Take My Breath Away (3 page)

‘Easy, isn’t it,’ Ben said coldly, ‘making loadsamoney out of rich businessmen? But you graduated in more ways than one, didn’t you? You moved from working for those sad punters in Bloomsbury to taking a post with Ali Khan’s company. A colourful figure, isn’t he? Ideal for your purposes, I suggest.’

‘I had no purposes!’

Ben’s face darkened. Roxanne thought he looked
like something small and nasty out of
Peer
Gynt
. ‘You had the prospect of a quick buck if you claimed your boss couldn’t keep his fingers out of the till, smeared him as corrupt and dishonest. Very useful for someone with an expensive habit to feed.’

‘He did those things! It’s true, everything I said is true.’

Ben shook his head. ‘We’ve already established your difficulties with the truth, Ms Glass.’

Tara Glass ran out of the courtroom in tears. All her fight was gone. Roxanne caught up with her in the corridor. She didn’t have the heart to ask why Tara had never mentioned the heroin. Tara said she was withdrawing her claim. She wished she’d never been born, she sobbed, as she fled from the building.

Roxanne’s instinct was to hate Ben Yarrow for the ease with which he’d destroyed the woman. She still felt sure that Tara had been telling the truth about the brown envelopes. Yet a still small voice of calm told her he was only doing his job. On the way out, she had to share the lift with him. To her surprise, he didn’t gloat the way most company lawyers did after a crushing victory. When he asked if she’d ever contemplated working in private practice, she found herself feeling oddly flattered. Disappointed, too, that having raised the subject, he said goodbye without making any attempt to take it further.

A month later, he’d called out of the blue and asked if she was interested in joining Creed. At first she’d played for time, said she needed to think it over. She didn’t regard herself as street-wise, but she knew enough about career moves to realise it was a mistake to sound too eager. Inside, she’d always known that she would say yes. Creed was a firm which had its
heart in the right place and Ben Yarrow was offering her the opportunity to make the new start of which she’d dreamed. The biggest gamble of her life, but a risk she had to take.

The department needed an extra pair of hands at a busy time. The firm had more work than it could handle and employment lawyers with advocacy experience were in short supply. She’d won most of the cases she’d handled at Hengist Street. A two-in-three success rate was worth shouting about, given the number of no-hopers with which she’d been lumbered. He interviewed her along with his junior partner, Joel Anthony. An old-fashioned question and answer session. No psychometric tests, thank God. She didn’t want anyone exploring the secrets of her personality. When they offered her the job, Roxanne’s only qualm was that perhaps she should have come out up front and told them everything. She was so much more of a phoney than poor Tara Glass. But did it matter? She’d earned the offer on merit, on the strength of her own performance before Tara’s case fell apart. She might be a novice joining the ranks of a renowned human rights practice, but that proved that the firm’s commitment to its equal opportunities recruitment policy was more than skin deep. Besides, it was too late to tell them who she really was.

‘You needn’t worry,’ she said. ‘I went on a crusade for Tara Glass but that doesn’t mean I won’t fight to win for Ali Khan’s companies. That’s what lawyers ought to do, isn’t it? Put their personal feelings to one side and do their best for their clients?’

‘You’re an idealist,’ Ben said with a smile. He lifted a hand as Roxanne started to say something. ‘No, no, it’s a compliment. Really. This firm was built on ideals.
Don’t forget, Ali Khan wasn’t always the celebrity he is today. Will Janus’s greatest success as a young immigration lawyer was when he acted for Ali, the first time he wanted a visa to stay on in the UK.’

‘I remember the passport application case. It was a
cause celebre
.’

‘You know, Roxanne, that’s the trouble with this country.’ Ben sat down on the edge of her desk. Invading her space, ever so slightly. ‘So many people hate success. Then there’s the racism. Ali is a powerful man these days – and he was born in Karachi. No wonder he’s unpopular in some quarters, especially with the jingoistic Press. With our help, he won each battle and finally the war. He got his British citizenship. But he didn’t always have money, he had to claw his way up. He’s suffered discrimination all his life. And I tell you this. If there’s any truth in these sexual harassment allegations, you can help Joel make sure the culprit is hung out to dry.’

‘I’m touched by your faith in me.’

‘Don’t be. I picked you out, remember? It may seem like a gamble, but I’ve never been averse to the occasional punt at long odds. I’m not afraid of backing my own judgement.’

