Roxy and I reached the end of the ‘Coventry Canal’ just before midday. Sadly, the meal I’d eaten at the pub the previous night had run right through me. The result was that my toilet needed pumping out. It was either that or declare my cabin a no-go area for another few days. Luckily for me, there was a set of discharge facilities close to the end of the canal.

With Roxy’s waste emptied, her fresh water tank full and the cabin now well ventilated, I moored up near the ‘Shaderhouse’ lock and ate some Cheese and Pickle for lunch. I dare not have anything more substantial than that just in case...

Afterwards, I sat in the sun trying to summon up the courage to call ‘her’. Her being Carla Kulinski. My body felt like shit and I was just not interested in doing much more that day other than relaxing and contemplating my navel.

I wasn't in any hurry to go anywhere or to start a relationship or even an LDR (long-distance relationship) but OTOH, having someone in my life would be nice.

Or, perhaps I had very much gotten hold of the wrong end of a very hot stick. Could it be that she was calling with an update about my ‘dear’ brother David?

The only way to resolve this once and for all was to call her.

“Hello Carla, it’s Lauren. You called me yesterday.”

“Sorry about that. My phone has a mind of its own sometimes. I found that it had gone on silent mode when I was out shopping.”

“What was it what you wanted to speak about?” I said almost hoping that she wanted to talk business.

“Oh. You are? For how long?”

I listened to her explanation with feelings of dread and of hope.

“Are you sure that ‘telling them to stuff’ their job was a wise decision?”

“Why did you do that?”

“Oh. You have. That’s not good. In that case, you very much had no other choice did you?"

“What… Why did you… Why did you call me?”

That was it. I had left myself very open unlike what they teach lawyers at law school.

“I’m quite away from where we last met."

“Roxy is currently taking the rays at a mooring on the Trent and Mersey Canal. Stoke upon Trent is about a day away. No, make that two days given the number of locks awaiting my attention in the next few days.”

“Taking the rays? I mean charging both Roxy’s and my batteries from the sun. The weather forecast for the next few days is overcast with a good chance of rain.”

“Yes, I still have to go through locks even if it is raining cats and dogs.”

I listened to Carla for well over a minute.

“Of course, I’d love to see you again. It is just that life on the cut is not all sun water and sangria.”

“Ok, get yourself sorted and I’ll see you in Stoke-upon-Trent at the weekend.”

I frantically pulled out the canal map and homed in on the Stoke area.

“Yes, you can get a train there. Looking at the map, there is a mooring about half a mile south of the station.”

“Just let me know when you are due to arrive. and I'll meet you at the station.”

“Safe journey, bye.”

I hung up the phone and immediately wondered what the hell I'd done. Having Carla stay for a week or so while her case for sexual harassment was sorted by her lawyer. I had a distinct feeling that this was going to end badly or in a total disaster but I felt that I had to at least try to have a relationship with someone rather than running for the hills at the merest sign of a person having an interest in me.

I shuddered as I remembered the cases where I’d done just that and had usually lived to regret it.

---

Roxy had a lot of miles and a heck of a lot of locks to traverse before I could get her to Stoke and I spent almost half an hour trying to plan the stops on my journey north.

Once again, my plans were thrown into disarray when I received a phone call.

“Hello?” I said, not recognising the caller ID.

“Oh, hello Doctor Travis. What can I do for you?”

“Oh. Sorry about that. I clean forgot. Can you fit me in before the weekend?”

“Friday? Yes. I can manage that. What time?”

“Midday is fine by me. That will allow me time to get down to London.”

“At the moment, I am either in Staffordshire or Derbyshire. I’m not exactly sure all I do know is that I’m somewhere northeast of Birmingham and well away from a town let alone a railway station but I’m heading towards Stoke upon Trent.”

“No, I’ll come down by train on Friday morning. I’m not sure where I’ll travel from but I’ll get there one way or another.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you then and yes, I will bring a urine sample. You gave me a spare container the last time I visited.”

“Thanks for calling and sorry that I forgot my appointment. I’ll see you Friday.”

After ending the call, I kicked myself for forgetting that I had an appointment with my consultant that morning. Thankfully, she was aware of my semi-nomadic lifestyle and had even visited Roxy earlier in the year when I was down in London for the winter.

I hurriedly replanned my journey to Stoke after consulting the weather forecast. Friday looked like being a sunny day. That would give Roxy a chance to recharge about 70% of her battery. All I had to do was to get to Stoke for Thursday evening.

---

[5pm Thursday]

I cut the power to Roxy's motor and breathed a sigh of relief. The battery level indicator was well into the red zone meaning that I had less than 10% of power remaining. At one point earlier that day, I had almost given up hope of reaching my destination in time.

As I finished tying up Roxy at her mooring, I felt relieved to be here and with an hour or so to spare. I had to admit to myself that there were times earlier in the day when wondered if I’d make it or not especially when I joined a queue of six boats trying to go through ‘Star Lock’ near the town of Stone. One of the sluice gates was stuck in the open position.

