The Poppy Field

Chapter 10

The next day I avoided the coffee shop, not sure whether it would be worse to see him sat waiting for me or for his usual seat to be empty. Either way, I decided that I would rather not know and instead spent my lunch hour in my office, focusing on my work so that the second it reached five o'clock I could run out of the building and no one would be able to tell me otherwise.

'What on earth is wrong with you?' A loud shout rang through the office as I ate my lunch. It had been almost a week since my last encounter with Ben and I still hadn't managed to go back to the coffee shop. I had a feeling that our little routine was over now, either way it didn't really matter. I heard the voice shout again although I couldn't quite make out what it was saying. I hurried straight towards his office, wondering what on earth was going on. Praying that it wasn't what I knew he was capable of. As I turned the corner I realised that it wasn't anything like that. I had to stop letting my mind run away with itself and jumping to the worst possible conclusions.

Instead I saw, what looked like, a client, although she didn't look particularly happy. I'd seen hundreds of clients walk in and out of his office, nearly every day for the past three years. They were always here, discussing the case and deciding the best possible arguments that would guarantee them a win. The closer I got to the office, the easier it was to tell that this wasn't a client. He had his own way of doing things but I'd never seen him to speak to even the worst client in this way.

'Why won't you just take my case?' A woman shouted at him. Good for her, I thought as I watched, wishing that I had the courage to shout back at him. 'It's not as if I don't have the money,' she added, as he raised his eyebrows in her direction.

The woman looked about my age, except that she was a lot taller than me, although that could have been because of the heels on the shoes that she was wearing. She also had much darker skin than mine that seemed to glow in the light. She was well dressed, the kind of casual chic that women who have enough money to support themselves wear. Her dark hair was tightly braided, with the braids collectively tied together in a ponytail that reached halfway down her back. I watched in awe at this elegant woman who continued to yell at him.

'I'm sorry,' Mr Walsh replied in a voice that said he was anything but sorry. 'But we do not do private prosecutions here.' He paused for a second, thinking through his words. 'And even if we did, I don't think that you have a case here and I don't want to waste my time.' He didn't shout at her. He was too professional to shout, although I could tell that he desperately wanted to.

'What do you mean that I don't have a case?' She shouted back at him, not caring that everyone in the whole building could probably hear what she was saying.

'I'm saying that you have no evidence apart from your word and it's unlikely that a jury would believe you. There's no case here. It's just your word against his.' He replied, his strong and steady voice quietening as he finished his argument. It was his way of dismissing her without actually asking her to leave. She didn't seem to get the hint.
'How can you just sit there and do nothing?' She cried, clearly extremely frustrated.

'Excuse me,' Mr Walsh said, not looking up from his computer screen, pretending to type so that he looked busier than he actually was. 'But I have a client coming in this afternoon and I need to prepare for our case.' It was lie. We all knew it, but it didn't make a difference. He had turned her away, for reasons that I hadn't heard, but there was no way that he would change his mind now.

'What a dick,' she muttered as she left the office, to no one in particular. She stopped when she saw me, her eyes widening as reality hit her and she realised that they hadn't been alone. It was obvious from the way that she looked at me, that she was wondering whether or not I'd been listening to her conversation. She shook her head, hitching her bag back onto her shoulder, deciding that it didn't matter who had heard. 'Is he always that bad?' She asked, giving me a sympathetic look as if already anticipating my response.