Lover in Law (10 page)

“I’ve changed my mind. I’d have them tomorrow if I could find the right man.”

“What’s brought this on?”

 It’s only a month since the abortion.

“I did a lot of soul-searching in Canada. Being single’s overrated. I realised I want what you and Adam have. You’re my inspiration.”

I’m uncomfortable being a role model. I don’t think it’s merited. Normally I’d tell Kayla exactly what’s going on, how I’m struggling to suppress an increasing concern that my house is not in order. Today though, I stay quiet.

“So, know any eligible men?” she asks.

I pretend to think long and hard.

“No. Can’t think of anyone,” I say, finally.

“Come on. There must be SOMEone? You’re always telling me how many dishy Barristers there are?”

“Yes, but they all wear suits.”

“So?”

“So, you hate that.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Well, before you is a new, more open-minded me.”

I reflect a while. Kayla and I have never had the same taste in men.

“There really is no one,” I say.

Chapter 11

“What are you still doing here?”

Anthony passes my office on his way out. He catches me taking the last mouthful from a popcorn-style box of stir-fried noodles. I toss the disposable wooden chopsticks into the carton, then chuck the whole lot into the bin. 

“I thought you had a home and a man to get back to,” he smiles.

Adam’s still away and I’m lousy at making meals for one. 

“There’s been another development,” I say.

A few days ago, something else happened which has affected our client. After dangerous driving became a murder charge, Scott’s television network felt they had no choice but to suspend him from the show until his name was cleared. Imagine the irony of a man accused of murder presenting a programme called
Look Who’s Talking
. This is yesterday’s news now though, so I bring Anthony up to date, telling him about the meeting I had with Scott. 

“I found out this morning what the new evidence against you actually is,” I’d said to Scott earlier today, when he’d come in to discuss the development.  

“Right,” he’d said, shifting in his chair, his complexion slightly paler than normal, slightly heavier bags under his eyes. He’d lost a little weight.

“An eyewitness,” I’d continued, “a woman, has come forward who’d been driving in the other direction as your cars swerved off the road onto the grass verge. She says that she saw you get out the car, open up the other driver’s door and pick a fight. She claims she saw a number of volley punches and blows coming from you.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous. You don’t believe her do you?”

Scott had jumped up, indignant, started pacing back and forth along my limited, office floor space.

“Scott, I’m on your side. I just need your version of events.”

“Well,” he’d said, hands digging in and out of his trouser pockets. “I got out of the car and went straight to Rupert, to help. To drag him out of the car in case it blew up. Any fracas that stupid idiot saw was Rupert hitting ME in rage as I struggled to free him. He was jammed behind the steering wheel. Jesus, where do they find these fools?”

For a split second I’d seen a new Scott, a slightly less composed man, hot under the collar, agitated. 

“What does this mean?” he’d asked, once again seated.

“Well, it’s likely that the Prosecution will use this fresh evidence as corroboration for that errant Accountant at your network, Cameron Matthews. They’ve called him back in for further questioning in connection with his initial statement, accusing you of murder. And they’ve taken him seriously enough to trace the call history on your mobile and confirm that you were, indeed, speaking to Elizabeth Simons when he overheard you say ‘it’s going to be you and me, I promise, very soon’.”

“And the good news is?” Scott hid his sarcasm with a smile.

“We’ve already started doing some digging on this new eyewitness, but regarding Cameron Matthews, well, we’ll need your help.” I’d looked him square in the eye. “So, do we have it, unconditionally?”  Scott had held out his hand and we’d shaken on it, firmly, dryly, and defiantly. He was so close behind me as I led the way to the front door that I could feel the heat of his breath on my neck, causing a prickly rash to explode all over my chest and under my collar.    

Anthony had listened to my description of the meeting with Scott with a still and intense gaze. “So, that’s pretty much it,” I say, stifling a yawn, looking round my windowless, Neeta-less, claustrophobic workspace. “Ooh, I hate spending so much time in here. The library’s much nicer. No phones, no computers, just heavenly peace.”

“You like the library?”

“Not as much as home.”

I stand up to leave, link my fingers and stretch my hands to the ceiling.

Anthony jangles a bunch of keys to his head.

“Let me show you something.”

***

We are alone, Anthony and I, in the law library, out of hours. I turn 360 degrees, drinking it all in. The wooden panelled walls, the shelves upon shelves weighted with books, the fancy gilt-framed oil paintings, the beamed ceiling and above all, the quiet, which is almost ghostly in its presence. It’s a weird, strange thrill to be here without another soul. I feel how a naughty toddler must, when he knows he’s somewhere out of bounds, but looks mighty damn proud of it all the same.  

“This is mad!” I whisper.

“It’s ok. You can speak normally.”

Anthony speaks quietly himself and I giggle at the sound that even his soft, deep baritone voice makes, echoing slightly in the emptiness. 

My senior counsel and the concierge, it would appear, are good friends, which is why Anthony has a duplicate set of keys, although I’ve been sworn to secrecy for knowing as much. Unfortunately, the concierge hasn’t shown Anthony how to operate all the lights, so we’re relying on one set of dim tubes that line the walls.

“Have you come here much, when it’s closed I mean?”

“A couple of times. What do you reckon?”

“It’s magic.”

I pretend to carry on looking round, but really I’m trying to capture his princely image with each turn, catching snapshot glimpses of him standing there, almost a silhouette, tall, in his designer three-piece dark blue suit, the reds and golds in his patterned tie the only real colour. He’s a sexy contradiction of poise versus cool, of funk versus elegance, of brains versus brawn. A distraction’s in order.   

“Hey, let me show YOU something. Wait there.”

