An Immoral Code (7 page)

Anthony froze, but said nothing, and at that moment the waiter returned with his card. When he had gone, Anthony, without even glancing at Sarah, said, ‘Listen, I don’t need this. Why don’t you just go home and sleep off your bad temper? Or maybe you could take some more coke to cheer yourself up.’ The slight contempt in his voice roused a kind of impotent fury in her. She rose, snatching her coat from the back of the chair.

‘Don’t bother to find me a taxi,’ she said, her voice icy. ‘I can do it myself.’ And she left, a gust of cold air blowing in through the swing doors. Anthony sighed and slipped his credit card into his wallet, then put on his coat, musing on her extraordinary volatility. It hadn’t been evident when they first met, but now they were getting to know one another a little better, certain raw truths were beginning to surface. He stood thoughtfully for a moment or two, then left the restaurant, turning up his collar against the cold air. He glanced up and down the pavement. She was nowhere in sight, and he realised with guilt that he felt faintly relieved.

The following morning at half past seven, Anthony locked his car and made his way across the cobblestones to Caper Court. The Temple was still deserted, the stately buildings silent, not yet filled with the industrious bustle of clerks and barristers going about their day. From a distance came the hum of early traffic in Fleet Street, and somewhere a City church clock chimed as the sun’s first watery rays parted the faint mist which lay over the lawns of Inner Temple Gardens and hung in the bare branches of the trees lining King’s Bench Walk. Anthony
surveyed his tranquil surroundings, aware that his spirits were lower than they should be. The business of Sarah had been preying on his mind. He had thought about her as he drove into work, having changed his mind about ringing her first thing to apologise. He had nothing to apologise for. He had been seeing her for three weeks now – not long, certainly, but long enough in his books to know that he would never love her. That depressed him. Anthony had a natural propensity for falling in love, and an insatiable liking for the tenderness and intimacy which it brought. Last night had made him realise that there would be none of that with Sarah. She was not tender. She was not, he thought, particularly kind. She was wonderful in bed, and he often wondered where she had acquired certain of her more inventive techniques, but he did not think of her company as restful or easy. What had started off as a purely physical attraction had failed to turn into love, or even affection, and Anthony knew that once he began to tire of sleeping with her the whole thing would become worthless. It had happened to him so often before, and it disheartened him to know that the pattern was repeating itself yet again.

He passed through the archway and under the two small cherry trees which grew in the courtyard, and let himself into chambers. From thinking about Sarah in this way, he found his thoughts straying to Rachel. She had possessed a gentleness and openness of heart which Sarah so singularly lacked. Perhaps that was what had attracted Leo to her. Although Anthony had reconciled himself to the business of Leo being married to someone with whom he himself had once been in love – whom Leo had effectively taken from him, in fact – he still could not think of her without a faint sense of pain. It was just as well he hadn’t seen her for months, although for some reason the fact of having Sarah in his life made him think of her more often than before. Possibly he could not help making
comparisons. Then again, at least Sarah had never shrunk from him physically, the way Rachel had. As he mounted the stairs to his room, he recalled the embarrassment and clumsiness of those encounters. They were a far cry from Sarah’s expert and ardent caresses.

He knew that Leo was already in chambers, having seen his car in the car park, and decided to make them both a cup of coffee before they got on with the day’s work. He went through to the little kitchen and found the sink was half-filled with scummy water and stacked with unwashed mugs, not a clean one in sight. Cursing Felicity, Anthony drained the sink and ran fresh hot water, into which he squirted a little detergent. Glancing around at the small, grubby space, he decided that Roderick was right. These chambers were cramped, they were outgrowing them. They were taking on two new juniors in a month’s time, he himself was thinking of taking on a pupil next year, and there simply wasn’t going to be enough room for everyone. Sighing, he took the two cups of coffee he’d made up to Leo’s room.

Leo was sitting back in his chair with his feet on the desk, a file of papers in his lap. He looked up over his half-moon spectacles as Anthony came in.

‘Good man.’ He took his feet off the desk and leant forward to take the mug from Anthony, then yawned. ‘I’ve just spent an hour reading through the statements of some of our Names.’

‘Why? You don’t have to, you know. Leave that to the solicitors.’ Anthony settled into one of the chairs opposite Leo’s desk and sipped his coffee.

