Judicial Whispers (18 page)

He smiled to himself as the notion took root and developed. There was Anthony, of course – but he could be discounted. There were plenty of other young women around for him, and with fewer problems. He would be better off without Rachel. Anthony was a minor consideration. And Rachel? Well, Rachel would benefit from the experience. Last night was evidence that he could help her out of the awful emotional and sexual hole she had been living in for the past several years. He would merely be continuing the therapy.

Leo glanced down at the notes he had been making, still listening with half an ear to the interminable drift of his learned friend’s discourse as the rest of his mind raced with this developing idea. Hooper was winding up. Besides, he would make sure that they were the most wonderful, pleasurable months for her. That would be her reward. That, at least, was within his gift.

Angus Hooper sat down, Mr Justice Appleby turned his head to look invitingly at Leo, and Leo rose, handsome and assured.

‘My Lord,’ he began, uplifted by the realisation that the game was far from over, ‘I shall deal first of all with what I perceive to be the weakest part of my learned friend’s argument – namely, that loss suffered by way of financial loss cannot fall within the ambit of the words “damage done by a ship” under Section 20, 2E of the Supreme Court Act, 1981 …’

Anthony had been puzzled and annoyed by Rachel’s disappearance the previous evening. He had spent some time combing the crowd in the Guildhall before finally concluding that she had gone, and allowing himself to be taken by David Liphook and William Cooper to a spaghetti house in Covent Garden, where he had drunk far too much wine. His head still ached vaguely that morning as he rang Rachel’s office.

‘Good morning, Nichols and Co! How can I help you?’ sang out Nora’s voice. ‘No, Mr Cross, Miss Dean won’t be coming in today. She’s working from home. Can her secretary help? I see. Thank you for calling!’

Anthony put the phone down and hesitated before picking it up again. If she hadn’t gone in to work today, maybe she’d felt unwell last night and just gone home. She’d been behaving rather peculiarly before they got to the Guildhall, with a nervy talkativeness quite unlike her usual manner. Perhaps he should just leave it – wait for her to call him. But since he was in love
with her and would take any opportunity to speak to her, he seized upon his legitimate excuse and rang her flat.

Rachel was sitting at her kitchen table working out laytime calculations for a tedious demurrage claim when the phone rang. She was still in a sufficient state of nervous apprehension for the sound to make her start. She listened to the insistent, rhythmic ringing for a few seconds, and wondered, hoped … But she knew that was impossible. He didn’t have her number. Anyway, he would not get in touch with her. That much had been clear. Yet, despite his words, she still felt, as she walked from the table to the phone, as though she were carrying her newly discovered love like a fragile burden.

She set the burden down gently when she heard Anthony’s voice.

‘Oh, hello,’ she said, disappointed in spite of everything she had just told herself. She walked back into the kitchen with the phone and sat down.

‘Hi,’ said Anthony. ‘I’m just ringing to see how you are. They said you wouldn’t be in to work today, and I wondered where you’d got to last night.’ He had already decided that there was no point in sounding annoyed about her disappearance, even if he was.

‘Oh …’ Rachel let out her breath in a sigh. ‘I’m sorry, Anthony. I was beginning to feel a little unwell, and I just went home. I know I should have looked for you to tell you, but I really did feel quite ghastly …’ She paused for a second, conscious of her nervousness at the deception. Anthony was the last person who should find out that she’d spent last night at Leo’s. He thought so much of both of them – he would find it hard to deal with, to say the least. ‘To tell you the truth,’ she went on, trying to sound bright and casual, ‘I asked my secretary for some aspirin before I left work last night, and I don’t know what she gave me, but it made me feel most peculiar. I’m still getting over it.’

‘Oh. Right,’ said Anthony. ‘I wonder what it was?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied Rachel. ‘Not aspirin, that’s for certain. But I’m sure it was a mistake.’

‘Well, look,’ said Anthony, ‘if you’re feeling a bit better tomorrow, why don’t we go to that film at the ICA?’

‘Oh, Anthony, I can’t. I’m going to my friend Marsha’s in Winchester for the weekend. Sorry.’ She felt utterly relieved at having a valid excuse, but she knew what was coming next.

‘OK. How about some time next week?’

She closed her eyes. No, now was not the time to try to end the thing once and for all. She opened them again, staring down at her calculator, idly punching in numbers. ‘I’m honestly not sure what I’m doing next week, Anthony. Can I give you a call in a week or so?’

