Breath of Corruption

by Caro Fraser

  She settled herself on the sofa and gazed up at Leo, who stood in the middle of the room, jingling his car keys and feeling, yet again, somewhat at a loss. This girl had a way of looking at him which was both provocative and unsettling.

  ‘Studies going OK?’ he asked.

  Lucy nodded. A little fear gripped her heart. She hoped Anthea hadn’t told him she was still at school. That would blow everything. It seemed unlikely, though, that Anthea would choose to discuss her younger sister with Leo. ‘Fine, thanks. How about you? Any big cases?’ God, he was so gorgeous, she could stare at him all evening.

  Leo smiled again, bemused. ‘One or two.’

  Lucy thought of the website, from which she’d learnt by heart every tiny particular there was to know about him, including his big recent cases. She’d like to chat to him in a really grown-up way about them, but then he’d know she’d been checking out the website. How uncool would that look? She continued to gaze at him thoughtfully, and Leo’s eyes couldn’t help but be drawn, first to the sheen of her plump, slightly-parted lips, then to her dark, lovely eyes, and lastly to the low, soft expanse of skin revealed by her T-shirt riding up from her hipster jeans. She was, whether she knew it or not, the epitome of smouldering, childlike sexuality. Leo found his thoughts travelling in such a swift, unseemly direction that he was actually relieved when, at that moment, Anthea came into the room. The contrast between Lucy’s tousled young sexuality and Anthea’s sleek loveliness was not lost on Leo, and he found himself marvelling, not for the first time, at the differing ways and degrees in which women exerted their particular charms.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Lucy, glancing from Anthea to Leo.

  ‘The Kandinsky exhibition,’ said Leo.

  Anthea gave a little laugh as she checked the contents of her bag. ‘OK. Another artist I’ve never heard of.’

  Lucy, who had risen to put on her shoes and pick up her bag, pre-empting the possibility of being bossed around by Anthea, said, ‘He’s an abstract painter, member of the Bauhaus. It’s a good exhibition.’

  Anthea gave her sister a waspish look. ‘I didn’t know you’d been.’

  Lucy just stopped herself in time from telling them that it had been a school trip. Instead, she looked at Leo and said, ‘I like “Cossacks” best. It’s a totally amazing picture.’

  ‘I’ll look out for it,’ said Leo.

  They all left together, and on the way downstairs Leo asked Lucy if they could give her a lift.

  ‘She’s quite capable of walking,’ said Anthea. ‘It’s only half a mile.’

  ‘I’d love a lift,’ said Lucy.

  She snuggled into the back of Leo’s DB9. The smell of leather and the sense of cocooned, expensive safety immediately reminded her of her father, and journeys through Italy as a child. She watched Leo’s profile as he drove, glancing from time to time at his hands, the wheel slipping beneath his fingers, the firm, easy way he shifted through the gears. He was so, so sexy. She sat in the back of his car and inhaled the very presence of him. She was in love, no question.

  It took only five minutes to drive to her mother’s house in South Kensington, but for Lucy the ride was pure heaven. She stepped out onto the pavement, and Leo slid the window down.

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ said Lucy.

  ‘My pleasure.’

  Ohmigod, thought Lucy, the way he looked at her when he said that! She waved goodnight and floated on air to the front door. She didn’t care if he was over forty, she didn’t care if he belonged to Anthea. He absolutely had to be the first man she went to bed with – no one else would do. It was just a question of working out how, and when.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Leo thought about what Roger had told him about Maurice. He didn’t seriously believe Roger’s suspicions about Melanie’s confidential reference, and he wasn’t especially concerned about Maurice’s finances – what troubled Leo more was the note of general dissatisfaction which Roger had sounded. He had already noticed an air of general restiveness about the junior members of chambers, and that wasn’t a healthy thing. Leo liked to run a happy ship. He decided to speak to Anthony about it over lunch.

