An Immoral Code

by Caro Fraser

  As he crossed Hare Court he slowed his pace – if she was still there, he didn’t want to arrive breathless. Very uncool. And from what he remembered of her smile, her voice, her astonishingly sensuous glance, Miss Colman was very cool indeed. He paused outside the pub door, telling himself that she must have left long ago, if she had ever turned up, then went in. The place was packed with Friday evening drinkers, and he stood for a few moments, casting his eye over the various groups of people, trying to look casual and unconcerned. She wasn’t there. He would have seen her immediately if she had been. Disappointed, he turned away and was halfway through the door when a hand touched his arm. He turned, and there she was, smiling at him.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘You’re late.’

  He was surprised by how intensely relieved he was to see her. ‘I thought you might have gone.’

  ‘I was just about to.’

  He glanced around. ‘You don’t want to stay here, do you?’

  She shook her head, still smiling, still looking at him. God, he thought, there was some very strange chemistry at work here – just looking at her brought back all the feelings from the previous night. He held the door open and she went out ahead of him. They stood together on the cold pavement, she in a long black overcoat and the boots from the night before, her silky blonde hair spilling onto her collar, which she turned up against the chill.

  ‘Where shall we go?’ she asked.

  ‘Let’s see … there’s a wine bar in Chancery Lane that’s usually fairly quiet.’ She nodded, and they walked together up to the traffic lights, and crossed over.

  ‘Actually,’ said Sarah, ‘I didn’t get to the pub until eight-thirty. I didn’t think you’d have waited. I was just going to have one drink and go.’

  ‘I’m glad you stayed. I got caught up discussing a case.’ They reached the wine bar and he opened the door for her. He had been wondering what he was going to talk to her about, and decided this was as good a subject as any. ‘The leader in our Lloyd’s litigation has had to bow out of the case, so they’ve instructed someone new. I had to go over the nuts and bolts with him.’

  They found a booth at the back of the wine bar and Sarah slid into the seat, while Anthony fetched her a glass of wine from the bar and an orange juice for himself. When he came back she had taken off her coat, and he saw that she was still dressed in her tight-fitting jeans, although this time her jumper was blue cashmere, cut provocatively low. Anthony tried, as they talked, not to let his eyes wander to the milky curve of her breasts as they rose and fell beneath the soft wool of her jumper, but it was difficult.

  ‘So you’ve lost your brilliant leader – that bald chap who was with you in the pub last night?’ said Sarah, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear and sipping her wine. Anthony studied her face, noticing that her eyes were the same pale blue as her jumper, and that her nose was small and straight, her eyebrows and lashes darker than her hair. Very pretty, he thought, but with an indefinable extra ingredient that made her remarkably sexy. Perhaps her smile, which was secretive, as though she was laughing at some inner private joke.

  ‘Ellwood. Yes. Still, the solicitors instructed someone else today – someone from my chambers, actually, and he’s very good. So maybe it won’t be a major spanner in the works.’

  ‘Who’s that, then? We law students have to keep up with the great names, you know.’

  ‘Chap called Leo Davies,’ said Anthony, his gaze lingering helplessly on the way the slender gold chain round her neck grazed her soft flesh every time she breathed.

  When she heard the name Sarah’s gaze did not flicker. She nodded, then sipped her wine. So this beautiful young man knew Leo, did he? Well, well. She suddenly thought of the previous summer, the weeks that she had spent at Leo’s country house with James, the things the three of them had done together, and she smiled slowly.

  ‘What?’ asked Anthony, returning her smile.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ she said, wondering what Anthony would think of his new leading counsel if she were to tell him how well, and in exactly what ways, she knew Leo. He would be horrified probably. Leo was so careful, so discreet, that no one at the Bar would ever guess the kind of person that lay behind that brilliant, cultivated image.

