Calling Down the Storm

by Peter Murphy

  He put out the cigarette and immediately lit another.

  ‘I gamble,’ he said. ‘I’m a gambler. I’m sure that’s not news to you. I’m sure everyone knows that by now.’

  Aubrey nodded. ‘I know you like a flutter when you go out for the evening, Conrad. Of course I do. Everyone knows you enjoy the good life. You’ve never made any secret about it. And why shouldn’t you? You’ve always worked harder than anyone I’ve ever known, and I’ve known you a long time now. I’m sure you’ve toned it down a bit since you went on the bench, but –.’

  ‘It’s not a question of a flutter,’ Conrad interrupted. ‘It’s not a question of putting a fiver on a horse, or a tenner on the Boat Race, for God’s sake. I’m talking about gambling, Aubrey. I’m talking about losing five thousand or more in a night. Gambling.’

  Aubrey finished his drink quickly and waved in Luke’s direction. Luke had already anticipated the request, and another Campari and soda was in front of Aubrey in a matter of seconds, together with yet another clean ashtray.

  ‘All right,’ he said.

  Conrad seemed absent for some time, smoking his cigarette and gazing up at the ceiling. Eventually, his eyes returned to the table.

  ‘It all started about 18 months ago,’ he began. ‘I was at Annabel’s one night. It’s always been a favourite haunt.’

  ‘I’ve passed the odd evening there myself, with Sandra, I seem to recall,’ Aubrey smiled.

  ‘Yes. I don’t know what it is about the place. It’s just an old wine cellar, isn’t it? But there’s something about what Mark Birley has done with it. It’s easy to forget the cares of the day.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Conrad hesitated.

  ‘And in my case, I was doing a bit more than forgetting the cares of the day,’ he said quietly. ‘I was on the lookout, and there was someone I’d been introduced to a day or two before. I went there to meet her. I don’t mind admitting it. I’m sorry if I shock you.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘You’ve met Deborah. She’s the perfect wife, in many respects, into all manner of good works and all the rest of it, and perfectly happy to spend her life in Guildford. But that wasn’t enough for me.’

  He paused for a long sip of his drink.

  ‘Specifically, Aubrey, once a month in the missionary position after Sunday lunch wasn’t enough for me.’

  Another cigarette replaced the one just extinguished.

  ‘Her name is Greta Thiemann. She’s German, from the East, Leipzig. I’m not entirely sure how she got over here, what her citizenship is, and all the rest of it. But she seemed well established, with a flat in Knightsbridge. She didn’t mention a job. It crossed my mind that she might be a hooker. With her looks she certainly could be if she wanted to. But she’s not. So I assumed she must be a woman of independent means. Well, at least, that’s what I thought then; now, I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ll come to that.’

  Aubrey nodded. ‘All right.’

  ‘You should see her, Aubrey. My God, she was a sight for sore eyes.’

  Aubrey raised his eyebrows and allowed himself a drink.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘She didn’t waste any time, either. We have a few drinks, and then I’m telling her all about the deprivations of marital life in Guildford; and the next thing I know after that, I’m in the staff toilet with her, with my trousers down around my ankles, she’s on her knees in front of me, and she’s—.’

  ‘Yes, I get the picture, Conrad.’ Aubrey waved again at Luke. ‘And actually, contrary to what I said before, you are shocking me.’

  Conrad smiled briefly. The thought occurred to Aubrey that it might have been the first smile he had given anyone that day.

  ‘I’m sorry. In any case, we did a bit of gambling, and then she whisked me away to Knightsbridge.’

  ‘You didn’t go home to Guildford?’

  ‘No. I’d told Deborah I was staying up in town for a few days, working on a fraud case – which was true, although obviously I wasn’t working on it that night. As you know, I have my flat in the Barbican. It wasn’t unusual for me to spend weeknights in town.’

  He paused.