‘Wrong, Anthony. It’s one thing to stand up and say that our Names had no knowledge of how bad affairs were in 1985, and so could not have been expected to make a claim, but it’s quite another to believe it. It’s quite interesting getting a perspective on just how much some of them knew, and how little others
did. Mrs Hunter, for instance’ – Leo flipped the pages of a blue-backed document with his thumb – ‘comes across in conversation as someone who joined Lloyd’s without having the first idea what she was going into. In fact, she probably read and understood the annual accounts and Capstall’s letters more thoroughly than most of the businessmen on this syndicate. She’s pretty sharp.’ Leo dropped the documents onto the pale polished surface of his desk and picked up his coffee. ‘And of course,’ he added after a moment, ‘it’s useful to get an idea of the kind of people one’s acting for. Greedy fools, largely, so far as one can see.’

‘That’s a bit hard,’ said Anthony. ‘You have to have some sympathy, surely.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Leo. ‘I accept that Capstall made some absolutely disastrous decisions, that he simply turned a blind eye to the way asbestos claims were piling up in the States. I suppose, when he started to write these run-off policies, he hoped that the claims would only arise over a very long period and that he could make a profit in the meantime from investment income. That was rash in the extreme. But these people went into Lloyd’s with their eyes wide open. No one lied to them. They understood perfectly well that their liability would be unlimited.’ Leo picked up the papers from his desk and flipped through the pages. ‘Listen to this. “I was reasonably aware from the early eighties of the working of the Lloyd’s market and I understood the concept of unlimited personal liability.” And again, “The concept of unlimited liability was explained to me when I joined Lloyd’s. I treated Lloyd’s as an investment and believed my agents were good, efficient and honest.”’

‘Well, there you are,’ said Anthony. ‘Every one of them thought Capstall knew what he was doing, that anything he did would be in their best interests. That’s why they all feel as they do. They put their trust in Capstall – in the institution of
Lloyd’s, if you like – and they were let down in ways that they never expected.’

‘Then they were simpletons,’ said Leo dismissively, and dropped the papers back on his desk. ‘Each and every one of them thought it was a way to make easy money, and I have no sympathy for people who are prepared to gamble not only their own futures, but those of their families as well.’

‘Oh, come on,’ said Anthony, growing a little heated. ‘It’s one thing to say that they went into it with their eyes open, but no one told them the real truth. You yourself accept that the scale of the asbestos claims was foreseeable as far back as the seventies, that there were really serious problems facing the market by the eighties. But nobody told these people that. All those managing agents and members’ agents were only interested in getting their commission and recruiting as many people as they could. Half of the people they brought into the syndicates had no business being Lloyd’s Names. Look at that poor sod Carstairs, for instance.’

‘So you’re saying that the Names are right to blame the underwriting agency for recruiting them when they weren’t suitable? I’m sorry, Anthony, it doesn’t work that way. People have to take responsibility for their individual decisions. No one forced them to join Lloyd’s. It was explained to them that their liability was unlimited. They knew they could lose everything.’

‘What? You think that the members’ agent sat down with Brian Carstairs and said, “Listen, Brian, old man, when you join Lloyd’s, there is a real chance that you will lose everything you have in the world. Within five years your nice country house could be gone, your BMW, all your expensive possessions. Your children will have to be taken out of their exclusive private schools and sent to the local state ones, there may be no money left for them or for your grandchildren, and there is a real possibility that you and your wife will be reduced to penury.”
Do you think anyone said that to him? No, someone sat him down at the end of a nice boozy lunch, gave him a glass of brandy, and said, “Brian, this is your chance to make a nice bit of extra income, make your money work twice. Look at all the other lucky chaps who’ve joined Lloyd’s, the money they’ve made over the years! Look at this unbroken seven-year profit record, consider how good it will sound to your friends, being able to say you’re a Name at Lloyd’s! Here, have another cigar, Brian.” And then some pipsqueak solicitor would come in and mumble a few words at Carstairs about unlimited liability, and that would be it!’ Anthony had begun to pace around the room, stirred by what he felt was the injustice which his clients had suffered. He stopped, and saw that Leo was smiling at him.

‘Anthony, you are still as naive and passionate as you were when I first met you. Maybe that’s a good thing.’ He sighed. ‘But you won’t convince me. Capstall’s a scoundrel, and I will do my best to make sure he, and the members’ agents, and the managing agents, and the auditors, and anyone else we can rope in as defendants, are made to account for hazarding our clients’ money in a quite unjustifiable fashion. But I won’t shed a tear if we lose. Maybe Names were suckered into joining Lloyd’s. But they were suckered through snobbery and greed, not because they weren’t told about asbestosis.’