  Anthony gazed at her, fascinated by the secrecy of her smile, and suddenly realised what it was about her – it was an animal quality, something almost feral. He had no wish whatsoever, he realised, to go on talking about this case. Or about anything. He stretched out a hand and stroked the back of hers lightly with his thumb. Even this slight contact was astonishingly exciting. He reached out with his other hand and pulled her gently towards him, leant forward, and kissed her for a long and exquisite moment.

  Then he leant back in his seat. ‘I’ve been thinking about doing that since I first saw you,’ he said, slightly breathless.

  ‘I know,’ replied Sarah, and he recognised from the softened, sensuous look of her face that their minds were moving along exactly the same lines. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I can think of much cosier places to get to know each other than this wine bar. Why don’t we just get a taxi back to my place?’ she asked.

  Anthony nodded, a little dazed. ‘Yes. All right.’

  As they left the wine bar, Leo was coming out of El Vino’s with Michael.

  ‘Shall we share a cab as far as Charing Cross?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Fine,’ said Leo. Michael raised a hand to hail a passing cab, and Leo glanced across the road to see Anthony with a blonde girl, walking away up Fleet Street. For a moment he thought there was something vaguely familiar about her, but he couldn’t think what. Dismissing it from his mind, he climbed into the taxi with Michael.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Freddie Hendry woke early – far too early. It always happened these days. The older you got, the less sleep you needed, that was a fact. He could wish that it were not so. He loved sleep, he loved the cocoon of nothingness, the dreams that so pleasantly distorted reality, that allowed him to be with Dorothy again, or to be stumbling happily through nonsensical patchwork landscapes of the past. Nothing in life was so kind as sleep. He hated especially these early parts of the day, when the light through the curtains was greyish and depressing, and the trilling of the waking starlings in the street outside merely shrill and repetitive, quite unlike the varied music of birdsong in the countryside. He was aware, too, of an unpleasant, feverish restlessness that told him he had drunk too much whisky the night before. He knew he should not do that, but some evenings it all grew unbearable, and whisky blunted the wretchedness, made him feel as though the blood coursing in his veins was young and vigorous, not sluggish and old. Then in the mornings he would repent it.

  He looked at his watch, propped up on the bedside cabinet, willing it to be past seven, at least. Six-fifteen. He groaned and lay back on his pillow, his furred tongue probing and licking his toothless upper gums. He would lie awhile and wait for the water to heat up, then have coffee and an early bath. That would fill in a good deal of time. And then he would switch on breakfast television. He disliked it, didn’t really take it in at all, but the colour of bright, lively faces and the sound of voices gave him the illusion of company. Then he would tidy up a bit, write some letters, maybe even do a spot of shopping, though there wasn’t really anything he needed. That would fill in the hours until lunchtime, and after that he would drop in at the library and then set off for the Tube and travel into the City to the offices of Nichols & Co. That was to be the high point of the day. This afternoon they were to meet their new leading counsel – some Welsh fella, Freddie had forgotten his name. He trained his eye on the spidery cracks on the ceiling, feeling quite invigorated by the prospect of meeting this new man. It had been one hell of a blow losing Ellwood, but lately he had ceased to pay attention to many of the important points which Freddie made to him in his faxes. Simply took no notice. Now this new chap, he could make him listen – here was an opportunity to get some really sound ideas across.

&n
bsp; Already formulating in his mind the things he would say to their new leader, Freddie turned over and stretched out a hand to the tumbler on the bedside cabinet, fishing with his fingers for his slippery upper dentures.

  At two o’clock that afternoon Charles Beecham was pacing impatiently up and down in the hallway of his house, listening to the sound of voices on the floor above him, waiting for the estate agent and his clients to finish their meanderings. This was the second time they’d been here, and the estate agent knew that he had an appointment in town; Carstairs would start to fret if Charles didn’t pick him up on time. Charles glanced at his watch, then heard feet slowly descending the stairs. He fixed his slightly self-deprecating, minor celebrity smile on his face.

  ‘Please don’t think I want to rush you in any way but I’m afraid I have an appointment in town …’ He let his voice trail away, knowing that the woman would take up the thread with vigorous apologies; he could tell, from the experience of recent years, that she found the fact that he was a media personality rather glamorous.