  ‘We spent the whole night having sex – and not just in the missionary position, I don’t mind telling you. It was unbelievable. I’d never experienced anything remotely like it before. I can’t even describe it to you…’

  ‘That’s perfectly all right, Conrad,’ Aubrey said. ‘No need.’

  ‘Anyway… then I had to rush home and get ready for court. But I was hooked. And, as Humphrey Bogart said in Casablanca, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’

  He took a long sip of his whisky.

  ‘The only problem was, Aubrey, I didn’t know what Greta expected of her friends.’

  44

  ‘I take it she made it clear eventually, whatever it was?’ Aubrey asked.

  Conrad nodded.

  ‘Excitement,’ he replied, refilling his glass and lighting a cigarette. ‘As long as there was excitement, she was happy. If there was no excitement, she got bored rather quickly, and you didn’t want to be with Greta when she was bored, believe you me.’

  ‘Excitement in what sense?’

  Luke had arrived with yet another Campari and soda. He served it and withdrew.

  ‘In every sense. The episode in the toilet was a good example, if I’d only realised it, but that was only the start. She seemed to enjoy sex anywhere, whether it was in the ladies or a taxi, or anywhere else – as long as there was a risk of being caught.’

  He paused.

  ‘Go on,’ Aubrey said encouragingly.

  ‘That was what it was all about. It wasn’t so much the sex that did it for her. It was the element of risk. She liked men to take risks for her. That’s what turned her on.’

  ‘I see. And one of those risks was…’

  ‘Gambling, yes. And I was a sitting duck because I’ve always had a weakness for the cards and the roulette wheel. I’m sure she knew that. I probably told her. I told her all kinds of things. We gambled that very first night. We went upstairs from Annabel’s to the Clermont Club.’

  Aubrey raised his eyebrows.

  ‘John Aspinall’s place? You’re a member there?’

  ‘Yes. I’d just joined when I met Greta. That’s where I met her. She was with that man Bristow, you know, the property magnate as he likes to call himself – stuffy, self-important little man. She’d been there with other men, too, she told me; she loved every minute of it. After the first time, we were there at least once a week, and before too long we were up to two or three times.’

  ‘What did you play?’

  ‘I play chemin de fer. I don’t know whether you’ve ever…?’

  ‘No. I’ve never seen the attraction, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I envy you,’ Conrad said. ‘It’s a seductive game. You can lose a lot in a night, and you can win a lot in a night. The point is, you never know. It’s non-stop risk, non-stop adrenalin, and that’s what Greta loved – as long as she wasn’t the one taking the risk. She enjoyed the action, and I paid for it.’

  Aubrey finished his drink and sat back in his chair.

  ‘Conrad, forgive me for putting it this way. I know you were doing well at the Bar, making a fair bit of money, but you hear things about the kind of people who play at the Clermont. You couldn’t have been in the same league as people like Lucan and Derby. How on earth –?’

  ‘Did they let me in?’ He laughed. ‘They’re not vulgar enough to inquire about your means, Aubrey. They assume that you wouldn’t join unless you had enough money to throw around. Ian Maxwell-Scott introduced me to Aspinall – Ian is Susie Clark’s husband. You know Susie from the Bar, don’t you?’

  Aubrey nodded.

  ‘On
ce Ian had introduced me, the only question was whether the other members thought I was a good chap, and that meant getting on well with Dominick Elwes, the resident wit and raconteur. The rule was, if Dominick thought you were all right, you were in. Apparently, he did. And once I started showing up with Greta, people noticed me. Greta knew Annabel, you see, and if Annabel liked you… well, it all went from there.’

  Aubrey held up a hand.

  ‘I’m sorry, Conrad. I’ve had three Camparis on an empty stomach, and if I don’t eat something soon, I’m going to start seeing double. Do you fancy going in to dinner?’

  ‘Not really, Aubrey. I can’t eat at the moment. I’m being a pain, I know, but…’

  ‘No, that’s all right.’

  Aubrey turned round and summoned Luke.

  ‘Yes, Mr Smith-Gurney?’

