Breath of Corruption

by Caro Fraser

  There was nothing further he could do. Leo drove home with a feeling of intolerable helplessness. He poured himself a large Scotch, and then remembered that Anthea was due back from Bermuda today. It wasn’t her style to call him, so to take his mind off the plague of troubles which had descended on him, he picked up the phone and rang her.

  ‘Hi,’ said Anthea, when she heard his voice. She sounded tired, but in a good mood. ‘Have you missed me?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Leo. ‘Counting the days. How was your trip?’

  ‘Oh, you know – fun in its way. Fantastic weather, but a lot of the usual standing around. And the flight back was delayed by an hour. Still, here I am. What’s new with you?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ replied Leo, thinking grimly of Lucy, who was responsible for half of this trouble. ‘I wondered if you felt like some company this evening? It hasn’t been the best of weekends, and I could do with seeing you. I really have missed you.’

  ‘Darling, that’s sweet, but to be honest, I’m pretty whacked, and I have an early call. I don’t think tonight’s a great idea. Why don’t you come over tomorrow evening and we’ll have supper here? Around half eight?’

  ‘Sounds good. I’ll see you then. Sleep tight.’

  Leo hung up the phone, finished his drink, then poured himself another one. The hours until he could call Rachel at work tomorrow, and set his mind at rest, were going to be long and slow.

  Anthea switched off her phone and gave Lola a smile of triumph.

  ‘Told you. He’s been missing me – he said it twice – and he’s just longing to see me!’

  ‘Lucky you.’ Lola picked up the bottle of white wine and poured them both some more. ‘Why did you put him off?’

  ‘Because I genuinely am tired, and because sex with Leo is a lovely but very exhausting business. And when he wants to see me late in the evening, it’s mostly about sex.’

  ‘In that case, you should have let him come over, and we could have had a jolly little threesome together. Take the strain off you.’

  Anthea snorted into her wine. ‘Darling, you jest! I doubt if that’s Leo’s scene at all – he may have a fantastic sex drive, but I’d say he’s pretty straight in his tastes and inclinations.’ She drained her glass. ‘Which is the way I like my men, if they’re going to be husband material.’ She held her glass out. ‘Come on, let’s have some more. I’ll sleep like a baby tonight.’

  ‘So you’re really getting serious about him?’ asked Lola, filling Anthea’s glass again.

  ‘I could be,’ said Anthea, with a faraway look in her eye. ‘The question is – could he? He’s got some way to go before he’s ready, which is why I’m still playing a very long, careful game, darling.’

  ‘I just wish there were more like him,’ said Lola wistfully. ‘He’s such a divine man – I don’t just mean to look at. He’s good company. He’s fun. You lucky bitch.’

  ‘I am rather, aren’t I? Just don’t like him too much, Lolly. He’s pretty much taken, even if he doesn’t know it yet.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  As soon as he got into chambers the next morning, Leo rang Rachel’s office.

  ‘Is Miss Dean in?’ he asked the girl on the switchboard.

  ‘I think she’s just arrived – who shall I say is calling?’

  Leo was swept with relief – his fears, while far from ridiculous, were unfounded. So far, at least. He hesitated, then gave his name. Could she be so petty as to carry on refusing to talk to him? Very possibly.

  But a few seconds later Rachel came on the line, sounding distinctly chilly.

  ‘Rachel,’ he asked, ‘are you and Oliver all right?’

  ‘All right? Of course we are.’

  ‘I just meant – I hope you got home safely.’ There was a pause. ‘We have to talk. Things were not what they seemed on Saturday.’

  ‘Leo, what I saw wasn’t open to many interpretations.’

  ‘Even if that were true, which it’s not, it would still be nothing to do with—’ He stopped. An argument on the phone was the last thing he wanted. ‘Meet me for lunch.’

  ‘I can’t. I’m tied up today.’

  ‘Tomorrow then. It’s the only day I can do. We need to talk about this. We can’t leave things as they are. It isn’t fair to me or Oliver.’

