Judicial Whispers

by Caro Fraser

  Miss Llewellyn rose and rested her bony red knuckles on the ledge before her. ‘I would not challenge an order for the plaintiff’s costs in cause, my Lord,’ she barked graciously.

  Anthony adjusted his wig as she sat down, and cast a glance at Mr Justice Howe, who nodded.

  ‘This has been a hotly contested motion, and the usual order in such cases is the plaintiff’s costs in the cause. I so order.’

  ‘Thank you, my Lord,’ murmured Anthony, and sat down.

  The judge wrote for a moment, then looked up. ‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. The court rose.

  As Michael and Anthony made their way out of the law courts and across the Strand, Anthony tapped the red velvet bag slung over Michael’s slightly stooped shoulders, in which he carried his silk’s robes.

  ‘I give myself another fifteen years,’ he said, and smiled with a touch of arrogance.

  Michael smiled back. Anthony would never have made such a guileless remark to any other member of chambers; there still existed traces of their master-and-pupil relationship, despite the fact that Michael often felt that Anthony had drifted off into his own little world of success and maturity.

  ‘I rather think,’ he replied archly, ‘that only the most exceptional juniors take silk at thirty-eight.’

  ‘Makes you wonder why Leo’s left it till now,’ said Anthony unthinkingly. He stopped at the entrance to Caper Court, his face slightly flushed. ‘Oh, God – forget I said that.’

  Michael glanced at him. ‘I already have.’ But that, of course, was just one of those things one said. He pondered Anthony’s slip of the tongue as he mounted the stairs to his room. It was one thing that Leo should be leapfrogging Stephen in applying for silk – that, Michael supposed, was Leo’s business – but he was surprised that Anthony should know of it. He had been aware that Anthony had once been rather a protégé of Leo’s for a month or two when he was still a pupil, but he had not thought that they had remained especially friendly since then. But one knew so little of Leo, and of his personal relationships. Oh, he was a charming, witty man, and Michael was one of the first to seek out his company for a drink in El Vino’s after a hard day, but there was an elusive side to Leo’s nature, as though part of his personality lay somewhere like a hidden pool in a forest. It bemused Michael to think that Anthony was in some way privy to Leo’s most confidential affairs. Things were not always what they seemed.

  Anthony was standing in the clerks’ room going through his mail as Michael came downstairs on his way to lunch.

  ‘More instructions from some woman solicitor,’ remarked Henry, jerking his head in Anthony’s direction.

  Anthony was standing flipping through the instructions, and swatted absently at Henry’s head with the envelope. Catching sight of Michael, he said, ‘Who’s Rachel Dean? I’ve never heard of her.’

  Michael glanced at the letter-heading. ‘Nichols and Co. I don’t know. Yet another poor creature who’s fallen prey to your ruthless charms, perhaps.’

  ‘Get lost,’ said Anthony with a smile. Dismissive though he might be of the good-humoured taunts regarding his popularity with women solicitors, Anthony was not without his vanity. He had almost begun to believe that his good looks assisted his exceptional intelligence in securing a steady stream of work.

  Feeling that the air of general levity should not rise any further, Mr Slee distracted Michael’s attention with a discussion regarding a fee note, and Antony took the instructions back to his room.

  He did not get round to reading them until three days later and when he did he was intrigued. This was potentially a big case. Any disaster such as this was bound to be. Grateful though he was for the instructions, Anthony loftily told himself that he was not especially impressed by the fact that Rachel Dean, whoever she might be, had omitted to send all the relevant documents with her instructions. As he picked up the phone to call her, he wondered what she was like. He could not, at his age, help wondering what any unknown woman might be like.

  ‘Hello? Is that Rachel Dean?’ he asked, when he was put through.

  ‘Yes, speaking. Who is this?’ Her voice was light and cool.

  ‘This is Anthony Cross,’ said Anthony. ‘You sent round some instructions the other day – the Valeo Dawn, the explosion in Bombay.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Her voice was not so chilly as it had first sounded. ‘It’s an interesting case, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is,’ agreed Anthony. ‘Very. The reason I’m ringing is that there are some documents I need which you don’t seem to have sent.’

