Time Fuse

by Penny Jordan

  She was a small blonde girl whom Selina remembered Sue had once told her had set her sights on Piers when she first joined the typing unit and who, having been rebuffed, was often extremely vitriolic in her criticisms of him. At the start Selina had sympathised with her, but now she found herself saying quite sharply, ‘Not at all. Mr Gresham is the only other QC in the partnership and as such must naturally take professional precedence over the others.’

  ‘My goodness,’ the blonde’s eyes were speculative. ‘Fallen for him have you?’ The look she gave Selina was slightly malicious. ‘It won’t do you the slightest bit of good you know. He’s strictly not in the market for any involvement with the staff. Oh no. When Mr QC Gresham decides to find a wife it will be someone from the right social class and an unblemished background.’

  Selina knew the other girl was probably only giving voice to her own bitterness and yet there was a kernel of truth in what she was saying. When Piers married it would be to someone young whom he could mould and control…never the illegitimate child of his uncle’s ex-secretary, she taunted herself, no matter that his uncle was also her father.

  Stop tormenting yourself, she warned herself mentally as she walked through into her own office. Put him out of your mind. But with the prospect of most of the next week spent in his company that wasn’t going to be easy to do.

  She had seen him in court before, of course, but this was the first time she had actually accompanied him, and she could feel butterflies fluttering tensely in her stomach as she collected the case containing his wig and gown, and checked over the papers he would need. He walked into the office while she was doing so, throwing some comment over his shoulder to his junior counsel.

  ‘Phew,’ the latter complained when Piers entered his uncle’s office and shut the door behind him. ‘He’s in a mood today. Most unlike him. I always thought he had guts of iron because nothing ever seems to move him. That’s why he’s so lethal in court.’

  ‘Because he’s a—human?’ Selina asked wryly.

  ‘He’s prosecuting today—a particularly unpleasant hit and run. The chappie driving the car claims the mother was at fault because she wasn’t watching her child, but talking to someone else.’

  ‘And was she?’

  ‘Yes, but Piers intends to plea that the road was a quiet suburban one leading only to the school and that the driver was in excess of the speed limit.’

  ‘And the child?’

  ‘Killed,’ Peter Simmonds told her briefly. ‘I always hate these cases; the defence will try to crucify the mother, claiming negligence on her part,’ he grimaced faintly. ‘With Piers in the mood he’s in I don’t envy the driver though. Got everything?’

  When Selina nodded her head he opened the door for her. With their chambers so close to the courts it was possible to walk the intervening distance. Today the sun was shining; the weather pleasantly warm, but Selina couldn’t help shivering, wondering how she would feel if she was the mother of a child who had been killed in a road accident. Guilty? Probably…but who in all honesty could not admit that it was virtually impossible to watch an active child every minute of every day…and the tragedy of life was that it only took minutes to destroy.

  The mother and her solicitor were waiting for them; the mother thin and pale, her solicitor grave. While Peter Simmonds talked to them Selina stood to one side. Although she had her back to him she was aware of Piers the moment he arrived. She moved out of earshot of the small group while he discussed things with them, only to be reproved by his curt voice commanding, ‘Selina come over here will you. I want to check out some of those papers you’ve got.’

  While the men prepared for the hearing Selina sat with the mother. Her husband, she explained, could not take the time off work. ‘He’s already on short time,’ she told her, ‘and if he takes time off… I’ve had to leave the other two kids with his mother as it is, and she isn’t best pleased about that.’ Worry and pain had carved lines into her pale forehead, and although Selina guessed that she couldn’t be more than twenty-seven or -eight, already she looked nearly ten years older.

  ‘I suppose you think it’s awful, me being here to get money for our Tommy’s death,’ she added awkwardly, ‘It won’t bring him back I know, but I had this little part-time job that helped out, and I’ve had to give that up. It’s me nerves see… I can’t bear to have the other two out of my sight.’

