Now when she was pushed she pushed back; even when it was least appropriate.
“What do you want from me, Daniel?” she demanded harshly. “Forgiveness? You don’t need it. Not mine, not anyone’s. You did what you thought was necessary. Jack thinks it was necessary too, and I’m damn sure Peris does. All right: if it had been my decision maybe I’d have made it differently. Maybe I’d have watched all of them die rather than choose who was to live. But it wasn’t mine, it was yours. What matters is that you can live with it.”
That came out more brutal than she intended. She wished now she’d settled for a soothing lie. Even if he suspected it might have been less painful than the naked truth.
She shook her head wearily. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure I understand it myself. My brain knows they weren’t capable of being saved. But my heart and my womb say that a child is
a child, you have to fight for the worst of them. I think you were probably right. I feel you were wrong.”
Brodie knew she was twisting the knife in his side. She felt dreadful. But in the moment of her death Johnny had managed a last act of malice: she’d thrown up a wall between them. And the wall was growing, and already Brodie couldn’t see over it or past it, and she was afraid it would be there between them forever.
She didn’t dare ask what Daniel was thinking. She couldn’t look at him. She thought she was losing him, and it mattered more than she would have thought possible, and still there seemed to be nothing she could offer, neither lies nor the truth, to heal the rift.
On the whole, when he wasn’t actively infuriating them, people liked Daniel Hood, but they always thought he was weak. He was small and fair, with an amiable expression behind thick glasses, and there was something childlike about his enthusiasms, his thought-processes, even his obstinacies.
But Brodie knew him better than most. She knew he was stronger than he looked. Strong enough to hold his own course almost regardless of what the elements threw at him. She hoped desperately that he’d be strong enough now: that when he got over the horror he’d believe in the Tightness of his decision firmly enough not to need her validation. She could accept what he’d done if that was enough for him, if he could manage without her approval. She had no way of knowing if that was possible.
For the longest time they stayed where they were, not speaking, leaning against the car, side by side, no part of his body touching hers, gazing numbly out to sea. Finally Brodie sighed brokenly. “Oh, Daniel.”
“I know,” he murmured.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JO BANNISTER started her career as a journalist after leaving school at sixteen to work on a local weekly newspaper. Shortlisted for several prestigious awards, she was editor of the Country Down Spectator for some years before leaving to pursue her writing full time. Reflections is the third in her series of mysteries featuring Brodie Farrell that began with Echoes of Lies and True Witness. She lives in Northern Ireland.
REFLECTIONS
Copyright © 2003 by Jo Bannister. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of Ameri
ca. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bannister, Jo.
Reflections : a novel of suspense / Jo Bannister.
p. cm.
ISBN0-312-31938-X
1. Farrell, Brodie (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women private investigators—England—Fiction. 3. Missing persons—Fiction. 4. England—Fiction. 5. Orphans—Fiction.
I. Title. PR6052.A497R34 2003 2003058700
First published in Great Britain by Allison and Busby Limited
First St. Martin's Minotaur Edition: December 2003
10 987654321