She watched their faces closely for signs of dissent. She knew for a fact that one of them had booked a trip to Jordan, and another was planning to attend his brother’s wedding in California. They all knew the golden rule: Donovan Pierce came first. If any of them were perturbed by the news, they didn’t show it. That was good; she had trained them well.
‘Susie, I want you to go over all the witness statements, find the gaps.’
A trainee raised a nervous finger. ‘Witnesses?’
‘All of the people interviewed in the article,’ said Susie, slightly impatiently. ‘Plus Balon’s
Stateside
staff, and friends, family, enemies and employees past, present and future.’
Helen gave a half-smile. She liked that ‘future’; it showed her team were making sure everything was covered, even the unlikely scenarios. The unlikely was the one thing that was sure to screw you in court.
She turned to David Morrow, the handsome senior associate who had worked most closely with her on the case. ‘David, by tomorrow I want a brief on my desk outlining all the weaknesses in the case. We don’t want to be left exposed on any point.’
She gave each of them a rigorous task with a tight deadline, impressing on them her desire to leave no stone unturned, then stood and walked out. There was no time to waste for her either, as she closed the door on her office and took the first file from one of the stacks. The clerk’s call had put the stop on her own weekend trip to Ravello, but that didn’t bother her. She led from the front and her priorities were always with the firm.
Flipping through the pages, she speed-read the file, scribbling notes as she went. The truth was, she trusted no one but herself to spot all the holes, to exploit any weakness in the other side’s case.
She looked up with irritation as the phone chirped.
‘Lucy, I said no calls.’
‘It’s Eli Cohen from Cohen Simons.’
‘I see. Put him through.’
Cohen Simons was a small but influential management company with a roster of ageing Hollywood stars and a couple of exciting young ones; besides, any phone call from Tinseltown always piqued her interest. They were usually very high-profile, and high-profile was good for the firm.
‘Eli,’ she said. ‘How’s tricks?’
‘Not good, Helen,’ said the manager. ‘This is a confidential matter. Can you talk?’
‘Of course.’
She flipped her notebook to a new page.
‘A client of mine is about to have a matter exposed in one of the nationals. Naturally we want to keep it under wraps.’
Helen allowed herself a small smile. She knew the pattern: this was going to be a juicy case.
‘Okay, we’ll start with the what, rather than the who. Tell me what’s happened.’
‘An actor client, a major star with a long-term partner, had a one-night stand a couple of weeks ago. Girl’s blackmailing him. She wants a truckload of money or else she’s going straight to the press.’
‘Has she got any evidence?’
‘Evidence? You talking man jam?’
‘Man jam?’ She winced.
‘You know, a DNA sample from a sexual encounter. Although to be honest, he can barely even remember the sex, he was so wasted.’
Helen quickly scribbled ‘Other parties?’ If this actor had been drunk, there was always a chance other people could corroborate. A sloppy drunk on the pull didn’t usually care too much about covering his tracks.
‘I meant photos, video footage,’ she said.
There was a pause. ‘There’s a photo on a mobile phone of them taken together in bed.’
‘Have you seen it?’
‘Not personally. But my client had it sent to him.’
‘I’ll need to see it asap.’
She paused for a moment, her sharp mind looking at the angles, assessing the risks.
‘So you can get a gagging order, can’t you?’ Cohen asked. ‘The British laws play to our side here, don’t they?’
‘Yes, but there are other sorts of deal we could set up.’
This was the stuff they didn’t teach you at law school: how to broker watertight six-figure pay-offs, or to put it another way, how to bury the bodies so deep no one would ever find them. She couldn’t count the number of secret confidentiality agreements she had drawn up to silence a mistress or a boyfriend. Of course there were other strategies too: arranging with an editor to kill off one story in return for a bigger one, an exclusive cover story about something else. Or you could even play hardball and hit the media where it hurt: in their budget. That was one of Larry’s favourite tricks. Threaten to cut off their advertising, or permanently restrict access to a roster of stars. ‘Play dirty,’ that was what he used to say. ‘It’s all the bastards understand.’
She looked down at her notes. ‘So how much does she want?’