  ‘We’re not going to dine tonight, Luke. Do you think you could find us some sandwiches and crisps, something like that?’

  ‘I’m sure I can, sir.’

  ‘Excellent, and why don’t you bring us a bottle of the Club white Burgundy to wash it down, if you’ve got one chilled?’

  ‘Certainly, sir. It will be just a few minutes.’ He changed the ashtray and walked discreetly away.

  ‘For a while it wasn’t a problem,’ Conrad said. ‘I got away with wagering small sums, a hundred or two on a hand, that kind of thing. I was even winning quite a bit at first – beginner’s luck, I suppose. Greta would laugh and say she was my lucky charm. But…’

  ‘I’m sure that didn’t last long.’

  ‘No. If you get up from the table too soon, people take exception, especially if you’re winning and you don’t give them the chance to win some of it back. The other members start whispering, and it all gets a bit unpleasant. I wasn’t going to let that happen to me. And Greta wasn’t happy if I gave up too early.’

  ‘What do you mean, she wasn’t happy? Did she make a scene?’

  ‘In public, in the Clermont? God, no. No, she was more sophisticated than to embarrass herself in public. No, she would wait. But then, when we got back to Knightsbridge and we were undressed, she would lay into me with a ping-pong bat, and I just had to lie there and take it.’

  Aubrey snorted.

  ‘You had to? What do you mean you had to? Why didn’t you just tell her to get lost and walk out?’

  Conrad refilled his glass.

  ‘Easy for you to say, Aubrey. You don’t know what this woman could do with a man’s body.’

  ‘Whatever she could do, surely to God it wasn’t worth giving her that kind of hold over you?’

  ‘Yes, you’re right, Aubrey, you’re right, of course you are. But at the time, it wasn’t that simple. She never stayed angry for long. It was as if spanking me got it out of her system, and instantly she went back to being her usual charming self. And every time I got ready to say enough was enough, she would give me a special treat. I’m sure I don’t have to spell it out for you. She knew exactly how to make me stay with her.’

  Aubrey shook his head.

  ‘All right. Go on.’

  Conrad lit another cigarette.

  ‘So I started playing for longer and raising the stakes. But I seemed to be winning less than I had when I first joined. In fact, I was beginning to lose a few hundred on a regular basis. At first, I could cover it out of my income, but eventually I had to dig into some savings I had stashed away in a Post Office account – a few thousand. I always thought I could win it back, of course. That’s the great illusion – that you can chase your losses and win them back in one great coup. And they say there are cases where that has happened. But they are pretty rare, and it’s even rarer still to do the sensible thing and walk away once you’ve recouped your losses, because then, you think you’re on a roll and you want to go on and come out ahead. It’s madness, obviously – but you can’t see that when you’re in the midst of it.’

  ‘So, the savings…?’

  ‘Went the same way, of course. And that’s when I started to get a bit desperate.’

  45

  Luke brought smoked salmon, and ham and cheese sandwiches, with a huge bowl of crisps and some salted peanuts. He set out the white Burgundy in a cooler. He changed the glasses and ashtray. Aubrey poured himself some wine and tasted it appreciatively.

  ‘This is very nice. Can I pour you a glass?’

  Conrad shook his head, raising his whisky glass.

  ‘No, I’ll stay with this.’

  Aubrey started on the sandwiches with a vengeance. He had not realised how hungry he was.

  ‘I was in the hole for a few thousand by then. But it seemed manageable. John Aspinall had torn up a few of my IOUs to the House. He’s that kind of man, you know. It’s something he does for some of the members. I know he’s done it for Lucky Lucan several times.’

  Aubrey shrugged. ‘That would just be good business sense, wouldn’t it, apart from anything else? You don’t want your punters going under, do you?’

  ‘I suppose not. But that only goes so far. You can’t rely on it. In any case, I had every confidence that I would recover. The only problem was, I needed some seed money.’

  ‘To fund the effort to chase your losses?’

