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       SEVENFriday – Chambers

      I had to go into chambers. I had rung Gavin about the paperwork immediately after breakfast, about ten thirty. As soon as he mentioned the name of the solicitor I remembered with sickening clarity what the cases were. Both had started out with different solicitors and counsel. One case involved a mother who had conceded residence of her children a year before when she really shouldn’t have, and now the father was refusing to allow her contact. She wanted to know if she could go back to vary the order. The other was a father who wanted to appeal against his children being taken into care by raising Human Rights Act arguments, saying that he hadn’t had a fair trial. I’d had them on my desk for two weeks and I knew I needed to look things up. I also needed to find the book on social work practice I had bought to prepare my cross-examination of the social workers at the inquiry. And I needed to catch up on chambers news.

      It was a hot day and I put on black linen trousers and a loose, black silk shirt for the barristerial but casual look.

      There was no one in the clerks’ room but clerks and they were all busy and didn’t want to chat. I was forced to go to my room, which was small and filled with an Ikea desk and chair and pine shelves holding briefs and old notebooks. It looked out over a patch of grass and if I stood up I could see the river. From my bag I pulled out Danny Richards’ brief which I still had not endorsed. I was looking at the faxed, smudged back sheet wrapped around the nine pages, which had been the source of all my problems with Judge Norman, and wondering how much of what had gone on I should actually put in writing, when the phone warbled.

      Jenna said, ‘I’ve got – em – Orlando on the phone to speak to you.’

      ‘Orlando who?’

      ‘I don’t know.’

      Jenna sounded stressed, so I said, ‘OK, put him through, but if it’s someone selling insurance you might find yourself with a thirty-year premium round your neck.’

      ‘No thank you,’ she said primly, ‘I’m already fully covered.’

      ‘Get you,’ I said. ‘OK, put him through.’ The phone clicked. ‘Frances Richmond speaking,’ I murmured cautiously.

      ‘Mmm,’ said a husky voice, ‘what a nice telephone manner you have.’

      ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Who am I speaking to?’

      ‘Didn’t she tell you? It’s Yolande.’

      My heart fluttered. I did not want to speak to this woman, it meant grief all the way down the line, I knew it. ‘So, Yolande, how are you?’

      ‘I’m fine. How’s the inquiry going?’

      ‘As well as can be expected.’

      ‘I saw you on TV. You looked very nice.’

      I snorted. But perhaps I had looked nice.

      ‘Compared to the others,’ she continued, with a short laugh. ‘Come and have lunch with me.’

      ‘Where are you?’ I said.

      ‘I’m on Fleet Street,’ she said. ‘It’s a lovely day, we could get a cab across the river. We could sit and look at the water.’

      It sounded rather nice, with or without Yolande. But I couldn’t. She was blonde and left-handed and she was the girlfriend of a very dangerous man, if his record was to be believed. Which it was. Plus there were professional issues. They were in the grey area of murky to say the least. On the one hand neither Danny nor Yolande was my client, but on the other, in a way I still was Danny’s counsel, since I hadn’t endorsed my brief or told Simon what had happened. Or even rung Kay, my instructing solicitor, I realised with a lurch of guilt. And Yolande was bound to want to talk about him, and Yolande was his girlfriend.

      ‘I’m really busy,’ I said, half-heartedly. ‘I’ve only just got into chambers.’

      ‘Why don’t I come to you then?’ she said. ‘I’ll bring some sandwiches.’ Even over the phone I could tell she was left-handed. And there was that item on my list of things to do. Solve the mystery of Danny’s case. I hate leaving things undone. ‘Everybody has to eat lunch,’ she whispered. That was just so true. I was starving I realised. It was at least an hour and a half since I’d had toast. What else could I do? And somehow if she came to chambers I was … containing things. But what if Simon saw her? That might mean trouble. I remembered that Simon wasn’t in today. He was at the hospital, having his foot seen to, which is why it was all his fault anyway.

      ‘OK,’ I said.

      ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ she cooed. ‘We’ll need a few plates and two glasses.’

      I shivered with anticipation.

      She was sitting on a sofa in the waiting room, reading a copy of the Financial Times, one of the papers Jenna spread out daily on a small coffee table. She was wearing more of those clothes that only blonde, lightly tanned women can get away with. Today it was a gold-beige, probably cashmere,

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