‘Yes. Yes, OK,’ replied Anthony, glancing up at Mr Slee’s portly figure standing in the doorway as he waited for Anthony to finish. He badly wanted to see her, but he would just have to wait, count the days. ‘Look, I have to go now. Don’t forget to call. Bye.’

‘Bye,’ murmured Rachel, and clicked the phone off thoughtfully.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said Mr Slee, ‘but there’s a fee note in from Coward Chance on that tanker sale case, and I don’t think it tallies with what’s entered on the computer. If you wouldn’t mind having a look …’

‘Sure,’ said Anthony, and followed Mr Slee to the clerks’ room.

Rachel sat at the kitchen table, staring at her calculations; then she lifted her gaze to the window and to the garden of the church opposite, where the gardener was raking the debris of dead leaves into heaps. A steady wind scudded rain clouds across the grey sky. What next? she wondered. Even if there was to be no more of Leo for her, even if she had fallen violently in
love to no purpose except that of waiting for time to take it all back again, she knew she could not go on seeing Anthony, could not even spend time with him. Not for the present. There was no point. She had made him believe that it was possible their relationship could develop in ways which she now knew it never would. Not now there was Leo.

She closed her eyes and leant back. She had not meant to deceive him – everything she had said had sprung honestly from hope. But everything she had – every feeling, every impulse of affection, every desire – was Leo’s. And he did not want it. She opened her eyes, sighed, and watched the bare black branches of the plane trees swaying against the sky. It was nearly December. How many months would she go on feeling like this? How long would there be this unfilled longing inside her? And how often in every day would she recall his body, the strong pliant feel of it, the sense of complete fusion, utter absorption, one in another, as they made love? She hoped it would not be many months, not very long, not very often. And yet she wanted to keep it, let none of it go stale, so that she could relive the precious moments over and over.

And in the meantime? She turned from the window and gazed around her. Back to her slow, silent routine, her shadow of a life away from work. There was not even the slim hope of making something work with Anthony now. Anthony. She would have to speak to him, explain to him that she did not want to see him, unless it was in connection with Mr Nikolaos’s case. And that wouldn’t be for some time. Maybe she would feel better by then. What was it Leo had said? – a catharsis. Perhaps he had done something for her. Maybe he had helped to resolve her fears, shown her that it was possible for her to love and give herself just as any other woman could. She smiled wryly. He had given and taken away in the same instant. She sat forward and picked up her pen again, determined to finish this calculation before
setting off for Marsha’s. She would have the whole journey to Winchester in which to think about last night, to refresh her love and her pain.

Leo called at the clerks’ room on his way back from the law courts later that morning, still wearing his bands, drops of rain upon his jacket shoulders, panting slightly from having trotted across Fleet Street and down Middle Temple Lane.

‘William,’ he called, leaning on the doorjamb, ‘can you chase up those papers from Walter Fry’s office today, please?’ He saw Anthony standing at the computer and was about to turn and go up to his room, not wishing to encounter Anthony at that particular moment. Leo was not one given to guilt, but this business unpleasantly resembled an incident which had occurred once between Leo and Anthony’s old girlfriend, Julia. Different, but sufficiently reminiscent to make him feel uneasy.

‘I’ve got them here,’ replied Mr Slee, turning to the heap of papers on his table.

Leo hesitated, then went into the room. Anthony turned and smiled, then glanced back at the computer.

‘William, am I doing this right?’ he asked, tapping at the keys.

Mr Slee said no, he wasn’t, and moved him gently aside to attend to it himself. Anthony put his hands in his pockets and came over to where Leo was gathering bundles of documents from the table.

‘What did you think of last night?’ he asked Leo.

Leo paused, took out his half-moon spectacles and placed them on the end of his nose, and scanned the documents.

‘Very good,’ he replied, and looked up briefly at Anthony. ‘Very enjoyable indeed.’

‘Apparently Simon Stokes walked out with four bottles of champagne. Just took them away,’ said Anthony with amusement, settling himself against the table. ‘Not that they’d
be missed, mind you. The place was groaning with the stuff.’ There was a pause, in which Anthony glanced at Mr Slee, then back to Leo. He lowered his voice slightly. ‘I noticed you talked to Rachel for a bit. She was the girl I told you about. What did you think?’

