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‘Thanks,’ she says softly to Natalia after a second. ‘Great job.’
‘Shame he’s not cheating,’ Natalia says. ‘If it would’ve helped. He actually mentioned how much he loved his wife.’
Jen turns away from her computer, and from Natalia, too, staring out the window, down at the street, her eyes wet. ‘Did he?’ she whispers.
‘Yeah. Just said he loved his wife. No context really, in among all the Joe stuff.’
Jen nods, turning back to Natalia, wondering what would happen if she imparted some wisdom here, knowing, as she does, what faces Natalia in the future.
But knowing the future is worse than not knowing. Isn’t it?
Day Minus Sixty-Five, 17:05
Jen has been finding comfort in heading into the office on weekdays. Undertaking – piecemeal – whatever tasks await her on that specific day. In September, she was doing financial investigations before a trial with Natalia. And into August she has been drafting an advice on child protection – something slightly outside her remit, but enjoyable nevertheless, even though it disappears more with each day that passes. She has a trainee called Chance, who leaves in September for a rival firm, which Jen does her best to forget now.
At five past five, her desk phone rings.
‘It’s me,’ Valerie, their receptionist, says. ‘There’s someone in reception. I know, I know, I know you’re harassed.’
Jen blinks. ‘Am I?’ She doesn’t feel remotely harassed. The child protection advice is half written, a hot cup of tea sits on her desk. She’s looking forward to going home and seeing Todd, who’s been baking cookies, sending her photographs of each flavour. She remembers that they are delicious, so she’s extra-excited. A little haven in her fucked-up, backwards world.
‘Rakesh said you’re on the child protection advice yesterday and today – I know …’
‘Yes,’ Jen says faintly. She remembers this. The advice had taken her an embarrassing amount of time to get to. Weeks. The client had chased her twice, the second time asking if a simple note was beyond her. It was so hard, in law, to make the time to do large pieces of work. Phone calls, emails, unexpected and horrifying Outlook calendar appointments. Eventually, she’d blocked all calls to get to it. She’d even locked her office door! God, what a diva.
‘Who?’ Jen says. ‘Who’s in reception?’
‘Says he’s called Mr Jones?’
Jen’s mouth goes dry. She wets her lips with her tongue. Look. Look what she missed.
It’s the twenty-fifth of August. And Joseph Jones is out, and looking for her.
Joseph turns in the pale-carpeted foyer when he sees her. EAGLES is written behind the reception desk in blocky lettering. The lights – on timers – have gone off, save for a single one, illuminating just him.
‘Looking for Kelly,’ he says.
Jen pauses, her footsteps slowing as she crosses the foyer towards him.
‘Kelly Brotherhood?’ she says.
Something seems to break across his features as he meets her eyes, but Jen isn’t sure what. He’s older than she first thought, that first night, and the night she saw him at Eshe Road North. He’s probably older than fifty. Tattoos across the knuckles. Eyes flinty. Body language poised somehow, like a cat about to strike. He’s light on his feet with it.
‘Yes.’ He holds both hands up. ‘He was an old friend.’ The knowledge is a physical feeling that shivers across her torso. Joseph’s sentence was twenty years. So he must have known Kelly before it.
‘What kind of friend?’ Jen can’t resist saying. But, inside, she is thinking that Joseph, too, knows her. He knew to come to the law firm to find Kelly.
Joseph smiles back at her, so fast as not to be genuine. ‘An important one.’
‘Surprised you’d look here?’ she says.
‘I’ve been away. No matter. Wanted to re-start something.’ He turns away from her. He’s in a white T-shirt, the material thin and cheap, and, underneath it, Jen can make out a tattoo that spans the entire width of his back: an angel’s wings, right across his shoulder blades.
‘Re-start what?’ she says, but he ignores her, leaving, the foyer door shutting softly behind him. Jen leans her hands on the reception desk, trying to breathe, trying to think.
Joseph was released only days ago. And look: he’s come here, almost immediately. It’s clear to Jen, on this isolated day in this strange second-chance life, that Joseph Jones’s release from prison set something in motion. Somewhere in the future, which she cannot reach at the moment, no matter how hard she tries. Something that involves almost everybody she knows. Todd, Kelly, and now her, too, surely: why else would he come to Eagles? A gruesome cast of dramatis personae. A hit list of betrayals.
Day Minus One Hundred and Five, 08:55