It struck her that he and Joel Anthony had taken an extraordinary risk in recruiting her. Nine out of ten of the other lawyers she’d met in Avalon Buildings were seasoned solicitors. Yet Ben had offered her a twelve month contract and a fat pay cheque after watching her lose a case for a client who had expected to win. She’d heard about the recruitment crisis in her field of law, but hadn’t guessed it might make her such a sought-after commodity. It was a fresh experience to be so wanted. A single reference from Ibrahim, her
boss at the agency, had sufficed; Ben hadn’t even asked for copies of her exam certificates. She supposed he often advised his clients on the importance of adhering to punctilious recruitment procedures. Handwriting analysis, competency tests, questions about her attendance record. Yet the laxity wasn’t surprising. Lawyers never acted themselves in the way they advised others to behave.

‘What’s this?’ The voice belonged to a woman who was peeping around the door. Roxanne had an immediate impression of red hair in a bob, pale powdered cheeks and vivid scarlet lipstick. ‘Dumping a sure-fire loser on the new kid on the block, Ben?’

Far from appearing to be offended, Ben chortled. ‘Practising the noble art of delegation, as it happens. Management in action. Roxanne, have you met my ill-mannered personal assistant? This is Chloe Beck.’

Chloe Beck trotted into the room, high heels going
click-clack, click-clack
. She was tall and skinny and her black skirt barely existed. Roxanne saw Ben’s eyes feasting on Chloe’s legs, but the girl took no notice. As if she expected nothing less.

She studied Roxanne through Calvin Klein spectacles before putting out a ringless hand with long cool fingers. ‘Hello, Roxanne. I missed you on your whistle-stop tour of the office. I work for Ben and Joel Anthony.’

‘And from now on, for you as well, Roxanne,’ Ben Yarrow said. ‘I’m sure you’ll make good use of our voice recognition system when you start dictating letters and stuff. The technology is cutting edge. But we all need secretarial support from time to time and Chloe will be glad to help.’

Chloe gave Ben a sidelong glance. ‘The computer
wizards haven’t managed to phase me out altogether yet. You’ve come from an advice centre, then, Roxanne? I gather you were at Hengist Street.’

Unaccountably, Roxanne felt a chill of unease. Or perhaps it wasn’t so unaccountable. ‘You’re very well informed.’

‘The grapevine here is marvellous,’ Chloe said. She was weighing Roxanne up, as if trying to decipher a code.

‘Chloe
is
the grapevine,’ Ben said. He was smiling at his PA with every appearance of amiability, yet Roxanne sensed a tension between the two of them.

‘Don’t listen to him, Roxanne. Everyone says I’m nosey, but I’m simply interested in people. Joel Anthony keeps encouraging me to qualify. He says I’d make a good lawyer, simply because I’m so fascinated by other human beings. Never mind all the technology we have here. A litigation department’s business is all about people and the way they behave. Finding out what goes on in their minds.’ Chloe gave a teasing giggle. ‘Uncovering their darkest secrets.’

Roxanne lived in Leytonstone. Not exactly Hampstead, but the station was on the Central Line and on arriving in London, she’d at least managed to find a flat within her price range. Now she was on Creed’s payroll, she could pick and choose. But really, she thought, as her train slowed down and she picked up her briefcase ready to get off, Leytonstone was good enough for her. If the past seven years had taught her nothing else, she had learned that, over time, it was possible to become accustomed to anything.

She lived on the first floor of a converted shop. Once upon a time it had been a butcher’s, but that was okay
as long as she didn’t try to picture the carcasses hanging from hooks in the cold store below the ground floor. The woman who lived downstairs was a veggie, but she didn’t seem bothered by the building’s history. She was undertaking happiness research at the London School of Economics. Roxanne wondered what had prompted her to live in Leytonstone. Presumably trying to get away from the day job.

Roxanne put on a leotard and slipped a yoga tape into the video recorder. She needed to make amends for that shameful lunch of fudge, but she hadn’t wanted to brave the aerobics classes that took place each evening in Creed’s gym. Time for a little calm surrender in the privacy of her own home. The zest she’d felt in her lunch break was a distant memory. Her head had begun to throb and her limbs were aching, but she couldn’t lay all the blame on the crush of commuters on the Tube. She had left Avalon Buildings on the stroke of eight: hardly a late finish by the standards of ambitious city solicitors. Yet she felt exhausted and not just because Ben Yarrow was a hard taskmaster. At Hengist Street, she’d dipped a toe in the waters of legal practice, but she could have given it up at any time. By joining Creed, she’d made a commitment to becoming a top flight lawyer.

