A Place of Safety

When Charlie still doesn’t move, Tom snarls at him.

‘Hold her fucking arms, you queer.’

Charlie steals a glance in Luke’s direction. He’s terrified of what’s about to happen, but more terrified of defying Tom. Luke wills him to walk away, to make a joke out of the whole thing. He doesn’t. He kneels above Anna’s head and presses firmly on her wrists.

Luke realises now that she is screaming. The air shatters around him.

Tom clamps one hand over her mouth and uses the other to pull at his flies. Luke tries to get to his feet to help the girl but falls sideways and ends up flapping like a fish in a net.

Tom laughs. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn, Lukey boy.’ He thrusts his hips forward and Anna’s eyes shoot open. He knows he has to do something. Anything. So why doesn’t he move? Why is he still lying on the hard autumn ground? He closes his eyes, disgusted at himself and wishes for tomorrow morning.

Chapter One (#ucf1c22e8-1e04-5f02-9668-6a9fb61ff26b)

The sky outside the office was clear and welcoming. The pale October sun attempted to make its presence felt and Lilly longed to take her lunchtime walk. She’d instituted a daily turn around Harpenden Park after a four-week contested divorce case that had frazzled her mind. She found that the fresh air calmed her, and it stopped her from wolfing more than a sandwich for lunch.

She turned her gaze from the window back to her client and sighed. Mr Maxwell was so absorbed in his story he had failed to notice his solicitor’s evident lack of interest.

‘I simply cannot justify another penny,’ he said. ‘And I cannot see why she should be allowed to sit at home all day while I work my socks off.’

Lilly wondered why a man with such a profound lisp would choose so many words beginning with ‘s’, and pretended not to notice the spittle that was accumulating on his tie.

‘She has three children to care for,’ said Lilly, ‘and they are your children.’

‘We have an au pair for them.’ He fixed Lilly with eyes that bulged like marbles in an otherwise flat face. ‘You have a child, Miss Valentine, yet you seem to manage to work without too much trouble.’

Lilly thought of her ridiculously complicated child-care routine, involving her ex-husband, friends, and anyone prepared to offer a lift to school.

‘What do you think she could do to earn some money?’ Lilly asked.

Mr Maxwell gave a dismissive shrug. ‘She used to be a model.’

Lilly tried to hide her shock. What beautiful woman would go for this unappealing specimen of manhood? Mr Maxwell gave a tree-frog blink. The sort who would be happy to sit on her bony arse all day and count his money was the obvious answer.

‘As galling as it seems, Mr Maxwell, the court has ordered you to pay maintenance to your wife and children,’ said Lilly.

‘Ex-wife.’

Lilly nodded. ‘So you will have to pay.’

Mr Maxwell shuffled his whinging backside out of Lilly’s office, his eyes pulsating.

As he left the building she watched him limp up the road. Lisp, blinking eyes, a limp—maybe she was being too harsh on the poor man. Then a blonde bounced towards him, her plastic breasts fighting to escape. She covered his bald head in tiny kisses and squealed.

Mrs Maxwell Mark Two was waiting in the wings. Some men never learned.

Lilly checked her watch and groaned, realising that her next client was due any minute. She tried to leave a gap between them but divorce cases always overran. These people paid by the hour, so it was their funeral if they blabbed over their allotted appointment, which invariably they did. When it came to splitting up the marital assets, this lot would argue over the contents of the hoover bag.

Lilly missed her care cases. Stroppy teens who might spare you ten minutes between shoplifting in Tesco’s and meeting their mates in the arcade. Sometimes they didn’t turn up at all but left convoluted messages about ASBOs, social workers and pregnancy tests.

God, she missed it.

She pulled a Kit Kat from her bag. Chocolate and no exercise, a double whammy As sugar and hydrogenated fat entered her system, she realised that the only thing keeping her sane was the weekly trip to Hounds Place. At least there she could do some good. Some real good.

‘Might pop over there after this client,’ she mused.

‘Don’t even think about it.’

Lilly turned to the door, where the ever scowling secretary-cum-receptionist, Sheila, had appeared.

‘You don’t even know what I was talking about,’ said Lilly.

Sheila crossed her arms. ‘You want to go running off to the Dogs’ Home.’

‘It’s called Hounds Place,’ said Lilly. ‘As you bloody well know.’

Sheila scooped up some papers fanning the floor and slid them back into their file. ‘Do you keep your house as tidy as this?’

‘Did you just come to annoy me or did you get bored with filing your nails?’

Sheila tried to put the file back in the drawer but the runners were jammed. She pushed and pulled, the metallic groans matching her own.

Lilly sighed. ‘Do you actually want something, Sheila?’

‘The powers-that-be want to take you for a drink after work,’ she said, without turning around.

Lilly put her head in her hands. ‘Bloody marvellous.’

‘Stop whining,’ said Sheila, and thrust her arm into the cabinet. It disappeared like a vet’s arm in a cow. ‘They probably want to thank you for your hard work and good attitude.’

‘In my new role as advisor to the rich, ugly and divorcing I make them shitloads of money. Good attitude is not part of the package.’

Sheila was now virtually inside the cabinet, her shoulders and chest lost in its recesses, her face pushed against the handle.

‘I don’t know why you’re so miserable. You’re making good money, aren’t you?’

It was true. Lilly’s wage had increased by fifty per cent since the firm had reallocated her caseload.

‘The root of all evil,’ she said.

Sheila’s cheek was contorted by the pressure of the metal. ‘You weren’t saying that when you didn’t have any, you just moaned endlessly about the state of your house, how your car was knackered and you couldn’t afford Sam’s school uniform.’

‘But it’s so boring.’

‘Grow up,’ Sheila grunted. ‘It beats the bunch of no-hopers that used to come here thieving the staplers.’

‘Vulnerable kids,’ Lilly sniffed.

‘Junkies, most of them,’ said Sheila. ‘Like that bleeding nutter who drank the bleach.’