Private Lives

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.