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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Serie: Caper Court
- Sprache: Englisch
Having escaped from yet another scandal, libidinous lawyer Leo Davies has at last decided to settle down. He's going to sell his Belgravia pad and buy a family home for his son, Oliver, and he's set on marrying the lovely Camilla. But when Camilla gets stuck working on a case halfway across the world and the gorgeous Adriana - sexy, wealthy owner of a multi-million pound Greek shipping line - hires Leo as QC on her case, Leo finds that he's tempted to stray. Worse still, Adriana is as insatiable as Leo - and she always gets what she wants. Has Leo finally met his match? And can a heart ever be calculating without being cruel?
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Seitenzahl: 522
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
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A Calculating Heart
CARO FRASER
This work is dedicated with affectionate thanks to Timothy Young QC, the Scrutton of his generation.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
‘You know what? I reckon you want to go for something more vibrant next time you have your colour done.’
Ann Halliday said nothing, merely glanced at Charmaine’s reflection in the salon mirror. Charmaine stroked Ann’s newly-cut hair reflectively. Then she nodded. ‘Yeah, go for something a bit more blonde.’
It was an effort for Ann to think of any appropriate response. Her hair didn’t interest her a great deal. It had taken her over eighteen months to persuade Charmaine not to blow-dry it into some voluminous style that could not possibly be accommodated under her barrister’s wig. She liked it to be cut neatly and sensibly, in a way that wouldn’t attract any attention at all. When she was younger, when her light brown hair had had a youthful sheen, she’d worn it long and sleek. But age had faded that lustre, and grey was creeping in. Better short and unobtrusive.
She gazed at her own reflection. Then again, maybe Charmaine was right. Perhaps blonde highlights would brighten things up a bit. But she didn’t want to attract comment, and teasing comment, even if kindly meant, she would certainly get from her fellow male barristers, particularly the three she was about to have lunch with. She would hate anyone to think she had gone to trouble over her appearance. Such a thing was suggestive of vanity - and vanity, Ann Halliday thought, was strictly for the young.
Charmaine picked up a square mirror and wagged it back and forth behind Ann’s head, as she always did, showing her a reflection of the cut. Ann could never see the point. It meant she had to smile and nod appreciatively, as though she cared what the back of her head looked like.
Charmaine put down the mirror and unfastened the Velcro on the gown, lifting it from Ann’s shoulders. ‘Off anywhere nice?’
Ann stood up and let Charmaine brush her down. It was a fair enough question, since she normally came in to have her hair cut on Saturday afternoons, never on a weekday such as today. ‘I’m meeting some friends for lunch.’
‘Lovely. Nice way to cheer up a Monday. A girly get-together, is it?’
‘No. Some male friends.’ As soon as the words were out, she felt they sounded odd, not what she meant to imply at all. ‘Colleagues,’ she tried to add, but Charmaine was already off.
‘More than one! Now, that’s what I call greedy!’
‘It’s sort of a business lunch. Nothing very exciting.’
She paid the bill and tipped Charmaine, who fetched Ann’s jacket and helped her into it. ‘Well, you enjoy it, anyway.’
Ann left the salon with mild relief, stepping out into the summer air, focusing her thoughts on lunch. It seemed strangely dislocating, meeting up with Marcus, Roger and Maurice in this way. Like a bunch of outlaws. Last week they had been fellow tenants at 3 Wessex Street, a large and prosperous set of barristers’ chambers, but now they were free agents. Well, for the time being. The departure from the chambers where she had worked all her adult life still held an air of unreality for Ann. Looking back over the past few months, it seemed now as though she had been swept along, a victim of forces not of her own creation. A set of barristers’ chambers was not like a company, or even a partnership. It had no animus, but was a collection of individuals, each of them paying rent to occupy space in the same building, each in his own employment, answerable to no one, but all relying on the same group of clerks to organise their professional lives, bringing in work and processing fees. Just as the identity of any set of chambers depended on the personalities of the individual tenants, so it was that the stability and smooth running of chambers depended on the tenants’ mutual dependency. Where personalities clashed, splits and factions were often the result. It had been Maurice who had started the whole thing. Maurice – ambitious, aggressive, piqued at not having been made head of chambers – had created the split almost as an act of reprisal against those who had opposed him, fomenting little rows and divisions within chambers. He had gradually brought others into his camp – Roger, who had been a protégé of Maurice and who largely tended to take his side no matter what, and then Marcus and herself. She had had her own grievances, of course. She had felt for some time that she wasn’t being clerked properly, not getting work of the quality she deserved, but without Maurice’s persuasion, she wondered if she might not have stuck it out. It had been a great leap, to leave the chambers where she had been a tenant for twenty-five years. Maurice had flattered her, talked her into it one evening in a wine bar.
‘The fact is, Ann,’ he’d said, ‘Five Caper Court want to expand. They’re too small. They need people of your calibre, your expertise.’
She’d known then that his own vanity required that he take people with him when making his departure. But she’d agreed. Should she be grateful to him? Should Marcus and Roger, for that matter? Time would tell. By the end of the week they would be newly installed as tenants at 5 Caper Court-not as large in numbers as 3 Wessex Street, but no less prestigious. The word was that the head of chambers there, Roderick Hayter, was destined for the High Court bench in a few months’ time. Did Maurice have his once-thwarted ambitions focused on that position in a new set of chambers? Very probably.
It was a five-minute walk to the restaurant in Gray’s Inn Road from Bloomsbury, where Ann lived. Marcus and Roger were already there. Marcus, black, beautiful and twenty-five, was lounging in his chair at a table by the window with an air of magnificent boredom, looking as immaculately turned-out in chinos and an open-necked shirt as he ever did in his three-piece suit. Roger, on the other hand, who was sitting studying the menu through his round glasses, was dressed in a Gap T-shirt, scruffy jeans and trainers, and looked as dishevelled as he did in the eternal M&S suit and unironed shirt which he wore for work day in, day out. The attention paid by each to his appearance, Ann always thought, was symptomatic of their peculiarly different, though formidable, intellects. As a lawyer, Marcus Jacobs was fastidious, hard-working and somewhat haughty, fiercely proud of his ability to deliver snap opinions on complex legal problems. Roger Fry was another character altogether. Sweet-natured, kind-faced, with a donnish air which belied his twenty-eight years, Roger conducted his social and his working life in an erratic and eccentric fashion, but seemed somehow to bring both off. His appearance was a matter of general indifference to him, so too his surroundings. Conferences with well-heeled and powerful clients in his room at 3 Wessex Street were generally conducted amid a clutter of books, papers, and cardboard boxes stacked with documents. It was as though Roger was too focused on law, on the case and the facts before him, to pay much attention to his immediate surroundings, unless those surroundings happened to be a pub or a wine bar. But both Roger and Marcus were successful and well regarded in their profession, and each attracted a different kind of client. Like Ann, however, they had begun to feel that the best cases at 3 Wessex Street were being diverted by certain clerks to other, less deserving members of chambers. So here they sat today, waiting for Maurice Faber, bound together by their new destiny.
