Breath of Corruption (2 page)

The conference with Sir Dudley Humble lasted a little over two hours, and was trying for a number of reasons, not least of which was that Sir Dudley was an intractable individual, an ex-army man with a strong controlling streak which made it difficult for him to surrender the management of his affairs, including his legal ones, to others. He had built up Humble Construction Services from scratch, and had earned his knighthood, and a couple of lucrative government contracts into the bargain, through his military connections and in the time-honoured tradition of extending discreet but generous donations to the governing political party of the day. He sat at the other side of the conference table in Leo’s room, a tall, square-faced man with shrewd eyes and grizzled white hair and eyebrows, and listened closely as Leo brought him up to date on progress. The case itself was, from Leo’s point of view, dreary enough. Three years ago Humble Construction Services had contracted to build an aluminium smelting plant in Ukraine, and a row had broken out with one of the
subcontractors, with the result that Humble Construction were now suing for breach of contract.

Leo went through the niceties of the contract at some length – often interrupted by terse observations from Sir Dudley – and then set out the arguments of the respective parties as he saw them. Here it was that the problems began. For an intelligent man, Sir Dudley seemed to have peculiar difficulty in listening dispassionately to his lawyer rehearsing the arguments of his opponents.

‘I didn’t come here to listen to you telling me the other side have a good case, Mr Davies – quite the opposite!’

‘Sir Dudley, I’m merely trying to approach the matter realistically. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t explore fully the respective strengths and weaknesses of both sides’ arguments. Forgive me if, in so doing, I occasionally seem to stray into their territory. I have to do so to maintain a proper perspective. I’m on your side.’ Leo’s smile was charming and entirely without condescension. ‘That’s why we’re both here.’

Sir Dudley, slightly mollified, tried to contain his impatience, but the conference grew laborious. Sir Dudley felt he understood the rights and wrongs of the case better than anyone else, and found it difficult to accept Leo’s advice with any humility. In the end Leo did what he always did with clients of similar intransigence – he held his peace and listened as Sir Dudley told him how to run the case, while he made up his own mind on the issues.

Sir Dudley departed at the end of the meeting with his vanity satisfied, and a sense that he was in control of matters. Leo felt merely wearied by the difficult and somewhat
confrontational nature of the afternoon’s business, and by the knowledge that there would be more such conferences throughout the duration of the case. Not for the first time that week, he found himself wondering if it was all really worth it. Perhaps in his younger days he had possessed some kind of immunity to vexatious clients, but these days he found people like Sir Dudley extremely tiresome.

I’m getting old, thought Leo. If it weren’t for the mortgage on the Chelsea house and Oliver’s education … he’d what? Pack it all in? Hardly. Work was his existence. It was his world, his meat and drink. Everything else was a mere diversion. He was probably just feeling jaded because he’d taken on so much lately. Time for a bit of relaxation. There were papers to read on a new reinsurance case, but they could wait till Monday.

Leo took his mobile from his pocket and tapped in Anthea’s number, but it went straight to voicemail. He left a message suggesting dinner. After sending a couple of emails to solicitors, he put his papers together and left chambers. He walked through Cloisters and down the cobbled slope of King’s Bench Walk to where his car was parked, and ten minutes later his Aston Martin was weaving its slow way through the early-evening traffic towards Chelsea.

Leo’s house stood in a quiet Chelsea crescent, in the expensive hinterland between Cheyne Walk and the King’s Road. With five bedrooms, it was too big to meet the requirements of a single man, but he had bought it at a time when he was entertaining serious thoughts of settling down with his then girlfriend. That relationship had, like so many, met its demise through Leo’s unfaithfulness, and looking back, Leo wondered how he could ever have seriously believed in its long-term future. He wasn’t the marrying type. He’d tried it once – largely to ward off rumours regarding his libidinous lifestyle which might have stood in the way of his taking silk – and the only good thing to have come out of the whole sad business was Oliver, his son.

