The Innocents

by Francesca Segal

  “Jaffa’s niece is in trouble again,” he said when he faced Adam once more, setting the file down on the desk between them, “and of course I told Ziva I’d deal with it. I think it requires a litigation specialist but in the meantime I’d appreciate your help with this, a bit of quiet research maybe.”

  “Rachel said you were worried that Ellie had been smoking pot?” Adam offered, trying to help Lawrence, who was looking apprehensive and seemed unable to come to the point. As soon as Lawrence had adopted this uncharacteristic cloak-and-dagger approach Adam had known that it was going to be about Ellie. His pulse had quickened, and he spoke aloud mostly to reassure himself that his voice was steady.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this but that’s not actually our primary concern right now. I assume you’ve heard all about this Marshall Bruce business—that schmuck art dealer in New York with the divorce and the mistresses …” Adam nodded. He had a premonition, screamingly clear, of where this was going. His stomach contracted.

  “Bruce’s wife’s legal team have obviously been moving fast, as I suppose one would under the circumstances. There’s been a fourth name linked to his now, a”—Lawrence glanced down to check some notes on a yellow pad before him—“Cherry Ripe. That’s actually her legal name; she changed it when she turned eighteen from Maura Miller. Her claims are much like the others’—met in a bar, a few hotel shenanigans, some smutty messages and e-mails et cetera—except that she’s also got evidence of substantial monthly payments from Bruce over the last year or so. For us, the more important consequence of the Ripe woman’s allegations is that the wife’s legal team have since uncovered more payments, monthly standing orders, to another girl.” He looked at Adam over his glasses. “You see where this is leading.”

  Adam nodded, fighting the constriction of his throat. “How much was Ellie getting from him?”

  Immediately Lawrence appeared to ease before him. His shoulders fell and he exhaled heavily, a man unburdened. He was relieved, it seemed, that the unpleasant matter was out, that he had not actually had to say it aloud. Now it was clear to Adam why Jaffa had not been told—it would have tipped her over the edge. Jaffa in a true rage was an awesome, terrible prospect and he could imagine her reaction to this particular family disgrace, standing in the kitchen in Rotherwick Road hurling curses like a buxom, miniature Zeus casting murderous javelins of lightning.

  “Five thousand dollars a month for the last five and a half years. She’s even paid tax on it—it was all declared.”

  “Wait, five and a half years? So she was—”

  “Sixteen. Yes. The age of consent in New York State is seventeen.”

  “Okay.” Adam looked down. “Okay. And how close is this to coming out? I mean, her name?”

  “Not clear at this stage, but I would imagine it’s only a matter of days. Here, have a look at these. It’s all the allegations in the Bruce divorce case so far, some press clippings from the girls, a couple of the telephone transcripts with the first one and some text message exchanges, the financial statements that show the payments to Cherry whatsherface and Ellie, and a whole stack of photographs of Ellie with him in various places. The only thing linking her with him for five and a half years is the standing order; the photographs are from various times but all within the last three years. Mrs. Bruce got hold of them somehow once Ellie’s name came up. So a lot of it will hinge on what Ellie herself says. The wife is meshugah with rage, obviously, and wants to absolutely destroy him. I can’t say I blame her. If Ellie was—” He stopped. “That poor, silly little girl. I wish I could say I thought it wasn’t true, but it was almost exactly around the time that Boaz left, and she was … Anyway, look. If Ellie was having sexual relations with that bastard during the entire period of the financial arrangement then Bruce is in trouble of a completely different order—a messy divorce with seedy infidelities is obviously going to pale into insignificance when compared to a statutory rape claim. Third-degree rape in New York State between a minor and a man over twenty-one carries a sentence of up to four years—which is less than he deserves, quite frankly, although the state won’t press charges if Ellie wants them dropped. So what she says matters. I don’t want her anywhere near all this Bruce divorce business but if she admits she was underage then at least she can remain anonymous in the press reporting. Shall we go for a quick drink after work, once you’ve read through everything and had a think?”

