Her career had certainly not stalled. After the children were born, she’d returned to work with one goal in mind – to ascend through the ranks of the legal profession, case by case, step by step, from knock-about work in the magistrate’s court to being briefed in her own right in the county court, then up to the high court, building on her reputation to attract the lucrative private cases that now made up the bulk of her practice. And then, the final step, the ultimate goal: to become a Queen’s Counsel – to ‘take silk’ – by the time she was fifty.

That was young for anyone, particularly a woman, but Christine was confident it was within her reach. One more big juicy divorce case, one more victory, another round of press cuttings, more credit reflected on her chambers, and she would make her application. They couldn’t, in all conscience, turn her down. Her name had been associated with some of the most high-profile divorces of the last ten years. She’d freed celebrity husbands from gold-digging wives, sending the ex away with a modest settlement and a flea in her ear. She’d championed the downtrodden spouses of playboy company directors, taking those love rats so comprehensively to the cleaners that they’d be lucky if they could afford to keep the Docklands pied-à-terre. Crushed husbands licked their wounds with disappointed mistresses, who suddenly found that lover boy was less of a catch without endless credit. Ousted wives made a last few thousand spilling their guts to the celebrity press before returning to the hunt, a little less ambitious, a little more desperate this time. It could be an ugly business, divorce. It brought out the very worst in people: greed, spite, anger, malice.

Christine caught herself smiling in the mirror. It was true: the messier the case, the more she liked it. Crime may be more glamorous, with its robberies and shoot-outs, its murders and abductions, but family law showed human nature in all its disgusting glory. It was like having the best gossip in the world laid out in forensic detail for your own private delectation. What other people guessed between the lines of newspaper reports, she knew for a fact, had evidence, sworn testimony, photographs of the soiled sheets, the guilty holiday hideaway, the indiscreet gifts. She knew of the cabinet ministers with the second families concealed in the country, visited at weekends, the children employed as ‘researchers’. She knew of the Premier League footballers who visited male escorts for a bit of discreet – in their dreams! – slap and tickle. Secrets attracted secrets. She’d heard stories in conference with her clients that would keep the libel lawyers busy for the rest of the century. It was one of the perks of the job, stories to be savoured privately, hinted at over dinner, noted and filed away for future reference. After twenty years at the family bar, Christine Fairbrother knew more secrets than anyone else in London. She could no longer look at a man in a well-cut suit, a woman in an expensive car, without guessing the worst. She was seldom wrong.