‘Hello,’ said Roger, glancing up at Ann. Marcus, with his customary impeccable good manners, half rose from his chair. Ann smiled and sat down, and Marcus subsided.
‘It’s a strange sort of day,’ said Ann, taking off her jacket. ‘I should be used to working from home, but for some reason I couldn’t get down to anything this morning. I went to the hairdresser’s instead.’
‘I know what you mean,’ said Marcus. ‘It’s odd not having chambers there in the background. Briefs to pick up, mail to open, coffee to drink, people to chat to.’
‘Office syndrome,’ said Roger. ‘It’s a security blanket.’
‘You think that’s why Maurice arranged this lunch?’ said Marcus. ‘Give us a sense of security?’
‘Identity, more like. He thinks this is his show, and he’s running it.’
‘I find it rather exciting, joining a new set of chambers,’ said Ann. ‘Like a new school term.’
‘You found those exciting?’ Roger put down the menu, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘It honestly doesn’t make much odds to me, so long as I’ve got a desk and a telephone.’
‘You look very tired,’ said Ann, glancing at Roger with motherly concern. ‘Have you been working late on that shipbuilding case?’
Roger laughed and replaced his glasses. ‘No, Ann. Kind of you to think so. I went on a pub crawl round South Ken last night with some friends.’ He gave an enormous yawn. ‘Sorry. Only got out of bed an hour ago.’
‘New surroundings are one thing,’ said Marcus. ‘What about the people?’
‘You met them all at that chambers tea a month ago,’ remarked Ann.
‘Yes, but I can’t honestly say I know anyone well. Except Anthony Cross.’
‘I’m fairly friendly with David Liphook,’ said Roger, ‘and Will Cooper, Simon Barron. They’re a decent bunch. And Leo Davies, of course – didn’t you have a case against him a couple of months ago?’
Marcus winced inwardly. He didn’t care to remember his one and only courtroom encounter with Leo, in a dispute concerning the personal liability of freight forwarders. He hadn’t exactly come off best. He had to admit to a grudging admiration for Leo Davies’ skills of advocacy – not to mention his taste in clothes. Marcus was always prepared to respect anyone who dressed as well as Leo did.
‘Ah, yes – Leo Davies. Every woman in the Temple is supposed to be madly in love with him – isn’t that right, Ann?’ Marcus glanced at her.
‘Something of an exaggeration,’ said Ann dryly, turning her attention to the menu. She and Leo went back many years, having been at Bar School together. She didn’t run across him much nowadays, though she heard a good deal about him. Without being flamboyant, Leo had managed to cultivate a reputation which was unusual in the staid world of the Temple. He was renowned for his brilliant mind and acute professionalism as a barrister, and was regarded as witty and amusing company, but there were always darker rumours circulating about him which, everyone assumed, must have some foundation in truth. Ann harboured a certain curiosity as to whether or not he merited his libidinous reputation – it certainly wasn’t the way she remembered him at twenty-one, even though she had always found something both provocative and beguiling about those sharp blue eyes and gently modulated Welsh voice. Not that she would have admitted that to the likes of Marcus and Roger. Besides, she regarded herself as a hardened, professional woman, not given to weaknesses where other members of the Bar were concerned.
Marcus nodded in the direction of the door. ‘Here’s Maurice.’
Maurice Faber was in his early forties, tall, with thick, very dark hair and heavy eyebrows, which gave him an Italianate look. His movements, bodily and facial, were brisk and energetic, his glance and smile quick and keen. Unlike Roger and Marcus, he was dressed in a suit and tie. He held up a folded copy of The Sun as he came towards their table, grinning.
‘Any of you seen this?’
Ann, who was strictly a Guardian reader, shook her head.
‘There certainly wasn’t anything in The Times that got me going,’ said Marcus.
‘I haven’t been up long enough to look at the papers,’ said Roger. ‘What’s the scandal?’
‘Hah! Scandal is just the word.’ Maurice sat down. Ann could tell from his eyes that whatever it was that had him so excited was bound to involve downfall or humiliation for someone else. Such things invariably turned Maurice on. She felt an anticipatory compassion for whoever the unfortunate person might be.
Maurice held up the front page for them to see. ‘MY LOVE HELL MADE ME WANT TO END IT ALL,’ read the headline, and below that, ‘TVs Melissa tells how top QC lover drove her to suicide bid’. There was a large, glamorous picture of a blonde woman, familiar to those present as Melissa Angelicos, presenter of a Channel 4 arts programme.
Below that was a somewhat smaller photograph of the very man they had just been discussing, Leo Davies.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Roger. He reached out for the paper, and Maurice handed it to him, then sat back, relishing the moment.
‘What on earth is that all about?’ asked Ann incredulously, as Roger and Marcus huddled together, devouring the story.
‘It seems,’ said Maurice, ‘that Leo Davies was having some intense relationship with this television presenter woman, and it all began to go off the rails. He was knocking her about, having affairs with other women—’
‘Other men as well, according to this,’ said Roger, without looking up.
‘—it began to affect her work, she lost her job in television because of it, and in the long run she got so unhappy over him that she wanted to top herself. But before so doing, she decided to tell the world what a shit Davies was by penning a lengthy suicide note, giving intimate insights into their affair and detailing his many failings. Which—’ Maurice indicated the paper ‘—is what you’re reading. She posted it off to The Sun, then swallowed a large quantity of pills and vodka. Not quite enough, however, because she woke up in hospital the next day.’
