‘Ah, Cressida,’ he said, crossing the floor. He clasped her hand. ‘Good to see you.’ He indicated a couch. ‘Take a seat. Had breakfast?’
‘Um, no, actually,’ she said. Unless you counted the apple she’d had in the car. Dinner the night before had been raw vegetables and tinned tuna. She was ravenous, but the thought of chowing down on a bowl of muesli and yoghurt in front of the Managing Partner was not appealing. ‘It can wait,’ she said.
He turned around and said, ‘Sandra said what, ten minutes, Brian?’
Cressida looked up to see Brian Prendergast standing in the kitchen at the cappucino machine. What was he doing here? Oh but it’s his house, silly, she remembered. He’s just making his morning coffee. Brian nodded. Cressida frowned and tried to read Michael’s face. The Managing Partner and a Senior Partner she didn’t know well, calling a private meeting with her? And with a person she didn’t know? The only time she’d heard of that was on Level 65 when people were given the shove. They’d call someone independent in to make sure it was all ‘impartial’ – and witnessed should there be a dispute over who said what later. Her heart dropped into her stomach. Was that why the partnership vote hadn’t been rescheduled yet? They were planning to sack her?
But as she stood up and reached over to shake Brian’s hand across the bench, the thing she noticed immediately was how distracted he was. It was like someone had flicked the dimmer switch on his usual energy. His smile as he held out a plate of croissants and danishes to her was only half its usual intensity.
‘Who’s Sandra?’ asked Cressida, taking a pastry and trying to sound offhand.
Michael lowered himself onto the couch opposite and ran a hand across his face. ‘It’s complicated, Cressida. I’ll explain when she gets here,’ he said. ‘How’s things?’
Brian sat at an angle in a chair on the other side of her and nursed his coffee.
‘Fine, thanks,’ she said, warily. ‘Except for my partnership application of course. When is the vote rescheduled for by the way?’ she said, taking a dainty mouthful of her tea as she looked at Michael over the rim. Instead of answering, Michael gave a pained looked at Brian, who gave a show of grimacing and took a swig of his coffee.
‘Such a ruddy cock-up, that,’ Brian said, finally, the English cut-glass curve to his voice pure Melbourne royalty. ‘If only that idiot Bollos had kept quiet.’ The accent made the frankness of his words compelling, cool almost, instead of uncouth. ‘If she had,’ he continued, ‘you’d already be a Partner by now. I’m sure of it. Things being as they are though …’ He sighed. ‘It might be quite a while I’m afraid.’ He gave Cressida a sympathetic look, but then his eyes drifted to the floor, and a pensive look crossed his face. Cressida shifted uncomfortably.
‘So … what’s up?’
Brian glanced up. ‘Michael will fill you in.’
There was a sheet of paper on the couch next to him and Michael leaned over to pick it up. He passed it to her. ‘Brian’s ex-wife emailed him the link this morning.’
She read. It was a copy of the front page of The Age. GOTCHA, screamed the headline in capitals, above a half-page image of a smiling young woman in school uniform. In the colour photo her face was ruddy, the cheeks pink as if she’d just come in from the cowshed.
‘Holy fuck,’ she said, looking closer. ‘Sorry, I mean—’ She reddened, glancing up, but her gaze was drawn back to the page again. ‘Gosh.’ She slurped her tea, reading: A 22-year-old woman was taken into custody last night in relation to the NSW power outage. Charges under Commonwealth terrorism laws are expected. ‘They got someone.’ Outage, Cressida thought. Bit of an understatement.
Brian remained silent, his face concealed in his coffee cup. Then he looked up at a photograph on the opposite wall. In it rows of smiling young women on bleachers wore red and navy sports uniforms, a set of hockey sticks crossed in front. Ascham. It was the Ascham hockey team. She’d played against them at PLC.
‘Two hundred thousand dollars in private-school education,’ he sighed. ‘Down the drain.’
Cressida wasn’t sure whether they were talking about the girls in the photograph now, or somehow the girl in the story – or some combination of both. All she knew was that things seemed to be going weird. She grasped for something to say, but Michael stepped in again.
‘Cressida,’ Michael began. Then the doorbell rang. ‘Ah,’ he said, with palpable relief, standing up. ‘That must be Sandra.’
He crossed to the front door and a moment later there was the clop of heavy heels on parquet, and a large woman in a two-piece suit and rimless glasses entered. ‘Sandra,’ Michael beamed, standing up. He shook her hand then turned to Cressida.
‘Cressida, this is Sandra Crane. You probably know she’s a criminal defence barrister. Among other things.’
Criminal defence barrister? Cressida stared at the frizzy-haired woman in front of her. Last Cressida had read, the woman before her had been in The Hague, defending the former Syrian president against charges of torture and genocide. A Senior Counsel renowned for winning impossible cases, she had seen three of Australia’s most notorious murderers acquitted on appeal, one following a Commission of Inquiry twenty years after he’d been put in gaol. Cressida didn’t know whether to shake her hand or curtsey. She chose the former.
‘Cressida,’ Sandra said, appraising her with cool grey eyes.
‘A … an honour to meet you,’ Cressida said, sweat springing out on her palms and making her want to wipe them on her trousers. She resisted.
‘You’re a jolly champion for coming, Crane,’ Michael said, kissing her cheek. It seemed like a brave move to Cressida but she figured they must be well enough acquainted. ‘Coffee?’
‘Black thanks,’ said Sandra, and sat down on an armchair opposite.
There was the blare of the coffee machine again and over it Michael called out, ‘How was the Netherlands?’
‘A bloody circus,’ the woman answered, putting her bag carefully beside her on the floor. Her tone was soft but emphatic, her voice deep and somehow both authoritative and laconic. It was such a contrast to how Cressida spoke, she thought, she who always found herself speaking quickly and loudly, to get everything out in case people moved on before the end of what she was saying. Sandra, however, sounded as if she knew every word she said would be strained for, and probably written down, so there was no need to make sure people could hear her. How wonderful that would be, Cressida thought. To know people were going to pay attention. To not have to make an effort to make them.
‘Is that the girl?’ Sandra asked, flicking her gaze at the printout. Brian handed it to her. ‘Young,’ she observed.
‘That’s what I thought,’ Cressida said.
Sandra glanced at her and continued, ‘Where is she? Silverwater?’
Brian’s eyes strayed back to Cressida. ‘I don’t know. That’s the first thing we need to find out. The article just says she turned up at the temporary cop van at Muswellbrook LAC.’
Michael returned with the coffee and passed it to Sandra. As he sat down Brian started speaking, almost to himself.
‘She always was so bloody passionate about things. Used to fly into a rage at the slightest injustice when she was a child. Then of course she had to go to Iraq. Iraq. As if she wasn’t mad enough already.’
Sandra