Private Lives

62



‘Balls.’

Matt put his coffee cup down on his desk and picked up his diary, remembering that there was a list of posh recommended restaurants at the front. He was due to meet up with Carla on Wednesday night and he still hadn’t booked anywhere.

He looked at his watch: 10 p.m. Most of them would be closing soon; why had he left it so late? It was exactly the sort of thing she used to bollock him for when they were married. Matt could never understand why she got so worked up about it. As far as he was concerned, the perfect date was a long walk by the river, followed by drinks in some cosy old-fashioned boozer, then falling laughing into bed. Dates were about the conversation and the person you were with, weren’t they? Not the poached quails’ eggs you had for your starter or the bottle of wine you drank with your meal. But Carla didn’t think like that; never had. For her, a date was something expensive and showy, being seen at the right restaurant, at the right table, something she could boast to her friends about the next day.

Had she boasted about their night of passion? he wondered. He doubted it somehow. More likely she had woken up cringing at the thought of what had happened that evening he’d been over to babysit. Yes, the sex had been incredible: passionate, sensual, spontaneous, all the things, he had to admit, their lovemaking had ceased to be long before their divorce. But did that mean that the fire of their relationship had been rekindled? He honestly didn’t know. Maybe the answer would present itself at their dinner.

He picked up the phone and tried the numbers in his diary, the swankiest first. He’d known it was a long shot, and he wasn’t at all surprised when one by one, they snootily told him they were booked up for weeks if not months in advance.

Tutting, he put down the phone and took a sip of his coffee.

‘Cold,’ he muttered. Maybe it was time to go home. The Donovan Pierce offices were in darkness except for the sharp spotlight of his desk lamp and the blue-grey glow of his computer screen. For the first time ever, he was the last one in the office. Shame no one’s around to see it, he grinned.

Work had started to roll in for Matt since word had got around the wealthier pockets of London that he was handling the Rob Beaumont–Kim Collier divorce; just this week he had been instructed by a merchant banker and the wife of an England rugby star.

It can wait until tomorrow, he decided, shutting his case file with a thud. He stood up, stretching. He’d been working with the office door closed and just his desk lamp on, which made the room so cosy, he felt as if he could curl up on the sofa and fall asleep.

As he entered the corridor, he noticed the glow coming from beneath Helen’s door – a light he was sure had not been on half an hour earlier when he had gone to make his coffee. For one gleeful moment he imagined the look of surprise on Helen’s face as she saw him leaving the office last, a responsible and diligent partner who was bringing in prestigious clients and fees.

But if it was Helen, she was being awfully quiet: usually she would be on the phone to the States or barking orders into her mobile or dictaphone. The thought occurred to him that it could be an intruder. He gripped the handle, tensing himself, then whipped the door open.

‘Jesus, Matt,’ gasped Anna, holding a hand to her chest. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘Oh God, sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought you were an intruder.’

Now that he thought about it, she did look like an intruder, standing behind Helen’s desk, bent over her computer keyboard. Although it was dark, Matt was certain her face had that guilty blush that suggested she was doing something she shouldn’t.

‘What are you doing here, Anna?’ he asked, glancing around the room.

‘Helen asked me to check something out for one of her cases,’ she said, looking vulnerable and unsure. It was a side of Anna Kennedy he had never seen before, and that made him deeply suspicious. He hadn’t had any personal brushes with corporate espionage, but he knew it existed in every major business around the globe. Just because he liked the girl didn’t mean she should be allowed to cause trouble for Donovan Pierce.

‘At 10 p.m. on a bank holiday? And I thought Helen was in Devon . . .’ He hadn’t meant to sound accusatory, but Anna was looking so shifty.

‘I needed to check something . . .’ replied Anna, her top lip trembling. She’s going to cry, thought Matt with alarm. He hadn’t imagined Anna Kennedy capable of such a thing.

‘Is everything all right?’ he asked, taking a step towards her.

‘Everything’s fine,’ she said, darting her gaze away.

Everything was obviously not fine.

‘You know you can talk to me, don’t you?’

She flinched, her head down.

‘Anna, what’s wrong?’

She sank down on the leather sofa.

‘Can I tell you a story?’ she said, looking so ill at ease it reminded him of the time Jonas had come to him wanting to confess to having broken a lamp, but scared of being shouted at.

He nodded and touched her shoulder.

‘Do you want to grab a coffee and come into my office?’

He sat in semi-darkness behind his desk, just listening. They had been there over forty minutes, their coffee undrunk and cold. With typical thoroughness, Anna had left nothing out, telling Matt the entire story of Amy Hart, from the first phone call with her sister Ruby, right through her meetings with a soap star and a lingerie model, a politician and a man who built oil rigs and tankers. He could see that she had been badly frightened by what she had discovered, and by the attack on that dark road in Buckinghamshire. As she spoke, he couldn’t help but admire her. Most people would have been scared off, but it only seemed to have made her more determined to get to the bottom of it.

‘And after all this, you think that Helen sabotaged Sam’s injunction because she wanted to help her boyfriend cover up the story of Amy’s inquest?’ he asked when she had finished her tale.

‘I’m sure of it. I just can’t prove it.’

‘Prove what?’ exclaimed Matt. ‘That Helen’s a murderer?’

