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to you?”
    “I thought everyone knew. Worst kept secret at the Bar.”
    “God, they really got to you. Didn’t they, Tom?”
    “I don’t want to hear this speech again.”
    “Well, you’re going to hear it. Again and—”
    “What? From you? What have you defended? A punch-up in Romford and a couple of naff burglaries?”
    “I’ve defended in drugs trials.”
    “Trendy friends of yours. Pushing cannabis at student raves. Well, that’s really the big time, Emma.”
    By the time I had said that, my voice was hard and the words were pointed. I knew they cut into Emma and she said nothing
     for a while as she slowly sipped her wine.
    “I wanted to be your pupil,” she finally said. “You know, everyone said it was a mistake, that you were—well, sliding. But
     I knew, Tom.” She looked at me and her eyes were wide. “I knew.”
    I sank into my seat as she spoke about a barrister I hardly recognized.
    “All of us were reluctant to have a man defending Sarah Morrow. I mean, the campaign was run by pretty strict feminists and
     all that, but you had a reputation of being a fighter and that’s what we needed.”
    It was a big issue for the women’s movement. Sarah Morrow lived in the general Stonebury area. She had killed her husband
     after years of abuse and wanted to say that over a period of time she was provoked into the stabbing. It wasn’t a defense
     known to law, but we fought it.
    Court 8 seemed a lot bigger in those days. I suppose I was just not used to it back then. I had tried really hard to forget
     the case.
    “I never saw such… well, I guess, such passion in a courtroom,” said Emma. She was sitting beside me gabbling her words. “You
     tore the policeman to shreds, you destroyed those shrinks; you couldn’t have done any more—”
    “I could have won,” I said.
    “Sarah knew the risks.”
    “Did she?”
    Emma didn’t seem to hear that or didn’t want to hear it. “The law doesn’t like women standing up for themselves. It was always
     going to be tough. The point is you fought it.”
    “And lost.”
    “But we can win Kingsley’s case,” she said.
    “You just don’t get it, do you? People get hurt.”
    “That’s life, Tom.”
    “No, Emma. That’s the law. And one day pretty soon you’re going to learn the cost of defeat.”
    Again we were silent. Eventually, I was fortified by the workings of the Côte d’Or sun, and broached what I knew to be a sensitive
     question. “What is it with you and Justine?”
    “With me and Miss Whiter-than-White?”
    “Yes, you and Justine.”
    “Too pure to get her hands dirty defending the bad guys?”
    “She
used
to defend.”
    “Exactly,” said Emma. “Pass me the wine.”
    When I had poured out a little more Burgundy, I said, “Justine’s just doing a job, you know.”
    Emma laughed at that. “It’s not a job to her,” she said.
    “What is it then?”
    “Really want to know?” I looked at her impatiently and she continued. “I know this is going to sound weird”—she looked around
     to see there was no one near—“but it’s like… it’s like some sort of mission to her.”
    “What nonsense,” I said.
    “You haven’t twigged, have you?”
    “What?”
    Emma took a large gulp of wine and then spoke very fast. “She thinks she’s the Angel of sodding Vengeance.” Before I could
     protest she added, “And let me tell you something else”—again she looked round—“she’s going to make Kingsley pay for Molly
     Summers.” She wolfed down the rest of the glass and slammed it on the table. She was a little manic which was rare to see.
    “Does Justine know Kingsley or something?” I asked. “I mean, isn’t there a professional conflict?”
    “I don’t think so. Stonebury’s small, but people tend to keep to themselves. Or so Sarah Morrow told us during the campaign.
     Apparently, no one really knew Kingsley—except, of course, the Stonebury Girl Guides. Still, the locals hate him now. That’s