An Immoral Code (35 page)

They had come at last to the day for which Freddie had waited so patiently. Admittedly Leo had had Capstall on the stand for all of the previous day, but that had been merely to take him through a variety of documents and letters, all just stuff leading up to the real issues. There had been some interesting moments, but Freddie was convinced that today they would get to the heart of the thing, that Leo would get Capstall to demonstrate to all the world what a charlatan he was, and to admit that everything he had done had been negligent in the extreme. He noticed, as he edged his way into his seat, that Basher was there, and Mrs Hunter, and Cochrane, and a handful of other Names whom he vaguely recognised. They had come today, of course, though they couldn’t be bothered to show much interest in the rest of the proceedings. Freddie felt a faint pride at the thought that he, and he alone, had been up to the task of coming every day, seeing the thing through properly.

Anthony sat listening to the buzz and murmur of voices as everyone in court sat waiting for the proceedings to commence. Was he imagining it, or could he detect a heightened tension, an air of excitement that was not usually there? He glanced round, and saw that there were many more people in the public benches than usual. Everyone regarded Leo’s cross-examination of Capstall as the key to their case, wanted to see and hear for themselves what the man had to say in defence or explanation of his actions. Above all, they wanted Leo to get him to admit that he had acted recklessly and arrogantly in the manner of his underwriting, which had ruined so many. If Leo could do that, thought Anthony, then they would be well on their way to winning. But, of course, in the end it all depended on the
view that Sir Basil took. It was hard to tell, so far, whether he was sympathetic to the Names or not. At that moment Sir Basil himself entered the court to take his place on the Bench, and Anthony and everyone else rose mechanically. Sir Basil’s own sister and brother-in-law, reflected Anthony, had been badly hit by Lloyd’s, so it was fair to assume he would tend to take the Names’ part. But one could never be sure. It would be nice, thought Anthony as he resumed his seat, to have a bit of an indication of what Sir Basil’s real feelings were.

After a few seconds Alan Capstall mounted the steps to the witness stand. He was a tall, well-built man in his mid fifties, expensively dressed, but not remarkable in any way. He looked out at the court with a bland expression, endeavouring to appear matter-of-fact, but there was no mistaking the swift, wary look in his eyes as he glanced from Sir Basil to Leo, who had risen to his feet to resume his cross-examination of the previous day. So far Leo had been the soul of smiling courtesy, but it was this very fact that made Capstall uneasy. If anything, he felt he would have fared better in an aggressive atmosphere, could have risen to a scathing challenge or outright offensive. But Leo’s polite, dry manner made him feel foxed and defensive.

‘Yes, Mr Davies?’ said Sir Basil, when everybody appeared settled.

Leo smiled at Capstall, who did not smile in reply. ‘Good morning, Mr Capstall,’ said Leo easily. ‘Mr Capstall, I would just like to ask you one or two more questions on the topic of the responsibility of the writing of the run-off contracts and your involvement in it …’

Here we go, thought Anthony, preparing to take notes. Here was the long, slow run-in. He wondered whether Leo would try to nail him before lunch, or leave it until later. All in all, it was going to be an interesting day.

For the next two hours Leo worked diligently, taking
Capstall through documents and letters, harping on the topic of reasonable exposure and unquantifiable risks, pushing further and further towards the question of Capstall’s own imprudent behaviour. It was all done with politeness and patience and masterly skill and, by the time the lunchtime adjournment came, Leo felt that he had his end in sight, that the pressure which he had begun to apply would show results in the afternoon. As Capstall stepped down from the stand and the lawyers began to gather up their papers, he glanced at his watch. Today wasn’t the best of days for Rachel to pick, but he had said he would see her at the main entrance to the Law Courts. He thought he had a good idea what she wanted to say.

As he glanced round, he noted with a sudden flash of pleasure that Charles was there, chatting to Freddie and Basher at the courtroom door. He hadn’t been there at the beginning of the day, so he must have slipped in during the morning. The rush of excitement which he felt was quite exhilarating, and he hoped that Charles would be there for the afternoon. Charles glanced across, saw Leo and smiled.

