Marion Lennox - Abby and the Bachelor Cop

ON SUNDAY afternoon Abby decided that she did need to speak to Philip. It was only fair. What followed was a very stilted phone call. Philip sounded appalled and angry and confused. She crept back under her duvet and hugged Kleppy and decided she didn’t need milk or bread; she could live on baked beans for a while.

The whole town was judging her.

On Monday she decided she couldn’t hide under her duvet for ever. She had to pull herself together. She was not a whimpering mess. She was not hiding a millionaire under her bed. She needed to get on with her life.

That meant getting out of bed, dressing as she always dressed, smart and corporate for the last time. Today she’d wind up this court case with Philip and then she’d resign. She’d talk reasonably to her parents. She’d start sending gifts back and then figure, slowly and sensibly, where she wanted to take her life from here.

She did need to be sensible. She no longer wanted to be a lawyer, but that didn’t mean stranding Philip or stranding her clients without reasonable notice. That was the sort of thing an hysterical ex-bride would do-the sort of woman who’d throw Philip over for some crazy, unreasonable love.

She wasn’t that woman. She’d ended an unsuitable engagement for totally sensible reasons and she was totally in control. She entered court with her head held high. She sat in court and concentrated on looking…normal.

She was aware that the courthouse held more people than it had on Friday. That’d be because people were looking at her. The woman who ditched Philip Dexter.

No matter. She was in control. Kleppy was safely locked up. She looked neat and respectable, and her court notes were beautifully filed in her lovely Italian briefcase in the order they were needed.

As the morning stretched on, she decided she hated her briefcase. She’d give it back to Philip, she thought. That was sensible. He might find a use for a matching pair.

Back home, her wedding dress was packed in tissue, waiting for someone to make another sensible decision.

What to do with two thousand beads?

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

She concentrated on taking notes for Philip, handing him the papers he needed, keeping on her sensible face-but it was really hard, and when Raff entered the courtroom she thought her face might crack. Quite soon.

Philip had called Raff back on a point of law. Just clarifying the prosecution case. Just decimating the case Raff had put together with such care.

Raff wasn’t a lawyer and he had no help. The Crown Prosecutor was hopeless. She wanted to cross the room and shake him, but Malcolm was eighty and he looked like if she shook him his teeth would fall out or he’d die of a coronary.

Wallace Baxter would get off. She could hear it in Philip’s voice.

Philip might not have had a very good weekend-yes, his fiancée had jilted him-but there was nothing of the destroyed lover in his bearing. As the morning wore on he started sounding smug.

He was winning.

He sat down beside her after pulling the last of Raff’s evidence apart and he gave her a conspiratorial smile.

He didn’t mind, she thought incredulously. He didn’t mind that she’d thrown back his ring-or not so much that it stopped him enjoying winning.

Her sensible face was slipping.

‘This is brilliant,’ Wallace hissed beside her. ‘Philip’s great. The stuff he’s done to get me off… But what’s this I hear about your engagement being off? You’d be a fool to walk away from a guy this great.’

A guy this great. Wallace was beaming.

She felt sick.

She stared around to the back of the court where Bert and Gwen Mackervale looked close to tears. Because of Wallace Baxter’s deception they’d had to sell their house. They were living in their daughter’s spare bedroom.

She thought of Lionel, a lovely, gentle man who’d live in a rooming house for ever. Because of Wallace.

And because of Philip’s skill in defending him.

She looked at Wallace and Philip and the smile between them was almost conspiratorial. The vague suspicions she’d been having about this case cemented into a tight knot of certainty. The stuff he’s done to get me off…

She was lawyer for the defence. Sensible defence lawyers did not question their own cases.

She’d stopped being sensible on Saturday afternoon. Or she thought she had. Maybe there was more sensible she had to discard.

She looked at Wallace-a guy who’d systematically cheated for all his life. She looked at Philip, smug and sure.

She looked at Raff, who’d lost control of a car one dark night when he was nineteen years old.

Forgive?

‘It’s nailed,’ Philip said. ‘Let’s see Finn get out of this.’

Finn get out of this? Wallace, surely.

But she looked at Philip and she knew he hadn’t made a mistake. Morality didn’t come into it. Raff was on the other side, therefore Raff had to be defeated.

