Post Mortem by Gary Bell (inspirational books for students .TXT) 📗

‘It’s fine. I know how frustrating it is living from hand to mouth.’

‘Especially when everything comes with a London price tag. I ordered two pints last night and gave the barman a tenner. I thought I’d misheard him when he asked for fourteen quid. Honestly, there has got to be an easier way to make a living.’

‘Easier?’ I nodded. ‘Certainly, but everything comes at a cost. Don’t forget that this is only temporary. You won’t be a pupil forever.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I won’t,’ and went back to her tablet in silence.

Since I’d first invited her into chambers last September, Zara had grown from a nervous stranger into a near permanent fixture in my room, as much a part of the decor as the towering, overcrowded bookshelves or the faded Tabriz rug. She’d even taken it upon herself to fill the compartments of the bureau with her own personal touches: a blue-and-white ceramic pot from her mother’s side of the family in Multan, Pakistan; novelty erasers shaped like pieces of sushi and whole wedges of rainbow-coloured Post-it notes for her to stick all over the place; the emergency charger for her iPad and phone; and a mug declaring her to be the No. 1 Barrister in London, which matched the No. 2 version she’d concurrently gifted me for Christmas.

I knew what she was doing. Like any casual partner leaving a toothbrush in the bathroom, she was staking out her ground. I didn’t mind, though I couldn’t help but worry about the weeks to come. Zara had been accepted into chambers on a six-month pupillage, the final stretch of unpaid learning necessary to become a qualified barrister, and those six months would end in three weeks’ time.

By all rights she should have been offered a permanent tenancy, not least because she had saved my own life and quite possibly the lives of others with her bravery not so long ago, but that wasn’t something that could be quantified on paper. There seemed to remain a deep-rooted, unspoken attitude among a great many of my fellow barristers – not so much a direct prejudice but most definitely an outdated typecast – for what was considered a suitable candidate in chambers, and I still feared that a gay woman of mixed race with a council-estate background and thick Nottinghamshire accent might prove a step too far for such limited sensibilities. She suspected it too. I could tell by the dimming of her mood each time another public-schooled pupil was drafted in to manage the increasing workload.

There would be only one permanent position available in chambers, and in twenty-one days its allocation would come down to a vote.

We didn’t talk about it much, just as we didn’t talk about what had happened up in Nottinghamshire all that often. Occasionally, Zara would joke about the events of that winter, as she had done this morning, but more often than not the safeguard of humour wouldn’t come, and I’d catch her plummeting into deep reveries beyond which the slightest disturbance would put her on edge.

We both had our own ways of dealing with the horror of it all, I supposed.

‘So,’ she said, talking down into her iPad, ‘what’s happening?’

‘With what?’

‘Good weekend?’

I hesitated, focusing on the brief in my hands: Regina v. Jacob Werner. I quietly filed it as finished and moved on. ‘Nothing to report.’

‘Oh.’ It was the kind of response that comes with an audible full stop. I looked back up. She flicked a twist of lint from her trousers onto the floor. ‘Thought you might’ve had something going on, since you didn’t reply to my text last night …’

‘Your text?’ I rummaged for my phone and opened the message that had come through while I’d been searching Werner’s launderette. ‘Must’ve fallen asleep before looking at it …’ For a moment I felt like telling her the story of Jacob Werner and his tortured animals. What stopped me was not the fear of her disapproval, but rather the inkling that she would have wanted to come along. ‘You were asking for help with your case?’ I said apologetically, reading the message. ‘Did you try asking Stein? You are his pupil, I’d say it’s the least he could do after dumping more work on you.’

‘He didn’t dump this on me,’ she said tetchily. ‘It’s a massive case for me. Besides, have you been down to see Stein? The second floor is a madhouse. They’ve got six juniors in every room and that’s without these new pupils. I’m not getting help from there.’

‘I avoid the lower floors like the plague,’ I remarked. ‘Percy hasn’t been up with my papers?’

‘Not since I’ve been here. You know Mondays.’

I checked the time: twenty to ten. My impromptu walk had cost me an extra half an hour, but I couldn’t start work on my new case until our senior clerk had printed off my papers. The legal world was rapidly turning digital, and cases were often distributed via email, but I still preferred papers I could hold, mark and tab. I liked to think of myself as a traditionalist; Zara called me stubborn.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’m yours until my new brief arrives, and then you’re on your own.’

The change in her mood was instant and electric. ‘You’re the best, Mr Rook.’

‘I’ve told you a hundred times to stop calling me mister. The correct way to address another barrister is by surname.’

She bundled her paperwork up into her arms along with the iPad and dragged her chair towards me, stomping Doc Martens and grinning.

‘What’s the charge?’

‘Drugs,’ she said proudly, wasting no time in filling what little space I’d cleared on my desk. ‘Possession with intent to supply.’

‘Class?’

‘A.’

‘Really? That is a big case for a –’ I faltered.

‘A pupil?’

‘Yes,’ I admitted, looking down at the papers. ‘What’s the catch?’

‘I guess you might call getting nicked red-handed a catch.’ With both hands she parted the falling strands among her tangled black hair, which had grown long over the last couple