by David Cooper
“No, I’m fine. OK then, the Friday. First excuse he’d had to stay the night at my place. He’s all set to pick his daughter up from Newcastle University the next morning. The cover story for his wife is that he’s doing exactly what he actually did at the end of term twice before. Drive up north in the evening, crash out in a hotel overnight, then get there bright and early on the Saturday morning to load up and take it easy on the way back.”
“Hang on a minute, so now he’s hitting the road from Moseley at the crack of dawn…”
“You’re way ahead. Let me just fill in the gaps. So I’ve busted a gut to lay on a really special meal, champagne, the full works, you name it, and all he’s got to do for the pleasure of my company all night is make sure he’s up and out of my flat, and my bed, at half five in the morning. Not a bad trade off, all considered.” Karen laughed bitterly. “And all night long, he’s on about starting over again, life beginning at fifty, kids nearly off his hands, rich parents about to pop their clogs and a big family trust fund where his wife will never find it, and all this charm, charm, charm…”
“Don’t tell me. You fell for it all.”
“Damn right I did. I nearly thought it was fate when he slept through the alarm. He was in such a flap. Half an hour late, tripping over everything in the dark. I was struggling not to laugh. But it was still all charm and promises, right up until he shut the door behind him.” Karen brushed away another tear. “And that was the last time I set eyes on the two faced creep, until I saw that article in the Post with his picture.”
“Karen, I’m really sorry, and I don’t want to intrude.” Lennie had diplomatically kept his note taking to a minimum. “It’s up to you. If you think you can tell me anything that might help you win this case, or stop you losing it, I’m keen to know. But you don’t have to unburden your private life like this if it’s upsetting you.”
“Don’t worry about it. Up until now I’ve kept it all to myself and a few girlfriends I know I can trust, but maybe I shouldn’t have bottled it up like that. You’d better hear the lot.”
“So what happened next?”
“OK, you’re really going to think I’m no better than a scatty schoolgirl. First thing I see when I get up properly is his dressing gown, lying on the floor. He’s obviously forgotten it in his panic. Then it all comes flooding back to me that I’d as good as invited him to use my flat as a base, until he was ready to jump ship. So I spend the whole morning tidying up and making space in my wardrobes for whatever he’s going to bring over. There’s the dressing gown, hanging there on its own, waiting for the rest to arrive. I’m floating on a cloud of fantasy, sharing the news, you know, Karen’s got a new man at last, not before time, all that girly stuff. Then I get this text.”
“Go on.”
Karen reached for her phone, then stopped herself.
“Sorry, I’m forgetting. It’s not like those texts that Wayne sent Dawn. I never kept them. Anyway, late afternoon, it’s him, and I’m expecting something funny and romantic. But it’s something like ‘really sorry, I’ve made a terrible mistake, we’d better not see each other again, thanks for everything’. I couldn’t believe it. After that previous night and that morning, I really thought he was joking. You know, just seeing how I’d react. So I send him something straight back, something like ‘this isn’t April Fools’ Day’. And he gets back to me half an hour later with ‘no, I’m serious, this has got to be over, and I mean it’. You could have knocked me down with a feather.”
It was once again the cue for Karen to dry her eyes. Lennie looked down and waited for her to resume.
“So this time I try to call him, and I’m barred out. Same again six times in the next hour. Next thing I know, he’s texting again. Says he’s in a motorway service area and this is going to be his last text. Long and short of it, he’s telling me for the last time that it’s over, and I shouldn’t ever try to call him again, all for the best, all that pathetic crap. I’m absolutely beside myself by then. Just thinking all the time maybe I wasn’t such a good shag after all. Sorry.”
Karen was never going to know that the reason for the short lived affair coming to a bitter end, barely three weeks after it had begun, was Squire’s daughter. It was most unfortunate for Squire himself that she had had a late change of plans on that Friday, which would leave her in no position to begin the long journey home until after midday on the Saturday. She had first called Squire’s mobile phone, which he had switched off the very moment he had arrived at Karen’s flat. Her later calls to the Royal Station Hotel in Newcastle, where Squire had stayed on each of the previous occasions when he had made the long journey north, had elicited the news that no one by that name had checked in that evening. She had ended up leaving a slightly sarcastic message on her father’s phone after calling home and finding out from her mother that he had left a good few hours earlier as planned. On the Saturday morning, as fate would have it, the hapless Squire had never thought to check his messages before his headlong flight northbound.
When his daughter set eyes on the dishevelled, unshaven figure pulling up outside her shared house in Jesmond five minutes before the time he believed he would be expected, entirely unaware of her last minute arrangement to return to campus and discuss a summer assignment, she was in no doubt what had made him fail to receive her messages. She was only too aware that her father had strayed on more than one previous occasion. Before leaving him to find some way to occupy himself over the next two hours, she had laid into him about ‘which floozie’s bed you were sharing last night’ and had left him in no doubt that unless he ended his latest affair immediately, there would be two consequences. Her mother would have the full story with nothing spared. And she herself would ensure that from then on, she would have as little to do with her father as possible. In the face of her ultimatum, Squire had crumbled.
