The Pupil

by Ros Carne

  Shoplifting was like lying, most effective when linked to honesty. If they stopped her now, she would say it was an accident, she’d no idea she’d put the items in the bag. She’d started to feel dizzy and confused while she was trying on the clothes. She was type 1 diabetic and must have let her blood sugar fall too low. If she could just sit and eat some glucose tablets and a cereal bar she would be fine. She was so very sorry. The excuse had come in handy on a couple of occasions, but she didn’t need it today, she simply walked out of the back of the store, smiling inwardly as the rush hit, the physical pleasure of small-scale criminality.

  The rush was already fading as she zigzagged the Soho streets. She checked her phone. It was 12:45 p.m. Just as she suspected, there was a message from Ricky, if he really was Ricky, on Tinder.

  Hi, Lola. You on your way?

  Give me ten minutes, she texted.

  Waxy O’Connor’s was two streets away. It was a cavernous Irish pub, large enough to permit Natasha to scrutinise her prey without the unwelcome intimacy of The French House or The Ship. If Ricky looked hot, she’d introduce herself. Lola’s online portrait was sufficiently like her own. If less than hot, she’d ignore him and enjoy her lunch. They made an excellent crab sandwich in Waxy’s. If he confronted her, she’d smile and tell him he must have made a mistake.

  There he was, just as she suspected, swiping his phone, darting glances towards the door. He’d said he was an architect, in a long-term relationship, looking for a sexy, independent woman under thirty for the occasional hook-up, maybe more. She turned back to her crab sandwich. There was no way he was five foot eleven, and he was at least ten years older than the photograph. Bloody cheat. She had no intention of talking to him anyway. Witnessing male trepidation was always fun. It would take someone very special for her to take it further. It was just a game.

  A year ago Luke had cooked her favourite Chinese duck, opened a bottle of expensive wine and asked her to marry him. He wanted children and he wanted her to be their mother. She had felt an icy shiver, tried to calm herself with slow breathing and finally, in answer to his pleading, reminded him how hard it was for her to commit. Touching on the chaos of her own childhood, she told him that he more than anyone should understand the dangers of intergenerational damage.

  He had tried to reassure her, held her close, whispered that all would be fine. But the conversation had unsettled her. Far from the romantic ending he had hoped for, she had pulled away, saying she needed time alone, leaving him on the sofa watching Formula One. She had gone to the bedroom and tried to ground herself by surfing Tinder. An hour later she had resurrected Lola, the fake identity she had adopted years ago when she first came to London. Lola even had her own Facebook profile. She was pretty, just under twenty years old and within a few months she had gathered more than fifty friends her own age.

  From the corner of her eye she glimpsed Ricky. It was clear he was fed up with waiting. He looked at her briefly and she thought she detected a flicker of suspicion. She looked away. He stood up and walked out. She finished her apple juice and crab sandwich, paid her bill, left a generous tip for the waitress, picked up her stolen goods and set off for the tube.

  Chapter Three

  Mel

  ‘So, the deal is, you just sit there and listen.’ Mel concluded her few words of instruction to the new pupil.

  ‘Say nothing?’ Natasha looked incredulous.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Even if I can help?’

  ‘Especially if you think you can help. Speak to me later, ask anything you like, only not in front of the client.’ Was Mel imagining it or was that disdain in Natasha’s arched brows and crooked smile?

  ‘So, this morning… Was it…?’

  ‘That was helpful. But, if you’re left alone with the client, stick to pleasantries.’

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, I…’

  ‘Forget it,’ replied Mel.

  Natasha moved to the tall window, lowering the blind to shut out the shaft of afternoon sunlight that gleamed across the cold glass of the conference table. Then, with the grace of a dancer, she sat, setting out her papers and her laptop, and waited.

  The day had got off to a bad start with Mel arriving late for the Principal Registry, the main family court in Central London. It had been a mistake to drive her son to school, though at the time it seemed an opportunity for twenty minutes’ uninterrupted conversation. Traffic had been heavy and slow, conversation had been desultory and largely one-sided, culminating in Jacob turning up the volume of some ranting, incomprehensible radio chat show when she had tried to introduce the topic of revision.

