Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) Read Online Free

Sarah shook her head slowly.
    ‘I’d no idea of the depths of rage it would rouse. My hands shake when I think of him. It’s the betrayal, Lucy. After all these years. The callous self-centred betrayal.’
    Her voice, usually so controlled, shook slightly. She attempted another smile.
    ‘So I’m a free woman, for the first time in my life. Or about to be. Kids gone, no pets, now no husband either. It’s a new experience. I’ll have to learn to enjoy it.’
    It was true, Lucy realised. Sarah had left school at fifteen to have a baby, been married and divorced within a year. She’d married Bob and had her second child, Emily, the year after that. While her contemporaries had been finding their independence, Sarah had been battling with the relentless details of motherhood - nappies, ear infections, vaccinations – and simultaneously struggling to catch up with the studies she had missed - GCSEs, A levels, university, finally the Bar exams and Inns of Court School that had qualified her, in her early thirties, as a barrister.
    Supported all the way by her faithful husband Bob.
    ‘Were there no signs?’ Lucy asked.
    ‘Well, yes, looking back, of course there were signs. For a start, when he believed Simon was guilty, remember? That was hard.’
    Simon was Sarah’s son by her first husband, Kevin - a randy little gamecock of a lad who had got her pregnant, married her, and lived with her for a year before punching her in the face and running off with an older woman. Bob had tried to be a good stepfather to the boy, but had had little success. Simon hated school and teachers. When he dropped out of school to work on building sites, Bob washed his hands of him. Since Simon’s friends were thugs and petty criminals, Bob was shocked but not surprised when his girlfriend was found dead and the lad was charged with her murder. While Sarah had fiercely defended her son, Bob had urged her to stand back and let the law take its course.
    ‘We never really recovered from that,’ Sarah said ruefully. ‘It’s not the sort of thing you can easily forgive or forget. And then of course, there was his affair with that wretched Stephanie. I should have slung him out then, looking back on it. Only he looked so hurt and pathetic when she dumped him. I thought he’d learned his lesson. And after all, I wasn’t entirely free of blame.’
    ‘Terry Bateson, you mean?’ Lucy raised an eyebrow quizzically. She had often wondered about Sarah and the handsome, widowed detective. There was a certain chemistry between them; maybe Bob had seen that too.
    ‘Mm. There was a moment ... but if I’d let it go further, who knows where we’d be now? My reputation in the trashcan, I suppose, for starters.’
    Lucy smiled. Despite the shocks Sarah had endured in her life, her attitudes could be surprisingly conventional. But she had learned early how harshly the world could condemn.
    ‘That was then, this is now. He’s a widower, Sarah. Needs someone to look after him.’
    ‘With two little girls who’ll soon be teenagers. You think I’m looking for that sort of burden? Anyway, I don’t need a man, Lucy, do I? Look at all the trouble they cause. This is our time, the women’s century - you read about it in all the papers. It’s men who find loneliness difficult, not women. Look here, I read it yesterday.’
    She pulled a newspaper clipping from her briefcase and thrust it across the table. It looked odd, Lucy thought. Sarah usually kept her papers clean and neat; this was folded and crumpled, as though it had got wet and been dried.
    ‘See? I’m bang up to date.’ She smiled brightly and stared out of the window while Lucy read quickly. Men, the feminist writer suggested, were surplus to female requirements. Happiness meant independence and freedom. ‘The trouble is,’ she continued as Lucy looked up. ‘It may take a while to get used to. But then, there’s always work to keep me going.’
    ‘Yes. Including this,’ Lucy said,