“Oh Christ, Karen, I really don’t know what to say.”
“You’d better hear the rest. It might throw some light on why he’s so far up Wayne’s arse.”
Lennie instinctively picked up his pen, then hesitated and put it down again, deciding to trust his memory.
“I’d got a candidate on second interview with Bastables. Complete coincidence. First time around, he’d been interviewed by some younger partner, someone called Finnie, Seb Finnie…..”
Karen hesitated, wondering where that name had come up in recent conversation, and realised it was from her discussion with her most recent new candidate Gemma Gabriel. She quickly put it out of her mind.
“But this time I knew that Rufus was going to be in on the act, playing the overlord, head of department and all that. So I thought I’d better do something to keep it professional. I handed the job over to Wayne, half way through. Promised him a cut of the commission. That’s just not done in my business. Normally we just keep every introduction to ourselves from beginning to end. So it’s early Christmas for Wayne, as long as they offered the job. Wayne wouldn’t have to lift a finger apart from sending the odd email and fielding the odd call. And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened on the following Friday. They get the candidate, we get the fee, and Wayne gets the luckiest windfall he could ever hope for.”
Karen shook her head in disbelief. But Lennie was none the wiser.
“So what’s this got to do with Squire?”
“Brace yourself. It just gets better and better.”
Lennie gave a nod, not knowing what to expect, then thought of a question.
“Can I just ask something first. What happens if the candidate isn’t up to scratch after all? Do you still get paid?”
“Good point. We’re supposed to get the candidate’s signed start confirmation on their first day in the new job. It’s part of our terms of business. Once we’ve had the start confirmation, our bill goes in, and as long as it’s paid within seven days, our candidate guarantee kicks in. If the candidate leaves or gets the sack within eight weeks, we have first chance to find a free replacement, and if we can�
��t manage that, we give the firms a refund, based on a sliding scale.”
“That’s interesting. I’ve never gone through agencies when I’ve needed to recruit. I’ve always preferred direct advertising on our website.”
“Well, you know where to find me if you change your policy.” Lennie grinned back at Karen’s obvious attempt to lighten the moment. “Right, now for the fun and games.”
“I’m all ears.”
“OK, so Wayne tells me last thing on the Friday afternoon that they’ve offered the job, and the candidate emails me to confirm five minutes later. So if it’s Saturday, it must be revenge day. First things first, I parcel up the dressing gown along with a nice, kind letter to Mrs Squire. Just a few words to let her know where her husband left it over the previous weekend, and how she’ll probably want to give it an extra thorough wash and dry. And if she breaks the washing machine and needs to replace it, all she needs to do is ask her darling husband about the nest egg he’s kept hidden away from her all these years, otherwise known as the Conington-Squire Younger Children’s Settlement.”
Lennie burst out laughing, then quickly struggled to control himself as Karen put her hand on his arm.
“Hang on. You haven’t heard the best yet.”
“Oh God, spare me…”
“So off I go on a nice morning drive down to Barnt Green. There’s no mistaking his palatial mansion, just where he described it. No sign of anyone outside. I’m half tempted to ring the doorbell and give my parcel to his wife face to face, but I didn’t really want to risk him answering, so I left it in the porch. Then I realise I’ve just walked past his Mercedes on the drive…”
It was Karen’s turn to be overcome by a gale of laughter, as Lennie waited patiently.
“So I fish in my handbag, find a really bright red lipstick, and I write Pig across his windscreen. Don’t ask me how I knew, but it’s a real bugger to get lipstick off car windows.”
This time they both laughed out loud, before Lennie regained his composure.
“Did anyone see you?”
“No, not a soul. And I never heard anything more about it. I just hope his wife clouted him with the biggest frying pan she could lay her hands on.” Karen realised she was at the end of her anecdote. “So that’s my brief encounter with Rufus Squire for you. And that’s why I thought you’d better hear it, before you tell me if this story in the Post is going to be any use.”
“OK. It’s always far better for me to have too much information than too little. Right then, let’s start with Craven. Losing him as a Ripple client. If we include that as part of the claim against Avery, I really can’t see that this personal business will come into it. Either Avery will deny liability point blank, and we’ll have to ask him to explain his reasons, or he’ll give them without prompting. Here and now, I suspect he’ll say that Craven followed him after he’d left, just like the paralegals. If he admits he enticed him away from you, he’ll be putting all his eggs in one basket. He’ll have to argue that Craven was fair game. That comes back to how good your restraint clause is. It’s also pretty certain that he’ll make out Dawn’s wrong about the jacket drying episode. That’s going to be a straight conflict of evidence for the trial.”
Karen thought for a moment.
“So my private life won’t be headline news all over the city?”
“Hopefully not. There’s one grey area, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Avery might argue that Bastables had made their minds up never to deal with you personally again. In that case, the reasons might come out.” Karen’s worried look was unmistakeable. “But that might be a really bad point for Avery to take. Your position would be that you were entitled to keep Craven as a Ripple candidate, and see if you could introduce him to another firm. Anyway, if the worst came to the worst, we could always drop that allegation. And for what it’s worth, I just can’t see Avery taking that approach. It might embarrass Squire. It would be really awkward if Squire’s thought processes came in through Avery, at a time when BLH are acting for Avery.”
