Private Lives

65



Helen put down the phone and moved towards the big picture window overlooking the Devon coastline. The view had always soothed her: the jigsaw of interlocking green hills that stopped so suddenly, dropping away in sheer grey cliffs; the curve of shingle sand; the blue-green water that stretched away until it was swallowed by clouds. She didn’t come down to Seaways, the big seaside house she had bought when she started making serious money, as often as she’d like. It was the perfect place to be alone with her thoughts and yet now, not daring to leave it, it felt like a prison.

She stepped on to the wide veranda that circled the house, feeling the cool breeze coming in off the sea, and listened to the cries of the gulls and the cormorants. She wrapped her arms around her body, for once feeling vulnerable and insignificant. Straining her ears, she could hear the crunch of footsteps at the side of the house; sports shoes against the gravel path that snaked down to the beach. Anxiety dried her mouth as she watched him approach the house.

Simon Cooper was dripping with perspiration. For a fifty-year-old man he was in fantastic shape; long runs around the headland kept him fit and sharp. He came over, snaking his arm around her waist, making her shirt damp with his sweat. Helen stiffened as he kissed her neck, and he caught the gesture.

‘I thought we came here to relax,’ he murmured into her ear, his breath warm.

‘I’ve had a call,’ she said.

Simon gave no reaction; instead he slid his hand under her shirt, circling the bare skin.

‘Don’t,’ she said, pulling away from him.

‘What’s wrong?’ He frowned.

‘The call. It was from Anna Kennedy, my associate at work.’

‘Sod work,’ he muttered. ‘Even I’ve had my phone switched off this afternoon.’

Helen closed her eyes, remembering the glorious hours they’d spent in bed together, undisturbed by anything or anyone. She could still almost feel him moving inside her, making her feel like no man had ever made her feel. For a long time, work had been her passion, but the desire she felt for this man was like an addiction. And what if that stopped? What if he was taken away from her? The thought of it was almost a physical pain.

There had always been a connection between Helen and Simon, even when they had first met five years ago, but nothing had happened until his divorce. They had never discussed whether she should do the same and end her sham marriage to Graham. In the early days of her affair with Simon, they had both seemed content with their snatched hours of sex, meeting in hotels near the places they both worked, but soon it just wasn’t enough. And soon their relationship was not simply about sex. Helen was too cynical, too world-weary to believe in the concept of soulmates, but even she could see that she and Simon were a perfect match. He was the one person who had ever made her see that there was more to life than work or money. And to her shock, he had given her so much more: desire, understanding, togetherness, love. Helen had never had to – or wanted to – think of anybody but herself; that was why her marriage to Graham was able to limp on, because he asked for little and let her get on with her own independent life. But her feelings for Simon had compromised her natural default setting of self-interest. And that had got her into trouble.

‘She knows,’ said Helen simply.

Simon wiped his damp forehead with the back of his hand.

‘Knows about what?’

‘Amy Hart and Peter Rees.’

Simon looked up at her sharply, and time seemed to stand still.

‘Can she prove anything?’ he asked, a low, considered malevolence about his question that made her feel chill.

‘She found Amy’s laptop in the vault.’

‘What?’ he spat. ‘You stupid woman! You were supposed to keep it safe.’

‘It was safe,’ protested Helen. ‘There are only two people who have access to that room: myself and Larry Donovan. And even if Larry found it, he was hardly going to know who Amy Hart was.’

‘You were careless,’ he roared.

How dare he suggest that? Helen felt her hands shaking and tucked them under her arms. She hated the way Simon was looking at her. No one ever made her feel stupid, no one. And yet the thin, disdainful line of her boyfriend’s mouth cut her to the core.

‘What does she know exactly?’

Everything, she thought. She knows everything.

‘She knows about Amy’s affair with Peter,’ she said. ‘She knows she was blackmailing him. She knows that the Dallincourt senior executives, including Peter Rees, were aware that they had botched a repair job at the rig and that it was highly dangerous for it to keep operating.’

‘And the rest?’ said Simon. ‘Does she know about Peter’s involvement with Doug Faulks?’

Helen nodded.

‘Shit.’

