The Sacrificial Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

if specialist treatment or therapy is required as part of any sentence. If any issues are pertinent, such as alcohol or drug misuse, any past trauma that may require counselling, anger management, sex offender therapy, anything like that.”
“Well, none of those apply.” Surely she can see that? “I rarely drink and don’t touch drugs. And I’m no sex offender.” She remains maddeningly silent, watching me carefully.
“Any mental health needs will also be considered, in conjunction with the psychiatric assessment ordered by the court. It’ll be completed by Dr Gregg, who’ll decide if you require treatment after he visits you. And if the judge feels you need a custodial sentence, his report may send you to a secure hospital rather than prison.” My hand stills on my cup, the only warmth as my body turns cold. Prison? “It may be possible to consider a community order, which could include a variety of conditions. I’ll go through my proposal with you before the sentence date, when the report is finished. But in order to write it, Alice, I need to ask you some questions.”
How can she carry on as if she hasn’t said that word? I can’t go to prison. Something hot rises in my chest and I want to shout, ‘How dare you suggest such a thing? I’ve done nothing wrong!’
“Alice?”
I fight my anger down. “More questions. I had enough of those from the police. And during the court hearing.” I can’t even pretend a smile now.
“I know that. I appreciate that you’ve said a lot already, but not to me. And I’m not here to interrogate you. You’ve already been convicted, and the fact that you pleaded guilty will go in your favour. The question now is how you should be sentenced. I want to know more about why David Jenkins killed himself in your home. How did it come to that? And I need to know more about you, Alice. Mariani’s an unusual name.”
“It’s Italian.” I stand, remove the cups and turn my back.
“Is that where your parents are from?”
“No. They’re Suffolk natives. But that’s not who gave me my name. Their surname is Dunn. It was mine, too, until I turned sixteen.”
“So you changed it?”
Is this what I have to do to be free? Purge my soul to a stranger? “That’s right. Wouldn’t you, with an ugly surname like that? I changed it to my mother’s surname. My mother had a beautiful name. Matilde Mariani. Taking her name seemed important at the time. I was going through that predictable teenage thing of rejecting those who love you. I know it hurt my adoptive parents, even if they pretended to understand. Now I think it was irrelevant, what was I trying to prove? Changing my name wasn’t going to change the past.”
“But you say it was important to you at the time. Was it a search for identity?”
“Nothing so meaningful, I’m sure. I was barely more than a baby when I was adopted, just a child. It’s so long ago, it feels unreal. It’s like a story I made up.”
I look into the garden, now in darkness. She nods, an acknowledgment that settles in the space between us.
As a lecturer I’m used to speaking to an audience, and I pull my shoulders back. I mustn’t show my fear. “What do you want me to tell you?”
She thinks, looks at her notes. “Can I ask you about your adoption?”
“Is it relevant? What can my being adopted have to do with Smith’s suicide?”
“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”
“That’s very cryptic. You’re asking me to bare my soul on the basis of a possible connection?”
“Everything is connected,” she says, evenly. “The difficult bit is working out how. An adoption is a major event. It must have been traumatic for you.”
“Not really. I was so young. I was adopted by a couple who wanted me. As long as you’re wanted, what difference can genetics make?”
Cate Austin leans back. She puts down her pen, and holds her hands in her lap. “I think we both know it isn’t as simple as that. It seems to me, Alice, that you have a choice.