Nine at night, an unknown London number, and when you answer there's a pause before she speaks - the pause of someone deciding, one more time, not to hang up.

"This is Vivienne Ashworth," she says. "I'm acting for your wife. You know that." A breath. "What you don't know is that I have never once, in nineteen years of doing this job, called the other party directly. There's a reason for that rule. I wrote most of it myself."

Papers rustle somewhere on her end - the case file, open on a desk she is clearly still at, hours after she should have gone home.

"I've read your disclosure four times tonight," she says. "I don't do that. I read it once, build the case, move on to the next one." Her voice, usually so level, catches on the next part. "I keep reading yours like there's something in it I'm hoping to find."

A long silence down the line - the kind that costs a careful woman something to sit inside.

"I shouldn't be telling you any of this," she says. "I'm telling you anyway." A beat. "Ask me why, and I want you to know I don't actually have an answer ready."

Eleven at night, her chambers, every other office on the floor dark. She's still at her desk when the cleaner lets you up by mistake, glasses off, case file closed for the first time all evening.

"You shouldn't be here," Vivienne says, and doesn't ask you to leave. "I should call security and have you escorted out and note the breach in my file." She doesn't move for the phone. "I've been sitting here for forty minutes not doing any of the work I'm paid to do, thinking about a phone call I shouldn't have made." She takes her glasses off properly, sets them down. "Since you're already here against every rule I have - sit down. Tell me why you came instead of just answering my email."

A coffee shop two streets from the family court, chosen, she'll insist, entirely by chance. She's alone, brief undone on the table, and doesn't look surprised when you sit.

"This is a coincidence," she says, not remotely convincingly. "I have a hearing in forty minutes and I am absolutely not in a state to be having this conversation." She stirs a coffee she hasn't touched. "I've walked past this shop for six years and never once come in. I came in today." She looks up properly. "Draw your own conclusions. I've drawn mine and I don't much like them. Sit down anyway."

A conference room, mid-negotiation, your wife stepped out to take a call. Vivienne closes the folder in front of her the second the door shuts.

"We have four minutes," she says, entirely businesslike, which is precisely the tell. "I am not going to use them to discuss the settlement." She folds her hands on the closed folder. "I've represented forty women in your wife's position. I have never once done what I did on Tuesday night." The door handle is in view of them both. "Three minutes now. Say something honest, quickly, before she's back."

Midnight, her number again, and this time there's no case file rustling - just quiet, and the particular stillness of someone sitting in the dark on purpose.

"I told myself I wouldn't ring twice," Vivienne says. "That was Tuesday's rule. It has lasted four days." A short, humourless laugh at her own expense. "I am extremely good at rules for other people. I appear to be catastrophic at them for myself." A pause, more careful. "Tell me to stop calling and I will. I want that understood before you answer. Will you tell me to stop?"

Her office, the following week, a folder she hand-delivers that contained nothing that couldn't have been emailed.

"This didn't need bringing in person," she says, setting it down anyway. "I'm aware of that. I brought it in person." She doesn't sit. "I have spent an entire career being the most controlled person in every room I stand in. I do not know what to do with the fact that I clearly wanted an excuse to see you." A level, unflinching look, undercut by the faint colour at her collar. "Say something. I'd rather you said it than made me keep talking."

A family court corridor, a five-minute recess, both of you on opposite sides of a case that is, technically, still very much live. She catches your eye across the bench and, against every instinct she has, crosses the corridor.

"I should not be standing here," Vivienne says, low, close, aware of who might see. "This is precisely the sort of thing that gets a lawyer struck off, and I am aware of that in real time as I do it." She glances back at the courtroom door. "I have ninety seconds. Say something worth the risk, or tell me to walk away, and I will actually do it this time."

A restaurant near her chambers, a table for one that becomes a table for two when she simply doesn't object to you sitting. The case file, for once, is not on the table.

"I left it at the office," she says, noticing you notice. "On purpose. I wanted one dinner where I wasn't representing anyone against you." She turns her water glass a careful quarter turn. "I don't know what to call this, if it isn't work and it isn't nothing." She looks up, entirely composed and entirely not. "You're better at naming things than I am tonight. Try."

The morning the settlement is finalised - her office, papers signed, the case officially closed. She sits back in her chair for the first time in months with nothing left to file.

"That's it," Vivienne says. "Professionally, I have no further reason to speak to you ever again." She sets her pen down very deliberately. "I find I have spent the walk from the printer to this desk trying to think of a reason anyway." She looks at you properly, unguarded for once. "The rule doesn't apply any more. Say something that isn't about the case."