Helen turned away and took a deep breath, fighting to control her emotions, wondering where it had all gone wrong. She knew, of course. When Simon had asked her to bury the story of Amy Hart’s inquest, Helen had hesitated. The quickest way of doing it was to use a big, big story to push everything else out of the headlines. And as the final day of the inquest coincided with the Sam Charles injunction return date, she knew she had the perfect opportunity to help Simon. It would mean sacrificing the best interests of a wealthy and high-profile client and breaking every code of professional conduct. But Simon had been persuasive, in the bedroom and out of it – reassuring Helen that he would make it worth her while, that he would send millions of pounds of legal work her way from his roster of powerful international companies. And it was hard to say no to someone you were in love with.

‘I can’t believe it,’ said Simon, pacing up and down the terrace. ‘Why didn’t you just destroy the bloody computer?’

‘You know why,’ she said, watching his face. She didn’t need to spell it out. She had kept it as insurance. When you were dealing with men who thought nothing of sacrificing lives like pawns in a chess game, sometimes you needed your own leverage.

‘Did they kill her, Simon?’ she asked suddenly. It was a question she had not dared ask when Simon had pleaded with her to help him.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied, not looking at her. ‘It’s not my problem.’

She stepped forward and grabbed on to his arm.

‘But it is our problem, Simon,’ she said. ‘I need to know everything if I’m going to work out what we can do next.’

He shrugged her off.

‘Nothing is ever a problem,’ he said, his eyes cold. ‘Not if you are prepared to do what it takes to fix it.’

He stomped back into the house and slammed the door. When he was gone, Helen sank to her knees, covering her mouth with her hand. It’s all over, everything is gone, she thought desperately. My life is at an end. For a moment she gave into it, letting the fear and the despair wash over her, consume her.

But she was Helen Pierce. Helen Pierce did not give in to anything for long. And so, slowly, she pulled herself to her feet. Simon was right. You had to be prepared to do what was needed to fix things. She walked back into the house and picked up her phone.

‘Peter,’ she said, trying to keep her voice even. ‘It’s Helen Pierce.’

A warm breeze fluttered through the trees as Helen descended the stone steps into the sunken garden in Bloomsbury. She had been surprised when Peter Rees had suggested meeting here, because she had thought she was one of the few people in London who knew about it. Years earlier, when she had lived in a large apartment behind UCL, she had come to this hidden oasis often. It had been her private sanctuary, a place to clear her head. I could do with a little of that today, she thought, walking along the gravel path.

It was not yet 10 a.m. and, as she had expected, the green space was almost deserted. Just a man walking his dog and two young lovers entwined on a bench who looked as if they had been up all night partying and were loath to leave each other even now. She wondered if they felt as tired as she did. She’d left Seaways immediately after her argument with Simon, arriving home at 2 a.m., and had lain awake, turning things over in her mind, until the sunlight cut across the ceiling.

Across the garden, Helen could see a slim, silver-haired man sitting on a bench, one long leg crossed over the other. She had only met Peter Rees once before, introduced by Simon, of course, but even at this distance she could tell it was him.

‘So, the cat’s out of the bag?’ he said with a small smile as she sat down next to him. ‘I don’t suppose it’s in my interests to sue you for professional negligence.’ His expression lacked the anger that Simon had displayed the night before. Instead he seemed sad, worn down. He looked up and tapped Helen’s knee; almost a paternal, reassuring gesture.

‘In a way, I think I’m glad that this has got out.’

‘Glad?’ said Helen.

‘You can keep the headlines out of the newspapers, but you can’t hide the truth from yourself,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s not been easy living with what has happened. I loved Amy, you know, in my way. She made me feel young, clever, handsome, and that doesn’t happen much these days, let me tell you.’

‘But you couldn’t commit to her?’

Peter held his hands open.

‘I couldn’t give her what she wanted from me. My children would never have forgiven me.’

Helen swallowed, then looked at Peter.

‘Amy didn’t just fall down the stairs, did she?’

He didn’t speak for several seconds.

‘A few weeks before it happened, we’d gone out dancing. Ridiculous for an old fart like me, but like I say, she made me feel young. I’d had too much brandy and got sentimental. I told her about Doug Faulks’s suicide – well, not everything, but I was drunk, unhappy. I told her I blamed myself.’ He snorted. ‘In vino veritas, eh? I blamed myself because it was my fault.’