  ‘Yes. There’s something of a science to that in a sick kind of way. Once funds become available you have to make sure that you don’t run out of money for necessities – paying the mortgage, your clerk’s fees, your chambers rent and so on. You have to be aware of how much is coming in for your fees, and calculate how much you can risk to start with. The hope is always that you can start out with a thousand, say, and win a few hands, and get there, or almost there. Then you can relax, even if you haven’t got it all back.’

  ‘But if that doesn’t work…?’

  ‘Then you have to decide whether to chase an even bigger sum. In my case, I could never quite give up on the idea that one day it was all going to work out well.’

  Aubrey drained his glass and allowed the wine to linger on his palate before pouring himself another.

  ‘But it didn’t work out well, I take it?’

  Conrad drank from his glass, shaking his head.

  ‘I came damn close once or twice, Aubrey. And perhaps if I’d stopped then… but who knows? I didn’t stop, and I still needed more money.’

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  Conrad did not reply for some time.

  ‘Deborah has a trust fund,’ he replied eventually.

  ‘She’s the one with the real money,’ he continued. ‘I didn’t have much when I started – well, you remember those days, when we were starting out. We’d only just come down from Cambridge and taken our Bar finals. Neither of us had two pennies to rub together.’

  Aubrey smiled. ‘I remember very well.’

  ‘I was lucky, I suppose. I married a woman who could support me while my practice got off the ground. Deborah had money from her parents – a lot of money – but she has never been all that interested in it.’

  ‘She’s very involved in her church, isn’t she, if I remember rightly?’ Aubrey asked.

  ‘That would be putting it mildly. The local Baptist church is her second home. She gives the church a lot of money and takes part in most of their activities. That’s been her life for many years now. She likes to show me off to the people there, but she takes very little interest in me, or my professional life, any more. Even when I became a judge, she wasn’t very impressed. She smiled and said “well done” and she came with me to see the Queen when I got my K. But that was about it.’

  Aubrey paused in the middle of eating a sandwich. An uneasy feeling was coming over him.

  ‘I can’t see Deborah as the kind of woman who would give you money from her trust fund for gambling. How did you persuade her to – ?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  Aubrey replaced the half-eaten
sandwich on his plate.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘She got sole control over the fund when she turned twenty-five. That’s the way her father set it up. Both her parents are dead now, and she’s always been too busy with the church to take much day-to-day interest in money, so she gave me power over the fund as a joint signatory. That made sense, actually. If either of us ever becomes too ill to cope, the other can access the fund without any problem. But I never touched it until I got into trouble, I swear. I mean, we raided it together for certain purposes over the years – to get our deposit when we bought our house, to make improvements here and there, that kind of thing. But I never touched it for any other reason until…’

  ‘How much?’ Aubrey asked.

  ‘Twenty thousand.’

  ‘Any of it left?’

  ‘Not a penny.’

  ‘And when the twenty thousand went the same way as your savings?’

  ‘I took out a second mortgage on the house for ten.’

  ‘What? How…? Is the house in your sole name?’

  ‘No, joint names.’

  ‘But you couldn’t… didn’t the bank need a signature from Deborah?’

  ‘Of course; and I gave them one.’

  46

  There had been a long silence. Aubrey had lost interest in the sandwiches, and was pouring himself more wine. Conrad was well into his bottle of whisky and had eaten nothing. A new sprinkling of cigarette ends was accumulating, despite Luke’s attentive replacements of the ashtray.

  ‘All right, Conrad,’ Aubrey said, ‘let’s see where we stand. You are in the hole for a lot of money – let’s say somewhere in the region of £30,000 to £40,000. Yes?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘But it’s something you could sort out with Deborah, isn’t it? That’s the good news. There’s no need for any of this to become public knowledge. At least you’re in debt to her, not to John Aspinall, and I imagine there’s still something worthwhile left in the trust fund?’

  Conrad smiled. ‘I can just imagine having that conversation with her.’