Me Before You: a novel

part.
Mr. Traynor had indicated unequivocally that he wished to
commit suicide.
Mr. Traynor’s disability was severe and incurable.
The actions of those accompanying Mr. Traynor were of only
minor assistance or influence.
The actions of those accompanying Mr. Traynor may be
characterized as reluctant assistance in the face of a
determined wish on the part of the victim.
All parties involved have offered every assistance to the police
investigating this case.
Given these facts as outlined, the previous good character of all
parties, and the evidence enclosed, I would advise that it does not
serve the public interest to pursue a prosecution in this case.

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I suggest that if and when any public statement is made to this
effect, the Director of Public Prosecutions makes it clear that the
Traynor case sets no kind of precedent, and that the CPS will
continue to judge each case on its individual merits and
circumstances.
With best wishes
Sheilagh Mackinnon
Crown Prosecution Service

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Epilogue
September 29
I was just following instructions.
I sat in the shadow of the dark-green café awning, staring down
the length of the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, the tepid sun of a
Parisian autumn warming the side of my face. In front of me the
waiter had, with Gallic efficiency, deposited a plate of croissants and
a large cup of filter coffee. A hundred yards down the street two
cyclists stopped near the traffic lights and struck up a conversation.
One wore a blue backpack from which two large baguettes poked at
odd angles. The air, still and muggy, held the scents of coffee and
patisserie and the acrid tang of someone’s cigarettes.
I finished Treena’s letter (she would have called, she said, but
she couldn’t afford the overseas charges). She had finished at the
top of her class in Accountancy 2 and had a new boyfriend,
Sundeep, who was trying to decide whether to work for his dad’s
import-export business outside Heathrow and had even worse taste
in music than she did. Thomas was excited about moving up a class
at school. Dad was still going great guns at his job, and sent his love.
She was pretty confident that Mum would forgive me soon. She
definitely got your letter, she said. I know she read it. Give her time.
I took a sip of my coffee, briefly transported to Renfrew Road and
a home that seemed a million miles away. I thought about the letter I
had received from Mrs. Traynor a week earlier. “I suspect
desperation may have made me ungracious,” she had written. “But I
want you to know that I will always be grateful for your efforts,
Louisa. I am comforted by the thought that Will had someone he
could be honest with. I know you miss him as desperately as I do.” I
sat and squinted a little against the low sun, watching a woman in
sunglasses adjust her hair in the mirror of a shop window. She

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pursed her lips at her reflection, straightened up a little, and then
continued her path down the road.
I put down the cup, took a deep breath, and then picked up the
other letter, the letter that I had carried around with me for almost six
weeks now.
On the front of the envelope, in typed capitals, it said, under my
name:
ONLY TO BE READ IN THE CAFÉ MARQUIS,
RUE DES FRANCS BOURGEOIS, ACCOMPANIED BY
CROISSANTS AND A LARGE CAFÉ CRÈME.
I had laughed, even as I wept, on first reading the envelope—
typical Will, bossy to the last.
The waiter—a tall, brisk man with a dozen bits of paper sticking
out of the top of his apron—turned back and caught my eye. All