Harry Read online

  I had only got into this line of work, though, after years of doing legally aided cases about children. I used to believe, whether with or without justification I can’t say, that I was fighting to protect the welfare of the children concerned, or sometimes fighting for vulnerable parents to be able to keep their children when social services wanted to take them into care. That’s where my heart has really lain, all along. It didn’t matter which side I was on; I liked the work and the feeling that, somewhere within it, there was some sort of social or even moral cause. But the longer I did the job, the more I climbed up the greasy pole of seniority within the firm and, by that stage, I was regarded as one of the more senior partners. So, the pressure built up for me to do the cases that brought in the big money and I succumbed to it, allowing myself to be pushed into doing divorce work. I was also given loads more admin to do for the firm and headed up the family law department, reporting to the senior partner. Lots of meetings, minutes and hushed discussions behind closed doors, that sort of thing. I wasn’t very good at that – I get bored easily and hate gossip.

  Speaking to Harry on my way into work and being dissed by the security guards was my feeble attempt at keeping my feet on the ground. Making me feel that I still had some street cred. I was happily married and still am – Susan and the kids mean everything to me. But back then, Susan and I were busy: she’s a GP, and our kids are sociable and busy, too. So, we didn’t have much time to think about the principles of life, what was right and what was wrong. We just got on with things and took good holidays.

  Well, the day of that meeting with Peregrine was also the day of a partners’ meeting and that, in turn, was the start of a string of events that took me to where I am now.

  ‘Thank you,’ the senior partner said, having purred over the report that had just been presented to the meeting by George, the head of the probate department, whose profits had soared the year before. ‘Very impressive. I think that we should all applaud what you have been doing. Well done, George.’

  So, there we were, grown-up people clapping in approval because one of our number had run the egg and spoon race of profit-making and had crossed the finishing line with his egg still in place. That was very much the senior partner’s style; she had a sweet-sounding name, Clarissa Jones, but was as sour-faced as they come – tall, slim, immaculate and always dressed in fierce, black clothing with loud, expensive jewellery. She swept around the office exuding an acrid stench of very expensive perfume that filled any room where she was, or had been, present. The staff called her Boadicea behind her back. At home I referred to her as Grendel’s mother, even though she had no children. She was married to her job.

  ‘Now, Jonathan, I wonder whether you could be kind enough to present your report on behalf of the family department.’

  The conference room had a long table in it with Clarissa and the other equity partners at one end, and plebs like me, the salaried partners, sitting below the salt at the other end. I had the five equity partners staring down at me in feigned interest – they had already met that day separately and so plainly knew what they wanted to say.

  ‘Good news from the divorce department.’ I always like to start on a cheery note. ‘As you will see our profits are up and we have a strong bank of existing clients which means that we are projected to make even more profit next year.’ I took them through the figures but there was no applause and it was obvious that they were anxious to get on to the next bit of the report.

  ‘Yes, very good. But can we look at your legal aid receipts please, Jonathan?’

  The firm had an associate solicitor who did legal aid work, the sort of cases that I had done when I started off. His name is Seb and he plays a large part in this story – everyone loves Seb, except the lot I was dealing with that day. The legal aid side of things had only just cut even but the year-on-year graph of the profits from it showed a constant decline. Things did not bode well for the following year.

  ‘That’s not so good, is it?’ Clarissa said.

  ‘Which is why we need to look at whether we are going to continue to do this work at all,’ Clarissa’s chief henchman chipped in. He was the commercial partner and was a good friend of Peregrine’s. They played golf and went shooting together, yes, but the strongest connection was that they were both Masons. And Clarissa, where did she fit in with all that? Her husband, who had died, had been a Masonic master. Further still, if the office gossip was right, it wasn’t so much a question of where she fitted in with them, rather it was much more a question of where they fitted into her – as, the whisperers suggested, Peregrine did regularly when the mood so took them. A thought that had me reaching for the sick bucket.