  Neither said another word until they reached the school gates at which point, he mumbled, ‘Thanks, Mum,’ in response to her cheery, ‘Have a good day, darling.’ She set off for the nearest tube station and after a ten-minute search for a parking space, managed to wedge her tiny Hyundai between a couple of monstrous four-by-fours.

  The journey from East Finchley station was longer than her usual route from Finsbury Park. There were no spare seats, the train stopped twice in tunnels and the crush in the carriage meant there was no chance to take a final flick through Mrs Patel’s financial statement. They pulled into Holborn station at 9:45 a.m. She’d asked Mrs Patel to be there for 9:30 a.m. and the case was listed for 10:30 a.m.

  Mel raced down High Holborn to the Principal Registry, a large square building at the top of Chancery Lane. There was a long queue at the security desk just inside the front door and it was close to ten o’clock when she stepped out of the lift onto the fourth floor where the hearing was due to take place. The usher told her that Mrs Patel was with her representative in one of the small conference rooms.

  ‘What representative?’ asked Mel. Did the usher mean her solicitor, who might turn up to reassure the client and would be none too pleased about his barrister arriving half an hour late?

  ‘Her barrister, Miss Baker.’

  ‘Miss Baker’s not her barrister, she’s my pupil.’

  ‘Well, she signed her name here.’ The usher showed Mel a list of the morning’s cases. There, next to the name of the client and in a box marked Counsel was written in neat cursive script, Miss Natasha Baker.

  Mel felt a rush of irritation. Natasha might be a qualified barrister, but she was still just a pupil. She had no right to put her name on the list as Counsel. Mel crossed out Natasha’s name and put down her own. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she wrote Natasha’s name underneath her own. The judge would need to know who was in court.

  Mel found the conference room at the end of a long corridor. Through the glass she could see Mrs Patel, a large woman in a bright green dress and heavy gold jewellery. She was talking with apparent animation to a much younger woman in a smart charcoal grey suit. Mel recognised the younger woman immediately. She’d seen her around chambers but hadn’t connected her with the name. Natasha looked far too mature, too poised to be a pupil. Her thick mid-blonde hair was swept elegantly off her face and pinned high at the back, and she sat facing Mrs Patel, calm and confident, as if she had been doing this job all her life. She appeared to be listening intently, typing on her laptop while referring occasionally to the neatly annotated paper statement which lay on the table beside her. Mel was desperate for a pee but that could wait. The important thing was to meet her client and take control.

  ‘Mrs Patel, good morning. I’m so sorry I’m late. Good morning, Natasha.’

  ‘Hi, Mel,’ said Natasha.

  The greeting felt unduly casual given they had never met before. Mel knew she should have arranged a meeting with Natasha, talked through what was expected of them both in the pupil–supervisor relationship. But it had all happened so suddenly. There had been no time. The meeting would have to be postponed.

  ‘So, we’d better get started,’ said Mel. ‘We’re on in half an hour.’

  ‘I’m sure Miss Baker can explain,’ said Mrs Patel. ‘She has been taking detailed notes, offering helpful suggestion
s. I may consider some slight compromise with my ex-husband, brute though he is.’

  ‘Great. Thanks, Natasha.’

  ‘No worries, Mel. And I had a call from Andy. He said he couldn’t get through to you. Unfortunately, the solicitor can’t make it this morning.’

  ‘I see. Lucky you were here, then. Mrs Patel, I’m sorry to say that we’ll need to go through the same material again.’

  ‘But I’ve already told your assistant everything.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s no other way, Mrs Patel. Miss Baker is not authorised to address the court or negotiate with the other side.’ As she spoke, she caught her pupil’s eye and remembered that this was Natasha’s second six and so in theory she was authorised to address the court and negotiate with the other side. ‘At least not unless she has been instructed,’ she added. Natasha smiled, and looked from Mel to Mrs Patel. Her blue eyes glittered.