  “Of course. God, okay. I’ll start as soon as the call finishes.” They were to be on the same lengthy conference call that afternoon—if Adam was lucky he could remain mostly silent and try to read Ellie’s files during the more tedious points. But Lawrence looked at his watch and then shook his head. “Forget the conference call, I’ll fill you in. This is time-sensitive and I want you to get a handle on it as soon as possible. Take it back and get on with it now. I’ll try to wind up around seven and come by for you. I hope we can help her.”

  Back in his office, Adam placed the file on his desk slowly, deliberately, as if careful handling and surgical precision were required to prevent its noxious contents from spilling out. He sat before it with his mind spinning. Half thoughts formed, rose and sank again, subsumed. There was nothing he could do with this, no justification that could make it other than it was. Until this latest development he had, he realized with discomfort, been weaving his own parallel version of Ellie’s life, embroidered to flatter her. The heroine of his story had been naïve and had concealed it beneath postures of brazen knowing. But it turned out that she had actually sold—what had she sold? Something that was worth five thousand dollars a month to Marshall Bruce. That was not romantic. It was revolting.

  But her vulnerability remained. She was so very, very vulnerable. And for what she had done—might still be doing, for all he knew—what a price there must be. He was overwhelmed with pity for her, and the pity replaced his revulsion as fast as it had come upon him. She was a broken thing, a marionette collapsed, with strings irreparably tangled so that its limbs jutted and swung. She needed somebody to free her and once the strings were cut, she would need someone to hold her steady. On impulse he reached into his desk drawer and threw the DVD, unopened, into the bin.

  “Ready to go?” Lawrence’s head appeared around Adam’s door. Adam, who had been ready to go for the last half hour and had been staring blankly at the slow-motion fireworks of his screen saver, stood up. The offending manila file was already in his bag; its contents were imprinted upon his memory.

  They walked together down Marylebone High Street to the Angel in the Fields, keeping pace with easy strides and in a comfortable silence; it was understood that they would begin only when settled into the restful quiet of a corner table and a calming pint. Despite all protestations Lawrence would order and pay, as he had since the days when Adam had been sixteen or seventeen, underage and baby-faced but puffed with pride that he was allowed, in this company, into a pub. He and his friends had been regularly and humiliatingly ejected from the Three Horseshoes on Hampstead High Street, alternating their attempts to penetrate that establishment with failed assaults on the King of Bohemia. But these same places allowed him to remain when he was with Rachel’s father and Lawrence, understanding the tremendous significance of the outings, treated him like the man he felt he was (despite the smooth cheeks and flimsy fake ID) and would always buy him a drink. He never even suggested that it ought to be a half.

  Adam had loved Rachel from the first, but what had cemented her pedestal in place, what had gilded it and raised her on it high above the reach of other girls, had been Lawrence. Lawrence had sealed the deal. Lawrence had never had a son and wanted one; Adam had had a father once, but it was long ago and it was hard to remember what it had felt like. Jacob was a vivid presence in a dog-eared packet of childhood memories, but they were circumscribed and increasingly abstracted from Adam’s reality. Jacob was so very tangible in Adam’s memory—snatching him high onto his shoulders and away from an Alsatian that had scared him in Gol
ders Hill Park, or waiting at the school gates for him on Fridays when he finished work early in order to perform precisely this duty—but still, Jacob could not step out of these images. He could not advise his son on whether he ought to shave for the first time the night before his bar mitzvah (he had shaved, prematurely, and the photos showed plump cheeks scraped raw in places by an unlubricated blade, and a cut above his top lip that had scabbed like a cold sore) or help him decide which A levels to choose or teach him how to drive a car. Adam could only play the grainy films in his mind and watch his father perform these vignettes again and again, backward and forward, faster or slower, but always the same.

  By the time Adam was sixteen, the position of male role model had long been vacant. He had not even known how much he’d longed for Lawrence until he found him; he only knew that when, to honor his eighteenth birthday, Rachel’s father bought him an Arsenal season ticket, the seat next to his own, it had been the happiest day of his life.