Anthony sat down again. ‘Maybe when you get to know them a bit better – I mean, all right, some of them were a bit stupid, but they didn’t deserve to finish up destitute.’

Leo shrugged. ‘You call that destitute, do you? Where I come from, they’d call it being well off. These people have still got their cars, haven’t they? Their bank accounts? A roof over their heads? I didn’t see any of our committee members looking particularly down at heel. Even poor old Freddie Hendry still manages to pay the rent on his flat in Bloomsbury, and buy his Scotch. Come on, save your energies for some worthy cause.
Your job is not to feel for these people, but to work for them. Let’s get on with it.’

Anthony sighed. ‘All right. But I still think it’s better not to feel entirely dispassionate.’

‘Don’t you worry,’ said Leo, and grinned. ‘When the time comes, I will be able to convince everyone that I am utterly, passionately on the side of my clients. Even you. Just you wait till we get to the Court of Appeal on Monday.’

Freddie rang Charles Beecham at eight in the morning on the day of the Court of Appeal hearing. Charles had held a drinks party for a few neighbourhood friends the night before, in view of the fact that he had had an offer on his house and might shortly be leaving the village, and the whole thing had become rather riotous and had gone on longer than he had expected. The trilling of the phone next to his bed woke him with a horrible start from a deep, hungover sleep. He picked up the receiver and lay back, unpleasantly aware that his heart had begun to race, his head was aching, and his mouth felt like the inside of a toaster.

‘Hello, Beecham? Hendry here,’ barked Freddie’s voice.

‘God, Freddie, what is it? I was still asleep.’

‘Asleep? You can’t have forgotten we’re in the Court of Appeal today! I’ve been up since five – already sent a fax to Davies just to keep him on his toes. I’m just ringing to check that you’ll be bringing those documents along. The ones Carstairs said he would pass to you, since he’s not coming.’

‘Freddie,’ sighed Charles, ‘I’m sure that Mr Davies and
Mr Cross have got everything they need. They don’t want extra bumf from me.’ He held the phone away and let Freddie’s staccato protestations die on the air. Then he put the receiver back against his ear and said, ‘All right, anything you say. But I won’t be there till after lunch. I’ve got a meeting with my agent this morning. Yes, Freddie … No, I don’t think Capstall’s brother is writing articles against the Names to sell to the Sunday papers. Yes, I know he’s a journalist, but I still don’t … Very well, you do that. Yes. Bye.’

Charles clicked off the phone and closed his eyes, pulling the covers up to his chin, but knowing that sleep would not return to him now.

Freddie put the phone down and went over to the speckled oval mirror on his dressing table. He straightened his tie and flicked at the lapels of his blazer. They were a bit threadbare and shiny, he noticed, but still not too bad. When they’d won this case, he’d go and see his old tailor, get some new things made up. The reflection of his grizzled face gazed back at him, his thinning hair brushed back from his freckled forehead, his moustache grey now, the pouched skin of his cheeks lined with tiny veins. Shouldn’t drink so much Scotch, he knew, but still … Today was the day. He drew himself upright and gave his reflection a raffish smile, the kind he used to give the girls when he was young and the best-looking chap in the regiment. Then he put on his overcoat, collected his bits and pieces together, his keys, change for the Tube, newspaper, pen and A4 pad for taking notes at the hearing, and, locking the door of his flat behind him, set off for the City. The sun was burning away the early morning frost and he could see a blue sky behind the chilly fog. A good omen, he thought, enjoying the dry crunch of the dead leaves beneath his polished brogues as he marched with a firm tread towards Russell Square station.

It was nine by the time he reached the Law Courts, and he
knew the case would not come on until ten-thirty, so he dawdled around the central hall, examining the lists of the day’s cases, gazing up at the paintings of stern-faced judges and long-dead chancellors, scrutinising the people as they passed to and fro, frowning at a passing group of loud-mouthed young men in leather jackets and trainers, who talked and joked without any reverence for their dignified surroundings, their voices echoing from the high walls. For Freddie, the Law Courts were hallowed, steeped in mystery, splendid in their majesty, and it seemed to him that a respectful hush, as if in a cathedral, should be observed by visitors. He paced the chequered flagstones patiently, until, at ten past ten, he saw Basher Snodgrass come through the entrance doors, and then Murray Campbell and Fred Fenton. He joined them, and they all made their way to Court Number 71, where the hearing was to be held.