  Tears weren’t very far away and Selina’s heart ached with sympathy for her. Poor woman. ‘Just darted out into the road he did…right under me nose. I called out to him to stop… I’m always warning the kids about that road. Dangerous it is, but folks don’t seem to care the way they race up and down it. There’s a sports centre next to the school and there’s always comings and goings… At first I thought he’d just passed out like… There was no blood you see…nothing. But then when I touched him…’ she started to shake. ‘I just knew somehow…I just knew… The driver was shouting at me…saying I should have been watching him, but he just slipped away…’ She started to cry and Selina reached out squeezing her hand gently. What could she say? What emotion had she ever experienced that could compare with this woman’s? What agony it must be to lose a child she thought helplessly…what eternal torment.

  ‘Mrs Evans.’ Piers had come to stand beside them and for once she had not been aware of his presence. ‘We’ll be going into court shortly. Are you sure you feel up to it? We can ask for an adjournment if you wish. The defence will be asking you some pretty hard questions. You remember we talked about them?’

  The woman gulped and blew her nose, shaking her head fiercely. ‘No…best get it over and done with. Whatever they ask me I can only tell the truth.’

  Selina’s heart was wrung with pity for her. The truth could present many faces and a skilled barrister was adept at choosing the one that best suited his case.

  Once inside the courtroom, she saw a row behind the desk provided for the prosecution. Over on the other side of the room the car driver was also sitting down. With a small thrill of envy Selina saw that his barrister was a woman. How elegant she looked in her wig and gown. In other circumstances that could have been her, Selina thought wryly. Across the intervening space both sets of legal representatives acknowledged one another, and Selina noticed how the woman’s expression changed as she recognised Piers.

  This particular case was one of several legal aid cases the chambers handled. There was no need for a barrister of Piers’ standing to involve himself in it, but Sir Gerald had once told her that it was their policy to do so, both because it was good training for the more junior barrister to see how a more senior man worked and because, as he had put it, ‘In this country the cost of becoming a barrister is mitigated slightly in the initial stages by the education one can receive from the State, and that being the case I feel, and Piers agrees with me, that it is only just and fair that that cost is repaid where and when we can repay it.’

  The case followed its set pattern, but it was one that Selina found endlessly fascinating, although on this occasion she could not remain as impartial as she knew she ought.

  Although the defence counsel was persuasive in her plea—her questions designed to portray Piers’ client as an irresponsible mother—she was no match for Piers. In the end Selina was not surprised when the court found in their client’s favour, although she was realistic enough to admit that the case could have gone either way and that they had won simply because of Piers’ greater skill as a lawyer.

  Piers disappeared after the case was over; presumably to change out of his robes Selina thought. Unlike even other members of their own chambers he seemed to derive no pleasure in wearing his robes outside the courtroom, and yet there was no denying that they suited him. She shivered slightly, still affected by the way he had destroyed the defence’s case. The car driver, who had seemed such an unshakeable witness when questioned by his own counsel, had backtracked and muddled his way through his evidence when attacked by Piers.

  U
nsure whether she was expected to wait around until Piers came back, or make her own way back to chambers, Selina hesitated. Their client turned to thank Peter yet again before being led away by her solicitor.

  ‘Time I wasn’t here,’ Peter announced glancing at his watch. ‘I promised my wife, I’d try to get home early tonight.’ He groaned slightly, ‘My eldest’s parents’ night at school. Tell Piers I’ve gone will you?’ he asked making the decision as to whether she should stay or go for her.

  Ten minutes later, when Selina saw Piers sauntering down the corridor towards her, deep in conversation with the defence counsel, she wished she hadn’t waited. His eyebrows lifted querying when he saw her, and Selina did not miss the way his companion’s eyes mirrored faint hostility as she looked at her.

  ‘Excuse me a second, Fiona.’ He left the other woman’s side and came over to her. ‘Something wrong?’

