‘Joe Thomas.’
My mouth dries. My body freezes. The sounds around us fade.
‘What about him?’
My mind goes back to the conversation I had with Tony all those years ago. The panicky phone call I made after Joe Thomas had proudly admitted his guilt. ‘What do we do?’ I begged.
‘Nothing,’ Tony replied. ‘He’s free and that’s it.’ His lack of surprise was all too clear.
‘You knew he was guilty?’
‘Suspected it. But I wasn’t sure. Besides, that doesn’t matter.’
‘Yes it does.’
‘Look, Lily. When you’re older, you’ll realize that this is a game. One which we have to win even if we’re dealt a bad card. There wasn’t enough evidence against Joe Thomas. Besides, it would have jeopardized all those other cases on the back of it. Just get over it. Move on.’
And that is the real reason I’ve tried not to cross paths with Tony Gordon again. It isn’t just the double life he led and the consternation on poor little Carla’s face as she tried to work out why her mother’s Larry was really called Tony. It’s because I don’t want to be a lawyer like him. My principles are higher. Or they should’ve been.
But now, here we are. Face to face. ‘What about him?’ I say, glancing at my watch. Just ten minutes until we’re due in the courtroom.
‘He’s written to me. Wanted me to pass on a message.’
I think of all the unsigned birthday cards that I’ve received over the years. All sent to the office. All bearing the same handwriting in capital letters. All bearing foreign stamps from countries as far afield as Egypt. Including the latest one, which now lies in bits inside a Waterloo bin. At least, I presume it was a birthday card. My mind briefly flickers back to the low-key thirty-eighth birthday dinner I had last week with my husband. No fuss. No fanfare. Just a quiet celebration of beating the odds. Of staying married. But now a reminder of my failures stands right in front of me.
‘He needs to speak to you, Lily.’ Tony pushes a piece of paper into my hand. ‘Said it was urgent.’
Then he’s gone. His black coat flapping. No hat. He’s striding through the open-arched hallway before I have a chance to express my sympathies about his illness.
Meanwhile, I have my work cut out for me. An innocent lorry driver, whose life was ruined when a teenager cycled across the road in front of him without warning. One might expect the cyclist to be the victim. After all, we’re always reading about such cases. But that’s the challenge in law. Nothing is as it seems.
Right now, I have to get the poor man off. Have to maintain my record of more wins than anyone else in the office. It’s the only way to prove that I’m not such a bad person after all.
Then, against my better judgement, I stuff Joe Thomas’s number into my pocket and walk on.
26
Carla
Carla woke early in the morning to a series of shouts and a loud clattering. Flinching with cold as her bare feet made their way across the floorboards to the window, she could see men emptying bins into the lorries in the narrow street outside the hostel.
It felt comforting that rubbish collection could go on here too as well as in Italy. Made her feel slightly less homesick. Then, as she stretched out her arms – Mamma had long instilled the importance of exercise first thing to keep trim – one of the men looked up and whistled.
Ignoring him, Carla returned to bed and huddled down under the thin duvet (there wasn’t even a radiator in here!) before switching on her computer and clicking on the link she’d saved under ‘Favourites’: ‘Tony Gordon. Lincoln’s Inn.’
And then another article:
The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn is one of four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. It is recognized as one of the world’s most prestigious professional associations for lawyers. It is believed to be named after Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln.
Carla had of course looked all this up back in Italy. But what she still hadn’t worked out, despite her assurances to Mamma that she would find Larry, was whether she could simply go to this place in the hope of surprising him. Or whether she should make an appointment, posing as a client.
As she pondered, yet another cockroach crawled out from under her bed. It stopped for a moment, as if pleading Do not kill me. I will make an appointment, Carla decided. That way, she would be certain of seeing him. However, she wouldn’t ring. She would turn up in person.
Getting out of bed, she slipped into the pink silk dressing gown which Nonna had bought her as a goodbye present, and carefully tiptoed around the cockroach. It wasn’t a matter of being soft, she told herself as she headed for the shared toilet downstairs. It was a question of being practical. She couldn’t kill every cockroach in the room.
But she could make Larry see what he had done.
Half an hour later, she was ready. A slim beige pencil skirt which showed off her figure but was also classic. Black skinny-knit jumper with a wide belt to accentuate her waist. Yesterday’s cream jacket. Red stiletto heels. A squirt of Chanel from the sample bottle she got at Duty Free (no one had been looking). A bag slung crosswise over her chest, because there were, apparently, as many thieves here as there were in Rome.
At the hostel reception desk was a pile of London Underground maps. Carefully side-stepping a young girl with a tattoo on her neck and slashed jeans, Carla helped herself. She stared at it, puzzled.
‘Where do yer want to go then?’ asked the girl.
‘Holborn,’ answered Carla primly.
‘Get the blue line then.’ A dirty finger jabbed the map. ‘Want to buy a cheap Oyster card?’
‘Please, what is that?’
There was laughter from behind her where another girl was hovering. They reminded Carla of the school in Clapham where everyone had been horrid to her.
‘You use it to get on buses and tubes. Just twenty quid. It’s a bargain.’
‘I have only euros.’
‘Then give me forty.’
Carla handed over the money and headed for King’s Cross station. She could just about remember the way from her journey last night. When she held the Oyster card against the barrier like everyone else, there was a loud bleeping.
‘You ain’t got no money on that, love,’ said a man in a neon jacket.
‘But someone sold it to me for forty euros!’
‘’Fraid you’ve been done then. Only get your Oysters from a proper station or online.’ He jerked a finger towards a machine and a long line of people.
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,