The Poppy Field

Chapter 11

'I have to tell you something before we begin,' I said to Kara the second I sat down. We'd arranged to meet at a coffee shop on the other side of town, as far away from my work as possible, to have our first meeting to discuss the case.

'What?' She asked.

'I'm not a lawyer,' I said sheepishly. 'But I do have a law degree and experience working in a law firm, so I know how it all works and...'

'You couldn't have told me this before I told you everything?' she hissed at me angrily, although I could tell that she was trying to fight back tears from the way her expression fell. She stood up, grabbing her bag as if to leave. 'I trusted you.' It was evident in that moment that even if I somehow managed to convince her not to leave, it was going to take a lot of work to have her completely trust me again. She'd clearly been let down a few too many times before.

'Let me explain,' I said, and she stopped although she didn't sit back down, her bag clutched to her as if she was ready to take off at any second if I gave her even the slightest reason to. 'I don't work as a lawyer. I'm more of a personal assistant for Mr Walsh,' I admitted, hating how pathetic those words sounded. 'But I have all the necessary qualifications and I've worked at a law firm for long enough that I'm pretty sure I can still help you. If you still want me too?' I asked. She didn't say anything but she sat back down. This was a good sign at least. She looked defeated.

'I don't really have any other option,' she said, looking extremely down-hearted. 'Everyone else turned me away, they said that we didn't have a case.'

'Well I disagree,' I said, pulling a notebook out of my pocket to talk her through all of the notes that I had made the night before. I saw a smile flash on her face for just a second.

'So what's our case?' She asked, with a slight enthusiasm that told me that she was back on my side. 'What do you need me to do?'

'First things first,' I began. 'Have you reported this to the police?'

'Yeah, but a fat lot of good that did.' She replied bitterly. 'They said they'd look into it, but they didn't sound like they were in much of a hurry about any of it. That's why I wanted to do this privately, so that something would get done about it. And soon.'

'Okay,' I replied. 'And have you been to hospital? You'll need a check up so we can obtain medical evidence. It'll help strengthen the case.'

'I went that night,' she said. 'Straight after I went to the police station.' By the look on her face it was obvious that this had gone about as well as the visit to the police. I took a deep breath, this case was already affecting me much more than I'd expected. I had no idea how Mr Walsh managed to deal with so many cases without developing a connection to the clients.

'What else?' She asked.

'We can find the taxi driver, ask him about the events of that night and make sure that they match up with your story.' I said, referring to the long list in front of me. 'Then we need CCTV footage, from the club and from his building. Maybe we can talk to some of the residents, see if any of them saw or heard anything that night.' She sat quietly, staring at the floor.

'What happens if... What happens if we fail,' she whispered.

'We can't afford to think like that right now.' I said. 'WIth this kind of case, you're going to have to be prepared for people not believing your story. If we don't believe in our case, then nobody will have any reason to believe us and we can't give anyone any reason to doubt us.'

'Thank you,' she said. 'I think you're the only person I've told that hasn't thought that I was lying. No one seems to be able to understand how it could have gone that far if I hadn't wanted it. Apparently I should've resisted more.' She breathed deeply, clearly blaming herself for everything that had happened. Wondering what she should have done differently.