  She hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘All right.’

  ‘We can meet at that wine bar at the bottom of Fetter Lane. I’ll book a table. One o’clock?’

  ‘Don’t bother booking anything, Leo. I don’t think it’s going to be a lengthy meeting.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ replied Leo, and hung up. He sat back in his chair, thinking. Not for the first time, he found himself debating whether Rachel should be told about the man who had called on Saturday evening, and the threats made against her and Oliver. There was a case for saying that she should be told, since it so closely concerned her. On the other hand – what good would it do? What possible precautions could she take, bar taking Oliver out of school and leaving the country? She’d only go out of her mind with worry. And she would probably just use it as another excuse for keeping Oliver away from him. He sighed and swivelled round in his chair to stare out of the window. The leaves on the trees in Caper Court were yellowing, and the air held a certain autumn melancholy. He felt utterly trapped by the situation. What he wanted to be able to do was to demonstrate to these mad Ukrainians that he had no intention of investigating Landline, so that they would back off and leave his family alone. But how? The only thing he could do was what he’d been told to do – precisely nothing. What he would really like would be to get Sir Dudley in here and confront him over the whole stinking business, but that, of course, could spell catastrophe. Leo pondered. There might, however, be some other, more subtle, judicious means of getting his point across … He flipped open his diary. Excellent. He had a conference booked at three tomorrow with Sir Dudley and Brian Bennett, when they were due to go over the skeleton argument. He would do it then.

  Towards the end of the day, as he finished the remains of his work, Leo found himself thinking about Anthea. He was genuinely anxious to see her. All he wanted from her was some ordinary human kindness and comfort. He was sorely in need of it.

  He went to the clerks’ room to leave some letters, and arrived at the tail end of another row between Roger and Maurice.

  ‘Just don’t fucking patronise me!’ Roger was shouting at Maurice. ‘I’ve had enough of it!’ And he pushed past Leo and stormed upstairs.

  Felicity, standing by the franking machine, rolled her eyes at Leo.

  ‘Maurice,’ said Leo mildly, ‘do you think you and Roger could conduct your lovers’ tiffs out of range of the reception area? It gives the visitors a bad impression.’

  Maurice said nothing, merely glared at Leo and left the clerks’ room.

  ‘What the hell was all that about?’ Leo asked Felicity.

  ‘I dunno. It started off with some argument about paying for sandwiches, or something, and the next thing Roger was accusing Mr Faber of snooping round looking in his pigeonhole and his diary. Them two argue about anything. I wish they’d do it upstairs and not in here. Gives me a bleeding headache.’ She put out her hand. ‘That your post, Mr D? Give it here.’

  Leo sighed inwardly. He could sense a rift deepening in chambers. Perhaps the sooner Roger and his merry band went off to operate in cyberspace, the better. The question was – would he join them? He still had no idea. He had no idea about anything, except that he wanted to get out of the building and go to see Anthea.

  Anthea opened the door wearing a white, cropped-sleeve top cut above the satin-soft skin of her midriff, blue linen trousers and wedge-heeled sandals. Her skin was lightly tanned from her time in Bermuda, and her freshly-washed blonde hair shone silkily. She looked every inch the model, and perfectly pleased with her own loveliness.

  ‘You are,’ said Leo, kissing her, ‘a beautiful and refreshing sight.’

  She smiled. ‘So are you. Nice to know
you’ve missed me.’

  He kissed her at length and with even more passion. ‘I have missed every single thing about you. It’s been a bad few days, and not just because you’ve been away.’

  ‘Come through and tell me all about it.’

  They went through to the living room and Anthea poured Leo a drink. ‘No Lucy?’ he remarked, glancing round. The last thing he wanted was to see her, but it would have been reassuring to know that Anthea had, and that the danger of her saying anything about the weekend had passed.

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it? She usually seems to have some radar that tells her when you’re coming round. I think she has a bit of a crush on you. Actually, I haven’t seen her since I got back. Maybe she’s decided to start doing some work for her A levels for a change.’

