Kate finished doing her hair as her phone vibrated with a message from Jake telling her he was parked outside. Grabbing her bag she walked downstairs and out the front door locking it behind her before getting to Jake's car.

"Morning." she said half asleep hoping the headache that was threatening to emerge would disappear.

"Morning." Jake replied waiting for her to put her seat belt on before starting the car, from the looks of him her had had about as much sleep as her. They'd been in the office till almost one o'clock in the morning due to the high profile of the case they were currently working on. Unfortunately for them when an ex judge kills someone the press tend to have a field day. "Sleep well?"

She scoffed. "Running on empty I'm afraid."

"We have a briefing at eight."

She sighed looking at her watch, it was only five past seven. "Too early for all this." She ran her hand over her face. "I've still not forgiven Henry for giving us this case straight after that fiasco with the Busby trial, I mean if he didn't like us he could've just sacked us, no need to try and kill us by working us into the ground. I don't remember the last time I saw my house in day light."

Jake chuckled under his breath listening to Kate go off on her rant. "It'll cheer you up no end when I tell you who's on defence."

She looked at him and as he stopped at a red light he met her gaze. "No. No it can't be. Jake, please tell me you're winding me up."

"You think I'm looking forward to dealing with him?"

She rubbed the back of her neck. "All the other things I could've done with my life, could've done anything but no, I decided to be a lawyer and now I'm gonna spend the best part of the next month dealing with Cosby."

He patted her arm mockingly and laughed slightly. "And you're leading the trial too."

"I hate you..." She swatted his hand away.

"No you don't."

"Not as much as Cosby anyway."

He glanced over at her. "I'm going to take that as a compliment."

She rolled her eyes, admittedly she hadn't thought Cosby was that bad the first time she had been against him in court, for the main reason it was the first time she had seen anyone annoy Jake more than herself, but as that trial had progressed she had grown to hate him which led to her and Jake sharing a hatred for the man. "On another note, has Ron and Joe found Woods son yet?" She asked and Jake shook his head.

The accused was Jonathan Woods and out of all the witnesses they had his son, Jenson, was their best hope for getting a secure guilty verdict. Only Jenson had vanished two days before hand without a trace making their case even more shaky than it was before. "No idea where he's gone." Jake sighed. "They're going to see the sister today, Jess, she's not spoken to Woods since she was about nineteen but kept in touch with her brother apparently."

"What did she fall out with Jonathan about again?"

"Something about money."

"Oh yeah, I remember now. It always comes down to that..." Kate sighed sitting back. "He wasn't exactly skint was he, and still he refused to help her pay for her university fees, his own daughter."

"Thats something I don't understand." Jake said. "Woods had money, we know that, he had a wife and kids, he had a decent career and a lot of friends..."

"What you getting at?"

"I know Ron and Joe got the evidence to prove Woods killed him but I don't get what reason he had for killing Albie Redmond, he had nothing to gain from it, and Albie was one of his oldest friends, they went back years, never once argued. Albie was best man at his wedding and godfather to his kids."

"Albie's wife said he and Woods had argued the day before he was killed..."

"You don't believe Woods' plea of manslaughter then?"

She shook her head. "From the little Woods has actually said he says that they argued and Woods had hit him with the paperweight on the table, the one that has Albie's blood. But he's never said what they were arguing about. I know there have been cases like this but I just don't buy it. This man was his best friend, they'd never argued over anything, then when they do his first reaction is to clobber him with a paper weight."

"Take that as a no then."

"Think about it, if we were arguing would your first reaction be to kill me?"

"Nice cheery question for a Tuesday morning."

"I'm being serious because even though you drive me up the wall, I couldn't kill you."

"Is that another compliment Barker? You want to steady on."

She glared at him.

"No." He said as he pulled into the car park at work.

"No what?" She asked confused having forgotten what they were talking about.

"I couldn't kill you." He opened his door. "Come on, let's see what Henry has to say?"

xXx

An: not really sure where to go with this but it's just something I wrote that was unrelated to my other fics, please review, might give me an idea on where to take this x