A motorbike roared past in the street, the smell of diesel in the air, the sound fading into the distance.
‘Do you remember – my mother gave me that brooch that Grandma wore at her wedding and it’s this tradition within our family, and I went to have it repaired with this antique dealer, and she is suddenly going to visit family for weeks on end that she failed to tell me about and is just shutting her shop so if I don’t get it today then it’ll be too late. I can send you the address on an email.’
I caught sight of my reflection in the shop window, two deep lines in between my eyebrows as I tried to follow Amy. ‘That’s fine,’ I said, widening my eyes so that the lines became a little shallower.
‘Can you really? Oh, that would be lifesaving . . . ’
Were those lines new? I wondered, moving my face again and staring intently at my reflection.
‘Thank you so much, Lottie.’
‘Of course,’ I said, frowning again as I noticed another call on the line. ‘Amy, I have to go, there’s a call waiting . . . ’
‘That’s fine, I’ll email now, thanks again, I need to go anyway, inset starts in ten minutes, God I hate teaching teachers things . . . ’
‘Oh, poor you,’ I said, biting my lip as the other call continued to distort her voice.
The toddler in the pram emerged from the shop clutching a rice cake in his fist. I smiled distractedly at the mother as she set off down the pavement. The other call ended.
‘Right, thanks so much, bye.’
Amy had hung up and I frowned at the other missed call. It must be one of the clerks in chambers – they always called me on an unlisted number.
The text message was from Toby, the solicitor who had given me the brief. Heard how today ended, c’est la vie. Drink sometime soon? My finger hovered over the Reply button but I felt an unease nudge at me, something about him making me think I could be walking a fine line. Was this purely professional?
An email popped up, the address from Amy, which I opened and scanned. Another email followed, a clerk in chambers wanting me to check in immediately, the tone bolshie, commenting on the recent missed call. I felt the usual frisson of panic and immediately phoned them back.
‘Lottie,’ the clerk dived in, no time for pleasantries, ‘can you get over to Slough for a last-minute appearance this afternoon?’
‘Today?’ I asked pointlessly, my nose wrinkled. Although last-minute appearances weren’t unheard of, this seemed to be cutting things fine. ‘What is it?’ I asked, assuming it would be something straightforward, a request for an adjournment or similar.
‘It’s a new case. The client has fired George Thorpe on the first day of the damn trial and Alan recommended you take it on.’
George Thorpe was one of the other barristers in our chambers, quite an abrasive character when butting up against the wrong person. People described him as ‘old school’ when they were being polite, other things when they weren’t.
‘It would mean a lot to Alan, shore up the damage done.’
My brain was full. This could be a tricky, prolonged case, stressful and complicated. I had heard George discussing aspects of it last week, a GBH with a number of witnesses. I was being thrown in at the last moment, felt the swirl of worry at the lack of preparation. Then I thought of Alan, a man in charge of my career and possible promotion. The excitement when I heard he thought I had it in me to become the youngest silk in chambers had spurred me on to work harder than ever in the last year or so. He would be so pleased. And if I did step in now the judge might be impressed too and give me a reference when the time came to apply to become a QC.
I agreed without more thought, the clerk sighing with relieved satisfaction.
‘We’ll courier the papers over to you now, and contact the court letting them know you’re on your way so they can move things around. You can get the train there from Paddington.’
‘Great,’ I said, already heading off to hail a taxi to Paddington. As I walked I noticed another unread text, this time from Luke, sent an hour earlier. Striding purposefully towards the kerb looking out for a black cab, I glanced at the message.