The Art of Unpacking Your Life (10 page)

‘Leave me alone, horrid people,' Lizzie moaned, raising one arm like a flagpole with her hand barely visible above the grass.

‘Don't move, Lizzie,' said Dan. He went back to the vehicle and emerged with his sketch book. ‘Stay still. This is going to be a great picture.'

The move over to Lizzie shifted their conversation on.

‘There has been an amazing amount of twittering about your case, Sara,' Luke gently commented.

‘Oh yeah?' Since it ended, Sara studiously avoided the coverage. It was like she had binged on ice cream and had no desire to face the empty tubs.

Julian joined the conversation. ‘Thousands of people think they did it, plus there are a fair few cranks.'

Sara smiled easily. ‘Male, I presume? They either insanely fancy her, or don't believe her.' Sara was drawn back to the contents deep in the bottom of her left-hand mahogany desk drawer at home. ‘The fate of the attractive female co-defendant.'

Sara noticed Connie walk away towards Luke, who was back at the table, grabbing another muffin.

‘One can't help wondering if the Suttons got off because they are telegenic and middle class?' Julian mused.

Sara answered automatically. ‘No bloody evidence. The facts say they didn't. We don't have trial by media in the UK, despite what the papers may think.'

It was the right answer. It had been right at the beginning. Sara had finessed the case out of Reading Crown Court into the Bailey, claiming local media feeling would create prejudice. She knew everyone at the Bailey. She always won on home turf.

Julian pursued, ‘What about her DNA in the boot of Nigel Sutton's Range Rover?'

‘The strands of her hair could easily have come from a piece of clothing, or her teddy. Jade Sutton took it everywhere. It was supported by the expert witness for the defence.'

‘Not likely?' Julian shot back.

‘The judge would say that's a matter of comment, Julian,' Sara said with a patience she didn't feel. ‘Not fact.'

Why wouldn't anyone let her forget this case? Move on. She needed another brief and quickly. She must call Pete, her clerk.

Luke interjected. ‘What was the mother's name again?'

‘Joanne Sutton,' Sara said her name too quickly. She was exposed, as if the group could see her drawer heaving with press cuttings from the case. She grabbed a croissant and wandered away from Julian towards Luke and Connie.

Even in Africa, she couldn't escape the images. She had cut out every photo she could find of Joanne Sutton and placed them in see-through files. Sara had meticulously filed them in date order as if her efficiency might excuse her obsession.

She couldn't explain it to any of the group, let alone anyone in Chambers. They would think that she had lost it. Her obsession with Joanne Sutton. Sara couldn't logically explain why she was drawn to her. She was a pretty, immaculate housewife
from a west Berkshire village near Reading. Middle class, middle of the road. Everything Sara despised and strove to avoid.

She breathed in deeply. The tang of the sour grass tickled her nose. This wilderness couldn't be more different to Joanne Sutton's Pangbourne cottage garden with its shining hot pink foxes, floppy poppies, sprinklings of lily of the valley and peonies. She wished she had never ever seen it. Of course, she shouldn't have seen Joanne Sutton at home alone.

What had possessed her?

Pete put through the call. Joanne Sutton sounded different. Her control was absent and her voice was shrill and unstable. ‘I have to see you. Alone.'

Sara was silent. Desperate clients were her territory. Yet she was surprised that it was Joanne Sutton talking in this way.

‘Can you hear me? Say something.'

Sara drew on her stock reply. ‘Mrs Sutton, I am simply not permitted to meet with you without your solicitor, Mr Stephenson, being present. Or at the very least with my junior and Mr Stephenson fully aware of our meeting.'

‘No.' Joanne Sutton sobbed, short of hysteria. ‘I have to see you alone. You have to do this for me. Do you understand?'

Emotional outbursts only alienated Sara and drove her back to comfort of legal practice. ‘It would be a breach of our Code of Practice. I am sorry, Mrs Sutton.'

Joanne Sutton wailed. Sara had only heard such a desperate and wounded cry once before. From her mother.

She walked rapidly to the door of her room to see if she could spot her junior, John, in the corridor. She put her hand over the receiver and yelled. ‘John, get your sorry arse in here now, for God's sake.'

‘Look, Mrs Sutton. When you're a little calmer, let's talk with Mr Stephenson.'