‘I didn’t say that. Doing a favour for a friend doesn’t make her a killer. But it shows she’s involved.’

‘Can you prove any of it? I assume you’ve tried finding out from Scandalhound and the News who leaked the story.’

‘I couldn’t get anything from them. That was the first thing I did. Remember I was trying to prove that Blake and Katie were in contempt of court? I thought maybe I could find out from Helen’s end. That’s why I was snooping around here looking for something, anything. But I can’t get into her email system. Not that she’d have sent an email from a Donovan Pierce address . . .’

Matt shook his head with concern.

‘Anna, you could get yourself fired for all this.’

‘I was rather hoping you’d help me, not fire me.’

As she looked at him in the semi-darkness, he felt something inside him stir.

Stop it, he scolded himself.

His palm rubbed the stubble on his chin as his thoughts turned to Helen Pierce. She was certainly capable of stitching up a client if it served her own ends in the long run. Perhaps her boyfriend – if indeed she was having an affair with the Auckland PR supremo – had simply asked her to leak the story as a smokescreen and she had done it as a favour. But why would they go to all that effort to bury Amy’s inquest . . . unless there was something that needed hiding.

He’d only known Helen a couple of months, but it was enough to realise that she was many things: arrogant, ruthless, self-promoting; no doubt she shared Larry’s ambiguous regard for professional ethics in general. But to think that she could be involved in a murderous cover-up? That was going too far. And yet he trusted Anna Kennedy’s judgement and shrewdness. There was no way she’d be risking her job like this if she didn’t think that Helen was somehow culpable.

‘What are you going to do now?’ he said quietly.

‘I don’t know. It’s like I’ve got all the parts of the jigsaw but can’t fit them together. Sam Charles is paying for an investigator to help out, but that’s gone a bit cold.’

‘What? The trail on Helen, or Sam Charles?’ He couldn’t help but ask. He’d heard the rumours around the office that Anna had become involved with their celebrity client. It seemed as good a time as any to ask.

‘So you’ve heard the gossip,’ she muttered.

‘Is it true?’

‘Sam’s not formally a client any more,’ she said quickly. ‘Besides, I’m not really sure if it’s still on.’

Matt held up a hand.

‘Look, I haven’t got a problem with it.’

He looked down, knowing it was untrue; that the thought of Anna and Sam did make him feel uncomfortable, but not for any reason to do with the solicitor’s code of conduct.

‘I should go,’ she said finally.

‘Anna, I think you should drop this.’

‘Because of Helen?’

‘Because you can’t prove anything,’ he said, exasperated. ‘Everything is pure supposition.’

Anna balled her fist and slammed it on her knee.

‘This is about finding the truth and getting it out there, Matt. I thought you believed that more than anyone at this firm.’

He thought back to their first lunch, to their fiery, awkward debate about whether people deserved to know the truth. It seemed so very long ago.

‘I just think you need to be careful. Accusing Helen on some hunch. Not to mention getting almost run off the road last night. Maybe it was coincidence, but if it wasn’t, you have to ask yourself if this is worth it.’

‘If it wasn’t coincidence, then it means I’m right,’ she replied vehemently.

He felt a protective shot of worry for her safety.

‘Let me give you a lift home.’

Anna laughed.

‘I’m not sure sitting on the back of your mid-life-crisis machine really constitutes being careful.’

He took a spare helmet from the hat rack by the door and handed it to her.

‘Put that on, too,’ he said, handing her a too-big leather jacket.

They locked up the office and walked around to Matt’s bike, which was parked on a side street behind the office. He got astride and fired it up, revving the engine, but Anna just stood there, rather forlorn in her huge jacket and helmet.

‘You getting on, then?’ shouted Matt over the noise.

‘I’ve never actually done this before.’

‘Just hop on the back and put your feet on those pegs.’ When she was on, Matt began to move off. ‘And grab on to me,’ he yelled above the engine noise. She wrapped both arms around his waist, and he felt the back of his neck tingle.

‘Don’t go too fast,’ she shouted above the breeze.

He nodded and eased off the throttle, letting Anna get used to the sensation of weaving in and out of the West End traffic and leaning into bends. He picked up speed as they passed the House of Commons, gloriously lit up against the inky London sky, and the wind whipped at them as they crossed the river. Her arms tightened around his waist and her head rested softly against his back, and Matt felt his heart beat faster.

Finally they drew up outside Anna’s cottage and she clambered off.

‘Do you want me to come in?’ said Matt. ‘Just to check everything’s okay?’ he added quickly.

‘I think I’ll be all right. If there was a hit man after me, my guess is he’d have gone home the minute he saw me get on a motorbike with you, thinking his job was done.’

‘I’m completely in control of this machine,’ said Matt, tapping the handlebars.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ laughed Anna.‘You take care of yourself Evel Knievel.’ Her eyes softened in the low moonlight, and he knew her concern was genuine.

‘Call me if you need anything. Even if it’s company.’

She smiled and went inside. Matt waited for a moment, then revved the engine and turned back on to the main road, which took him through the brightly lit centre of Richmond. Seeing all the couples strolling through the town he was suddenly reminded of something: he still hadn’t booked the restaurant for his meeting with Carla. But for some reason, that didn’t seem like such a big deal any more.