‘Hey, your change!’ The words followed her but in the moment they meant nothing.

In the open doorway of the greengrocer’s, she stepped under the protection of the tarpaulin and connected the call.

‘Francesca?’ The surface of his voice was like liquid chocolate but beneath that sweetness there was a layer of stone that spoke to her of a unique inner strength. ‘Francesca, are you there?’ A smile crept into his words.

‘Yes, yes, I’m here, James.’

Slow down! Slow down! Slow down! she told herself.

Looking around, she saw a pair of men struggling in the rain to carry a large mirror into the hairdressers two doors down from the greengrocer’s.

‘I love your new profile picture on Facebook. You’ve gone from being insanely pretty to downright beautiful.’

She stared directly into the slanting rain and smiled.

‘You’re a sweet-talker.’

He laughed and the sound was warm and kind.

‘Thank you for the picture you sent me. You’ve got such…’

‘Such what, Francesca? Such a nerve to surprise you?’

‘A surprise? For me? What is it?’

‘If I told you…’

‘It wouldn’t be a surprise.’

Despite the cold wind that whipped the greengrocer’s shop front, Francesca felt her colour rising and something sweet and delicious rising from her core.

‘Where? Where are you?’ she asked.

‘I’m in a meeting room, waiting to go into the next round, Queen Elizabeth Crown Court.’

‘Which case is it?’

‘I’m fighting the deportation of an asylum-seeking woman and her three-year-old son back to Eritrea. She’s genuine. It’s pen-pushers versus humanity.’

God, I’ve never met you but I’m so proud of you, so proud to have anything to do with you. She managed to keep the words from slipping out but felt her heart pound a little faster; and the world around her faded into a different place where a haze of endless dreams could come true.

She heard the sound of a door opening at his end of the line and a woman saying, ‘The judge wants to see you in his chambers.’ Her voice dropped to conspiratorial. ‘I think you’re going to be pleased.’

Francesca felt a sudden needle in her happiness. She didn’t like the tone of the woman’s voice, the familiarity, her closeness to him.

In the moment before he had the chance to reply to the woman, Francesca analysed her voice more closely. It felt both familiar and strange in the same beat of time, and was filled with the weight of middle-age.

‘Thank you, Rhonda.’ The door closed behind her with an almost theatrical click, and Francesca dismissed the messenger. It was just a woman he worked with, after all.

‘Francesca, remember the deal we made?’

‘Of course.’

‘We have to make a decision shortly…’