“Mr. Kane?”
I snap my eyes up from Elly Andric’s social media profile on my phone. Why did she introduce herself as Elena if all her goddamn social media is under Elly? Her social media seems tame enough, but Sunday morning’s surprise encounter has left me thoroughly confused.
“We have secured the McKenzie case,” Sam says. “They signed the papers today.”
“Good.” I nod. Sam is one of my London managing partners. The McKenzie lawsuit is projected to pull us in £2.5 million this quarter. “I’ll personally oversee this one,” I say to the boardroom. “Mark McKenzie and I go back years.”
I turn to Liz, head of operations. “What’s the headcount we need on it?”
She squints at her laptop. “Ten senior lawyers, roughly fifteen juniors, a few paralegals supporting for circa six months.”
“We’re at capacity,” Rebecca cuts in. She’s worked for me for fifteen years and she’s the only one who has the guts to question my judgement, on the rare occasion. “Tristan, we need more staff. Right now, the ratio is about one senior lawyer to thirty-two cases. Maybe we should relax our recruitment criteria. Giving one in every forty people we interview a position isn’t efficient.”
“We are not compromising on quality,” I bark back at her. “We are Madison.”
Her lip curls in displeasure. “Then we have to start turning high-profile cases away.”
I exhale heavily. “Can’t Hong Kong take on some of the international ones?” I look to my Hong Kong managing partner across the video link.
“Sir, the Hong Kong office is already on overtime,” she says over the link. “We’re executing an aggressive recruitment campaign but getting bums in seats is difficult.”
“The right bums,” I correct. “What’s the current headcount?”
“Globally 8,060, give or take,” Simon, head of recruitment, responds. “We need an uplift of ten per cent this year alone in Asia and Europe.”
I rap my knuckles on the desk. “Let’s look at the recruitment budget again. Send me the numbers, Simon.”
“Yes, sir.” He nods.
I turn to Paula, our secretary. “Any more items on the agenda?”
She scrolls down her laptop, brow furrowed. “Rebecca wants to discuss one of the cases under contract negotiation—the Garcia case.”
“That’s right,” Rebecca addresses me. “Tristan, we have to turn it down. We don’t have the headcount. It’s too high profile without the right people on it.”
My eyebrows crease together. “Remind me what it is?”
“Maria Garcia, wife of Rocco Garcia?” she prompts. “She’s seeking asylum in the UK. She claims that she killed Rocco in self-defence by stabbing him with a knife when he attacked her.”
“What’s so special about this one?” I ask. I recall snippets of the case.
“Rocco was a famous hotelier across Central and South America,” Liz reads from her laptop. “Maria fled to the UK before the trial claiming she was in danger with the Colombia mafia. She says that Rocco was part of a ring of sex traffickers, and they will kill her because she knows too much. The Colombian government want to expedite her back to Colombia to stand trial for murder.”
The name is familiar. Rocco Garcia… Jack bought two hotels from him a few years back.
“Media coverage is swelling,” Rebecca adds. “But we have to turn it down. Such a pity because these types of cases are perfect for our junior lawyers to shadow on. They don’t come up often.”
My spine straightens. “No, let’s not turn it down. I’ll do it.”
The entire boardroom looks at me, confused.
“You will do it, sir?” Sam asks.
“That’s right.”
“Why, Tristan?” Rebecca probes. “If you really want us to do it, we’ll give it to the East London office.”
“No need,” I say, irritated with my senior staff for questioning me. “I’m still a lawyer, last time I checked. I’ll do it.”
“But sir…” Sam starts.
I stare at him.
“Nothing,” he stammers.
I dare them to question me further. Even Rebecca stops when she sees the look on my face. I know it’s ridiculous for me to take the case.
“Anyone specifically you want on the team, Mr. Kane?” Simon queries.
A brief smile spreads across my face.
Elly
It’s midnight on Thursday night, and I can’t sleep.
Thank God it’s Friday tomorrow so I can complete my first full week of professional employment. Twenty percent of the work is interesting, and the other eighty percent is shit I don’t want to do. Movies only show court scenes and lawyers having important conversations as they walk quickly down corridors. Doing exciting lawyerly stuff.
