Judicial Whispers (5 page)

‘Oh, Fliss, baby …’ Vince slid his hand quickly inside her bra and tried to kiss her.

‘I meant it.’ Felicity’s voice was muffled. She tried, not very hard, to remove his hand.

‘Why, Fliss? Come on, you’ve done everything else I’ve suggested, and liked it.’

‘That was sex,’ replied Felicity. She took his hand out and stood up. ‘And anyway, I’ve made some resolutions. I’m going to get this place really cleaned up’ – she stared around through the haze of smoke at the dirty carpet, the tatty curtains, the sagging sofa, the empty glasses and cans, the pile of videos and dog-eared paperbacks stacked on a wooden shelf balanced on bricks – ‘and I’m going to get my life together. No more drugs, not so much drinking – and you can go home tonight.’

Vince, lying back against the split cushions with their stained batik covers, legacies of some hippy era, rocked one knee from side to side and laughed.

‘I think you must come out with this stuff once a week just to make yourself feel better.’ He took a deep drag of what remained of the joint smouldering in the ashtray. ‘Fliss, you’re always making resolutions. None of them come to anything. Why don’t you just sit back down here and try some of this?’

‘I told you, Vince,’ she replied, as he reached up and tugged her hand, ‘I’m tired of doing all this stuff. My head can’t stand it. Neither can my job. I’ve got to get some sleep so’s I’m up in time in the morning.’

‘A little tab of this and you wouldn’t even need to go to sleep. You’ll be flying for a fortnight.’ She allowed herself to be pulled back down next to him. ‘Go on.’ He gave her his best, beautiful smile, the one that made him look like Tom Cruise with long hair, and handed her the silver foil.

‘I’ve never done acid before,’ she said doubtfully.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he said, and leant back, closing his eyes. ‘Makes you want to make love all night.’

‘Honest?’ She gave him a sideways look and giggled.

‘And then you won’t be afraid to do all those interesting things I’ve been wanting us to do.’

‘That’s all you think about, isn’t it? Sex.’ She stared at the silver foil. ‘And drugs.’

‘And rock and roll,’ added Vince. And they both laughed. Just this once, thought Felicity. It’ll be all right with Vince.

The next day, the first of October, was bright and mild. Mr Slee, head clerk at 5 Caper Court, came back well satisfied after lunch. He had spent a profitable morning persuading the clerk of the Commercial Court to shuffle the lists in his favour, and had followed it with two pints in the Suffolk Arms with fellow senior clerks. He felt serene and benevolent. He smiled upon the typists, he whistled as he opened the lunchtime mail, and he delivered only the mildest of reproofs to Henry, the junior clerk, for negligently arranging a conference with solicitors for Mr Hayter on a day when he was already due in court.

As he made his way to Leo’s room with some papers which had just come in, Mr Slee felt like a king in his kingdom. He often felt this way. To hold the reins of power in such an illustrious set of chambers was a thing of great pride to him. Without him, the barristers would be lost. He it was who organised their cases, arranged their conferences, negotiated their fees. He liked, too, to feel that he acted as the spirit of tolerance and harmony within chambers. Not that he ever displayed his pride. Discretion and humility were all. Mr Slee was well schooled in this; his father had been a barrister’s clerk, and his father before him.

But as soon as he entered Leo’s room, Mr Slee could tell that Leo did not share his equable frame of mind that day. He sat
behind his desk, some papers spread out before him, leaning back and chewing on a paperclip. Mr Slee didn’t know how Leo could do that, he really didn’t; it set his teeth on edge just to watch him.

Leo leant forward and frowned as Mr Slee put the papers on his desk, murmuring some pleasantry about the weather.