  He went to Anthony’s room a little before one and suggested a bite in Middle Temple Hall. For all its antiquity and magnificence the long hall, with its Elizabethan hammer-beam roof and wainscoted walls and elegant glass bay windows, was very much a functional place, and each day, below the imposing equestrian portrait of Charles I, luncheon of a ‘school dinners’ variety was served to the hungry members of Middle Temple. Leo took his plate of shepherd’s pie and mixed veg to one of the long, polished oak tables and sat down opposite Anthony.

  ‘I see you went for the shepherd’s pie, too,’ he remarked, glancing at Anthony’s plate.

  ‘I didn’t much care for the look of the macaroni cheese. The apple crumble looks all right – I might have some of that after. I need to fuel up – I’m going drinking with Roger this evening.’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. How do you think he is these days?’

  ‘Roger? He’s all right, I suppose. Having a bit of a moan, like all of us.’

  ‘A moan about what?’

  ‘Oh, he’s got a particular bee in his bonnet about Maurice. The others are just banging on about the usual things – people not returning books, people ordering couriers on other people’s accounts and then not paying for them – the usual paranoia. Rory and Simon are always complaining about how long it takes them to get into chambers each day.’

  ‘It worries me that people are dissatisfied.’

  ‘I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it – people like to have something to gripe about. As for the commuting – you’re hardly responsible for the state of the roads and the railways.’ Anthony scraped up the remains of his shepherd’s pie. ‘Actually, I’m thinking of getting a motorbike.’

  ‘Really? I thought of that myself once. Anyway, I’ll see if there’s something that can’t be done about making sure books are returned. I find it somewhat irritating myself. I’d be grateful if you’d keep me updated on what feelings are like among the junior tenants – it’s not always easy for me to take soundings.’

  Anthony grinned. ‘This concern for our welfare is quite touching – I’ve never seen it in you before.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s a result of actually being a father.’ Leo smiled. ‘Oliver’s starting his new school next week. I’m trying to persuade Rachel to let me take him on his first day, but she seems to regard that as her privilege.’

  ‘Why don’t you both take him?’

  ‘I suppose we could. Or maybe I might pick him up, if I can get away. We’ll strike some kind of compromise. We generally do. I have to be careful not to rock the boat, though – the access arrangement we have only exists on her say-so.’

  ‘I think I might grab some pudding,’ said Anthony. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’ll leave that stuff to fit, young things like you,’ said Leo. ‘Just a coffee for me, thanks.’

  Lucy and her best friend, Georgia, were sitting on the wall outside the school lunch hall, gossiping in the late-summer sunshine.

  ‘My God, Phyllida is really, really beginning to annoy me,’ said Georgia. ‘We’re sitting in English, right? And she’s all like, oh I haven’t got my copy of Hamlet, can we share? Which is so annoying. And then afterwards she’s all like, can I borrow your copy to do my notes? And she doesn’t wait for me to say yes or anything, she just sort of takes it, and I’m like – thanks for asking! And then she forgets to give it back to me, so I can’t do my homework, and so Mrs Lees is like—’

  Lucy stopped Georgia, in mid-flow. ‘Shut it. Here she comes.’

  Phyllida, flicking back her blonde hair over one shoulder, strolled past Lucy and Georgia. Lucy and Georgia smiled, twinkling their fingers and murmuring, ‘Hi, Phil!’ They watched her retreating figure with cold, candid eyes, their smiles fading.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Lucy, anxious to revert to the subject of Le
o, which Georgia had mysteriously hijacked a few minutes ago so that they’d somehow ended up discussing Phyllida Dutton, ‘this amazing man I was telling you about—’

  ‘Oh yeah – how old did you say he was?’

  Lucy didn’t want to confide too many details about Leo – she needed Georgia’s help on the ‘get-Leo-to-bed’ project, but she had to be careful.

  ‘Just older.’ She couldn’t tell Georgia he was over forty. Georgia would totally freak. ‘But honestly, he’s like, so totally fit! The trouble is, it’s not exactly easy to get him on his own. I need to sort of set it up, right?’

  Georgia nodded.

  ‘So this is what you do.’ And Lucy proceeded to outline her plan to Georgia.