They don’t show the lawyers working their way up by photocopying, proofreading and taking minutes, do they? In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that ninety per cent of every job, whether you are a lawyer, brain surgeon or priest, is reading emails.
Over forty hours is a long time to be sitting down, and I have to repeat it for the next forty years. I’ve sat in eighteen meetings this week. That’s thirty-four thousand meetings I will attend throughout my career. Please, someone pass me a brown bag to breathe into.
Still, I can be thankful that Tristan Kane hasn’t approached me all week. I haven’t seen him since the shame of getting kicked out of the Rosemont on Sunday morning. Maybe Megan was right, #linenclosetgate was the nail in the coffin to make him realise I’m not worth the hassle. Or he has simply moved on to his next conquest. Perhaps it will be easy to avoid him for the next two years. If he stays in his ivory tower on the top floor and I stay on the tenth floor, buried in photocopies, I’ll be safe.
What a roller coaster week.
I hear another thud upstairs. Frank has been wrecking around bumping into shit for an hour. What the hell is he doing?
This is officially the house-share from hell. Chances are, at least one of us will leave in a body bag, and one of us will be charged with murder. Right now, I don’t mind which one I am.
This thud sounds like he’s fallen over. Argh.
My thoughts drift back to Tristan Kane.
As I do every night, I shut my eyes and try to drown out Frank’s commotion so I can focus on visions of Tristan’s naked ripped body. My guilty pleasure. I need to stop this. I need to move on.
The door upstairs slams open, and I hear Frank stumble down the stairs followed by a loud bang where he must have missed a step.
My bedroom doorknob rattles suddenly. What the hell? The door is slammed open against the wall with such force that small flakes of paint chip off the wall.
I jolt up in bed to see a dazed Frank standing in the doorway. “Frank,” I bark, but he doesn’t seem to hear me. “What the hell are you doing?”
He doesn’t respond. I’m not sure he knows I’m here. He’s sleepwalking or really drunk, maybe both, I can’t tell. “Frank,” I repeat louder. “Frank, you idiot!”
Nothing. He just stares at the wall with glazed eyes. Don’t they say never wake sleepwalkers? Maybe he’ll leave on his own accord.
Instead, he walks over to my dirty clothes basket and lifts the lid up against the wall. I’m irked but mildly curious. What’s he doing? Unsteady on his feet and muttering under his breath, he fumbles with his jean buttons.
Realisation dawns on me. He thinks this is the bathroom.
No. No. NO.
“No, Frank! No!” I shriek, clawing on the floor for a T-shirt I can grab to cover myself.
It’s too late. Before I can react, he yanks out his dick and pees in my clothes basket.
“It’s not a fucking toilet, Frank!” I bellow. “It’s my clothes basket! Wake up!” I might as well be a ghost. I pull the T-shirt over my head and jump out of bed.
He shakes his dick and allows me to shove him out of the room. It’s too late, the damage has been done. He doesn’t look for the sink, so now I have proof he doesn’t wash his hands. I’ll never accept toast from him again.
I can’t cope with this. I’ll have to start barricading my room at night.
Trainee lawyers don’t get paid as much as people think. I’m up to my eyes in student debt and helping my mum with her rent. It will be at least a year until I’ve saved enough so Megan and I can move into our own place. As for Megan, she had to get a loan from her sister just to move to London.
I pick up my wash basket and creep downstairs to put my clothes in the washing machine. Of course, it’s full of wet clothes that someone forgot to take out, meaning no one else can use it.
Something soft runs over my foot in the dark, and I yelp. Maybe I won’t make it to the end of my first workweek after all.
***
Sophie touches my arm in concern. “You look tired.”
That’s an understatement. I look like a panda caught in headlights, I’m so tired.
I’m grabbing a coffee in the canteen with Amy and Sophie. Calling it a canteen is an insult; Madison Legal canteen could rival a Michelin star restaurant. This is no school dinner selection, these guys are professional chefs and baristas trained to make world-class coffee. The baristas are coffee connoisseurs imported from New Zealand, which explains a lot.
It’s a constant reminder of Tristan Kane and his particular tastes. Sophie says he has final approval on all the lunch menus and the sourcing of the coffee beans. Control freak.
“Did I work you too hard this week?” she asks. “You’ve been staying late every night.”
