Judicial Whispers (35 page)

Christ, I’m a bastard, he thought, as he weighed the various considerations. He had heard of men who simply cut and ran when this kind of thing happened. He supposed he would be doing that, in a sense. Not physically, but he would use the opportunity to detach himself emotionally from Rachel. In the end, there would only be a distant, practical relationship.

He picked up his drink and swallowed what was left. ‘Well, it seems I’m going to have to reserve my position for the moment,’ he said grimly. He glanced up at her, wondering what was going through her mind, and said, ‘Shall we go? I need some food.’ His voice sounded rough and impatient and she suddenly realised that she might be about to lose him for ever. It was as though a small, cold weight had settled on her heart.

Getting into the house hadn’t been difficult. Just a matter of busting one of the panes of glass in the window above the sink and groping for the catch. Swinging the window open, James pulled himself up onto the sill and vaulted clumsily over the sink. He crossed the dark kitchen into the hall, then hesitated. Although he knew the house well, he had no idea where Leo might keep any money. When he had lived there last summer, pilfering from Leo had not been part of the game. Leo was too sharp for that. Anyway, he had liked Leo then – it had sometimes felt like more than that. And he had been happy lazing his days away in the house, eating his food, drinking his booze, sharing his bed. Now he couldn’t care less about stealing from him, or from anyone, come to that. He’d managed to beg a bit of stuff from friends in Oxford last night, but he needed real money now. Something to keep him going for a couple of weeks.

He bit nervously at the stubs of his fingernails as he considered the options. Then he made his way into the living room, reaching with a familiar hand for the switch of one of the lamps. It was taking a chance, but he couldn’t see a bloody thing otherwise.
He saw Leo’s briefcase lying beside the desk and went over to it. He opened it and rummaged through the contents feverishly. Nothing. Just papers, bloody papers. He thrust the opened briefcase aside, the papers spilling onto the polished floor. He looked round the room at the ornaments and pictures. He had no idea if anything was valuable. Then he saw a small silver box on the mantelpiece. That would do for a kick-off. He pocketed it, and decided to make a swift tour upstairs.

He switched off the lamp and made his way up to Leo’s bedroom. That brought back a few memories. Then he realised that he was beginning to sweat uncomfortably, a horrible, flaky feeling coming over his body. This had to be done fast. He went through the pockets of Leo’s overcoat, hanging in the wardrobe, then yanked open the drawers of his dressing table, scattering the contents on the floor as he searched. A wallet. He opened it, hands shaking, and pulled out a wad of notes. Brilliant. With a little snickering laugh, James thrust the notes into the back pocket of his jeans and switched off the light. If he hadn’t found any money, he’d been ready to trash the place. But he had what he needed. Just as well Leo was down that weekend. Just as well for both of them.

Because Leo’s bedroom was at the back of the house neither Leo nor Rachel saw the light go off, and James did not hear the car come to a soft, crunching halt on the gravel outside. He was already downstairs, his hand on the front doorknob, ready to open it and leave, when he heard a footstep and the sound of Leo’s voice on the other side of the door. As he opened the front door and switched on the hall light, Leo caught sight of James’s figure disappearing into the kitchen. He dropped the bag of groceries he was holding and hurled himself across the hallway after him.

James was already pulling himself up onto the sink when Leo came into the kitchen, without any time to turn on the light. He hauled at James’s ankle and James swore at him, kicking
backwards with his free foot, which Leo tried to grab as well. He groped upwards for the windowsill, but Leo was dragging him backwards. As his stomach slid downwards over the edge of the sink, James’s hands hit the draining board. He felt something beneath his right palm and his hand closed on it instinctively. Leo had pulled him heavily down onto the floor and was bending over him when James lifted the knife to stab at him, raking the blade across the palm of Leo’s hand.

It was a sensation, rather than a pain at first. Leo clasped his left wrist with his right hand and felt the wetness, and realised what had happened. He took a step backwards, just as James began to pull himself to his feet, getting ready to lunge at Leo again as soon as he was upright. He didn’t care if he killed the bastard. He was getting out of here, that was for sure.