John appeared at her door. Sara mouthed Joanne Sutton and mimed slashing her throat.

‘Why don't I put you through to John, my fantastic junior. He can help, and will outline the Code of Practice we need to adhere to at all times.'

She pointed to him and the phone. He gestured with his fingers to his mouth to remind her he was re-heating their takeaway curry. Joanne Sutton had either hung up, or she remained silent.

‘He'll schedule a meeting for all of us together, okay?'

‘Have you ever lost anyone close to you?' Her tone was cold and calm. It was as if she knew.

Sara was silent, too experienced to be drawn into a conversation about her life, but surprised by her knowing tone.

Joanne Sutton continued, ‘A member of your family?'

Sara scratched vigorously at her eyelid, before remembering she had mascara on. It had already been a hellish day. Give her a five-minute listening to.

‘What is it you want, Mrs Sutton?' Sara couldn't hide her sigh.

‘I want you to come and see me. I need to talk to you in person about something. I deserve it. I have lost my daughter. Every day of my life is going to be overshadowed by this loss.'

John reappeared with her chicken tikka masala in a white plastic container with the rice and dhal in pots balanced on top. Sara waved him in and wrote on her pad.
A good bloody hearing I'm giving her. Your bloody job. Please note
.

She was hungry and keen to be distracted, afterwards she wondered if she had misheard her.

‘You know exactly what that feels like, don't you? You can't escape your loss.'

‘Excuse me?' Had she been looking into Sara's background? Surely not.

‘My daughter, Jade, is dead. I am only asking for half an hour of your time.'

Joanne Sutton had lost her child. Despite herself, Sara was sorry for her.

She gave John a pained grimace. He slid further down her leather armchair and grinned in between his toppling forkfuls of rice.

‘All right, Mrs Sutton. I will come and see you, but I will have to inform Mr Stephenson, okay? Let me put John on to sort it out.'

She spoke to Mark Stephenson. Like her, he moaned about best practice, especially with this case. Sara moaned back. If she's not telling you the whole story, what can I do? Anyway, it's probably nothing. She wants a good bloody hearing. They both laughed. Your bloody fault for not giving it to her Mark, my boy.

Sara worked on the train from Paddington, which, though direct, infuriatingly stopped in every outpost. Time-wasting made her fraught. Deep down she was worried, but tried to work herself out of it.

When she arrived and impatiently strode through the tunnel leading out of the station bang on to a bend in a high street, she didn't even notice her surroundings. Later that evening, she saw the red-brick village hall set back behind a car park, the
Co-Op on the corner and The Elephant, a gastro pub and hotel, where she went afterwards.

Sara circled the shiny white Mini, luminous in front of the mock Tudor house. Joanne Sutton opened the door immediately. Was she hovering behind her white wooden shutters looking out for her?

She was wearing a bright red high-street dress that was too red and too short for a woman of her age – thirty-eight, Sara knew from the brief. She wore heavy foundation, which looked unnatural at eleven thirty on a Tuesday morning in the countryside. Her blond highlighted hair had that ironed look no longer fashionable in London. It made her appear immaculate and in control, protecting her from the loss her only child. She didn't smile or look particularly welcoming.

Sara tried to formalise the situation. ‘Mrs Sutton, this is highly irregular. I hope it is a serious piece of evidence.'

‘Sara, come in.' Clients didn't use her first name. Joanne Sutton hadn't to date.

It drew Sara further in, even though she knew she must retain a professional distance. She was bitterly regretting having taken this mad leap of sympathy. As she entered the hallway, old-fashioned with its gold wallpaper, mahogany hall table with a gilt mirror overhanging it, Sara couldn't immediately see any evidence of this lost family life.

There were three highly polished silver frames lined up on the hall table. Each one showed a white blond vision of a child in exquisite, immaculate boutique clothes. Their daughter Jade wasn't doing anything in any of the photos. She was close up,
staring blankly into the lens. When Sara left a couple of hours later, she wondered whether the photos had been placed there on the hall table for her benefit.

Joanne Sutton was the most confident woman she had ever met. She wasn't remotely intimidated by Sara, her uber QC, swathed in a Joseph suit, swanning up from London into her small Home Counties home. She made direct, unfaltering eye contact, feeling no need to soften its gaze with the warmth of a smile.

Sara couldn't understand this kind of confidence when it wasn't attached to a career. How could a woman who did nothing for a living be this self-possessed?

