'What if he isn't?' asks Caroline.

'He will be,' Ben says.

I make a noise of agreement.

'Why?' she persists.

'Because he's innocent ... and because he's got a great legal team,' Ben says, tipping his bottle to clink it against Simon's. Ever the optimist.

Caroline glances at me and I know she's thinking, since when was that a guarantee? Ever the pragmatist.

'He needs great barristers,' Simon says, evenly. 'And as a miscarriage of justice he needs attention, so Johnny Judge accepts you don't get that many people holding placards outside the Court of Appeal and tooting vuvuzelas unless there's a b.l.o.o.d.y good reason. We need to keep it in the public eye. Natalie's interview could help with that.'

Simon p.r.o.nounces b.l.o.o.d.y as 'bladdy' and I wonder if he went somewhere properly flashy like Eton or Harrow.

'And Natalie's very media friendly,' he concludes. 'If you get this right, it's made of win.'

'I thought you said she doesn't do interviews?' Caroline asks.

'He means she's attractive,' I say.

'Correct,' Simon says. He reclines, so laidback he's practically horizontal, figuratively as well as literally.

20.

Having university friends studying accountancy, business management and cognitive science meant one thing, for sure (apart from them all ending up considerably better paid than me in later life): I had many, many more hours wafting around on 'free study periods'.

Naturally, Ben and I finished our end of first year exams about a week before everyone else. For reasons lost to history, we did our celebrating in a hideous Scottish-themed pub called MacDougal's in Fallowfield. If it honoured the ancient MacDougal clan, I never much wanted to meet them. It had tartan curtains, upholstery the colour of a livid wound and smelt of carpet cleaning agent and Silk Cut. Ben summed it up: 'Och Aye The No.'

Despite Ben and I spending almost every day together, and finding each other so effortlessly entertaining that we would've been able to wring laughs out of a night in the cells, I was perfectly clear in my mind there was no risk of me falling for him. Not only was he not my type, it was so easy. Attraction, I'd decided, required friction. It was based on conflict, mystery and distance. Rhys could be decidedly remote at times, in more than one way. He'd even asked me to stop coming to his gigs as it 'put him off'. I was treated mean and, never one to defy a cliche, I was keen.

'I am really really good at drinking shots,' I announced to Ben, two vodka and c.o.kes down.

'Really?' he asked, dubiously.

'Oh yeah. I can drink vodka to a band playing,' I said.

'You've only had two.'

'I'll drink you under the table!' I cried, with the gung-ho spirit of someone who'd had a couple of large measures on an empty stomach and was talking total s.h.i.t.

Ben sn.i.g.g.e.red into his gla.s.s.

'You choose,' I added, slapping the table for emphasis. 'You choose the drink and I'll match you, then carry you home.'

Ben c.o.c.ked his head to one side. 'Ever done flaming Drambuies?'

'Nooooo. Bring it on.'

He darted off to the bar and returned with a cheap match-book and gla.s.ses holding an inch of copper liquid. Under Ben's creative direction, we lit them and made tiny lakes of fire, then clapped our palms over the rims to form the seal. We tried to whirl them over our heads before drinking, with predictably messy results.

'You're not like other girls I've met,' Ben said, lightly, wiping his mouth, after round two was aflame in stomachs instead.

'More sweary?' I asked.

'No, I mean ... you're, you know. Like my best friends back home. Not a girly girl. You're sharp.'

He mumbled the last word so I had to strain to hear it, while he busied himself with the c.o.c.ktail list.

'What, you've never met an intelligent female before?'

'I didn't mean that. I've never had a laugh with a female friend like you.'

I could imagine Ben hadn't had many platonic friendships with women, and I wasn't about to inflate his ego by speculating on why this might be.

'You're not like other boys I've met,' I said, with the loose lips of someone half-cut, without considering it wasn't a train of thought I especially wanted to pursue to its destination either.

'How?' Ben said.

'You look like you could be in a boy band,' I offered, with a drunken giggle.

Ben's face twisted into something that looked like genuine offence. 'Oh, wow, ta.'

'What? That's nice!'

'No it isn't.'

I continued to insist it was praise and Ben muttered something about needing to have had his sense of shame taken out along with his appendix to have gone that route. I regretted I was so bad at being sincere.