He thought of Oliver now as he mixed himself a drink in the kitchen. He unlocked and slid back the long glass door which led outside. The smooth flagstones of the kitchen floor
continued out to a large patio, shaded by a mulberry tree, and beyond this stretched the garden. At the end, delivered and erected just three days ago, stood a new wooden playhouse with a climbing frame and swing attached. Leo smiled and sipped his Scotch as he imagined Oliver’s delight when he arrived tomorrow afternoon. He imagined, too, the frozen disapproval of Rachel, Oliver’s mother – she would probably consider the climbing frame too advanced and dangerous for a four-year-old. The patterns of their relations now were familiar. Leo would fight down the urge to snap at her, and attempt instead to say something placatory, and Oliver would disregard them both and tear across the lawn to his new plaything with squeals of pleasure.

Leo glanced at his watch. It was only six o’clock. Normally he would have been content, at the end of a gruelling week, with his own company, a light supper and a little television, or possibly a book and some music, but this evening he felt restive. He was just about to call Anthea again, when his mobile rang in his pocket. He pulled it out to answer it, expecting to see Anthea’s name on the screen, but saw another instead. Leo felt a little start of pleasure.

‘Luca! Where are you?’

‘In London.’ Luca’s suave Italian voice held the same glad note as Leo’s. ‘I flew in yesterday. I have a flight booked back to Milan tonight, but I don’t have to catch it. I thought if you were free this evening we could …’ He paused eloquently. ‘Meet up?’

‘Come over,’ said Leo without hesitation. ‘I’m at home.’ He and Luca, a thirty-six-year-old Milanese lawyer with whom he worked on a number of cases, had evolved what
for Leo was the perfect relationship. Luca came to London on business at least twice a year, and Leo had occasion to fly to Italy now and then on cases. They always made a point of meeting.

A little before seven o’clock he and Luca were sitting drinking and chatting in the garden in the early-evening sunshine. Later, while Luca set the table beneath the mulberry tree and laid out candles and glasses, Leo cooked supper. Luca told Leo about the pieces of antique furniture which he had bought for his mother that afternoon at Sotheby’s. Leo opened a second bottle of wine and they talked about art, and music, and a little about cases they had, and afterwards, while moths flitted and bumped in the guttering light of the candles, they went upstairs and made love in Leo’s big bed. Tomorrow Luca would catch his flight back to Milan. It was an ideal, uncomplicated arrangement for both of them.

A mile away in Fulham, Anthea lay stretched out on her sofa, the TV on low, a glass of wine in her hand, bored, but full of hope that her strategy was working. She bet that Leo was thinking about her right now.

Rachel arrived at lunchtime the following day, bringing Oliver and his belongings for his weekend stay with his father. She was dressed in a blue cotton blouse and white capri pants, and her dark hair was tied back. At thirty-two, Rachel had pale, smooth skin which never tanned, pretty, sharply defined features and dark eyes, and a reserved, poised manner. This cool composure, touched with vulnerability, had once been a challenge to Leo – reducing her maidenly modesty to a state of helpless, trembling passion had always been a particular pleasure. But in the last few difficult years the fragility in her personality which had once touched him now seemed to have disappeared. Perhaps he was to blame for that.

In the middle of a hug from his father, Oliver spotted the new playhouse and struggled free to race up the garden towards it. Rachel, who had been covertly looking round for evidence of the existence of a new lover in Leo’s life – something she always did on these visits, and not without justification – glanced after him.

Leo watched her face, anticipating disapproval, but none came. ‘That looks like fun,’ she said somewhat flatly.

‘Coffee?’ asked Leo.

‘Yes, please,’ called Rachel over her shoulder as she went out to the garden.

Leo made two cups and took them outside.

‘Must have been expensive,’ remarked Rachel, nodding towards the playhouse.

‘Not especially. Well, not in the scheme of things.’

‘The scheme being?’ Rachel sat at the table beneath the mulberry tree and gave him a challenging little look. Leo found her arch way of picking him up on meaningless phrases immensely irritating. It was a form of verbal fencing. Why did she do it? To maintain some form of emotional rapport, he supposed. There was something sad about it, this need to engage with him in a mildly aggressive way whenever they met.

‘The scheme being,’ said Leo, sitting down in the shade, ‘to keep my son happy and busy. To bring him up, to educate him, to contribute to his well-being. Our joint project,’ he added.

Rachel glanced to where Oliver was struggling, and not quite succeeding, to master the climbing frame. ‘It’s a bit big for him.’

