had come later, with an awful result.
‘The boy is in Tunisia!’ she exclaimed in dismay before she could stop herself.
‘I know. It’s hopeless, isn’t it? We’ll never get him back from there.’
‘It makes it a bit tricky but not impossible,’ Laura replied with a supportive smile, and carried on reading. Sarah took another Hobnob from the packet. She had put on two stone since Andrew left.
It was a wretched story. When Mary Hakimi, née Walters, had left her Tunisian husband she knew very well there was a chance he might abduct their ten-year-old son, Ahmed, and take him to Tunis. She had done all she could to prevent it, even waiting patiently in her car outside her husband’s house while Ahmed was visiting his father. More than a year ago, she’d come to Morrison Kemp solicitors for help, and Sarah had got a court order stopping Mr Hakimi obtaining a passport for the boy.
Last Friday, Ahmed had met his father after school and disappeared. Mary Hakimi had been frantic and had called the police but, she thought, at least they can’t have left the country. She rang Sarah who assured her that was the case and that the boy would be traced.
And then yesterday, Mrs Hakimi found out Ahmed was in Tunisia. She had rung the Passport Agency and discovered that a passport for him had been issued to her husband the previous month.
‘No,’ she had sobbed down the phone, ‘no, no, please, that can’t be right. You’re not allowed to do that. You must have made a mistake.’
There had been a mistake but it wasn’t the Passport Agency’s, it was Sarah Cole’s. When the twelve-month court order expired, Sarah had forgotten to ask for it to be renewed. The only protection Mrs Hakimi had in place against her husband’s threat of abduction had disappeared.
It was the worst possible situation, Laura knew. Tunisia had not signed the Hague Convention on Child Abduction and that made getting Ahmed back extremely difficult. If he’d been taken to a country which had signed, there was a fairly straightforward process to follow because those countries were required to order his return to the place where he usually lived, in this case England, and an English court would then decide the matter.
But those rules didn’t apply in Tunisia. Mary Hakimi’s only option would be to start custody proceedings in the Tunisian courts under Tunisian law. It would have different priorities and traditions, she would not be on the scene, she would have to communicate with her lawyers from a distance, probably the proceedings would be lengthy and expensive with every chance of failure.
Sarah brushed biscuit crumbs from her black skirt, got up from her chair and walked over to the window. Laura’s office was on the first floor and Sarah looked down onto Black Lion Street, a busy road in the heart of Brighton’s Lanes – the old town full of narrow passages housing shops, restaurants and bars. A strong wind was blowing off the sea, buffeting shoppers and office workers taking an early lunch hour. Sarah watched them, twisting her hands in agitation.
‘She’s coming in soon. Will you see her for me?’
‘Who’s coming in?’ Laura glanced up from the file with a sinking heart. Sarah turned back from the window with a pleading, hunted look in her eyes.
‘Mary Hakimi. I can’t face her. Not today.’
Laura sighed heavily. Her head was throbbing and she felt exhausted. She hadn’t slept much last night. She’d told the police what little she could about the lunatic who’d tried to kill her. They’d written it down, asked a lot of questions which she couldn’t answer and then got out a breathalyser. She’d been outraged, though heaven knows why – she was a solicitor after all and knew the form. Joe had made a big fuss, stomped around, but she’d still had to take the test. She was under the limit, luckily, despite the two glasses of wine she’d drunk earlier with Sarah. When they got home, Joe made her some food, cleaned her wound, cheered her up, but all night long that terrifying chase had played in her head.
‘When will she be here?’
‘One o’clock. I’d be soooo grateful.’
It flitted through Laura’s mind to make an excuse and say she had a lunch appointment. The last thing she felt like today was getting caught up in this. But then she thought of Mrs Hakimi desperate to get her son back and Sarah unable to help and determined not to be blamed.
‘All right, I’ll see her,’ Laura said. She closed the file, put it on the desk and wondered what on earth she could say to Mrs Hakimi. ‘Sorry, we made a mistake, sorry we ruined your life,’ was all that came into her mind.
Sarah blew out her cheeks in relief and flopped down again in the chair. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all, maybe she would get away without too much damage. If she didn’t have to see Mary Hakimi face to face, there was no danger she would admit anything or dig herself a bigger hole. She reached for a biscuit, then frowned at the packet and took her hand away. If she did get away with it, she would pull herself together. There would be no more errors and no more Hobnobs.
She slipped into default mode and started talking about Andrew. He wouldn’t be able to stand living with Mollie for much longer and then he’d come running back to her but she’d tell him to eff off, to start with anyway. Sarah was like a broken record on the subject and Laura knew better than to point out that eighteen months had gone by with no sign of the great man’s return and maybe she should move on.
‘When you first got the court order, did you tell Mary Hakimi she needed to remind you when it was running out?’ Laura asked without much hope.
‘No.’ Sarah looked at the floor then said quietly, ‘no one told me I had to.’
Laura ignored the implication that someone, Laura presumably, should have told her. She was a little hurt that Sarah should try to spread the blame but then Sarah was upset.
‘What about a note in the diary to say when the court order ran out?’ she asked.
It was all basic stuff drummed into trainees from Day One. If you got a court order you had to tell the client, in writing, that they were responsible for letting you know if and when it needed renewing. You needed to put everything in the diary so there was a clear reminder of what needed doing and when. It was routine procedure and part of that most sacred of legal traditions called ‘covering your back’.
Sarah crossed her arms defensively and said nothing.
Laura was not surprised Sarah had forgotten. It was soon after Andrew had left her and she had been close to a total breakdown. In another job, with a more sympathetic boss, she could have taken time off sick. As it was, she had battled on, but only just.
There had been other mistakes which Laura had sorted out. She wanted to help with this one, not just because she felt sorry for Sarah, but because she liked her. They had the same sense of humour and were allies in the vicious swirl of office politics. The problem was that this mistake was much more serious than any of the others had been, and much more difficult to put right.
‘What about Marcus? Does he know yet?’
‘God, no,’ Sarah said, horrified. ‘I was hoping he might not find out.’
Sarah was in a bad way if she could delude herself that an error like this would escape the attention of the firm’s senior partner. Surely the victim – Laura corrected herself – the client, would have been onto him already. If not, she certainly would be if she didn’t get satisfaction from this afternoon’s meeting.
Laura imagined what Marcus Morrison would say. She ought to tell him, she knew, before Mrs Hakimi arrived. She could hear the low angry hiss of his voice. He always hissed when he was annoyed or disgusted, one reason his colleagues had nicknamed him ‘the snake’. The other reason was his slipperiness. He never admitted to anything, never took any blame. He would have no sympathy whatsoever. This was the sort of mistake he would never have made and would never understand.
She tried to think what Morrison would do. What slippery manoeuvre would he come up with to get out of trouble, but nothing occurred