  ‘Which school is she at?’ asked Leo, keen to skip any reference to Lucy’s infatuations.

  ‘Haddon House in Knightsbridge. I wish Mummy had sent her to boarding school, the way she did me, then I wouldn’t have her coming round here drinking my vodka. I swear to God we never did that kind of thing in my day.’

  ‘In my day.’ Leo smiled and came to embrace her. ‘You make yourself sound positively ancient.’

  ‘I sometimes positively feel it,’ sighed Anthea. ‘I look at Lucy and I think oh, to be that age again.’

  ‘I’m very glad you’re not,’ said Leo, and meant it most sincerely.

  Roger, still in a filthy temper, went into Simon’s room without knocking. Simon glanced up in surprise from his work.

  ‘Come on,’ said Roger abruptly, ‘let’s go to the pub. I feel like getting rat-arsed.’

  ‘I will in a minute. Just let me finish this.’

  Roger pushed his glasses onto the bridge of his nose and sighed, then paced the room, waiting for Simon.

  ‘OK. Done,’ said Simon at last. He rose and put on his jacket. ‘I can’t promise to see you to the ultimate conclusion of your stated ambition, but I’ll come part of the way. Where d’you fancy going?’

  ‘Anywhere,’ said Roger. ‘Anywhere that bastard Faber’s not likely to be.’

  Eight hours later Roger woke up, uncertain about many things: where he was, what time it was, and how much he’d had to drink. It took him more than a few seconds to work out the answers – at his desk in chambers, at quarter past one in the morning, and a lot. He leant back and groaned. His reading lamp was on. How had he ended up asleep at his desk? He remembered leaving The Devereux with Simon and Rory and that chap Timothy from 20 Essex Street around half eight, then Rory had gone home, and he and the other two had gone to The George, then Simon and gone home and it had just been him and Timothy. The last thing he remembered was coming back to chambers at the end of the evening to get something. Sleep, apparently. He recalled passing Stephen’s half-opened door and seeing Stephen working late, but he hadn’t gone in. He must have come upstairs and sat down, and fallen asleep. He’d been asleep for over three hours, he reckoned, and he didn’t exactly feel rested and refreshed.

  ‘Oh God …’ muttered Roger, getting unsteadily to his feet. He still felt pretty pissed, his mouth was dry and his head aching. What he needed was some paracetamol and a large glass of water. Where to get them? He went out to the landing and snapped on the light. Everywhere was totally silent. Perhaps the secretaries kept some in that cupboard above the fridge in the little kitchen. He went along the corridor to the kitchen, found no paracetamol, and decided to make himself a cup of black coffee instead. As he waited for the kettle to boil, it occurred to Roger that he wasn’t going to be able to get out of the building without setting the alarm off, since obviously everyone else had gone home hours ago. He recalled that on the top floor there was a bed and a shower room, which they kept for untold emergencies; he would just have to kip there.

  As he made his way along the corridor with his mug of coffee, Roger passed Maurice’s room. His eye caught the faintest of glows through the half-open door. Surely Maurice wasn’t still here? Cautiously he nudged the door open. The room was in darkness, except for the tiny glow of Maurice’s laptop, which had been left switched on. Roger went in and sat down at the desk, putting his coffee mug down carefully. Maurice’s laptop – what a gift. Presumably no chance of getting into its dark secrets without a password, though. He tapped the touch pad and the screen blinked into full life. Good God – for some reason Maurice had stopped in the middle of looking something up and just left it on. What Roger was looking at was the page from some judgment or other. No need for passwords. He was already in.

  Now fully awake and feeling a lot better, Roger closed the document on the screen. Not quite certain what he was looking for, he dipped in and out of various files, fishing around, telling himself what he was doing was no worse than the way Maurice snooped through Roger’s diary. At length he came across a folder named TNV3 and opened it. He began to read the documents contained within the file, hardly able to believe what he had found. They were fee notes raised by Maurice, addressed to various companies and individuals, and all requesting payment directly to Maurice Faber for work done. Direct billing, cutting out the clerks, taking away their percentage – the one thing which no barrister was permitted to do. On a quick calculation, Maurice was billing directly for his services to the tune of tens of thousands.