‘William, what’s happened to the money on that letter of credit case? I should have had it weeks ago.’ It suited Leo to be peevish with William. He seemed to be in a perpetually bad mood these days and found it useful to take it out on his clerk. He’d spent all last weekend brooding over his application for silk, and that business of Sarah and James had been preying on his mind. Thank God he’d got rid of them – but how had he been such a fool as to let it start? He had only meant to pick up James in that club that night. Sarah had been James’s idea. ‘If you like it both ways, you’ll like Sarah,’ he had said. And Leo had. He had found the entire situation such a novelty that he allowed them to stay. They’d been useful, too – cleaning and cooking for him, looking after the house and the garden, as well as sharing his bed, driving back the loneliness. But nothing could drive that back for long. All this morning he had been chewing paperclips and wondering how he could have let his desires get the better of him, to the point of what now seemed like nauseating folly. Even though it was unlikely that anyone of any importance should learn details of his personal life, it was vital, now that he was applying to take silk, that his conduct should be utterly blameless. Vexation and guilt fuelled his irritation with his clerk.

‘Well,’ said Mr Slee in answer to Leo’s question, ‘I gather the solicitors are having a bit of trouble with their clients. You know how it is.’

‘Bloody Church and Moylan are always having trouble with their clients,’ retorted Leo sharply. ‘Can’t you chivvy them a bit?’

Mr Slee folded his arms above his broad stomach. ‘Naturally
I’m doing my best, sir, but we don’t want to go upsetting them too much. Might start taking their work elsewhere, otherwise.’

‘We shouldn’t be taking work without money up-front. You know what these bloody Iranians are like. Quite frankly,’ added Leo, ‘I wish they
would
take their work elsewhere.’

He snapped the paperclip in two and leant back. Mr Slee waited. He had known Leo for twenty-two years and was aware that a storm of minor irrelevancies always preceded some more important issue.

‘William,’ said Leo after a pause, ‘how do you think it would be if I applied to take silk?’ Mr Slee looked at him attentively, concealing his surprise. ‘I mean, how do you think the work would stand?’

Mr Slee pursed his lips and tried to look nonchalant. He had not expected this. When Stephen Bishop had confided in him, two weeks ago, his own intention to apply for silk, Mr Slee had regarded it as a sensible and timely move. One that might have been made two or three years earlier, but still, better late than never. There were already four silks at 5 Caper Court – Sir Basil, Roderick Hayter, Cameron Renshaw, and Michael Gibbon, who had taken silk only last year – and that was quite a lot for a chambers of their size, but Mr Slee had thought the thing would work. He was confident that Leo, Jeremy Vane, and the younger tenants, William Cooper, David Liphook and Anthony Cross, would generate enough work to keep five QCs busy. But now Leo was thinking of applying, too. This altered the picture entirely. Mr Slee leant back against the bookshelves and said nothing for a few seconds. Leo raised his eyebrows enquiringly.

‘Well,’ said Mr Slee, shifting his weight, ‘I would hope that there would be enough work to go round. Anthony is bringing in a good deal, and Sir Basil is thinking of taking on another two juniors …’ He ran his thumb along his lower lip. As a matter of confidentiality, he could not tell Leo about Stephen’s application,
but it was regrettable that they should both choose to apply in the same year. He did not like this. He did not like it at all. It was always possible that the Lord Chancellor’s Office might give preference to Stephen, as being the more senior in chambers, but he felt in his heart of hearts that, of the two, Leo was more likely to succeed. Mr Slee had spent years talking to lawyers, clerks and judges, had spent the better part of his life immersed in the grey mysteries of the courts and their workings, from the minutiae of the daily grind to the cogitations of the highest law officers in the land, and he felt this in his bones. Leo would succeed, and Stephen’s nose would be put badly out of joint. Tensions would inevitably arise in chambers. That one member should leapfrog another in the matter of taking silk would not be well regarded. Still, Leo must have his own reasons. Mr Slee eyed him. For all his dapper good looks, for all his careless charm and good humour, he knew Leo to be flint-hearted in his ambition. Not that Mr Slee liked him the less for it. That was just the way Leo was.

‘You don’t sound very certain,’ remarked Leo, swivelling from side to side in his chair, his eyes fastened on the clerk’s face. It was very important, he knew, that William should support him in this.

