The Art of Unpacking Your Life by Shireen Jilla

vigorously at her eyelid, before remembering she had mascara on. It had already been a hellish day. Give her a five-minute listening to.
    â€˜What is it you want, Mrs Sutton?’ Sara couldn’t hide her sigh.
    â€˜I want you to come and see me. I need to talk to you in person about something. I deserve it. I have lost my daughter. Every day of my life is going to be overshadowed by this loss.’
    John reappeared with her chicken tikka masala in a white plastic container with the rice and dhal in pots balanced on top. Sara waved him in and wrote on her pad.
A good bloody hearing I’m giving her. Your bloody job. Please note
.
    She was hungry and keen to be distracted, afterwards she wondered if she had misheard her.
    â€˜You know exactly what that feels like, don’t you? You can’t escape your loss.’
    â€˜Excuse me?’ Had she been looking into Sara’s background? Surely not.
    â€˜My daughter, Jade, is dead. I am only asking for half an hour of your time.’
    Joanne Sutton had lost her child. Despite herself, Sara was sorry for her.
    She gave John a pained grimace. He slid further down her leather armchair and grinned in between his toppling forkfuls of rice.
    â€˜All right, Mrs Sutton. I will come and see you, but I will have to inform Mr Stephenson, okay? Let me put John on to sort it out.’
    She spoke to Mark Stephenson. Like her, he moaned about best practice, especially with this case. Sara moaned back. If she’s not telling you the whole story, what can I do? Anyway, it’s probably nothing. She wants a good bloody hearing. They both laughed. Your bloody fault for not giving it to her Mark, my boy.
    Sara worked on the train from Paddington, which, though direct, infuriatingly stopped in every outpost. Time-wasting made her fraught. Deep down she was worried, but tried to work herself out of it.
    When she arrived and impatiently strode through the tunnel leading out of the station bang on to a bend in a high street, she didn’t even notice her surroundings. Later that evening, she saw the red-brick village hall set back behind a car park, theCo-Op on the corner and The Elephant, a gastro pub and hotel, where she went afterwards.
    Sara circled the shiny white Mini, luminous in front of the mock Tudor house. Joanne Sutton opened the door immediately. Was she hovering behind her white wooden shutters looking out for her?
    She was wearing a bright red high-street dress that was too red and too short for a woman of her age – thirty-eight, Sara knew from the brief. She wore heavy foundation, which looked unnatural at eleven thirty on a Tuesday morning in the countryside. Her blond highlighted hair had that ironed look no longer fashionable in London. It made her appear immaculate and in control, protecting her from the loss her only child. She didn’t smile or look particularly welcoming.
    Sara tried to formalise the situation. ‘Mrs Sutton, this is highly irregular. I hope it is a serious piece of evidence.’
    â€˜Sara, come in.’ Clients didn’t use her first name. Joanne Sutton hadn’t to date.
    It drew Sara further in, even though she knew she must retain a professional distance. She was bitterly regretting having taken this mad leap of sympathy. As she entered the hallway, old-fashioned with its gold wallpaper, mahogany hall table with a gilt mirror overhanging it, Sara couldn’t immediately see any evidence of this lost family life.
    There were three highly polished silver frames lined up on the hall table. Each one showed a white blond vision of a child in exquisite, immaculate boutique clothes. Their daughter Jade wasn’t doing anything in any of the photos. She was close up,staring blankly into the lens. When Sara left a couple of hours later, she wondered whether the photos had been placed there on the hall table for her benefit.
    Joanne Sutton was the most confident woman she had ever met. She wasn’t remotely