A Perfect Obsession

by Caro Fraser

  Michael Gibbon came into the clerks’ room and dropped some papers on Henry’s desk.

  ‘Oh, Mr Gibbon,’ said Felicity, ‘this came in for you earlier.’

  Michael took the envelope from Felicity and scanned the contents. ‘Good … By the way, has Bernard Harrison’s chambers sent round that list of authorities?’

  ‘No. They say they’re still waiting for ours.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ muttered Michael in exasperation. As he turned away, he caught sight of Leo. ‘Ah, Leo. Have you got a minute?’

  ‘Certainly,’ replied Leo, taking his mail from his pigeonhole. He and Michael walked out of the clerks’ room into the reception area.

  ‘I saw Francis Lake at lunchtime, and he told me something very interesting,’ said Michael. ‘Great ructions, apparently, at Maurice Faber’s chambers. Faber had a huge row with Andrew Peters, said he wasn’t being clerked properly, the clerk had to go, Peters said over his dead body … You know the kind of thing. Anyway, two opposing camps appear to have formed, and Marcus Jacobs, Ann Halliday and Roger Fry are all backing Faber.’

  ‘That’s an interesting little caucus.’

  ‘Quite. Of course, it may all die down, but there’s always the possibility that Faber will decide to leave.’

  ‘Taking the others with him?’

  ‘Can’t say. Anyway, leaving aside Faber, who’s a difficult man at the best of times, the others are all excellent juniors.’

  ‘Are you suggesting we make an approach?’.

  Michael shrugged. ‘We’re up for some rapid expansion as soon as the annexe is finished, and that’s just two months away.’

  ‘The trouble is, you never know how reliable information is, coming from Francis Lake. I suggest we see what happens over the next few weeks. You have to tread very delicately with these things.’

  ‘I agree. Interesting, though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very. Maurice Faber’s a hell of an ego, though. Imagine taking that on board.’ Leo glanced up as Camilla came downstairs with her coat on. ‘Don’t forget we’ve got a con in ten minutes on the Names case.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten. I’m just going out to the bank.’

  The queue at the bank was frustratingly slow, and by the time Camilla got back, hurrying upstairs, Rachel Dean and Fred Fenton were already seated in Leo’s room round the long conference table, papers spread out. Sarah gave Camilla, who was pink and slightly breathless, a smug smile.

  Camilla ignored her and greeted Fred and Rachel. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’ She had met Fred before, had been instructed by him on a couple of cases since taking up her tenancy at Caper Court, but this was the first time she had met Rachel. As the meeting got underway, Camilla gave Rachel a covert, curious glance. She was struck by how lovely Rachel was, and how sophisticated she looked. She was very slender, dressed in a dark grey suit and a cream silk blouse, her dark, shining hair drawn back from her face. There was a coolness about her which Camilla found a little unnerving. What was there about her which had caused Leo to fall in love with her? He must have, to have married her. But in the atmosphere between them now, Camilla could detect nothing, absolutely nothing, to suggest the slightest warmth, or any hint of previous intimacy.

  ‘… Fred’s still in the process of preparing a definitive list of the Outhwaite run-off contracts, because the judge is likely to ask for one …’ Rachel was talking directly to Leo, but he didn’t so much as glance up at her, merely nodded as he listened. Camilla’s gaze strayed from Rachel to Leo, who was sitting back in his chair, the ankle of one leg resting on the knee of his other, balancing his papers, running the fingers of one hand restlessly through his silver hair. She felt the familiar little tightening of her heart. For someone in his forties, he looked a lot better than most men of his age in chambers. He didn’t have the slack, flabby look of Stephen Bishop, or the middle-aged heaviness of Jeremy Vane. He looked spare and muscular, and his face, though a little lined and careworn, still young. Especially when he laughed, as he did now at some remark of Fred’s. The way he had of glancing up, blue eyes bright with amusement … Camilla watched, lost and infatuated, as he leant forward to fish among the documents on his desk, his smile relaxing, his face growing thoughtful. He said something, but she was hardly listening.

  ‘Which bundle is the list of action groups in?’