At that moment Rachel, who had heard the voices and the scuffling, hurried across the hallway and switched on the kitchen light. She screamed over and over again, standing slightly bent over, simply staring at them, at the blood running from Leo’s hand, and screaming. James was leaning back against the sink, breathing heavily, the knife at the ready, a smear of blood running neatly along its edge. Leo still held his cut hand; the pain was beginning to seep into his consciousness, but he was concentrating entirely on the identity of his attacker and the knife he wielded.

This was James, someone he knew, and that gave him an advantage, an immediate handle. But before he could open his mouth to commence the flow of well-reasoned dissuasion, James went for him again. Rachel screamed even louder. Why didn’t the silly bitch go and phone the police? The question flashed through Leo’s head as he tried to grab James’s wrist with both hands. The pain in the gash on his own hand was mind-numbing as he tried to tighten his grip. He felt feeble against the younger man’s strength and fury. He did the only thing he could think of,
and brought his right knee up as hard as he could into James’s groin. He almost felt for James as he watched him double up, clutching at himself, the knife falling with a clatter to the floor. Leo lunged for the knife with his good hand and picked it up.

‘Call the bloody police, can’t you?’ he called over his shoulder to Rachel, who still stood, stricken, in the doorway. She fled into the living room. Leo stood over James, uncertain as to what he would do if, when he recovered, James got up and went for him again.

But it was not in James’s character to continue the fight. He lay curled up on the kitchen floor, the waves of nausea gradually receding, listening to Leo’s voice talking to him. By sheer force of personality, Leo reduced James to tears, and by the time Rachel came back into the kitchen he was hunched up against the sink, wiping at his dirt-streaked face with shaking hands.

He was still there when the police car arrived. Rachel was standing in the kitchen doorway apprehensively, her face white, watching James. But Leo stood casually next to him, holding his hand under running water from the cold tap.

As he was lifted from the floor into a standing position, James was looking grey and trembling.

‘Do you know if anything’s been taken, sir?’ asked the policewoman, a businesslike-looking blonde.

Leo glanced over his shoulder, then turned off the tap. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, pulling open a drawer and taking out a clean tea towel, which he wrapped round his wounded hand. ‘I haven’t exactly had a chance to look.’ The policewoman went quickly through James’s pockets and produced the silver box and the rolls of notes, and handed them to her male colleague.

Leo sat down heavily on a chair, suddenly feeling rather weak. ‘I presume the money is mine,’ he said. ‘The box certainly is. Rachel, would you mind checking if there’s anything missing from my wallet in the dressing table upstairs? Top left-hand drawer.’

While Rachel was gone, Leo sat watching the policeman and woman. He really felt he’d seen enough of the police recently to last him for the rest of the year. He glanced at James, who seemed to be in something of a bad way, astonished at the change in the boy in just a few months. He’d been a good-looking youth, clean and rather effete. Now he had the look of the streets. Not the faintest notion that he might in some way have contributed to James’s altered fortunes flickered across Leo’s mind. He believed everyone was responsible for their own destiny. It did not occur to him that he had used or harmed the boy. He did not feel remotely sorry for him.

‘Looks like you’ve got a bit of a problem, son,’ remarked the policeman, observing James’s eyes and the trembling of his limbs.

James said nothing, but kept his eyes fastened on the wall, his lank blonde hair hiding him from Leo’s gaze.

Rachel returned with the empty wallet.

‘You take the money from this, son?’ asked the policeman, holding it up. James said nothing for a moment, then nodded. The money was handed back to Leo. ‘Come on,’ said the policeman to James, as he and his colleague wheeled him out of the kitchen and towards their waiting car. ‘We’ll be in touch, sir,’ he added to Leo.

As they reached the car, James suddenly wrenched himself round in their grasp and shouted in pent-up, frustrated misery, ‘That bastard owed me something, didn’t he? I used to live here! I used to live with him! And he just kicked me out, without anywhere to go! He owes me something! You ask him! He paid me to sleep with him! And he owes me!’