“I’m not sure I understand that.”
“It’s this conflict of interest point I mentioned earlier. If any of Avery’s actual evidence comes from the law firm representing him, the judge wouldn’t like that at all.”
“Oh God, that’s a thought. There’s no chance that Squire will give evidence, is there?”
“I very much doubt it.” Lennie replied. “If a statement came in with his name on it, I’d be straight onto Wagstaff to question whether BLH can carry on acting for Avery.”
Their discussions soon came to an end.
“OK, Karen, thanks for all that.” Lennie stood up. “I’ll be back in touch on Friday after this interim hearing’s over and done with. You’re welcome to come along, but it’s only technical legal argument…”
“I think I will. I want to see this new barrister in action. I really need cheering up, after the way that bumbling old fool let me down last time. No fault of yours, I hasten to add…”
“I hope Alex knows what he’s doing. Pains me to say it, but I haven’t instructed any barrister from outside London for years.”
Thursday 18 th April
As he stood in front of Squire’s desk, waiting for him to finish reading the set of MDV Precision Midlands emails and letters that he had demanded to see, Craven’s unease steadily grew. Squire’s constant drumming of his fingers as he skimmed through the papers served only to compound his worries. Eventually Squire broke the silence.
“We all have to live with difficult clients, Paul. And other departments’ practices, even if we think they’re wrong. I can’t defend you over this one. You shouldn’t have sent that letter without Bill Wilson’s approval.”
The reprimand left Craven reeling, despite the even tone of Squire’s delivery and the neutral expression on his face. He was never going to appreciate that Squire’s sole aim was to obtain the best of both worlds by tempering his criticism of Craven with a sideswipe at the poor judgment of his corporate department partner.
“I’m really sorry…” Craven answered.
On the previous day, the final signed copy of the expert report on Craven’s MDV Precision Midlands file had arrived. The only modifications from its earlier edition were of a clerical and grammatical nature. The clients’ last ditch attempts to sway the expert’s conclusions more in their favour had proved futile.
The expert had taken the opportunity to enclose his account, in a substantial four figure sum. It had seemed perfectly natural for Craven to copy this to the clients along with the report, and to ask to be placed in funds to deal with it. At his previous firm, this had always been his practice when any substantial disbursement payments had to be made on behalf of a client. It never occurred to him that there might be any different policy in his new firm. Nor, indeed, that he should think twice in view of the criticism he had received before when he had picked up on the firm’s financial exposure to MDV Precision Midlands.
But he had reckoned without the anger of the clients’ production director, already stoked up by the unfavourable slant of the report. He had bypassed any thought of venting his rage on Craven directly and had gone straight to William Wilson, the partner with overall responsibility for his company’s legal affairs. His exaggerated dismay at being asked to pay for ‘such a deficient report, riddled with errors and oversights’ had led Wilson to take matters up with Squire. In doing so, he had expressed his displeasure at ‘the poor attitude from the litigation department, not for the first time, towards maintaining good relations with commercial clients’. For his own part, Squire was quietly thankful that nothing on this occasion would stick to him personally, and not minded to acknowledge that he would have done exactly as Craven had.
“What’s done is done. Just make sure you ask for Bill Wilson’s approval for anything else like this in future. And keep an eye on the costs.”
Squire half turned away and picked up his phone, gesturing towards th
e door with his other hand. It took a short while before Craven realised that Squire would be adding nothing more, and that the brief and uncomfortable meeting was over. He left Squire’s office and returned to his own, cursing inwardly that he had ever been involved on that file in the first place, and wondering how he could possibly please everyone when there were so many conflicting demands and agendas.
The open door to his office was by now a fact of life, however uncomfortable the policy still made him feel. But the fact that someone was walking through it just ahead of him was unexpected. He realised it was Jackie Browning.
“Hello Paul, just returning this Mansell documents file…Why the long face? Is it me?”
“Er…no…I mean…” Craven was stuck for an answer. However pleased he might have been to see one of the few work colleagues who had shown him any real kindness in his first few weeks at the firm, he was thrown by her questions and her light hearted tone.
“You look really unhappy. Has someone upset you?”
“Well, yes, it’s just…Sometimes I don’t understand this place. There’s always someone wanting to blame me for things that aren’t my fault. I wish they’d just leave me to get on with the client work and let me do it my way.”
“What do you mean?”
Craven told her about what he had just experienced. “I just don’t know why some people are so hard to please. It was never like this at my old place.”
“Maybe it’s just your line of work. I don’t find anything like that in commercial property. Just the occasional awkward beggars, like the Mansells. The only time I ever get any grief is when the bills drop through their letterbox.”
The comment almost brought a rare smile to Craven’s face, but he had already thought of something else.
“What about this forced socialising? Do the people in your department have Friday lunchtime drinking sessions inflicted on them?”