None of the other boat owners or operators had a clue about how to fix it. I had a good look at it and had an idea. I went back to Roxy and had a rummage in her toolkit. I didn’t find the exact tool that I was looking for but a 2kg club hammer would do nicely. I picked up a tub of marine grease and headed back to the lock.

I smeared the rack with the grease and then hit the pinion with the hammer. Three bangs later, it shifted and bingo the sluice was back in use.

Not one of the others in the queue said a word of thanks for resolving the problem. What is it with people today? Some of the looks I received was as if I had suddenly landed on an alien planet. Have none of them ever seen a woman wielding a hammer before?

I left all the other boats to pass through the lock before I took my turn. While the lock was emptying, I greased the rack and pinions of the other sluices. I’d been shown how to do it by one of the people who maintained the Basingstoke Canal almost two years before. I’d encountered him while he worked on a lock at Pirbright near Woking.

Once I cleared the lock and the following three, I had a clear canal. All the boats that had been in the queue had moored in Stone. So much for the impatience that some of them had shown while waiting to clear the lock was typical of summer users of the canals.

I cursed myself for being so thin-skinned. Those people had paid their fees to the Canal operators and had just as much right to be on the ‘cut’ as I did.

Once I’d tied up Roxy, I made myself some dinner and started to sort my things out for my trip to London. As I did so, I had an idea. I called Carla.

"Hi, Carla. Are you busy?"

“Good. I was wondering about you coming up on Saturday. I have to be down your way tomorrow and I was wondering if we could meet up and travel up together?”

"Nothing bad. I have an appointment with my Doctors. I clean forgot about the one that I was supposed to have on Monday and thankfully, she could fit me in tomorrow."

“I’m coming down on the train. I’ve booked a seat on the 14:35 out of Euston. It only stops at Milton Keynes and Stoke.”

“Yes. Can you do it?”

“Great. I’ll see you on the train tomorrow.”

I ended the call feeling relieved. At least we could talk a bit on the train. If she turned around and went home then it would be over but I felt that I had to at least make an effort.

---

[Milton Keynes Central Station – the following afternoon]
I missed the days when you could open carriage windows and the ones that were there was small and awkward to see out of but I managed to spot Carla on the platform as the train slowed to a halt in the station.

I opened the door as soon as the locks were released and waved at Carla. She spotted me and hurried along the platform lugging two large cases. I wondered if she was only packing for a week or a lot longer. That was something to be discussed at an appropriate time.

“Let me take that,” I said as I grabbed one of her cases.

“Thanks. My train from Watford was late and I had to run to this platform,” said a breathless Carla.
“Well, you can relax now.”

I looked around the carriage and saw that we were no longer alone. I’d had the place to myself when we’d departed Euston.
“You can tell me all about what happened at your law firm when we get back to Roxy.”

Carla nodded.

“In the meantime, I want to know what is in those bags. They seem to weigh a ton?”

Carla had recovered from lugging the cases between trains.

“Well, it is like this…” she began.

---

Roxy was moored about a ten-minute walk from Stoke railway station. Carla would have had fun with her cases navigating the steps of a bridge that crossed the railway so it was just as well that I was with her.

She'd told me what made the case I was carrying so heavy. I found out later that it was all my fault for telling her that I'd spent some time cycling along the canals before finding Roxy. I hadn't told her that some scumbag had nicked my bike from outside a chippy in Devizes the previous summer and that I hadn't gotten around to replacing it.

She had a folding bike in her case. It was one of those that fold up very small and that was what made it so heavy. I couldn't fault her logic for putting it in the case alongside her outdoor clothing.

Once all her things were stowed away, I made something for us to eat. Carla tried to help but there isn't much room in the galley for two people.

“Why don’t you open the wine? There is a bottle in the cupboard by the steps,” I suggested.

She opened the cupboard.

“There are three bottles here.”

“You choose one.”

I got back to making a Pasta Sauce. Friday’s was normally the day of the week that I used up all the leftovers from the week. Fling it all in a pot, add tomatoes, onion, pepper, herbs, garlic and lots of fresh ‘Roxy’ grown basil and you are good to go.

Fifteen minutes later it was ready.

“This looks good,” said Carla.

“I hope so. It is all the leftovers from the week. We need to go shopping tomorrow morning. I generally make an early start to avoid the families with kids that block the aisles.”

Carla chuckled.
"Are you sure that you are not a sixty-something in disguise?"

I laughed at her caricature of me.

“Not in the slightest. Just being practical. Go early, get in, get out and then you have the whole day to do other things.”

She smiled.
“I’m only pulling your leg. I do… or rather did the same.”

After we’d eaten the meal, Carla did the washing up.

“I guess that you want to know how I came to quit my job and file a sexual harassment case against my boss?”

“Only if you want to talk about it.”

“It is ok. The whole thing is now in the hands of your friend Evan or rather his firm. My old boss was a creep by the name of Paul Stafford. When I was hired, there was a clear path to me becoming a partner but he blocked it every time I mentioned it. He put hurdle after hurdle in my way. All the barristers I prepared briefs for were amazed that I wasn’t a partner already but there was no way he was going to make it easy for me.”