‘And they’ve printed it?’ marvelled Ann.
‘Well, not in its entirety, apparently. But the good bits.’
Marcus shook his head. ‘He’ll have them. This is pretty strong stuff. He has to sue.’
‘If he can. Not much point, really. The damage is done.’
‘Listen to this – “But love rat Leo claims he hardly knew Melissa. ‘I have never been romantically involved with Melissa Angelicas,’ said Leo Davies, when our reporter spoke to him on the phone at his chambers in the Temple, from which he conducts his one-and-a-half-million-a-year commercial practice—’”
‘Ha, ha. He wishes.’
‘“She is a neurotic woman who has been pestering me and my family for some months, and her story is a pathetic, delusional fantasy.”He declined to comment further.”’
‘They must be mad to publish it,’ said Ann.
‘Oh, come on. Think of the increase in circulation. Even if this woman is completely nuts and has made it all up, they hardly lose out.’
‘I’d be straight round to Carter Ruck, if I were Davies,’ said Marcus, still poring over the juicier bits of the story.
‘Let’s have a look.’
Marcus passed the paper to Ann. She scanned the contents, which were admittedly pretty bad, and glanced across at Maurice.
‘You and I both know Leo,’ she said. ‘None of this sounds remotely true.’
Maurice shrugged, but said reluctantly, ‘I have to say I agree with you. Much as the story adds to the gaiety of our nation, I suspect that, reading between the lines, most of it is fabricated. There may be some basis to it, perhaps they did have an affair, but certain things don’t ring true. I don’t believe he’s the type to behave violently towards anyone. More to the point, all that stuff she comes out with about his professional insecurity is so much crap. He’s one of the best lawyers around. And one thing they fail to mention in that article is that Davies obtained an injunction against her a couple of months beforehand because she’d been harassing him.’
Ann gave a small smile. Maurice had certainly done his homework. He’d probably been ferreting away at this all morning.
‘So you believe him when he says that he was never involved with her?’
Maurice grinned. ‘Well, to quote another unreliable female – he would say that, wouldn’t he?’
While the four of them sat discussing the scandal over lunch, the same topic had been exercising the members of the clerks’ room at 5 Caper Court. The Sun was not a newspaper which any of the barristers in that august set of chambers would deign to purchase, but everybody, on their way in and out of the clerks’ room, normally paused for a few moments to glance at the copy belonging to Robert, the junior clerk. On this particular morning, however, Robert had been at the House of Lords, and didn’t come into chambers until ten forty-five, until which time the inhabitants of 5 Caper Court remained blissfully unaware of the events which were about to overtake them. When Robert did finally come in, newspaper in hand, he was agog.
‘Have you heard?’ he asked Henry, the senior clerk.
Henry, a harassed man in his early thirties, with thinning hair and an expression of almost permanent dejection, looked round from where he sat at his computer, screen in his shirtsleeves.
‘What?’
Robert dropped his copy of The Sun on to Henry’s keyboard. Henry glanced down at it, smoothing it out. He gazed at the headline, then at the photograph of Leo, in disbelief.
‘I would have thought plenty of people in the Temple would have been on the phone to you about it,’ said Robert.
Henry shook his head slowly as he read the story.
‘Then again,’ said Robert, ‘it’s so bad they probably didn’t like to.’
Oh, Mr Davies, thought Henry – oh, Mr Davies, what have you gone and done? His heart sank as he digested the details. As though this bunch didn’t give him enough grief.
It was bad enough trying to keep their work in order, without them getting their sodding love lives all over the papers. Continued on pages 5, 6, 7 and 8 … He couldn’t bear to look. What would this do to business? A scandal like this was bad publicity, whichever way you looked at it. The work was bound to suffer. Clients didn’t like seeing their barristers’ faces in the papers, especially not a story like this, beating up his girlfriend, driving her to suicide … He glanced back at the picture of Melissa Angelicos. No, not Mr Davies. Not his style. Mind you, whether it was true or not was completely beside the point. Henry groaned aloud.
‘Pretty bad, isn’t it?’ said Robert, agreeably thrilled by the sensation. This was about the most exciting thing that had ever happened in chambers. By and large, barristers were a boring bunch, not given to all the stuff this woman claimed Leo got up to. Bunking off with blokes, for instance – mind you, Robert had always thought there was something a bit fruity about Mr Davies.
A third clerk, Felicity Waller, came through the swing doors at that moment and caught Robert’s last remark.
‘What’s bad?’ she asked.
Felicity was a buxom and very pretty twenty-three-year-old, with a cheeky, brisk manner which endeared her to most, if not all, of the barristers at 5 Caper Court. Even those who didn’t entirely approve of Felicity’s plunging necklines and thigh-skimming skirts were appreciative of the fees she negotiated for them, a skill which Felicity put down to genes inherited from her South London market trader father.
Henry had long nursed a silent, hopeless and unrequited passion for Felicity, and would normally have given her his full attention, particularly as she was wearing a figure-hugging summer dress of some brevity, but today he didn’t even look up. He just shook his head and stared despondently at the paper.
Felicity put her cup of coffee down on her desk and came over.
Robert indicated the paper and endeavoured to mask his excitement with a tone of regret. ‘Mr Davies has got himself into a bit of trouble.’
‘Let’s have a look.’
Henry’s phone began to ring. He answered it, handing the paper to Felicity, who took it over to her desk.
‘Bloody hell …’ She took in the headline, the picture of Leo, and sank slowly into her seat. She looked long and hard at the picture of the faded blonde which dominated the page, then began to read through the sordid list of her allegations against Leo. That he’d hit her. That he’d had affairs with other people during their relationship, men as well as women. That he’d neglected his son by his ex-wife, failing to turn up on access visits. That his professional life was a mess. That he drank. That he rubbished colleagues. She glanced up at Robert, who’d sidled over to assess her reaction.
‘This is crap,’ said Felicity. ‘It’s total and utter crap. Mr Davies isn’t like that.’
‘Not the point, though, is it?’