‘Good stuff,’ he said, as Leo approached. ‘You’ve got the bastard looking very jittery.’

‘Well, we’ll see what the afternoon brings,’ said Leo, trying not to let his gaze rest for too long on the features which he had come to love.

‘I don’t see why you have to be quite so polite to the damned scoundrel,’ muttered Freddie, who had hoped to see blood by now.

‘Oh, I have my methods. Courtesy and patience, you know.’

‘Not what I’d give him, if I had my way,’ said Freddie. ‘Come on, Snodgrass, let’s find some lunch. Good luck this afternoon,’ he added to Leo.

Charles gave a chuckle as Freddie and Basher made off, and at the sound and sight of him Leo felt that he could do anything
that day, just so long as Charles was there. Then he remembered Rachel. The pleasure of Charles’s company would have to wait until later.

‘I’m sorry we can’t have a bite of lunch together. I’m meeting someone in a few moments,’ said Leo.

Charles shrugged. ‘I hadn’t actually meant to be here till this afternoon. I came up to see my agent, but things got messed up. Come on, let’s walk out together.’

Charles was so involved in conversation with Leo that he didn’t notice Rachel at first, standing at the foot of the steps leading down from the Law Courts, wrapped against the cold in a long camel coat, the wind whipping strands of dark hair about her face. When he did notice her, he was pleased but not particularly surprised. This was her stamping ground, so to speak. He left Leo’s side, and went forward and kissed her.

‘You just can’t let me out of your sight for more than a few hours, can you?’ he said, smiling and giving her a sideways hug. Then he glanced at Leo. He and Rachel were staring at one another in a sort of frozen way. ‘I don’t think you know Leo Davies, do you—?’ he began, but before he could complete the introduction Rachel broke in, her face stony. She had seen too late who Leo’s companion was. The situation was one which she would just have to face. But this was not the way she had wanted Leo to find out about Charles, or Charles about Leo.

‘Yes, I do,’ she said simply. ‘He’s my husband.’ She turned to Charles. ‘I thought you said you were seeing your agent this morning?’

‘I was,’ said Charles very slowly, his mind trying to absorb what she had just said. ‘He had some sort of domestic crisis, so I came over to court to see how things …’ He let his words tail away, then looked from Leo to Rachel. Good God. So it was Leo. He was the chap who slept with blokes and shagged the nanny. Good God. He looked from Rachel’s white, mortified
face to Leo’s grim one, and for a moment all three stood in an astonished and uncomfortable tableau.

Leo, recovering from his shock and disbelief, put it all together in an instant, marvelling at how simply the pieces fitted. The kiss, the way Rachel had spoken to Charles, mentioning his agent – that casual domesticity betrayed everything. Charles was her lover. She must be living with him, she and Oliver. It was where she had automatically gone the day that she had left him. How long had the thing been going on? he wondered. Months? How long had he been pathetically deluding himself with his infatuation, lusting after Charles, hoping? The sense of shock, of humiliation, was appalling, cavernous.

He turned to look at Charles. Charles was smiling. Charles was positively grinning. And after a few seconds in which Charles tried to contain his feelings, he positively exploded with laughter. He laughed with his whole body, throwing back his head and hooting with mirth. He laughed so uproariously and helplessly at the ludicrous situation in which he found himself that passers-by turned and looked at his tall figure, grinning slightly at the infectiousness of his laughter. Then he managed to control himself long enough to clap Leo lightly on the back and say, ‘I imagine you two have a few things to talk about.’ And, still laughing, he walked off, leaving Leo and Rachel looking at one another.

When he came back into court after lunch, Anthony had a distinctly unsettled feeling. At lunchtime Camilla had said she wanted to speak to him at the end of the day, making it sound as though it was something serious and difficult. He only hoped she wasn’t pregnant. And then Leo. He had passed Leo just after this morning’s session, standing on the pavement outside the Law Courts with Rachel and Charles Beecham. He had almost stopped to say hello, but there was something about the atmosphere, the way all three were looking at one another, that had told Anthony it wasn’t the time or the place. What could that have been about? he wondered. Then as Anthony had carried on across the Strand he’d heard Charles burst out laughing behind him, so he’d assumed it was all right, whatever it was they were discussing. Now, as he looked at Leo’s face, he knew there was something distinctly wrong.

