.
x.
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I left a thousand roses right on your doorstep (…) and everywhere, everywhere I go, I see pictures of you and me, laughing and crying, and fighting just to reconcile.
I had all you need in life.
(…)
Now, I don't even know what it was I kept trying to find.
I should have put you on a throne and gave you everything you wanted, and made you my own queen.
Too Blind - Rolo
.
.
She was fourteen when she started having serious thoughts about her ability to procreate, beyond the general expectation that she would marry and have kids one day, own a house and a dog or a cat, depending on what her husband wanted. She entertained these recurring thoughts every four weeks or so, waiting for her period to come with the anxiety and anticipation of a soldier pining for battle. She had friends, she remembers, who wanted families, and babies, and used to say: 'if it happened to me, I'd keep it,' with no bloody idea of what having a kid would entail. Her mother had had her at twenty years old and Martha already looked at her life and thought: not me.
So, she said – to herself, mostly, – 'if the time isn't right, I'll terminate it.'
It came over and over again in her head like a motto, every time her period was a bit late or her breasts a bit sore and that for the next twenty years of her life, until she was thirty-six and throwing up in the toilets of a police station and all of that smart thinking flew out the window. And then, again, now.
Clive had perfect timing to put an end to this, didn't he?
.
The next morning, when she wakes up, it feels like a different world, altogether. She looks at her reflection in the mirror and her eyes are red, dry, restless; she gets up and puts on an extra layer of make-up on her face, walks into Chambers and pretends that she doesn't feel like the life has been sucked out of her. She's never been really good at dealing with things, prefers to cover them up and try to forget they ever existed. If she doesn't think about it, doesn't feel about it, there may be a chance that she might not actually break. She's a grown woman, she's been dumped before; it'll be fine, she thinks. Jo and her cheap psychology courses would probably say to confront things head-on and wallow in self-pity for a while but that's not how Martha Costello does things. So, she sits at her desk and laughs at one of Nick's jokes, watches Billy smiling back at her from his picture frame and adopts the same tactics she did when he passed away: pushing it to the back of her brain in an attempt to numb how much it hurts.
Last night, she must have slept for about an hour or so, between five and six, when her mind finally stopped swirling thoughts around her head like tasteless soup in a pan. Her alarm went off and she felt the anger, and the fight creep back in, thought: you're better than him.
Her bedroom was silent, then, all she could hear were the birds chirping away at the summer outside. A while back, she used to be able to hear the low hum of the refrigerator from here, if she paid attention. She remembered waking up the day before: the alarm had just gone off and she'd hit snooze forcefully with her palm, turned away from the noise. Clive had laughed, in the background, snuck back in bed with his hair still wet from the shower, kissed her temple and joked: 'Good morning, sunshine!'
She had rolled her eyes behind her closed lids, felt his hand travel down under the sheets between them, his palm stopping on a space over her bellybutton. 'Good morning, you too,' she heard him say, this time, and tried very hard not to smile.
Unlike Clive, she'd never talked to the baby before, was so convinced that she was going to lose it, didn't want to get attached. This morning, though, when she woke up alone in her bed and saw the sun already creeping past the blinds, she set her hand on her stomach and whispered: "Stay. Please."
We're better than him, she thought.
.
Ever since she dumped Sean when she was seventeen, she doesn't think she ever ended another relationship. She's a bit weak, on that front, doesn't like hurting people – and taking decisions, again, - so she does what's necessary to end things without having to make the final call.
When she started seeing Jerôme, he was supposed to leave. He was a senior associate on a partner track doing competition law in a big firm in Brussels and had been flown in for a six months gig at their London office for a case involving a big pharmaceutical company forbidding their wholesalers from exporting medication around the EU. She'd met him at a conference on Article 6 of the ECHR (his "other passion," he'd claimed, before he went corporate and lame) where they'd hit it off talking about the right to a fair trial and football, before she ended up at his short term rental apartment about a hundred meters from his office on Liverpool street.
A couple months later, they were still hooking up from time to time – read a few times a week, which, by her standards, was already more regular and long term than any relationship she'd had in the past ten years – when he'd asked her about kids. They were in bed, she remembers, basking in post-coital bliss; he turned on his side to look at her, his hair standing out at odd angles against the white cover of his pillows, her gaze hovering between him and the ceiling. 'Do you want kids?' he said and she puffed out a laugh, coughing on a cigarette. He smoked menthols, she remembers, had covered up the smoke detectors of his apartment with cheap towels from IKEA.
'What kind of question is that?' she cocked an eyebrow at him, amused. He rolled his eyes.
'I don't mean with me, right this minute,' he said, shaking his head at her. 'I mean in the grand scheme of things, one day.'
She was tempted to repeat her initial reaction - because again: what kind of question was that? – but ended up breathing another drag and puffing out to the ceiling, a cloud of smoke temporarily filling the air around them. 'I don't know,' she said, honest, amended. 'I don't think so,' she paused before stealing a glance at him. 'You?'
Oddly, he seemed to think about it. Really think about it, as if he'd never thought about it before. A very male privilege, she mused. 'I think so,' he finally said, nodding. 'I mean, not now. When the time is right and I make partner, and things get easier.'
She laughed, again, killed her cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table. She turned on her side, too, facing him. 'No clock for men, is there?'
He frowned. 'What clock?'
Back then, she read from the confused look on his face that it was probably a language issue, more than anything else, that there probably was a similar concept in French that hadn't translated right, but the thought still crossed her mind: how fitting. 'Nothing,' she smiled.
And truth be told, at the time, she really thought it would be that: nothing. But then, his contract got extended. Once, twice and the months passed, years passed, and he was offered partnership, a permanent place in London and one day, it did become something. He wouldn't have pressured her, ever, but she could see in his eyes that he wanted more for them than whatever they had. She felt trapped, powerless, and instead of ending it herself, she started sleeping around in the hopes that he'd find out – he did, eventually – and put out the fire on her behalf – and he did that, too.
Her thoughts are a full circle, really, because maybe Clive's right, isn't he? If it was her fault before, if she didn't care before, maybe she was just kidding herself in thinking that this was any different.
.
The next time she sees him, Clive, she's standing alone in the robing room, making sure the safety pin she now uses instead of zipping her skirts all the way up is still in place - she's not showing, yet, but she's bloated and wishes early maternity suits were a thing, already – when he walks in. She's positioned in a way that has her facing the door, in that particular moment, so she's the first thing that he sees, walking in. Clive freezes, instantly, his hand still on the handle.
She looks up, crosses his gaze, looks away. She has to admit it's a small victory to establish that he looks every bit as shit as she feels.
"Sorry," he says, backing away towards the door.