Leo stood in the doorway. He had sudden visions of local papers, of this story making its way elsewhere, and he said without hesitation, ‘I have never seen this man in my life.’

Still swearing and struggling, James was bundled into the back of the car.

Leo came back inside and closed the door. Rachel was sitting in the kitchen. Maybe I was right, thought Leo, coming into the kitchen and standing over her. Maybe she attracts disaster. It follows her around. She reached up and touched the cloth bound round his hand, blood seeping through it.

‘Let’s have a look,’ she said. He unwound the cloth and disclosed the gash. She winced. ‘That needs stitches,’ she said. ‘Come on. Tell me where the nearest casualty is and I’ll drive you there.’ She seemed to have recovered her self-possession, taking some strength from the fact of Leo’s injury.

They talked little during the wait at the hospital, or on the way back. It was nearly ten o’clock when they got home, but Rachel insisted on cooking two steaks and opening the bottle of wine. ‘We both need it,’ she said.

As they sat in the kitchen over their late supper, Rachel looked up at Leo and asked, ‘Why did you lie to them – to the police? That was the boy who was living here last summer, wasn’t it?’

Leo considered this question with weary disbelief. ‘Did you expect me to confirm that to them?’

‘You could have said nothing at all.’

Leo put down his wine glass. ‘Rachel, I have applied to take silk this year. Things aren’t looking good for me, apparently. The last thing I need is a story getting about that I had a happy little ménage à trois here last summer and that one of its members is now a junkie who tried to burgle my house and pulled a knife on me.’ She met his uncompromising gaze. ‘I’m prepared to tell any lie necessary to prevent that getting out.’

She said nothing. She was beginning to realise how many sides there were to Leo, how much of him she did not know.

She washed up as Leo went upstairs to get ready for bed. The square of brown paper which she had taped over the window puckered and puffed with the cold night air. When she went upstairs she found Leo sitting on the edge of the bed, his shirt
off, staring at the neat, firm bandage encircling his hand. He looked oddly boyish, vulnerable.

‘You should take some of the painkillers they gave you,’ she said, wanting to sit on the bed next to him, stroke his bare skin, hold him. But something held her back.

‘I have,’ he replied, then glanced up. ‘Are you coming to bed?’ he asked. He suddenly badly wanted some animal warmth, the comfort of someone next to him. The shock of the knife attack was only now beginning to hit him.

Rachel hesitated. ‘Not in that bed, Leo,’ she said, her voice soft and apologetic. She regretted the words as soon as they were spoken.

Leo smiled and nodded. Of course not. She and the baby wanted to be on their self-righteous own. God, he was tired of it all.

‘And I’ve decided,’ she went on, ‘that I’ll go and stay with friends in London next week. Until the flat’s in some sort of shape. I should get back to work. I don’t need time off – it just gives me too much space to think. And please – I can see to getting the flat straight again. I can afford to. I’ll get the insurance money eventually.’

‘Yes, I understand,’ replied Leo. ‘Not pleasant, staying here on one’s own, after this evening. We’ve both had quite a week, haven’t we?’

She left him and went into her bedroom, closing the door. In bed, she wept for only a short while, then lay awake in the darkness, remembering the evening when she had first gone to his bed and he had made love to her. The recollection was like a physical pain. Leo, too, lay awake, but the only pain he felt was the insistent throbbing of his hand, and the nagging worry of what James would say, what the repercussions might be.

Rachel arranged to go and stay with friends the following day. There was a certain awkwardness between herself and Leo, a sense of unfinished business still in the air.

‘I’ll call you at the end of the week,’ Leo said, as he put her things into the boot of her car. ‘We have to sort something out.’

‘There’s nothing to sort out, Leo,’ Rachel replied. ‘I’m having the baby.’

‘I didn’t mean that. I mean between you and me. We need to get a few things clear …’ Now was not the time. ‘Anyway, I’ll call you.’

He kissed her, and for a moment she clung to him, wishing suddenly that this baby did not exist, that everything could go on as before.