  Later, when school was finished, instead of taking the coach home, Lucy went round to Anthea’s and let herself in. She knew Anthea was away on a shoot that day and wouldn’t be back till late. This time she left the fridge and the vodka bottle strictly alone. She didn’t want Anthea to know she’d been there.

  She went to the phone and lifted the handset, scrolling through the numbers in the address book until she found Leo’s mobile number. Fishing her own mobile from her bag, she tapped in the number and saved it. Then she wandered into Anthea’s room and rummaged through the contents of her teeming wardrobe. Ant had so much good stuff. Pity she was so tall. Still, there were a couple of things that would do. In the end Lucy took away a diaphanous little Chloé top, a black and silver belt, and a pair of precariously beautiful dark red Jimmy Choos, which didn’t look like they’d ever been worn. Ant would never miss them. Not for a bit, anyway.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘We can take him together.’

  ‘That’s silly. It means you have to drive from Chelsea to Chiswick at the height of the rush hour.’

  ‘I don’t mind. It’s his first day. Besides, I can take the Tube to Chiswick and then into the office.’ Leo tucked the phone under his chin and reached out for his pen.

  ‘You, on the Tube?’

  ‘I’m not wedded to my car, you know.’

  ‘I sometimes wonder.’

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ said Leo, ‘that you’d consider letting Oliver stay overnight with me on Sunday as well as Saturday? That way I could get him ready for school on Monday morning, and we could come over and meet you there.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Leo sighed. Why had he even bothered suggesting it? She scarcely wanted him there on Oliver’s first morning of school as it was. Why? Something to do with wanting to retain control, to keep Oliver to herself. She always made out that she wanted Leo to see as much of Oliver as possible, but he suspected that she begrudged the hours Oliver spent with him. In the past she’d trotted out all kinds of excuses to truncate visits or cancel them altogether, saying it wasn’t convenient, that it would be disruptive to Oliver – once, worst of all, that she didn’t want Oliver being exposed to the dissolute private life she suspected Leo of leading. That last one had led to a hellish row and to a crisis of conscience on Leo’s part.

  ‘I thought not. Anyway, don’t worry about what kind of transport I’m going to take. I’ll be there. What time does he start?’

  ‘Quarter to nine.’

  ‘Fine. And Rachel?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’d like to get him something – you know, something for school.’

  ‘I think he’s got everything he needs.’

  ‘Well, I’ll get him a pencil case and some stuff to put in it, anyway. I’ll give it to him at the weekend.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I’ll see you at the weekend.’

  Leo put down the phone and sighed. He’d had a heavy morning in court, and the last thing he needed was Rachel’s obstructiveness. She was only like this when she was unhappy, and that probably had a lot to do with Anthony. What the woman needed was some therapeutic sex – Leo was a great believer in its remedial properties – but she was so bloody icy and brittle these days that was unlikely. Well, she was her own problem, and not his any more. He thought briefly, and with light-hearted thankfulness, of lovely Anthea. A girl with no agenda, no axe to grind, no demands to make, except of the most enjoyable kind. A pity she was away this evening – that slender, supple body of hers was just what he needed after a day such as today. He liked, too, the fact that she didn’t always make herself available. It somehow heightened his interest.

  Leo went to fetch a mug of coffee, and then sat down to read the latest bundle of documents which had come in on the Humble Construction case, and which appeared to consist of yet more invoices for the supply of goods and materials involved in the construction of the smelting plant. Half an hour into his work, Leo came across a document which gave him pause. It was an invoice raised by a London company called Landline for the lining of furnaces at the aluminium plant. Nothing strange in that, except that it seemed to be at odds with another invoice which he recalled seeing earlier on in the case.

  Leo went to a row of box files and began to look through them. It took him ten minutes to locate the document he wanted – an invoice from the Ukrainian subcontractors, Zobil, for exactly the same work, but for a considerably lower sum. He laid both documents on his desk and studied them, trying to think of a reason for the discrepancy. Eventually he lifted the phone and rang Brian Bennett. He explained what he had found.

  ‘I’m just rather puzzled. Can you think of any reason why there should be two invoices for the same work?’

  ‘Not offhand,’ said Brian. ‘To be honest, it escaped my notice. You’re obviously more eagle-eyed than I am.’

