Eeny Meeny

41

Everyone was surprised when Peter Brightston suddenly announced he was returning to work. His fellow partners had urged him to take three months off – six if he wanted – motivated in part by concern, but more by the fear of how people would react to having him back. Peter was boorish, but people were basically fond of him, if only because he knew the law inside out.

But he had stabbed Ben. Killed a colleague. And there was nothing in the HR manual about how to deal with that. The sense was that he wasn’t going to be charged – the police had been coy but intimated that it was some kind of terrible accident. And Peter had toed that line, failing to give any of them the details they craved yet feared.

When he turned up after a few weeks’ rest and recuperation, it was against the advice of his doctors and counsellors. But Peter was determined – January was always a busy month for them – and what could they do? Oust him when he hadn’t been charged with anything? End his twenty-year association with the practice and throw him on the scrap heap because of an accident? The truth was no one knew what to do, so predictably they did nothing.

He arrived first thing on a Monday morning. Prompt as always. The office was strangely hushed that day, as Peter sent a few emails and made the odd cup of coffee. But no one had scheduled meetings with him – ease yourself back in gently, Peter – and his colleagues soon found excuses to shoot off to the Bournemouth office, or take a client out on a long lunch. After all the build-up to his return, the polite enquiries about his health and well-being only lasted half an hour and then it was back to normal.

Except for the empty chair. Ben’s post hadn’t been filled – the funeral had only just taken place after all – so his desk and chair sat vacant. His personal effects had been bagged up and returned to his fiancée, so the whole work station looked naked. An empty hole where a life had once been.

It was in Peter’s eye-line. It was in everyone’s eye-line. An insistent reminder of what had happened. Everyone – from management down to the canteen workers – had expected it to be hard for Peter. What no one expected was that, at 3.30 p.m. on his first day back, Peter would head up to the office roof, shout his wife’s name, then jump over the safety rail to his death.