If I Never Met You: A Novel

“How can you think it’s real when you’re not a toothless crone in the Middle Ages? I’m reading from Wikipedia here: It has no scientific validity or explanatory power,” Bharat said.

“See, they can’t explain it!” Di said.

“No, you div, it means astrology can’t explain anything.”

“Then how do you explain star signs describing people perfectly? My sister is a completely typical Pisces, dreamy and creative. I am a classic Virgo.”

“Credulous?”

They were doing an old favorite, running through a Bharat and Di greatest hit. In its familiarity, Laurie was finding it as relaxing as panpipes in a birthing suite, although perhaps the analogy was unwise and a bout of unmedicated searing pain was also on the way.

The mood on Monday at Salter & Rowson was decidedly different, Laurie noticed. Lots of lines of sight resting upon her, more frantic whispering, conversations that happened to end as she neared. There was a noticeable tension, like the hush of expectation when you walk into a room prior to public speaking.

Jamie was correct: if the Ivy photo had set everyone wondering, the Hawksmoor shot had convinced them. Now the gossip wasn’t if she and Jamie were sleeping together, it was that they were.

As Laurie grabbed some paperwork from the criminal office, Michael intercepted her.

“Can I have a quick word?” he said, briskly leading Laurie to a store cupboard which was known colloquially as Churchill’s War Rooms, given it was solely used for hatching plots, strategic planning, and arguments too vicious or sensitive for the shop floor. And storage. It smelled of cardboard and a newly installed carpet.

After the door clicked shut, Michael turned to her. “You’re hanging out with Jamie Carter, I hear?” putting an emphasis on hanging out that made it sound impossibly obscene.

“Yes . . . ?”

He exhaled in disbelief and disgust at the confirmation, hands on hips, shaking his head. Laurie got the feeling he had to get himself steady before he could speak.

“This is a very poor judgment call, and the last thing I expected from you. I know Dan has hurt you, but this is . . .” Michael trailed off. “Jesus, really? Him?”

Laurie shrugged. “It’s only a casual thing.”

“I would’ve asked you for a drink if I thought you were ready. I’m sure a lot of guys here would’ve. But it was—what, first come first served?”

Laurie’s eyes widened and she took a sharp breath at this insult: the entitlement, the sense of ownership. The idea she had no right to have sex with someone else, when Michael had been on the waiting list longer.

“You what?”

“I’m struggling to see why else you’d choose Carter.”

“Er . . . Because he’s fit?”

“He’s fit? Are you seventeen? And without moral compass? C’mon, Loz! Who body swapped you?”

Laurie snorted.

If Michael was in a pub, if this was a fair fight, she’d give him verbals that would stop short of a knee in the crotch. But this wasn’t quite so easy. Michael was tacitly wielding the only power over Laurie that he had—the threat of becoming an enemy who would do her unspecified harms within Salter & Rowson. As with Kerry, she had to tread carefully, swallowing down the urge to tell him to fuck off.

“I wasn’t aware I needed your sign-off before I could start seeing someone,” Laurie said calmly.

“This isn’t someone, Lozza, this is Jamie fucking Carter. He’s a rattlesnake. He’s ricin. He’s the kind of enemy you only get rid of by pushing him over the Reichenbach Falls. Do you know what the lads are saying? They’re saying they don’t want to discuss cases with you in case it turns into pillow talk. You know everyone’s always liked you and trusted you, but that’s going to change if you don’t wise up. Fast.”

Laurie folded her arms and looked at the floor. Some part of her had known this was coming. She’d always been aware Salter & Rowson was a toxically sexist environment. She only needed to hear the way the men in the criminal department discussed the people they represented, or look at the gender of who answered phones and made coffee, and who got the bonuses and departmental headships.

Laurie had been protected. The counterpart to a senior man: a Nice Girl. But as a single woman, she was fair game for the rough-and-tumble of such politics. She was—apparently—daring to have carnal relations with a male the testosterone club didn’t like, and that had to be punished.

“What exactly is Jamie supposed to have done to you lot to be so hated?”

Michael spluttered.

“Tell me,” Laurie said. “All I hear is bitching about his suits being too flash and expensive.”

“I assume we’re speaking in confidence,” Michael said, eyes blazing.

“Yes of course,” Laurie snapped. “I’m still capable of independent thought.”

“When he first turned up and wanted to make his mark, he was a total tosser. He poached loads of Ant’s caseload and then bad-mouthed his work.”

“I thought he was given Ant’s caseload because Ant was off with his Crohn’s?”

“Yeah, Ant was off sick and came back to find Jamie Carter’s all but taken his job. There’s big trials that Ant has prepped for, like the drugs four hander, and Carter waltzes in, gets two suspended sentences and takes the credit with Statler and Waldorf. Swaggering around like a cock.”

Laurie saw how the trick was worked: the alleged villainy was entirely subjective, a matter of taste not substance: waltzing and swaggering. She increasingly suspected Jamie’s offense was his refusal to play the popularity game.

“So, essentially, his big misdemeanor is that he efficiently took care of the work he’d been asked to cover?”

Michael’s eyes bulged.