Leo spent the rest of the week in court before Sir Frank Chamberlin, in a dreary dispute concerning a joint venture agreement for the operation of a North Sea ferry service. His hand still hurt abominably, and having Frank’s lugubrious features before him all day and every day only served to remind him of the oppressive fears regarding his application for silk.
The hearing drew to its close on Thursday afternoon, to the relief of all, and as Leo was gathering his papers together and chatting to his instructing solicitor, the usher approached him and handed him a note. ‘From Sir Frank, Mr Davies,’ he murmured.

Leo opened the note, read it quickly, then crumpled it up. He wasn’t sure if he wanted a drink with Frank, but he could hardly decline.

Sir Frank was in his private rooms in the annexe to his old chambers, getting rid of the day’s mail, when Leo arrived.

‘Ah, Leo! Excellent!’ said Frank, and motioned to Leo to take a seat. ‘I thought it might be pleasant to have a bit of a drink and a chat after the last four days. What will you have? The usual whisky?’

‘Thanks,’ murmured Leo, and settled into a chair, glancing round with pleasure at the interesting clutter of Frank’s room. He sipped gratefully at the whisky which Frank handed him. Over the past few days he had felt dreadfully tired, as though old age had suddenly overtaken him. He went to bed early every night.

‘What happened to your hand?’ asked Sir Frank conversationally, glancing at Leo’s bandaged hand.

‘Oh, just an accident with a knife at the weekend,’ replied Leo. ‘Rather nasty, actually.’

‘Mmm. That’s bad luck.’ Frank settled back into his chair with his drink. There was a companionable silence for a few moments. Then Frank said, ‘I gather there is a rumour that Sir Basil may be joining us on the Bench later this year?’

‘I think he’s been invited, but I don’t know whether or not he’ll accept. He’s very jealous of his position as head of chambers,’ replied Leo. He paused. ‘It’s rather odd, trying to imagine chambers without Basil. He’s been the head there ever since I started.’

‘Well, I suppose his departure would leave room for a little more weight in chambers, mmm? Improves your prospects.’

Leo sighed. He didn’t want to talk about this. He would have preferred general gossip and a few stiff Scotches. ‘I don’t know if anything is capable of improving those,’ he replied.

‘Well, you know, I’ve been canvassing opinion recently,’ said Sir Frank with a comfortable air, ‘and I’m bound to tell you that, as far as one can tell, not everyone regards this – ah – business of the boy as being in the least bit important.’

‘What boy?’ asked Leo abruptly. Surely no one had heard of the weekend’s events yet, had they?

Frank looked alarmed. ‘Oh, you know. Of course you know. About that friend of yours who died some years ago. It has been widely discussed, you know.’

Leo put his glass down on Frank’s desk. He shouldn’t have come for this drink. It seemed that every time he saw Frank, he told him something which he would rather not have known.

Sir Frank went blithely on. ‘Of course, there are, well, a few who will take the hard line on that kind of thing, but you’d be surprised how many take a liberal view.’

Leo shook his head. ‘I had no idea that that – incident was known to anyone. What are they saying?’

‘Well …’ Frank looked less comfortable now. ‘That you – um, had a, had a friendship with this young person – I mean, there are those who have it that he was, in some senses, a – I believe the expression is “rent boy”.’ A pause. ‘And that – that, well, a few months after the – the association ended, he was found murdered in his flat – or, perhaps, more accurately, his bedsitting room.’ Another pause. ‘Not, of course, that there has been the slightest suggestion that your – ah, that your friendship with this young – young person and his subsequent death were in any way related. No, no. No, no. It’s just that some see – well, some see the connection as being – shall we say, somewhat
unfortunate? More whisky?’ He fetched the bottle and poured anxiously.

Leo drank deeply, feeling the tingling warmth spreading from his stomach through his limbs. The gash in his hand began to throb slightly. He said nothing. It didn’t matter what Frank said about some taking a liberal view; if this was known in the Lord Chancellor’s Office, if Lord Steele had come to hear of it, then the balance was now tipped right out of his favour. The only thing that could be said on his behalf was that it had happened years ago. Nearly ten years. If Rachel, if his conduct over the past few months had had any effect, then perhaps the present could overshadow, if not entirely eradicate, the past. He stared at his drink.