  ‘Steady the buffs,’ I said, trying to make light of it. ‘No one told me that this was going to be raised today and it is not on the agenda. I am sure, Clarissa, that you would not want this to be discussed today without any proper notice or consultation.’ Light, yes, but I also needed a bit of an iron fist in the glove.

  ‘No, we’re not deciding this today. But I would like to sound you all out about it while you are here. I also want to cover the pro bono work that you’ve been doing, Jonathan.’ In other words, she was trying to kill as many birds with one stone as she could and was also making it plain that no one would tell her how to run her meetings.

  ‘What’s pro bono work?’ George asked. It was a set-up and he had learnt his lines well.

  ‘You’re kidding?’ I fell into the preset trap….I couldn’t believe what he was saying. ‘It’s work that you do without getting paid. All the decent firms and chambers are offering it these days and have realised that it makes commercial and moral sense. They’ll think we are dinosaurs if we drop that as well. Everyone else has a sense of moral duty, why shouldn’t we?’

  ‘Work without pay? What a stupid idea. We’re not running a charity.’ George couldn’t resist weighing in again, having smiled towards Clarissa, his bones still rattling in orgasmic delight at the applause he had received. Wills and probate – the voice from the grave. He was a Mason, too. So, funny handshakes all round.

  ‘The trend is very much against doing legal aid work and I really do question whether we need to do it. As for pro bono work, I don’t see the point. We have plenty of paid work, so why do work for free? So what if our competitors do it? That’s their problem. I think, as George so rightly says, the time has probably come to call it a day on all this free lunch mentality.’ Clarissa smiled back at George.

  ‘And I think that we should all listen very carefully to Clarissa’s wise words. As the senior partner it is for her to steer the ship.’ George looked my way over his pretentious half-moon glasses as he spoke. Part of what he was saying was genuine belief, I’m sure. But part of it was him trying to settle old scores. There had been a complaint against him a few years before when he was accused of groping his secretary. I had spoken up for the secretary and supported her through the complaints procedure which had left him smarting and searching for revenge – like all bullies who get exposed and have been put in their place.

  ‘This is an integral part of our family work.’ I wasn’t going to take all this lying down. ‘We need to provide a complete legal service to our clients, not just cherry-pick the best-paid work.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t we?’ That was the commercial law partner again, Humphrey Reid. No surprises there, then. ‘I agree with George. We are not a charity.’ He was the sort of bean counter who always had a handkerchief sticking out of the top pocket of his blazer and stank of equally acrid aftershave. When he and Clarissa met, the room was left smelling like the boudoir of a tart who had just done a very full round of business. Humphrey the Humper, I called him behind his back for obvious reasons.

  ‘I agree that we are not a charity but providing a public service is part of our business identity and this sort of work performs an essential social function. Where are members of the public supposed to go when there are care proceedings if firms like ours won’t do the work? What hap
pens to people who can’t get legal aid if we don’t do our share of the pro bono work that everyone else is doing?’ I could feel the mood of the meeting was, put at its mildest, against what I was saying and I was starting to lose it. They had shut down the criminal law department of the firm the year before on the basis of just the same sort of arguments. I knew full well what they were up to.

  ‘Jonathan, if I want to support a charitable cause I would rather chose it freely, of my own accord.’ Humphrey was getting into full hump. ‘The roof on my village church needs repairing. Should we all be obliged to pay for that?’ Stupid bastard.

  ‘That’s just infantile.’ I could feel the red mist descending as I spoke. ‘What about the people we employ to do the work? What would happen to them? Do you even care?’

  ‘I am sure I could help with the employment law issues.’ He could just as well have said, ‘Tell them to take a jump.’

  ‘Well, I’m frankly appalled that this issue is being raised in this way without it being on the agenda and without there having been any consultation. You’re just trying to bounce the issue through in a way that you all know is procedurally wrong. I want that minuted, please.’ I just resisted calling them a bunch of tossers, but it was a close-run thing. I knew I was not handling it well and felt irritated with myself for getting into a corner.

