Private Lives

12



‘First client?’

Helen popped her head around the door, her immaculate bob framing her smile.

Matt nodded. He had been at the firm two weeks and finally he had brought in some business of his own.

‘Good,’ she said briskly. ‘And I want every nanosecond on that time sheet.’

For a moment, Matthew thought about pointing out that he was a shareholder and as such shouldn’t be treated like a rookie, but he knew it would have little effect. Helen even talked that way to Larry.

‘Oh, and remember, these are celebrities we’re dealing with. The rich are different.’

‘I think I read that somewhere,’ muttered Matthew, but Helen had gone.

Jesus, he thought. It’s like working in a fish tank.

Since he had started at Donovan Pierce, he had felt Helen’s gaze on him every moment of the day, assessing him, criticising him. He’d thought that once he was starting to generate his own client list, she might ease off, but she was still ‘popping in’, dropping little titbits of advice, subtly undermining him. Maybe I’m being paranoid, he thought. But then what was that saying? ‘Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not after you.’ It would certainly suit Helen Pierce if he decided to move on. ‘Helen Pierce Associates’ had quite a ring to it.

He had no more time to dwell on it, however, as his secretary Diane led a neatly dressed man into the room.

‘Mr Beaumont for you, Mr Donovan.’

Matt stood up and shook his hand.

‘Good to meet you,’ he said. ‘Please, have a seat.’

Personally Matt wouldn’t have known Rob Beaumont if he had fallen over him in broad daylight, but a quick look at IMDB had told him that his new client was a film director with a string of critically acclaimed indie pictures to his name. To most teenagers, though, Beaumont was more famous because of his marriage to Kim Collier, the singer in a now-defunct girl band who continued to be popular, as far as Matthew could tell, by appearing in gossip magazines.

‘It’s a right bunfight outside your offices,’ said Rob, settling into his chair. ‘What’s going on?’

Matt glanced towards the window, which looked on to the street. It was six o’clock, yet there was still a pack of photographers on the square.

‘We had a high-profile case last week. The leading players are in hiding and the paparazzi seem to think we’ve got our client stashed away in here somewhere.’

‘You weren’t acting for Sam Charles, were you?’

Matt smiled thinly. He’d only worked in media law a fortnight, but even he could tell the failure of Sam’s injunction was not good news for the firm. There had been some high-handed opinion pieces in the broadsheets about how the overturned injunction represented victory for freedom of the press. Secretly he thought they were right.

‘So you’re a friend of Erica’s?’ he said, as much as a way of distracting the client as opening conversation.

‘Yes, but she’s not the reason I’m here,’ said Rob with a sardonic laugh. ‘She’s a friend. Not a special friend.’

‘Of course not,’ Matt said quickly.

‘She speaks highly of you.’

‘She does?’ Matt couldn’t help but be curious. He knew Rob had approached the firm on Erica’s recommendation and had been contemplating calling her to thank her.

‘When I told Erica about my marriage, she said you were the man for the job.’

‘I’m flattered.’

Rob nodded and looked down at his hands.

‘This is difficult, isn’t it?’

‘Divorce is never easy. I’ve been there.’

Twice actually, he thought. Despite insisting to Carla that he could not represent her in her divorce from David, his ex-wife had never been off the phone with lists of questions and requests for advice. It was proving impossible not to get dragged in.

‘So do you want to tell me why the relationship has broken down?’

Rob sat back in his chair and began to tell his lawyer about his marriage to Kim. How they had met when he had directed one of her videos eight years earlier. About their son, Oliver, who was around the same age as Jonas. And the reasons why they had drifted apart.

‘She wants to get a fashion label off the ground,’ he said. ‘She’s seen Posh Spice do it and thinks she can too, so she’s been travelling a lot. Next year she wants to tour, get her music going again. Kim is one of those sorts of people who always has to be doing something. I’ve always supported her in that, but sometimes it doesn’t make for the most straightforward of marriages.’

He pushed an envelope towards Matthew.

‘This is the petition she sent me last week.’

Matt speed-read the document inside.

‘Unreasonable behaviour?’ he asked.

Rob shrugged.

‘I’m away a lot. Filming takes months, you see. And she’d get jealous of the actresses, but I told her, what am I supposed to do, just make films set in prison? And . . . well, there was a lot of conflict over money. I think Kim thought she was marrying the new Spielberg, but it’s not quite worked out like that. I do my best, but I guess it’s just not good enough.’

Matt glanced up and recognised Rob’s sad, frustrated expression. He’d felt all those emotions himself.