As I head for the area behind the librarian’s desk, the click of my heels on the wooden floor reverberates in the silence, hangs in the air. It takes a moment for my eyes to focus in the low light, but eventually I recognise the shelf I’m after by the colour of its books and run a finger down the line of red leather spines until I hit the right volume. I pull out The Public Order Act 1861, walk it over to where Anthony’s standing and lay it down on the nearest table.

“Now, that’s a bestseller,” he jokes. “Hope you’re not expecting to find anything there to help you with Scott Richardson?”

“Very funny.”

I sit myself to one side of the book on the table and Anthony hops up on the other. I open the book halfway, under my colleague’s watchful gaze, then flick carefully to page 4005. When I reach it, I’m relieved to find my lucky talisman, the doodle scrap of parchment, with
VERITAS VOS LIBERABIT
written all over it, still there, lodged inconspicuously in the deep fold of the book, where I left it at the beginning of the year. I cover it territorially with my right hand. That’s not what I want Anthony to see.

“There you go,” I point to the relevant section. “Bet you didn’t know that!”

Anthony gems up on the law that allows a man to pee in public as long it’s on the rear wheel of his car and his right hand’s on the vehicle, then looks up at me, one brow raised above a twinkling eye. 

“Thank you, as ever, my learned friend, for bringing such an interesting and useful piece of legislation to my attention, but I’m afraid I can trump you.”

“Go on?” I dare.

He pulls a grave face.

“Did you know that in Canada, lighting a fart while smoking carries a hundred dollar fine?”

I laugh.

“Can you imagine Parliament passing that one?”

“And,” he goes on, “that in some parts of the same country, it’s an offence to fill a bath with more than three and a half inches of water.”

“Shame!”

“Or that in Thailand, it’s an offence to leave the house not wearing underwear. Now that, I’m sure, Alison Kirk, is something you would never do.”

“Is that a statement or a question?”

Why do I always flirt with this man?

“Is that an objection to answering?”

On the surface, it’s all smiles and light, frivolous banter. On the inside though, I’ve a very real sense of his proximity. Our bodies are close, leaning slightly towards one another. We’re not physically touching, because the book separates us, but I’m drawn to his warmth, his energy, his sexuality, as if we were. I’ve never considered the library as intimate. Sitting here though, the two of us, alone, in this vast space, in near darkness, it suddenly feels dangerously so. Which is why I close the book, take it back, and tell him it’s late.

We close all the doors, lock up, and slowly amble along the deserted, narrow thoroughfare of the Inns of Temple until we reach Fleet Street, where it’s established that we’re both going in different directions, to different tube stations.

“Thanks for that Anthony. You brightened up my day.”

“My pleasure. Enjoy the rest of your night, or what’s left of it.”

“You too.”

He leans in for a friendly, platonic, peck on the cheek, but it doesn’t end up that way. Somehow, someway we must have been clumsy in our approach, because this pair of thick, warm, luscious lips sink into mine. They linger long enough for my body to tingle with excitement, for my legs to feel they’re giving way. 

Chapter 12

“Want to come up for a drink?” asks Anthony, when he’s stepped out of the car.

I’ve not told Anthony of Adam’s absence these last ten days or so, but Neeta dropped him in on the secret during a coffee break this morning, when she asked how I was bearing up alone. As part of continuing professional development, we have to attend a certain amount of lectures a year, notch up a certain amount of points. That’s what we’ve been doing today, swatting up on recent cases that have set new precedents, changes in legislation, that sort of stuff. When we got out of the conference hall though, the whole tube network appeared to have lost electricity. The three of us quickly bagged a cab in Whitehall before the rest of London’s commuters cottoned on, settling on a circuitous route to drop off first Neeta, then Anthony then me. Now, if Anthony hadn’t known that Adam was out of the country, he probably wouldn’t have asked me up. He’d have waved me off in the taxi and that would have been that. 

“I really ought to get back,” I say.

“I’ve a bottle of vintage Cabernet Sauvignon from my last client just waiting to be uncorked,” he tempts.

What harm can a drink do and besides, his demeanour all day made clear that ours is just a professional relationship, that last night’s WAS a clumsy, accidental goodbye kiss. We’re colleagues who enjoy each other’s company, no more, no less. I hesitate. If only I weren’t such a sucker for a good wine.

“Oh, alright then. You’ve twisted my arm.”

Anthony lives in a grand avenue of huge, whitewashed terraced Georgian houses in Maida Vale, near the canal. Once he’s given the driver a twenty-pound note, I follow him up a few steps to the front door. You can work with people day in day out, but stepping inside their home often gives access to a whole new part of their personality. I would have expected Neeta’s apartment to be a complete reflection of her - immaculately clean, well turned-out, neat and tidy. It wasn’t though. The one time I went, she had piles of crap strewn everywhere and the kitchen was a mess of laundry hung over chairs and washing-up waiting to be done. Maxwell Hood QC lives in a much less cluttered environment than I would have imagined. His abode is more a mansion than a house in an exclusive part of Holland Park, a mere hop away from Kensington Palace, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Richard Branson and Michael Winner. It’s tastefully, unostentatiously decorated, with a small indoor swimming pool that backs onto a long, beautifully manicured garden.  

Anthony’s pad is, from my perception of the man so far, a perfect fit. It’s a stylish melange of east meets west. Swedish in its hi-tech, minimalist white décor with a lot of attention paid to in-built lighting. African in its objets d’art. There are numerous freestanding wooden sculptures and mask carvings, but it’s the giant, wall-sized native canvass prints that are the real essence of the place, splashed with images of tribal safaris, the gloriously deep colours of equatorial sunsets.