J.L. Butler: Mine: The hot new thriller of 2018 - sinister, gripping and dark with a breathtaking twist

As I sat down and wiped the condensation from the window with my fingertips, I wondered if I should have made more of an effort on my birthday. Even David Gilbert, a workaholic if ever I’ve met one, thought I was off out for birthday drinks. But I didn’t see why I should break my weekly routine just because I was another year older. One of the perils of my job has always been the lack of a social life. There were plenty of pubs around Temple, and people to have a drink with, but I had always taken the view that, if you wanted to get the job done properly, then you had to make sacrifices.

I pulled my mobile out of my bag and phoned my local Chinese takeaway. I couldn’t decide between the beef with fresh basil or the yellow bean chicken, so I ordered both, along with a side order of dumplings and chow mein. What the hell. It was my birthday.

Ending the call, I thought back to my conversation with Viv McKenzie about applying for silk, and wondered what becoming Francine Day QC might mean.

There had certainly been little other change in my life in the past five years. I’d lived in the same flat on the sketchy edges of Islington since my late twenties, settled into an ordered routine. I went to the gym the same two evenings every week, took a ten-day holiday to Italy every August. Two short-lived romances punctuated a long stretch of being single. I saw friends less regularly than I should. Even the small detail of my life had a satisfying familiarity. I bought the same Starbucks coffee on my way into work, my copy of the Big Issue from the same Romanian man outside Holborn tube. Part of me liked this reassuring familiarity, and saw no need to change the status quo.

Peering through the water droplets on the cold window, I realized we were on St Paul’s Road. I nudged the snoring commuter beside me and squeezed off the bus, walking the rest of the way to my flat on the road that descended into Dalston.

As I neared my flat I groaned as I saw the headlight of a delivery scooter pull up and stop. I started to run but the pavement was wet. Almost slipping, I hissed a curse and slowed to a halt, fishing around my bag for my purse, tickets and sweet wrappers falling to the floor like blossom blown from a tree. I bent down to pick up the litter, but already the scooter was setting off again into the dark.

By the time I reached my front door, I was out of breath. There was a figure in the doorway holding a white carrier bag stuffed with cartons.

‘You owe me twenty-three quid,’ said my neighbour Pete Carroll, a PhD student at Imperial who had been living in the downstairs apartment for the past eighteen months.

‘Did you give him a tip?’ I winced.

‘I’m a student,’ he said with mock disapproval.

I debated running after the delivery man. They were my regulars. They gave me free prawn crackers and I didn’t want to short-change them or have them think I was tight.

‘I only called them fifteen minutes ago. They usually take ages.’

I handed him a twenty-pound note and an extra fiver, and stepped inside our neglected hallway, picking up my post and putting it in my bag.

‘Tuesday night is a bit decadent for takeaway,’ smiled Pete folding his arms awkwardly.

‘It’s my birthday,’ I replied without even thinking.

‘I wondered what the brightly coloured envelopes were doing scattered among the junk mail.’

‘So you’re not going out?’

‘It’s mid-week. I’ve got work to do.’

‘Killjoy.’

‘I’ve got to prepare for court tomorrow.’

‘You boring sod. I’m going to march you down to the pub.’

‘Pete, no. I’m really busy. Work with a pork dumpling chaser,’ I said holding up the bag of Chinese. ‘I know that might seem an odd way to celebrate your birthday, but that’s what happens when you’re almost forty.’

‘I’m not taking no for an answer,’ he said, with a zeal that told me he meant it.

‘I suppose I’ve bought too much Chinese. I’ll supply the chow mein if you’ve got any drinks. But I’ve got to be at my desk in an hour.’

‘I’ll be up in a minute,’ he grinned.

Pete disappeared into his ground-floor flat and I walked up the stairs to mine.

Leaving the door slightly ajar, I hung my coat on the rack and set my bag down in the hall. I slipped off my shoes, enjoying the soft feel of carpet under my feet, and undid the top button of my blouse.

My flat was my sanctuary. A cool, calm, Farrow-and-Ball-painted haven for one, and I instantly regretted having invited someone in to share it.

Resigning myself to a visitor, I pulled two plates out of the kitchen cupboard, just as Pete appeared in the hall with a four-pack of lager.

‘Pass me a glass. I assume you’re not a straight-out-of-the-tin girl.’

He poured me a frothy glass of lager, then opened another can for himself as I carried the Chinese into the living room.

‘So, you’re almost forty,’ he said, perching on the sofa next to me. ‘You don’t look it.’

‘I’m thirty-seven,’ I said, realizing how little Pete and I knew about each other. We spoke more than most London neighbours: we saw each other at the bus stop, he was a willing fixer of laptops and fuse boxes. On one occasion last summer, I’d been walking past the local pub and he’d been having a beer outside. He invited me to join him, which I did because it was hot and sunny and I was thirsty from the gym, but I did not consider him a friend.

‘By the way, I got a letter from my landlord, yesterday,’ said Pete, peeling the foil top off the chow mein box. ‘He’s putting my rent up. The freeholder says the roof needs doing. Reckons both leaseholders have got to put fifteen grand into the sinking fund.’

‘Shit, I’ve not heard about that.’

‘But fifteen grand is just a day’s work for a distinguished lady of the Bar,’ he smiled.

‘I wish.’

‘Come on, you’re loaded.’

‘I’m not, I promise,’ I replied, shaking my head. ‘I am a jobbing barrister, in debt, thanks to thousands of pounds’ worth of unpaid invoices.’

‘You’ll get paid. The banks know you’re good for it. And then you’ll be rich.’

Rich, I scoffed quietly. My family thought I was rich, but everything was relative, and in London, mixing with lawyers and businessmen like Martin Joy, it was easier to view my financial situation through another prism. Perhaps if I made silk, things would change. I would land big, juicy cases, my hourly rate would double, so that one day I might even be able to afford one of those Georgian houses in Canonbury – the ones that had drawn me to the N1 postcode in the first place, the ones I still liked to walk past and dream about.

I thought about the £15,000 I would need to find from somewhere and took a commiseratory slug of beer, though I knew I shouldn’t.

‘You know, today, I was dealing with someone who spends £24,000 a year on lunch,’ I said, dipping a dumpling into some soy.

Pete shook his head. ‘And you’re missing a birthday night out on account of these people.’

He laughed and I knew he had a point.

‘I’m acting for the husband in that particular divorce. But you’ll be glad to know that tomorrow’s case, the case I should be preparing for, is a more deserving cause.’

‘Another poor rich husband about to get screwed,’ he smiled.

‘Actually, no. My client’s a man who is about to lose access to his kids. Just a regular guy who found his wife in bed with another man.’

‘People,’ said Pete quietly.

I nodded. ‘I bet you’re glad you only have to deal with computers all day. Things that don’t have feelings.’

‘Yet.’

‘Yet?’

‘If you subscribe to one model of how our brains create consciousness, you’ll believe that sentient computers will never exist. Other schools of Artificial Intelligence thought believe that the day is coming when computers will be able to imitate humans.’