How could she ever have thought she could marry Philip? How could her life have ended up here?

Her head was spinning. Define sensible? Sitting in a Banksia Bay courtroom defending Wallace Baxter?

Wallace and Philip…smug. Winning.

Wallace and Philip… The stuff he’s done to get me off…

Her thoughts were racing, suspicions surfacing everywhere. She didn’t know for sure, but in Philip’s briefcase… The briefcase that matched hers…

What was she thinking?

Raff was leaving now, his evidence finished. She could see by the set of his shoulders that he knew exactly what would happen.

He’d done his best for the town-for a town that judged him.

Wallace was smiling. Philip was smiling. There were only a couple of minor defence witnesses to go and then summing up. Unless…unless…

She couldn’t bear it.

Philip. Smiling. The model citizen.

Raff. Grim and stoic. The bad boy.

She was a mess of conflicting emotion. She was trying to get things clear but it was like wading into custard. All she knew was that she couldn’t stay here a moment longer.

‘Excuse me,’ she said to the men beside her. ‘I need to go.’

‘Where?’ Philip said, astounded.

‘To check on Kleppy. He gets into trouble alone.’

‘You can’t walk out-to check on a dog.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not just to check a dog. Much, much more.’

She rose and the eyes of the court were on her. Too bad. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, but there was no way in the world she could sit here any longer.

‘Bye,’ she said, to the courtroom in general.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Philip snapped, and she looked at him for a long moment and then she shook her head.

‘I won’t. Not any more. Bye, Philip.’

She lifted up the glossy Italian briefcase from under the desk, swiftly checking she had the right discreet initials, and she strode out of the court. Her pert black shoes clicked on the floor as she walked, and she didn’t look back once.

Raff paused in the entrance, to take a few deep breaths, to think there was no one to punch.

He’d wanted to punch Dexter for maybe ten years. He couldn’t. Good cops didn’t punch defence lawyers. Dexter was just doing his job.

Another deep breath.

‘Raff.’

He turned and Abby was closing the courtroom door. Leaning against it. Closing her eyes.

‘Hey,’ he said and she opened her eyes and met his gaze. Full on.

‘Hey.’ She sounded like someone just waking up.

‘You taking a break?’

‘I need to go home and check Kleppy.’

‘Fair enough.’ He hesitated. Thought about offering her a ride. Thought that might be a bad idea.

Her sports car was close, in the place marked Abigail Callahan, Solicitor. Her spot was closer than the one marked Police. It wasn’t as close as Dexter’s though. Dexter and the Judge had parking spaces side by side.

Dexter’s Porsche was the most expensive car in the car park.

Get through the other side of anger, he told himself harshly. Was there another side?

Abby had passed him now, walking into the sunlight to her car. She raised her briefcase to lay it in the passenger seat. Hesitated.

She lowered her briefcase. Fiddled with the catch.

Raised it again. Tipped.

Papers went everywhere, a sprawl of legal paperwork fluttering in the sunlight. And tapes. A score of tiny audio cassettes.

‘Whoops,’ she said as tapes went flying.

The Abigail Callahan he’d known for the last ten years would never say whoops.

But she didn’t look fussed. She didn’t move. She didn’t begin to pick anything up.

He didn’t move either. He wasn’t sure what was going on.

‘You know, these should probably be picked up,’ she said. ‘They might be important.’ Might they?

‘I’m sorry to trouble you, but I seem to have taken the wrong briefcase,’ she said, sounding carefully neutral. ‘But I’m in such a hurry… Would you mind putting the stuff back in and returning it to Philip?’

What the…?

‘There’s no rush,’ she continued. ‘Philip has his notes on the desk so he won’t miss these for a while. Maybe you could go back to the station to sort them into order before you give them back. I’m sure Philip would think that was a kindness.’

She sighed then, looking at the mess of tapes and paperwork. ‘This is what comes of having matching briefcases,’ she said. ‘They’re so easy to mix up. I told Philip it was a bad idea-I did want a blue one. But at least I do know this is Philip’s-because of the tapes. Philip always records his client appointments. He’s a stickler for recording…everything. He always has. My briefcase holds files for submission to court. Philip’s files and tapes are always in much more detail.’