‘Do you want to get divorced?’ he asked gently.

Rob paused.

‘Not really, but it’s a marriage that can’t work. We want different things. That’s what she says, anyway,’ he added, trying for a smile.

‘You could contest it.’

‘Sure, but why be in a marriage someone else doesn’t want to be in?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘No, I don’t want to contest this. I just want to keep things as simple as possible. For my son’s sake. For everyone’s sake.’

They wrapped up the meeting and Diane showed Rob out.

Coffee, Matt said to himself, getting up and heading down to the space-age kitchen area at the end of his corridor. It was full of shiny machines and utensils, but he had no idea where the actual coffee was kept. As he searched around, opening cupboards, one thing Rob Beaumont had said kept going around in his head. ‘I always did my best,’ that was what he had said. Matt thought of that terrible day he’d found out about Carla’s unfaithfulness. He should have gone straight to his lawyers and petitioned for divorce on the grounds of adultery there and then. He could see now that he’d been a fool, but love didn’t work that way. If you got hurt, you still wanted to try and make it better. But Carla didn’t want to make things better. At least not with him.

‘Where is the bloody coffee?’ he said irritably.

‘Here,’ said a voice. He turned to find Anna Kennedy holding up a tin that looked like a time capsule. ‘In the coffee container.’

‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Bad morning.’

‘I know how you feel,’ said Anna, gently moving Matthew out of the way to get at the Gaggia.

‘So how’s things?’ he asked, although he could predict her answer. Her pretty face looked tired and sombre. The feistiness that had scared him a little at Scott’s restaurant was subdued, and with good reason, he supposed. The whole firm was still whispering about Sam Charles. He could only imagine the roasting Helen must have given her when she had come back from court, and she had barely left her office since.

‘Bearing up. Although I could do without being followed home by any more paparazzi.’

‘They’re following you?’

She nodded. ‘I’m convinced they think Sam’s hiding out in my shed.’ She handed him a mug. ‘Speaking of which, I hope Rob Beaumont left through the back door.’

‘Why?’

‘Well the street is full of paparazzi and he just had an appointment with a family lawyer. They’re not the brightest bunch, but even they can put two and two together.’

Matt felt a jolt of panic as he remembered Helen’s quip: rich people are different. Should he have made arrangements to meet his client elsewhere instead of the office? Suddenly he felt very green and out of his depth.

‘And have you been in touch with Piers Douglas?’ She leaned on the cabinets as she sipped her coffee.

‘Who’s he?’ asked Matt, feeling himself get defensive. This woman seemed to do this to him. He tried not to dwell on their Scott’s lunch on their first day at the firm – after all, his father’s heart attack had overshadowed everything – but he still hadn’t forgotten her combative, cocky stance on privacy. He wondered whether she’d changed her mind about it recently.

‘He’s a media consultant we have on retainer. PR expert.’

‘Why would I need him?’

She looked surprised.

‘Because if Rob and Kim are having problems, that’s front-page news. A media law firm has to offer a fully rounded service. Image management, that sort of thing. Plus you need to control the media when trouble’s brewing, not just when the shit has hit the fan.’

This conversation was increasingly feeling like a telling-off.

‘I thought we were a law firm. Not the offices of Max Clifford.’

‘Well you’d better catch up,’ she whispered playfully. ‘Discretion is everything.’

He struggled not to frown. He was her boss and yet she was succeeding in making him feel stupid and embarrassed.

‘I’m not entirely sure you should be the one dishing out expert advice on discretion, Anna.’ It was a cheap shot, but she was annoying him. How was he supposed to know all this stuff about PR and image management? At his old firm, he’d just had to make sure they had a full box of Kleenex on the desk every morning.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she said, glaring at him.

‘Nothing,’ he muttered.

‘I’d rather you came out with it.’

‘Look,’ he sighed. ‘You don’t need me to tell you that the Sam Charles thing was handled badly.’

‘Handled badly? We all agreed on the strategy. How can I help it if someone decides to leak the story?’

‘But they did.’

‘Yes, and we should be doing everything in our power to find out who talked.’

Matthew raised his eyebrows.

‘I’m no media expert – clearly – but I’d say that was next to impossible. All it would take would be an anonymous email, or maybe they texted that picture from a mobile. You can get a disposable SIM card for a quid these days.’

‘Thanks for that insight,’ she mumbled, walking to the door. ‘I’ll email you Piers’ details; maybe you can brief him on how to go about leaking a story.’

Matt watched her go. He thought about following her to apologise but he was too tired and bad-tempered. Women, he grunted to himself. He was better off on his own.