‘Change your shape and you can change your life,’ cooed the woman on the tape. She was a blonde in her forties, sickeningly supple.

Roxanne hadn’t under-estimated the demands of the work. There were no restrictive practices in the employment tribunal: a wet-behind-the-ears paralegal might find herself doing battle with eminent barristers and street-wise solicitor advocates. That didn’t frighten her; she’d always nourished the belief that, with
experience, she might be a match for even the wiliest opponent. But her new colleagues might become curious about the stranger in their midst. She must find a way of preserving her privacy without raising eyebrows.

‘Inhale, lift those arms. Stretch up and keep your eyes on the ceiling, still with a full lung. Exhale…’

Was Chloe a threat? As Roxanne kept her eyes on the ceiling, she told herself not to imagine dangers where none existed: Chloe simply liked to talk.

‘Shall we try the Warrior Posture?’ Anyone would think this was a litigator’s training film, compulsory continuing professional education. ‘Bend your front leg and aim your thigh flat. Keep that back leg straight! Can’t you feel the gorgeous, gorgeous movement? Inhale now and up you come.’

Roxanne stretched, feeling her joints creak.

‘You did really well,’ the woman said.

‘Patronising bitch,’ Roxanne hissed as she breathed out.

Already the exercises were working. She was starting to relax, the anxieties of the day fading from her mind.

Everything was going to be fine.

‘He’s sleeping, sergeant,’ the doctor said softly.

It wasn’t true. Nic seldom slept, anyway. He had closed his eyes because seeing wasn’t believing and he needed to get his brain into gear if he was ever to make sense of Ella’s resurrection.

The policeman grunted. ‘You said he was fit to be questioned.’

Nic strained to catch bits of the murmured reply.
Head injury… not severe… badly shocked… keeping him in for observation… you never know.

‘This won’t take long.’

Nic heard the doctor sigh and then his footsteps, departing. The policeman bent over him; he smelt of curry. When his shoulder was jogged, Nic grunted, turned on his side, allowed his lids to ease apart. The overhead light was harsh, made him blink. The policeman resembled a slab-faced scion of the Kray family. Nic guessed he would be more at home kicking the shit out of football hooligans or anarchist agitators than conducting a murder enquiry. Assuming it was a murder enquiry.

‘Mr Gabriel, we have to ask you about what happened.’

Nic’s head was swimming. He was afraid of what he was about to be told, but he had to know. He muttered, ‘Dylan. He’s dead, isn’t he?’

The sergeant nodded. ‘Yeah, Mr Rees died at the scene.’

Nic wanted to throw up, but he felt too weak to manage it. He buried his face in the pillow, uttered a
silent scream. How could he not blame himself for what had happened?

‘Sorry,’ the policeman said unapologetically, ‘but I have to press you. Can you take me through what happened at this cocktail party?’

Eventually Nic forced himself to say, ‘What happened to Ella?’

The sergeant leaned closer. Nic felt as though about to be suffocated by the fumes from a stale takeaway meal. ‘Ella?’

‘She cut his throat.’

The sergeant breathed out, a fearsome tandoori gust. ‘So you know the woman who did this?’

‘Ella Vinton, yes. She’s dead.’

‘No, Mr Gabriel, she’s still alive.’ The sergeant scratched the stubble on his chin. ‘But only just. She’s in intensive care.’

‘You don’t understand. She died five years ago.’

The policeman took his statement but made it plain he didn’t like what he was hearing. When Nic said he’d been getting pissed at the party, the interrogation became perfunctory. Even before he confessed to being a writer by profession, his credibility was already in tatters. Somehow he felt it wouldn’t help if he said he hadn’t published anything for ages. Lazy as well as unreliable; scarcely the ideal witness.

Later, a sister came to check him over. Middle-aged, spookily cheerful, like someone out of a propaganda broadcast. He half-expected her to reel off the cuts in hospital waiting times, to tell him that recruitment of nurses was at an all-time high.

‘You’ll be right as rain in no time.’

Wasn’t this the hospital where bodies had been piled high on a mortuary floor because of staff
shortages? Where a gynaecologist had molested a hundred patients before being struck off? Where one in five patients contracted a fresh ailment whilst under its roof? He wasn’t reassured.

He tried raising himself up on the pillow. Every muscle in his body seemed to protest at the same time. He had a blinding headache but he didn’t want to mention it in case they told him he had to stay here.

‘I’m fine. When can I leave?’

She ignored him with the ease of long practice. ‘There. You’ve over-excited yourself. What you need now is a jolly good rest.’

