Private Lives (13 page)

Nigel Keyes rose to his feet once more. Now it really
was
a formality. The barrister merely needed to mention a few cases where the same argument of privacy had been successfully used, which would establish precedent; it was a done deal.

Behind her the heavy courtroom door opened and closed with a bang. Turning, she watched a young man approach Blake Stanhope’s solicitor with a look of nervous determination. He whispered into Martin Bond’s ear while Judge Baker looked unimpressed by the intrusion.

‘Can I remind our new arrival that this is a private session?’

Martin Bond raised his hand.

‘Apologies, m’lord. It’s one of our team with an urgent message.’

‘Get on with it,’ snapped the judge.

Anna felt her senses prickle as the young messenger handed Bond a bundle of documents that the barrister speed-read with ruthless efficiency. Then he looked up at her, a gleeful expression on his face. What the hell’s he got? she wondered anxiously.

Bond turned his attention to the judge. ‘Your lordship, I hardly need to remind you or my esteemed legal colleagues that an injunction obtained on the grounds of privacy is null and void if the facts of the injunction are no longer private.’

Nigel shot Anna an urgent look. Bond walked over to the bench and handed Judge Baker the bundle.

‘I’d like to submit these documents – a printout of a news story that has broken in the last twenty minutes on the Scandalhound website and the
Daily News
Internet pages.’

He turned to Anna and Keyes with a flourish.

‘The facts your client is trying to hide are now public.’

The judge had read enough. He looked apologetic as he addressed Nigel Keyes.

‘I take it, Mr Keyes, that you have not yet seen this?’

‘No, your honour,’ said Nigel, looking unusually flustered as the usher handed him the file. ‘If we could just have a few brief moments to confirm these facts?’

Anna rushed out into the corridor, turned on her iPhone and scrolled to the
News
and Scandalhound websites. Sure enough, there it was: ‘Sam Charles Caught With Hooker: Exclusive Pictures’. Bile rose in her throat as she saw it was the lead splash on both sites. It was impossible to tell which one had got the exclusive as they both appeared to have posted within minutes of each other, although the
News
had published the mobile photograph of Sam and Katie in bed together.

I don’t believe it – how? She felt her hands tremble as she turned the phone off again. I’m totally screwed.

She went back into court and nodded grimly towards Nigel.

Bond’s expression was triumphant.

‘Would you like me to read the story out for the benefit of the opposing counsel?’ he crowed. ‘“Sam Nooky With Porno-Looky” is the headline on one.’

‘That’s enough, Mr Bond,’ said the judge irritably before addressing Nigel.

‘I find it hard to see how this is now a privacy matter when this story is all over the Internet. I think we would all agree that the law is clear on this issue.’

‘Yes, your honour,’ said Nigel, closing his file.

Anna could feel sweat beading at her temples and the room seemed to spin. All week the Internet had been clean of the story. After the
ex parte
injunction had been granted, she had spoken to both Katie and Stanhope to make absolutely sure they understood they were forbidden to say anything about it. So how had it got out? Surely they wouldn’t have been so stupid as to go ahead and sell the story? She looked over at Nigel, who just gave her a shrug.

‘Very well, the injunction dated last Thursday is lifted,’ said Judge Baker, concluding the matter.

Nigel Keyes picked up his things and left the courtroom, with Anna following right behind.

‘We’ve been pretty bloody unlucky there,’ he said.

‘Unlucky?’ she said angrily. ‘Someone has talked. There’s no luck involved.’

She looked down the corridor and could see that Blake Stanhope was already on the phone. Without thinking, she stormed towards him.

‘Anna! Wait,’ called Nigel.

But Anna wasn’t listening. She stopped in front of Blake, glaring at him.

He gave her a thin, weaselly smile and pointed to the phone clamped to his ear.

‘Darling, I’m on a call.’

‘Does contempt of court mean nothing to you, Blake?’ she snapped. ‘Are you that determined to ruin people’s lives you’ll do anything?’

With a sour look, Blake flipped his mobile shut.

‘What are you suggesting, Miss Kennedy? That I
leaked
the story? That’s a pretty serious allegation.’

‘Then why are two hacks from the tabloids here? Are they psychic?’

She pointed at a couple of blondes who were talking intently to Martin Bond.

