Читать книгу Good Bad Woman - Elizabeth Woodcraft - Страница 6

The phone on my desk rang. I licked my fingers, moved my cream cheese and tomato sandwich and picked up the receiver.

‘Frankie, I know you said you wanted to do paperwork tomorrow, but Davidson’s have just rung. Kay’s got a quick in-and-out job for tomorrow morning that she wants you to do. She’s faxing the papers through. It’s at Highbury Corner Mags.’

I groaned. A quick in-and-out at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court was a contradiction in terms and Gavin, my clerk, knew that very well. Then again, if Kay Davidson wanted me in particular there might be something interesting in it.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘Drunk and disorderly.’

‘Drunk and – Gavin! I’m meant to be doing those appeal papers in Morris. We’re nearly out of time.’

‘She said it was important.’

‘Oh, what, important that someone regularly in the Court of Appeal should return to the magistrates’ court?’

‘Someone regularly where?’

‘All right, someone who would like to be regularly in the Court of Appeal. Someone of nearly ten years call –’

‘Who is charming and eager to help out a clerk in distress …’ Gavin was playing the game in his gruff, cockney accent.

‘Someone who has been at the Bar for nine years, and who may well be charming and eager to help out a clerk in distress but who has, it should be remembered, forgotten most of the crime she ever knew – you are saying it is important that she should do this case?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Isn’t there anyone else?’ I wheedled. In the pause that followed I knew Gavin was pretending to look at the computer screen to see what everyone else in chambers was doing the next day. He liked Kay. If she had asked for me, he would make sure she got me.

‘No,’ he said. There’s no one else.’

‘All right, Gavin, I will do it. But if I’m not out of court by half past eleven you will seriously regret it.’

‘You say the sweetest things,’ he said. I replaced the receiver and picked up my cup of tea.

My phone rang again. I spilt tea on my sandwich as I answered it.

Gavin said cheerfully, ‘I’ve got Kay on the line, to have a word about tomorrow.’

‘OK.’ I pushed the briefs on my desk out of the way of some insistent drips of tea and looked for something to make notes on. I found a piece of paper that looked suspiciously as if it had been on my desk for some time. I read ‘FR ring Dr Henry’ and a number with a Brighton code, and promised myself I would do it as soon as I had spoken to Kay. Gavin put her through.

‘Frankie, I’m sorry about this case.’

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought, as I dabbed at the tea by the desk calendar.

‘It’s just that it’s an old client of yours.’ She paused. ‘It’s Saskia.’

‘Saskia! My God, Saskia.’

I hadn’t seen Saskia for at least five years. Tall, blonde, lovely Saskia. She had large grey eyes and a wide friendly smile with perfect teeth. I’d represented her on several occasions when she’d been arrested after demonstrations. We’d had some good results, mainly due to that charming smile. She made you think of full cream milk and welfare orange juice, as my mum would say. She was in fact more a child of the seventies and eighties, rebelling against the Conservative government.

‘What is Saskia doing being charged with drunk and disorderly? I would have thought a little marijuana was more her thing.’

‘I don’t know. She rang me from the police station. She sounded in quite a state.’

‘What time was she arrested?’ I began making notes.

‘Half past two this afternoon.’

‘Half past two! Where?’

‘Balls Pond Road. Outside the sofa factory.’

‘I can’t believe this. What was she doing in Islington? I thought she lived in Manchester now.’

‘I don’t know any more about that than you do. It was a very short phone call,’ Kay said. ‘The last I saw of her was at one of those women’s sixties evenings at Camden Town Hall. That was years ago.’

‘Do you mean THE women’s sixties evening, where you and I … ?’

‘Yes.’

I snorted. That must have been seven years ago, almost to the month. Kay and I had had our final, noisy, passionate argument at the back of the hall when she refused to dance to ‘Get Ready’ by the Temptations. She said you couldn’t dance to that beat, whereas anyone with half an ear for music … but don’t get me started. Kay and I hadn’t spoken to each other for nearly a year after that night, and since she was a criminal solicitor and I had stopped doing crime shortly after, we had rarely spoken since.

‘What’s in the brief then?’ I said professionally.

‘That’s about it, actually.’

‘And I assume this is a freebie.’ I tried not to sound calculating.

‘We’d never get Legal Aid for it.’ Did she breathe deeply before saying, ‘How about I take you out to supper to make up for it?’

‘When?’ I asked.

‘When you like.’ She was expansive. ‘How about tonight?’

Mentally I surveyed the contents of my fridge. Olives and semi-skimmed milk would test the powers of the best TV chef. I put majesty into my voice: ‘All right, where?’

‘What do you want to eat?’

‘Italian?’ I ventured.

‘There’s a good Korean restaurant near here.’

‘I said Italian.’