‘He’s a lovely man. He wouldn’t do any of this.’ Felicity’s view of Leo was somewhat coloured by the fact that when her erstwhile boyfriend, Vince, had been up on a manslaughter charge two months ago – through no fault of his own, Felicity always averred – Leo had spared no effort to help her and advise her. Not that it had been of much help, since Vince had gone down for eight years. Still, Mr Davies was her champion, he’d got her this job in the first place, and he was bloody lovely to look at as well, so she would hear no ill of him. Like Henry, she knew in her heart that this was not Mr Davies’s style at all. ‘Poor bloke. Not going to do his practice much good, is it?’
‘Is he in?’ asked Robert.
‘No, I haven’t seen him all morning – thank God,’ said, Felicity. ‘He’s probably got wind of this and is steering well clear. Can you imagine having to walk around the Temple, knowing everyone’s seen this and is talking about you? He’ll probably lie low for a couple of days.’
Henry, engrossed in morose speculation about the way in which this scandal was likely to tarnish the reputation of 5 Caper Court, clicked on his computer screen and brought up, out of curiosity, the list of tenants who were in chambers that morning, witnessed by the swiping of their electronic tags as they came into the building. There was Leo’s name.
‘He’s in,’ said Henry, puzzled.
In fact, at five-thirty that morning, as dawn light pearled the eastern sky and crept across the silent cobbles of the lanes and courtyards of the Temple, Leo had come into chambers to do some work on a skeleton argument in one of his cases. He had parked his Aston Martin in the deserted car park at the bottom of King’s Bench Walk and, apologising to the dosser in the doorway of 5 Caper Court for disturbing his slumber, had come into chambers to enjoy a few hours of steady, uninterrupted work before the telephones began to ring and feet and voices to sound on the stairs. Since no one was aware of his presence, no one had troubled him all morning.
Now, at ten to eleven, fatigued even by his own industrious standards, Leo Davies closed his books, rose, stretched and yawned. His lean figure was trim and athletic for a man in his mid-forties, his features clean-cut and handsome, his blue eyes sharp and intelligent. The premature silvery-grey of his thick hair, in the eyes of Felicity and other admirers, only added to his attractiveness. He stood now at his window, gazing down at the figures hurrying to and fro across Caper Court, his mind paused in a rare state of idleness, and decided to have a coffee and go downstairs to collect his mail and catch up on the gossip.
Down in the clerks’ room, speculation was rife.
‘D’you think he knows about it?’ asked Felicity.
‘Dunno,’ said Robert. ‘Depends. What a way to start the week.’
The door of the clerks’ room opened at that moment, and all three clerks turned as Leo came in. They looked at him in horrified uncertainty. The cheerful expression on his face suggested that he knew nothing of this calamity.
‘Morning, troops,’ said Leo mildly, going to his pigeonhole to extract the bundle of letters which lay there. Then he glanced round at them in puzzlement, surveying their silent faces. ‘Some problem?’
Henry took it upon himself to deliver the blow. He rose from his desk. ‘Robert’s just brought the paper in, sir. You’d better have a look at it.’ He picked up the newspaper from Felicity’s desk and handed it to Leo, who took it wonderingly.
They stood in stricken fascination as Leo scanned the front page carefully. His expression didn’t falter, except for one moment when he raised a brief and quizzical eyebrow. He might as well have been digesting the contents of an interesting, but not very remarkable brief. They waited.
Leo tossed the paper on to Robert’s desk and passed a hand across his brow. He looked up at Henry. ‘That’s a bit of a nuisance, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir,’ replied Henry, somewhat nonplussed by Leo’s reaction.
‘It’s a complete load of balls, of course. Some journalist rang me up a week ago and asked me about the contents of this suicide note, whatever it is, that she’d written, and I told them then. I didn’t expect them to print it.’ As though the import of it had only just hit him, Leo sat down. ‘Holy Christ.’
‘It’s not good, Mr Davies,’ said Henry.
‘I knew it was rubbish when I read it,’ said Felicity. ‘I said, none of this is Mr Davies’ style.’ She glanced at Robert for support. ‘Didn’t I?’
Leo gave a wan smile. ‘Thank you, Felicity.’ He drew the paper towards him again and studied the photograph of Melissa Angelicos. That vindictive bitch. It was like being pursued to the very depths of hell by a madwoman. She’d seemed innocuous enough on their first meeting as cotrustees of a recently opened museum of modern art, but what had seemed like a mild crush on her part had turned, over the course of a few months, into a full-blown obsession. She had stalked him, lain in wait for him outside his flat at night, pestered him with letters and gifts, followed him in her car to his country home, turned up during court proceedings … The thing had become a nightmare. It was when she began to harass Rachel, his ex-wife, and their baby son that Leo had taken legal steps to obtain an injunction against her. He had thought that, plus a few quiet threats, had done the trick. But no. A failed suicide attempt, this farrago of lies and fantasy committed to paper and sent off to a daily newspaper which was stupid and evil enough to print it, and she was succeeding in wrecking his life once again. In reality, Melissa was no more than a B-list celebrity – a fading personality from television’s intellectual hinterland – but that, coupled with the fact that Leo’s involvement in a major fraud case had earned him a flattering profile piece in the Evening Standardjust over a year ago, had been enough to ensure frontpage coverage.
He flicked through the pages to where the story continued, embellished by another picture of himself emerging from the Law Courts, and glanced through the contents. That they had actually had the gall … Didn’t they have any respect for privacy or decency, let alone the truth? He felt a hot surge of anger. He would make those bastards, and Melissa Angelicos, pay for every lying word printed here. He’d have a writ issued before the day was out.
The phone rang and Robert went to answer it. Leo folded up the paper and rose. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Felicity and Henry. ‘This isn’t going to make life very easy for you people.’
‘We’ll cope, sir,’ said Henry. ‘Not the first damage-limitation exercise we’ve had to carry out.’
‘What will you do?’ Felicity gazed at Leo with big, anxious eyes.
‘The first thing I’m going to do,’ said Leo, ‘is to go home and consider my options. Field my calls. Don’t tell anyone where I am.’
As he left the clerks’ room, he passed Simon Barron, a junior tenant, without saying a word. Simon, who had heard about the scandal from friends on his way back from a con in Paper Buildings, gazed after him.
‘I hadn’t expected to see Leo in chambers today. Not after the news.’ He glanced at the clerks. ‘I take it you’ve all heard?’
Henry nodded grimly. ‘Mr Davies has only just found out himself. He’s going home.’