  Mel spent the first five minutes listening to Mrs Patel’s fury at her husband’s failure to disclose ownership of three apartment blocks in Karachi.

  ‘He bought them ten years ago. I’ve seen them. He showed me when we were on holiday in Pakistan.’

  ‘Do you have a photograph?’

  ‘I had lots. He deleted them from the camera.’

  ‘Address?’

  ‘No. Is that a problem?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is. Mr Patel denies ownership of the blocks and unless we have documentary evidence we won’t get very far. Have you ever seen papers relating to the blocks?’

  ‘Oh yes. They were in my husband’s safe.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘He took everything when he left.’

  The usher popped her head around the door.

  ‘Counsel in Patel?’

  ‘Yes, I’m Melanie Goddard.’

  ‘The other side wants a chat. He’s been here since nine. Mr Diggory-Brown’s representing.’

  Mel’s throat felt dry and she unscrewed her bottle of water. ‘Digger’ was a rising star who lived up to his name, a supremely confident young man with hair as sleek as a wet mole. It was ridiculous to be unnerved, but something about Digger destabilised Mel. She told herself he was no more than a typical posh boy, but he had a brain that soaked up evidence and a Machiavellian head for tactics. In the robing room he oozed charm, but he never stopped working. Every friendly enquiry had a subtext.

  ‘I wonder if you can give us ten minutes.’

  ‘I’ll tell him.’

  Ten minutes were insufficient to get much out of Mrs Patel in addition to making the essential trip to the Ladies. Her client refused to drop the allegation about the apartment blocks, so Mel would have to put it. Though it was unlikely Patel would crumble and admit something as critical as undisclosed property. Mel had run losers before, but it was galling to have to do so on her new pupil’s first day.

  Negotiations commenced. Neither husband nor wife was prepared to compromise and at the stroke of eleven Mrs Patel was on the stand. Without firm evidence, there was no way Mrs Patel would get what she wanted, and the evidence wasn’t there. You didn’t choose your cases and Natasha needed to understand this. Witnesses rarely collapsed under the shaft of cross-examination, however sharp the advocacy.

  Mel calculated there was no need to spend long questioning Mrs Patel, given that her situation was set out in her financial statement. For one thing the judge wouldn’t allow examination in chief on every document set before the court and, more significantly, Mel simply hadn’t had time to run through every point in the conference. But when Digger put to Mrs Patel that she received unexplained credits and directed her to the precise page and line in the raft of bank statements, Mel realised she had miscalculated. She should have pre-empted him. She listened helpless as, one after another, her client’s financial misdemeanours were laid bare before the court.

  It was always easy to blame yourself after the event, but how much could she have done? She could have studied the papers more carefully, spent longer in conference, questioned her client more closely about the allegations. If Mrs Patel hadn’t insisted on fighting the apartment blocks point there would have been more time to strengthen her own defence. Some cases were unavoidably jinxed, but Mel knew she could have put up a better fight. Above all she should have abandoned Jacob to his Xbox, ignored the incomplete biology homework and left him to make his own way to school.

  Natasha disappeared during the lunch adjournment saying she needed to pick something up at Boots.

  ‘Fine, I’ll be in the conference room,’ said Mel.

  She was irritated. The role of a pupil was to shadow her supervisor, not to disappear off to the shops. Though she could hardly object if Natasha urgently needed toiletries or a prescription. Hadn’t someone said she was diabetic? Mel had little idea what that involved other than a careful diet and regular doses of insulin but there might be some special medication. She sat with Mrs Patel and her sister for twenty minutes, avoiding all but the most general references to the case and then left them with their sandwiches, returning to the robing room to run over her cross-examination of the husband. She avoided eating in front of clients. She’d packed a chocolate bar and that would do for now. She would grab something on the way back to chambers.

  Natasha turned up five minutes before they were due in court with a casual, ‘Hi, Mel. How’s it going?’

  Now was not the time for a lecture on Bar etiquette but she looked at her pupil in a way she hoped Natasha would understand, and made a mental note to explain a few ground rules when the time was right.

