The Baby Verdict - CATHY WILLIAMS

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her background. She had watched in helpless silence as her parents had waged their unremitting cold war and as soon as she had been able to she had left, first to university, then to London. She had learned to exercise control over her life and that had always suited her.

      Bruno Carr, however, was not a man who slotted easily into any sort of category she could handle.

      As she reached for her briefcase and her bag she realised that the conversation between them had had all the elements of a free fall. How had that happened?

      She could feel his eyes on her, and she refused to look at him, at least until she had managed to get some of her thoughts in order.

      ‘It’ll be a damned sight more convenient if I give you a lift home,’ he said.

      ‘No, thank you. Honestly.’ Why was she in such a panic at the suggestion? It made sense. ‘Perhaps I ought to telephone for a taxi.’ She looked around her, searching for inspiration.

      ‘Come on,’ he said, signing his credit-card slip, tearing off his copy, and then standing up. ‘Before you collapse in distress at the thought of getting into a car with me.’

      She heard the amusement in his voice with a sinking heart. What must he think of her? Another hysterical woman, overreacting at something utterly insignificant. Hardly professional behaviour, was it?

      She took a few deep breaths to steady herself.

      ‘I must appear quite ridiculous,’ she said in a calmer voice, rooting around for something sensible to say, ‘but I had no idea that the evening would be this late, and...’ Inspiration! ‘I completely forgot that my mum was supposed to call tonight...’

      ‘Ah. Important call, was it?’

      ‘My sister-in-law was due to have her baby today...’ Or around now, anyway. ‘Mum lives in Australia with my brother and his wife,’ she explained. True enough. Three weeks after her father had died, her mum, faced with sudden freedom, had taken flight to the most distant shores possible and was having a wonderful time out there. ‘She’ll be terribly disappointed that I wasn’t at home. Anyway, the sooner I get back the better, so if you don’t mind I’ll just jump in a taxi and tell him to go as quickly as he can...’ She knew that she was beginning to ramble, so she stopped talking and smiled brightly at him. What a pathetic excuse.

      ‘Of course. At times like these, every second counts.’ He ushered her out of the restaurant, and as luck would have it hailed a cab within seconds.

      ‘There now,’ he said, opening the door for her and peering in as she settled in the back. ‘Feel better?’

      She felt a complete fool, but she smiled and nodded and tried to inject an expression of relief on her face.

      ‘Tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘My office. Eight-thirty.’ He stood back slightly with his hand on the door. ‘Make sure you bring your brain with you. You’ve got important work ahead of you. Can’t have your head addled with thoughts of babies.’ With which he slammed the door behind him, and Jessica ground her teeth together in sheer frustration and watched as he strode off along the pavement in the direction of his building.

      CHAPTER THREE

      ‘I SHALL have to look at a drawing of the part in question. Is there any chance at all that it could have been made slightly askew? Grooves in the wrong place? Too many grooves? Too few? Anything at all that might have caused that car to malfunction?’

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

      Jessica sighed and looked across the table to where Bruno was sitting, his chair pushed back, his legs loosely crossed, with a stack of papers on his lap.

      The boardroom was enormous, but he had insisted from the start that it was the only place that could guarantee his uninterrupted time. She still felt dwarfed by its vastness, however, and their voices had that hollow quality peculiar to when people spoke in cavernous surroundings.

      ‘You’ll be asked that in the witness box,’ she said calmly, ‘and I don’t think that the answer you just gave me is going to do.’ They had been working closely together for three weeks and this was not the first time that she had had to remind him that his answers would have to be laboriously intricate, leaving nothing to the imagination. He had a tendency to bypass all those tedious details, which he assumed everyone should know without having to be told.

      ‘Why not?’

      Jessica sighed again, this time a little louder. It was late, her eyes were stinging and she was in no mood to launch into a debate on the whys and wherefores of what could and couldn’t be said on the stand. He tapped his fountain pen idly on the stack of papers and continued to look at her through narrowed eyes.

      She was certain that he knew precisely how to make her feel uncomfortable. He knew that she was fine just so long as they stuck to their brief, but an errant gesture or a look that hovered just a fraction too long was enough to make her feel hot and bothered. She never showed it, but he could sense her change in mood and was not averse to preying on it for a bit of fun.

      ‘You’re being difficult,’ she said at last. ‘It’s late. Perhaps we should wrap it up for the day.’ She stood up and he followed her with his eyes, leaning back and clasping his hands together at the back of his head.

      She had thought, initially, that she would become immune to his overwhelming personality and those dark, striking good looks, but she hadn’t. In the middle of a question, or as he swivelled to one side when he spoke on the telephone, or even at the end of a long day, when he stretched so that his taut, muscular body flexed beneath the well-tailored suit, she could feel her eyes travel the length of his body, she could feel her mouth become suddenly dry.

      Now, she dealt with her own treacherous and aggravating response to him by doing her utmost to avoid eye contact.

      ‘Being difficult? Explain what you mean by being difficult .’

      Jessica didn’t answer. She walked across the room removed her jacket and coat from the hanger and then walked back to her pile of papers. Without looking at him, she began sifting through them, pausing to read snatches of reports, then she stuffed the lot into her briefcase and snapped it shut.

      ‘I’m tired too,’ she said, meeting his stare reluctantly. ‘It’s been a long week.’

      ‘You’re right,’ he surprised her by saying. ‘Friday is the worst day to work late. Don’t you agree?’ He had slung his jacket over the back of the leather chair, and he stuck it on, tugging his tie off and shoving it into his pocket. Then he undid the top button of his shirt.

      Jessica followed all of this with a mortifying sense of compulsion, then she blinked and dragged her eyes away.

      The end of the case couldn’t come a day too soon as far as she was concerned. Working alongside Bruno Carr was stretching her nerves to breaking-point, and she couldn’t quite work out why.

      ‘Fridays are meant for relaxing. Winding down before the business of the weekend.’

      She shrugged and made no comment.

      ‘I’ll see you on Monday,’ she said, facing him.

      ‘I’ll get the lift down with you.’

      They walked together to the lift and as the doors shut he turned to her and said, ‘Big plans for tonight?’

      ‘Not big, no. And you?’ His eyes were boring into her but she refused to look at him.

      ‘Small plans, then?’

      She clicked her tongue with impatience. There had been no more prying into her personal life, not since that unsettling meal out three weeks previously, but for some reason he was in the mood to stir and she was handy.

      ‘I shall put my feet up and relax.’

      ‘Isn’t that what you did last Friday?’ he mused thoughtfully, and she clenched her fists tightly around the handle

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