Leo, as he sat trying to focus his concentration on the business ahead of him, could feel Anthony eyeing him with concern. It must show, he knew. But in the light of what had just happened, it was hard to keep one’s expression light and
untroubled. The very worst thing – worse than the farcicality of the whole business, or the stark humiliation he felt – was the catastrophic timing. Were the fates in some sort of conspiracy against him? First those rumours about himself and Anthony which had been maliciously designed to unsettle the start of the case, then that chilling scare from Francis, and now this. He tried to rationalise it, put it in proportion. What was it, after all? Merely that his wife had found another man – which, Rachel being the woman she was, and in the light of events, was hardly surprising. So the man had turned out to be Charles, the object of his own hopes and affections. What did that signify, beyond disappointment, and an evaporation of cherished hopes? Nothing. Had it not been for the pure surprise of the thing, he might, under other circumstances, have been able to find the whole thing as ridiculous as Charles obviously had. But the thought of the love which he had genuinely borne for Charles these past few months gave him a wrench of pain. No, he must not allow it to touch him in that way, must treat the matter lightly. He shook his head as if to clear it, and was conscious of Anthony, sitting only inches away, glancing guardedly at him again. He turned to him, and saw in his eyes an expression of such candid concern that he suddenly found himself able to lean close to him and murmur in a low, conversational tone, ‘Do you know what?’

‘What?’

‘I’ve just found out that Rachel is living with Charles Beecham. Our client is screwing my wife. I am being, to use that delightful expression, cuckolded.’

‘Ah.’

‘So if I don’t look my normal self, put it down to momentary shock and confusion. She wants a divorce. It wouldn’t surprise me if she marries him.’

‘Oh.’

Leo sighed, then folded his arms and regarded his notes thoughtfully. ‘And do you know what else?’ He glanced back to Anthony.

‘No, what?’ Anthony was busy trying to absorb these sudden and surprising revelations.

‘I rather fancied Mr Beecham. I even believed the feeling was mutual.’

‘Mmm.’ There was a long pause, then Anthony said, ‘That’s bad luck.’

Leo looked at Anthony and smiled, and suddenly felt much better. ‘I like you, Anthony,’ he said fondly. ‘It rather helps to be able to tell you things.’ There was a sudden stirring around them, and Sir Basil entered the court. Leo and Anthony rose.

‘Are you going to be all right?’ murmured Anthony, thinking, as Leo had, that the timing of all this could not have been worse.

‘Oh, I think I shall rise above it,’ replied Leo.

Anthony watched Leo tug his gown about him, fingering his notes, waiting for Alan Capstall to ascend the witness stand, and knew that in those moments Leo was trying to clear his mind of everything except the task ahead of him. It could not be easy.

Rachel and Charles were having their first quarrel, a minor one, and it was taking place outside Court Number 25. They managed to argue in low voices, conscious of their surroundings.

‘But why didn’t you
tell
me who he was in the first place?’ asked Charles, who was not feeling quite so wholehearted about this quarrel as Rachel was.

‘Because of who he is! He’s the leader in your case! I didn’t want you to … I thought you might have … oh, I don’t know. Told other members of the committee, or something.’

‘Thanks very much.’

‘I didn’t want to mess this case up for Leo. It’s very important
for him and, whatever I feel about our marriage, I don’t want to wreck his career. It just didn’t seem like a good idea for you to know. I was going to tell you once the case was over.’

‘I think you’ve made me look a bit of an idiot, frankly, Rachel. I mean, I’ve been really friendly with the bloke the past few months—’

‘How was I to know that? Anyway, you seemed to find it all screamingly funny an hour ago.’

‘Well, it is a bit of a joke, isn’t it? I mean, admit it.’

‘I didn’t like the way you fell about laughing. It seemed rather – rather heartless.’

‘I can’t help it if you don’t happen to share my sense of humour, can I?’