‘Best place for him,’ sighed Felicity.
Leo drove back to his flat in Belgravia. The summer air was heavy with the threat of thunder, and the first drops of rain were pattering on the leaves of the plane trees in the quiet garden square as he parked his car in the mews garage. In the flat he opened one of the long windows in the drawing room and let the scent of rain, now splashing heavily on to the pavements and parks, fill the room. He stood there, watching, listening, thinking.
He turned from the window, loosened his tie, and sat down in an armchair. The room was large, high-ceilinged, expensively furnished in a restrained, minimalist fashion, the walls hung with works of modern art from Leo’s own collection – and to Leo at that moment it felt nothing like home. The place never had. Like the house where he and Rachel had lived during the brief months of their marriage, he had never felt any proper sense of belonging. Neither to the house, nor to Rachel. Only Stanton, his house in Oxfordshire, felt like a safe haven, though pressure of work meant he’d had precious little time to visit it of late. Now, in this moment of isolation and humiliation, with a hungry world outside feasting on fabricated stories of his licentious doings, he badly wished he was there, safe and far away. He closed his eyes, trying to work his way through his anger to thoughts of how best to deal with the situation. The phone rang several times, but he ignored it.
After twenty minutes, the buzzer to his flat sounded. With a sigh, Leo rose and crossed the room and went to the intercom. ‘Yes?’
‘Leo, it’s me – Camilla.’ The voice was light and young, charged with anxiety.
‘Come up.’ He pressed the buzzer to let her in, and went to the front door.
She stepped out of the lift, rain-soaked, and came into his arms, unquestioning and loving, and hugged him. Touched, he passed his hand lightly over her auburn hair.
‘You’re very wet.’
‘It’s stopping now. I ran all the way from the Tube.’ She took off her raincoat and Leo hung it up.
‘Aren’t you meant to be in court today?’
‘I am. But when I rang chambers and Felicity said you were here, I had to come. I can’t stay long. I’ve got to be back in court at two.’ She hugged him again, then looked at him, eyes wide and sad. ‘Oh, Leo …’
He essayed a smile. ‘Not much fun, is it?’
‘There was a copy of the paper in the robing room at the Law Courts. I couldn’t believe it … I still can’t.’
‘What does that mean? You don’t believe it? Or you don’t want to?’
Leo turned and went into the kitchen. Camilla followed him.
‘Of course I don’t believe it! No one who knows anything about it possibly could. You told me all about her, the way she was harassing you. I was in court with you that day she showed up with her camera – remember? I just don’t want other people to believe it.’
‘Yes, well … there’s not a lot you can do about that, unfortunately.’
‘But you can.’
‘Issue proceedings, you mean? It’s not something I ever advise anyone to do lightly. Litigation is a mug’s game, as well you know, which is why the mugs pay people like you and me so handsomely to conduct it.’ He opened the fridge. ‘Can I make you a sandwich or something? Can’t sit around in the Court of Appeal on an empty stomach.’
‘No, thanks. I’ll get something on the way back.’ She came over, closed the fridge, and hugged him again.
He sighed and put his arms round her, giving himself up to her ardour and sympathy. ‘You are the sweetest thing in the world. I’m glad you came.’
‘I called you on my mobile. Why didn’t you answer?’
‘I assumed it might be some journalist.’
‘How would they get your number? Henry wouldn’t give it out.’
‘True.’ He sighed. ‘I’m getting paranoid, fairly understandably. Come on—’ he took her hand and led her from the kitchen ‘—I want to sit down and hold you.’
He stretched out on the sofa, Camilla nestling against him. They talked for a while about the newspaper article, about what Leo could do about it. ‘The trouble is,’ he said, ‘I still feel rather numb. It’s hard to think properly. The best thing for me right now is you.’ He kissed her. ‘It seems absurd that you still haven’t moved in. I could do with a bit of domestic security.’
‘Leo, it’s not that easy. I can’t just pack up and leave. Jane has to find a new flatmate, and that takes time.’
‘I’ve told you that I’ll happily pay dear Jane as much rent as—’
‘It’s not just that. It’s not just money. And it’s not just Jane. There are my parents to think about.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘Leo, look at it from their point of view. How will it sound if I tell them I’m shacking up with some forty-six-year-old? I’m twenty-two. You’re older than my mother, for heaven’s sake.’
‘You could point out to them that I’m a perfectly respectable commercial lawyer, who’s—’ He paused. ‘No, I suppose the respectable bit is shot to pieces, isn’t it?’ Leo ran his fingers through his silver hair in exasperation. ‘Christ, if a libel action is what it takes, then so be it. But you’re grown up, for God’s sake. Why worry about what your parents think?’
‘Because they are my parents! And I love them. I don’t want to upset them.’ Leo gazed at her. Twenty-two. From a parental point of view, still not much more than a child. She kissed him. ‘I do love you-you know that?’
Leo returned her kiss gently. ‘Yes, I believe you do.’
She got up. ‘I have to get back to court. Sorry it’s such a fleeting visit. I’ll see you this evening.’
He lay on the sofa, listening to the sound of the front door closing. He thought about the evening a week ago when he had gone round to her flat. He’d been afraid that he’d lost her, fearful that all the things she’d heard – about his bisexuality, his fling with Anthony, and God knows what else – had estranged her from him for good. Did he now regret the impulse which had prompted him to propose marriage to her? It wasn’t a question of not loving her enough. God knows he did … But if anyone had told him a few years ago that at forty-six he would be on the point of marrying for a second time, he would have laughed in disbelief. Someone whose sexual appetite ran to men as well as women wasn’t exactly ideal husband material. He had spent twenty years cultivating for himself a private life utterly detached from his professional existence, one in which he enjoyed spending the considerable sums he earned in his practice at the Bar, indulging his tastes in clothing, works of art, wine and ridiculously expensive cars. Being tied to someone, unable to do exactly as he pleased, with whomever he pleased, was not his style at all. Which, naturally, was why his marriage to Rachel had come unstuck. One homosexual affair and a fumble with the nanny was probably more than most wives would tolerate in their husbands. Not that his marriage to Rachel had ever been more than one of convenience – his own, at any rate – something to scotch rumours about his sexuality which had, at the time, threatened to harm his professional reputation. And she’d been pregnant. Oliver, his two-year-old son, was the one good thing to have come out of that mess. He had never thought it possible to love another being as much as he did Oliver … Beyond Oliver and his own mother, Leo didn’t care much for the idea of family.
