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standing area, and found herself a small space by the window, as close to a mobile-friendly carriage as she could get. She dropped her bags as the caller disconnected, and swore. She had relinquished her seat for nothing. She was about to tuck her phone into her pocket when she saw the text message:
    Hi. Need to pick up some stuff. And talk. Any time next week good for you? Mac
     
    Mac. She stared at the little screen and everything around her stilled. Mac .
    She had no choice.
    No problem
     
    she typed back, and shut her phone.
    Once, this corner of the City had been stacked with solicitors’ offices, side by side in Dickensian buildings, their gold-painted ‘partners’ signs promising representation of the business, taxation and matrimonial variety. Most had long moved to new commercial premises, glossy glass buildings on the outskirts of the City, architect-designed spaces that their occupants felt properly reflected their twenty-first-century outlook. So far, Davison Briscoe had resolutely failed to join this trend, and Natasha’s cramped, book-stuffed room in the rickety Georgian building that housed her and five other lawyers bore more of a resemblance to an academic’s tutoring room than a commercial enterprise.
    ‘Here’s the paperwork you asked for.’ Ben, a gangly, studious young man whose fair, determinedly smooth cheeks belied his twenty-five years, placed the pink-ribboned file in front of her. ‘You haven’t touched your croissants,’ he said.
    ‘Sorry.’ She flicked through the files on her desk. ‘Lost my appetite. Ben, do me a favour. Dig out the file for Ali Ahmadi, will you? Emergency judicial review from about two months ago.’ Then she glanced at the newspaper she had bought on her way from the station in a vain attempt to persuade herself that what she had read had been a hallucination, perhaps brought on by lack of sleep.
    The door opened and Conor entered. He was wearing the blue striped shirt she had bought him for his birthday. ‘Morning, Hotshot.’ He leant across the desk and kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘How’d it go last night?’
    ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Really good. You were missed.’
    ‘My night for having the boys. Sorry, but you know how it is. Until I get more access I daren’t miss an evening.’
    ‘Did you have a nice time?’
    ‘It was wild. Harry Potter DVD, beans on toast. We sure rocked the joint. That enormous hotel bed too big without me?’
    She sat back. ‘Conor, desperate as I am for your company, I was so shattered by midnight I could have slept on a park bench.’
    Ben came in again and, with a nod to Conor, laid the file on her desk. ‘Mr Ahmadi,’ he said.
    Conor peered at it. ‘Wasn’t that your deportation case from a couple of months ago? Why are you digging him out?’
    ‘Ben, go and get me a fresh coffee, will you? From the shop, not Linda’s brown water.’
    Conor tossed a bank note at him. ‘And me. Double-shot espresso. No milk.’
    ‘You’ll kill yourself,’ she observed.
    ‘But by God, I’ll do it efficiently. Okay,’ he said, noting that she was waiting for Ben to leave. ‘What’s up?’
    ‘This.’ She handed him the paper, pointing at the story.
    He read it quickly. ‘Ah. Your man there,’ he said.
    ‘Oh, yes.’ She stretched out her arms, letting her face fall briefly on to the desk. Then she reached over and picked at an almond croissant. ‘My man there. I’m wondering if I should tell Richard.’
    ‘Our senior partner? Oh, nonononono! No need for a hair shirt, Hotshot.’
    ‘It’s a pretty serious crime.’
    ‘And one you could not have predicted. Let it go, Natasha. All part of the job, sweetheart. You know that.’
    ‘I do. It’s just that it’s . . . so grim. And he was . . .’ She shook her head, remembering. ‘I don’t know. He just didn’t seem the type.’
    ‘Didn’t seem the type.’ Conor actually laughed.
    ‘Well, he didn’t.’ She took a swig of cold coffee. ‘I just don’t