'You'll be fine, Dee,' I said. 'Just tell them exactly what I told you to say.' I watered the plants and fed the birds. The hot sun shone through the windows and the room was full of yellow light. The birds cheeped and fluttered. In the street below, a woman was pushing a child in a pushchair. She wore a mini-skirt and her back was tattooed under her sleeveless shirt. I watched her. The canary made his cage swing. I whistled to him. He looked at me with one round, shiny, empty eye. I checked my diary. I had some time. No more clients, nothing until an appearance in the afternoon. I spent a lot of time in the local district court, dealing with remands and bail applications and defended hearings. Most of my clients were criminal, although I made money with a bit of conveyancing. I was ambitious. I'd done a rape trial and I'd acted in a major aggravated robbery case, with multiple defendants. What I wanted was a murder trial, or a serious drugs charge. Those were the big cases, the ones that got you noticed.