  As she stood up to question Mr Patel, Mel felt a pang of hunger coupled with a tremor of anticipation. She ought to have gone out to buy something. That was what Natasha must have been doing. They should have gone together, got to know each other. It wasn’t as if those last sixteen minutes of preparation had been any help. Her papers were already flagged where she could reasonably challenge the witness. Areas of questioning were itemised in her notebook, together with page references. But as she looked down at her scribbled biro marks, she knew her notes were too general. There were days when you needed detail and this was one of them.

  She set off gently, asking him about his successful business, appealing to his pride. He was doing well, making good money, rather more money than you would expect for someone who ran a corner shop. But he had an answer for every point. This was going to be difficult; Mrs Patel’s allegations, even if true, would be hard to establish.

  Working her way to the killer question, Mel asked about Mr Patel’s property investments.

  ‘I own a house, if that’s what you mean. Not like my wife. She owns three.’

  ‘That’s not correct, is it, Mr Patel?’

  ‘It certainly is. She didn’t deny it when Mr Diggory questioned her.’

  Mel challenged him on the Karachi properties, but Patel wouldn’t budge. Just as she had anticipated.

  She was conscious of Natasha behind her, listening to every word. It was good for her to see the real thing. Success in court didn’t come easy and it was nothing like TV drama.

  She must have paused a moment too long, because before she could lob her next question, Mr Patel added, ‘Like I said, I own a house. My home. Since she chucked me out that is.’

  Mel kept plugging away. The bank accounts, the share certificates, the sports car. Mr Patel never faltered.

  Searching for her next question Mel noticed, to one side of the lectern, resting on the polished wooden ledge, a small piece of folded paper. It had not been there earlier.

  ‘Mr Patel, may I ask you to turn to page 169 of Bundle B?’

  He flipped through the pages of the Lever Arch file.

  ‘Thank you. Now if we look down the page you will see regular credits of £1,450 per month into your bank account. Could you explain that, please?’

  ‘Certainly, that’s my salary from the shop. It’s set up as a company. I pay myself a small wage, as you can see.’

  After a few more ineffectual questions Mel sat dow
n. Her unfocused gaze lingered on the piece of paper, presumably a question from Natasha, still resting on the ledge. She put down her pen and reached for it, pressing out the fold and reading the pencilled note. ‘Bundle B, page 267.’ Reaching for Bundle B, she turned to page 267 and there they were: a further string of unaccounted credits.

  ‘Mr Diggory-Brown?’ The judge was speaking. ‘Do you have any re-examination?’

  ‘No, madam.’

  She could at least thank God for that.

  ‘You may return to your seat, Mr Patel,’ he said.

  Mel jumped up. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Goddard?’

  ‘I wonder if I could put a couple of further questions to Mr Patel?’

  ‘This is most unorthodox.’

  ‘I apologise, sir. Two points were omitted in my cross-examination.’

  The points were put. Mr Patel had an answer for each one. Mel reminded herself it wasn’t the fault of her questioning. It wasn’t always possible to destroy a lying witness. But the reminder was little comfort. Her cross-examination had been weak. Having it witnessed by Natasha on her first day as a pupil was an additional humiliation.

  Her closing speech was as fluent and persuasive as she could make it. There was nothing more she could do. Mr Patel walked off with an order for a substantial lump sum payment from his unhappy wife. Her brief conference with Mrs Patel after the hearing was an unpleasant experience. Mel tried to explain that there were no grounds for appeal. Then she handed Mrs Patel the paper she should have given her at the outset, explaining the terms of instruction and methods for making a complaint.

  Chapter Four

  Mel

  They crossed High Holborn and reached chambers with moments to spare before the next client conference. Natasha had been charming on the walk back, but there was an edge to her that Mel found discomforting. In her experience pupils were usually eager, ignorant and immature. Most were easy to read and a little too desperate to please. This one was a few years older than average with an unusual degree of self-possession. These were egalitarian times and Mel did not expect servility. But she was taken aback by Natasha’s walking into chambers in front of her. A pupil would be expected to allow her pupil supervisor to enter first.