Chapter 56

The notification came on a Tuesday morning.

Becky was at the kitchen table with her coffee and the property case she had been reviewing for the past week when her phone buzzed. She picked it up. Read the notification. Set it down.

She picked up her coffee.

She read it again.

Viroj’s legal team had filed an appeal. Grounds: procedural irregularities in the authentication of three exhibits and alleged bias in the judicial direction. The filing was clean – well-constructed, the work of good lawyers who had been waiting for the verdict and had spent the weeks since building toward this.

She put her phone face down.

She drank her coffee.

She looked at the property case on the table in front of her.

Then she opened her laptop and pulled up the Viroj trial record and started reading.

—

Freen came out of the bedroom at eight.

She had been on an early call – the review had concluded and there were administrative things that followed conclusions, forms and confirmations and the bureaucratic unwinding of two months of off-the-books operational work. She had been handling them quietly, in the way she handled most administrative things, which was to say without mentioning them until they were done.

She came into the kitchen and looked at Becky’s screen.

Then at Becky.

“When,” she said.

“This morning.” Becky kept reading. “Filed yesterday evening. I got the notification an hour ago.”

Freen went to the kitchen. She made coffee. She came back and sat across from Becky at the table and looked at the screen.

“The authentication grounds,” she said.

“Exhibits seven, eight and twelve. The same ones from the motion.” Becky scrolled. “They’re arguing the certifying officer’s authority wasn’t properly established.”

“You established it. During the trial.”

“They’re arguing I didn’t establish it sufficiently.” Becky looked at the filing. “It’s not a bad argument. It’s not going to work but it’s not bad.”

Freen held her coffee.

“The bias ground,” she said.

“Weaker. They’re arguing the judicial direction on the weight of circumstantial evidence favoured the prosecution. It’s standard appeal language.” Becky scrolled further. “This isn’t going to succeed. The trial record is clean.”

“But it has to be answered.”

“It has to be answered.” Becky closed the laptop. She looked at her own coffee. “Charlotte will want to discuss whether the firm takes it. Technically it goes back to the prosecution office – it’s a criminal appeal. But I’m the lead counsel of record.”

“So you decide,” Freen said.

“So I decide,” Becky said.

Freen looked at her across the table.

Becky looked at the closed laptop.

She already knew what she was going to do. She had known from the moment she read the notification. Eight months of a case didn’t end because a legal team filed an appeal on authentication grounds – that was not how she worked, it was not how she had ever worked, it was not something she was going to start doing now.

“You’re taking it,” Freen said.

“Yes.”

“It’ll take months.”

“Probably.”

“The authentication argument will need to be rebuilt and the bias ground will need a full response and you’ll be back in the courthouse on this for-“

“Yes,” Becky said. “I know.”

Freen was quiet.

“You know this will start everything again,” she said.

“Not everything,” Becky said. “The threat is gone. Surat is in tribunal. The network is dismantled.” She held Freen’s gaze. “It’s just a case now.”

“A significant case.”

“It was always a significant case.” Becky looked at the laptop. “That’s why I took it in the first place.”

Freen held her gaze for a moment.

“You’re taking it anyway,” she said.

“Yes.”

Freen looked at her coffee.

“I’m not asking you not to,” she said.

Becky looked at her. “Then what are you asking.”

Freen looked up.

“Nothing,” she said. “I’m just staying.”

The kitchen was quiet.

The Tuesday morning city was outside doing its thing – the traffic, the distant noise of the street below, the ordinary soundtrack of a city that didn’t track individual appeals or individual decisions. Becky looked at Freen across the table.

The coffee. The table between them. Freen in the chair that had become Freen’s chair in the particular way that things became particular people’s things without anyone deciding they should.

I’m just staying.

Becky looked at the closed laptop.

She thought about eight months of a case. About the evidence chain and the authentication arguments and the closing argument that had needed four rewrites and the verdict delivered on a Tuesday afternoon at the bottom of some courthouse steps.

She thought about staying.

About what it meant when it wasn’t a mission. When it was just – a choice. Made every day. Without a brief or an objective or anything except the choosing.

She opened the laptop.

She looked at the appeal filing.

She was going to answer the authentication ground first. The bias ground could wait – it was weaker and the stronger argument needed more time. She would need the original certification documentation and the expert witness notes and a clear two days with the trial record.