She was about to make a retort, then sighed and looked at her watch. ‘Oh, we’ll talk about it tonight. I have to get back to work.’

‘Anyway, what did you and he talk about?’

‘When?’

‘Today. Now. This past hour or so.’

Rachel sighed impatiently. ‘I’ll tell you tonight. I have to go—’

Charles shook his head musingly. ‘I don’t honestly think I’ll ever be able to look him in the eye again, you know.’ He paused for a moment, then asked, ‘What was she like, this nanny of yours? Was she nice?’

‘Charles!’

‘I just wondered.’ He grinned and pushed through the swing door and into the solemn atmosphere of the courtroom, where Leo was slowly preparing to tighten the screws on Mr Capstall.

‘Tell me, Mr Capstall, would you agree that it is consistent with prudence for an underwriter to make enquiry as to the nature and extent of risks which he is undertaking on behalf of the Names on his syndicate?’

Charles slid into a seat, ignoring the irate glance which Freddie shot him, and gazed with a new fascination at Leo, whose manner, as he put this question to Capstall, was far less mild than it had been earlier in the day. Charles could imagine, he supposed, that men might find Leo attractive. Hadn’t he, after all? Though not in that way, Charles reminded himself hastily. He glanced in the direction of Capstall, who looked distinctly edgy as he sought for a glib answer to Leo’s question.

‘I suppose so. But with the contracts we are dealing with, I assumed that the reinsuring underwriter would have done sufficient research—’

‘Mr Capstall, the reinsuring underwriter is neither here nor there. It is your position we are considering here. Do you or do you not agree that it would have been prudent for you, as an underwriter, to have made enquiries into the asbestos situation?’

‘Yes.’

‘And did you do so?’

‘Not in great detail. You see, I would always have to rely very much on the people that we were reinsuring, their knowledge of the account and the effect of asbestosis.’

‘But, Mr Capstall, it was well known in the market that there were scares about asbestos – isn’t that so? There were articles written about it by professors in the United States, and so on. The Asbestos Working Party had been set up. You were alerted to the dangers, surely?’ Anthony watched Leo intently as the line of questioning gathered momentum. Leo’s voice had a distinctly hard edge now, and all the smiling politeness had quite vanished.

‘Well, my direct knowledge of asbestosis was limited—’

‘Quite,’ cut in Leo succinctly. ‘Because you failed to make any proper enquiries. Even though there was gossip on the market, you failed to make any specific additional enquiries about asbestos with loss adjusters. Isn’t that so?’

Leo’s tone was damningly caustic. Everyone in court watched Capstall carefully, waiting for his answer.

‘Well, whenever I asked the brokers and the reinsuring underwriters what they had done, they always told me that they had taken full account of future liabilities for asbestosis.’ It sounded lame, and the entire court knew it. Underwood did not even look at his client, but Sir Basil shot Capstall a distinctly nasty look over the top of his glasses. He had done his best throughout this case to retain his impartiality, but as he looked at Capstall now, and considered the evidence which he had heard the man give throughout the day, he could not but think with disgust of the dreadful losses which his own sister had suffered. And many others like her. And all as a result of indolent upstarts like this one, he thought.

Leo, who had put the incidents of lunchtime entirely from his mind and was concentrating solely on the witness before him, let the hollowness of Capstall’s reply sink in before continuing.

‘Mr Capstall, having established your imprudence in failing to make remotely adequate enquiries as to the risks which you were underwriting on behalf of the Names, I would like to put one simple question to you, and it is this.’ Leo paused and then spoke with deliberation. ‘Do you believe that it is consistent with prudence to write a reinsurance risk, the extent and nature of which is entirely open-ended and unknown?’

Capstall looked uncertain, fingering the papers before him as he sought to hedge Leo’s question. When he replied, he attempted to keep his tone casual. ‘Well, an underwriter might be invited to write many risks like that in the course of a day’s trading.’

Leo smiled and glanced briefly down at the papers in front of him before looking up again. ‘Mr Capstall, perhaps my question was not succinct enough. Let me try it another way. Would you regard it as prudent for an underwriter to
write a risk where there is no finite limit on the amount of the monetary indemnity, no temporal limit on the duration of the indemnity, and where he is in possession of no reliable information as to what his potential liability as reinsurer or insurer might be?’