She rolls her eyes, slipping her gown on. "It's fine. I'm almost done, anyway," she says, looking away.
He's got no choice but to stay, now, and the silence is strained between them for another couple of minutes as he stands behind her shoving his things into his locker. She wishes she had, indeed, been almost done or that there were other people in the room for either of them to talk to. Frankly, she feels like she's stuck in a lift with Prince Charles.
She breathes in, turns around to face his back as he stands, facing the other side, the little benches between both rows of lockers an awkward fence between them. "I'm keeping it," she hears herself say, looking at him.
Clive freezes, again, a hand closing up his gown. He doesn't turn around, keeps his eyes trained down on his feet. "Keeping what?"
She doesn't answer right away, waits until he finally does turn around to hold her gaze for an instant before she looks away. She turns back towards her locker, fishing in for her wig. "The baby," she says, pausing. Wig in hand, she turns around again, sets it on top of the binders she'd laid down on the bench before reaching to lift them up in her arms. Clive stays there, a hand on his collar, unmoving. "I thought maybe I wouldn't," she admits, shrugs. "But now, I think I will." She breathes, holding the files in her arms; it feels good to be holding onto something, at least. "So, if you want to play a role in its life, that's fine, I can't deprive you of that," she adds, pausing. "But I won't expect anything from you."
"Jesus, Martha, of course, I want to be part of its life. I –"
"Don't," she says, quickly, because frankly whatever he still has to say, she's not sure she's strong enough to hear it. It's been two days - three nights – and she's yet to really close her eyes. "I'll, uh," she starts, stops, walks the couple of steps to the door. "I'll keep you informed, then."
.
For about a month after that, she works. She's Martha Costello, the workhorse, the cross between Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa and small Rottweiler. She spends her days in Chambers and her nights sat at her kitchen table, when she even finds it in her to make the effort to go home. She thinks that if she knew this case back to back before, it's nothing compared to now. She can quote any page from the transcripts and picture all the shots taken of the victim's body from memory, knows everything there is to know down to the exact shape of the blood stain on Sean's jacket. Sometimes, there is another case, a late return or slow burner that was scheduled beforehand and she takes a break, reviews the binder, goes to court, makes her argument, wins it, and then it's back to her room she goes. In different circumstances, she might have seen a bit of truth in the argument implying that she's going a bit mad in the head but right now, on the opposite, it keeps her from losing her mind. Keeps her focused.
Nick knocks on the door to her room, one night, with a plate in hand. She smiles, waves him in and throws him a questioning look when he sets it on her desk. It's cake, three slices left, part of what probably used to be a perfect circle.
"What is it?" she asks, looking up from her laptop.
"Chocolate, I think," he says, taking a slice between his fingers. He sets it down on a napkin, sits back in his chair, holding the food in his palm. "Was for Latifa's birthday earlier. I think," he explains. She sees him bite in and hum in appreciation, wiping his fingers on the napkin. "Not bad. You should eat some," he adds, nodding at the plate.
She looks down at the cake. It looks good, frankly, and she's hungry, but if it's just to throw it all up again in half an hour, she'd rather not. "I'm good, thanks," she says, sadly, looking back down at her paperwork.
Nick smiles, pushes the plate towards her. "I think you really should eat," he pauses as she looks up, raises an eyebrow. "Considering."
She holds his gaze. "Considering what?"
He smiles and sets his half-eaten piece of cake on the desk before sitting back in his chair, the low glow of her light casting a shadow over the left side of his face. "The fact that I haven't seen you drink in over a month," he says, pausing. "And the fact that I heard you vomiting in the toilet, yesterday. And the day before that."
"Stomach bug," she counters, automatically, barely looking up.
Nick huffs out a laugh, catches her gaze. "Yeah," he says. "Is that what they call it, these days?"
She rolls her eyes and sits back in her chair, finally, crosses her arms over her chest. At least he's not commenting on the size of her tits, she muses. "Okay," she nods, glancing down at her desk. "Well, clearly you also know I can't seem to keep anything down, so –"
Nick laughs and raises an eyebrow. "Even chocolate?"
She doesn't know if it's the look on his face or the genuine concern that seems to filter behind his words but she catches herself smiling, too, and okay, she thinks: it may be time for a break. She's been working non-stop since she came back from court at 5 p.m. and the sky is dark, now, so she shuts the screen of her laptop and sits back again, extending her legs under her desk, closes her eyes, and sighs. "It's the smells, really," she admits, looking up at him. "Stuff I even used to like," she shrugs. "Mint. Coconut. Onions. Anything, really," she adds, rolling her eyes.
Nick smiles, leaning in again to grab another piece of cake. "Fine," he chuckles, shoving a bite into his mouth. "I'll eat it all, then."
They end up laughing about everything and nothing for a bit, she rediscovers muscles in her face she'd forgotten since Clive left. So, Nick knows, she notes, in her head. From the height of his twenty-four years on this planet, he probably thinks she's just one of those women who always seem to be pregnant, now. She rolls her eyes at the thought, looking down at the paperwork she still has to get through. She meant to come to him about this tomorrow, really, but since he's there, she might as well tell him tonight. "I think you're right," she admits, finally, leaning back in her chair, her hands behind her head.
"'bout wha-?" Nick asks, still chewing on cake.
"We need to argue evidence," she breathes, pushing a paper aside. "I don't care what Sean says. He's lied too much at this stage to make anyone believe he's innocent. We need to argue the law."
Nick looks up at her words, catches her gaze. He'd brought the idea up a few days ago, pointing out the inconsistencies in the case. 'Why call Mickey Joy?' he'd asked, followed by: 'And why disregard his statement, then?' And: 'An anonymous informant found the jacket? Please? Who found this, really, do we know?'
She didn't answer that one, obviously, but after turning it around in her head for the last two days; she thinks he kind of has a point. The gun, the jacket, half the evidence fell on their lap in the middle of trial, with little to no time for anyone to truly examine it. Fitzpatrick relied on Brannigan's testimony with little to no questions asked and if the guy was paid by the Monk family to throw Sean under the bus, the coppers had to know about it. Mickey Joy was wrong about this. It's not the big, bad conspiracy that counts, it's the little details that allowed it to stand. It's an appeal; the judges will have reviewed the evidence, the turn the first trial took already. They'll know the story of the Monk family killing two birds with one stone and they'll either believe it or not, but she won't change their opinions about it. She hates it but she needs to work like the coppers do, now. She's got the narrative, needs to show where the evidence sticks, and where it doesn't. Nick's right: if the evidence falls on irregularities, there's reasonable doubt. And if there's reasonable doubt, Sean walks.
