Chapter 9: Not My Client

I did not sleep that night either.

I lay on a mattress in a borrowed flat in a foreign country and stared at the ceiling.

The Army said Tom had no daughter.

I had braided that girl's hair for seven years.

I didn't let myself finish the thought.

I turned on my side and watched the light on the street change from black to gray.

Hattie started at the Architectural Association that morning.

She stood in the doorway in her denim jacket with her portfolio under her arm and her hair pinned up crookedly.

"Do I look like a person who belongs there?" she asked.

"You look like a person who won," I said.

She hugged me hard and went down the stairs two at a time.

Cedric was waiting at the bottom to walk her to Bedford Square.

I watched them from the window, my daughter chattering and the tall man in the rumpled suit nodding at every word.

My father rang at ten.

"The inquiry is moving," he said. "They've asked your husband to come in on Monday. He's trying to hide the file."

"Which file?"

"Tom's." He cleared his throat. "Lydia, I have a bad feeling about Tom. I'd like you to let the Army find it."

"I'm not looking for it," I said.

"Good."

I hung up and looked at my hands.

They were steady.

That evening I found Cedric in his office on the fifth floor, alone, with his jacket off and a lamp lit over a pile of papers.

I had come to thank him for the flat, and for Hattie, and I stood in the doorway for a moment before he noticed.

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