Page 11 of Behind Frenemy Lines

Silence descended.

Charles broke it. “Hopefully that wasn’t the reason why you stopped appearing at the strategy meetings.”

Was that a joke? Who knew Kawan Baik had a sense of humour?

“Oh no,” I said. “The client decided they didn’t want to pay for me to attend the meetings. I was on the case all the way through, though. For all the good it did Mackintosh.”

I could joke about it, because we’d won the case. The court had struck down the regulations our clients had challenged. Unfortunately, judicial reviews being what they were, the government had simply turned around, tweaked the regulations to nullify any further challenge, and passed them regardless.

“Bought them time,” said Charles.

For a while, neither of us said anything. Charles tappedaway at his keyboard, his forehead furrowed in concentration. I set up my Westlaw login, following the instructions from IT. I was going to need it to re-create the slides for the client training sessions I’d be helping to deliver in Hong Kong in two weeks’ time.

I jumped when Charles spoke.

“It was a good witness statement,” he said.

“What?”

“The one Mackintosh filed in the JR,” said Charles. “It was well drafted.”

“I drafted that! My first ever witness statement.” I grinned. “I’m surprised you remember it. It’s been, what, eight years?”

“The judge quoted it extensively in her judgment,” said Charles, and after that he said nothing more.

CHAPTER FOUR

Charles

Whydid Imention the Mackintosh witness statement? Don’t have to ask Loretta to know Kriya thought it was weird I remembered it. It is objectively weird.

Considered explaining I have a photographic memory, but decided that would only make me sound insufferable. Anyway, don’t remember every witness statement I’ve read. That one stuck out to me because I knew Kriya must have been involved in drafting it.

Office smells different after she’s been in it. Hard to pin down the scent. Not floral. More bracing. Citrus? Lemongrass?

It’s not unpleasant.

CHAPTER FIVE

Kriya

Rosalind Wijanarko ofSanson followed me and Arthur when we moved to Swithin Watkins, but we had known she would. Rosalind was the one client I would have retained if I had refused to move with Arthur.

Rosalind was from a fabulously wealthy family, in accordance with the usual stereotypes about Chinese Indonesians. She could have afforded her Chelsea flat, her black cab habit, and her extensive collection of designer fashion even if she never did a day’s work.

With that kind of family money, I would happily have done my degree in obscure genres of wayang kulit and devoted the rest of my life to perfecting my kaya recipe. But Rosalind was driven by different demons. She worked maniacally hard as a senior compliance manager at Sanson, a multinational conglomerate that produced everything from highlighter pens to industrial laminates. She treated me as a combination of typist, oracle, favourite niece, therapist, tax accountant, and spiritual confessor.

Besides listening to her dating woes, the main thing I’d done for Rosalind was draft a compliance protocol that she was trying to roll out across her company. Eight months on, it hadn’t been implemented yet. Rosalind was too busy arguingwith her Board, as well as the seventy markets in which Sanson operated, most of which didn’t see why they should give a flying fuck about regulatory requirements in far-off Europe.

She relied heavily on me for support, which mostly consisted of me making soothing noises and drafting emails for her to send on to obstructive internal stakeholders. It wasn’t exactly the sort of work I’d envisioned doing when I was studying for my law degree, but Rosalind seemed to find it helpful. We spoke at least twice a week—sometimes twice a day, if her stakeholders were being particularly difficult.

She gave me a brief break after the firm move. But on the Wednesday of my second week at Swithin Watkins, Rosalind rang, raging about “those bastards in Malta.”

“I need you to write me an email citing chapter and verse of the legislation, so I can send it to that cow over there and copy her GM. You tell her—”

“Hold on. Give me a second.” As I was putting Rosalind on speaker so I could type, I caught a twitch of the lips from Charles.

Shit. I wasn’t used to having a roommate anymore. I couldn’t have long conference calls with Rosalind on speaker while poor Kawan Baik was trying to work.

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