  Rachel was surprised; she was quite sure that she had given Felicity all the relevant enclosures. In fact, she had been particularly careful to do so. She was always meticulous about enclosures. ‘Really? I can’t imagine what they might be.’ Her voice was cool again. ‘I’m quite sure I sent you everything you need.’ This young man had a rather languid, arrogant tone, she thought. She knew the type. Rachel wasn’t especially fond of barristers, particularly the self-satisfied public-school types to be found in successful commercial practices.

  ‘Well,’ said Anthony, smiling slightly to himself – he rather liked to hear women on the defensive – ‘the charter party for a start. And the surveyor’s report.’ He paused. At the other end Rachel rolled her eyes in disbelief, then leant sideways to look out of her doorway in the direction of Felicity’s chair. It was empty. ‘And the master’s note of protest,’ added Anthony. ‘I think they’re all probably of some importance to me.’ He had already formed an impression of a somewhat inept creature handling a case that was beyond her capabilities.

  ‘Yes, I can see that,’ replied Rachel tartly. Her mouth tightened. ‘I’m afraid I can’t understand how this can have happened. I distinctly told my secretary which documents to send.’

  She sounded a little icy now, thought Anthony. Was she annoyed with herself or with him? He wondered what she looked like. This was a brunette’s voice, he would say. Fat? Thin? Short? Tall? He was quite enjoying baiting her, even though he was aware that it wasn’t perhaps the best policy. But he had unshakeable faith in his own charming ability to bring her round.

  ‘I’ll have them sent round to you – as soon as I – ah – as soon as I can lay hands on them,’ Rachel was saying. She would murder that girl. This pompous prig of a junior barrister was making her feel like a complete incompetent.

  ‘Oh, no need,’ said Anthony, leaning back in his chair and snapping an elastic band between his fingers. ‘I have to come up your way at the end of the afternoon, anyway. I’ll drop by and pick them up.’ He paused. ‘I suppose that will give you enough time to find them?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Cross. Plenty of time. I do hope this isn’t taking you out of your way?’ Distinctly frosty.

  ‘No trouble at all. Goodbye.’

  He gave a little laugh as he hung up. Nice voice. Probably fat and over forty. Ah, well. He would see.

  When she had put the phone down, Rachel went out to Felicity’s desk. She looked down at the jumble of work, the copy of Bella, and at the empty chair.

  ‘Doris, do you happen to know where Felicity is?’ she asked.

  Doris took off her earphones and opened her small eyes wide. ‘Ooh, no, I don’t, Miss Dean. Was it something urgent? I can always fit it into Mr MacBride’s work, if you like. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.’ She gave Rachel her marshmallow smile, her little eyes fastened inquisitively, helpfully, on Rachel’s face. Rachel returned the smile sweetly; she did not like Doris.

  ‘No, thank you, Doris. I just wish to speak to her.’

  ‘Right you are, Miss Dean.’ Doris gave a simper, then added, ‘She’s a little bit scatterbrained, Felicity. You know.’ At this Louise gave a snort, her eyes fastened on the screen in front of her, fingers flashing over the keys.

  Rachel thought she had a pretty good idea where Felicity might be. And indeed, there she was, relaxing in the Ladies with a cigarette, chatting to two of the filing clerks. She had her shoes off and was leaning again
st the cubicles. When she saw Rachel, she put her cigarette out with a stubbing hiss in one of the basins, slipped on her shoes, and with a breathless ‘See you, girls!’ followed Rachel back to her office. Rachel said nothing until they were in her room with the door closed. Doris’s eyes peeped over the top of her word processor and then she ducked down out of sight.

  ‘Felicity,’ said Rachel in a normal sort of voice, ‘do you remember those documents that were to go out with the instructions to counsel on the Valeo Dawn?’

  Felicity nodded, then hesitated, and then shook her head. ‘Yes, I remember them. But it wasn’t the Valeo Dawn, it was the Valeo Trader.’

  ‘No, Felicity,’ replied Rachel, her voice still kindly. ‘The documents belonged to the Valeo Dawn.’