  Adam had not gone straight from law school to work at GGP—it had not even been discussed. He had instead done what Lawrence advised and fulfilled a traditionally brutal training contract at one of the huge City firms, four six-month rotations in increasingly demanding fields. The unspoken expectation had remained unspoken until the day Rachel phoned her father with great excitement to tell him, “They want to keep him on after the training contract, Daddy, isn’t it brilliant?” and Lawrence, who had been biding his time until precisely this juncture, had invited Adam into his office for a chat. That had been almost four years ago.

  “So.” Lawrence placed two pints of Foster’s on the table, and a packet of crinkle-cut crisps, the roast beef and horseradish flavor that he knew Adam liked. “Nu?”

  “Bloody hell,” said Adam simply.

  “I know.”

  “Must be a bit weird for you, reading all that stuff about your niece. Weird is a bit of an understatement.”

  “Well, we don’t know it’s all true.”

  Adam conceded this point, faintly self-conscious, for he had not even considered this possibility. For a lawyer it was a rather basic oversight. When it came to Ellie his parameters seemed to skew; he knew so little of what to expect that he had become absolutely credulous. For some reason the realization that he could suspend his judgment, that conclusions were not yet necessary, was a soothing one.

  “Yes, that’s true. I’d presumed…”

  “I know, me too.”

  “I guess it’s easy to when she’s …” He trailed off.

  “Yes, I know. But then I realized that we mustn’t be unfair to the girl. At this stage his wife’s got all the reasons in the world to want to make everything sound worse. She’s already humiliated, and she’ll want him absolutely destroyed. We need to hear Ellie’s side and then see what we can do. Half of it might be rubbish. But I think the most crucial thing right now is that she stay close to us in London. I don’t want her anywhere near New York for the time being.”

  “Do you think it’s going to be possible to keep her name out of it?”

  “It’s not looking good, is it?”

  Adam shook his head. “And whatever the truth is, the money was moving to her account, and the photos are there. She’s been on at least three holidays with him. Obviously you can fake those, but who would bother?”

  “No, you’re absolutely right. The photos are real, I’m pretty sure. But someone needs to sit down and talk to her, and ask her all these questions.”

  The word someone was ominous. Adam waited.

  Lawrence smiled and clapped him on the back. “Adam, sonny, I’ve got a job for you.”

  Adam smacked a palm to his forehead. “Really? Must I?”

  “You must,” said Lawrence firmly. He asked little of Adam and gave with quiet and immeasurable generosity; that Adam must do this for him was now unavoidable. “I think it would just be too uncomfortable if I spoke to her. I’ve said I’ll act for her, if I can, but I’m her uncle, and to discuss all this”—he gestured vaguely about him, as if her sins hung in the air like hovering flies—“it’s just not right. You’re much closer to her age, and Rachel said that she thought you and Ellie were getting along well at the Sabahs’ concert. You can talk to her, and then you and I can liaise on everything. But it has to be soon.”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you think you could get hold of her tonight? It’s only eight. If you did then I could have an e-mail drafted by the time New York wakes up tomorrow morning. It might not be such a bad idea.”

  “Sure,” Adam said again. He was being assailed by conflicting impulses and it was not yet clear which would triumph—he was desperately certain that he did not want to go round to Ellie’s and confront her about Marshall Bruce; the idea of sifting through compromising photographs with her in order to confirm their veracity was distinctly unappealing. But he was also certain that he did not want anyone else to put her through it, or to witness her discomfort. It was this thought that decided him and he reached into his pocket for his BlackBerry.

  Lawrence stepped outside to phone Jaffa (he always checked whether she needed anything before he set off home; on the rare evenings when he and Adam traveled home together he invariably alighted at Golders Green and set off for Sainsbury’s instead of his house because “Jaffa needs muscovado sugar” or some other random item that seemed an improbable requirement at 8:00 P.M.). Adam tapped out an e-mail to Ellie. “When can I see you? Soon—it’s important. Are you okay?”