“He’s really done a number on you, hasn’t he? There’s a theory, it’s a rumor, but—rumblings that he might be going for a partnership. Can you imagine? He’s been here five minutes, and tries to get made our boss. The nerve of the little twat.”

“Surely not? He’s too young for that.”

Michael appeared to simmer down by a degree, with this remark. Possibly as it implied it was an unfounded rumor, if Laurie wasn’t corroborating it.

“Young, dumb, and full of . . .” He shot her a revolted, pained look.

Laurie had been vaguely aware that Michael had a soft spot for her, but she had no idea she’d spark this sort of possessiveness.

Unless . . . He had harbored notions. That Laurie might not be interested in him wasn’t a factor in his accounting. If she was seeing Jamie, then she must have also been available to Michael, because Michael was the better man. Laurie was property and Michael was an honest broker, who had been sexually gazumped. It was revolting, discovering the antediluvian attitudes and values that lurked just beneath the surface.

“. . . And that’s before we get on to him fucking Salter’s niece who he was specifically warned not to fuck. Someone saw him in the Principal Hotel with her, so I think we all know how that ended. She was practically a teenager, for God’s sake. That’s who you’re dealing with, someone who’ll take what he wants, no matter the cost to others.”

Hmmm. Laurie saw them in the bar of this hotel. Had he been seen elsewhere in the building too? Brandishing their key cards? It was hard to tell, as Michael would naturally exaggerate to make it sound more damning.

“I don’t think he did anything with her, did he?” Laurie said. It helped she had no real skin in this game—Michael wasn’t in control of his emotions, she was.

“Get real, Laurie. Seriously. Of course he did. You think a man like that passes when it’s on offer, on a plate, from a young pouting innocent? She was following him around like a schnauzer. And he immediately discards her when he’s got what he wanted. Bastard.”

Laurie said nothing. Innocent schnauzer wasn’t how Jamie had characterized Eve, but then she might be dealing with two unreliable narrators here. She had a feeling that the less she said, the sooner Michael would run out of steam.

“You’re very highly thought of here, you know,” Michael said.

Ah, Laurie thought, now the manipulation changes tack to Good Cop. It was as if she’d never been in a custody suite.

“Thanks.”

“I’m unclear why you’d risk tearing so much down for so little. Carter will have fucked off to some practice in London by next summer and you’ll be left picking up the pieces, in more than one way.”

“I thought he was trying to be made partner?”

“You know what I mean. His sort rape and pillage the village, then move on to the next one. He’s a plunderer. Why would a smart woman like you want to be another of his meaningless trophies?”

“OK. First of all, no one’s raping or pillaging anyone. Secondly, I think you might be way over the line in telling me who I can and can’t spend time with out of work.”

Michael scowled. Laurie had never been into Michael’s vicious archduke in BBC costume drama type of good looks, and right now she was very glad. She had a suspicion that Michael hated Jamie because he reminded him too much of himself.

“OK, I’ve tried to warn you, Loz. What can I say. Ditch him now, while you can still repair this. We all know you’ve been through a tough time and we’d be prepared to chalk it up as an indiscretion, if it stopped now.”

“The royal ‘we’? The whole criminal department gets a veto on my love life?”

“It’s not love and it’s no life. You heard.”

He threw the door open and stalked off. Laurie spotted the tactics: the flourish of a dramatic exit gave him the upper hand. A “do as I say or else,” when you didn’t want to spell out the “else.”

Laurie’s chest was heaving with indignation, and the things she still wanted to say. Her fingers clenched and unclenched into fists.

Whenever she and Jamie decided to end this, she’d have learned things about other men that she couldn’t unknow.

Laurie hoped the day would pick up after Michael’s counseling session, but in vain.

A district judge in an extremely foul mood gave her city center bin arsonist a three-month custodial sentence, out in six weeks, after Laurie argued for a suspended one due to it being a first offense for criminal damage and the pigeon not being harmed. He added tartly that “his counsel would have better spent their time engaging with plausible outcomes than trying to achieve extraordinary things at the expense of reality.”

The prosecutors smirked.

Her client didn’t quite follow the language or the argument, but he could tell the judge was saying Laurie had fucked up, and he flipped her the finger while the cuffs were being put on. Yes, yes, it’s my fault you tried to “send a message” with a “cleansing fire” to the “consumerist chimpanzees” of the Arndale mall.

Laurie messaged Jamie on her way back to tell him about Michael’s hostility and didn’t expect anything other than a few sympathetically chosen emojis of bells and clowns, so tossed her phone into her bag after sending.

Seconds after she took her seat at her desk, Jamie appeared in the doorway of their office, filling the frame, a hand braced on the doorjamb.

“Laurie, you got a minute?”

Bharat and Di both gawped. Not only was he bonking Laurie, he was prepared to approach her desk and speak to her, asking for private audiences! Absolute libertine.

Laurie had already forgotten how ludicrously pretty he was: dark hair against snow-white skin, expensive ink-blue suit jacket gaping open to a slim midriff, clad in narrow cut, pale blue designer shirt. You could whip out a Nikon and snap him, standing there as he was, and probably win an award.