‘No – I was just thinking,’ replied Mr Slee quickly. ‘Just thinking about figures. No, I’m sure enough work would come your way. Not a doubt of it.’

Leo nodded. ‘Let’s talk about those figures, then.’

When Mr Slee left his room fifteen minutes later, Leo sat back with some satisfaction. At least William seemed to foresee no particular problems with his application. Nor had any mention been made of the fact that he might be seen to be overstepping Stephen. He felt more cheerful as he resumed his work. He would put that sordid episode of the summer behind him and concentrate on the matter in hand. He must succeed in this –
it was a matter touching his vanity, as well as his ambition. The names of the new silks would not be announced until the following Easter. That gave him a good six months in which to live the saintliest of existences, just in case the Lord Chancellor’s Office turned its attentive eye upon him, as no doubt it would.

Mr Slee left Leo’s room in a less happy frame of mind. Leo’s application raised all kinds of new possibilities. A thought suddenly occurred to him. What if both men were successful? It was possible; the Lord Chancellor’s Office moved in mysterious ways. If that were to happen, it would put the squeeze on Sir Basil’s practice, which was not so fertile as it had once been. And that could cause problems for Mr Slee. His heart contracted at the thought. He came to a halt on the second-floor landing and gazed out at the fading leaves on the autumn trees. He and Sir Basil were of a generation. He had been the callowest of junior clerks when Sir Basil had first joined chambers. He stared down at the familiar flagstones of Caper Court; he could remember vividly the very first day he had walked across those very stones and through the door of number 5. If Sir Basil were forced to retire, what would that mean for Mr Slee? Perhaps, with Sir Basil gone, the other members of chambers might feel it was time for him, too, to give way to a younger man. He was finding it difficult, he knew, to keep up with a lot of this new technology, and sometimes he felt the pace of chambers pushing him a bit. And there was Henry, spry as you like, nearly twenty-nine, ready to step into his shoes any day.

Mr Slee leant the tips of his fingers on the wooden windowsill. He did not wish to retire. The Temple was his life, his second home. No, in many ways his real home. He felt that the Inns of Court, and all the lawyers and clerks that worked and lived there, were the very lifeblood of the City. Even the most commonplace, everyday workings of the law courts possessed a drama and significance which existed nowhere else for him. He
loved everything, from the sonorous majesty of the Bench to the scuttling ordinariness of the lowliest clerk. He could not leave it.

Revolving all this in his head, Mr Slee went back to the clerks’ room in a frame of mind very different from that in which he had left it. He was conscious now of the importance of his unspoken power weighing heavily upon him. He knew that there was much he could do to affect matters. He had not lived and breathed the air of the Temple and the law courts for forty years for nothing. His influence was great, his contacts extensive. The risk of both men succeeding in their applications might be slight, but it was one he could eliminate entirely, merely by a few timely conversations with the right people, a little well-placed information in the hands of the wrong ones. He had watched and worked with Leo for many years, and knew much. If he chose to, it was within his power to stop Leo’s application dead in its tracks.

He glanced up as Henry came in and sat down at the computer, watching him as he tapped the keyboard, his eyes on the screen, young and confident. Yes, thought Mr Slee, he was going to have to think carefully about all of this. Very carefully indeed.

In her Majesty’s High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, Court Number 11, Michael Gibbon QC shifted his spindly frame on the hard wooden bench and watched musingly as Anthony made his closing submissions. It was extraordinary, really, how the boy had matured. He had a self-possession now that no one would ever have guessed at two years ago, when he had been Michael’s pupil. Yet his voice still possessed a certain diffidence, and his handsome face that quality of openness, which seemed to give him a peculiarly modest charm – it appeared to work especially well on older people, judging from the benign way in which Mr Justice Howe was nodding as he listened to Anthony.

‘Well, Mr Cross, what do you say about costs?’ asked the judge.

‘We would respectfully ask for costs on the basis that, as my Lord has seen, this was a lengthy and costly matter, and one in which the plaintiff has succeeded.’