‘Darling, I simply told a friend that I was coming to court. Being strong-armed under the terms of the gagging order, I obviously gave nobody any details beyond that. I do this for a living, remember? I know the rules of the game, thank you very much.’

‘Then why are they here?’

‘Because temporary injunctions do get lifted. This isn’t the first, you know.’

She shook her head slowly.

‘I hope your lawyer is on a retainer, Blake,’ she said. ‘You’ll be needing him.’

‘No one likes a sore loser, Anna.’

She jabbed her finger at him.

‘This isn’t about losing “the game”, as you so eloquently put it. This is about breaking the law, which you did when you leaked the story to the press.’

‘No, Anna, I did not. Contrary to what you might think of me, I do have respect for the law. It’s my sixtieth birthday next week. I don’t want to spend it in jail for contempt of court.’

‘Bullshit,’ she said, turning on her heel. ‘Total bullshit.’

She ran out on to the street, her heart thudding as she turned on her phone. If the story had broken online twenty minutes ago, then the media would already be closing in on Sam. Oh God, I wonder if Jessica’s already seen it, she thought. What a mess.

Her throat was dry as she scrolled to Sam’s mobile and pressed Call.

‘Hey, Anna,’ he said. His voice was cheery, expectant. ‘All done?’

She closed her eyes. There was no other way to tell him, except bluntly.

‘They’ve overturned the injunction, Sam.’

‘What?’ he croaked. ‘What do you mean? They’ve turned it down? How? Why?’ The confusion in his voice turned to fear, then anger.

She forced air into her lungs. ‘The judge has changed his mind on the grounds that the story is not private any more.’

‘Not private? What the hell do you mean, not private?’

‘It’s just been posted on the
News
online. On Scandalhound too.’

There was an ominous silence at the other end of the line.

‘Sam?’

In the background, she could hear him tapping at a keyboard. There was another pause and then a loud clatter. ‘Fuck,’ he hissed finally. ‘I don’t believe it. I don’t bloody believe it.’

‘I don’t know how they got hold of the story.’

‘You don’t
know
?’ he cried. ‘Isn’t that what I’ve just paid you fifty thousand quid to know? Aren’t you supposed to know everything? Your job was to keep this out of the news – well, great job, Anna.’

‘Look, obviously Katie or Blake have talked to them. Of course they’d be in contempt of court and that’s a criminal offence. We could try and pursue damages.’

‘And how’s that going to help me?’ he shouted. ‘The bloody horse has bolted, hasn’t it? What the hell am I going to do about Jessica?’

Anna tried to remain calm, but her voice was trembling.

‘Look, I heard she was filming in Boston. That means it’s only five thirty in the morning so she’s probably still asleep. At least you can tell her about this yourself before she finds out from the press.’

‘Oh great. Just great,’ he snapped.

‘We can manage this, Sam,’ she said, although she was honestly beginning to doubt that. He was right about the horse having bolted. She looked up to see Nigel standing on the court steps, talking urgently into his own phone. ‘Our barrister’s right here. I’ll talk to him and see what can be done, then I’ll go straight back to the office, talk to Helen Pierce.’

‘Who should have handled this in the first place . . .’

Her cheeks stung with shame. ‘This isn’t ideal, but we can deal with it.’

‘Yeah? Well, deal with this,’ he said. ‘You’re fired.’

And then the phone went dead.

‘Anna?’ said a voice softly. Nigel Keyes was standing next to her.

‘He just fired me,’ she said, still staring at the handset in disbelief. It was only then that she realised Nigel was holding his own mobile out towards her.

‘Helen Pierce,’ he whispered.

Oh hell
.

‘Anna? Have you see the
News
online?’ There was a sense of urgency in Helen’s usually icy-calm voice.

‘We’ve just left court,’ stuttered Anna. ‘We—’

‘Look, this can stop right here,’ said Helen, ignoring her. ‘With the injunction in place, Katie won’t be able to talk, and without her, no one will be able to prove that Sam had sex with her. We can sue for damages. I’m sure I can get a front-page retraction in tomorrow’s—’

‘Helen. The injunction was lifted,’ said Anna finally.

‘What?’ The cold steeliness in her voice made Anna want to run and hide.

‘Another few minutes and it would have been finalised, but Stanhope’s QC got hold of the story as it was breaking. The judge overturned.’

