An Immoral Code (36 page)

‘I was sorry to hear about your wife,’ remarked Sarah. ‘Leaving you, I mean.’

‘I’m grateful for your concern,’ replied Leo dryly.

‘You really should have married someone like me, Leo,’ said Sarah, amusement in her voice. They paused by the archway into Caper Court, people brushing by them in the gathering gloom as they hurried up and down the lane. ‘You know, someone who understands you. Where you’re coming from.’

‘And you understand that, do you?’ Leo could not help smiling. ‘You’re one up on me, in that case. But I hardly think,’ he added, ‘that you could bear the monotony of my company. Like you, I’m probably best in small doses.’

‘There you are. We’re the same kind of people, you and I. As for the monotony of one another’s company, I’m afraid that’s
something you’re going to have to put up with as from next September. David Liphook is taking me on as his pupil.’

Leo stared at her. Was she joking? No, she might be smiling, but she certainly wasn’t joking. God, if it wasn’t one damn thing, it was another. Sarah knew too much about him, and was lethally unscrupulous. The prospect of having her in the same chambers was not a happy one. What would Anthony think of it, come to that?

He sighed and turned to go. ‘Oh well, roll on September, eh?’

She raised a hand, still smiling. ‘See you, Leo,’ she said. Then, before she turned away, she added, ‘Do give my love to Anthony. Won’t it be cosy, all of us working together?’ And she disappeared down the lane among the clerks and barristers heading for their trains.

Anthony dumped his bundle of papers on the desk and chucked his robe bag into a corner. ‘So,’ he said to Camilla, ‘what is this momentous thing you want to talk about?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘In fact, why don’t we do it over a glass of wine?’

‘I can’t, I’m afraid,’ said Camilla. ‘I promised my mother I’d go over for dinner this evening. Anyway, this won’t take long.’ She leant against the edge of her desk. ‘The thing is, apparently they’re thinking of offering me a tenancy.’

‘They?’ said Anthony with a grin, relieved that this was all it was about. ‘Don’t you mean “we”? I did know, actually. Aren’t you pleased?’

‘You knew? Why didn’t you tell me?’ demanded Camilla.

Anthony shrugged. ‘Of course I knew. Anyway, it’s not up to me to tell you.’

‘You
are
my pupilmaster. Well, nominally.’

‘I thought you should hear it from Cameron himself. Anyway, what is there to talk about?’

‘Well … I’ve just been thinking … I’m not sure how many
people in chambers know that I’m seeing you, but it struck me that it might be best if—’ She paused, stuck for words.

‘If what?’

‘Oh, you know … I mean, I don’t want anything to upset my chances of getting this tenancy – you can imagine how important it is for me. And I have the feeling that some people in chambers might not think it a good idea – us going out with one another, that is.’

‘What people?’ Anthony wondered, with a horrible foreboding, whether Camilla was trying to say she wanted to stop seeing him.

‘Roderick, for instance, and Jeremy. Perhaps Michael. Even Leo.’

‘Leo? I hardly think so,’ replied Anthony with a faint smile. Then he suddenly remembered how Leo had once sought to make something more of the relationship between himself and Anthony, how he had said then that such a thing would, of course, spell an end to Anthony’s hopes of getting a tenancy at 5 Caper Court. That had been different, naturally, but maybe there was something in what Camilla said. Maybe he hadn’t paid enough attention to the way in which the more senior members of chambers might view his relationship with Camilla. He could see that she wanted to be as circumspect as possible. Was she serious, then? Was this her way of ending things?

‘So – what are you saying?’ he asked slowly.

‘I’m saying,’ replied Camilla, ‘that it might be best, for the sake of appearances, if we gave it a rest for a while. Just until after Easter.’

Anthony felt relief wash over him. He crossed the room and put his arms lightly round her shoulders. ‘For a moment there, I thought you were going to tell me that we were finished.’ He kissed her lightly. ‘Even so … Easter is six weeks away. And that’s a long time.’

‘Think of it as being in a good cause,’ said Camilla. ‘It’s just a question of making it look as though there isn’t anything going on any more. I suppose it helps that Jeremy’s coming back from Indonesia next week, so I’ll be moving out of here.’

‘I never knew you were such a devious character,’ murmured Anthony lightly.

‘It’s not devious,’ said Camilla. ‘Well …’ She smiled. ‘Only slightly.’

‘Hmm. And you’re not concerned what people will think when they discover that things are not as they appeared to be? After you’ve got your tenancy, I mean.’

‘Not in the slightest,’ replied Camilla, but she thought of Leo with faint misgiving. ‘So long as my work’s all right, I don’t think it matters, really – not in the long run. Do you?’

‘No,’ replied Anthony, and kissed her again.

‘Anyway,’ sighed Camilla, ‘as from now, we’re just good friends.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘And I’d better get going. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

She picked up her coat and went out. At the foot of the stairs she bumped into Leo coming in, and was about to pass by with a murmured ‘goodnight’, when he stopped her.

‘By the way,’ said Leo, ‘I was wondering – have you thought any more about what I said? About your tenancy, that is?’

‘If you mean about Anthony – no, I meant what I said at dinner. I want the tenancy. I’ve just been explaining things to Anthony, in fact.’ Put that way, Camilla told herself, it was all perfectly true.

‘Ah,’ said Leo. ‘I see.’