"You think I'm right?" Nick says, smiling, leaning over the desk.
She laughs, nods. "For the record, I voted to keep you in at Shoe Lane, you know?"
"Well," he sighs, wiping his fingers on the napkin. "I voted you in here, so we're even, I guess," he adds, pausing for a bit, seems to think about it. "Seriously, though? You agree?"
"I," she starts and lets the syllable rest in her mouth for a bit. Thinks. "I think he's an idiot," she smiles, shaking her head. "But I also think he's innocent. The thing is: I've tried that argument before, that and police corruption and we both know how that ended," she breathes. "It's more than that. It's this trial being run like a circus from start to finish. It's that copper lying on the stand, it's Mickey Joy going back and forth on his testimony, it's CW being drunk, it's Cl-" she almost slips, shakes her head, sighs. "It's that jacket being found last minute by God knows who, I mean, it's everything, it's just all bollocks really. Even I shouldn't be in there, I'm conflicted out."
Nick laughs, sits back, crosses his arms. "Glad to hear you say it."
She shakes her head, huffs a bit of a laugh. "What I mean is," she starts. "We need to bring that down bit by bit. If we just argue innocence, all we have is the blood on the wrong sleeve of that jacket. And yes, that's relevant, and we'll bring it up but believe me, they'll find some other way to pin this on him," she sighs. "We need to burn the whole house down."
Nick stays silent for a bit, purses his lips, lets her words sink in. "Sean isn't going to be happy," he says. "He was, er, pretty adamant on innocence."
"Well, he'll have to get used to it," she sighs. "'Cause right now, I'm all he's got, so I'm taking my own instructions, here," she pauses. "If he wants to fire me, he just has to say the word," she shrugs, eyeing the clutter around her room. There are dozens of files on her desk, a wobbly bookcase by Vanessa's and curtains that barely filter the streetlights from outside. She leans forward, her hand hovering over her desk for a bit; she finally grabs a piece of cake, too. Fuck it, she thinks. Nick smiles. "So," she says, looking up at him. Hm, she thinks, that cake really is nice. "Are you in?"
"To burn the house down?"
She chews a bit, swallows. "Yeah."
Nick smiles, nods. "Always."
.
It's kind of hard to believe, as a coincidence, but she's exactly fourteen weeks pregnant when the trial starts. The good news is that the nausea has finally rescinded – which will undoubtedly prove useful during the hearings - but other problems have made their apparition in the meantime. On the Sunday morning before the appeal starts, she looks at her clothes on their rack trying to find something to wear to go grab some food at the corner shop and decides that this is it: she can't go on like this. She'd promised herself to wait until next week at least - that psychological barrier still high in her head - but then her credibility's at stake. Even hidden under her robes, she can't show up with a blouse she can't close and a skirt that's not even zipped up halfway through. She's showing a lot more than last time, really, which the internet seems to confirm is normal but still, the pregnancy is becoming harder and harder to hide.
So, when 11 a.m. rolls around and the shops finally open: she goes shopping. There's nothing more she can do on the case anyway, and frankly, if she calls Nick one more time to run things past him, she genuinely thinks he might stop answering. It's hot, gross and rainy outside but still quiet in the shops when she gets there, so she spends a lot of time just looking at everything, from tracksuits to work clothes, and chatting with the salespeople in different places, trying to listen to them when they promise that no, that particular item does not make her look fat.
As a general rule, she's always hated fashion shopping – her usual work uniform exists for a reason - but faced with the obvious fact that the pregnancy pencil skirts tend to be very revealing of her bump - which she's not quite sure she wants to own that much, yet, - she also ends up picking a few looser dresses, which make it easier to, er, hide things for a little while longer. Even though she's past the twelve weeks, now, considering past experience, she still hasn't found the courage to be open about it, really.
After hours spent going from shop to shop, her back and feet start to truly kill her, so she decides to stop at the pub to sit down and eat before making her way back home. The Crown is this kind of strange place where the busiest days are during the week, with the whole of Middle Temple pouring in every day after six, the weekends being oddly quiet and peaceful. She settles down at a table and can't actually see anyone she knows, just a couple of tourists sitting by the door and a few other patrons at the back, reading newspapers or doing crossword puzzles. Pat walks up to her table; she's placed all of her shopping bags on the booth; he throws her an amused smile. "Haven't seen you in a while," he says, handing her the menu. "What do you want?"
She doesn't move to catch the menu from his hand, just glances up at him. "Full English?"
Pat laughs, checks his watch. "It's 2:30 in the afternoon."
Yes, she thinks, well. She feels like eggs. And beans, and toast. And now that she can finally eat without puking everything back out the next minute, she might as well indulge a bit. She holds Pat's gaze, daring him to say no.
He laughs, shakes his head. "Ice cream and pickles on top, too?" he jokes and she rolls her eyes, glares up at him. "Come on," he says, smiles, laying a friendly hand on her shoulder. "I'm just taking the piss." He taps the table with the menu in his other hand, nodding. "To drink? Sprite? Water?"
"Water's fine," she nods.
She sees him turn around, shout over in the direction of the kitchen. "A full English breakfast and a pint of water coming right at yeh!"
.
The food is good, so is the company. Pat lets the young barman they recently hired, Tom, do the service as he sits at her table and watches her eat. He tells her about his kids, his ex-wife, his mum and brothers back home. "They don't like me living out here," he jokes, as she chews on a piece of toast. "Think I'm a traitor to the cause."
She laughs at his jokes, but as the minutes pass and there's nothing left to occupy her mind but Pat's small talk, she starts thinking about Clive again. It's easy to forget when she's working, pulling all-nighters every other day, but every time she stops, or every time she stands in her underwear looking at her reflection in the mirror with her hand resting against her midriff, he creeps back into her mind. At first, all she could think about was what he said, turning it around in her head, not knowing what hurt more: what he said about her, or what he said about the baby. Some days, she'd wake up thinking he was right, thinking she was awful, heartless, careless, and that she was going to lose it again. Some other days, though, she'd blame him, call him names in her head, shout at him all the insults and recriminations she wishes she could have said to his face.
Now, it's harder. Every time she sees him, runs into him in court or in the street, she remembers how they were, too, before. She remembers the I-love-you-s he used to whisper in her hair, and the quiet mornings they'd have, the visits to his sister's and the silly bickering over her unwashed mugs left in the sink. It's a bit weak, she knows, but she misses him, the smell of his skin and the sound of his voice, the feeling of his hand over hers.
It certainly doesn't help that her hormones are through the roof, at the moment.
"You're in a competition, aren't you?" she hears Pat ask, blinks herself out of her thoughts
She frowns toying with her fork, pushing the last few beans around the plate. "What?"