‘I have got the – the gist of the thing properly, haven’t I?’ asked Sir Frank, watching Leo’s face. Dear me, he always seemed to be responsible for upsetting Leo these days. But surely he must have heard, must have realised … ? Then again, one was often the last to know.

‘Yes,’ murmured Leo, raising his glass again. ‘Yes, that’s about right. He wasn’t a rent boy, though. Not then.’ He took a drink. ‘Not,’ he added, ‘that it makes any difference. It’s what people believe that matters, isn’t it?’ He smiled slightly.

‘Yes, yes, I suppose so,’ said Frank sadly, thoughtfully. ‘But, you know,’ he added, ‘I think it will make less difference than you imagine. I mean, there is the present to consider. That is what matters.’ Thank you, thought Leo. ‘It is well known that you have – well, I believe the expression is a – ah – steady girlfriend. That kind of thing matters. They take account of that. And you are so well liked. Very well thought of by everyone on the Commercial Bench. I can assure you of that. No, no, despite this most recent rumour – dear me, there do seem to have been so many – very unfortunate, really – I think that, in spite of it, things look less black than they did. I really do think so, you know.’

He sounded so genuinely sympathetic and encouraging that Leo actually felt quite cheered. Frank made it all sound better than he had imagined. Rachel had helped. Image was everything. People’s immediate perceptions of one were what counted, not dried-up pieces of scandal from the past. And Rachel had helped, though at a cost that he could never have foreseen.

A few whiskies later, Leo made his rather light-headed way home. He decided to walk all the way, filling his lungs with night air, more sanguine about his own future than he had felt for some time.

He was rooting around in the freezer for something to eat when the phone rang.

‘Hello?’ Leo’s jaw stiffened in a yawn as he answered.

‘Mr Davies?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mr Davies, my name’s Alan French, from
The Sun
. Just wondering if you can fill us in on a story we picked up from the
Oxford Gazette.
About this chap who broke into your house last weekend – understand there was something of a bust-up. He says he was staying with you as a summer guest last year, that you had a bit of an interesting household. You and him and a young lady. Would that be right?’

Leo’s first instinct was to tell the man where to go and put the phone down, but he hesitated. That would mean they might print the story just as it was. Trying to make his voice as cool as possible, he replied, ‘Absolutely ludicrous. I don’t even know the person who broke into my house.’ But even as he said it, it sounded feeble. He should just hang up.

‘But the young lady. There was a young lady?’

‘I employed a young woman to look after the house and cook for house parties when I came down at weekends.’

‘So you completely deny everything this boy says – including that you slept with him and your – cook?’

‘Completely. Now piss off.’

He slammed the phone down and stood, tense and angry. He could see it now. ‘Barrister’s saucy summer romps. Love triangle that turned sour.’ A nice spicy little piece to liven up the February gloom. He rubbed his hands across his face, suddenly feeling very sober and not at all hungry. He must speak to Sarah before anyone else did. Christ, what if they were on to her right now? She could say anything – she had little enough reason to love Leo, after their last meeting. And she had always said, in that flip way of hers, a little toss of the blonde head, that she didn’t care what people said or thought about her; she did as she pleased. All very well to say, thought Leo, but she wouldn’t come out of this very well if she did tell the papers how things had been last summer. For all that bravado, he suspected she would rather keep it quiet. Still, he couldn’t take the chance. He had to get hold of her.

As soon as he reached chambers the next day, he asked Henry to get him the Recorder of the City of London’s office. But Sir Vivian Colman was not at his office, and was not expected until the end of the day. Leo rang Lady Margaret Hall and tried to get her address from the college, but they would not give out details of undergraduates’ addresses.

It was late in the afternoon when he managed, at last, to speak to Sarah’s father.

‘Sir Vivian, good afternoon. My name is Leo Davies, from 5 Caper Court, in the Temple.’

‘Oh, yes?’ The mention of 5 Caper Court lent Leo’s enquiry an air of respectability, at any rate. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Davies?’ Sir Vivian’s voice was as fruity and fat as he himself had appeared at Sir Basil’s party.