  ‘Oh, Mr Beecham, forgive us. We really mustn’t keep you. It was so kind of you to let us pop round again at short notice. We do like the house so very much – don’t we?’ She turned to her husband, who nodded in a vague way, not looking at Charles. She wanted the house, Charles could tell, but the husband didn’t like the price. They were in for some hard bargaining.

  By the time they had gone, it was nearly two-thirty. Charles drove as fast as was safely possible to Brian Carstairs’ place some thirty miles away. Brian and his family lived in a small boxlike house on an estate which had been built ten years ago, an unattractive, sprawling modern development on the edge of Andover. The houses might have looked smart and new once, but now they looked shabby, too close together, the gardens too small. Charles did not have to wonder how Brian and his wife coped with three teenage children in a house that size; he knew all too well. He sighed as he drew up and glanced across at the house, reflecting that in his own case he had been relatively young, with his life ahead of him. For Charles and Hetty it had been the beginning. For Brian, this was very nearly the end.

  As he had predicted, Brian was waiting for him anxiously. He was a small, spare man in his late forties, with a head that seemed a little big for his body, large, sad, intelligent eyes, and thinning dark hair. Twenty years ago he had been a salesman, selling plastics. Ten years later he had gone into partnership and started his own plastics and polythene manufacturing business. Six years later he and his partner had sold it for nearly three million. That was when he had gambled on Lloyd’s, never thinking he could lose. Now, four years later, it was all gone, thanks to Alan Capstall. He and his wife had been forced to sell their six-bedroomed house with its swimming pool, extensive grounds and paddock, the children had been taken out of private school, and they had moved to this dreary semi. Brian spent most of his days applying for sales jobs which he would never get, which went to a younger, more dynamic breed of man – the kind of man Brian had once been.

  Charles saw him watching and waiting behind the net curtains of the small front room, and when he opened the door to Charles a few seconds later, he was ready to go, his large briefcase in his hand stuffed with documents, relevant and irrelevant. For once he looked alert and almost cheerful. The committee meeting in London gave his day some point, his life some focus.

  Brian’s wife, Alison, watched from the doorway as they set off down the path. Charles, raising his hand in a faintly embarrassed gesture which was intended to be both greeting and farewell, was glad he had not had to stop and talk to her. She had a beaten, miserable quality about her. He imagined that she blamed Brian daily, and vocally, for their reduced circumstances.

  In the car, Brian talked nervously and excitedly about the meeting at Nichols & Co, about their new leader, the ramifications for their case. Charles, as he drove, observed that the skin around Brian’s fingernails was red and sore, and that Brian picked fretfully at it during silences.

  ‘How are the children?’ asked Charles, trying to steer Brian away from his interminable rant about the case.

  Brian nibbled briefly at his fingers before answering. ‘Not good. Paul is having a hellish time at his new school. Sophie used to go around in tears about losing her pony, but now she’s coming home late for tea, we don’t know where she is half the time, who she’s with … Anna doesn’t seem too bad … Anyone can say what they like, Charles, but money makes a big difference where children are concerned. I mean, we’ve had to uproot them from everything they’ve known – naturally they resent it, and me. I’m to blame.’ He frowned, picking at an obstinate little tail of skin. ‘Alison bloody nearly tells them that. You would think, after eight months, that she’d stop going on about how she always had doubts about Lloyd’s, she never thought it was a good idea …’

  Charles gave a wry smile. ‘Everyone says that. Everyone’s wise after the event.’

  They drove in silence for a while, then Brian suddenly burst out, ‘What I find impossible to live with, day in, day out, is the sheer arrogance of those bastards who ruined me in the first place. I’m not complaining about the losses on properly managed syndicates. It’s the fact that I have to shell out for the malpractices of that crook Alan Capstall, and he’s still got his debenture at the opera, and his companies, and his two homes and expensive cars. And those stuffed shirts at Lloyd’s – people thinking they can get away with murder …’

  Charles murmured something neutral, and glanced discreetly at the clock, realising with a sinking heart that Brian would probably go on like this for the rest of the journey.

