I’m still shaking when the taxi driver drops me off at the station. How did Joe Thomas know that I’d been on honeymoon? Was it possible that my boss had told someone when organizing the visit paperwork while I was away? If so, it was in direct contradiction to another piece of advice he’d given me: ‘Make sure you don’t give any personal details away. It’s vital to keep boundaries between you and the client.’
The advice, rather like the warning about ‘conditioning’ from the officer, had seemed so obvious as to be unnecessary. Like most people (I would imagine), I’d been shocked by the odd news story about prison visitors or officers having affairs with prisoners. Never once had I read about a solicitor doing the same. As for those strange thoughts in my head just now, it was nerves. That was all. Along with my disappointment over Italy.
As for Joe’s ‘mistake’ over my name, I can’t help wondering if it was on purpose. To wrongfoot me perhaps? But why?
‘Five pounds thirty, miss.’
The taxi driver’s voice cuts into my head. Grateful for the diversion, I fumble in my purse for change.
‘That’s a euro.’ His voice is suspicious, as though I’d intentionally tried to put one over on him.
‘So sorry.’ Flushing, I find the correct coin. ‘I’ve been abroad and must have got my money muddled up.’
He takes my tip with bad grace, clearly unconvinced. A mistake. A simple mistake. Yet one that could so easily be taken for a lie. Is that how Joe Thomas feels? Is it possible that he made a mistake and is so fed up with being misunderstood that he decided to play games with me? But that doesn’t really make sense.
I glance at my watch. It’s later than I thought. Surely my time would be better spent going back to the flat, rather than the office, and typing up my notes. Besides, it would give me the opportunity to look into Rupert Brooke. My client might have unnerved me with his knowledge about my private life. But he also intrigues me in that uncomfortable way when you feel you ought to know the answer to a question.
‘Get as much from him as possible,’ my boss had said. ‘He was the one who approached us to make an appeal. That means there has to be fresh evidence – unless he just wants some attention. That happens quite a lot. Either way, we might seek counsel advice.’
In other words, a barrister would be consulted.
But I’m painfully aware that I haven’t got very far. On what grounds can we appeal? Insanity perhaps? Or is his behaviour merely eccentric? How many other clients would set a puzzle like this for their lawyers? Still, there’s something in Joe’s story that rings true. Drunks do lie. Neighbours can tell lies. Juries can get it wrong.
The different arguments in my head make the train journey back much faster than it seemed this morning. In no time at all, or so it feels, I am on the bus back home. The word sends a thrill through me. Home! Not home in Devon, but our first home as a married couple in Clapham. I’ll be able to get a meal on. Spaghetti bolognese perhaps? Not too complicated. Change into that mid-blue kaftan my mother bought me for the honeymoon. Tidy up a bit. Make the place look welcoming for when Ed gets home. And yet something still doesn’t feel right.
On the few occasions I’ve left work early, I’ve felt like a naughty schoolgirl. And that wasn’t me. My reports were always covered with the word ‘conscientious’, as if a salve for the absence of more convincing accolades such as ‘intelligent’ or ‘perceptive’. It was no secret that everyone – most of all, myself – was astounded when I got into one of the most prestigious universities in the country through sheer hard slog. And again when I got taken on at a legal firm despite the competition. When you’re constantly prepared for things to go wrong, it’s a shock when they go right.
‘Why do you want to be a lawyer?’ my father had asked.
The question had hung, unnecessarily, in the air.
‘Because of Daniel, of course,’ my mother had answered. ‘Lily wants to put the world to rights. Don’t you, darling?’
Now, as I get off the bus, I realize I’ve thought more about my brother today than I have for a very long time. It must be Joe Thomas. The same defensive stance. The arrogance which, at the same time, comes across as distinctly vulnerable. The same love of games. The same refusal to toe the line in the face of clear opposition.
But Joe is a criminal, I remind myself. A murderer. A murderer who has got the better of you, I tell myself crossly as I walk towards our flat, having paused to pick up the post from the mailboxes by the front door. A bill? Already?
I feel a flutter of apprehension – I told Ed we shouldn’t have taken out such a big mortgage, but he just twirled me in the air and declared that we would get by somehow – and then stop. There’s a disagreement going on between a woman and a child by number 7. I’m pretty sure it’s the same girl in the navy-blue school uniform I saw this morning. But the adult is definitely not the mother with those black cascading curls. She’s a plain woman in her thirties – at a guess – with open red sandals even though it’s not the right kind of weather.
As I draw nearer, I spot a massive blue bruise on the child’s eye. ‘What’s going on?’ I say sharply.
‘Are you Carla’s mother?’ asks the woman.
‘I’m a neighbour.’ I glance at that terrible bruise. ‘And who are you?’
‘One of the teaching assistants at Carla’s school.’
She says this with some pride.
‘I was told to take her home after a bit of an accident in the playground. But Mrs Cavoletti doesn’t appear to be in, and her boss says she isn’t at work today, so we’ll have to go back to school.’
‘No. No!’
The child – Carla, did she say? – is tugging at my arm. ‘Please can I stay with you? Please. Please.’
The woman is looking uncertain. She seems out of her depth to me. I recognize the feeling. Of course she’s right to be uncertain. I don’t know this child, even though she is acting as though she knows me. But she has clearly been hurt at school. I know what that’s like.
‘I think she needs to go to casualty,’ I say.
‘I haven’t time for that!’ The eyes widen as if in panic. ‘I’ve got to pick up my own kids.’
Of course this is none of my business. But there’s something about the distress in the child’s face that makes me want to help. ‘Then I’ll do it.’
I take out my business card. ‘You might want my details.’
Lily Macdonald. LLB. Solicitor.
It seems to reassure the teaching assistant. Even though perhaps it shouldn’t.
‘Let’s go,’ I say. ‘We’ll get a cab to the hospital. Want me to drop you off somewhere?’
She declines, although the offer seems to appease her further.
It occurs to me that it would be very easy to take a child if the circumstances were favourable.
‘My name’s Lily,’ I say after the woman has gone and I’ve slipped a note under the door of number 7 to tell Carla’s mother what has happened. ‘You know you shouldn’t really talk to strangers.’
‘Charlie said it was all right.’
‘Who’s Charlie?’
She brings out a green pencil case from under her jumper.
How sweet! I had a wooden one when I was at school, with a secret drawer for the rubber.
‘What happened to your eye exactly?’
The child looks away. ‘It was a mistake. He didn’t mean it to happen.’
‘Who made a mistake, poppet?’
But even as I ask the question, I hear voices.
The jury made a mistake, Joe Thomas had said.
There’s got to be a mistake, my mother had sobbed when we found Daniel.
Is this a mistake? I’d asked myself as I’d walked down the aisle.
No more mistakes, I say to myself, as I take Carla into our flat to call the local taxi firm.
From now on, I’ve got to be good.
6
Carla
‘Who made a mistake, poppet?’ said Lily with the golden hair as they went into number 3. Her voice was very clear. Like one of those actresses on television. Posh, Mamma would have called it.