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to the whole story and it would be a relief to share some of it. Trish might even have some ideas about how they could persuade Kim to break her silence. Still talking twenty minutes later, they went upstairs to rescue the sausages and to see how Jess was getting on with her cheese-and-potato pie.
     
    Three hours later, Trish at last reached her own flat and let herself in with the feeling of a traveller returning from the most arduous trek across unforgiving terrain. She had always found Jess hard to like, but this evening had been worse than usual. Knowing how worried Caro was, Trish thought Jess might have shown some sympathy for her – even a little practical help – but
she’d been mulish in the extreme. It had been Trish who’d got up to carry the dirty plates out to the kitchen and help Caro with the washing up. Jess had stayed in the sitting room, lying on the sofa in her svelte clothes and listening to music turned up so loud it had been painful even in the kitchen. Trish had often wondered why Caro had fallen in love with Jess in the first place, and why she stuck with the relationship when it was obviously so difficult.
    The big Southwark flat was quiet, and it smelled wonderful. The smoky scent of dried lavender from a bowl in the middle of the table mixed with the smell of oil paint from the latest abstract Trish had bought, and the beeswax polish her cleaner liked to use. Revelling in the glorious absence of food cooking, she double-locked the door, stretched out one arm to turn off the external light and headed up the spiral staircase to her bedroom under the eaves.
    Later, wrapped in a scarlet towel after a long self-indulgent shower, she checked that the radio-alarm beside her bed was set for six o’clock. Tomorrow was going to be an important day with the opening of Furbishers’ defence. She would need all her faculties to pick up the real evidential points Ferdy Aldham made as well as the subliminal messages he was generating.
    She opened The Plague by Albert Camus, which Antony had recommended and prepared to read herself to sleep. The novel was said to be a seminal work, but so far it had left her unsatisfied. Only some sorts of fiction managed both to drag her deep into its particular world and tell her something new about herself. This had done neither yet, and she found it cold. She thought she might go on with it for a little longer, but if it didn’t perk up soon, she’d bin it, however clever and important it might be.
    The book falling on her nose woke her. She took off her glasses and turned out the light.
    Later it was a griping spasm that wrenched her out of sleep.
Her whole bed felt full of pain; her mind wouldn’t work. The room was very dark and very hot. Another spasm forced a groan out from between her clenched teeth. She knew she had to get out of bed. Bending over the ache, holding both hands round her body, she ran for the bathroom.
     
    Next morning Trish felt as though a ten-ton truck had been driving back and forth over her body all night. When she staggered back into the bathroom in search of another Imodium, she saw her reflection in the mirror over the basin and flinched. Her skin was greyish and made her look old enough to be her own grandmother. Great dark circles under her eyes showed how little sleep she’d had. Her throat felt raw, the pain in her gut was nearly as bad as it had been in the night, but the pills she’d swallowed had been doing their work. She managed to clean her teeth and rinse out her mouth, but she didn’t risk anything more than milkless tea for breakfast.
    Antony took one look at her as they met outside chambers and said, ‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing, giving yourself a hangover on a court day?’
    Trish shook her head. This was Antony back to his old acerbic self. ‘Don’t! I was up all night. NHS Direct say it sounds like food poisoning, but I think I’m on the mend now.’
    ‘Sorry,’ he said, as the affection relaxed