Lover in Law Read Online Free PDF

not this one though. Normally I help at a bureau in Tottenham. I was there only last week, but I got a call this afternoon from the Director of the Islington branch, desperate because half his staff had gone down with the latest mutation of swine flu, asking if by any chance I could help. I feel guilty enough that I only give twelve nights a year of my time, so I said yes, gladly.
     
    The problems are nearly always the same. People wanting advice on whether they’ve been unfairly dismissed by their employer, whether their landlord can really evict them or push up the price of their rent without notice, whether they can take unfit merchandise back to the shop, even though it’s been used. None of these are my areas of expertise, but I now know enough to deal with the most common cases. If I don’t, then I check it out and get back to them.
     
    I’m slightly early. The session’s due to start in fifteen minutes and the door’s still locked. The premises are a ramshackle affair. Graffiti’s splashed over the front of the building. Two of the windows are boarded up. There’s so little money donated to this kind of facility, it’s a wonder they stay afloat. I push the bell. Even that doesn’t work properly. It sputters like a radiator full of air.
     
    The door opens and the lines on my forehead bunch up in surprise.
     
    “Oh, um, err, hello,” I say.
     
    It’s Anthony de Klerk.
     
    “Are you following me?” he teases, the lines on his brow also deepening in furrows.
     
    He stands aside so I can enter and closes the door behind me.
     
    “So what are YOU doing here?” I ask, following him down a dark, narrow corridor.
     
    “I help out here from time to time. I live round the corner.”
     
    He flicks a few light switches, pushes another door which leads to a pseudo office set-up, with desks, chairs and a couple of computers. He heads towards a table displaying a kettle, cups, some glass jars marked tea, coffee, sugar and a box of Asda assorted biscuits.
     
    “When they told me someone from the Tottenham branch was our SOS, I wouldn’t have pictured it as you,” he says.
     
    That’s the thing about lawyers, the astonishment when one of our gang actually does something for free. Although I’ve been doing this since before I even qualified, to try to give just a little something back to society over and above buying the occasional lottery ticket, I wouldn’t expect the next person to do it.
     
    “Snap,” I smile.
     
    “I’m afraid I’ve nothing stronger,” he says, pointing to the Women’s Institute beverage selection as he fills up the kettle, “but would you like a drink?”
     
    I say that I could murder a cup of char. He’s just handed it over when our first customer arrives. A woman in her twenties with dreadlocks and a nose ring.
     
    Anthony winks at me, offers the woman a seat and asks how he can help. I pretend not to eavesdrop on their conversation and look away, blowing on my drink before taking a tentative sip. Somehow though, I look back without meaning to and he catches my eye with a smile. Then a nicely dressed man in his fifties, carrying a big red box file walks in and I divert my attention.
     

Chapter 5
     
     
     
     
     
    Scott Richardson’s nothing like he looks on TV. On the small screen, he’s that all-American preppy kind of image. Perfectly sleeked dirty blonde hair, bright blue eyes, square jaw and a perfect Californian smile. He comes across as a squeaky clean, boy next door. A saccharine, good-humoured chap in his late 30s. The flesh and bone reality, however, is strikingly different. I’ve always thought it a myth that television puts pounds on people, but I now realise it’s completely true. In person, Scott’s face is longer, thinner, meaner. Make-up free, the skin is coarser.  His chin is more pointed than square, his nose has a bulbous tip. He’s still good-looking, but in a more threatening way. He cuts an imposing figure as he towers above, tall,