I walk towards Westminster Bridge and pause for a moment to admire the skyline. ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair …’
Daniel used to love poetry. He admired the order. The way the words fell into place exactly where they were meant to. When he was distressed about something – a missing jigsaw piece or a shoe that was not in its usual place – I would sometimes read to him. It had to be a poet with structure and a certain touch of quirkiness. Edward Lear was always a good choice.
‘Sorry,’ I say as someone bumps into me. Ruefully, I rub my elbow. Typical of me to apologize for someone else’s rudeness. I did that all the time for Daniel. Meanwhile, the man hasn’t even stopped to acknowledge me. I glance back but he’s already disappeared into the crowds.
Then I realize something. My bag. Not the one on my shoulder, but the smaller one tucked under my arm, with all the papers concerning Joe Thomas. The figures he’d given me and the notes made during my meeting just now. It’s gone.
As I walk quickly towards the office, Tony Gordon’s recent words come back to me. ‘This case is of huge national importance … If we win, it will open the floodgates to all kinds of suits. We’ve got to be careful.’
At the time, I’d interpreted his words as meaning that we had to be careful to win. Now I’m beginning to wonder if he was referring to our own personal safety. Is it possible that I have been deliberately targeted? Did the man on the bridge – whose face I can barely recall – bump into me on purpose so he could remove vital evidence?
I’m almost running now along High Holborn, the throbbing in my elbow intensifying. I’ll have to tell my boss. Tell Tony Gordon too …
Racing up the staircase with its elegant Victorian mahogany handrail, I almost collide with one of the secretaries. ‘I’ve got two messages for you.’
The first is from Tony. In the short time since I left him, he’s heard from the CCRC. It’s referring our case to the Court of Appeal. Great. All we need now is the Court’s agreement to allow it and then, hopefully, a re-trial.
‘Not now, please,’ I say to the secretary as she waves the second message in front of me.
‘It’s urgent.’ She presses a piece of paper into my hand. ‘You’ve got to ring her immediately.’
Sarah Evans.
Why does the name sound familiar?
And then I remember. It’s the name of Joe Thomas’s dead girlfriend.
14
Carla
Carla pulled at her mother’s hand. Backwards. Backwards. Away from the bus stop. Away from the journey that led to school. Away from the nasty looks and the laughs that made her feel even more stupid.
It didn’t help that the new Charlie said nothing.
‘You must hurry,’ said Mamma, her voice edging towards that note that usually indicated either song or hysteria. (Definitely the last one today.) ‘We will be late.’
As she spoke, the bus rounded the corner. ‘It is there!’ Mamma’s beautiful face turned old with frown lines. ‘Quick.’
Reluctantly she allowed her feet to be dragged along the pavement. Scuff, scuff, in the sloppy, wet leaves went the black patent shoes that Larry had paid for. It had not been a good weekend without Lily and Ed. ‘You cannot go to them every Sunday,’ Mamma had said, as if it had not been her who had made the arrangement in the first place.
But Carla was all too aware of the real reason. It was because she had seen Mamma and Larry at home when Mamma was meant to have been working. Mamma felt guilty. This had seemed a good thing at first because it would make her do what Carla wanted. But then it had become a bad thing because she had cancelled Sundays with Lily. No baking cakes or licking out the bowl! No making pretend people out of conkers and pins. Or pompoms out of wool like Lily used to as a little girl. No sitting in front of Ed, feeling special while he drew her. No running in the park. Or swinging on Lily and Ed’s hands.
Just staying at home with Mamma, waiting for Larry. Even though he hadn’t turned up last Sunday. They’d made lasagne specially.
‘On you get.’ Mamma’s voice was heavy with relief. They had managed to catch the bus after all. Carla clambered up the stairs and took her usual place at the front.
Recently, her friend Lily had not been on the bus. ‘I have to leave earlier now for work,’ she’d explained. But Ed was still there. Waiting on the other side of the road, his notepad in his hand, sketching. Maybe he was drawing her! Fiercely, she knocked on the window.
‘Carla!’ Mamma’s voice was annoyed. ‘I’ve told you before not to do that.’
But Ed had heard! He was waving his notepad at her! Carla’s heart grew warm. He liked her. She could tell that from the way he observed her face, every detail. Sometimes she was allowed to see the pictures. He’d made those thick eyebrows of hers look almost pretty! If only the other children at school could see them like that. Then they might not be so horrid.
As Ed’s face disappeared out of sight, Carla felt a jolt of emptiness. ‘Aren’t you going to pick up Charlie?’ said Mamma, pointing down at the dirty bus floor where Carla had dropped him among the old sweet wrappers and a tin can.
‘He’s not called Charlie. He’s just a caterpillar,’ Carla said in the same voice that the other kids used when she said something stupid in class.
Mamma was clearly puzzled. ‘But you used to love him so much.’
That was the old Charlie, she wanted to say. The one she’d taken from a bully at school and which had been so cruelly murdered by another. But she couldn’t. This one, which Larry had bought, did not smell the same. It was too quiet. It did not listen to her secrets.
‘Here we are!’ Mamma’s voice was bright as school came into sight. It was as if her mother wanted her to go as quickly as possible so she was free to get to work and laugh and smell nice and see Larry at lunchtime perhaps.
Carla looked down at the children streaming through the school gates. The boys had faces like hard nuts. The girls bared their teeth at her like rats.
‘Please, Carla. Please.’
Her mother was trying to pull her down the stairs of the bus. Charlie, under her arm, did not attempt to resist.
‘I will only go if you ask Lily to have me this Sunday.’
Her mother’s eyes flickered. ‘You want to go to strangers instead of me?’
‘They are not strangers. They are my friends. I want to be with them just as you want to be with Larry.’
‘Are you getting off or not?’ roared the conductor. A woman with a shopping bag was staring at them. So were the girls in the brown uniform who came from the nicer school down the road. The one where there weren’t boys and where no one spat or was rude. Mamma said it was a convent school where nuns taught. She had tried to get Carla a place there, but they didn’t want her, because they didn’t go to Mass regularly. ‘Couldn’t we start going now?’ Carla had asked.
‘I said we would do that. But the nuns told me it was too late.’
Carla only hoped it was not too late to go back to Sundays with Lily and Ed.
‘I will ask.’ Mamma sighed now, as though she was sighing the wrong way round, where the breath came into her wide red mouth, instead of out. ‘But you must go to school this instant. Promise?’
Carla nodded. ‘Promise.’
Mamma held out her face for a kiss but Carla ignored it. Instead, she made her way towards the school gates and another day of misery.
‘Eeetalian!’
‘Why do you speak all funny?’
‘Why have you got hairs on your arm like a man?’
‘They’re as furry as your eyebrows!’
The taunts came thick and fast, as they did every day now.
‘What are you going to nick next, then? My dad says all Italians are thieves. They nicked my auntie’s handbag in Rome.’
This last comment was from a thickset boy with a face like a dog she had seen in the park. A bulldog, Ed had called it.
‘I do not nick nothing.’
‘Anything, Carla.’ The bony-nosed teacher’s sharp voice cut into the conversation. ‘The correct word is “anything”. And what is this about stealing?’