As time started to expand and contract in the warm boozy haze, Ben's mates from his flats joined us, and I found myself the only female in a whooping gang of seven lads. Not only that, they greeted us with 'Oi oi!' and a 'Here with the wife again, eh?'

This didn't bother me, especially in my relaxed state, but when I glanced at Ben he was glowering.

Amazingly enough, I was soon surpa.s.sed in the shot-downing stakes: one of them returned to the table with a full bottle of tequila, complete with plastic sombrero lid, a jumbo chip-shop-sized tub of Saxa and a pile of rather withered looking lemon wedges.

'Truth or dare!' the ring-leader, Andy, announced. 'You game?' He was addressing me directly.

'She's not playing,' Ben said, abruptly.

I turned to him. 'Excuse me?'

'Ron, you're the only female here. All the dares will involve flashing them.'

I opened my mouth to object.

'Trust me, they have bigger tolerances than you and much lower standards,' he added.

'Why do you call her Ron?' one of the boys, Patrick, asked.

'Long story,' Ben said.

'They have a secret society of two,' Andy told him.

'Any interesting rituals for membership?' Patrick asked, pulling a leer.

'Why do you have to be so infantile?' Ben said.

'Being oversensitive where this lady is concerned is certainly one of them,' Andy said to Patrick.

I felt Ben's pain increasing by degrees and didn't know how to help. I didn't want to be the meek little woman in a slew of nudge-nudge-wink-wink but I sensed anything I said would be used against us, so I stayed silent for Ben's sake.

'You in, then, or is your keeper calling the shots?' Patrick said to me, in his Captain of the Debating Society voice. I realised I disliked Patrick quite a lot.

Andy shouted: 'Yeah. Let her play! It's feminism, innit!'

'I'm not being a knuckle-dragger, I'm looking out for you. What would Rhys want you to do, faced with this shower?' Ben said to me, quietly.

Invoking my boyfriend had the intended effect. Rhys would be cracking his knuckles and offering them outside.

'I've had a head start on you, I'm going to sit this one out,' I smiled, and they all booed.

The game rolled round the group, with confessions of kinky fantasies about double-teaming crusty tutors, downing pints in one, and Andy rushing over to a window and mooning pa.s.sers-by. The barmaid merely grimaced and kept flicking through the magazine she was reading at the bar, content that, despite the a.r.s.es, we were more than doubling MacDougal's take on a slow weekday evening.

'Ben Ben BEN BENNY!' Andy howled. 'Your turn. Truth or dare?'

Andy's eyes flickered maliciously in my direction. I had an irrational fear the 'truth' might involve me somehow. But what truth was there to fear, exactly?

'Uh. Dare,' Ben said.

Andy leaned over to Patrick and they conferred in whispers, punctuated by evil snickering. I gripped the sides of my chair.

'Ben's dare is decided! Kiss her,' Andy said, gesturing towards me.

'No way, she's not playing,' Ben said, with a dismissive laugh.

'So? Were the people on the street outside who were treated to my sweet cheeks playing?'

Ben took on a very steely look. 'No. b.l.o.o.d.y. Way. Truth, or I'm out.'

'You don't get to choose,' Andy shook his head. 'Get busy.' He waggled his tongue at me.

'Urgh. I'm not going to say no again,' Ben said It was irrational and ridiculous but with the emphatic urgh noise I felt wounded. Ben's determination was understandable and respectful and yet so vehement I couldn't help but wonder if the idea genuinely repulsed him. OK, he thought I was 'sharp'... that didn't equate to not thinking I was a hag, did it? We all admired the work of Charles d.i.c.kens in tutorials but it didn't mean we wanted a ride on his moustache.

'OK. Ben's a wuss. Truth! Truth.' Andy waved his hands around in a solemn bar-room call for quiet please and attention. 'Right.'

Andy and Patrick went into their snickering huddle again, soon emerging.

'Given you seem something of a swordsman, your truth is who have you had since you got here? Names. Details.'

'Ahhh, yeah, well, a gentleman doesn't tell,' Ben said, but the table banging had already begun.

'No way. Truth, or dare!' Andy shouted. 'Truth-truth-truth-truth ...'