‘I met your daughter, Sarah, Sir Vivian, at Sir Basil Bunting’s party just before Christmas. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that you and I were introduced. But I told Sarah that I would
send her some materials on – ah – that is, to help her with her international trade studies.’

‘I see.’

‘And I find that I have mislaid her address and telephone number. Naturally, her college doesn’t hand out that kind of information, and so I hoped that you might be kind enough to help me.’

‘Yes, well, I imagine I can, Mr Davies. Just one moment,’ replied Sir Vivian plummily. Leo breathed a sigh of relief.

Thirty seconds later he put down the phone, in possession of the information he needed. Leo lit one of his small cigars and dialled Sarah’s number. To his relief, she was in.

‘Hello, Sarah. This is Leo.’

In her terraced house in Oxford, Sarah smiled and picked up the telephone from the hall table, trailing it through to the sitting room. She settled herself happily in an armchair.

‘Leo. How old ghosts are haunting me these days. James called to see me last week.’

This threw Leo for a second. Then he said, ‘Oddly enough, he is rather the reason I’m calling.’

‘Oh?’ Her voice, ever knowing, made him wonder whether she already knew all about the business of last weekend.

‘Sarah, have any journalists been calling you?’

‘Not that I know of, darling. Why? Have you been doing something indiscreet?’ She curled her legs up beneath her and wound the cord of the phone round one finger.

He found it difficult to answer for a second. This had to be handled with care. He could hear from her voice that she was smiling, but Sarah’s smile could mean many things, and he did not wish to mishandle this. She could be a sour, spitting little cat.

‘I might as well tell you exactly what has happened,’ said Leo levelly. ‘James broke into the house last Saturday.’

‘Goodness.’

‘And he and I had a fight. He managed to stab me in the hand.’

‘Poor Leo.’ Sarah was not smiling now, but listening with interest.

‘When the police came and took him away, he started mouthing off about our little domestic arrangement of last summer—’

‘Did he indeed?’ murmured Sarah, her eyes narrowing.

‘—and yesterday I had some chap from
The Sun
ringing up and asking me about it. They picked it up from the local paper.’

‘And what did you say?’ Sarah tried to keep the anxiety from her voice, but she was touched with fear. Whatever she might airily have said to Leo, she did not wish her family, or her tutor – or anyone else, for that matter – to learn about her working life last summer.

But Leo was too practised at listening to responses, at detecting certain notes in the voices of witnesses under pressure. He heard the ever-so-slight overhastiness of her question, the giveaway.

‘I said I had never seen James in my life’ – Leo reached for his cigar and stared at its glowing tip – ‘that you had worked as my housekeeper and as a cook when I had weekend parties. And that the whole thing was an utter fabrication.’

‘Why did you bring me into it?’ she snapped, only partly relieved.

‘I didn’t, my dear. James had already done that. I didn’t mention your name, but no doubt James has done that, too. Now, the point is, I think that once Mr French from
The Sun
gets hold of your name, he’s going to track you down and ask you about your side of it.’

Sarah smiled and stood up, wandering over to the window with the phone, gazing out at the gathering dusk in the street. She could not resist a little malicious teasing. Why should she give Leo the reassurance he wanted?

‘Well, now,’ she said in a slow, deliberate manner, ‘I wonder what I shall say to him? Mmm? I think you’ll just have to start buying
The Sun
each day, Leo.’ And she put the phone down.

Leo sat staring at the receiver for a few seconds, until the dialling tone began to purr. Then he replaced it. That bitch. He felt cold inside. She could say anything. And he would be finished. He would just have to hope she was sensible about it – after all, she had something to lose, too.

The odds were stacked heavily against him now, he realised with a sinking heart, first with the story of that boy from years ago doing the rounds, now with this business … Even if Sarah backed him up, there would be talk. But he had no more cards to play. He had done everything in his power, and he had this unholy mess with Rachel into the bargain. All because Frank Chamberlin had come up with the ludicrous suggestion that he should get married.