At least with Rachel he hadn’t had to contend with anything more than her mother, and those encounters, while she’d been alive, had been mercifully few. With Camilla, however, he was going to get the full works, he could see that. He rubbed his hands across his face. Parents. He was going to have to meet them. Oh, Lord … he really wasn’t up for this. It was already beginning to feel oppressive. Not Camilla herself, who was delightful, clever, astonishingly sensuous and touchingly young, but the set-up, the encroaching involvement of other people. A wedding. Relations. She would want babies, eventually. Shades of the family prison-house begin to close upon the ageing rake, thought Leo – and a lot of people would doubtless say it served him bloody well right.
He shouldn’t have asked her to marry him. Just to move in. But in thinking that, wasn’t he admitting that the thing wasn’t necessarily going to be long-term? It was possible that she would grow tired first, feel the need of someone younger, closer to her own age, but in all honesty, the doubts lay with him. He knew himself too well. How long until his notoriously restless gaze fell upon someone – male or female – and he found himself unable to resist the temptation? He loved Camilla, but he didn’t trust himself. Just a couple of months ago certain episodes with that departed wretch, Gideon, had forced Leo to the decision that some clean, respectable living was what he needed at his age. For Oliver’s sake, if not his own.
He closed his eyes at the recollection of that narrowly averted scandal. Gideon, now mercifully deceased, had been a rising young star in the Civil Service, and he and Leo had become close for a while. Far too close, in hindsight. Gideon, besides being a heavy gambler with a taste for expensive living which far outstripped his means, had also turned out to have a nice little sideline in blackmail. Leo, it ultimately transpired, had been one of his intended victims, and only Gideon’s untimely demise had relieved Leo of the obligation of forking out a hundred thousand pounds to the young wretch. Yes, that incident had certainly served as a reminder that Leo was capable of living far too dangerously. Camilla had seemed the answer to that. Marry her, settle down, live quietly … Now, as the reality of what it all involved began to dawn on him, he felt less certain.
With a groan of exasperation, he stood up and paced around the room. Forget Camilla for the moment. Forget about marrying anybody. That could wait. The pressing issue at the moment was what he should do about this hellish thing in the papers, and limiting the damage it was bound to cause. The one person to whom he very much needed to talk was Anthony. There was no one closer. But he had succeeded in damaging that precious relationship through his own irresponsible behaviour. The mistake had been to sleep with him, to let Anthony think there was something more to it than … What? Friendship? He doubted if there was any of that left. A week ago Anthony had been ready to leave chambers just to get away from Leo, so hurt and disillusioned was he, and Leo, having spoken to him only once since then – a brief, unhappy exchange which had resolved nothing – had no idea if that was still his firm intention.
He needed to speak to him, to sound him out, to help him decide what to do. He had never gone to Anthony in that way before. Maybe it would help to resolve more than one troublesome issue. He went to the phone and picked it up, and rang chambers, asking to speak to Anthony.
CHAPTER TWO
After taking Leo’s call, Anthony stood up and paced round his room to stretch his long legs. The dark, sensuous good looks which had so attracted Leo four years ago, when Anthony had first come to 5 Caper Court as a raw and nervous pupil, had taken on something of a hard edge over the last year or so. He paused at the window, as he did countless times each day, and gazed with troubled and brooding eyes at the sundial set in the stones of the wall opposite. The conversation with Leo had been brief, perfunctory, and a little puzzling. First Leo had asked if Anthony had seen the papers.
‘No,’ Anthony had said. ‘Not yet. Why?’
‘Nothing that need worry you. It’s my problem, I’m afraid.’ A pause. ‘I – I need to talk to someone about it. Which is why I’m ringing you. Have you got an hour or two to spare at the end of the day?’
That was where Anthony had hesitated. He’d told himself not long ago that he wanted nothing more to do with Leo, that that was it, finished. But …
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ He hardly knew why he said it.
‘Thanks. I’m at home at the moment. I’ll come into chambers around seven, if you don’t mind hanging on till then. I don’t particularly want to see anyone else.’
That had been the end of the conversation.
Anthony moved away from the window and paced around again. He knew in his heart that he should have said no. How was he ever going to make good his resolution to dissolve the relationship if he was so instantly willing to sit down and discuss Leo’s personal problems with him? He wasn’t sure he cared to know about any of Leo’s problems, anyway. They usually signified the messing-up of other people’s lives. The trouble with Leo’s fatal attraction was that everyone who got involved with him ended up getting hurt. He himself was no exception. It seemed that four years of the best, the most intense and stimulating friendship he had ever known with another man, had been wrecked by a combination of his own naïveté and Leo’s cruelty. Staying the night at Leo’s, letting Leo make love to him – he had thought it signalled some transition in their relationship, a step towards something secure and lasting. What a fool he’d been. ‘It’s only sex, Anthony.’ He recalled Leo casually tapping his cigar on his case before lighting it, narrowing his eyes against the smoke, throwing away the words. Throwing away Anthony’s very heart, destroying his belief in Leo. Muscles in Anthony’s stomach tightened reflexively as he steeled himself against the memory. He was only one in a long line of victims, after all. No big deal, no big surprise. How long did Camilla think she was going to last? Another nice bit of footwork on Leo’s part, moving in on Anthony’s ex-girlfriend when he knew he still had feelings for her … That was one good reason to leave 5 Caper Court. The place was becoming incestuous, emotionally claustrophobic. But there, too, was another instance of his own vacillation. Having made up his mind to leave and find a tenancy in another set of chambers where he wouldn’t have to see Leo every day, here he still was, undecided. It was pathetic. He hated himself.
If he’d had any sense, let alone strength of purpose, he would have told Leo to stick his problems, find some other fool to lay them off on – Sarah, for instance. She was always eager and willing where Leo was concerned. But an unquenchable part of him longed to see Leo, to be for just a little while the sole focus of his time and attention. That was the real reason why he’d said yes. In spite of everything, it pleased Anthony to be needed by Leo. He reached out to his computer, saved the work he’d been doing, and shut it down. Better go and rustle up a newspaper and find out more about this problem, whatever it might be.