‘Think?’ Leo looked up at him. ‘Well, let me see. Distinctly beautiful. Quite remarkably so.’ Anthony smiled. ‘But rather – um – odd. Quirky.’

‘Yes, well,’ replied Anthony, still smiling, ‘there were reasons for that.’

‘If I were you,’ went on Leo, remembering to behave exactly in part, as though he were still speaking on the basis of their conversation in El Vino’s, as though none of the events of last night had happened, ‘I’d find someone a little more straightforward. Easier.’

‘Sorry,’ murmured Anthony in reply, ‘but this is definitely love.’ And he strolled back to where Mr Slee was still tapping the computer and muttering.

Leo stood, a sheaf of documents in his hand, gazing at Anthony over the tops of his spectacles. Love? Oh dear, oh dear. Poor Anthony was in for a sad surprise. But there was too much at stake here for him to be overly concerned at the state of Anthony’s feelings. The object of his love was, unfortunately, going to be far too useful in swaying some hefty moral judicial opinion in Leo’s favour. Besides, from what the girl had said this morning, it would have been uphill work for Anthony. The irony of it was, thought Leo as he gathered his papers together, that he would probably rather have had Anthony in his bed than Rachel for the next few months. But then, that had always been his feeling about Anthony, and he had learnt to live with it, just as Anthony must now learn to live without Rachel.

Sir Basil Bunting, head of chambers, came into the clerks’ room just as Leo was about to leave.

‘Ah, Leo,’ he said, ‘I was hoping to have a word with you. One moment while I speak to William.’

Leo waited dutifully, watching as Sir Basil, tall, dignified, white-haired, conferred briefly with Mr Slee. They must be of an age, thought Leo, musing on the contrast of Mr Slee’s stocky figure and rosy face. They had come together and would go together, he and Sir Basil. Possibly Sir Basil would go sooner than he expected, if there were to be two new silks in chambers next year. His thoughts moved to Rachel, and he wondered, as he gave Anthony a dismissive glance, how soon he should ring her. She was away over the weekend and, anyway, he didn’t have her home number. He would ring her at work early next week.

Sir Basil came back over to him. ‘Come up to my room, Leo, if you would.’

Leo followed Sir Basil to his room, which was large and stately, reflecting the importance of Sir Basil and his distinguished practice.

‘Do sit down,’ said Sir Basil, as he closed the door. Leo sat down, placing the bundles of documents, which were rather heavy, on the floor beside him.

‘Now,’ said Sir Basil, ‘I am having a little party in three weeks or so.’ He rubbed his hands together cheerfully and sat down behind his vast polished desk. ‘A largely informal affair, but quite a – ah – distinguished gathering. Mainly senior members of the judiciary, that kind of thing, and’ – he paused proudly – ‘our new Lord Chancellor. Now I understand that you have applied to take silk’ – this direct shot surprised Leo, reminding him suddenly of Sir Basil’s reputation as one whose genteel, delicately formal manner masked disarming forthrightness – ‘and, apart from the fact that I always think it pleasant for there to be some younger people to lighten these affairs, I imagine it would be useful for you to meet Lord Steele socially, as well as some of the more senior judges before whom you may not have appeared.
A little visibility always helps. You will find that they remember you later.’ He sat back and surveyed Leo. ‘So I hope you will come.’

‘Thank you very much, Basil,’ replied Leo. ‘I shall be delighted.’ He couldn’t have heard about Stephen’s application. Or could he? Was this simple favouritism? It was not unknown for Sir Basil’s partisanship to sway his judgment. It had almost cost Anthony his tenancy a couple of years ago, when Sir Basil had sought to give a place in chambers to his nephew, Edward, instead.

‘I like to think, Leo,’ continued Sir Basil with thoughtful self-satisfaction, ‘that you embody many of the qualities which I have striven to maintain in these chambers over the years.’ Little do you know, thought Leo, a smile flickering at the corner of his mouth; he placed his thumb and forefinger at either side of his mouth to smooth the smile away. Sir Basil placed the tips of his fingers together. ‘If I can assist your advancement in any small way, then, of course, it is all to the good. So’ – he tapped the edge of his desk lightly with the fingers of one hand – ‘I shall look forward to seeing you on December the fourteenth, at seven o’clock. You know my house, do you? No, well, you will receive a formal invitation in due course, naturally – I merely wished to indicate to you personally the interest which I take in your career.’