Chapter 1 #2
‘Here we go again.’ Meg grimaced, as they all moved to follow Isla, and all Eve could do was nod mutely.
Here they went again, indeed, facing another incident when someone’s life might have been changed forever, even destroyed.
It never got any easier facing up to these moments, but Eve had to do it if she was going to be able to carry on doing her job.
And sometimes, just lately, it felt as if being a doctor in A bringing about her son’s complete recovery, getting Brandon Moorcroft’s case reviewed to ensure he was assigned with a sentence she considered ‘just’, and persuading her daughter to move back home.
Only the last of those had a possibility of happening, and based on the messages Eve had received from Lily, even that was very remote.
Brandon Moorcroft had been sentenced to three years.
Eve had to agree with Annie and Max’s father, Nigel, that it wasn’t nearly long enough.
But Brandon had been high on methamphetamine after the breakdown of his relationship, and seemingly not just repentant but distraught at the damage he had caused.
His barrister had offered up a defence centring around his difficult childhood as mitigation for his behaviour, and his former partner as the one solid presence in his life.
When she’d left, he’d unravelled, and Max had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It couldn’t excuse what Moorcroft had done, but it did impact on the sentencing, and they’d all been distraught when his prison term was handed out.
In the early days it had felt as if the injustice of it all would eat Eve alive, and she could see it doing the same thing to Annie.