‘Five hundred thousand.’
‘Pounds or dollars?’
‘The chick is British, so I assume pounds. Although when she suggested it, my client panicked and told her to go fuck herself.’
Half a million sterling was big money, which meant a big name. A very big name.
‘Who’s the client? The President?’ she said with a laugh.
Eli didn’t laugh.
‘Sam Charles.’
Helen smiled to herself. This was one of the perks of her job. She got to see beyond the curtain into the secret goings-on of Hollywood, see how people really behaved when the cameras stopped rolling. After all this time, she really shouldn’t have been surprised at anyone’s behaviour, but she hadn’t thought Sam Charles had that sort of ballsiness in him. But that was neither here nor there. The fact was that Sam Charles was one of the biggest stars in the world, especially as part of a Hollywood golden couple. Every newspaper and magazine in the world was going to want that story; no wonder this girl was asking so much.
‘I can see why you want to keep it under wraps,’ she said.
‘This girl says she’s going to go to the press if we don’t give her an answer in twenty-four hours.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ said Helen.
She paused to collect her thoughts.
‘What’s the girl called?’
‘Katie.’
‘And when did Sam last speak to her?’
‘Maybe an hour ago.’
Helen jotted her strategy on her notepad.
‘I want you to call Katie back. Stall her. Make out you need time to get the five hundred together.’
‘Should Sam call her?’
‘Definitely not. No more contact under any circumstances. Besides, she’ll believe it more if it comes from his manager.’
‘But we don’t want to pay her off.’
‘No, but it will buy us time. We don’t want her going to one of the kiss-and-tell publicists or directly to the press if we can help it. Where is Sam now? I’ll need to speak to him, get every detail of the encounter.’
‘He’s filming in Capri. It will be difficult to pull him out.’
Helen tapped her gold pencil on the pad and smiled.
‘So we’ll go to him.’
She put down the receiver and looked at the stack of Balon case files on her desk, wondering how many she could fit into her hand luggage, then shook her head. She really couldn’t justify popping off to a glamorous Italian island on expenses, even if the Ravello jaunt was off. Balon was her priority, worth millions in fees and, if they won, priceless in publicity. Sam Charles would pay handsomely too – and Helen rather fancied chatting about his indiscretions over a Bellini or two – but it was below-the-radar stuff and thus of less value to the firm. Reluctantly she picked up her phone and dialled Anna Kennedy’s extension.
Within a minute the young associate was at her door, notebook in hand.
‘Sit down,’ said Helen.
‘Is there a development in the Balon case?’ asked Anna.
Helen shook her head.
‘Sam Charles has been playing away,’ she said, watching Anna’s reaction. The girl simply raised her eyebrows. She was no star-struck groupie and had probably dealt with similarly successful clients at Davidson’s. ‘The young lady in question has threatened to go to the papers, and naturally Mr Charles wants to stop the media getting hold of the story.’
She paused for a moment.
‘This is partner’s work, Anna. The big time. I wanted to do this job myself, but with the Balon trial happening, it’s just not possible.’
Anna nodded.
‘I’m happy to take it,’ she said, her expression neutral.
‘This isn’t some jolly to the Med, Anna.’
‘I understand.’
‘Then I’m sure you also understand that I need the Balon work on my desk before you go.’
‘Of course,’ said Anna, standing up and walking to the door.
‘Oh, and Anna?’ said Helen as she was leaving. ‘Don’t even think about making a single mistake.’
Matthew’s heart sank the moment he saw Larry’s new wife Loralee.
Wearing denim hot pants and jewelled flip-flops, the tall blonde ran up to the hospital ward’s reception desk and immediately began shouting.
‘Where is my husband? Take me to him at once.’
Call security, thought Matthew, taking a sip of the coffee he had just got from the drinks machine.
Although it had been over twenty-four hours since his father’s heart attack, it was the first time that Loralee had visited the hospital. She had had to fly back from Mexico, where she had been on boot camp apparently trying to shift the excess weight she had gained on their month-long honeymoon.