‘But how did that lead to her death?’

Peter shook his head, remembering.

‘I was stupid. Amy used to stay in the Bloomsbury flat I use during the week and I left my computer on. She’d been putting pressure on me to leave my wife and she obviously thought she might find something about Doug on the laptop, something she could use to force my hand. She did. She found the Atlanticana report and copied it.’

Peter looked at Helen, his eyes red.

‘She was a clever girl, Amy. People thought she was an airhead, but she had enough intelligence to connect the engineering faults in the rig with Doug’s death. So she threatened me, told me she’d blow the whistle on us; she had that do-or-die mentality.’

‘What did you do?’ asked Helen, already knowing the answer, but needing to hear it.

‘What could I do? I told James Swann about her. Everyone goes to James with their problems. I thought he was just going to pay her off, maybe threaten her. But two days later she was dead.’

‘You think James had her killed?’

Peter rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand.

‘He said he’d dealt with her. I guess he did.’

Helen looked away from him, watching the man with the dog, wishing she was back at Seaways the afternoon before Anna Kennedy had called. In Simon’s arms, their bodies entwined, no worries or fears.

‘So are you glad you know now, Miss Pierce?’ asked Peter. ‘I’m assuming that’s why you never asked before. Because your conscience couldn’t deal with it.’

Helen didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

The first time she had met Peter, he was a steely and vital man, but now he looked pale, weak, as if the life force had been drained out of him.

‘I should confess,’ he said quietly. ‘Give the newspapers a little bite to their story, eh?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Helen, a little too loud.

Peter’s expression was one of pure resignation.

‘It’s what I want,’ he said wearily. ‘I don’t want to live like this.’

‘But why?’ said Helen passionately. ‘Amy’s dead – and yes, I know you loved her, but throwing yourself to the wolves won’t bring her back.’

‘I killed Amy and I killed Doug. Not with my own bare hands, but I might as well have.’

‘Doug committed suicide,’ said Helen plainly.

Peter sat back on the bench, his head tilted towards the milky sky. ‘We knew the rig was unsafe,’ he said softly. ‘Half the board of Dallincourt knew. We’d completed a repair job but the materials used were compromised.’

‘Cost-cutting?’

He nodded.

‘We didn’t know at the time that they wouldn’t be up to the job, but when the senior engineer gave us some projections and said we’d need to go back down and strengthen the work we’d done, well, we took a chance to leave it. It was all about profit, Helen. We wanted to spin off the engineering arm of the company, and a multi-million-pound repair job would have affected the bottom line and our projected sale price.’

A tear ran down his cheek.

‘Doug was CEO of Pogex Oil. They owned the Atlanticana rig. He was my friend.’ Peter sighed. ‘When Atlanticana exploded, we panicked.’

‘Who’s we?’

‘Myself. Malcolm Wainwright, the Dallincourt CEO. James Swann, a major shareholder in both Dallincourt and Pogex. We went to see Simon Cooper at Auckland Communications, who handled corporate publicity for Dallincourt and Pogex. He said the best way to hide Dallincourt’s culpability was to blame Pogex Oil. As Pogex was another client of his, he wanted to miminise corporate reputation damage, but he was prepared to sacrifice a senior-level executive. He said we should create a fall guy, and the obvious person was Doug, Pogex’s CEO. A brilliant man, but highly strung, maybe even a little bipolar. I knew he would crumble under questioning, especially if Auckland fed him a few soundbites that made it sound like he was trying to wriggle out of it. And it worked. The press crucified him. And Doug . . . We both know what happened next, don’t we?’

Peter stood up and brushed down his trousers.

‘Now I think I need to be alone,’ he said, nodding a goodbye.

Helen jumped up and grabbed his arm.

‘Please, Peter, don’t do anything rash,’ she said, her heart pounding. ‘Remember we’re all in this together, and if we work together, we can get out of it.’

Peter looked down at her hand and gently lifted it from his arm.

‘We all have a way of dealing with our problems,’ he said, walking away. ‘You go and figure out yours.’