  ‘The only thing I can think of,’ said Leo, inspecting the invoices, ‘is that this furnace-lining work which Humble say Zobil didn’t complete satisfactorily was subsequently done by the London company, at greater cost. In which case, shouldn’t we be increasing our claim?’

  ‘You would think so – but Sir Dudley hasn’t mentioned anything about the work being done elsewhere.’

  ‘No. And I don’t really see what a London-based company is doing lining furnaces in Ukraine, frankly.’

  ‘Leave it with me,’ said Brian. ‘I’ll have a word with Sir Dudley. He can probably clear it up.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Leo put down the phone. He finished going through the papers, and thought no more about it.

  Sir Dudley had just finished a round of golf when Brian Bennett called him on his mobile.

  ‘Sir Dudley, I’ve just been speaking to Leo Davies – he’s been going through the documents that you passed to us recently.’

  ‘Double Scotch for me, Alan,’ said Sir Dudley to his friend, and went out to the lobby to take the call. The club didn’t approve of members using their mobiles in the bar. ‘What about them?’

  ‘Well, it seems he’s come across an invoice from a London company called Landline’ – Sir Dudley felt his heart tighten with alarm – ‘to do with furnace linings. It’s work which Zobil have apparently already invoiced for, so we were a bit puzzled. We wondered if you could help us.’

  Sir Dudley told himself he was overreacting. It was just an invoice, nothing to worry about. It was highly unlikely that the solicitors, or Leo Davies for that matter, would read anything suspicious into it. He racked his brains quickly for a plausible explanation to offer, but could think of none. He was careful to reply with as much nonchalance as he could muster.

  ‘Sounds a little odd, certainly. I can’t think how that’s happened.’ He paused. ‘Is it of any particular importance, would you say?’

  ‘No, probably not. We just wondered if you knew.’

  ‘Afraid not. Now, Brian, if you don’t mind, I’m rather busy—’

  ‘Of course. Sorry to disturb you. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation. We’ll speak in the week.’

  Sir Dudley said goodbye and clicked off his phone. He stood in the lobby, his mind racing. How could it have happened? What bloody fool had let that invoice slip through? He could only pray there weren’t more suspicious documents among th
ose papers. He reassured himself that the Landline invoice on its own wasn’t incriminating – but if there were more like it, enough to form a paper trail, he hated to think where it might lead.

  Alan, his golfing partner, strolled out from the bar. ‘Your whisky’s waiting for you.’ He saw Sir Dudley’s creased brow and anxious eyes. ‘Some problem?’

  Sir Dudley, who was still trying to work out what, if anything, he should do, glanced at his friend. ‘What? Oh, just my solicitors getting their arses in a tangle over something – you know what these people are like. Insist on scrutinising every tiny detail. I’ll be with you in a second. Just have to make a quick call.’

  Alan went back into the bar. Sir Dudley picked up his train of thought. What he’d just said about scrutinising every tiny detail was about right – nothing escaped Leo Davies. It was what had impressed him about the man from the start. Utterly scrupulous, on top of every single aspect of the case. It was something they both had in common – that need to be in control, which Sir Dudley understood only too well. Davies had been sufficiently concerned about the double invoice to ring Brian, and if no satisfactory explanation was immediately forthcoming, he wouldn’t let the matter rest there. He’d want to find out the reason. And if he did …

  Sir Dudley felt panic rising in his breast. It was a feeling he detested – he needed to get on top of this thing, to make sure it was sorted out swiftly, so that the feeling would go away. Otherwise he knew what would happen – he’d start waking up every night after an hour’s sleep, sweating, brain going overtime. He’d been there before. He had to contain this.

  He went outside and walked towards the first green, well away from the clubhouse. He couldn’t take a chance on this phone call being overheard by anyone. Swiftly he tapped in Viktor’s phone number. Come on, you bugger, answer, he thought, as the number at the other end rang and rang. He didn’t want to have to leave a message. He needed to speak to Viktor now, urgently. He tried to fight down the sensation of panic swelling beneath his ribs. At last Viktor answered.