"You and 'im," Pat breathes, giving her slight nod. She swallows, quickly, shifts awkwardly in her seat. "Who's more miserable?" he asks, catching her glance. "Fifteen minutes ago, I would have said him, you know? But then I go away to put the tables out outside and when I come back, you're sitting here brooding and staring into space like a lost fucking sheep."
She sighs, looks up, rolls her eyes. She's not here to talk about Clive. She's here because it's hot and humid outside, because she was hungry and because her feet were killing her. She sighs, again, looks away.
"He comes here too, you know?" Pat says, trying to catch her gaze. "Every fucking night. Sits on that stool down there," he points, in the direction of the bar; she glances out, shrugs. "And drinks. Never seen him like that before, even had to throw him out a couple times 'cause he didn't want to go home," Pat breathes. "Lost fucking sheep, just like you. Even that blonde Barbie of his doesn't seem interested anymore, haven't seen her in ages."
She has to admit that does make her look up; she curses herself for it. Pathetic. "Harriet?"
Pat huffs out a laugh. "See?" he nods, smiling. "You care."
She shrugs, looks out the window to her left. It's funny, it's the exact opposite of what Clive said, isn't it? Claiming she doesn't care.
"For what it's worth, he said he was an idiot," Pat adds, after a while, and she wonders if Clive didn't ask him to plead his cause. Well, at least he knows he's an idiot, she guesses. Doesn't mean she'll ever be able to forget what he shouted at her that evening. "One night, he said: 'Pat, I'm an idiot,'" he quotes, shrugs. "Which, in my experience with men in pubs, is almost always the case, but you know -"
She smiles, shortly, sadly, feels Pat's stare on her face, his fingers tapping against the table in a rhythm she doesn't recognise. "I miss Billy," she hears herself say before she hears herself think. She doesn't know where it comes from, exactly, or why it pops into her mind uninvited, but she really, really does miss Billy.
"Yeah, me too," Pat breathes from the other side of the table, chuckles lightly. "So does my accountant," he jokes and she smiles, shaking her head at him. "Your man can drink all he wants, he doesn't even come close to Billy's tab."
She hears herself laugh, like a distant sound or an echo. She wonders what Billy would have said, now, looking at them. She hasn't visited him since telling him about the baby, doesn't know if she lacks the strength, or just doesn't think she wants to spend even more time than she already does listening to the sound of her own thoughts. Billy would have put Clive and her in a room and forced them to make peace like all he'd done was to pull her hair on the playground.
"Do you love him?" Pat asks, catching her glance. "Clive, do you love him?" he specifies and she remembers the way Jo asked, in a pub, too, what feels like a million years ago. The answer's the same, she thinks, will always be the same.
She speaks in a breath – it's a lawyer thing: never answering the question asked. "I need to forget about him."
Pat laughs, then, pushing himself up from the booth, both his hands on the table. She looks up at him, crosses his gaze. "Well, that'll be a bit hard with that bun you've got in the oven, won't it?"
.
It's 7 a.m. the next morning and she's dressed for court, light bright in her bathroom, looks at herself in the mirror as she applies her lipstick and thinks: good.
Not great, but good. Good enough. She's had coffee, six hours of sleep and her new clothes look professional, fall over her stomach in a way that makes it less obvious and safer, protected, somehow. CW will open; she will close, one of the immutable privileges of the rule of law. She's got five days to prove a truth and right a wrong, which feels a lot more like five days to disprove a lie and make a wrong look a bit less believable but that, she can do.
She meets Nick outside court, thinks he looks nervous and feels – oddly – calm. Sean isn't, though. She sees him through the glass of his box when she walks in, the way he jitters and bites his fingers, looking from the empty judicial bench in front of him to Nick, to herself, to the accusation. Jumpy as hell, she recalls Clive once said. CW isn't there, yet - probably drinking one last shot before the run through. Setting her bag at her feet, Martha sits down on the wood of the bench, closes her eyes, breathes.
She hears Nick ruffling papers behind her. She hears the usher sitting down. If she really concentrates, she can even listen to the tick-tack of the clock on the wall. CW walks in with someone behind her – pupil? Junior? Martha wonders – their footsteps getting closer, both wearing heels – probably a girl. She sits down, next to her, speaks. It's the calm before the storm, Martha thinks.
"Ready for round two?"
She doesn't move quite yet, just pictures the room in her head, inhales –
"All rise."
Her eyes snap open, hands on the wood, she pushes herself up, sees three figures wearing gowns walk in front of her.
Okay, the voice in her head says. Here it goes.
.
When she was a child her teachers used to tell her parents about how focused she was. She would sit in silence for hours for the perfect drawing to come out, the perfect sentence, perfect posture. It was as if she could simply shut down, when she wanted to, have her brain aimed at one particular thing, one particular problem she needed to solve. She didn't need food or water, didn't need breaks, could sit on a chair for seven hours straight until the field of flowers on her paper was shaped in just the right way, with exactly the right colours framed.
What she does during those big trials is a bit of the same thing. It's her and the court, and blurry shapes all around. She shuts down. Doesn't look at people, doesn't see them, doesn't hear any noise that's not strictly essential to her argument. She doesn't do it all the time, but sometimes, when it's necessary.
She doesn't go home for more than a few hours at a time, that week, only sees the sun on her way to court and back, lives in the office with Nick, runs her cross-examinations over and over with the precision of a classical musician playing to the sound of a metronome, and tries not to break. She counts the points she scores versus the hits she takes, CW's voice constantly hovering close to the penalty line. Sean is there, in the box behind her, she knows, but she never looks – never lets herself look – for fear that the glass might break. She's more prepared than last time, has got the luxury to be because Charlotte freed her calendar this week and the week before, told her she needed to win this.
There's a part of her that wants to fight, wants to point out that the only reason her clerk cares is that it would look good for Chambers, but she's shutting down, now, so she needs to choose her battles.
She chooses Sean.
.
Every time she goes to the loo, she expects to find blood on her underwear. Somehow, though, she doesn't. Somehow, by some sort of incredible twist of fate, the baby seems to hang in there. At least for what she knows. She's read online that sometimes, their hearts could stop beating without you knowing about it. She's read a lot of horror stories, at night, when she can't sleep, tries not to think too much about it. She doesn't want Clive to be right on that one. If he is, it may mean that he's right about everything else.
The first few days go by in the blink of an eye. They have legal arguments about anything from the length of the trial to Mickey Joy's testimony (it's easy, she argues, to just simply disregard the words of a dead man) some that she wins, some that she loses. It's a lot of clever words, a lot of "my learned friend"s from CW, they frankly hurt her ears.
