‘You’ve been looking stressed,’ said Jess. ‘I mean before the mugging thing.’
‘We’re all stressed. This is the Bar,’ said Mel.
‘Give yourself a break. I would,’ urged Georgie. ‘Hang out with Jacob. Binge on Netflix.’
‘I’ve got too much on.’
Jess glanced at Natasha. ‘Natasha can do the easy stuff, can’t you Natasha?’ she said.
‘I’d be happy to.’
‘There is no easy stuff,’ said Mel.
‘OK. OK. The clerks can sort that out. They won’t let it go out of chambers,’ said Georgie.
‘It makes sense, Mel,’ added Jess. ‘You need a break. Drink your tea. I’ll walk to the tube with you.’
* * *
Natasha was alone. She was packing up to go when she noticed the Bridge Court logo lit up on the computer Mel had been using. She walked over and glanced along the icons at the bottom of the page. Word was still running and so was Chrome. Mel must have forgotten to log off. A helpful gesture would do no harm. She pulled out her phone. As she brought up Mel’s number, she tapped on the Chrome icon and Mel’s Inbox flashed across the screen. Her supervisor was even more careless than she had imagined. She skimmed the list of senders. Solicitors. Unfamiliar names. But one of the them jumped out.
She knew the guy. Paul Freedman. He was a lecturer at North Bank. At least fifty, he’d seemed desperate to look younger with his tight leather jackets and jeans, cosying up to students in the pub on Friday nights. She’d taken his politics and law option in her final year. He’d come on to her, inviting her back to his office on some pretext of lending her a book she might find interesting. Then he’d kept her there, sounding off on politics for a good half hour before asking her out for a drink. She’d only taken one module in his department and he wasn’t marking her dissertation so there would have been no point in going. Saying no was easy enough. She told him she didn’t go out with married men. He grinned. Nice smile. She had almost changed her mind.
Natasha typed Freedman’s address into the Sort box and pressed the Find icon. A string of communications popped up.
Dates, times, places. Hotels. Restaurants. She carried on reading. What a fool. Didn’t he realise Googlemail was about as private as Facebook? She was surprised: she’d have expected Paul to go for a younger model. Though Mel was not unattractive, with good cheekbones, bright hazel eyes and a wide smile, on the rare occasions she chose to display it. Her dress sense was non-existent. Her court jackets didn’t fit and her handbags were cheap rubbish. But men were probably less interested in clothes than women liked to imagine, and no doubt they were drawn by Mel’s full breasts which she flaunted in clingy silk blouses. Her curly brown hair was always coming loose from whatever was pinning it back, giving her a rumpled, fresh from bed look. Natasha, whose own hair was dead straight, felt a stab of irritation as she pictured it.
There was a printer in the corner of the room. Natasha printed off a couple of emails, then added Paul’s address to her own Google contacts. She rang Mel.
‘Mel, sorry to bother you. Can you speak?’
‘I’m about to get on the escalator. Reception’s not that good.’
‘Only it’s… just… I was using the computer to print my stuff and I noticed you hadn’t logged off.’
‘Oh shit. Right. Could you just…’
‘I thought there might be work you wanted to save or…’
‘Thank God you rang. Would you mind saving and printing my Attendance Note on Gonzalez, the Interim Care hearing? There’s an icon marked Care on the desktop. It should be there. Unless it’s still open. I don’t remember. Jess came in and I got… well, you know how it was. Just print it off and give it to Andy. Tell him I’ll sign it when I come in.’
‘No problem. Anything else?’
‘No… I’m losing you…’
Natasha could hear the racket of the station announcements down the phone and then silence as Mel hung up. She tucked the printed emails into the pocket of her bag, closed Googlemail and opened the Attendance Note for the case of Gonzalez. There it was, setting out the time spent in negotiation and the final terms of the Interim Care Order. She glanced at the clock. It was six o’clock. Two of the clerks were still at their desks so she could hand over a hard copy immediately. Her right hand rested lightly over the mouse, guiding the cursor towards the print icon. But the cursor seemed to be moving of its accord, drifting across the words on the screen away from the print icon to the small x in the top right-hand corner of the page. Natasha watched with detached curiosity as the cursor continued to hover over the small x. Suddenly she realised she wanted to be at home, she needed to get out of this grim building. And with that thought her finger clicked on the mouse and the Attendance Note disappeared. She logged off and shut down the computer.
Chapter Nine
Mel
Mel stepped onto the escalator. A gust of hot air swirled around her, the stink of soot and steel seared her lungs. It was hardly worth giving up smoking. She settled on the moving metal stair and the stink became a medley of aftershave, body odour and cheap perfume. Then she was back into the moving crowd, onto another escalator and finally the platform. She realised she had not told Natasha to log off. But the girl was no fool. That was why she had rung Mel in the first place.
The following morning, Saturday, she picked up her car from East Finchley station, and spent the afternoon with her mother, leading her around the new boutiques which dotted Dulwich Village. Isabel might be seventy-eight but she still wanted to look good and regularly added to her wardrobe of floating, patterned tops and loose trousers. Her need for elegance provoked in Mel a paradox of admiration and disdain. Unlike her mother, Mel hated shopping.
On Sunday Mel spring-cleaned the flat, scouring kitchen surfaces as if she were destroying an enemy. She fretted about Jacob who’d come back late again last night and left the house to see friends in the afternoon. She made him promise to take the long way around from the tube and avoid the walk under the railway bridge. Then there was Paul. She rarely spoke to him at weekends. She would wait for him to call. When he did she’d be careful about what she said. Part of her wanted to collapse on him and tell him everything as she’d told that sweet Palestinian dentist who’d picked her up off the pavement. But she never collapsed with Paul. He admired her strength and independence. She had no idea how he would react if he found her in pieces.
On Monday she drove Jacob to school then treated herself to a visit to the local bookshop. After lunch she pottered in her tiny garden. By Tuesday she was desperate. She rang Andy.
‘Anything in the diary for tomorrow? I don’t want my work to go out of chambers.’
‘Don’t stress yourself, Mel. Natasha’s covering the family cases. She did well on your Financial Provision hearing this morning. There’s not much crime around just now.’
‘Right.’ It was not right. It was wrong in every way. Financial Provision hearings were complicated, difficult, well paid. It was unusual to let a pupil take them on. Why had she allowed herself to take time off? ‘How about the rest of the week?’ she asked.