Free A Place of Safety by Natasha Cooper

one?’ Nicky said, looking pleased.
    ‘Better not.’ Trish smiled. ‘I’ve got a client dinner with George tonight and I’ll never be able to eat enough to be polite if I’ve filled up on tea first. I’ve got some work I ought to do now. Will you two be OK?’
    ‘Of course,’ David said, much happier now that he was in Nicky’s consoling company.
    Trish left them to it. Sitting at her desk, she phoned chambers to tell Steve about Tamara O’Connor’s bail application.
    ‘Fine. I’ll let Sam Makins know,’ he said. ‘While you’re on the phone another two likely briefs have come in. We can discuss them in the morning. I can’t see that you’d need a leader for either of them, but you’ll want to check that for yourself.’
    Trish lay back in her chair and smiled at the ceiling. She told herself she hadn’t really been worried that she’d never get any more commercial work. But it was good to know new briefs were coming in so fast, even though there was nothing nearly as big as the case that had just settled.
     
    Toby couldn’t think why it was so hard to draft a simple letter to a teacher who thought he should admit her pupils for nothing just because her school had no budget for expeditions to art galleries. How did she think his would survive if everyone tried that on?
    He heard the phone in the outer office ring, once, twice. Jo picked it up. This morning’s talking-to had obviously worked. He waited, listening.
    ‘Yes, he is here,’ she said. ‘I’ll put you through.’
    The extension on his desk rang. As soon as he picked up the receiver, Toby heard Jo’s voice, sharp with sarcasm, telling him that he had a call. She knew he would have heard everything she’d already said. The partition wall was very thin.
    He thanked her and waited until he’d heard the click of her phone, before saying quietly: ‘Toby Fullwell.’
    ‘Hi, Toby; this is Ben.’
    Toby’s guts tightened into a sharp tangled mass, like a steel pan-scourer. He couldn’t speak.
    ‘We need to talk,’ Ben went on. ‘Your secretary will be leaving any minute now, unless she’s changed the habit of a lifetime. As soon as she’s gone, I want you to come and meet me at the corner of Bread Street and Cheapside. OK? I’ll be waiting there in fifteen minutes’ time.’
    There was no chance to say anything before Ben cut the connection. Toby tried to breathe, stretching upwards to rid his stomach of the scourer. Every movement set up a new pain somewhere else in his body. He listened to Jo packing up and going downstairs.
    Once, she would have called out a perky ‘good night’, but these days she was too sulky for that. He heard the front door bang, then rang Margaret on the internal phone to say he had to go out for half an hour or so but would be back well before half past six. She didn’t sound surprised, or even very interested.
    Outside the front door, he looked both ways, like a child fresh from his first lessons in road-crossing. No one was paying any attention, still less spying on him. Huddling himself into his coat, which had been far too expensive even in the sales but at least made him look like the director of an important art gallery, he walked to the rendezvous.
    The streets were so full of people struggling to get home from work that he understood why Ben had waited until now to summon him. No one would notice them or bother to eavesdrop in all these crowds.
    ‘You’re late,’ Ben said when Toby reached the corner. ‘Let’s walk.’
    They set off in the direction of Moorgate, heads down against the cold like everyone else.
    ‘OK, Tobe. There’s a Hieronymus Bosch in next week’s old master sale at Goode & Floore’s. We want you to buy it. It’s
lot number 50, the only Bosch in the catalogue, so there can’t be any confusion.’
    Toby had already been sent the catalogue and had noticed the Bosch. They didn’t come up very often. But he hadn’t paid much attention because it was only a dull