  ‘Oh.’ Felicity looked thoughtful, then contrite. She wound a curl of brown hair round her finger. ‘Oh. I sent them to Richards Butler. I thought they were on the Valeo Trader.’

  ‘Felicity, you may have sent some of them to Richards Butler, but not all of them. You have, whatever you have done, made a real mess of things. You realise those were original documents, don’t you?’ Rachel was angry now.

  Felicity looked at her questioningly, and Rachel sighed. Why did she, of all people, have to be lumbered with Felicity? ‘And now I shall have to ring round trying to track them down. Please,’ she looked beseechingly at Felicity, ‘when I give you documents to send out, double-check that you’re sending them to the right people. You only had to look at them to see which vessel they referred to! Honestly …’ If Felicity were Simon’s secretary, or any of the other partners’, she’d have been given her marching orders weeks ago. As it was, Rachel knew she didn’t have the guts. And, anyway, there were some things at which Felicity wasn’t completely hopeless. She looked sadly at her for a moment, and then said, ‘Felicity, why have you got coloured string tied round your wrists?’

  Felicity glanced down, then beamed a smile at Rachel. ‘That’s for my driving lesson after work. So’s I remember which way I’m going. Red for left, blue for right. I’m not very good at left and right.’

  ‘I see,’ murmured Rachel. She gazed after Felicity as she went back to her word processor, sighed, and picked up the telephone.

  Anthony reached Nichols & Co at six-thirty. The traffic had been slow, but he had whiled away the minutes in the taxi wondering whether he should ring up that Harriet girl this evening. She’d left messages twice on the answerphone, and he supposed he was vaguely interested. He wasn’t sure if he could be bothered. She was a bit keen, and he preferred to have more of a challenge. Perhaps that business with Julia had made him cynical, but at least the approach he now adopted towards women meant that there was no danger of being hurt again, of becoming involved. Leo had taught him that you should simply enjoy whatever was on offer.

  He gave his name to the porter who had come on duty for the evening, and the porter rang up to Rachel’s room. Yes, she was still there, and would he please go up.

  Anthony felt a pang of guilt as he walked through the deserted offices, past the cleaners with their black plastic bin bags. Perhaps it was rather rude of him to leave it so late. Still, she’d waited.

  Rachel, as she sat in her office, was not quite sure why she had waited. She had tracked down the missing documents, which Felicity had erroneously enclosed with some other piece of mail to a different firm, but she had been unable to get them back that day. When she’d rung up Mr Cross to tell him so, he was out. It was only courteous to wait. And she was curious to see what kind of person she was instructing, this young man of whom everyone seemed to think so highly. He certainly hadn’t made much of an impression on her that afternoon, beyond one of overweening arrogance.

  She thought she detected the same arrogance in the smile he gave her as he stopped in her doorway. She was mistaken in this. Anthony was merely trying to suppress his amusement at realising how far adrift his speculations had been. The girl he was looking at fitted her voice entirely – and yet he had never imagined anyone like this.

  ‘Hello. Anthony Cross,’ he murmured, and leant forward to shake her hand.

  ‘How do you do? I was about to leave. I had begun to think you weren’t coming. Fortunately I had some work to finish.’

  Anthony slipped into a chair and gazed at her. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said, sounding not in the least penitent. ‘The traffic was bad.’

  She nodded. She was conscious of a certain cold stiffness that had taken possession of her limbs. She knew this feeling, knew what it meant. There was a pause.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Anthony, and smiled, leaning one elbow on the arm of his chair and stroking his chin with his fingers. God, what a beautiful girl. He wondered if she ever took that frozen-fish expression off her face.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ she said, rousing herself. ‘I couldn’t get hold of those documents this afternoon. I know where they are – my secretary sent them to Richards Butler by mistake – but I won’t have them until tomorrow.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ said Anthony easily. He shifted in his chair, taking in the pale, soft curve of her face, the dark brows and slender nose, the sleek black hair falling to her shoulders. And her mouth – such a mouth. He would like to see it smile. She didn’t look like she smiled a lot. And why did she have that wary expression in her eyes? He wanted to make her stand up, see what the rest of her was like. He glanced at his watch. ‘Why don’t we improve the hour and go for a glass of wine?’

