The Girl You Left Behind

Sean’s face appears around the heavy oak door, and he mouths at them to
     come in.
    Paul takes a deep breath. He makes his voice
     conciliatory.‘Look. Personal stuff aside, I do think it would
     be the right thing to settle. We’d still be –’
    Janey reaches for her folders. ‘We are
     not going to settle.’
    ‘But –’
    ‘Why on earth would we? We’re
     about to win the most high-profile case this company has ever handled.’
    ‘We’re destroying
     someone’s life.’
    ‘She destroyed her own life the day
     she decided to fight us.’
    ‘We were taking what she believed was
     hers. Of course she was going to fight us. Come on, Janey, this is about
     fairness.’
    ‘This isn’t about fairness.
     Nothing’s about fairness. Don’t be ridiculous.’ She blows her nose.
     When she turns to him, her eyes glitter. ‘This case is scheduled for two more days
     in court. Provided nothing untoward happens, Sophie Lefèvre will go back after that
     to her rightful place.’
    ‘And you’re so sure you know
     where that is.’
    ‘Yes, I am. As should you be. And now
     I suggest we go in before the Lefèvres wonder what on earth we’re still doing
     out here.’
    He walks into the courtroom, his head
     buzzing, ignoring the glare of the clerk. He sits and takes a few deep breaths, trying
     to clear his thoughts. Janey is distracted, deep in conversation with Sean. As his heart
     rate steadies, he remembers a retired detective he used to talk to when he was first in
     London, a man whose face had set in wry folds of amusement at the ways of the world.
     ‘All that counts is the truth, McCafferty,’ he would say, just before the
     beer turned his conversation to blather. ‘Without it you’re basically just
     juggling people’s daft ideas.’
    He pulls his notepad from his jacket and
     scribbles a few words, before folding the paper carefully in half. He glances sideways,
     then taps the man in front of him. ‘Can you pass this to that solicitor
     please?’ He watches as the scrap of white paper makes its way down to the front,
     along the bench to the junior solicitor, then to Henry, who glances at it and passes it
     to Liv.
    She gazes at it warily, as if reluctant to
     open it. And then he watches as she does so, her sudden, intense stillness as she
     digests what it says.
I WILL FIX THIS.
    She turns and her eyes seek him out. When
     she finds him her chin lifts slightly.
Why should I trust you?
    Time seems to stop. She looks away.
    ‘Tell Janey I had to go. Urgent
     meeting,’ he says, to Sean. Paul stands and begins to fight his way out.
    Afterwards, he is unsure what leads him
     there. The flat, in a mansion block behind Marylebone Road, is lined with salmon-pink
     wallpaper to which pearlescent swirls add a faint peachy glitter. The curtains are pink.
     The sofas are a deep rose. The walls are covered with shelves, upon which little china
     animals jostle for space with tinsel and Christmas cards. A good number are pink. And
     there, standing before him in a pair of slacks and a cardigan, is Marianne Andrews. In
     head-to-toe lime green.
    ‘You’re one of Mr
     Flaherty’s people.’ She stoops a little, as if she is too big for the
     doorframe. She has what Paul’smother would have called
     ‘big bones’: they jut from her joints like a camel’s.
    ‘I’m sorry to land on your
     doorstep like this. I wanted to talk to you. About the case.’
    She looks as if she is about to turn him
     away, and then she raises a large hand. ‘Oh, you might as well come in. But I warn
     you, I’m as mad as a cut snake at how you all talked about Mom, like she was some
     kind of criminal. The newspapers are no better. I’ve had calls these last few days
     from friends back home who’ve seen the story and they’re trying to imply she
     did something terrible. I just got off the phone to my old friend Myra from high school
     and I had to tell her that Mom did more useful things in six months than that darned
     woman’s husband did sitting on his fat old backside in his thirty years at the
     Bank of America.’
    ‘I’m sure.’
    ‘Oh, I bet you are, honey.’ She
     beckons him inside, her gait stiff and shuffling. ‘Mom was a social progressive.
     She wrote about the plight of workers, displaced children. She was horrified by war. She
     would no more steal something than she would have asked Goering out for a date. Now, I
     suppose you’re going to want a drink?’
    Paul accepts a diet cola