There was no sound from the other end of the line. The roar of the traffic on the Strand seemed to engulf her. She felt as if she was walking on quicksand that was giving way under her feet, sucking her into a loud, claustrophobic hole she’d never be able to climb out of.

‘Does Sam know?’ said Helen, her tone cold.

‘I’ve just told him. He was angry. He said I was fired.’

‘Oh Anna,’ said Helen. ‘You stupid, stupid girl.’

But I did nothing wrong! Anna wanted to cry. How can I help it if someone decides to break the rules? Instead she just stood there, feeling as if she was being given the worst dressing-down by her headmistress.

Helen paused. ‘I told you, Anna: no mistakes.’

‘It wasn’t a mistake,’ she replied, fighting to keep her voice even. ‘Stanhope and Katie must have talked despite the gagging order.’

‘You should have served everyone with the injunction and shut the media down.’

‘We had a strategy. We
all
agreed on it.’

She knew that her suggestion that even Helen Pierce was fallible was pointless. Although Helen, as Anna’s supervising partner, had signed off the decision to gag only Blake and Katie, she knew that fact would be conveniently forgotten and that the failure would be hers alone. So much for partner by Christmas, she grimaced.

‘Donovan Pierce is a boutique firm, Anna,’ added Helen. ‘We don’t have a big rota of lawyers, but the ones we have are the best. We don’t make mistakes. Our reputation is everything. Without that reputation, we are nothing.’

‘I’ll try talking to Sam again,’ said Anna. ‘I guess the
Standard
will run with the story this afternoon, but if we can get him to do a sympathetic interview with the
Sun
tomorrow, it will soften the impact.’

‘I think you’ve done enough already,’ said Helen. ‘I will talk to Sam and do the firefighting myself. I’ll see you when you get back to the office.’

Anna felt sick as she handed the phone back to Nigel. He looked sympathetically at her. ‘Worse things happen at sea,’ he said.

‘Do they?’ she said. She felt numb, as if she’d had all the air knocked out of her. ‘Sorry, Nigel, I’ve got to go.’ She saw a black cab approaching and stuck out her arm.

‘Don’t take it so hard. There will be other cases,’ said Nigel kindly as he opened the door for her.

Don’t be so sure, thought Anna as she sat back in the seat, dreading the inevitable face-to-face with Helen.

The cabby looked at her in the mirror.

‘Where you going, love?’

‘To face the music,’ she said grimly.

11

Sam gripped the arms of his seat and tried to swallow. The pilot was banking the private jet to the right in preparation for landing, and Sam could now see Cape Cod peeking between thin, low clouds, a finger of land criss-crossed by roads and houses, surrounded by the flat grey Atlantic Ocean, completely oblivious to the tiny gnat flying overhead. If only he could just stay up here, permanently circling the earth, hermetically sealed from the rest of the world, he’d be happy with that.

Sam had always loved air travel; he’d been brought up in a bland working-class part of London, not far from Heathrow, where the planes roared so low over his house he could make out the name of the airlines: Air China, Thai Air, Air New Zealand, reminding him how easy it was to be transported, for the price of a ticket, away from your humdrum existence. And since he had become really famous, aeroplanes had become his sanctuary. A reclining seat thirty-five thousand feet above sea level was one of the few places he could truly relax, switch off and not be bothered by the millions of people who wanted a piece of him.

But tonight, despite the champagne and the tasty finger food the pretty stewardess had kept bringing over, he could not relax. Today he wished for storms and delays and the outbreak of bird flu, anything to keep them from landing, anything to keep him from the inevitable confrontation with Jessica.

He’d called her, of course. There was no getting around that. After Anna had given him the bad news – no, the disastrous news – about the injunction, he had been forced to wake Jessica up from the comfort of her luxury Boston hotel suite, where she was staying while filming the thriller movie
Slayer
in the city.

Their conversation had been excruciating. At first she had been tired and groggy, irritated that he was disturbing her. No, she hadn’t heard the early-morning news. No, she hadn’t been called by her agent.

So he’d been forced to tell her everything. At first there had been stunned silence, but when her emotional dam had finally burst, Sam had felt the full force of her confusion, disbelief and, finally, fury. No, she had said – or rather screamed – no, she would not like to meet up to discuss it in person. She never wanted to see him again. The conversation had terminated when Jessica’s publicist had arrived at her hotel suite to take her out of the city.