There was a brief pause, and then Camilla said, ‘Goodnight,’ and went out. Leo stood for a moment in thought. She had seemed remarkably composed, for someone who had just brought a love affair to an abrupt end. Perhaps it hadn’t meant that much to her after all. He went upstairs,
hesitated outside Anthony’s door, then knocked and went in.

‘Hi,’ said Anthony, glancing up. He was standing, half-leaning against his desk, looking through some papers. His voice sounded vaguely tired, non-committal, but he smiled at Leo. Whatever his feelings concerning himself and Camilla, clearly he was not going to reveal them to Leo. Well, they need never mention the matter. He had achieved his purpose, at any rate, Leo told himself. Camilla was no longer a threat, an intrusion.

‘I wondered if you felt like celebrating, now that the hearing’s over,’ said Leo cheerfully. ‘Perhaps a bottle or two in El Vino’s?’

‘Good idea,’ said Anthony. He picked up his coat and switched off the light, following Leo downstairs. They paused on the steps outside 5 Caper Court while Leo locked up. As they strolled through the cloisters together, Leo suddenly remembered Sarah. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I have something interesting and rather horrible to tell you.’

The lift gate clanged shut behind Freddie. He walked slowly up the dim, anonymous corridor to his front door and put his key in the lock. It seemed very quiet inside the flat after the conviviality of the pub in which he and Cochrane and Basher Snodgrass had spent the past two hours. He chucked his copy of the
Evening Standard
onto the table and wandered into the kitchen to survey the contents of his food cupboard. The choice was an unappetising one of ravioli or corned beef with Smash. But the beer which he had consumed in the pub had left him with little appetite, so he decided to make do with a cup of tea. He scraped a match and lit the gas and, while he waited for the kettle to boil, went back through to the living room and switched on the television, aware of the need of something to break the oppressive silence. Oddly enough, despite the success of their day in court, he no longer felt the euphoria of a few hours ago. He had expected that sense of elation to persist. The case was
more or less won, after all. In a month or so Sir Basil would give judgment. If they were successful, there would be a few more months of protracted wrangling between the solicitors on both sides and then, presumably, the E&O underwriters would cough up. He would no longer have to live this eked-out, lonely existence. He would have a bit of money to make the remaining few years less grim. Wasn’t that cause for celebration?

Freddie lit the gas fire and sat down slowly in his armchair, still in his overcoat. It would be the end of the fight. And what remained after that? He would have no more reason to socialise with the likes of Basher and James Cochrane. There would be no more little meetings with Murray Cameron and Fred Fenton, no more urgent dialogues between counsel and the Names committee. For there would be no more Names committee. No need for it. The game would be played out. A pity. He liked being on the committee. Without the committee, without Lloyd’s, he was no one, really. He glanced up at the television, the mention of some familiar name attracting his attention, and for a few seconds he saw Charles Beecham’s features lighting up the screen in a trailer for his forthcoming documentary. Charles, thought Freddie. He had a future. He had other fish to fry, a life to get on with. Then the kettle began shrilling in the kitchen, and Freddie got up and went to switch it off.

A few hours later, at about half past one in the morning, Oliver began to cry. His thin wail, growing more and more insistent, lanced into Charles’s sleep, stirring the sediment of his dreams, probing him awake. As he stirred groggily, he was aware of Rachel slipping out of bed and going to soothe the child, and he lay back on the pillow, closing his eyes and willing sleep to rush in and enfold him again. But, as always, his heart was beating fast from the sudden disturbance of his rest, and sleep was gone. Cursing beneath his breath, he got up, fumbling his dressing
gown from the back of the chair. As he crossed the landing he could see a dim light coming from Oliver’s room, where Rachel’s soothing voice mingled with the baby’s whimpers.

He went down to the kitchen, which was still warm, its subdued light enveloping the space round the broad table with a cocoon-like peace. Charles pulled his dressing gown around him and picked up his half-read copy of the
Literary Review
from the dresser. Now that he was awake he might as well sit up for an hour or so until he felt tired again. Rachel, he knew, would drift off back to bed when she had the baby settled.

Instead of reading, however, he sat staring unseeingly into the corner of the kitchen, brooding. He wished he could get Leo out of his mind, wished that the day’s events had not so unsettled him. What had happened to his life? How had it changed so radically? A sudden renewed squall of crying came from upstairs, and at the sound of it Charles let out a groan. He loved Rachel, he told himself. She was here, at his invitation, already making plans for decorating and furnishing the unused rooms in the house. It was what he wanted. Of course it was wonderful to have someone in his life again, to have – to have the sound of Oliver in the night. And Rachel. Of course he meant it when he said he loved her. Her sweet, compliant body, that lovely, hesitant smile of hers which made his heart turn over. He sighed as he thought of that smile. It was the smile she had smiled earlier this evening, when he had idly suggested opening a second bottle of wine, and she had said, ‘Don’t you think you should try not to drink so much? I’m sure you don’t really need it.’

Charles glanced at the bottle, still standing unopened by the cooker. He reached out gratefully for it, set it before him, and then turned to fumble in the drawer where he thought the corkscrew was.

Leo Davies, highly successful QC of 5 Caper Court, has often indulged in a hedonistic private life at odds with his working persona. Now, Leo has come to see himself as ‘a man of simplicity’, but soon his head is turned by a figure from his past – someone who loves the high life and game-playing just as much as he ever did.

And what of Anthony Cross, younger member of chambers, former lover, and the man Leo has never quite been able to rid from his mind? When Anthony falls in love with a beguiling young law student, it sets off a chain of events in which Leo is more closely involved than he ever could have imagined …

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