  ‘So, tell me about this committee. Describe them all,’ said Leo. He and Anthony were sitting in a cab in slow-moving traffic on Holborn Viaduct, on their way to the offices of Nichols & Co.

  ‘Well,’ said Anthony, ‘there are seven of them. The chairman is a chap called Basher Snodgrass, some retired Air Force chap who became a Lloyd’s broker after the war. He knows what’s going on and he’s fairly innocuous – they voted him in four months ago because they couldn’t stand the last one they had, Verney. They booted him out at the last AGM, and a right shambles that was. We held it in the Mansion House, and everybody just kept shouting. Not very edifying, the spectacle of hundreds of Lloyd’s Names bellowing at each other, or at Verney, or anyone else who happened to be handy. Anyway, Snodgrass is the chairman. Then there’s a chap called Beecham – actually, you may know him. Or his face, at any rate. Charles Beecham. He does those historical documentaries on Channel Four. He’s got one on the Crusades at the moment.’

  Leo nodded. ‘I know the one. Good-looking chap, waves his hands about when he talks.’

  ‘That’s him. He’s fairly pleasant, actually – compared to the rest, that is. Well, not that they’re unpleasant. Just a bit … tiresome. Then there’s a Mrs Hunter. Got some strange Christian name that I can never remember, like Hyacinth, or Hermione. She seems to be on the committee by virtue of the fact that she’s lost more money than anybody else. Mind you, it still doesn’t seem to have made much of a dent. Her late husband owned oil tankers. She’s rolling in it. But you know how it is – the more they have, the more they hate to lose any.’ He glanced out as they passed the Royal Exchange and turned in to Threadneedle Street. ‘Let’s see – who else …? There’s an American by the name of Cochrane, and he’s worth a fortune, too. He’s all right, but he’s very argumentative, blames his lawyers whenever things go wrong.’

  ‘Quite right, too,’ said Leo with a smile. ‘That’s what they pay us for.’

  ‘Then there’s a fellow called Carstairs – fairly retiring type, does all the minutes and the secretarial work. And, of course, there’s Freddie Hendry.’ Anthony sighed. ‘I think this Lloyd’s business has actually sent him a bit mad. Or else he’s going senile. He’s an ex-colonial type, worked in the civil service out in Bermuda, then came back here in the late seventies. He’d made quite a tidy fortune in investments, and then he and his wife lost everything at
Lloyd’s. She was a Name, too. She died a year or so ago, and according to Fred Fenton he’s not been quite right since then. He’s quite fanatical about the case – it’s life or death to him. But he’s not like Cochrane or Mrs Hunter. He’s completely broke. So’s Carstairs. Anyway, that’s your committee.’

  ‘Right,’ said Leo, as the taxi turned in to London Wall, ‘let’s see what they make of me.’

  By the time the meeting was an hour old, Leo had succeeded in securing the confidence of each member of the committee and charming them entirely. It made Anthony smile to watch him at work, the way he smoothly allayed their suspicions, quelled their fears, boosted their morale, and showed them that he had spent long hours thoroughly acquainting himself with the most minute details of the litigation so far. Like patients with a doctor, these people had put their entire faith in Godfrey Ellwood, who was ten years Leo’s senior, and Leo was conscious that he had a hard act to follow. Moreover, the meeting made Leo aware of something that he had not fully realised until then – the extent to which these people relied on him. It shone from their eyes as they listened to him detailing the next steps to be taken in the case. Their faith in the justice of their case was unshakeable, and they wanted to believe that Leo would triumph on their behalf. Leo, who had a cynical view of the folly and greed of these luckless Names, was slightly taken aback by the earnest nature of their trust in him. It emerged from their discussions that, while they might regard their solicitors as flawed beings, there could be no question of their leading counsel having feet of clay.