“No, Sophie. It’s my flatmates. I didn’t sleep very well last night.” I sigh. “Again.” It’s not just me that’s exhausted. Yesterday, Megan said she was so tired at the salon that she nearly cut someone’s ear off.
“Frank at it again?” Amy giggles.
I nod, regaling the disaster of last night.
Sophie shudders. “Can’t you get him evicted? Christ, I’m glad my days of renting by the room are over.”
I laugh dryly. “Frank’s not the worst of them. Anyway, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. Statistically, living with seven other people, I reckon you’ll get at least one nutcase in the house.” I take a giant slug of my coffee. “It never stops. It’s a production line of noisy human movements throughout the night. Someone is up at the toilet every hour or coming in late from pubs or getting up early for shift work.”
“Can’t you and your friend move somewhere else?” Amy asks as we walk to the elevator.
“Not anytime soon.” I shake my head as we wait for the next elevator. “It’s cheap, and we can’t afford a two-bed yet. Although I’m spending any extra savings on takeaways because the kitchen is always occupied, and I swear I’m buying toilet paper for the entire house. The couple in the basement leaves us little ‘presents’ in the kitchen like half-eaten toast. It’s just all getting on my nerves.”
A man clears his throat behind us, and we turn, and I look straight into the eyes of Tristan Kane. He and another man are standing in the elevator waiting for us to get in.
“Mr. Kane,” Sophie says in a breathy tone. I think she’s got a bit of a crush.
He arches a brow, smiling, and beckons us into the lift. “There’s room.”
I step tentatively into the elevator and turn to the front to avoid his gaze. The elevator doors close, trapping me inside with him. It’s too cramped now. The box isn’t big enough for his presence. What is it about elevators that just intensify everything by 100 per cent? Holding my breath, I watch the buttons light up on the elevator control panel as we ascend. I feel like hitting the emergency alarm button.
“Maybe you could look at a neighbourhood farther out? It’s cheaper at the end of the Northern line,” Amy whispers loudly.
What’s she on about? Oh, the conversation we were having.
“We looked through ads last week,” I say in a low voice. “The only one in our budget was advertised as ‘looking for a female to share with one mature male, free of charge.’”
Amy and Sophie chuckle. Easy for them to laugh, Sophie can afford a mortgage, and Amy’s secured a flat from the bank of Mum & Dad Ltd.
As the elevator pings open on the tenth floor, I rush out, taking in a deep breath.
“Have a good day, ladies,” the deep voice calls after us.
Sophie and Amy swoon and respond, but I’m halfway down the aisle, sprinting to my desk.
“What do you think of the first proper week?” Amy asks me in a hushed tone when Sophie excuses herself to take a call.
I check if Sophie is close enough to hear us. “I’m finding the financial services cases a bit boring. Particularly the documents I need to review. Four years of debt, twenty different student flatmates, three infestations of mice, and gallons of bad cider. Sometimes you wonder if it’s worth it.”
She shrugs. “Apparently ninety percent of law is admin. Even the most exciting cases require you to read the same document five times. I think we’ll have to get used to it.”
“I know, and I sound ungrateful when it’s been my dream to get a position here. I’m just so cranky after no sleep.”
She claps her hands together. “Oh, there are drinks tonight! That’ll wake you up. I can’t wait to see the bar upstairs.”
“Are the drinks in the building?” I ask, surprised. “There’s a bar here?”
She looks at me like a moron. “Top floor.”
“It’s just the trainees, right?” I ask cautiously. Any possibility of Tristan Kane in the vicinity makes my anxiety levels hit the roof.
“Apparently the HR team will be there to babysit us. To make sure that the new grads don’t go buck mad and wreck the place.” She laughs. “Or buck one another, I guess.”
I nod. “Makes sense.”
Sophie comes back into earshot.
“Sophie, none of the partners will be at the drinks tonight, right?” I ask. “Any chance of Rebecca Milford and…eh…Tristan Kane joining?”
She snorts. “No chance. You probably won’t talk to them for the next two years except nods in hallways. Your induction talk was an exception. You can have fun at the drinks without worrying about behaving yourself in front of management.”
Good. I can relax now. There’s no reason why Tristan Kane and I would cross paths. I can take the stairs from now on, it’s only ten floors.