Freddie squeezed into the wooden bench next to Snodgrass, his newspaper folded on his lap, and leant forward, gazing around the court with a faint thrill of excitement. Leo and Anthony were already seated at the front of the court, Murray and Fred behind them with a couple of assistants, and further along sat the other side’s counsel, about five of them, so far as he could see, with a bevy of besuited young male and female solicitors behind them. There was much muttering and passing of paper, but this gradually died away as the usher stood up, glanced round and then, with lugubrious self-importance, intoned, ‘Court rise.’

Everybody duly rose, and through the little door at the back of the court issued forth three of Her Majesty’s Lords of Appeal, looking suitably stern and dignified in their full-bottomed wigs and robes, although they had been laughing and enjoying a particularly juicy piece of gossip involving a Chancery Court judge and a masseuse only minutes before. Everyone resumed their seats amid a spate of coughing, and then Leo rose, adjusting
his wig and glancing down at the papers in front of him. There was a hushed pause before he spoke.

‘My Lords, I appear for the appellants in this case, and my learned friends Mr Glynn and Mrs Abbott appear for the respondents. This appeal is brought against an order of Mr Justice Fry which declared that certain claims in tort by my clients, arising out of their losses as Lloyd’s Names and members of syndicate 1766, were statute-barred. The respondents contend that my clients could reasonably have been expected to acquire the knowledge required for bringing an action for damages more than three years before the issue of the first writ, and rely principally upon the annual syndicate reports and accounts for 1981 to 1988 and a letter from the managing agents to all Names dated May 11th, 1984 …’

Anthony put his chin on his hand and glanced up at Leo, conscious of a deep thankfulness that he was not conducting this appeal. He was fully acquainted with the arguments, had helped to polish and adjust the very one upon which Leo was now embarking, but he would not have relished the prospect of standing up in front of the Master of the Rolls and Lord Justices Manfred and Howell and expounding them himself. He had plenty of faith in his own skills as an advocate, but he recognised that there were certain levels in a case where maturity and authority went a long way. Leo had both those qualities. Anthony reflected, smiling to himself as he picked up his pen to jot down a note, that Leo’s prematurely silver hair must have been of considerable help to him in his career. People took you more seriously the older you got, or looked.

At the back of the court Freddie unconsciously bared his teeth in a momentary spasm of concentration and leant forward to listen to Leo. It was blasted hard to follow the arguments, the way these legal chappies dressed things up. Davies was saying something about requiring knowledge of whether potential
liabilities were capable of reasonable quantification. Well, that was one way of talking about whether any of them should have known things would go seriously wrong. But the Lloyd’s agents were always sending reports, great bundles of information. You couldn’t be expected to read it all and understand it. Before all this blasted business began, he hadn’t had the first idea what a run-off policy was. Barely understood the three-year accounting system. You put your affairs in the hands of your agents and you trusted them to get on with it. Back in the old days, chaps at Lloyd’s had been gentlemen – MCC ties, pinstripe suits. That had all changed. No gentlemen now. Just rogues and shysters. The idea of Lloyd’s being self-regulating these days was laughable. Laughable. Freddie began to mutter to himself as he lost the thread of what Leo was saying, and let his thoughts wander down their usual erratic avenues. Basher Snodgrass glanced at him and sighed.

Leo was well into his stride now. He glanced at each one of the three faces on the Bench before him as he spoke, noting the faint nod from the Master of the Rolls as he scribbled something down, the approving little lift of Lord Justice Howell’s head as he sat back in his seat, and the encouraging angle at which Lord Justice Manfred’s bushy eyebrows were set while he listened, resting his head on one hand. They had, of course, read a potted version of the arguments well before the hearing, and had already formed something of a view. Leo had a feeling that they were in sympathy with the Names. It would hardly be surprising, since every member of the judiciary probably had a close friend or relative who’d been knocked sideways by the Lloyd’s catastrophe.

‘My Lords,’ he said smoothly, glancing round at no one in particular with his serene blue gaze, ‘what are the acts which constitute the negligence of which my clients complain? It would, in my respectful submission, be incomplete to say
that these consisted of the writing of the run-off reinsurance policies, or the reinsurances to close, or the certification of the syndicate accounts. These do not in themselves amount to acts of which the Names would be
prima facie
entitled to complain …’

At the back of the courtroom Freddie Hendry ceased to mutter, but fell into a slight doze as the proceedings in Court Number 71 drifted past him.