  Flushing as uncomfortably as a schoolgirl caught up in the toils of a crush on a more senior scholar Selina could only stare at him blankly, pulling herself together only when she saw the beginnings of a frown touching his forehead, his mouth drawing down. Dear God that pain tearing her apart must be jealousy! She had barely been able to endure the sight of that other woman at his side…

  ‘Er…no…’ Good heavens, she was stammering like a fool. ‘Peter asked me to tell you he’s gone home…’

  His expression told her that he was less than impressed. ‘Piers…I thought we were going for a drink.’ Fiona’s cold blue eyes flashed daggers at Selina.

  ‘Be with you in a second. Take this back to the office for me then, will you,’ he said coolly, handing Selina the case containing his court robes.

  She was seething as she took it, all too conscious of the other woman’s presence, and of being treated like some serving girl, there only to do her master’s bidding, but she refused to let Piers see how she felt. If he did he would only gloat, she told herself bitterly, turning her back on the other couple as she walked towards the exit.

  That night she was tormented by uneasy dreams. In one she was in the witness box being cross-questioned by Piers. ‘Tell me the truth,’ he kept demanding, his expression bitter and full of dislike for her.

  In another she was tearing at the fine silk of his robes, shredding the fabric into ribbons until it turned to his flesh, taut and sleek, beneath her fingers, her nails drawing little trails of raised skin, scoring into its smoothness as she grasped him in the paroxyms of a fierce desire.

  She woke up unrefreshed, haunted by vague memories of what she had dreamed, shuddering a little over them while she showered. What was happening to her? Was it really such a short time ago that she had thought herself safe from suffering human emotions; that she had thought she would work for her father and emerge from the experience unscathed? It seemed incredible now that she could have been so naive. Perhaps this was her punishment for what she was doing; that she should fall in love with Piers.

  He was in Sir Gerald’s office when she got there; she could hear him on the phone. ‘New York,’ Sue whispered confidingly as she sidled in with a tray of coffee.

  New York! Did that mean he might have to fly out there? She knew very little about the case he was involved in over there, apart from the fact that the Americans were consulting him on various points of English law connected with their client’s law-suit. Half of her hoped he would have to go so that she would not have to endure the daily torture of seeing him; the other half prayed that he would not.

  When he thrust open the communicating door and said curtly, ‘Come in here a minute will you, Selina,’ she followed him mutely into the office. The desk was scattered with papers. A file on the edge of it caught her eye and her heart started to pound unevenly as she read her own name on it. ‘Your personnel file,’ he told her coolly, following her eyes. ‘It makes interesting reading.’

  ‘You flatter me.’

  It was verbal sword play and she was like a clumsy amateur matched against an almost unmatchable skill. His smile was unkind and she tensed waiting. ‘I’m just reading up on the Lockwood case,’ he told her smoothly. ‘It’s very interesting.’

  Adam Lockwood had been accused by his company of selling details of a new product they were developing to a rival firm. He had been with them for twenty-five years and had been one of their most trusted employees. His employers were their client, and his defence was that he was being blackmailed at the time by a woman he had an affair with.

  ‘It never fails to amaze me what your sex will do in the name of that emotion they so rashly describe as love. Tell me, Selina,’ he asked softly, ‘what do you think of a woman who blackmails a man she’s supposed to love?’

  Selina wasn’t deceived; she could remember what he had said to her about Sir Gerald. ‘Either she’s been so hurt by her lover that the only way she can ease the pain is to hit back at him, or…’

  ‘She never loved him in the first place, but was simply using him and will continue to use him,’ Piers finished for her.

  ‘You have an extremely jaundiced view of the female sex,’ Selina told him shakily.

  ‘Do I? Realistic would have been my description. While you are staying at my uncle’s home I trust you will not do anything to abuse the hospitality you will be given there,’ he said abruptly, changing the conversation. ‘My aunt has already suffered once through the machinations of a woman like yourself. She even looked like you,’ he added broodingly, studying her with bitter eyes while Selina’s heart thumped frantically.

  To cover her agitation she said angrily, ‘What are you expecting me to do? Sneak into bed with Sir Gerald?’