  Camilla jumped, as she suddenly realised he was speaking to her, though not looking at her, still searching through his documents.

  ‘Oh, sorry. The action groups list …’ Camilla scanned her own papers. ‘It’s part of an exhibit to John Pointer’s affidavit.’

  ‘Oh, that explains it.’ Leo leant back and nodded at Rachel. ‘Go on with what you were saying.’

  Camilla was intrigued by Leo’s manner towards his ex-wife. He didn’t smile. He didn’t even address her by name. He seemed utterly indifferent to her. She, however, looked at him with expressive directness. There were some things people couldn’t hide. Camilla would have loved to know more about their marriage, what had brought them together, how it had fallen apart. She was filled with the insatiable curiosity of the infatuated. She wanted to savour every detail of Leo’s life, especially its most intimate aspects. She felt a sudden stab of jealousy at the thought of the ways in which Rachel had known Leo, the things they had shared … She sighed inwardly as she glanced again at Rachel. If that was Leo’s ideal, she could never hope to aspire to it. Rachel, she guessed, could be only a few years older than she was, but she was a proper grown-up, something Camilla never felt. Rachel had the kind of chillingly lovely poise which Camilla could never hope to achieve. Then again, maybe she should try to cultivate it. Camilla lifted her chin slightly, and sat up in her chair. No, that just made her chest stick out. Anthony had always thought her breasts rather wonderful, but Leo obviously preferred the boyish, skinny type.

  Oh, give it up, she told herself morosely. It was getting to the point where she couldn’t even concentrate on an important case conference. With an effort, she fixed her attention on what Rachel was saying, reminding herself that Leo prized efficiency above anything else, so she might as well make an effort on that front.

  Camilla had been totally oblivious of the watchful Sarah, sitting a few feet away. Sarah had observed Camilla’s scrutiny of Rachel, and the way in which her gaze had shifted a few moments later to Leo, then lingered there. Sarah had seen, too, the empathetic, scarcely perceptible little smile which crossed Camilla’s lips when Leo laughed, and knew in that instant that Camilla had a major crush on Leo. All the signs were there. She was practically eating him up with her eyes. So that was the way the land lay, was it? Sarah smiled to herself. Hardly surprising. Everyone fell prey to Leo’s charm at some point. Not that Sarah had anything to fear from Camilla, who was hardly a woman of the world and not likely to interest Leo in the slightest. Still, it was amusing, and there might be a bit of fun to be had out of it all. She would have to wait and see.

  The conference lasted two and a half hours, in which time they managed to cover a good deal of ground.

  ‘It’s amazing how much we can get through when our dear clients are absent,’ observed Fred to Rachel, as they packed their papers away. ‘No in-fighting, no obsession with bogus lines of argument, no petty disputes about whose point is the most important …’

  ‘I know,’ said Rachel. ‘It’s a relief to be able to concentrate on the practicalities. Just think how much time we’d have wasted today if we’d had Caradog-Browne or Lady Henrietta hectoring us with their pet theories. I can’t wait to see the back of this case.’

  She glanced across at Leo, who was still deep in conversation with Camilla about the documents. When the case was over, there would no longer be the bitter-sweet pleasure of coming into contact with Leo on an almost daily basis. Although she looked forward – too much, she knew – to every meeting, it was always painful and difficult. Leo himself always appeared perfectly indifferent, and she had no way of telling if this was studied or no
t. She suspected it wasn’t. He had recovered quickly from the emotional turbulence of their marriage, but for Rachel it would take much, much longer to get over it. If she ever did. It would probably be for the best when she no longer had to see him so often.

  ‘Fred, I just want to have a quick word with Leo.’

  Fred closed his briefcase. ‘OK. I’ll see you downstairs.’

  Rachel went over to where Leo and Camilla were still talking. ‘Leo, can you spare a minute?’

  ‘Of course. We’ll finish talking about this later,’ he added to Camilla.

  Rachel waited for a few seconds until everyone had left the room. ‘Just a couple of things to do with Oliver. What time will you be picking him up on Friday evening?’

  ‘Damn!’ exclaimed Leo, ‘It’s the museum launch party on Friday. I meant to ask you ages ago if we could move the weekends around, and I completely forgot about it. Sorry. Could I pick him up on Saturday morning?’