  She lifted her chin. ‘I’m afraid I have a few things to do at home—’

  He waved this aside. ‘Come on. We have to discuss this case, anyway. Forget about whatever it is you have to do.’

  She looked down uncertainly, wishing this tension would pass from her limbs, wishing he wouldn’t smile in that way. She must try and get over this thing. She must make the effort. This would be safe enough. Just a drink. He was only counsel in a case, that was all. This was purely business. Don’t be afraid, she told herself. This is so stupid!

  ‘All right,’ she said, giving him a quick, bright smile. ‘Why not?’

  That was more like it, thought Anthony, delighted to see her expression warm for a few brief seconds. They went out into the fading light of the early October evening, walking together down Bishopsgate and into Leadenhall Market. Rachel felt more relaxed. There were lots of people around. She needn’t feel threatened by the directness of his interested smile. Not for the time being.

  ‘I love Leadenhall Market,’ she said, glancing around the cobbled alleyways beneath the high vaulted roof.

  Anthony nodded. ‘It’s nice. It reminds me a bit of Spitalfields Market. Only it’s a lot cleaner. I used to work in Spitalfields,’ he added ruminatively.

  ‘Did you?’ She glanced up at him in surprise as they crossed the cobbles to the wine bar entrance. ‘What did you do there?’

  ‘I was a porter. Real lowlife.’ He smiled, his face losing its hauteur and looking momentarily boyish. ‘It was just a holiday job.’

  Rachel thought about this in silence as they went into the smokey throng of the wine bar. While Anthony went to the bar, she sat on a stool next to a wooden ledge backed by a high mirror, nibbling at a bowl of crisps and glancing covertly at his reflection as he stood waiting to be served. In an odd way his reflected person seemed less threatening; it put him at a distance, his tall, dark figure, his rather feminine good looks. She watched him as he paid for their drinks. How odd, to think of him working as a market porter. She would have put him down for the usual Oxbridge double first, everything on a plate, taking from life exactly what he expected it to give him.

  He came back with a bottle of white wine and two glasses and set them down on the ledge. Rachel looked at the bottle in dismay.

  ‘You shouldn’t have got all that! A glass would have been fine.’

  ‘You only get rubbish if you buy it by the glass,’ replied Anthony. As he drew up a stool and sat down near to her, his knee brushed the edge of hers, and she stiffened and inched it away
. Anthony pretended not to notice and poured the wine. He gave her a glass and smiled at her, noticing that nervous, watchful look of hers before she returned the smile briefly and took the glass from him.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, and she murmured in reply.

  ‘So – when were you a porter at Spitalfields?’ she asked. She wore a bright, opaque expression of interest.

  ‘Oh, a couple of years ago. In the summer holidays after Bar School.’

  Now her expression of interest and surprise was genuine. ‘You’re only – what, twenty-three, then?’ She gazed at him. ‘I’m sorry. That sounded rude.’

  He laughed. ‘No, no – that’s right. But I’ll be twenty-four in February. I’m really twenty-three and three-quarters.’

  She laughed, too. He enjoyed seeing her laugh, felt that it was a tiny achievement. He found her interesting for all the wrong reasons – or rather, not simply for the usual ones.

  There was a silence in which she sipped her wine, uncomfortably aware that he was looking at her in a considering fashion. How sure of himself he seemed. And only twenty-three. Rachel herself was twenty-seven. The realisation that he was really no more than a boy lessened her tension.

  ‘From first appearances, I wouldn’t have judged you to be the type to work in a fruit market in the holidays,’ she remarked.

  ‘No? What type would you think me?’ asked Anthony, flattered by her interest.

  Rachel suddenly wished she had not allowed the conversation to take this personal turn. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she replied vaguely, and glanced away.

  ‘What, public school, Oxbridge, money at home, holidays spent skiing in winter, Italy and Greece in the summer – that kind of thing?’

  He had made her laugh again, but a trifle uncomfortably. She swallowed the rest of her wine and he poured some more. ‘Well, you said it – not me,’ she answered.