‘That is only because, for the purposes of the motion, Miss Llewellyn and I have to accept that your case is right.’ Michael could have sworn Mr Justice Howe almost smiled
at Anthony. Anthony cast a glance at their opponent, a horsy and energetic woman who had, Michael felt, done her best in difficult circumstances. She caught the glance. Not even Miss Llewellyn can resist our junior tenant’s charms, thought Michael with amusement. He had never seen the keen features of that notoriously able lady counsel soften quite so perceptibly.

‘As an alternative to an outright costs order in favour of the plaintiff, might I suggest the plaintiff’s costs in cause – which is a customary order to make?’ replied Anthony. He might have been an eight-year-old boy asking for his ball back.

Miss Llewellyn rose and rested her bony red knuckles on the ledge before her. ‘I would not challenge an order for the plaintiff’s costs in cause, my Lord,’ she barked graciously.

Anthony adjusted his wig as she sat down, and cast a glance at Mr Justice Howe, who nodded.

‘This has been a hotly contested motion, and the usual order in such cases is the plaintiff’s costs in the cause. I so order.’

‘Thank you, my Lord,’ murmured Anthony, and sat down.

The judge wrote for a moment, then looked up. ‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. The court rose.

As Michael and Anthony made their way out of the law courts and across the Strand, Anthony tapped the red velvet bag slung over Michael’s slightly stooped shoulders, in which he carried his silk’s robes.

‘I give myself another fifteen years,’ he said, and smiled with a touch of arrogance.

Michael smiled back. Anthony would never have made such a guileless remark to any other member of chambers; there still existed traces of their master-and-pupil relationship, despite the fact that Michael often felt that Anthony had drifted off into his own little world of success and maturity.

‘I rather think,’ he replied archly, ‘that only the most exceptional juniors take silk at thirty-eight.’

‘Makes you wonder why Leo’s left it till now,’ said Anthony unthinkingly. He stopped at the entrance to Caper Court, his face slightly flushed. ‘Oh, God – forget I said that.’

Michael glanced at him. ‘I already have.’ But that, of course, was just one of those things one said. He pondered Anthony’s slip of the tongue as he mounted the stairs to his room. It was one thing that Leo should be leapfrogging Stephen in applying for silk – that, Michael supposed, was Leo’s business – but he was surprised that Anthony should know of it. He had been aware that Anthony had once been rather a protégé of Leo’s for a month or two when he was still a pupil, but he had not thought that they had remained especially friendly since then. But one knew so little of Leo, and of his personal relationships. Oh, he was a charming, witty man, and Michael was one of the first to seek out his company for a drink in El Vino’s after a hard day, but there was an elusive side to Leo’s nature, as though part of his personality lay somewhere like a hidden pool in a forest. It bemused Michael to think that Anthony was in some way privy to Leo’s most confidential affairs. Things were not always what they seemed.

Anthony was standing in the clerks’ room going through his mail as Michael came downstairs on his way to lunch.

‘More instructions from some woman solicitor,’ remarked Henry, jerking his head in Anthony’s direction.

Anthony was standing flipping through the instructions, and swatted absently at Henry’s head with the envelope. Catching sight of Michael, he said, ‘Who’s Rachel Dean? I’ve never heard of her.’

Michael glanced at the letter-heading. ‘Nichols and Co. I don’t know. Yet another poor creature who’s fallen prey to your ruthless charms, perhaps.’

‘Get lost,’ said Anthony with a smile. Dismissive though he might be of the good-humoured taunts regarding his popularity with women solicitors, Anthony was not without his vanity.
He had almost begun to believe that his good looks assisted his exceptional intelligence in securing a steady stream of work.

Feeling that the air of general levity should not rise any further, Mr Slee distracted Michael’s attention with a discussion regarding a fee note, and Antony took the instructions back to his room.

He did not get round to reading them until three days later and when he did he was intrigued. This was potentially a big case. Any disaster such as this was bound to be. Grateful though he was for the instructions, Anthony loftily told himself that he was not especially impressed by the fact that Rachel Dean, whoever she might be, had omitted to send all the relevant documents with her instructions. As he picked up the phone to call her, he wondered what she was like. He could not, at his age, help wondering what any unknown woman might be like.