  The dark flush of colour under his skin both excited and alarmed her. She knew she had made him angry and the memory of other occasions when she had aroused that emotion in him flooded through her body, making it ache for his embrace.

  ‘He sleeps with my aunt,’ he told her tightly. ‘Be warned Selina; just one step out of line while you’re in Dorset and…’ He cursed as the phone rang, and while he answered it Selina made her escape.

  How could he think she would really… She took a deep breath trying to steady herself. He despised and disliked her and she knew if she had any sense she would seal her heart against him, but it was already too late.

  She didn’t see him again until lunch time when he came into her office to say curtly, ‘I have to fly to New York tomorrow, and I’m not likely to be back for ten days or so. I’ve arranged with my mother that she’ll drive you down to Dorset. She’ll telephone you with all the arrangements.’

  The rest of the week passed slowly, broken up only on Wednesday afternoon when Dulcie Gresham rang as Piers had promised.

  ‘You’ll love it at Homings,’ she told Selina when they had made their arrangements. ‘I grew up there, so perhaps I’m prejudiced.’ She went on to chat for several more minutes but all Selina’s starved senses could register when she eventually hung up was that not once during their conversation had his mother mentioned Piers.

  She was ready and waiting at ten o’clock on the Saturday morning when Dulcie arrived, driving an immaculate Jaguar car.

  ‘My goodness, you obviously believe in travelling light,’ she commented when she opened the boot for Selina to put her bags inside.

  ‘I didn’t have a lot to pack,’ Selina confessed. There weren’t many casual clothes in her wardrobe, but feeling that her office suits would look rather out of place, she had packed several plain skirts, adding T-shirts and jeans in the hope that she would be neither under-nor over-dressed.

  ‘Casual gear is very much the order of the day,’ Dulcie told her glancing approvingly at the buttermilk linen skirt Selina was wearing with its toning buttermilk and grey cotton knit sweater. ‘I hope you’ve packed something for evening though,’ Dulcie warned her. ‘Mary does tend to entertain rather a lot during summer recess. I dare say she’ll be keeping things rather low key this year in view of Gerald’s condition, but I’m sure there will be the odd dinner party.’

>   ‘But surely I won’t be expected to attend,’ Selina protested. ‘After all, I’ll be there to work…’

  ‘My dear, you make yourself sound like a governess invited to join the family for dinner,’ Dulcie laughed. ‘Of course, you’ll dine with us.’

  That meant she would have to go out and buy something to wear Selina reflected, thinking about the only formal dress she had included in her packing. A plain silk jersey it was attractive enough but it sounded as though she might need more than one evening outfit.

  Dulcie Gresham drove well, chatting idly as she did so, wry comments about her brother’s family, with the odd anecdote thrown in.

  ‘You’ll meet all the girls, but probably not at the same time. They all spend some of the summer with their parents. I think you’ll find them easy enough to get on with although Helen, the youngest, can be a little reserved at first.

  ‘We’re all relying on you to stop Gerald from working too hard,’ Dulcie told Selina when eventually they turned off the M4 and started meandering down winding country roads. ‘This isn’t the most direct route,’ she confessed, ‘but it saves getting snarled up in the traffic. How are you finding working for Piers?’

  The question caught Selina slightly off-guard. ‘Different,’ she responded cautiously. Had he told his mother about his suspicions of her? Somehow she doubted it. She remembered seeing her personnel file lying on his desk. Why had he been looking at it? There was nothing there that could lead him to the truth, no real pointers to the past…that had been wiped out when the social worker had confused her real father with her mother’s lover. All her file would tell him was that one Selina Thorn had been orphaned at age eleven by the death of her parents in a car crash. That those supposed parents had not been married and that her real surname was that of his uncle’s ex-mistress was something he was hardly likely to uncover. Or at least she hoped it was. She gave a faint shiver as she pictured him confronting her with the truth and Dulcie Gresham noticing it said, ‘Oh dear, are you cold, I’ll turn the heater on.’