Although the past day had been emotionally fraught, Matthew was glad that he had dealt with it alone. He had only met Loralee on two previous occasions, but he had quickly assessed that the fourth Mrs Larry Donovan was cut from the exact same cloth as the previous two. Selfish, grasping, young and above all, ambitious. She had been openly furious when Larry had announced his plans for passing the business to Matthew. ‘Underhand, scheming little shit,’ were the words she had used, if he remembered correctly. Obviously Loralee had had other plans for Larry’s money.
Now he braced himself as the receptionist pointed in his direction.
‘Hello, Loralee,’ he said.
‘What the hell’s been going on?’ she said, thumping her Chanel quilt bag on to the seat next to him.
Matthew tried to control himself. He hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours and was tired, hungry and drained. The last thing he needed right now was a confrontation.
‘Was he drinking?’ she snapped. ‘Did you let him drink? Did you upset him?’
‘Lovely to see you too,’ said Matthew.
‘Cut the shit, Matthew,’ she replied, narrowing her blue eyes. ‘You knew he had high blood pressure.’
‘I didn’t, actually,’ said Matthew tartly. ‘We haven’t even exchanged Christmas cards for about a decade, let alone medical histories.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Look, we were having lunch and he keeled over.’
‘Just like that? I don’t think so.’
‘Well, yes, he had been drinking. You know what he’s like.’
‘Yes, I do,’ said Loralee. ‘I know my husband very well and I know he’s promised to cut down on his drinking. He must have been agitated.’
Matthew looked away guiltily.
‘I knew it!’ said Loralee. ‘You had a row, didn’t you?’
He resented Loralee’s implication that he had somehow deliberately brought on his father’s heart attack, even if he had spent the last day accusing himself of the same thing. If only he hadn’t given his dad such a hard time, if only he hadn’t let him drink so much, if only he’d said no to going to lunch; every ‘if only’ possible had crossed his mind from the moment he had got into the ambulance to the time the doctors had finally told him that Larry was going to be all right. He inhaled deeply, the sterile hospital smell filling his throat.
‘There was a heated conversation, yes,’ he admitted. ‘More of a legal debate really. But Loralee, from what the doctors were saying, he’s had some heart problems before. Honestly, I had no idea about the high blood pressure.’
‘And would that have made any difference?’ she sneered. Matthew noticed with detachment just how white and even her teeth were.
‘Of course it would have made a difference. I don’t want anything to happen to him, he’s my father.’
Loralee laughed mirthlessly.
‘Is he? When it suits you, when there’s something in it for you.’
The words stung. ‘You mean the partnership? Don’t be ridiculous. It was Larry who got in touch with me, not the other way around.’
‘You expect me to believe that? Rather convenient, isn’t it; just when your company is about to go belly up, along comes Daddy out of the blue to offer you the partnership.’
‘I don’t know what you’re implying, but . . .’
‘I’m not implying anything,
Matty
,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I’m stating it as fact. You jumped in and took advantage of a sick old man you don’t give a shit about.’
‘Loralee, listen . . .’ he said, pulling himself up to his full six-foot-four-inch height. He had a rower’s build, honed on the River Cam at university, and could look pretty intimidating when he wanted to be.
‘No,
you
listen,’ she hissed, lowering her voice so they couldn’t be overheard. ‘I love your father. I want what’s best for us. You’ve had nothing to do with him for the past twenty-five years and he’s been fine, absolutely fine. Then the second you come back into his life, he ends up almost dead.’
Her words had an unsettling ring of truth. He looked back into the private hospital room where his father lay, pale, weak, the irrepressible life force drained out of him. How could a man who had always been such a towering presence seem so small and meek in his hospital bed? He was glad Larry was sleeping. He would hate the feeling of being like that.
If only I hadn’t accepted the partnership
.
Matt wasn’t a doctor. He had no idea if their argument had directly contributed to the heart attack. But it was inevitable that their working relationship was always going to be tense and destructive. There were clearly too many emotions – guilt, resentment – for it to be anything else. He knew he should have turned the offer down; for years he had wanted to punish his father, and rejecting Larry’s offer would have been a lethal way to do it. But he had taken the partnership for other, selfish reasons, and look where it had got them.