LITMIR.BIZ

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door, warmth, candlelight and the smell of garlic embraced me.

      ‘Buona sera, signora,’ Gino bustled up, his hair a new alarming shade of aubergine. ‘Comment allez-vous? Very very wet, I see. Table for … ?’

      I looked round the room. Kay was late too.

      ‘Two.’

      ‘And some vino tinto, signora? Asseyez-vous.’ He put me next to the huge open fireplace.

      ‘Yes.’ I was puzzled. Kay was never late. I sat down, absently giving Gino my dripping coat. My long black jacket, bought expensively from Ede & Ravenscroft, suppliers of wigs and robes to the legal profession, was wet too. I took it off and hung it on the back of the chair. My trousers would have to stay where they were. It was my favourite court outfit, and I was pleased I was wearing it when Kay suggested going out. I always liked how I looked in it, slick but professional. Except that at the moment I looked slick like a wet rodent looks slick. And so much for my fabulous new haircut – my lowlights had slid into my highlights and they all looked just wet. In the back of the spoon I could see spikes of my long fringe sticking damply to my forehead.

      Perhaps her car had broken down in the rain, although that was unlikely. She always had a new car; being a successful solicitor, it was a business car. I was still driving my L-reg Renault. Not that I’m bitter, but she wouldn’t have got where she is today without me. I was the one who sat up with her at nights testing her on criminal procedure and client/solicitor relations. Huh!

      Perhaps she hadn’t come because she’d had a better offer. She had done that to me before, but not for seven years, and she was meant to be bringing me my brief. Kay would never be unprofessional in that way, she’d never leave me without a brief. Although, as she had said, there was nothing in the brief. It would be merely a piece of white paper with a pink ribbon round it. My instructions would be: ‘Counsel will do her best.’

      The red wine came. I ordered some garlic bread. To hell with what it did to my stomach.

      She didn’t come.

      It was eight o’clock. I didn’t have my mobile with me – I wondered whether I’d left it plugged into the charger – so Gino let me use the phone on the bar and I rang her office. The answerphone wasn’t on. I thought about ringing my flat to pick up my messages but I couldn’t remember my secret code number. I rang Kay’s home, she still lived in the small Victorian house in Stamford Hill which we had shared during our relationship, and left a concerned and only slightly irritated message. I ordered spaghetti à l’amatriciana and my clothes and my hair began to dry. The house red which Gino had poured solicitously into a large glass was soft and full and tasted almost as if I was in Italy. And as I sat, steaming gently by the fire, waiting for my pasta, I thought nostalgically back to me and Kay on our last holiday in a tent in Tuscany.

      I had just passed my final exams – yes, OK, she had done her bit and had tested me on revenue and trusts – and she had just been taken on by a law centre in North London. We were both very pleased with ourselves and bursting with success and ambition. The weather in Tuscany was glorious and we visited wonderful cities and ate fabulous food. Then, on our last night, as we walked back to the tent after a silent meal in a small restaurant, she told me our relationship was over. As I stumbled along the grass verge trying to take in what she was saying, she told me she wanted her freedom. We both needed different things, she said, at this new time in our lives. We had had five good years and now we should move on. I assumed that she’d met someone she fancied at her interview.

      Of course, the trouble with being on holiday in a tent is that you can’t put physical distance between you. We crept into our individual sleeping bags, but by the first light of day we were in each other’s arms for warmth. By the time we got to the airport we had reconciled, and we bought joint olive oil and sun-dried tomatoes in the duty-free shop. The relationship had limped along for another eighteen months until the night of the women’s sixties do when she had gone home with a woman who probably thought ‘Green Onions’ was something you threw out of your kitchen cupboard.

      Gino brought me my pasta. ‘Everything OK, signora?’ he asked, concern filling his soft, round face.

      I probably would have burst into tears but I took a mouthful of my food and nearly choked on the chilli.

      ‘Everything’s fine, great,’ I said, breathing in.

      I drank almost the whole bottle of wine. Kay had still not appeared and I was worried.

      I asked Gino if he could bring the bill and check again whether anyone had rung me. He went to confer with the chef and brought over my damp coat and the bill with a sad shake of his head.

      It was still raining and cars hissed by me as I walked back to the tube. I felt peculiar and it wasn’t the effects of the alcohol or the mix of red wine, garlic bread and green salad. Upper Street was almost deserted and as I approached Highbury Corner, with the little alleyways leading off and the dark looming pub on the corner, the strangeness increased so that if anyone had asked me I would have said that I thought I was being followed. Just by the bus stops someone behind me coughed, but when I turned round there was no one there.

      A taxi was passing on the other side of the street. I shouted at it, gesticulating, and narrowly avoided being crushed by a number 19 bus as I ran across the road.

      The driver had to go some way in the wrong direction before he could turn off for Stoke Newington and I was pleased. When we got to the house I asked him to wait until I’d got inside the front door before he drove off.

      I walked into my ground-floor flat and locked the door behind me. The timer had already switched on the lamp in the living room, filling the room with a pale light. Everything looked normal. The flashing red light of my answering machine on the floor, the Guardian draped over the couch where I had left it last night and a pile of papers marked ‘Return to solicitors NOW’ waiting patiently on the old comfy armchair. A used wine glass, mine, and a half-drunk cup of tea, also mine, sat together on the dark wood coffee table, next to the remote control for the TV. Everything was normal.

      I played my messages. My mum, laughing, leaving me her name and number like the machine had asked her to, just saying hello. Dr Henry’s secretary primly asking me to ring the doctor at my earliest convenience. And then Kay. Her voice was strained.

      ‘Frankie, it’s me. It’s, em, a quarter to seven. I … I just went out of the office to get some cigarettes and when I got back the place had been burgled. I’ve rung the police. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant to ring you there. I’m sorry I shan’t make it. Hope you get this in time. I’ll … I’ll speak to you.’

      There was a beep and then it was Kay again, sounding more relaxed. ‘You’re still not home. Don’t you ever take your mobile with you?’

      I silently answered an outraged ‘sometimes’ as I noticed my phone in its smart black jacket sticking up sadly between the two cushions of the sofa.

      ‘I hope you’re having something nice to eat,’ the message went on, ‘and you haven’t given yourself indigestion. It’s nine o’clock. The police took ages. I had to buy some more cigarettes. Ring me when you get in.’

      And finally Lena. Lena was my Best Friend.

      ‘Hi, Fran. Just to remind you about tomorrow evening. The film starts at six forty. The reviews say it’s absolutely fab. Ring me soon. Night.’

      I really wanted to ring Lena, but I knew I ought to ring Kay because she had my brief.

      She answered the phone immediately.

      ‘They made such a mess of it,’ she said. ‘All my files everywhere. But no one else’s. And they didn’t even take any money. They scratched the cash box but didn’t open it, or even take it, which they could have done.’

      ‘Perhaps they were baby burglars and didn’t know what to do. Or perhaps it was an unhappy client who got community service when he’d really wanted forty days in clink.’

      ‘That’s what the police said, that it might

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