They have one of Sean's mates at the stand one afternoon. He's called by the prosecution. CW claims Sean had subcontracted some cleaning business to him but Martha has an odd, fishy feeling about it. The guy wasn't there at the first trial, looks familiar, somehow, but she can't quite place it. He's nervous, glances at Sean, glances at her a lot, like he's not quite decided on what he wants to say, yet.
"Nick Westlake, Martin Land, Steve Keane and Robin Page," CW quotes, finally, after a good ten minutes of excruciatingly pointless questions about the details of his business with Sean. Martha freezes, catches the pen that had been swirling between her fingers in her palm, holds her breath. That's where she knows him from, she realises: he was in school with them, a few years older, dropped out a few months before Sean and she got together. Martha doesn't think he recognises her, really, but he looks like he definitely recognises the names, his glance quickly flickering towards Sean. Either CW is fishing - which is possible, Martha guesses, because everyone's been trying to figure out who these people were for months, after all, - or she was told.
If she was, there's only one person who could have told her.
Fuck Clive, Martha thinks.
Sean's stare is digging holes into the back of her head as CW speaks, asks: "Do those names sound familiar to you?"
Frankly, she wonders if she would lie for him, were she the one speaking, out there.
"No," she hears Sean's mate say and breathes.
"Are you sure?" CW counters, her forearm resting against the wood of the lectern in front of her. "We've looked at the records, it seems that you attended the same school. Same school as Mr McBride, shall I add?"
All things considered, Martha thinks, she argues her way out of this one with calm, collection and the utmost brilliance. She throws the ball back at CW, accusing her of testifying for the witness, pointing out how loose the connection is, even more so considering the number of people who were at that school and the limited time her client actually spent within its walls. From the look on the judges' faces and the way they request CW to move on, it sounds a lot more believable than it should.
CW herself smiles, though, something tight and very Lady-Macbeth-ian, Martha thinks, for the lack of a better word. She steals a quick glance at her before she notes, her voice lower than the last time she spoke: "Yes, Mr Donovan, plenty of people at that school, indeed."
.
A few hours later, they break for the day and Martha is packing up her things when CW smiles at her, toying with the cap of her empty bottle. "You knew, didn't you? Your classmates?" CW asks, looking up at her. "Maybe it's true. Maybe that guy Donovan doesn't know them," she pauses. "But you do. That's why you walked out, last time around."
"I'm sorry, I don't see what you're talking about."
"Thought that was weird, you know? You walking out like that," she adds as Martha keeps packing, shoving her wig inside her handbag and grabbing the files on her desk in her arms. "Then I started having the pupil look into it, that is until our beloved Head of Chambers became very insistent there was nothing to find, there," she pauses, glancing at Martha. Her eyes are trained down, heart hammering against her ribcage. "Which, of course, given current circumstances, I thought was even more interesting."
So, it wasn't Clive. At least not voluntarily. She spent the entire hearing thinking about it, thoughts going round and round in her head, and fucking Caroline Warwick probably knew this the whole time. She lost points, in this mess, nothing too big but it felt like she was gripping at straws all afternoon, all because CW got under her fucking skin. Clive tried to cover for her, for better or for worse, he tried to –
She takes her phone in her hand, gathers all of her things under her arm and: "Good night, Caroline," she hears herself say, making a very conscious effort not to just rush out of the room.
The door is heavy as it closes behind her and she leans against the wall outside court. One, two, one, two, she counts, breathes.
.
The next day, things get back on track. CW brings up the jacket, the gun; she argues the chain of evidence and drives her point home with at least two of the judges, from what she can tell. She also gets her rematch against the medical examiner, gets her to admit that: "No, Mr McBride isn't left-handed."
She pushes, catches the other woman's glance. "You didn't know this, did you?"
She tries to defend herself, again. "I didn't, but –"
"But you didn't have time to examine the jacket properly, did you, Miss Buchan? Because it was found in the middle of trial and you were rushed to issue your conclusions. And you know what? I didn't notice it either," she shrugs. Her gaze flicks over to the bench, the back on her witness. "The police, they had their man, their narrative, and that was enough. They didn't grant me the right I had to counter them, didn't give you the power to do your job and now they're letting you stand here, almost a year later, trapped in a position where your findings are coming out as incorrect by their fault," Martha adds, pauses, her glance resting on the medical examiner's eyes. "Now, Miss Buchan, how does that make you feel?"
She opens her mouth, closes it, shakes her head. There's desperation in her look, and apologies; it almost makes Martha sad.
"I'll tell you how it makes me feel," she hammers, letting her point make itself. "Cheated. On behalf of my client, and of the justice system you and I both are so dedicated to serving."
The witness clenches her jaw but doesn't say anything, bites her lips and closes her eyes for a second.
It feels like they're alone in the room, when Martha says: "One big performance, isn't it?"
This time, she stands a few seconds more, gives her the opportunity to answer, dutifully, but the words never come. Martha sits down, noting, out loud: "No response."
.
It's funny, how quickly the sand can shift under one's feet. She was the runner-up, then toe to toe with the leading filly but after that, when the prosecution runs Sean's background and she argues evidence, relevance, it feels like a different race, altogether. The audience's focus isn't on CW, anymore, but on her. It feels like she owns the tracks now.
'I just wish things were clearer, sometimes,' she told Alan, once. She was younger; he was wiser. 'That everyone didn't think this is all a game.'
He shook his head, smiled. 'It is,' he declared. 'But a serious one, a betting one,' he laughed.
Well, she thinks, if it's a betting game, at least this one, she knows the tells. When the next day, they have Brannigan on the stand, she gets to go through his accounts, his lifestyle, with the full attention of the room set on her. "You're being paid by the Monk family, aren't you, Mr Brannigan?" she asks, her voice loud and clear, echoing in the room. "You were paid to throw your mate Sean, here, under the bus."
"No," Loyd says and she sighs, shaking her head.
"So, for the umpteenth time, sir, where does the money come from?"
"I don't know, okay?" he finally shouts, frantic and jumpy and Martha utters a smile, looks up at the bench and sits back down.
"No further questions."
.
It's that night when she receives the first text from Clive in a very long while. She's putting some ready-made meal in the oven, wipes her hand on a tea towel before grabbing her phone off the counter and it's funny, really, but when she looks at her screen, the last message before this one is from weeks ago and says I'll see you tonight, then. This one is just a link, though, at first, a Guardian article from a reporter covering the trial. Gangland Appeal Takes and Unexpected Turn, the headline states.