  ‘Just as well he’s too young to look forward to things,’ replied Rachel. ‘Still, I suppose he’ll have plenty of disappointments to come.’ Instantly, she wished she’d said neither of those things.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Rachel … I haven’t the energy for this. Shall I pick him up on Saturday morning or not?’

  ‘If you don’t think it will interfere too much with your social life—’

  ‘Rachel,’ said Leo warningly, ‘Don’t push it.’

  There was a brief silence. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’m just a bit overtired at the moment. This case is getting me down. Pick him up on Saturday – before eleven, if you can, as I have to go out.’

  ‘Right,’ said Leo. ‘That’s settled. I’ll see you on Saturday around ten-thirty.’ He moved back behind his desk and began to pick up papers. There was nothing left to say. Rachel went downstairs to find Fred, feeling even lower than she had before.

  Melissa Angelicos sat on the edge of her bed, fingering the object in her hand. It was a tie clasp of smooth, eighteen-carat gold. It had cost a great deal of money. She stared at it for a long time, turning it over, then took a tissue from a box and gently polished it. Then she slipped the clasp into its little leather pouch. This, too, she admired for a brief moment, before setting it down on the squares of tissue paper already laid out on the bed, and carefully wrapping it up. Of course, she could have left it in the neat package which the Harrods assistant had made, but she had wanted to look at her gift, to dwell on it, to imagine Leo receiving it. From the bedside table she picked up the pages of the letter she had written half an hour before. There were seven of them, both sides of each covered in her somewhat large, expressive handwriting. They smelt of her scent, a few drops of which she had carefully tipped on to each page before writing. She had had to wait for the drops to dry before she could take up her pen again. She sniffed the pages, then scanned them for the twentieth time, smiling. At last she folded them, slipped them into a matching envelope of pale blue, and wrote Leo’s name on the front. She didn’t add the address. She was going to deliver this personally.

  At seven o’clock she drove to Leo’s home in Belgravia, and rang his bell. She rang and rang. She refused to believe he was out. With one long-nailed finger she stabbed again and again at the buzzer. Only the sound of footsteps behind her finally interrupted her.

  ‘Can I help you?’ The quavering, faintly imperious voice caused Melissa to turn round. She stared blankly at the old woman who stood there, cradling a small dog in her arms, its leash trailing. Mrs Gresham, Leo’s neighbour from the ground floor flat, had been walking her Tibetan terrier on the other side of the square, and had seen the strange woman constantly ringing one of the building’s entrance bells. ‘Were you looking for someone?’ Mrs Gresham didn’t altogether care for the look of this woman; she had an unhinged, fraught air about her.

  ‘I was trying to deliver a parcel,’ said Melissa at last. ‘To Leo Davies.’ Her eyes did not connect with Mrs Gresham; they ranged past her, round the empty square.

  ‘Well, as you can see, he must still be out. Mr Davies often doesn’t get home till quite late in the evening.’ Melissa gave Mrs Gresham a brief, impatient glance. After a pause of a few seconds, Mrs Gresham added, ‘Perhaps you would like me to take the parcel and give it to Mr Davies when he gets in?’ She had no great wish to assist this peculiar-looking woman in any way, but she didn’t much relish the idea that she might stand on the doorstep for the rest of the evening, pressing Leo’s bell.

  Melissa glanced down at her package. She was tempted to wait until he came home, so that she might see him, put the package into his hands herself. He might ask her in. But then her mind plunged downwards, back to the last time. ‘No, no,’ she murmured to herself, deflecting, ignoring, steeling herself against the recollection of that horrid recent encounter.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Mrs Gresham spoke sharply. She wanted to be done with this, to get rid of this woman and get into her own flat and make tea. Mr Davies did seem to keep odd company – there had been that young man last year, and all his rowdy friends … Suddenly Melissa thrust the package into Mrs Gresham’s hands, almost causing her to drop her dog.

  ‘Very well. You give it to him.’

  With that, Melissa hurried down the steps and across the square to her car. Mrs Gresham, clutching her dog and Melissa’s parcel, stared after her. Then she unlocked the door and went inside, closing the street door carefully behind her.

