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He offered her his arm. It was an oddly old-fashioned gesture for these modern times, and yet it felt right. She took it and they walked out onto the grass and along the lawn. There was no sound except the after-sunset breeze whispering in the poplars.
“I don’t want to interfere in Daniel’s case,” he said when they were halfway to the far end of the grass. “It’s an agreement between us that I don’t.”
“I know,” she said. “He told me.”
“But I’m worried,” he continued. “It’s a delicate balance. If I offer advice, he’ll refuse. If I do so without his asking, he’ll resent it, even if it actually helps.”
There was gentle amusement in her voice. “It’s not difficult to imagine how you feel. Cassie’s only three, and she gets cross if I do something to help her when she thinks she can do it by herself. Funnily enough, she’ll let Patrick help, usually.”
“Yes, you were the same,” Pitt observed.
“Was I?” She was surprised. “I don’t remember. At least, not many things. I remember pulling weeds…”
“You were helping me,” he pointed out.
She said nothing, but he could tell she was smiling, even though he could see only the outline of her face, the line of her cheek.
“Can I collect on that now?” she asked.
“Anytime,” he replied.
There was another silence for several moments. The air smelled of the warm earth and something sweet. Perhaps it was the late roses covering the wall.
He was tempted to say something, but managed not to.
“I’m just afraid Patrick’s loyalty is preventing him from seeing anything that’s going to hurt him in the end,” she started. “Or Daniel.”
“It’s to do with this Philip Sidney case?”
“Yes.”
“Sweetheart, if you take sides, you’re bound to get hurt sometimes. The only thing worse is not to take sides in anything and stand apart from life, always on the edge, never part of it.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” She did not ask with anger, but rather, ruefully.
“What are you really afraid of? That they are on different sides, and one of them is going to get badly hurt? You want somehow to stand between them?”
“In part,” she admitted.
“Then what else?”
“That there’s something else behind it that’s really bad, and they can’t find it—maybe that it will never be found—and they’ll know they missed it for all the wrong reasons: too busy trying not to hurt each other…or not to be right, without it costing,” she hesitated. “Or to be right, without it costing…I don’t know what.”
“It’s going to happen sometime,” her father pointed out. “Maybe not between them, but with someone. Cases that can wound people you know, perhaps badly, are always going to be hard. And one way or another, you’re going to know a lot of people. If you don’t see it at the beginning of the case, you will by the end.”
“Did you get a lot of cases like that?” she asked gently.
He looked away, his face toward the slight breeze. “A fair few.”
“Did any of your friends make bad mistakes? I’m not asking who.”
“We all make mistakes, Jem. It’s how we live with them afterward that matters. Accept that we really were wrong; don’t make excuses or blame anyone else. The moment you say ‘I was wrong’ you can begin to move on.”
“Do you think Patrick’s wrong?”
“I have no idea. I know little about the Philip Sidney case. Do you want me to find out?”
She waited a long time before she replied. “Yes, please. I think so. Daniel asked the same questions Patrick did. Why did the Foreign Office charge Sidney with the embezzlement? Why not just demand he pay the money back and get rid of him? This is going to be a horrible embarrassment to the government. And, of course, if they drag out the assault—”