Joanne Sutton led her out to a narrow strip of a garden around thirty feet long with low-slung fences, opening them out to the full view of the neighbours on either side. Joanne Sutton had already placed an off-white tray on an olive metal garden table to one side of the narrow decking. A cafetière of coffee, two spotty mugs, a matching jug and side plates, and a homemade chocolate cake were pristinely waiting.

Sara was horrified. The idea of settling down to a cosy cuppa in the garden had only reinforced their inappropriate intimacy. Yet she didn't refuse a second slice of the chocolate cake, more tasty than the organic one from Tom's Deli on Westbourne Grove. Joanne Sutton was determined to let Sara finish her coffee and cake before she spoke.

The time eating cake, which Joanne Sutton didn't fill with small talk, gave Sara an unexpected break. She gazed at the lush lawn, bordered by full, dense beds with an array of colour. Tall stocks waved in the wind with the odd purple allium adding to the colour and lightness. There were cream metal baskets hanging from both fences with white china pots, dense with pink petunias. An oak garden bench was decorated with
two large brown knitted cushions, done up with oversized buttons. Every detail of Joanne Sutton's home was arranged, ultimately cared for, that Sara was stirred by her unresolved pain. She rationalized that it was absurd to envy Joanne Sutton. But she did. The feeling hadn't gone away.

Ben radioed to say he had had no luck. He was up a tree waiting for them. They all helped to pack up, before careering back into the bush to find him. Sara cheered up, spotting his capped head up above a Shepherd's Tree. They were off back to Gae, refuelled, re-energised and eager to spot animals.

‘Secretary birds. Two flying.' Luke.

‘Springbok a leaping.' Julian.

‘Ostrich! Complete with orange bum feathers.' Lizzie.

‘Over there, look, two beautiful impalas.' Dan.

‘Zebra alert.' Matt.

‘Twin zebra alert,' Luke.

‘Christ. You're like a bunch of children with ADD.' Sara snapped.

They laughed together, hilariously happy. Unfettered laughter that left them aching and weeping with their jaws cramped. And Sara buried Joanne Sutton's evidence back into her subconscious.

Verbesina encelioides
. The Latin classification sounded more alluring than ‘wild sunflower', the species checklist translation. It was commonly known as a South African daisy. Dan put down the list and shifted up the terracotta lounger. His face was completely sheltered by the beige umbrella. He half-shut his eyes. The daisies merged into a bobbing block of yolky colour. The list was right: it was an alien species. Native to United States and Mexico. Far from home.

Dan was amazed by how easily he had adapted. He didn't like animals. He was uncomfortable with domestic pets. He hated it when Connie's cats, Rolo and Minstrel, unceremoniously pounced, hairs rising. They smelled like a urinal. Lions up close and personal had absolutely petrified him. Walking into black rhino, if they ever found them, was going to be a potent test of his loyalty to Connie.

He had believed ‘arid Savanna' to be exactly that. However, there were four different but dominant grass species on the reserve. This fascinated him. Dune Bushman's Grass (S
tipagrostis amabilis
) was a hardy, tufted grass around two metres tall, which stretched over the crests of sand dunes, preventing erosion. Then there was the flowering Sour Grass (
Schmidtia kalahariensis
) held responsible for Lizzie's hay fever, though he thought the Lehmann's lovegrass (
Eragrostis lehmanniana
) was probably the culprit. It was an invasive weed that produced large monotypic stands to crowd out other species. Lastly, there was the bulky grass cover provided by the Silky bushman grass (
Stipagrostis uniplumis
).

He lay on the lounger thinking about grasses. He imagined telling his most fractious client, Rebecca Finkelman, that her new garden north of Orvieto was to be made up entirely of African grasses. The thought made him laugh inwardly. He could see the entire circular garden dense with two-metre high grasses.

Dan was drawn to the Kalahari in a way he had never imagined possible. It was the vastness of the land, the extremity of the sky, which appeared to fall on top of the earth. The Korannaberg Mountains were a cartoon image, towering over the flat veld. The veld was not some amorphous mass, but dense with fascinating species of flora and fauna. It struck him as he looked beyond the daisies to the horizon that if he had a strong desire for anything, it was a yearning for land. A place to physically grow his own roots after two arduous decades of doing it for clients.