Alchemy. Maureen Duffy

      I’m sitting with my feet up on the desk pretending to be Philip Marlowe when the phone rings. Marlowe’s still the best when the phone hasn’t rung for days and the overdraft’s fast growing its fungoid web over the bank balance. Marlowe’s cool. I know Warshawski’s more my century. I ought to feel most at home with her but it’s Marlowe when the going gets tough. There’s just one problem though with my impersonation. By now I should have a tray full of dead butts. But I never learned how to inhale when we all tried it out in break at thirteen, behind the kitchen block where the smoke wouldn’t notice. And he was older than my mid thirties too. Forty at least; that was how Bogey played him anyway and he was the definitive.

      ‘Is that Lost Causes?’ The voice is light, male, what used to be called ‘cultured’.

      ‘It is.’

      ‘Do you do tribunals? Employment disputes?’

      I do anything but I don’t say so. ‘Would you be applying for legal aid?’

      “That won’t be necessary. Will you represent me?’

      ‘I need to see clients before I commit myself.’

      ‘Who am I speaking to? Would it be you taking my case?’

      ‘My name is Green, Jade Green. We’d better make an appointment Mr…?’

      ‘Dr Gilbert, Adrian Gilbert. I feel…if it could be as early as possible.’

      ‘Is tomorrow too soon?’ I try to keep any eagerness out of my voice.

      ‘Not at all. That will suit me very well.’

      ‘Ten o’clock then?’

      ‘Excellent.’

      ‘Just tell me who the plaintiff is?”

      ‘Defendant. The defendant is the University of Wessex. Till tomorrow,’ and he’s gone.

      While he was speaking I’d opened a case file under his name and then this second one. I keep two files: the first I let the client see and the other is for myself, encrypted so that, in theory, only I have access, except that any twelve-year-old hacker could probably be into it quick as a traditional cat burglar up a drainpipe.

      Next I run a check on him. Nothing in criminal listings. Nothing in the medical file. Not that sort of a doctor then or at least not accredited. Idly I try a general search by name. And bingo. ‘Adrian Gilbert. Died 1604.’ Oh great, ‘Uterine brother to Sir Walter Raleigh.’ So my guy is either an impostor or a fantasist.

      I try the University of Wessex. I’ve never heard of it but I see it has its own website, the minimum requirement for existence nowadays, as a validation, a sure sign that you’re in business and up there with the big boys. Founded 1999. Not redbrick. Not even old poly. A private Thatcherite-style endowment, on the site of a former teacher training college. On the fringes of a London dormitory that might just qualify it for the Wessex brand. A ‘uni’ only in name. My intellectual snobbery is showing. We are the last generation who can afford it. Who am I to judge now, in these shapeshifting days?

      Wessex campus is split between several sites. They show us a picture of the chapel. Nineteenth-century basilica style, a brick rotunda that must have been part of the original college, dedicated to St Walburgha. A fast train service to London every half hour: commutable. A global pharmaceutical giant has its base in the town and helps to fund the science faculty. Wessex offers the usual mishmash of courses, from artificial intelligence to sports tourism, boasting of its something for everyone policy. I wonder which of these Dr Adrian Gilbert fits into. I scroll through the list of subjects but it doesn’t name the teaching staff. Just as I’m about to click off I spot theology almost at the end of the line, with only tourism and youth studies tagging along behind. It stands out in its long gown and Geneva bands like silk bloomers among the Knickerbox flimsies. Well, tomorrow I’ll find out. It’s time to change into my leathers, get my boots on, helmet, gloves and wheel out the bike for my evening delivery. If Dr Adrian Gilbert could see me now would he be impressed or would he want to withdraw his case?

      The Chinese takeaway I deliver for is a small family business in a quiet suburb. When their only son decided to try his luck in Australia they lost their errand boy. ‘Why,’ I asked when I’d been there a couple of months, ‘why me?’ There must have been plenty of young immigrants, students even, from Hong Kong families applying for the job in Loot. Mr Gao’s pale face with its delta of wrinkles had smiled fleetingly. ‘You are not Chinese; you are girl. There are many bad people run Chinese takeaway delivery. Deliver drugs, demand money. They don’t trouble you English girl.’

      I found it hard to believe the triads had moved in on carriers of egg fried rice and bean curd but if Mr Gao thought so it was enough. They were a quiet close family, apart from Tommy who got away. Mr and Mrs Gao cook in the steaming, succulent kitchen behind, with a clashing of woks and metal pans. Mary takes the orders in the shop and over the phone. She’s shy and plain. Probably she would have liked to marry and have children but who is there for her to meet in Streatham Hill, unless a visiting cousin? I flirt with her a little when I call for my orders but I don’t think she understands. She ducks her head and smiles at me under her deep fringe, shadowing the liquorice pupils which are her only claim to attraction. As a young girl she must have had