She started making a list.

“The certification documentation,” she said. “From the original authentication – Heng has it filed. Can you ask him to pull it today.”

Freen looked at her.

“You want me to call Heng,” she said.

“You talk to Heng every day.”

“I’m on desk review.”

“You talk to Heng every day anyway,” Becky said. “He brings you coffee. You discuss the cases. Charlotte showed you the Orakarn file.” She held his gaze. “Call Heng.”

Something moved in Freen’s expression. Brief. There and gone.

“Okay,” she said.

She picked up her phone.

Becky looked at the appeal filing and started annotating.

—

Heng answered on the second ring.

“The Viroj certification documentation,” Freen said. “Original files. Can you pull them today.”

“I saw the appeal notification,” Heng said. He sounded completely unsurprised. “I already pulled them. They’re on Becky’s desk at the office.”

Freen looked at Becky across the table.

Becky looked back.

“He already pulled them,” Freen said.

“Of course he did,” Becky said.

“Is there anything else you need,” Heng said on the phone. “I’ve also started a list of the authentication references from the original trial. And I called the expert witness. She’s available Thursday.”

“Thursday works,” Freen said.

“I know it works,” Heng said. “I checked Becky’s calendar first.”

Freen was quiet for a moment.

“Thank you Heng,” she said.

“Tell her we’ve got it,” Heng said. “She doesn’t need to worry about the filing.”

“I will.”

She ended the call.

She looked at Becky. “He already-“

“I heard,” Becky said. She was almost smiling. “He always already.”

“He pulled the files before you decided to take the appeal.”

“He knew I’d take it,” Becky said. “He’s known me for four years.”

Freen put her phone down.

She picked up her coffee.

She looked at the table between them – the laptop, the property case she had moved to the side, the list Becky had started, the Tuesday morning that had arrived with a notification and was now a case that was going to run for several more months and that Becky was going to answer because that was who she was.

That was who she had always been.

Freen had known this since the courtroom in week one. Since the names read into the record and the closing argument delivered at two on a Tuesday and the verdict in forty-seven minutes. Since before any of it – since the photographs in the briefing file that she had studied and thought she understood and had not understood at all until she sat across from her at a conference table and heard her explain what a chain of evidence was.

She looked at Becky annotating the appeal filing.

Head slightly down. Pen moving. The three slow taps when she found something she needed to think through.

The specific quality of her when she was working on something that mattered.

“Freen,” Becky said without looking up.

“Yes.”

“Stop watching me and get the property case. You flagged the authentication issue. I need to know what you found.”

Freen looked at her.

“I’m not a lawyer,” she said.

“I know.” Becky turned a page. “Get the case.”

Freen got the case.

She sat back down at the table and opened it and found the section she had flagged and pushed it across to Becky. Becky looked at it. Read the flagged section. Looked at Freen.

“How did you find this,” she said.

“It looked like the Viroj authentication issue.”

“It’s not the same provision.”

“No. But the same gap.” Freen pointed at the section. “The certifying authority isn’t established by the document itself. It’s assumed. You need the underlying appointment.”

Becky looked at the section.

She looked at Freen.

“You say You’re not a lawyer,” she smirked.

“No,” Freen smiled. “I’m not.”

“Charlotte’s role,” Becky said. “The security and evidence analysis.”

“She mentioned it again on Friday.”

“I know. She mentioned it to me too.” Becky looked at the property case. At the Viroj appeal. At the list she had started. “It would be useful,” she said. “Having you here.”

“I’m already here,” Freen said.

“Professionally here,” Becky said. “With a desk and a role and a reason that isn’t-” She paused. “A cover story.”

Freen looked at her.

“Think about it,” Becky said.

She went back to the appeal filing.

Freen looked at the property case.

She thought about it.

The kitchen table. The appeal filing on the screen. The property case between them. The Tuesday morning going about itself outside. Becky working on something that mattered to her because it mattered to her and for no other reason.

The desk review had concluded. The options were there.

She was already here.

She thought about it.

“Okay,” she said.

Becky looked up.

“I’ll think about it,” Freen said.

Becky looked at her for a moment.

Then she almost smiled – the small private one, the one that didn’t need an audience – and looked back at the screen.

Freen looked at the property case.

She turned to the authentication section.

She kept reading.