‘I know you did.’

I wondered who had stood her up. I could hear the olives calling me, pathetically, tragically. The milk, I knew, was sour.

‘Chinese?’ I was willing to compromise. I always had been. There was silence. ‘I don’t want to eat Korean,’ I complained. ‘The only thing I like are those flowers carved out of carrots and turnips, and you can’t eat those.’

She sniffed.

‘Think Italian,’ I continued. ‘Think of red wine and garlic and crusty bread and a cheerful companion. We can go to that place on Upper Street and you can drive me home after.’

‘I’ll see you there at seven.’ I didn’t like her resigned tone of voice. ‘I’ll bring your brief,’ she added.

‘And your happy face,’ I pleaded. I put the phone down and said, ‘Damn.’ I’d been so close to getting through a phone call with Kay without whingeing. I began dabbing Tipp-Ex over the tea stains on the instructions to prepare Mrs Morris’s notice of appeal.

I always forget where Gino’s is and I got off the bus at the wrong stop just as it began to rain. When I arrived at the restaurant I was very wet. And late. I was not cheerful.

As I opened the door, warmth, candlelight and the smell of garlic embraced me.

‘Buona sera, signora,’ Gino bustled up, his hair a new alarming shade of aubergine. ‘Comment allez-vous? Very very wet, I see. Table for … ?’

I looked round the room. Kay was late too.

‘Two.’

‘And some vino tinto, signora? Asseyez-vous.’ He put me next to the huge open fireplace.

‘Yes.’ I was puzzled. Kay was never late. I sat down, absently giving Gino my dripping coat. My long black jacket, bought expensively from Ede & Ravenscroft, suppliers of wigs and robes to the legal profession, was wet too. I took it off and hung it on the back of the chair. My trousers would have to stay where they were. It was my favourite court outfit, and I was pleased I was wearing it when Kay suggested going out. I always liked how I looked in it, slick but professional. Except that at the moment I looked slick like a wet rodent looks slick. And so much for my fabulous new haircut – my lowlights had slid into my highlights and they all looked just wet. In the back of the spoon I could see spikes of my long fringe sticking damply to my forehead.

Perhaps her car had broken down in the rain, although that was unlikely. She always had a new car; being a successful solicitor, it was a business car. I was still driving my L-reg Renault. Not that I’m bitter, but she wouldn’t have got where she is today without me. I was the one who sat up with her at nights testing her on criminal procedure and client/solicitor relations. Huh!

Perhaps she hadn’t come because she’d had a better offer. She had done that to me before, but not for seven years, and she was meant to be bringing me my brief. Kay would never be unprofessional in that way, she’d never leave me without a brief. Although, as she had said, there was nothing in the brief. It would be merely a piece of white paper with a pink ribbon round it. My instructions would be: ‘Counsel will do her best.’

The red wine came. I ordered some garlic bread. To hell with what it did to my stomach.

She didn’t come.

It was eight o’clock. I didn’t have my mobile with me – I wondered whether I’d left it plugged into the charger – so Gino let me use the phone on the bar and I rang her office. The answerphone wasn’t on. I thought about ringing my flat to pick up my messages but I couldn’t remember my secret code number. I rang Kay’s home, she still lived in the small Victorian house in Stamford Hill which we had shared during our relationship, and left a concerned and only slightly irritated message. I ordered spaghetti à l’amatriciana and my clothes and my hair began to dry. The house red which Gino had poured solicitously into a large glass was soft and full and tasted almost as if I was in Italy. And as I sat, steaming gently by the fire, waiting for my pasta, I thought nostalgically back to me and Kay on our last holiday in a tent in Tuscany.

I had just passed my final exams – yes, OK, she had done her bit and had tested me on revenue and trusts – and she had just been taken on by a law centre in North London. We were both very pleased with ourselves and bursting with success and ambition. The weather in Tuscany was glorious and we visited wonderful cities and ate fabulous food. Then, on our last night, as we walked back to the tent after a silent meal in a small restaurant, she told me our relationship was over. As I stumbled along the grass verge trying to take in what she was saying, she told me she wanted her freedom. We both needed different things, she said, at this new time in our lives. We had had five good years and now we should move on. I assumed that she’d met someone she fancied at her interview.

Of course, the trouble with being on holiday in a tent is that you can’t put physical distance between you. We crept into our individual sleeping bags, but by the first light of day we were in each other’s arms for warmth. By the time we got to the airport we had reconciled, and we bought joint olive oil and sun-dried tomatoes in the duty-free shop. The relationship had limped along for another eighteen months until the night of the women’s sixties do when she had gone home with a woman who probably thought ‘Green Onions’ was something you threw out of your kitchen cupboard.