On the way downstairs he ran into Jeremy Vane, a senior member of chambers, a loud and self-important individual for whom Anthony didn’t care a great deal.
Jeremy stopped him. ‘Heard the latest scandal about Leo, have you? Got himself splashed all over the front of the tabloids-some woman who tried to top herself on his account.’ Jeremy thrust fat fingers into the tight pockets of his waistcoat. ‘Whole thing’s bloody ghastly. Doesn’t reflect at all well on chambers.’
Anthony’s mind reeled a little at this information, but he managed to reply, ‘I shouldn’t imagine it’s doing Leo a lot of good, either.’ What woman could this be? Knowing Leo, one of many. It must be pretty grim if it had made the front pages.
‘Man’s only got himself to blame. The kind of unregulated life he leads. It was always going to rebound on his professional standing some day.’
‘Jeremy, if I didn’t know how much you cared about the image of chambers, I’d say you actually sound pleased.’
Jeremy raised his eyebrows. ‘Merely saying that it’s about time Leo had his come-uppance.’ He marched on upstairs to his room.
Anthony went into the clerks’ room, and found a huddle of barristers mulling over Robert’s copy of The Sun.
‘Seen this?’ David Liphook, a stocky blond man in his mid-thirties, passed the paper to Anthony.
Anthony took the paper and scanned the front page, absorbing the contents. He flicked through quickly to the inside pages. How much of this could possibly be true? He felt cold at the possibility. No, it couldn’t be … But he’d thought he’d known Leo, and just look how far he’d been deceived. Come to think of it, he remembered a conversation with Leo several months ago, one in which he’d admitted knowing this woman Angelicos, having some kind of a fling with her …
‘I haven’t a clue what to make of it,’ said David, and shook his head.
‘I personally think the woman’s off her head,’ said Michael Gibbon, leaning his thin frame against Robert’s desk and folding his arms.
‘Very possibly,’ said Will Cooper. He looked languidly round at the others. ‘But how much close scrutiny does Leo’s private life bear?’ He shrugged.
‘The fact is,’ said Michael, ‘one month ago Leo took out an injunction against Melissa Angelicos to stop her harassing him. Doesn’t that tell you something?’
Will raised his eyebrows. ‘It tells me there’s no smoke without fire.’
‘They were co-trustees of Chay Cross’s museum,’ said Michael. ‘Anthony knows all about it.’ This was a reference to Anthony’s father, ex-hippy and waster, who had managed, thanks to the caprices of the modern art world, to reinvent himself as one of the leading postmodernists of the day. The wealth attendant upon such fashionable success had enabled Chay Cross, with the help of some local authority funding, to open a museum of modern art in a defunct Shoreditch brewery, of which Melissa Angelicos and Leo had been trustees, along with others.
‘I’d hardly say that,’ said Anthony. ‘I barely knew the woman.’
What about Leo?’ asked David.
‘Well, he knew her, obviously …’
‘Do we mean in the biblical sense?’
Anthony was at a loss. Before he could find words, Michael Gibbon cut in. ‘Look, whatever the nature of the relationship, I’m pretty much sure from what Leo told me that these allegations against him are pure fabrication.’ He tapped the paper. ‘Leo is quoted as saying as much.’
‘What d’you reckon?’ David asked Anthony.
Anthony folded the paper and handed it back to David. ‘I don’t know any more about it than the rest of you – not as much as Michael, at any rate – but I don’t believe a single word this woman has written. If Leo says she’s lying, then that’s good enough for me.’
‘Too bloody right! Good for you, Mr Cross!’ Felicity, who had been listening, banged down her pen and got up from her desk. ‘I don’t know how anyone can think otherwise, frankly. You lot should stick up for one another.’
‘It’s not a question of loyalty,’ said Will, ‘so much as veracity. I doubt if even The Sun would print this kind of thing if there wasn’t something behind it.’
‘That’s rather a naive point of view, if I may say so,’ said David. At that moment Henry came through the swing doors, balancing his lunchtime packet of sandwiches on top of a steep bundle of papers. What’s your take on all this, Henry?’ asked David, tapping the paper.
Henry waved the paper away wearily and took off his jacket. He sat down, adjusted his red braces, opened his sandwiches and sighed. ‘I don’t know where he finds the time, to be honest. Not with the amount of work he has.’
‘You’re not saying you believe this rubbish they’ve written, are you?’ Felicity rounded on Henry.
Henry held up his hands in defence. ‘I’m not saying anything. I don’t care one way or the other, frankly. Mr Davies’s personal life is his own – it’s when it starts damaging business that I mind.’ He shook his head. ‘This isn’t going to do his practice any good.’
‘I think that’s where you’re wrong,’ said Felicity. ‘Even bad publicity is publicity. You wait and see.’
Henry shook his head. ‘Anyway, I’ve got enough on my plate without worrying about Mr Davies’ practice. We’ve got four new tenants and a clerk landing on us tomorrow morning, don’t forget.’
‘As if I needed reminding.’ And then Felicity swore with such unladylike vehemence that Henry was quite startled. He had yet to fathom why she was getting so worked up about the arrival of this new clerk, Peter Weir. So far as Henry could see, he was a perfectly nice bloke.
Anthony spent the afternoon considering the applicability of the Brussels Convention to a French arbitration dispute, spinning out the time, punctuating it with cups of coffee. From half past five onwards, people drifted out of chambers, and by seven the building was empty. Anthony, whose sash window was open to the summer evening air, swivelled round and glanced down into Caper Court. Sure enough, punctual as ever, Leo appeared from the cloisters and crossed the flagstones. He was wearing dark blue trousers and an open-necked shirt, and carried a copy of the evening paper. Anthony swivelled back around and waited, listening for the sound of Leo’s feet on the stair. He remembered a time when that swift, springing tread, taking the stairs an unmistakable two at a time, had set his heart racing, when he couldn’t wait to see Leo’s face, hear his voice. It had been a happy anticipation then. Now, the anticipation was dark, tainted. The love he had felt for Leo had lost its innocence, just as he had.
A few moments later Leo rapped on the door and came in. ‘Hi.’
