My Husband's Wife(73)

Furious, Carla bought another. These English! Robbers! All of them.

Still, Lincoln’s Inn was even more beautiful than the pictures on the Internet. For a moment, Carla stood and marvelled at the tall buildings with their big sash windows and wide window ledges. Despite being in the middle of London, it felt like the countryside with those beautiful squares and neatly clipped hedges. That building over there with its domed roof reminded her of the Basilica in Florence, where she had gone once on a school trip.

To her relief, she found Larry’s chambers quite easily thanks to the directions she’d written down from Google.

‘May I help you?’ asked a woman at the desk.

‘I would like to make an appointment with Mr L— I mean Mr Tony Gordon.’

The girl gave her a questioning stare. ‘Are you a solicitor?’

‘Not exactly. I used to know Mr Gordon and would like to get in touch again.’

The stare grew cooler. ‘Then I suggest you email one of the clerks. He will pass on your message.’ She pushed across a compliments slip. ‘Here are the details.’

‘But I need to see Mr Gordon now. It’s important.’

‘I’m afraid it’s impossible. Now I am going to have to ask you to leave.’

The voice was no longer cool. It was angry and firm. Determined not to show her embarrassment, Carla walked out, her head high. Then she found a cafe with Wi-Fi and composed a brief message.

Dear Tony,

You might remember me from some years ago. I am in the UK now and have a message to pass on to you from my mother Francesca.

Kind regards,

Carla



That will do. Polite and to the point. Personally, Carla didn’t share her mother’s hopes that Larry, or rather Tony, might miss her. But with any luck, he might agree to see Carla. If nothing else, she might be able to extract some guilt money from him.

Now for the next two tasks on her list. Registration at the college, near a station called Goodge Street, was far more successful. Everyone was so friendly! Lectures would start tomorrow. Did she have the reading list that had been emailed out during the summer? Yes? Good. There was a freshers’ drinks party tonight. It would be a way to meet people.

But, Carla told herself as she headed for the Tube again, she had more important things to do.





27


Lily


I wait until after the innocent verdict before making the call. The lorry driver case was tight. The other side had produced film of the ‘victim’: a happy, laughing teenager on her bike. It had almost swayed the women on the jury, most of whom had children.

But not quite.

‘Thank you.’ The lorry driver’s wife flings her arms around me outside the courtroom. ‘I thought we were going to lose at one point.’

So did I, although I’d never admit it. Drugs. Drink. It’s usually one or the other that leads to the cells or death. That memory of the Highgate pub still haunts my mind. It’s why I don’t touch alcohol any more.

‘We’re going to go out now and celebrate,’ says the lorry driver’s wife, glancing up adoringly at her husband. ‘Aren’t we, love?’

But the lorry driver, like me, is looking across the marble-floored foyer at the middle-aged couple who are silently holding each other. The woman’s head is against her husband’s chest. As if sensing our gaze, she turns and gives me such a look that I doubt the very existence of my soul.

‘I’m sorry,’ I want to say. ‘I’m sorry for your loss. Most of all I’m sorry that your memory of your daughter has been tainted for ever. But justice has to be done.’

Then she walks up to me and I brace myself. This is an intelligent family. Much was made of this in court. The father is a professor. The mother spent her life bringing up her children. Luckily there are three more. But loss makes human beings into animals, as I have discovered.

The lorry driver’s wife gasps as an arc of spit hits me straight in the face. It’s directed not at the lorry driver but at me. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself,’ hisses the bereaved mother.

I wipe the spittle off my cheek with the handkerchief that I keep especially for this purpose. It’s not the first time this has happened. And it won’t be the last. The woman’s husband is taking her away now, casting me baleful looks.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the lorry driver. His eyes are wet.

I shrug. ‘It’s all right.’

But it’s not. And we both know it. Thanks to an anonymous tip-off (you’d be surprised how often this happens), I was able to name the dealer supplying drugs to the teenager who had ridden her bike into the lorry driver’s path. If it weren’t for that, we couldn’t have established that the cyclist was a regular user, which in turn contributed to her degree of culpability.

Justice has been done. It doesn’t always look like you’d expect. But there is always a price to be paid.

I walk down the steps and into the bracing wind outside. It’s another world out here, I remind myself as I cross the road towards the park, narrowly avoiding a cyclist without a helmet. A world where I can choose to bin Tony’s piece of paper with Joe Thomas’s number on it.

Or ring it.

We have to have closure. It’s a phrase I hear again and again from my clients. Even if the verdict is guilty, they need to get rid of this sword hanging over their heads. I thought I’d got rid of mine. But every time I receive one of those birthday cards I realize I can’t escape. And now I have a phone number.