Gino brought me my pasta. ‘Everything OK, signora?’ he asked, concern filling his soft, round face.

I probably would have burst into tears but I took a mouthful of my food and nearly choked on the chilli.

‘Everything’s fine, great,’ I said, breathing in.

I drank almost the whole bottle of wine. Kay had still not appeared and I was worried.

I asked Gino if he could bring the bill and check again whether anyone had rung me. He went to confer with the chef and brought over my damp coat and the bill with a sad shake of his head.

It was still raining and cars hissed by me as I walked back to the tube. I felt peculiar and it wasn’t the effects of the alcohol or the mix of red wine, garlic bread and green salad. Upper Street was almost deserted and as I approached Highbury Corner, with the little alleyways leading off and the dark looming pub on the corner, the strangeness increased so that if anyone had asked me I would have said that I thought I was being followed. Just by the bus stops someone behind me coughed, but when I turned round there was no one there.

A taxi was passing on the other side of the street. I shouted at it, gesticulating, and narrowly avoided being crushed by a number 19 bus as I ran across the road.

The driver had to go some way in the wrong direction before he could turn off for Stoke Newington and I was pleased. When we got to the house I asked him to wait until I’d got inside the front door before he drove off.

I walked into my ground-floor flat and locked the door behind me. The timer had already switched on the lamp in the living room, filling the room with a pale light. Everything looked normal. The flashing red light of my answering machine on the floor, the Guardian draped over the couch where I had left it last night and a pile of papers marked ‘Return to solicitors NOW’ waiting patiently on the old comfy armchair. A used wine glass, mine, and a half-drunk cup of tea, also mine, sat together on the dark wood coffee table, next to the remote control for the TV. Everything was normal.

I played my messages. My mum, laughing, leaving me her name and number like the machine had asked her to, just saying hello. Dr Henry’s secretary primly asking me to ring the doctor at my earliest convenience. And then Kay. Her voice was strained.

‘Frankie, it’s me. It’s, em, a quarter to seven. I … I just went out of the office to get some cigarettes and when I got back the place had been burgled. I’ve rung the police. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant to ring you there. I’m sorry I shan’t make it. Hope you get this in time. I’ll … I’ll speak to you.’

There was a beep and then it was Kay again, sounding more relaxed. ‘You’re still not home. Don’t you ever take your mobile with you?’

I silently answered an outraged ‘sometimes’ as I noticed my phone in its smart black jacket sticking up sadly between the two cushions of the sofa.

‘I hope you’re having something nice to eat,’ the message went on, ‘and you haven’t given yourself indigestion. It’s nine o’clock. The police took ages. I had to buy some more cigarettes. Ring me when you get in.’

And finally Lena. Lena was my Best Friend.

‘Hi, Fran. Just to remind you about tomorrow evening. The film starts at six forty. The reviews say it’s absolutely fab. Ring me soon. Night.’

I really wanted to ring Lena, but I knew I ought to ring Kay because she had my brief.

She answered the phone immediately.

‘They made such a mess of it,’ she said. ‘All my files everywhere. But no one else’s. And they didn’t even take any money. They scratched the cash box but didn’t open it, or even take it, which they could have done.’

‘Perhaps they were baby burglars and didn’t know what to do. Or perhaps it was an unhappy client who got community service when he’d really wanted forty days in clink.’

‘That’s what the police said, that it might have been a client who’d got a bad result, but there’s no one I can think of.’

‘What about my brief?’ I interrupted her train of thought.

‘Oh, I’m sorry … Can you make yourself a back sheet?’

‘I suppose so. What name is Saskia using now? And what is she pleading?’

‘Susan Baker. I think it’s a straight guilty plea, unless she tells you something that makes you think you should fight it.’

‘Are you all right? Do you want me to come over?’

‘I’m fine, fine.’

‘OK, I’ll ring you tomorrow when I’ve finished.’

I rang Lena.

‘Hiya,’ she said, brightly. ‘How are you?’

I told her about my evening. Despite being in a traumatic relationship, which was more than I was, Lena’s always good for a bit of advice, the telephone equivalent of a cup of Horlicks. Not that I drink Horlicks. But then, she regularly gives me advice that I ignore.

‘Do you think she really was burgled?’ Lena asked. ‘You don’t think she was … required elsewhere?’

‘No, no. She was burgled, you could tell from her voice. Anyway, how are you? Is the gorgeous Sophie accompanying us to the Screen on the Green tomorrow?’

‘She might.’ Lena sounded doubtful. ‘We’re not seeing quite so much of each other at the moment.’

‘Oh dear,’ I clucked.

Our conversation continued along the old comforting lines. I forgot about Dr Henry and went to bed, clicking on a Motown cassette and drifting away as the Four Tops implored their woman to get out of their life and let them sleep at night.