‘It has to be, to give him any fun. Don’t want him outgrowing it too fast.’ Leo sipped his coffee and glanced at the flat, wasted puddles of wax in the glass storm lanterns from last night. Luca would be catching his flight about now. Next to one of the storm lanterns lay an empty Italian cigarette packet. ‘To tell you the truth’ – even this commonplace phrase brought a small, cynical smile from
Rachel, which he tried to ignore – ‘I had the idea you might not approve of it. The climbing frame, I mean.’

‘I don’t disapprove of the things you do for Oliver.’ She caught sight of the cigarette packet and picked it up. ‘Just certain aspects of your life. Taken to smoking Italian cigarettes now?’

‘They belong to a friend.’

‘Who was here not so long ago?’

‘That’s right.’ Leo gave an impatient sigh and glanced to the end of the garden, where Oliver was shouting, ‘Mummy, Mummy! Watch me!’ Rachel smiled and waved. ‘So,’ asked Leo, amazed that he should allow himself to enter into this sniping contest, but unable to resist, ‘Still seeing Anthony?’

Rachel’s eyes flickered away from Oliver; she paused, and took a slow sip of her coffee. ‘No. That’s pretty much over.’ Anthony was a young barrister at 5 Caper Court, an erstwhile protégé of Leo’s, whom Rachel had begun seeing last summer.

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Why?’ Rachel’s response was sharp and swift. ‘You hated me seeing him. You’d rather have him to yourself.’

‘Nonsense. I care about your happiness.’

‘That’s a laugh.’ She drained her coffee cup, then went to the end of the garden to give Oliver a farewell hug. ‘By the way,’ she said when she came back, ‘Oliver’s starting at his new prep school in three weeks’ time.’

Leo was astounded. ‘You arranged this without consulting me?’

Rachel shrugged. ‘I decided he’d outgrown nursery school. I found an excellent place for him in Chiswick – Kingswood
House. I was lucky to get a place so late in the day. Usually it’s oversubscribed.’

‘I can’t believe you did this without speaking to me first. What makes you think I want him going to one of those poncey little places, anyway?’

‘Oh, Leo, please – don’t tell me you want him going to the local state school.’

Leo had to fight down his anger. ‘I’d like to have a say. He’s my son. And why does it have to be in Chiswick?’

‘It’s where he lives. With me.’

‘I mean, couldn’t you have found somewhere round here? That way I could pick him up occasionally, have him to stay overnight, take him in the next day.’

‘Do you know how hellish the traffic is between Chiswick and here in the mornings?’

Leo could see this conversation going nowhere. He didn’t know why he was having it.

Rachel picked up her bag. ‘It’s done now. I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have mentioned it to you.’ She fished out her car keys and went through the house to the front door. Leo followed her.

‘Three weeks from now is a bit late for the start of the autumn term, isn’t it?’ he remarked, opening the door for her.

‘You know how it is with private schools – short terms, large fees.’ Rachel turned to him. ‘Can you bring him back by seven tomorrow?’ Leo nodded. ‘And I take it that your Italian friend – whoever he or she is – won’t be on the premises while Oliver’s here?’

Leo held the door open. ‘Goodbye, Rachel.’ She left
without another word, and Leo went back to the garden to play with Oliver.

In the car Rachel leant her head against the steering wheel and closed her eyes. Whenever she and Leo met, things never seemed to go the way she meant them to. She wanted to appear relaxed and carefree, as though seeing him was no big deal – but Leo would always be a big deal, damn him, and her attempts at nonchalance merely translated as defensiveness. She’d intended to deliver the news about Ollie’s new school in a brightly casual fashion – even though she knew she should have consulted Leo first – but instead she’d merely sounded offhand. It was because of that stupid cigarette packet, and the stupid knowledge that Leo had someone else in his life. He always had someone else. She couldn’t help the jealousy seeping through and lacing her words with bitterness. Fool, fool, fool, she told herself. Get over it. If you don’t, it’s going to poison every relationship in your life. He’s a bastard and he always will be.

Rachel didn’t need to persuade herself. She, better than anyone, knew all the worst things about Leo. And still she loved him.