“That’s not good.”

“No, it isn’t. It all came to a head at the end of March. The company has its year's end in mid-February and there is a dinner held for all the lawyers at the end of march where the results are announced and promotions and all that stuff. I'd just finished a tough case at the Old Bailey where thanks to my digging, we proved that the CPS was pissing in the wind with their charges and the judge directed the jury to find our client not guilty. I know that the client sent a letter of praise to my boss. He gave me a copy of it. He also sent a sizeable bonus on top of his fees that was specifically for me."

“That is good right?”

"It should have been. At the dinner, no mention of this was made at all. I almost reacted there and then but I held my tongue. Several of the other lawyers I worked with knew about the letter of praise and were astonished that I was not as they say, 'mentioned in dispatches '. To cap it all, later that evening, as I was leaving the swanky hotel in London my boss collared me in the lift where he made advances towards me. His words were, 'come to my room and I'll give you your bonus '. I'd been waiting for him to mention it. He's not the sort of person to keep things quiet. He's always going on about his yacht and how fast it is. The yacht bragging about was not his but one he chartered for Cowes Week a few years before. In other words, he was a blowhard. As I said, I’d been waiting for him to strike and had rigged up a Siri shortcut on my phone to record his calls and conversations. I saw him approaching the lift after me so I activated the recording. I got him propositioning me in the lift. I also have the CCTV from the hotel that shows him grabbing me.”

“What did you do then?”

“I took the evidence to the senior partner who dismissed it outright. The next thing I knew was that I was taken off a case and given things like wills and probate to deal with. I’d effectively been demoted. One of the fairly low jobs I was given was the case from your father.”

Carla saw the look of concern on my face.

"Don't get me wrong, every case is important but coming from being the second chair on a case at the Old Bailey to checking references in the information that you provided to your father is a big step down."

“I guess it is. At least that allowed us to meet.”

Carla smiled.
“It did and this is a very different life to the one that I was leading.”

“How did you come to give them the finger and decide to take things farther?”

“I’d had met you and had wrapped up the work on your brother’s case so I handed it to my boss.”

Carla paused.
"He didn't even look at it before he said, 'this is a pile of crap and you know it!'. I told him that is not what the client, your father, had told me on the phone less than an hour earlier. He carried on and said, 'Consider yourself on a final warning. You had better get your act together or you will be out on the street. There are plenty more fillies like you just chomping at the bit to come and work here '. He was almost salivating. I failed to control my temper and just told him to stuff his job and that I would see him in court."

“I’ll bet he didn’t like that?”

“Nah. He was not amused. He followed me back to my desk and watched as I packed up my things. He was determined not to let me walk out with any case notes and the like. I took my time packing and then wrote a summary of the cases I had been working on and left it on my desk. Then I walked out with my head held high. He followed me to the door and laughed as I walked out of the building. When I got home, I called one of the other lawyers and got him to forward the email that your father had sent to my home account. I had all the information I needed. Then I remembered the several phone conversations I'd had with Evan and decided to give him a call. His firm took the case and filed sexual harassment and constructive dismissal cases with the employment tribunal. That's where we are now. We are waiting for a date of a hearing."

“It sounds like your boss is a complete bastard. Is he married?”

Carla smiled.
"Oh, I forgot to mention that. He is. Before I engaged Evan's firm, I sent her a copy of the recordings. It didn't do any good. My lawyer at Evan's firm, Michelle Thomas told me last week that this is not the first case to be lodged against my old boss. She found evidence of three other cases that have been settled out of court.”

“Sounds like you are better off out of that place?”

“It seems so but before all this, I really enjoyed preparing those cases for trial.”

“I could tell that from the look in your eyes. Have you thought about going over to the other side?”

“What? Working for the CPS?”

“Yep!”

Carla shook her head.
“No way. I almost did when I graduated but their caseload is stupidly high. There is no way that I could do the sort of work that I like doing for them."

“What is that work exactly?”

“Digging up facts and the real story.”

I smiled and poured us the last of the wine.

“Why not make a career of that?”

“Are you saying that I should become a Private Dick?”

I shook my head.

“What then?”

“Become a mystery writer?”

Carla would have fallen on the floor laughing if she hadn’t been sitting down.

“I’m serious. Isn’t digging up facts to make a story seem real a big part of what a good writer is all about.”

“You are serious, aren’t you?”

“Very. Why not take the time you are on Roxy to think about it and even give it a try?”

Then I added,
“Back to reality. We need to go shopping in the morning. I’d like to leave here around seven. Walk over to the Supermarket and come back by taxi.”

“Spoilsport!”

[to be continued]

CPS = Crown Prosecution Service. They are the people who take over from the police and bring the cases to trial. Much like the District Attorney in the USA.
Old Bailey = The central criminal court in England. This is where the very high-profile cases are heard.