Private Lives

‘But it does look like Helen leaked Sam Charles’s private life to overturn his injunction, which is nothing short of a cover-up.’

‘I know you ink boys love conspiracy,’ said Larry tartly. ‘But do you need to trouble the reading public with every last detail?’ He inclined his head towards Anna. ‘And seeing as it was Donovan Pierce who brought you the story . . .’

Charles raised his eyebrows.

‘So we should cut Donovan Pierce some slack?’

‘Something like that,’ said Larry.

Anna couldn’t believe her ears. After all her hard work, after all the risks she had taken, Larry was suggesting they let Helen off?

‘But Helen is complicit in all this,’ said Anna angrily. ‘She’s broken the law and she deserves to suffer the consequences.’

Larry turned on her.

‘Which means the whole of Donovan Pierce suffers, Anna. Good, decent lawyers such as yourself and my son. The firm will be hung out to dry and you’ll all be tarred with the same brush. Is that what you want?’

‘It’s not what I want, Larry,’ she protested. ‘It’s what’s right . . .’

They were interrupted by a knock on the door, and Amir Khan popped his head into the room.

‘Guys, you’d better come back in,’ he said, his eyes shining. ‘We’ve just had a phone call from Peter Rees. He says he’s prepared to tell us everything he knows.’

67

The house was dark when Helen pulled up outside. She pushed her key into the lock, expecting to hear the sound of Graham’s opera records, but there was silence as she walked into the hallway and threw her keys on to the table. She was glad: the grey stillness of the house suited her mood. She wanted to hide, to stay safe in a cloak of darkness where no one could see her or touch her. The bullish ‘let’s conquer this thing together’ resolve she had tried to show Peter earlier in the day had crumbled the moment she had left the Bloomsbury gardens, and she had driven up to Hampstead, walking across the heath, lost in her turbulent thoughts, trying to see a way out of the fog.

She cursed herself for leaving the laptop in the office. It was true that no one other than herself and Larry had access to the vault. But with the pressure of the Balon trial, she had been uncharacteristically careless. She should have known, of course, that Anna Kennedy would not have taken Sam’s overturned injunction lying down. That was why she had hired the girl in the first place: drive, ambition, a nimble mind. But who would have thought she’d have got wind of Amy Hart? Expect the unexpected was the maxim Helen had always drilled into her lawyers, but this time she was the one who had failed to see all the angles.

Walking into the living room, she went straight to the drinks cabinet and poured herself a large brandy, closing her eyes as the liquid slipped down her throat. She almost dropped the glass in fright as a desk lamp flicked on, and she whirled around to see Larry Donovan sitting in her favourite armchair.

‘Jesus, Larry,’ she gasped. ‘You scared me.’

Larry’s face remained impassive, increasing Helen’s unease. She glanced towards the door.

‘Who let you in?’

‘Graham,’ said Larry. ‘He’s gone out. I asked him for a few minutes alone with you.’

‘Oh really? Why?’ she asked, turning back to pour herself another brandy, the decanter rattling against the glass.

She was playing for time, desperately looking for some hole in the net she felt closing in on her, but she knew that Larry knew. Larry always knew. For years he had been her mentor and protector. They ha

d first met when she was a law student scouting around for a job and he was a young, dynamic solicitor about to set up his own practice. In Helen Pierce he had seen something, a kindred spirit. He had recognised her steeliness and taken time to nurture it, encouraging and advising her, favouring her with the best cases, making introductions to all the right people. Unusually for Larry, there had never been any sexual motivation for his help. Not once in their twenty-five-year acquaintance had he tried it on. Instead their relationship was one of mutual respect, and whilst Larry’s profligacy and unreliability had annoyed her in recent years, deep down she had nothing but admiration for him. Fitting, then, that it should be Larry who had come to her at the end.

‘You know why I’m here, Helen,’ he said now. ‘Amy Hart. Anna told me everything.’

Helen snorted.

‘Anna Kennedy has lost the plot,’ she said tartly, throwing the brandy back. ‘She’s been looking for some excuse to shift the blame for her failure in the Sam Charles case. She should not be taken seriously, Larry. In fact, I was going to suggest she take a holiday to sort herself out.’

Larry’s face remained hard.

‘It’s too late for bullshit, Helen. The Chronicle have got hold of the story, and everything Anna has said has checked out.’

‘What has checked out? A load of circumstantial evidence and—’

‘Peter Rees is talking,’ said Larry, stopping her in her tracks. ‘Apparently he’s happy to swear an affidavit about the faulty rig, Amy’s blackmail, his conversation with James Swann to cover it up . . . everything.’