The Cradle in the Grave by Sophie Hannah

Laurie’s at Hammerhead, he’ll have no leverage with Maya or Raffi. They’ll be able to make me redundant: punish me for daring to think I was Creative Director material, even though I never did, and save themselves a hundred and forty grand a year. I agreed to see Rachel Hines in the absurd hope that somehow it might lead to my becoming indispensable at Binary Star, which is pretty embarrassing, even when I’m the only person I’m admitting it to.
    Does that mean I want to make Laurie’s film? No. No, no, no.
    â€˜I won’t let her in,’ I say, certain this is the best idea I’ve ever had.
    â€˜There’s nothing to be scared of,’ says Tamsin unhelpfully.
    â€˜Easy for you to say. When was the last time you were visited by a murderer in the middle of the night?’ I’m not sure Rachel Hines killed her babies – how can I be? – but it makes me feel better to pretend that I am.
    â€˜She isn’t a murderer any more,’ says Tamsin. Automatically, I think of the woman I overheard on the tube: I can believe Helen Yardley was innocent all along . ‘Even before she appealed and won, Justice Geilow made a point of saying she didn’t think Ray Hines would ever pose a threat to anyone in the future. She as good as said in her sentencing remarks that, though murder carries a mandatory life sentence, she didn’t feel it was appropriate, and implied that cases of this sort shouldn’t be a matter for the criminal courts at all. It caused an uproar in legal circles. God, I feel sober. It’s your fault.’
    â€˜Justice who?’
    Tamsin sighs. ‘Don’t you ever read anything apart from heat ? If you’re making the film, you’re going to need to familiarise yourself with—’
    â€˜I’m not making the film. I’m bolting my door and going to bed. First thing tomorrow morning I’m handing in my resignation.’
    â€˜Fine, do that. You’ll never know what Ray Hines wanted to talk to you about.’
    Good .
    â€˜One of her objections to the film was sharing it with the other two women,’ says Tamsin. ‘Now that Helen’s dead and Sarah’s pulled out, Ray could be the main focus. Her case. It’s the most interesting of the three by far, though I once said that to Laurie and he almost had me hung, drawn and quartered for treason. Helen was always his favourite.’
    Helen’s case, or Helen the woman? I manage to stop myself from asking. I can’t be jealous of a murder victim who lost all three of her children and spent nearly a decade in jail. Even if it turns out Laurie’s spent years crying into his pillow on her account, jealousy is not an acceptable option, not if I want to be able to live with myself.
    I hear a car pulling up outside. My hand tightens around the phone. ‘I think she’s here. I’ve got to go.’ I hover uselessly by my front door, trying to contain myself until I hear the bell. When I can’t stand it any longer, I open the door.
    There’s a black car outside my house, with its lights on and its engine running. I climb the five steps that lead from my basement flat up to the pavement, and see that it’s a Jaguar. From her telephone voice, Rachel Hines sounded like the sort of person who might own one. I wonder how this fits in with her being a drug addict. Maybe she isn’t one any more, or maybe she’s a heaps-of-cocaine-off-platinum-edged-mirrors junkie, not your bog-standard shooting-up-in-a-dirty-squat smackhead. God, if I was any more prejudiced . . .
    I plaster a non-threatening smile on my face and walk towards the car. It can’t be her; she’d have got out by now. Suddenly, the engine and lights cut out and I see her clearly in the street-lamp’s glow. Even knowing as little as I do about her case, she’s totally familiar to me. Hers is a household face, like Helen Yardley’s – one