Chapter 15

It was a small lie.

That was the thing about small lies – they were the dangerous ones. Big lies had weight and structure and you built them carefully and maintained them with attention. Small lies were the ones you told without thinking, the ones that slipped out because the cover was supposed to be solid enough that you didn’t have to think about every single word, and then someone looked at you a particular way and you realised the small lie had landed wrong.

It happened on Friday morning.

Becky had come out of her office with a case citation she wanted to cross-reference – something about a precedent from a ruling three years ago that she half-remembered and wanted to confirm. She had mentioned the case name out loud while she was pulling up the database on her screen, mostly to herself, and Freen had heard it from her desk and said without looking up: “That ruling was overturned on appeal.”

Becky had looked at her.

“Chiang Mai Commercial Court,” Freen said. “Eighteen months ago.”

This was true. Freen knew it was true because she had spent four nights reading case law and this particular case had been in the bundle Charlotte sent her because it was relevant to an evidentiary argument in the Viroj trial. She had read it and remembered it because she remembered most things she read.

What she had not remembered was that the Chiang Mai Commercial Court ruling and its subsequent appeal were not the kind of thing a junior associate with a criminal procedure background would have at the top of their head on a Friday morning.

Becky was very still.

“You practiced criminal law in Chiang Mai,” she said.

“Mostly,” Freen said. Still not looking up. Still using the voice that was completely even. “Some overlap with commercial work in the second firm.”

“Which firm.”

“Lanna Legal.”

“Lanna Legal is a criminal practice.”

“They took some commercial cases.” She turned a page. “Small ones.”

The silence lasted four seconds. Freen counted them.

“The Chiang Mai Commercial Court appeal was unreported,” Becky said. “It didn’t make the main databases. You’d have to know to look for it specifically.”

Freen looked up.

Becky was leaning in her doorway with the particular stillness she had when she was deciding something. Not angry. Not accusing. Just – deciding. Her eyes were on Freen with the expression that took things apart and put them back together and didn’t show what it found while it was doing it.

“I heard about it from a colleague,” Freen said. “At the second firm. It came up in a meeting.” She held Becky’s gaze. “I remembered it because the appeal outcome surprised me.”

A beat.

Becky’s eyes narrowed. Just slightly. The kind of narrowing that meant the filing cabinet in her head had just received a new document and was noting its contents carefully.

She didn’t push.

She turned back to her screen. “You’re right about the ruling. It’s not useful to me.” She pulled up something else. “The witness prep summary – have you finished it?”

“I’ll have it to you by lunch,” Freen said.

“By eleven.”

“By eleven.”

Becky went back into her office. The door stayed open. Everything looked normal. The office went about its morning and Noey made a comment about the printer being jammed again and Heng appeared from around the corner with a stack of documents and the ordinary rhythm of the firm continued without interruption.

Freen looked at her screen.

She had recovered smoothly. She knew she had recovered smoothly – the explanation was plausible, the delivery had been even, she had held eye contact for exactly the right amount of time. In most situations with most people a recovery that smooth meant the lie was buried and you moved on.

Becky Armstrong was not most people.

The narrowing of her eyes had lasted half a second. In half a second Becky had filed the lie, filed the recovery, filed the smoothness of the recovery, and filed all three together under whatever heading she was building in her head. Freen knew this the way she knew most things about Becky now – not because Becky showed it but because she had been watching carefully enough to see the things Becky didn’t show.

She turned back to the witness prep summary.

She worked through the morning with the discipline she always worked with and she had the summary on Becky’s desk by ten fifty-two and Becky read it and sent back two comments and no acknowledgement of the morning and the day moved forward in the way days moved forward.

But the narrowing of the eyes stayed with Freen all day.

—

She called Engfa at nine that evening.

Not a message. A call, because some things needed a voice and this was one of them. She was at her apartment, files on the floor, the witness prep summary open beside her because she was still working through it despite having already delivered it because working through it made her feel like she was doing something useful with the anxiety she was not acknowledging was anxiety.

Engfa answered on the second ring. “Freen.”

“She caught something today,” Freen said. No preamble. Engfa didn’t need preamble. “A small inconsistency in the cover. I recovered but she filed it.”

“How much did she catch.”

“Enough to know the recovery was too smooth.” She paused. “She didn’t push. She never pushes immediately. She waits until she has enough.”

“Then make sure she doesn’t get enough.”

“Engfa.” Freen stopped. Started again. “She’s going to figure it out.”

A pause on the line.

“Not if you’re careful,” Engfa said.

“I am careful. I am always careful.” Freen looked at the files on her floor. At the photograph she had not turned face down tonight for the second time this week. “She’s not like other people, Engfa.”

The line was quiet.

Outside the city made its night sounds – traffic, distant music, a motorbike accelerating somewhere below her window. The sounds she had stopped hearing after the first week because they had become background. The city went about its business and Engfa was quiet on the line and Freen waited.

“I know,” Engfa said finally.

Something in her voice that was different from the commander’s voice. Quieter. More personal.

“Charlotte said the same thing about her,” Engfa said.

Freen sat with that for a moment.

Charlotte had said the same thing. Charlotte who had known Becky her whole life, who had watched her grow up and become this particular person, who had been scared enough for her to call Engfa after three years of silence – Charlotte had said she’s not like other people and Engfa had heard it and understood it and sent Freen anyway.

“What did Charlotte mean when she said it,” Freen said.

Another pause. “She meant that Becky sees things other people miss. That she always has.” Engfa’s voice was even. “She meant that you would need to be more careful with her than with anyone you’ve protected before.”

“I am being careful.”

“I know you are.”

“It’s not enough.”

Engfa was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again her voice had the quality it had in the briefing room – direct and clear and carrying the full weight of what she was saying without any extra around it.

“Then be more careful,” she said. “Three weeks, Freen. That’s all. Three weeks and the trial is over and she’s safe and-” She stopped.

“And what,” Freen said.

Engfa didn’t answer that directly. “How is the threat assessment. The second phone.”

“Nam is monitoring it. Nothing new since Tuesday.” Freen paused. “I think they’re waiting. Building something.”

“That’s consistent with what we’re seeing from our end.” A pause. “We have a partial identification on the man from the courthouse.”

Freen straightened. “And.”

“His name is Jeff. He’s been a court clerk for two years. Clean record, unremarkable history.” Engfa’s voice was flat. “Too clean. Too unremarkable. We’re still pulling the thread.”

Jeff. The name she had written in her notebook with a question mark on the first day in the courthouse. She had been right about him. She was not particularly pleased about being right about him.

“Keep pulling,” Freen said.

“We are.” A pause. “Freen. The cover holds for three more weeks. After that it doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me,” Freen said. She hadn’t meant to say it. It came out before she had decided to say it, which was happening more often than she was comfortable with in situations involving Becky Armstrong.

The line was quiet.

“I know,” Engfa said. And this time her voice was very quiet. The voice that existed underneath the commander’s voice, the one that came out rarely and only when the professional distance wasn’t enough to contain what needed to be said. “I know it does.”

Freen didn’t answer.

“Get some sleep,” Engfa said. “She hasn’t figured it out yet.”

“She will.”

“Not tonight.”

Freen looked at the photograph on the floor. Becky in court. Completely unaware.

“Not tonight,” she agreed.

She ended the call.

She sat in the quiet of her apartment for a while. Then she picked up the witness prep summary and found the page she had been on and kept reading and told herself she was not thinking about the narrowing of Becky’s eyes or the way Engfa had said I know it does or the fact that three weeks was getting shorter every day.

She told herself this for about eleven minutes.

Then she gave up telling herself and just kept reading.