  The reply was prompt, and equally brief. “Come tonight,” it said. “After that my week gets crazy.” No indication of whether she was okay, or otherwise.

  9

  This time the red door was closed when he got there, and he could hear laughter behind it. It took several knocks before it opened. On top of her usual wisps of black and gray, Ellie was wearing a frilly pink apron that Adam suspected belonged to her absent host, Theo; gingham with a candy-striped front pocket and “Queen of the Kitchen” embroidered on it in glittery lilac stitching. The front sagged forward and barely covered her chest, which was itself barely covered—beneath a pebble gray cotton T-shirt the upward thrust of two prominent nipples was hard to ignore. Her hair was held back with a black strip of rolled silk and was standing in stiff and bleach-dried tangles, pillow-mussed or simply neglected. She had dark rings of smudged kohl around her eyes and an air of industry about her.

  “Come in, we’re making banana pudding.”

  The “we” in question turned out to be Ellie and a small, dimpled man in a pale blue shirt and a pair of mole gray flannel trousers, who was introduced as Barnaby Wilcox. This was presumably the friend whom Adam had glimpsed driving off outside Ziva’s house—the hair was the same sunny blond, the thick gold wedding band still very much in evidence. He looked to be in his mid-forties but his slight build and round, sun-tanned face gave him the air of someone much younger, his boyish features currently set and stony, his blue eyes glaring at Adam. He stood in the kitchen holding a large mixing bowl, his shirtsleeves carefully and evenly rolled up, a half-empty bottle of Bombay Sapphire and another of vermouth on the countertop and what Adam took to be teacups of gin martinis beside them. The cups and saucers were delicate bone china sprigged with orange roses and fading violets, twee and incongruous on the stainless-steel counter. A bunch of new, unopened lilies, wrapped in clear plastic and frothing with red ribbon, rested in the sink. Ellie was barefoot.

  “Adam, Barnaby’s just been made a fellow of All Souls; he’s a world expert on pagan ritual. But more importantly, he’s a very good cook. I’ve been craving the banana pudding from Magnolia—I know it’s such a cheesy place but it’s the one thing there I love and it’s impossible to get the ingredients in London. Barnaby, Adam is my cousin.”

  Ellie seemed animated by the presence of Barnaby Wilcox, positively effusive. There was a bright, hard note in her voice, as if a veneer had locked into place for the evening, a touch of the perky cheerleader or high school prom queen thrown over her usual i
mplacable detachment. Adam began to suspect that she had a different personality for each man she chose to please, slipped on and off as easily as a silk dress. He wondered whether Ellie had made banana pudding with Marshall Bruce. He and Barnaby shook hands, stiffly. It pleased him that, genius or not, the other man was at least six inches shorter than he was. It did not please him to be introduced as a cousin.

  “When he’s in London Barnaby stays near this place in St. John’s Wood that sells American stuff and he brought me Nilla wafers for the recipe after I told him I missed them—”

  “Panzer’s,” Barnaby supplied, visibly eased by Ellie’s breezy explanation of his presence in her flat. Neither man looked directly at the other but from the corner of his eye Adam saw Barnaby expanding his chest into an attitude of deliberate, relaxed confidence. He had become the embodiment, suddenly, of a charming, blameless man who was merely delivering groceries. He had squared his shoulders and leaned back against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed, his blond hair tumbling casually into his eyes. He began to regard Adam with an expression that approximated wry indifference and Adam felt a rush of repugnance at this posturing. There was no good reason why a man should be baking, after nightfall, with a woman who was not his own wife. Certainly not baking and drinking.

  “Anyway, Barnaby bought me the wafers and Jell-O instant vanilla pudding there. The recipe’s got such weird cheapo ingredients in it, but it’s so, so good when it’s made. Okay, so now I have to fold that into this.” Ellie took the bowl that Barnaby had abandoned on Adam’s arrival and planted it on top of the freezer chest; from one of the fridges she extracted another mixing bowl, which had been wedged perilously between the wine racks. “Is folding with the mixer, or with a wooden spoon?”