“Let’s not risk the lift, eh,” he said, and they took the stairs, the receptionists watching them pass through the lobby as if Elvis was leaving the building.

When they were at safe distance, Jamie said: “Michael’s been aggro with you?”

“Yes. Pretty much promising me pariah status if I keep seeing you.”

Jamie exhaled. “This is beyond shit, isn’t it? What business is it of his?”

“It’s truly warped. Like I should’ve put myself up for bids in a fair and open democratic process and not selfishly decided who I wanted to date myself. He painted you as borderline sex offender.”

Laurie knew she was being slightly indiscreet but she was rattled, and she wanted Jamie’s support. And Michael despising him was hardly unknown to Jamie.

“What a creep.” Jamie shook his head. “Imagine bullying and intimidating a woman about her choices in her private life and thinking you’re the one respecting her. I did warn you he had a thing for you.”

“I didn’t think it would turn so nasty. He and I have always got on, he knows I’m sound. We’ve worked together for six or seven years. One photo of me—well, two—looking cozy with you, and, boom, all gone.”

“Mmm. Welcome to being outside the circle of trust in this place. It’s like The Revenant without the snow.”

Laurie smiled. Jamie liked his film references.

“Why does Michael despise you so much?” she asked. Might as well get Jamie’s side, which she didn’t trust either.

“Oh, he’s loathed me from the word go. His big mate Anthony Barratt was off, I got given his caseload, and there was loads of stuff missing. I had to ask for documents from the CPS and get an adjournment. I mean he was sick, there’s no shame that he dropped the odd ball, but what was I supposed to do? Fuck the cases up and get marks against my name, five minutes after I joined, to spare Ant’s dignity?”

“It says too much about this place that I think the answer is yes. You are describing what they call a team player.”

“Huh. More like a fall guy for their macho bullshit.”

Subservience, that was the word, that was what they demanded from Laurie, from women, but also from Jamie. Maybe he wasn’t disgracefully cocky; maybe he’d simply not felt the need to tone down his self-assurance in order to be liked. Which was quite likable in itself—to thine own self be true.

Laurie combed her memory for any example of Jamie’s arrogance and could only come up with instances of him being hardworking, and unapologetic about the fact. Which irked people, and to Laurie’s chagrin, had irked her too.

The culture here depended so much on playing the game, they’d all ceased to notice that they were playing it.

“Shall I have a word?” he added.

“How? I mean . . . Why?”

“In this alt-verse”—Jamie lowered his voice—“you’re my girlfriend, and if a colleague was having a go at my girlfriend, I’d stick up for her. I’m minded to as a mate, anyway.”

“Thanks, but that would send Michael up like a Roman candle. I think we have to tough it out saying as little as we can.”

Jamie nodded.

“Also, the idea Michael has a right to an opinion here, full stop, makes me fume.”

“Erm . . .” Jamie looked at the ground and scratched his neck.

“What?”

Seconds later, Dan walked past with another colleague from civil. Catching sight of Laurie and Jamie, Dan boggled, wide-eyed in shock, and looked away.

“Hi,” Jamie said with a small, polite smile. Neither Dan, or the man he was with, spoke. Full blanking. Laurie didn’t acknowledge them, so she wasn’t sure she could legally claim blanking.

“If looks could kill, I’d be in the ICU at Manchester Royal right now,” Jamie said.

Laurie gave Jamie a wan smile, heart thumping.

This time, Laurie faced the fact there was no putting the genie back in the lamp. Even if she said SURPRISE, EARLY APRIL FOOL, GUYS, WE WEREN’T DATING! it wouldn’t help matters now.

She’d had a “fling” with the office scoundrel and that was on her record forever. Dan was perturbed. But not enough to say anything to her. Had she achieved her goal? Was this what she wanted?

“You’re OK, though?” Jamie said. “You’re not going to let Michael get to you?”

“Nah,” Laurie said with a rueful smile.

“Right. Here if you need me,” Jamie said, and squeezed her shoulder. It felt good to have an ally. Then they broke eye contact as it visibly crossed both their minds that this was a moment a real couple might quick kiss on parting, and Jamie beat a hasty retreat back into the building.

An uncomfortable thought occurred to Laurie, as she returned to her desk—this might benefit Jamie a lot more than her. Jamie’s reputation wasn’t taking any hit for his liaison with Laurie, and he might yet get his name above the door. Laurie, meanwhile, hadn’t priced the effect on hers into the policy of upsetting Dan.

What do I have to lose? she’d asked in a devil-may-care manner. The answer: her good name.

And when she’d said she craved making Dan jealous, she’d omitted a crucial question, one Emily told her she used with her clients: What would success look and feel like to you? (“Expectation management is crucial, or they shoot the messenger every time,” she said. “That is rule number one. Get them to define it, so the result is provably what they ordered. You’d be amazed how many people aren’t careful what they wish for.”)

What did she need from this revenge campaign? Laurie knew. She absolutely knew, but because it was so silly, so ugly—given a blameless baby was involved—so desperate and beneath her, she had pushed the thought away. And yet. There it was.

She had to face it directly.

She wanted Dan to want her back.