Anthony merely nodded by way of reply. Leo sat down in one of the chairs at the long conference table which abutted Anthony’s desk, chucking his copy of the Standard on to the polished surface. ‘I take it you saw The Sun earlier today?’
‘I saw it at lunchtime.’
‘There’s nothing in the evening paper, thank God. I’ve no idea if any of the dailies will follow it up tomorrow.’ He glanced at Anthony. ‘I suppose it’s all over the place?’
Anthony nodded. ‘You’re the talk of chambers.’
‘And the entire Inns of Court, no doubt,’ sighed Leo.
‘Have you done anything about it yet?’
‘I haven’t issued any writs, if that’s what you mean. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Why me?’ asked Anthony. He gazed frankly at Leo. ‘Libel isn’t my specialism. There are plenty of other people better equipped to advise you than I am.’
Leo stood up and thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘You know I don’t need advice on the law, Anthony. I need to speak to you as a friend.’
‘And you think I’m your friend?’
Leo paced the room, tapping the spines of books, inspecting the pictures which lined the walls. Long moments passed.
Leo turned at last. ‘You tell me. Are you?’
It was Anthony’s turn to be silent. He swivelled his chair slowly from side to side, looking at Leo long and hard. It exasperated him, infuriated him, that Leo should take him so much for granted.
‘I don’t think you can ever know what it cost me to—’ He stopped. Leo could never understand. Leo was so cool with his sexuality. He wouldn’t ever understand how it was to grow up thinking you were a nice, straight boy, only to find out that things weren’t that simple, that someone like Leo could lead you down another path, confusing you, making you think and want things you had never dreamt of, then leaving you high and dry. A lost boy.
He tried again. ‘Put it this way, Leo – I haven’t got anything to thank you for.’
‘I know.’ The shadows in the corner of the room where Leo stood made his face look tired and grim. ‘I shouldn’t have let it happen. And I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry?’
‘That it’s caused this – this bad feeling between us. It was never my intention to hurt you. I thought you knew the terms.’
Anthony shook his head. ‘No, it turns out I didn’t. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to go back over that. It’s in the past now, and it’s going to stay there.’ He paused. ‘Don’t ask about friendship. We’re both here now. If you want my advice, you can have it, for what it’s worth.’
‘Thank you.’ Leo crossed the room and sat down again. ‘I’ve been going over the whole thing all afternoon, trying to decide what to do.’ He let out a sigh. ‘Eight hours ago I was all set to sue. The entire story is the most pathetic pack of lies, after all. The woman is not only obsessive and deluded, she’s also a calculating and vindictive bitch. This is a deliberate act of personal sabotage.’
Anthony shrugged. ‘She must have a motive. And I assume there’s a basis in truth, that you had some kind of relationship with her. I seem to remember you telling me a few months ago that you’d gone back to her place after a few drinks – something like that.’
‘Not one of the cleverest things I’ve ever done, admittedly. But absolutely nothing happened. Quite the opposite. She had ideas, but I wasn’t interested. And that, I suspect, is where it all started. I won’t go into details, but I imagine she found the episode somewhat humiliating, and never quite forgave me. Hence the vendetta.’
‘Hence the suicide attempt?’
‘Hardly. Still, if you ask me, it’s a pity she failed.’
‘Except that that would have damned you completely.’
‘True.’
‘So there’s no truth in anything she says?’
‘Not a single word. She has a diseased imagination.’ He glanced at Anthony. ‘Did you believe there was any truth in it?’
Anthony shook his head. ‘No. I don’t think anyone who knows you could possibly believe it.’
‘Which only leaves the great British public. A few million good reasons to sue her and the paper.’
‘Or not, as the case may be.’
‘Meaning?’
Anthony picked up a length of red tape from the brief he’d been working on, and wound it round his fingers. ‘Think about it. In a few days’ time, the great British public will have other preoccupations. The Sun will be shafting some other poor bastard. Things move on, people’s memories are short.’
‘Not in the microcosmic world that you and I work in.’
‘That’s something you may just have to live with. The alternative, as I see it, is infinitely worse. Imagine. You sue for libel. Fine. Nothing happens for a few months. Then bang, just when everyone had more or less forgotten the original story, the case comes up for trial, and the publicity starts all over again. Only this time your private life comes in for some serious, real scrutiny. For each and every one of that woman’s allegations that you deny, the other side will try to find some basis in truth. Affairs with other men? Well, ask yourself, Leo – do you really want the best lawyers The Sun can buy investigating that particular aspect of your life? Then there are all the things she says about how you neglected Oliver, didn’t show up on visits – that means the spotlight gets turned on Rachel and Oliver. The allegations about your professional life – all untrue, but do you think your clients are going to enjoy seeing their QC held up to the light and given a thorough inspection and overhaul?’ Anthony chucked the red ribbon on to his desk. ‘I don’t know why I’m bothering to tell you all this. You already know it.’
Leo nodded. ‘But the point is, if I do nothing, then everyone assumes that every word she’s written is true. Can I afford to let that happen?’
‘The people who know you, the people who matter, don’t believe it. As for the rest, the tabloid readers, they’re not really interested in you. It’s just another titillating story to spice up breakfast or the journey to work. They don’t actually know or care about you. They won’t remember your name this time next week. If you sue, things will be a lot worse in the long run. Come on, Leo, you know it.’
‘You think I should just let it lie?’
Anthony nodded.
Leo stood up and began to pace again. ‘It makes me feel so bloody impotent.’
‘There must be something you can do to make good the damage without actually suing. You must know people. Isn’t there some journalist who owes you a favour? Someone who can make sure a little more exposure is given to some truths relating to Melissa Angelicos?’
‘Such as?’
Well, if you’re not the reason why her career is on the slide – what’s the real reason? Then there’s the fact that she’s been harassing you to the point where you had to take out an injunction – that’s worth a bit of coverage.’
Leo walked to the window, brooding on this. Certainly there were strings that might be pulled. ‘Yes … Yes, I might be able to do a few things in that direction …’
‘If someone came to you for advice, you’d counsel them against suing – you know you would.’
Leo nodded slowly. ‘Okay, right. I’ll explore some other avenues first …’ He turned and glanced at Anthony. ‘Do you feel like going for a drink, or did you have plans?’
