Private Lives

It was an occasion that called for a cigar. A trip to see Parnell, the head buyer at Davidoff, would round off this fine morning perfectly. Larry marched down the Strand towards Trafalgar Square, the sunshine warming his neck. It felt like today was the first day of . . . of what? Larry had never been the poetic type, but he knew that he was on a new path. To where, he had no idea, but he was sure that his son would be a part of it, and that was a wonderful feeling.

He was snaking around the back streets of St James’s debating the full flavour of a Bolivar Corona versus the peppery bite of a Montecristo No. 2 when he saw a familiar figure get out of a grey sports car fifty yards in front of him. For a moment he wasn’t sure if it was his wife. The car was certainly unfamiliar, and hadn’t she said she was going to visit her friend Jacqui in Esher? But there was no mistaking the theatrical way she swung that blond hair over her shoulder as she stood, no mistaking that knockout body. It was Loralee all right. But what was she doing here? Immediately Larry felt a sense of unease. He switched his attention to the man climbing from the driver’s seat. Tall, around forty, but in good shape under that expensive-looking suit. He looked like one of those sports stars who advertise razor blades. The man touched Loralee’s back to guide her across the road, disappearing into St James’s Palace, a big stucco-fronted hotel popular with well-heeled Middle Eastern tourists. Larry knew that sort of touch. It was intimate, familiar. He could feel his heart beginning to pound as he followed them inside the hotel. Maybe he was overreacting. After all, there was an excellent Moroccan restaurant in the hotel and didn’t Loralee like Moroccan food? He couldn’t remember.

Larry turned towards the Gulshan restaurant and, peering around a corner, scanned the line of customers waiting to speak to the maître d’. Loralee and her companion were not there – and in that instant, Larry realised his happy morning was over. He knew with bitter certainty what he was going to find when he turned back towards the reception. His wife and the young stranger would be checking into a suite, grinning like newlyweds. He knew this because he himself had been in this situation so many times before with other women, with other men’s wives. They would be trying to retain decorum, trying not to giggle in case anyone was watching, yet finding it impossible to hide their glee at the thought of the illicit pleasure that lay ahead. Larry didn’t need to see it to know, yet still he followed, watching from behind as Loralee whispered something into the man’s ear, watching as he stroked her arm and chuckled. Watching as the receptionist handed them the key to their afternoon playtime den. Larry stayed there watching, his mouth dry, his hands trembling, until the lift doors closed on them.

He’d seen enough anyway. There was a pain in his chest and he struggled for breath. For a second he thought it was another cardiac attack, until he felt a single tear dribbling down his crêpey cheek. At which point he knew he did not need to call for an ambulance, because what he was feeling was just the crushing ache of a broken heart.

52

To a casual observer, Helen Pierce was her normal glacial self. Smart and crisp in a white shirt and claret pencil skirt, she sat in her usual place in court behind Jonathon Balon’s barrister Nicholas Collins, a woman completely in control. But inside, she was anxious and insecure as Collins stood to address the judge.

‘M’lud, I’d like to call Dominic Bradley as a witness for the plaintiff,’ he said.

This was the source of Helen’s unease. As far as she was concerned, the whole case hinged on this one witness. Dominic Bradley didn’t look much like a star witness as he shuffled to the box. Mid thirties, unshaven and receding, he had obviously tried to dress up for the occasion by adding a tie to a casual checked shirt and tucking it into his jeans. Helen wondered for a moment how someone like Bradley had managed to date someone as connected and pristine as Deena Washington, but years of experience had taught her that when it came to ambitious women, physical attractiveness was way down on their checklist. Dominic Bradley wasn’t bad-looking, but he clearly had something else, something Deena wanted. Connections, an entree into the glamorous worlds of fashion and media, who knew? All Helen cared about was the fact that he had made it to court in time. In the forty-eight hours after her meeting with Deena Washington in the Hamptons, she’d had every private investigator on her Rolodex scrambling to locate Bradley and discover the reason why he hated Balon. Thankfully he’d been easy to find. As Deena had guessed, he was at his parents’ house in Berkshire. The second part of the equation had proved more difficult. Unsurprisingly, Bradley had been extremely unwilling to help. Why, he had asked her, would he want to assist Balon’s legal team and thus anger the powerful Steinhoff publishing house? He was a jobbing photographer; he could lose his entire livelihood. Helen knew Bradley was playing the same game as his ex-girlfriend, angling for a pay-off, but she couldn’t risk being accused of trying to influence a witness. Anyway, in this case, the law provided: no more incentive was needed than a witness summons from the court.

‘Mr Bradley,’ said Nicholas Collins, ‘can you tell me about your most recent ex-girlfriend, and what she did for a living?’

Helen watched every move Bradley made. The deep breath before he spoke, the nervous glances at both Jonathon Balon and Spencer Reed, the hands gripping one another, the knuckles white.

‘She was called Deena Washington,’ said Bradley, his voice wavering. ‘We were together for three years before we split up after Christmas. She was a subeditor for Stateside magazine.’

‘A subeditor? They check and edit copy, don’t they?’

‘That’s right.’

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Jasper Jenkins leapt to his feet.

‘Relevance to the case, m’lud?’

Judge Lazner raised a hand to say he wanted to hear where this was going.

‘But subeditors are not generally involved in the commissioning and writing of features, are they?’ said Collins, fixing Bradley with that confident expression that told the court he already knew the answer to the question.

Bradley shook his head.

‘Not on Stateside, no. It frustrated Deena. She wanted to be a writer, or maybe features editor one day.’

‘Hearsay, your honour,’ boomed Jasper Jenkins.

‘But she told you she wanted to be a writer, isn’t that correct?’ pressed Collins. ‘That she was frustrated that she was simply correcting other people’s copy.’

‘That’s right. I saw her spend a lot of time at home coming up with ideas to submit to the features team in the hope of being commissioned.’

‘And was she?’

‘No.’

‘And how did you assist Miss Washington in her career?’ asked Collins.

Bradley exhaled deeply, as if he was hesitant about proceeding.

‘I knew that the two biggest, most prestigious story slots in Stateside were the true crime and society scandal slots. I gave her a story idea based on something I had heard in London.’

‘Which was what?’

‘I told her about Jonathon Balon, the billionaire London property developer. He used to be my landlord when I lived in north-east London in 1999.’