Phil’s heart-shaped face, looming over his. Her expression, a characteristic mixture of irritation and excitement.

‘It’s me, Phil.’

He wanted to say
Of course it bloody is, we’ve been sleeping together for months. I haven’t lost possession of all my faculties.

He managed a hoarse, ‘Hi.’

‘It’s incredible. Dylan dead. At the hand of a mystery assassin. Wow, who would believe it?’ He could almost see her mind working, wondering how it would play in the media. ‘You were almost a hero.’

‘You’re so good for my ego.’

‘Don’t be like that, you know what I mean. Anyway, frankly he’s no great loss.’

But he was my friend.

He muttered, ‘I couldn’t save him.’

That was what tormented him, so much more than the knock which had caused him to finish up here. He’d kept his eyes on the dead woman since she’d walked into the room, but he’d been too concerned
with trying to fathom how she had risen from the grave. He should have stopped her carrying out her revenge.

‘Of course you couldn’t.’ Her tone suggested that someone else might have. Someone with more focus, the sort of man she’d once thought he was. But it didn’t matter since she’d never liked Dylan. She frowned. ‘I wonder who the woman was.’

He didn’t want to tell her about Ella and when he feigned sleep, she didn’t hang around. His brain was fuddled, but one clear thought formed as the door closed behind her. It was never going to work with the two of them. He’d realised a long time ago that they didn’t actually have much in common, but he’d fought against the knowledge, wanting to make the thing work without being sure why.

Phil was a Public Relations agent who specialised in advising companies in crisis on how to limit the damage to their reputation occasioned by fraud, scandal and other calamities. He supposed she was what they used to call gamine. No breasts or bum, but she was beautiful. They had met at a publishers’ party and she’d told him the story of a law firm she acted for. The senior partner had sent an inflated bill to a woman client who ran a small business. The morning it arrived she drank three tumblers of whisky and pulled a plastic bag over her head. According to Phil, her clients were neither greedy nor callous, just ordinary decent folk who wanted to make an honest living and made a mistake once in a blue moon.

When he suggested that the senior partner’s gravestone ought to be licensed for dancing, she said, ‘I suppose the pressmen of the day thought the same about Hawley Harvey Crippen.’

‘
Touché
.’

‘I adored your book. Not that I believed a word of it. I’m sure he was as guilty as hell. But I love a good whitewash.’

‘Should I be flattered?’

‘Don’t laugh! The way you reinvented the little shit is brilliant. It’s spooky, meeting someone who can not only think himself into the mind of a murderer but even make out that he’s been sadly misunderstood. You give the old stuff a new spin. Take an all-time loser and re-brand him as a captive of the heart, I love it. Perhaps you and I ought to go into business together.’

Instead they finished up in bed together. The sex was great. She was an inexhaustible lover who liked to do fun things with strawberries and cream, handcuffs and leather, silk scarves and whips. For a while he believed the relationship might work. He understood his mistake the first time she complained about his unwillingness to repeat the formula that had made his book a word-of-mouth phenomenon. When he told her there wasn’t a formula, she’d stared as if he’d spoken in Swahili.

‘There’s a formula for everything.’

‘Not for this. I just wrote the book the way it had to be written.’

‘Fine.’ She shrugged: it was so simple. ‘Do it again.’

He didn’t want to keep thinking about her. Dylan was
dead
. He would never cringe again at Dylan’s lousy jokes. They would never speak again about anything. And it was his fault.

In his mind he played back that call to his mobile. Dylan’s voice booming in his ear. The king of bullshit, at the top of his form.

‘You’ll love it, I swear.’

‘A reception for learner litigators? If I wanted to commune with lost souls, I’d sign up for a pagan mass.’

Dylan guffawed, a deafening blast of noise. ‘Why are you always so cynical? Look, those kids’ souls aren’t lost. They’re about to be sold and they won’t be cheap. Come on. Think of this as a trip down memory lane. You were a hungry young advocate once. Give tomorrow’s gladiators an idea what it’s like out there in the real world. Private practice.’

‘What if I tell them to quit the law and get a life?’

‘Frankly, what else would they do?’ A conspirator’s chuckle. ‘You can spell out what a good deal I can swing for those kids. Assuming they sign up with us, that is. Valentines are sponsoring the whole shebang, no expense spared. It’s an investment. I swear, after a couple of drinks, you’ll come over all nostalgic. Reminiscing about victories snatched from the jaws of defeat. Wondering about what might have been.’