Ben chewed his lip. I was seized by a powerful desire to not hear his score sheet. I wasn't bothered, as such, but his lady killing was something very separate from our friendship. I suspected he'd politely failed to notice Caroline's crush because she was too close to me for comfort. If they were all itemised, these encounters, with a bunch of names, I'd be strangely compelled to go round putting faces and sketchy biographical detail to them, like a repentant hit man revisiting the stories of his victims.

'This isn't fair ...' Ben was struggling to be heard among the jeers and the catcalls '... on the people I'd be talking about, is it?'

People. There it was, the plural that signified a vast hinterland of conquests. The Drambuie sat uneasy in my gut.

'f.u.c.k's sake. We're not asking for a blow-by-blow haha,' Patrick said. 'No need to be coy. If you're a good hunter, you hang a stag's head on your wall.'

'I'll start you off, there was Noisy Louise in the first week ...' Andy said, with a cackle. I gripped my chair harder, knuckles whitening.

Ben flicked a beer mat across the table. 'No. I'm not doing any of this bulls.h.i.t.'

'Oh, don't make us punish you,' Andy said. 'You don't want to discover the punishment but it does involve being upside down in that bin without your clothes.'

There were a lot of them, and Ben's fight club numbered only me. I started to feel genuinely worried for him. I didn't want the extent of my protectiveness to be revealed. I was bothered enough that it had been revealed to me. As an only child, I'd never had a sibling to look after in the playground, but I guessed this was how it might feel if someone threatened them. Quite primal.

'Do the dare,' I nudged Ben in the ribs, acting casual, 'I don't care.'

'Don't you?' he said, looking vaguely horrified. OK, my feelings were definitely hurt. I was offering him a spade and he was reacting it as if it was digging his grave, rather than an escape tunnel?

'Ahahhha!' Andy whooped and the table-banging recommenced.

'Ben, who gives a s.h.i.t, really?' I hissed. 'It's only a kiss, we know it doesn't matter. If you can face it ...'

I nodded in encouragement as he stared at me, weighed things up.

He leant down, swiftly, and gave me a closed-mouth, firm kiss on the lips that lasted only seconds. Despite its brevity, I responded, kissing him back with a bit more pa.s.sion, lips slightly apart. (After all that, didn't want him to think I was a rubbish kisser.) He pulled back a small distance, as if he was going to stop. Then he unexpectedly moved forward and kissed me again, something more like a proper kiss, open mouths, tips of the tongues touching. I felt his hand on the side of my midriff as he steadied himself.

He tasted of alcohol with the tang of salt, and oh G.o.d, completely unexpectedly, I dissolved like a teaspoon of sugar in a mug of hot tea. While my brain stayed fairly on-message, my body rebelled. It was as if it registered superior genetic material and issued immediate instructions to my nerve endings to have thirteen of this person's babies and sod whether I liked his CD collection. In seconds, I crossed the line where I didn't know if my willingness to collaborate to a respectable standard was authentic pa.s.sion. Ah. Life lesson. This is why you don't kiss friends for dares.

Ben broke away again abruptly, making no eye contact at all. We quickly started a.s.sembling tequila slammers to stay busy and take the taste of each other away, while everyone clapped. So, I thought, regrouping: the problem wasn't a bad kiss, it was a good kiss. Perhaps even a spectacular one. I couldn't deny there was some kind of technical physical chemistry thing there, even if I didn't fancy Ben. I felt like I needed to go sit in an ice bath.

I also knew I'd committed my first crime against Rhys, the sort he'd sternly warned me about when I left Sheffield. Is a kiss still a kiss when it's a functional, enforced kiss, to save someone from a naked violent prank? Surely I was only as guilty as women who get captured by the villain and forced to wear a bikini/evening gown until the hero arrives to save the day ...? I mean, Han Solo never gave Leia any c.r.a.p it was grat.i.tude for being defrosted and no blame attached. Leaving aside the point about who exactly was Mr Solo in my scenario.

'Good effort,' Andy said, determined to keep stirring. 'You two ever thought about it?'

'I know you find this hard to comprehend, but we're friends,' Ben said, scathingly. 'Like kissing a sister. Dare done.'