In an unexpected turn of events, the appeal of what seemed to be an open and shut case confirming the guilt of Sean McBride, 39 year-old Manchester nightclub owner, in the murder of gang-member Jimmy Monk in March 2014, is now revealing a series of deep holes in a police investigation that may have led to the conviction of an innocent man -
Well, she thinks: at least they've got the media on their side now, that's something. Clive isn't exactly your average Guardianista, though, so she's not exactly sure why he's sending her this, really, especially since they haven't talked in days, until he sends her another text, says: I hope he or she will look like that. I don't think I've ever looked this good.
She frowns, scrolls back up trying to find what he's on about when - yeah, okay.
The image was loading when she first clicked so she didn't see it but now, she gets it. The fact is: this isn't the first time. She's had court artists draw her clients before, and there have been a few pictures of her in the press, but true, this is different. It's a sketch, hand drawn, almost entirely black and white, and she's alone in it, standing in court with the wooden decorum around her, a manila file open on the lectern. Her mouth is slightly open, mid-argument, finger adding to a detail by pointing at something on her papers. She's got her hair tied back, wig on; it's funny: she doesn't know what she projects in court, really. She looks confident, sure, like herself but also someone else, the kind of person she wants to be when she holds onto her desk to keep her hands from shaking. They painted her lips red, she smiles, the only dash of colour in the drawing.
Martha Costello Q.C. the legend reads, representing Mr McBride.
It's an odd thought, really, one she's very, very rarely had in the past but looking objectively at a court sketch of herself, now, she thinks she looks beautiful.
She smiles, quiet in the night, types: I don't think I have either.
For about a minute afterwards, she sees the dots of the answer he's typing appear and disappear as he hesitates on what to say next. She gives him privacy, sets her phone back on the counter until it beeps.
Now, you're just fishing ;).
She chuckles, shakes her head, until the reality of them downs on her and her fingers hover over her keyboard for a good while, too. She wishes he were here, by her side, and I miss you, she almost types, before deleting her words, writes: Thanks, Clive, and hits send.
She looks strong in that drawing, too.
.
By Thursday, they're coming up on top but she feels exhausted, more tired than she's ever been. The only thing that keeps her going, it feels, is the adrenaline, the feeling of her heart beating fast against her chest as she meets Nick outside court. Today is the big day. Today, they have DCI Fitzpatrick on the stand.
She's ready. She's spent hours working towards this, knows her questions by heart, the route from a to b, to c, knows how to nail him lying on the stand like she couldn't last time. She's prepared, hasn't slept. Nick rolls his eyes when he sees the bags under hers, but she's ready.
"How did you come to suspect Sean?"
She's methodical. Questions after question. When she reviewed the case, she knew it'd be the first. Sean got arrested just two hours after the murder, so how did they know? The body was reported by an anonymous 999 call, probably the killer, upon reflection, someone from the Monk family. Someone who might have put them onto Sean.
"The family mentioned their son had had a business disagreement with Mr McBride."
"So, you relied on the information provided by notorious gang members?"
"Who'd just lost a son. We do this every time, it's called an investigation."
He hates her already, she muses, which is fine: the feeling is mutual. She thinks of what Mickey Joy said, how they were two sides of the same coin and well, no, she thinks: at least she's not corrupt. "Okay," she says, looking up. "So you hear the victim had a business disagreement with my client. What do you do then?"
"We decided we wanted to gather more information so we visited Mr McBride's club."
"Was Sean there?"
"No. His business partner was, Mr Brannigan."
Martha looks up; her pen stops doodling on her pad. "So, you did know Mr Brannigan."
"Met him during this investigation, yes."
"And what did Mr Brannigan say?"
"He didn't know anything. Said that Sean had gone to see Jimmy and that he didn't know where his business partner was, or where his gun was."
"Sounds to me like he did know something, then," she hints, smiling. "Almost like he was waiting for you to ask."
"What do you mean?"
She purses her lips, lets silence fill the room again, pauses to think. It's too soon to attack him, already, so she shakes her head, changes the subject.
"What did you do afterwards, before arresting my client? Did you check Mr Brannigan's story?"
"We did our due diligence, as always."
Martha smiles, breathes. One, two, three, she counts. "Are you incompetent, DCI Fitzpatrick?" she asks and watches her witness's mouth fall, like facing a cliff.
"What?"
"See, I'm asking the question because Mr Brannigan pretty much confirmed to us yesterday that he took the Monk family's money so, I'm asking you, DCI Fitzpatrick, how could you do your 'due diligence' as you call it, and not know about this? How could you not understand that your witness was playing you, supported by the Monk family to feed his business partner to the wolves?" she speaks, quick, confident, her voice carrying all the way down to the back of the room. "Again, DCI Fitzpatrick, are you completely incompetent or are you lying to us?"
Fitzpatrick glares, jaw clenched, and if he could spit at her, Martha is pretty sure he would. "No, I'm not incompetent, Miss Costello. And what you're referring to is a theory that isn't supported by any of the evidence we have. Again, round hole, square peg."
Martha smirks at that, shakes her head, fakes a frown. "So, the fact that we've proved that Mr Brannigan has been receiving bribes for months, now, and the fact that the blood on Sean's jacket actually seems to corroborate the idea that he attempted to take Jimmy Monk's pulse rather than shoot him, and the fact that we have no explanation why, despite the high amount of manpower and money that was put into this investigation, the evidence was just produced days into the trial – all of that doesn't mean anything to you, DCI Fitzpatrick? All those questions you can't answer –"
CW interrupts, then, stands up to speak: "The defence is badgering the witness, my Lord –"
"No, I don't think, so, Miss Warwick," Lord Hayes responds, to Martha's astonishment. She looks up, her breath coming out a bit short. "I think Miss Costello is asking questions about this police investigation, the answers to which we would all very much want to know. Mr Fitzpatrick, please answer the question."
"Oh come on, you've cooked yourself up your little appeal –"
"Frankly, there are two options here," Martha interrupts, presents, her gaze hovering between him and the bench. "One," she reinforces the count with her fingers: "It's negligence. You decided it was Sean and didn't look twice at the evidence that didn't go your way because you were lazy and wanted this solved quickly," she articulates, staring back. "Or, two, it's fraud. You knew the Monk's family plan from the start, knew Brannigan was playing you, and frankly, DCI Fitzpatrick, I don't know where that leaves us."
"My learned friend is making allegations she can't support and is forgetting that the arresting officer is not the accused, here, my Lord –"
"Well, maybe, he should be," Martha snaps, a bit too loud, covering CW's last words and immediately curses herself for it. She needs to be smart about this, walking the line between irreverence and rudeness like a court jester, these days.
"Miss Costello," she hears Lord Hayes reprimand and bites her lip, apologises.