Charles was sitting in the Regent Street offices of his film and television agent with a broad smile on his face.

‘The United States? And Canada?’ he asked.

His agent, a brisk young man in his late twenties, nodded. The autumn sun which streamed through the large window reflected from his glasses, giving him a blank, sightless look. ‘Australia, too. We’ve sold the rights to the first and second series and I’m presently negotiating in respect of your current one on the Crusades. It’s an excellent package, Charles. I’m bound to say I’m very pleased.’

Charles crossed his legs, shook his head and smiled again. ‘So – how much are we talking about? I mean, with this Lloyd’s thing, you know, money’s, well …’

‘Too tight to mention? Well, I won’t go so far as to say your worries are over, but for the outright sale of the first and second series, we’re talking in excess of five hundred thousand. And then, of course, there’s the present series, and possibly subsequent ones.’

‘I see.’ Charles nodded, trying to look as though he were giving this some serious thought, but in fact trying to contain his utter, pure and delirious joy.

‘I thought,’ said his agent, ‘that we might go over the details of the contract over an early lunch – if you’re free, that is.’

Charles nodded. ‘Fine. I have to be at the Law Courts this
afternoon, but I hadn’t anything planned before then … Look, do you mind if I use your phone?’

His agent picked up the phone and passed it to Charles. ‘I’ll just go and ask Sarah to book us a table at the Groucho,’ he said, and left the room. Charles took out his address book and flipped through it, tapped in some numbers on the phone and waited.

‘Hello, Mr Bryant? Charles Beecham here. About the house. I’m sorry to disappoint the Fullers, but I’m taking it off the market. I’ve decided not to sell.’

As he put the phone down, smiling to himself, Charles reflected that he would probably have to throw another drinks party, to celebrate the fact that he would not be leaving the neighbourhood after all.

It was a curious feeling, returning to work after an absence of seven months. Rachel pushed open the heavy glass doors of Nichols & Co, and saw the familiar figure of Nora, the receptionist, murmuring into her headset and flicking buttons with her long crimson nails. It was as if she had only been away for a few days. Nora smiled and gave her a little fluttering wave, and Rachel took the lift to the fourth floor. She walked along the carpeted corridors, past the glass-walled offices, seeing familiar figures bent over desks, talking into telephones, pulling open filing-cabinet drawers, all busy with their work. She reached her own room, half-expecting to find some stranger occupying it, but there it was, empty and neat as she had left it when she went on maternity leave. The shelves where her files had lain were largely empty, but that would change in a week or two. She hung up her coat, slung her bag down beside her desk and sat down in her chair, swivelling in it and looking round. She was rather at a loss, she realised. It wasn’t like starting a new job, where there was someone
to greet you, give you things to do. No, it was up to her to fit back in, to reassert herself. She thought back to the time when she had first joined Nichols & Co, only two years ago, with all her earnest ambitions. Then she had married Leo, and had thought that that would become the most important thing in the world. It was, in a way. Only not in the way she had imagined. She was discovering pain where she had expected contentment. She was not to be to Leo everything she had thought she might be. But at least by coming back to work she might find something of her old self, and in the process restore her badly damaged self-esteem. Or so she hoped.

Time to have a coffee, thought Rachel, and to try and dig up some work. She went to the percolator and poured herself a cup, then wandered along the corridor to Murray Campbell’s room. He was always up to his eyeballs – he was bound to have something for her. But his room was empty. Then Rachel remembered that he would be in court – Leo had mentioned that morning that the Names were in the Court of Appeal that day. She sighed. That meant Fred Fenton would be out, too. She could have done with Fred’s banter and jokes to cheer her up. There was something dispiriting about coming back, having nothing to do while everyone else got on with their busy day.

Turning away from Murray’s room, she bumped into Roger Williams. Roger, a suave, portly individual who fancied himself as a bit of a ladies’ man, was one of the more senior of the partners, and a typical City chauvinist. He had made a couple of passes at Rachel in her early days in the office, and they were not the best of friends, but now she felt almost pleased to see him.

‘Good God!’ he said, smiling. ‘Nobody told me you were coming back! Well, well … Come into my room and catch up on the gossip.’ He laid a hand lightly on her shoulder, and they walked together to Roger’s office, Rachel listening as he
chatted. Conscious of Roger’s hand resting on her shoulder, she remembered a time when she could not bear to let any man – especially Roger’s type – touch her. Now she did not mind. Leo had cured her – or maybe he had simply made her indifferent. She did not know.