‘Hello? Is that Rachel Dean?’ he asked, when he was put through.

‘Yes, speaking. Who is this?’ Her voice was light and cool.

‘This is Anthony Cross,’ said Anthony. ‘You sent round some instructions the other day – the
Valeo Dawn
, the explosion in Bombay.’

‘Oh,
yes
.’ Her voice was not so chilly as it had first sounded. ‘It’s an interesting case, isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ agreed Anthony. ‘Very. The reason I’m ringing is that there are some documents I need which you don’t seem to have sent.’

Rachel was surprised; she was quite sure that she had given Felicity all the relevant enclosures. In fact, she had been particularly careful to do so. She was always meticulous about enclosures. ‘Really? I can’t imagine what they might be.’ Her voice was cool again. ‘I’m quite sure I sent you everything you need.’ This young man had a rather languid, arrogant tone, she
thought. She knew the type. Rachel wasn’t especially fond of barristers, particularly the self-satisfied public-school types to be found in successful commercial practices.

‘Well,’ said Anthony, smiling slightly to himself – he rather liked to hear women on the defensive – ‘the charter party for a start. And the surveyor’s report.’ He paused. At the other end Rachel rolled her eyes in disbelief, then leant sideways to look out of her doorway in the direction of Felicity’s chair. It was empty. ‘And the master’s note of protest,’ added Anthony. ‘I think they’re all probably of some importance to me.’ He had already formed an impression of a somewhat inept creature handling a case that was beyond her capabilities.

‘Yes, I can see that,’ replied Rachel tartly. Her mouth tightened. ‘I’m afraid I can’t understand how this can have happened. I distinctly told my secretary which documents to send.’

She sounded a little icy now, thought Anthony. Was she annoyed with herself or with him? He wondered what she looked like. This was a brunette’s voice, he would say. Fat? Thin? Short? Tall? He was quite enjoying baiting her, even though he was aware that it wasn’t perhaps the best policy. But he had unshakeable faith in his own charming ability to bring her round.

‘I’ll have them sent round to you – as soon as I – ah – as soon as I can lay hands on them,’ Rachel was saying. She would murder that girl. This pompous prig of a junior barrister was making her feel like a complete incompetent.

‘Oh, no need,’ said Anthony, leaning back in his chair and snapping an elastic band between his fingers. ‘I have to come up your way at the end of the afternoon, anyway. I’ll drop by and pick them up.’ He paused. ‘I suppose that will give you enough time to find them?’

‘Yes, Mr Cross. Plenty of time. I do hope this isn’t taking you out of your way?’ Distinctly frosty.

‘No trouble at all. Goodbye.’

He gave a little laugh as he hung up. Nice voice. Probably fat and over forty. Ah, well. He would see.

When she had put the phone down, Rachel went out to Felicity’s desk. She looked down at the jumble of work, the copy of
Bella
, and at the empty chair.

‘Doris, do you happen to know where Felicity is?’ she asked.

Doris took off her earphones and opened her small eyes wide. ‘Ooh, no, I don’t, Miss Dean. Was it something urgent? I can always fit it into Mr MacBride’s work, if you like. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.’ She gave Rachel her marshmallow smile, her little eyes fastened inquisitively, helpfully, on Rachel’s face. Rachel returned the smile sweetly; she did not like Doris.

‘No, thank you, Doris. I just wish to speak to her.’

‘Right you are, Miss Dean.’ Doris gave a simper, then added, ‘She’s a little bit scatterbrained, Felicity. You know.’ At this Louise gave a snort, her eyes fastened on the screen in front of her, fingers flashing over the keys.