She sighs, takes a second to think. She's got this thing she uses sometimes, leaning in closer to the witness as much as she possibly can without actually moving from her spot and staring into their eyes. It makes them think they're alone. His eyes are blue, she notices, a very, very light shade, like that of older men in retirement homes. It might work with him, she thinks, against all odds.
She asks a few more questions he can't answer but her voice is tame, now, and for minutes on end, she refuses to let go of his gaze. He gets aggressive, moans but she doesn't flinch, doesn't shout back, just lets him get there, patient, like a lioness surveilling its prey, walking him from point a to point b.
"What happened, DCI Fitzpatrick?" she finally asks, again, when the time is right, her voice barely louder than normal speech, a whisper in a courtroom. "What happened in the McBride case?"
He's not fuming as much, anymore, just quiet, and she wonders if that's the card she should play maybe, some sort of intimacy, for now, at least.
"You tell me you're a good cop. So, show it," she adds. Her heart hammers, in her chest, she has to remind herself to breathe out to keep her hands from shaking. "Was Mr Brannigan a grass? Did you know him before?"
"I told you," Fitzpatrick repeats, shaking his head. "On the lives of my children –"
She nods, shakes her head. "So, what then?"
And there, he flips. She feels it, in his look, holds her breath, the room so quiet she hears the sound of her own blood pumping in her neck. Fitzpatrick tries to glance away; she holds onto him and refuses to let go. "You have to understand –" he starts.
His stare drifts to the judges, to CW, confused; Martha shifts at her desk, taps her finger against the wood. "Look at me," she calls and he does, his eyes finding hers again. "Tell me."
And there, she gets him. "We were trying to protect him –" he starts.
This time, she doesn't interrupt. She lets him finish.
.
"Well, shit," she hears in her ear as they leave the courtroom, Nick walking fast behind her. They stop on the street outside, she's shaking from the adrenaline still coursing through her veins, the self-restraint she had to exercise not to betray anything in front of Fitzpatrick.
She looks at Nick, thinks: yeah, shit.
They're standing by the gates, close to where she used to smoke when she still could and it's odd, how her heart doesn't seem to slow down. She doesn't want to stop here so she keeps walking, crossing the street to head back into Chambers. She feels restless, keeps turning Fitzpatrick's words inside her head. They knew he wasn't guilty, she thinks, from the fucking start. "That was unbelievable, Martha," Nick says and smiles at her.
His features are bit blurry, before her eyes; she blinks, shakes her head, keeps herself focused to avoid the people walking on Fleet Street until they reach the passage down to Middle Temple Lane.
"I mean, I think it would have felt better if it had actually been this great conspiracy rather than them just –"
"Just what?" she snaps, glancing up, her heels tapping a rhythm against the pavement. "Hearing Fitzpatrick admit that the Monk family told them it was Sean, which they believed at face value, rushed to make an arrest because it would look bad in the press if the gang killed him first and then covered up their fuck up? Sean's in jail because of them, Nick. It makes me fucking sick."
They make it through the gates and down the cobblestone path for a bit, taking a left towards the church. "Well, when you say it like that –" Nick says, sighs. "It was a great cross, Martha. Best one I've ever seen."
She's about to counter with another jab about how it comes too bloody late but strangely, she can't find her voice. They're walking under the archways, just the both of them, trying to cross from Pump Court to the other side – it's ironic, really, how close her new Chambers are to Shoe Lane - when she stops, still. The sun is bright, white light flashing before her eyes, she feels Nick's look on her but can't distinguish his features, can hear her own blood pumping in her ears, again. She thinks of that copper, of Sean, and it goes thump, thump, thump, against her neck. Nick speaks, she thinks, she hears a vague echo in her head but thump, thump, thump, her heartbeat goes in her ear, and covers his words. Nick moves, but suddenly, there are about a million arches around her, her head spins, and –
.
Eyes closed, she hears footsteps. Voices, vaguely, like from the other side of a canyon.
"She just fainted –"
"What do you mean, she 'just fainted?'"
"I don't know, okay? She was angry, cross-examining DCI Fitzpatrick, and then I said something and she just –"
"Oh, for God's sake!" she hears one of the voices say before she hears running and feels someone sit down next to her, touching her shoulder. The voice is familiar – of course, it is, - and it's not Nick's. She sighs, wishes it were.
"Martha?" Clive says, shaking her a bit. "Martha?"
Her eyes open on his face, vision still slightly blurry. She sees blond hair, blue eyes; her back hurts. She closes her eyelids again. Back to sleep -
"Nick, she's awake," Clive says, too loud; she rolls her eyes. When she looks up again, another face joins Clive's blurry features in her field of vision: dark hair, blue eyes, too.
"Martha, are you okay?" Nick asks, voice full of concern she lets out a moan, tries to move –
As soon as she rises from the ground a bit, pushing herself up on her elbows, the Earth starts spinning again; she feels someone's hand behind her head before it hits the ground.
Okay, maybe that wasn't such a good idea, then, she thinks.
"Marth –" Clive starts; she hears herself sigh.
"'M fine," she groans. Her back hurts, her head hurts, her neck hurts but the checklist stops there, thankfully.
"Are you –" Clive starts and behind her annoyance, she can't help but smile a little at the worry in his voice. He may not love her, anymore, but he definitely loves that baby, doesn't he?
"'re fine," she amends, groaning as she tries to move her head again. "'f I'd miscarried, I'd know," she adds, the words coming out a bit louder and stronger than she meant them to. It was meant as a joke but Clive doesn't seem to share her sense of humour and throws a worried, questioning glance at Nick, who in turn throws it back at her. She almost lets a laugh escape her lips but it quickly turns into a somewhat painful cough when her body shakes a bit. Her mouth is dry; she's thirsty – hungry, too – definitely doesn't feel ready to get up quite yet, so: "Water," she mutters as she shuts her eyes again, listens to the wind rustling in the leaves of trees and for the first time in months: rests.
.
Clive drives her home, later. They leave her car in the car park near Chambers and take his; she's so tired she falls asleep as soon as her head hits the seat, lolling between the headrest and the window to her left. She only wakes up when the car stops moving, twenty minutes later, parks in the street outside her building.
She blinks a few times, warming up to her surroundings. It's summer again, strangely enough, and the leaves of the trees in her courtyard gently shade part of the street, green and lively, breeze slowly rocking the top branches.
"Thanks," she says, stealing a glance at him.
This is when she should get out, she knows, walk back to her flat and try to forget about him again until the next time they run into each other. His glance catches hers, though, eyes slightly green with the light cast by the sun through the leaves of the trees. "You should sleep," he tells her, his voice quiet, not as an order but more as a plea, as someone who cares.