  Melissa drove around for a little while, then, as dusk fell, parked again on the other side of the square, and settled down to wait.

  ‘I thought of looking round here when I was trying to find a new place,’ observed Gideon, as he and Leo walked through the Belgravia square to Leo’s flat an hour later. It was true. He had inspected a cubby-hole of a flat near Sloane Square, with a diminutive leasehold, which had been on offer for some extortionate price the year before. The Lloyd’s losses which his mother had suffered had put paid to the possibility of anything larger. But even for Gideon the price of a fashionable postcode had been too high, especially in exchange for such cramped quarters, so he had looked elsewhere.

  ‘It’s rather impersonal,’ replied Leo. ‘I took the place more or less without thinking, after my wife and I split up. It’s not exactly ideal when my son comes to stay. I may look for something else, once the summer’s over – somewhere with a garden. Anyway,’ said Leo, putting his key in the lock, ‘come up and have a nightcap.’

  Melissa watched from the shadows. A man. Leo was taking a man back to his flat. They had walked past her car a few moments before, and even in the darkness she could see he was young, good-looking in a very feminine kind of way. It could be mere coincidence. But there had been that boy last year, the beautiful boy whom Leo had brought to the gallery. She had heard rumours. She sank her upper teeth into her lower lip and bit hard, pressing painfully against the flesh until the pain was horrid and sublime. Then she stopped, exhaling a low breath. It would explain everything. It would explain that night when he had come back to her place after they had been drinking together, and he had humiliated her, leading her on and then making a fool of her, laughing at her need, her degradation. He must have meant to do it. He must be one of those homosexuals who liked to debase women, through some kind of bitterness and spite. She hated him. She wanted to hurt him, cut him, spit at him. Oh, but how much she loved him and wanted him! The mixture of pain and longing and hatred and love was so exquisitely powerful. She must find some way to reach him, to fix his gaze and keep it there, on her. It could be done, little by little. It was a question of time, and love, and attention … In a few moments he would receive the parcel from that old neighbour of his. Would it be now? Was it happening at this moment? Her heart dipped in tenderness and apprehension as she thought of it, and in the next moment she seethed bitterly at the thought of Leo and his lover up there, behind the curtains which she could see being drawn. She sat and watched.

  Gideon settled himself in an armchair in Leo’s drawing ro
om and sipped his drink, glancing around. Then he rose suddenly from his chair and paced round the room.

  The series of movements instantly reminded Leo of Joshua on his first visit here. But Gideon was nothing like Joshua. Where Joshua had been young, awkward and fresh, Gideon was practised, assured, and possessed of all the charm of a latter-day Dorian Gray. Leo did not find him in the least bit sexually attractive. There was something sybaritic and dark about Gideon, repulsive yet intriguing. He had a personality which people found hard to resist, and Leo was no exception. In a world where many pleasures had gone stale, a companion as amusing and quirky as Gideon was hard to come by. He watched Gideon closely as the younger man ranged round the room, gazing at the many pictures, fingering a sculpture here and there, an enigmatic smile touching his sensuous mouth.

  ‘You do go in for Lehrman in a big way, don’t you?’

  Gideon had paused in front of a smallish canvas, discreetly framed, depicting a pair of closed eyelids against a background of grey fading to deep amethyst. It was entitled The Sleeping Mind.

  Leo made a wry face and strolled up next to Gideon to study the picture, sipping his Scotch. ‘He was an early fad of mine. When I started to earn money at the Bar, I’d buy a picture after each case I won. A kind of reward. Lehrman wasn’t much in vogue then, but I liked his stuff and picked it up wherever I could.’

  ‘Worth a tidy fortune now,’ observed Gideon, glancing around at the other examples of the painter’s work which dotted the walls.

  ‘I imagine so. It’s all well insured. The trouble is, I don’t much care for it now. It’s rather like literature. One’s taste moves on. The things one loved in one’s twenties don’t have the same appeal a couple of decades later. I’d really like to move a lot of it, make way for some newer pieces I’ve acquired, but I haven’t the heart.’