Sir Basil gazed sternly at Capstall, pen poised. There was a long silence. ‘Answer Mr Davies’ question, if you please, Mr Capstall.’

Capstall struggled to find words. His composure had slipped markedly, and Anthony noticed with interest that his loss of bearing seemed to touch everything about him – his suit, which now looked slightly rumpled, his hair, the angle of his tie. Capstall rested his hands on the edge of the rail, as if for support.

‘Not – not as a matter of course. But people underwrite in different ways, Mr Davies. That’s what makes a market.’

Leo smiled, and his voice when he spoke was soft. ‘What is the answer to my question?’

‘I think my answer would be’ – he hesitated – ‘that it would depend on how you see the market from the perspective of your view of it as an underwriter.’

Excellent, thought Leo. Capstall could come out with any waffle now to avoid a directly incriminating answer, but it no longer mattered. He knew from long experience that Sir Basil couldn’t take much of the kind of answer Capstall was giving. As he had hoped and guessed, Sir Basil’s feelings as he listened to Capstall’s reply were those of incredulous impatience.

‘Mr Capstall,’ said Sir Basil, gazing severely at him, ‘the question Mr Davies is asking you is whether or not it would be prudent for an underwriter to write a contract if he had no reasonable idea as to what the future might hold. What is your answer?’

‘It would be … imprudent, my Lord.’

That answer, as Anthony, Leo, and everyone else knew, spelt the downfall of the defendants.

Sir Basil nodded and wrote. Thank you, Sir Basil, thought Leo. He looked across at Capstall, whose very stature seemed visibly reduced. Leo even felt fleetingly sorry for him. He said mildly, ‘I do not know whether I can take it very much further, my Lord.’

‘Excellent!’ said Freddie, clapping Leo on the shoulder with a tremulous hand, his eyes bright with excitement. Lawyers were still mulling around outside the courtroom, and the general feeling, after the day’s performance, was that the Names were well on their way to winning. Sir Basil, by his intervention in Leo’s cross-examination, had shown all too clearly how his own thoughts lay, and Freddie and Basher and the rest were delighted.

Leo smiled. He did not think he had ever had to work so hard to keep himself entirely focused amid so many distractions. ‘We’re not out of the woods yet,’ he remarked. But even he had to admit that today had produced a decisive moment. He would be astonished if Sir Basil’s judgment, when it eventually came, failed to find for the Names. All that remained were the closing speeches. He glanced at his watch. ‘Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to be getting back to chambers.’

‘Just a moment, Leo,’ said Murray, ‘I got this letter in from Dryden’s today, and I thought you might like to look at it overnight.’

Leo took the document from Murray and glanced at Anthony and Walter. ‘You two go on ahead. I’ll catch you up.’

Grey dusk was falling on the City streets when Leo made his solitary way out of the Law Courts onto the Strand half an hour later. Street lights were already glimmering, and as he was about to cross the Strand through the roar and hum of rush-hour
traffic, he became aware of someone at his side. Turning, he was astonished to see Sarah standing next to him, smiling her familiar, foxy smile.

‘Well done in court,’ she said. ‘I came to watch.’

Leo stepped off the pavement onto the pedestrian crossing, glancing round at the traffic, Sarah in step with him. ‘You’re sure it wasn’t Anthony you came to see?’

Sarah shrugged. ‘Whatever. You make a lovely couple. I’m sure everyone there thought so.’

They reached the other side, and Leo stopped and turned to look at her, suddenly comprehending. ‘You. It was you who started that rather irritating little rumour, wasn’t it?’ He shook his head. ‘My, my. You never used to have a taste for petty revenge. Anthony must really have got under your skin.’ Then he laughed, thinking how obvious it all was, really. He began to walk through the iron gate into Middle Temple Lane, his step meditative, Sarah still at his side. He glanced at her. She looked as bewitching as ever, her blonde hair tucked inside the upturned collar of her coat, framing her face. But God, what trouble she was.