"You're only saying that because you're on Caroline's side," she smiles, looking up at him. "I should work is what I should do. Speech tomorrow," she adds, running a hand over her face. She looks at him, sighs. "I need to win this."
"From what I hear, you already have."
She rolls her eyes a bit, not at what he says but at what people say, and the things she's been reading in the press. "It doesn't mean anything," she says, shaking her head. "You and I both know, until the verdict comes out –"
"Marth, you're going to win this," he tells her, holding her gaze. His hands fall from the wheel to his lap, he turns a bit to look at her. "I know it," he adds, smiles. "Nick knows it. The whole of Middle Temple bloody knows it and is hanging onto your every word."
She looks away, her jaw clenched. "Well, if I do," she says and catches his glance again, like she can't choose whether or not she wants to see his face. "It won't be thanks to you."
Clive takes the hit, quiet, for a bit. "No," he says, finally, looking at his fingers tapping a rhythm against the leather of the wheel. "It won't."
She didn't think he would agree, frankly, was gearing for another fight, so she doesn't know what to say to that, really, sits in silence for a little while longer, watching the dried stains made by the rain clouding the glass of his windshield. She likes her cars to be pretty - he made enough fun of her about that before, saying she only picked her current one because she looked good in it (he wasn't wrong, in truth) – but at least, it means she has them cleaned regularly. She steals a glance at him and it reminds her of the end with Jerôme, how she felt like she getting pushed out of a train she didn't necessarily want to let go.
She didn't necessarily want to hold onto it either, though.
"I'm not on her side, you know?" she hears him add and freezes, her fingers on the handle of the door. "Caroline," he specifies, glance trained on the street, through the windshield. "You said –" he speaks, stops, shakes his head. "I'm not on Caroline's side," he clarifies, catching her glance, this time.
She acknowledges his words with a nod but doesn't say anything else, for a while; she feels his look on the side of her face but it's her turn to avoid him, now, to stare out the window, at the lady walking by with her Jack Russell on a leash. The car goes completely quiet when he pulls the key from the ignition and the low hum of the air conditioning dies; she looks at him but his gaze is fixed on the wheel. She breathes in, breathes out. "What are you doing Tuesday morning?" she asks, before she can think.
"I, er, don't know –"
"I have an appointment," she says, quickly. She was trying to push it to the week after, earlier, actually, because it's next week and she's terrified she won't get to be there when the verdict comes in, but they said she was already late, already at fifteen weeks, something, so –
"What kind of appointment?"
There's a hint of worry in his voice when he speaks, looks up at her. Yeah, she guesses, a few weeks back, it could have been that kind of appointment, too.
She smiles, now, though, bites her bottom lip, looking down at her hands. "Scan," she says. It's odd: she feels a bit silly, shy, telling him. "We, er," she hesitates, looks up, catches his gaze. "We get to see it," she breathes, a discreet smile tugging at her lips again. "If you want to come, I mean," she pauses, though, quickly, shakes her head, rambles on, doesn't want to let him speak, doesn't let him say no. "And again," she adds. "You might be right and I might lose it or it may not even have a heartbeat but –"
She feels his hand on her thigh for half a second before it moves away; it stops her mid-sentence. It feels cold, when he takes it off, like something's missing. "Marth, I –"
"Don't –"
It's the second time she says it, isn't it? The second time she doesn't want to hear whatever he has to say, doesn't know if she'll ever want to hear what he has to say now. Another fight, or an apology, or something in between she just –
"What I want to say is," she speaks, decisive, hands on her knees. "If you want to come, come. If you don't, you don't have to."
He catches her gaze, then, and she sees something in his eyes, something she used to see before he kissed her, sometimes. "I'd love to," he says, instead, and smiles.
She nods, her hand finding the handle of the door again - this time, he doesn't stop her. "Okay," she tells him, as the car clicks open, the hot air from the outside hitting the side of her body first, before making its way into the car. "I'll text you."
.
It's later, after she's taken a bath, eaten and napped for a bit that she opens the bag he gave her. She'd left the car already; he ran after her and put it in her hand before she could even open her front door, asked her not to get mad at him about it and disappeared. It's this kind of solid, paper and plastic shopping bag, coloured a pale shade of blue, the brand stated in white script on the front. She told herself she'd open it tomorrow, when the trial was over and it wouldn't matter if she actually did get mad, but she's drinking tea, now, sitting at her kitchen table, looking for inspiration to write her speech, when she sees it, remembers it, and cuts the little bit of tape shutting the bag together with a pair of scissors. They're wrapped in tissue paper but as soon as she sees them, she knows why he thought she might scream.
She'd insisted, back then. No maternity clothes before fifteen weeks, at least, and no baby things before then, either. 'I'm serious, Clive,' she laughed as he browsed the Internet for stupid bodysuits that said things like: I was Daddy's fastest swimmer. She broke her promise about maternity clothes, the other day, so really, she can't be mad at him for breaking his.
They're tiny shoes, the tiniest shoes she's ever seen, in fact, she's pretty sure the both of them fit in her hand. They're wool, soft, dark blue – almost black - with a line of white at the top and bottom, big red pompoms on the front. They make her think of a flower, a carnation maybe. She studies them before closing her eyes and smiles, large and honest, plays with them for a bit, holding them into her free palm.
The thing is: there's a card, too, inside the bag. It's the first thing she saw when she opened it, let the tip of her finger trace over his handwriting and swallowed heavily, closed her eyes, too. She takes it again, now, and smiles, bittersweet.
For January, he wrote, his script quick on the paper. She can picture him, scrawling the words at the edge of his desk in Chambers, on top of a binder, slipping the card inside the bag before rushing into court. Like a secret, like things you can't say.
Love,
Clive.
She reads the words, again and again until she can picture them from memory. Her other hand rests against the bump of her stomach and she feels the rise and fall of her breaths, hopes it breathes, too.
She sighs, her hand against the fabric of her shirt, whispers: "Stay. Please."
I love you, she thinks.
.
.
[1] GlaxoSmithKline Services Unlimited v Commission (2009) C-513/06 is the case Jerome was working on because I'm a nerd and I know shit like this.
[2] Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (again, if you're super interested):
1. In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgment shall be pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interest of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.
2. charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.
3. Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights:
(a) to be informed promptly, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him;
(b) to have adequate time and the facilities for the preparation of his defence;
(c) to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing or, if he has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance, to be given it free when the interests of justice so require;
(d) to examine or have examined witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him;
(e) to have the free assistance of an interpreter if he cannot understand or speak the language used in court.