  ‘Well, well, you cheeky bastard,’ murmured Roger. No wonder Maurice’s billing figures were down. The money was going straight into his pocket, and bypassing chambers.

  With a wondering smile, Roger continued to trawl Maurice’s computer for another three quarters of an hour, taking occasional sips of his coffee. Not only did he find further damning invoices and emails, he also found the confidential reference which Maurice had written on behalf of Melanie, Roger’s friend, the erstwhile pupil who had rebuffed Maurice’s advances some months ago. Roger read it, and as he did so, any guilt he might have felt at prying into Maurice’s computer vanished instantly and entirely. No wonder Melanie was finding it hard to get a job. Some of the things Maurice had written were downright lies. What a shit he was, taking his petty revenge in this way.

  Roger tapped a few keys and sent a copy of the reference winging its way to his own computer, where he would be able to print it out tomorrow and show it to Melanie. Quite what she would be able to do about it, he wasn’t yet sure. As for the incriminating invoices and emails – Roger reflected for a moment as to how best to deal with these. At length he decided. He opened an email, wittily headed it ‘Oops, look what’s on my hard drive!’, and attached to it each incriminating fee note and email from Maurice’s folder. Then he clicked on Maurice’s address book, highlighted the name of every member of chambers, including the clerks, and with a broad smile of satisfaction and not a moment’s hesitation, clicked ‘Send to all’.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Sir Dudley, who had been brooding unhappily for some time over the matter of the Landline document which Leo had turned up, rang Viktor Kroitor for reassurance.

  ‘I’m seeing Davies with my solicitor tomorrow. I need to know where we stand. I hope you’ve managed to put a lid on this?’

  ‘It’s taken care of.’

  ‘Well, what d’you mean by that? What’s been done? I need to know! Have you managed to get hold of the bloody invoice, or what?’

  ‘No need. The invoice was never the problem. The problem was Mr Davies, and I’ve attended to him.’

  ‘What the hell d’you mean – you’ve attended to him? What the fuck’s been happening, Viktor? If you’ve made matters worse—’

  ‘I paid him a visit,’ said Viktor.

  ‘You stupid sod! If that’s a euphemism for strong-arm tactics—’

  ‘I talked to him, that’s all. I persuaded him it would be best for him, and his nice little son and the little boy’s mother, if he forgets all about the invoice, and asks no further questions.’

  ‘You threatened him? For Christ’s sake, Viktor, are you mad? What if he calls in the police?’

  ‘I don’t think he will
.’

  ‘Think? When did you ever do any thinking, you brainless Ukrainian shit! My God, it’s bad enough that I already have the police on my back—’

  ‘What?’ asked Viktor sharply. ‘What is it with the police?’ He had not overlooked Sir Dudley’s insult; he had coolly stored it away, together with a number of other slights and affronts handed out by Sir Dudley in the course of their relationship, against the day when payment became due.

  ‘Nothing that concerns you. It’s a minor political thing. I’m more worried about what Davies will do now. He’s bound to link your visit to me. What the hell are you doing in London, anyway? You didn’t tell me you were coming.’

  ‘I had business to attend to.’

  ‘My God, this could be turning into a disaster … What did Davies say when you spoke to him? You didn’t harm him, did you?’

  ‘I did not touch him. He said very little. He listened, which is what I wanted him to do. I frightened him, which is also what I wanted. I didn’t have to do much. Why do you think he should care about your stupid invoice? What makes you think he is interested in finding out what is going on?’

  Sir Dudley sighed heavily. ‘I don’t know. It’s just the thought of anyone—I mean, my God! My God, Viktor!’

  Viktor had long thought that Sir Dudley had not really the right temperament for this business. He could wish they had chosen someone less panicky and paranoid. In the end, Sir Dudley was more likely than anyone to wreck everything. That much was becoming clear.