Rachel thought she had a pretty good idea where Felicity might be. And indeed, there she was, relaxing in the Ladies with a cigarette, chatting to two of the filing clerks. She had her shoes off and was leaning against the cubicles. When she saw Rachel, she put her cigarette out with a stubbing hiss in one of the basins, slipped on her shoes, and with a breathless ‘See you, girls!’ followed Rachel back to her office. Rachel said nothing until they were in her room with the door closed. Doris’s eyes peeped over the top of her word processor and then she ducked down out of sight.

‘Felicity,’ said Rachel in a normal sort of voice, ‘do you remember those documents that were to go out with the instructions to counsel on the
Valeo Dawn?’

Felicity nodded, then hesitated, and then shook her head. ‘Yes, I remember them. But it wasn’t the
Valeo Dawn,
it was the
Valeo Trader.’

‘No, Felicity,’ replied Rachel, her voice still kindly. ‘The documents belonged to the
Valeo Dawn
.’

‘Oh.’ Felicity looked thoughtful, then contrite. She wound a curl of brown hair round her finger. ‘Oh. I sent them to Richards Butler. I thought they were on the
Valeo Trader.
’

‘Felicity, you may have sent some of them to Richards Butler, but not all of them. You have, whatever you have done, made a real mess of things. You realise those were original documents, don’t you?’ Rachel was angry now.

Felicity looked at her questioningly, and Rachel sighed. Why did she, of all people, have to be lumbered with Felicity? ‘And now I shall have to ring round trying to track them down.
Please,
’ she looked beseechingly at Felicity, ‘when I give you documents to send out, double-check that you’re sending them to the right people. You only had to
look
at them to see which vessel they referred to! Honestly …’ If Felicity were Simon’s secretary, or any of the other partners’, she’d have been given her marching orders weeks ago. As it was, Rachel knew she didn’t have the guts. And, anyway, there were some things at which Felicity wasn’t completely hopeless. She looked sadly at her for a moment, and then said, ‘Felicity, why have you got coloured string tied round your wrists?’

Felicity glanced down, then beamed a smile at Rachel. ‘That’s for my driving lesson after work. So’s I remember which way I’m going. Red for left, blue for right. I’m not very good at left and right.’

‘I see,’ murmured Rachel. She gazed after Felicity as she went back to her word processor, sighed, and picked up the telephone.

Anthony reached Nichols & Co at six-thirty. The traffic had been slow, but he had whiled away the minutes in the taxi wondering whether he should ring up that Harriet girl this evening. She’d left messages twice on the answerphone, and he supposed he was
vaguely interested. He wasn’t sure if he could be bothered. She was a bit keen, and he preferred to have more of a challenge. Perhaps that business with Julia had made him cynical, but at least the approach he now adopted towards women meant that there was no danger of being hurt again, of becoming involved. Leo had taught him that you should simply enjoy whatever was on offer.

He gave his name to the porter who had come on duty for the evening, and the porter rang up to Rachel’s room. Yes, she was still there, and would he please go up.

Anthony felt a pang of guilt as he walked through the deserted offices, past the cleaners with their black plastic bin bags. Perhaps it was rather rude of him to leave it so late. Still, she’d waited.

Rachel, as she sat in her office, was not quite sure why she had waited. She had tracked down the missing documents, which Felicity had erroneously enclosed with some other piece of mail to a different firm, but she had been unable to get them back that day. When she’d rung up Mr Cross to tell him so, he was out. It was only courteous to wait. And she was curious to see what kind of person she was instructing, this young man of whom everyone seemed to think so highly. He certainly hadn’t made much of an impression on her that afternoon, beyond one of overweening arrogance.

She thought she detected the same arrogance in the smile he gave her as he stopped in her doorway. She was mistaken in this. Anthony was merely trying to suppress his amusement at realising how far adrift his speculations had been. The girl he was looking at fitted her voice entirely – and yet he had never imagined anyone like this.

‘Hello. Anthony Cross,’ he murmured, and leant forward to shake her hand.

‘How do you do? I was about to leave. I had begun to think you weren’t coming. Fortunately I had some work to finish.’

Anthony slipped into a chair and gazed at her. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said, sounding not in the least penitent. ‘The traffic was bad.’