‘Balls.’

‘You were a loss to the profession, everyone says so. Can’t imagine why you gave it up. This true crime stuff is all fine and dandy, but when are you going to write another book? You can’t live on the royalties from
Crippen
for ever. You’re wasting your life away, do you realise?’ Dylan was on a roll now. ‘Okay, you wrote a bestseller about a famous murder case. You won a couple of prizes, that’s great. Surely you’ve got the bug out of your system by now, that’s why you’ve not written anything but the odd article in ages. You ought to be racking up the chargeable hours, doing stuff that really counts. Judicial reviews, heavyweight corporate lawsuits. I could place you tomorrow, you know that? You can name your price, I guarantee.’

‘Piss off, mate.’

‘Look, it isn’t every day you get the chance of free booze at the Mother of Parliaments. You can inhale the history. To say nothing of privilege. Hey, did you know a peer of the realm who was condemned to the gallows had the right to be hanged by a silken cord?’

‘Is that so?’

‘Don’t yawn, it’ll be fun. Peeking at the priceless wallpaper the Lord Chancellor splashes whenever he has a wee. The president of the Young Advocates’ Society featured in the last Honours List. Services to vote-rigging. He’s called in a few favours, made sure we got a cut rate for the room. You and I can go out for an Indian afterwards, chew the fat, put it down as a business expense. Food always tastes better when you’re cheating the Revenue with every mouthful.’

‘Why don’t you tell me what you’re really after?’

Dylan sniggered. ‘No fooling you, is there? Well, it just so happens, I have a story for you. There has to be a book in it. This is something extraordinary. Unique. Trust me.’

‘Now you’re definitely asking too much.’

‘Two hot-shot lawyers have died.’ Suddenly Dylan was whispering. ‘They aren’t the first, they won’t be the last.’

‘So what? Lawyers die. Didn’t I read somewhere the mortality rate for solicitors under forty is three times as bad as for other professions?’

‘Yeah, some people might quarrel with
bad
, but it makes you think. Seriously, there’s a connection here.’ Rhetorical pause. ‘Three people dead, and it won’t end there. I’m sure of that.’

‘Give your crystal ball a wipe.’

‘You can scoff,’ Dylan said, with pretended dudgeon.
‘This is all about murder for pleasure. I want to prevent another killing. The woman who put me on to this won’t be safe, if something isn’t done soon.’

‘What woman?’ Humouring him.

‘I had a fling with her one weekend in Oxford. That’s how I became involved. It all became too much for her. She was at her wits’ end, she needed someone to confide in. At first I thought she was off her head. I didn’t believe a word of it.’

‘What did she tell you?’

‘You’ll find out tomorrow evening. You’re coming, right?’

‘Tell me now.’

‘You must be joking. It will take hours to explain. I’ve checked her story. Jesus, it’s bizarre. No wonder she’s spooked, she’s up to her neck in it. The first to die was a boy she’d slept with. This was years ago, but she never got over it. A couple of times she’s taken an overdose, once she cut her wrists. I’ve seen the marks.’ Dylan sighed. He was talking as much to himself as to Nic. ‘She’s so mixed up, she’ll never utter a word to anyone else. Twisted kind of loyalty, I guess. She made me swear to forget what she’d told me. I gave a promise, just to keep her quiet.’

Dylan made a lot of promises to women, just to keep them quiet. Nic said, ‘What are you on?’

‘Nothing, not even the humblest little joint. But we are talking about a craving here. An addiction to murder.’ Dylan sighed. ‘I’ve kept all this to myself for long enough. I’m afraid something may happen to her. It would be so easy.’

‘Okay, okay, you win.’

Dylan teased him with a chuckle. ‘After the last young advocate has sloped off home, I’ll give you the
low-down. Assuming I don’t get lucky, in which case you may have to be patient a little while longer. But I’m not wasting your time, promise. This is a story about seizing the power of life and death. Trust me. This is a story that will take your breath away.’

And now a dead woman had taken Dylan’s breath away, before he had time to spin his yarn. All he’d managed were those odd last words.

Why not jazz?

Nic rubbed his eyes. He knew about bereavement, about the dull ache that lingered long after others expected you to get on with your life. Losing Dylan wasn’t the same as losing family, but Phil was wrong: it was a loss, all the same. One more empty place in his life. Funny, he’d never thought of it before, but in a strange kind of way Dylan reminded him of his father. Did that explain why he’d always relished the company of his scallywag friend? For Bryn Gabriel had been a story-teller too.