  ‘Jonathan, Jonathan,’ Clarissa slunk in. ‘As I said, we’re not deciding anything today. I just wanted to get the mood of the partners, and now you have been good enough to provide us with a very clear display of your mood on it. Thank you for that. So the next stage is that we will have to put this out for formal consultation and discussion. Don’t get so upset, you will have your say.’

  Yeah, right. I would have my say in the same way that a condemned man may be offered a say in what he should eat for his last meal.

  Chapter Four

  Well, that was the rubbish workday to end all rubbish workdays. Thank God for my family. I plugged in my earphones as I left the office and listened at full volume to the loudest and trashiest bit of trance music I could find. I replayed the partners’ meeting over and over in my mind thinking of the things I would really have liked to have said, most of them reproductive and anatomical.

  I was late leaving work and half-hoping that Harry would not be in his usual place, even though I had been asking after him that morning. But, as luck would have it, he was there in the usual doorway with Jenny next to him.

  ‘Hi, Jon. How are you?’ There was no way I was going to run past him without stopping. I sat down on the pavement next to him.

  ‘To be honest, Harry, totally fucked off.’

  ‘That good, eh? Why, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Oh, just work crap. Shouldn’t moan. But, anyway, seeing you and Jenny here makes up for all the bollocks.’ I sat down next to him.

  ‘Cheers.’

  ‘You haven’t been here for a while... I’ve been worried. I went looking for you around the city centre yesterday.’ I had spent the lunch break wandering around in the vain hope I might find him.

  ‘I’ve been on a walkabout. I get bored stiff sitting here all day and, anyway, I’d had a spot of grief from someone.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘A woman offered to buy Jenny from me for £250. She stood in front of me with the cash and said, ‘I bet you’d rather have this than the dog.’ I told her I wouldn’t sell Jenny for all the money in the world, two million quid or anything. Then her husband came across and got mouthy with me.’

  ‘Why do people behave like that?’

  ‘Because they just see me as a beggar. That’s why. It isn’t right but that’s the way it is.’

  ‘Harry, I’m so sorry. Listen, I’m…’

  ‘Late?’ He knew my script.

  ‘Yeah, you’ve got it. Here’s a tenner. Buy yourself some food, buddy.’

  By the time I got home I was really late and the childminder had plainly been terrorised by the children.

  ‘Were the kids OK?’ I asked.

  ‘Fine,’ she said but left like a streak of lightning before the kids started to dob each other up about who had done what to whom. When a measure of calm had been restored, it was homework, tidy up, sandwiches for next day, and then bedtime for them while I started work. Susan was on a late-night surgery.

  Susan came back at about 10.30 p.m. She had to make a visit on the way to see a patient who was dying of cancer at home – she had called in to see how he was and to offer some support to the dying man’s family. They had gathered to be with him in his final days. She had sent me a short text to explain and was exhausted by the time that she got in.

  ‘How was your day?’ That is Susan through and through, wanting to look after me first.

  ‘Never mind about me. You’ve had a hell of a day.’ I was not going to dump my rubbish on her lawn, knowing what she had just been through. I gave her the glass of chilled wine that I had got ready and put her meal on the table. ‘You may not want this. I know it’s late to eat.’

  ‘Looks lovely.’ Well, it didn’t but she was thoughtful enough to pick at it for a bit while downing the wine.

  ‘How was the family you saw?’

  ‘They are just such nice people. It was all so peaceful. They just sat around him, watching as he lay there kept on the cliff edge between life and death by morphine. I’m not really sure why we do it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Why we keep people on that cliff edge when we know they are going to die and don’t know how much they are really going through.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ I reached across the table and held her hand. It felt limp, tired. ‘You are such a good doctor, you know. You really support people, really help them.’

  ‘Well, I’m not giving much time to you at the moment, am I?’

  ‘I’m a big boy.’

  ‘I know you are, my dear,’ she said, the wine having obviously got the better of her for a moment because she smiled.

  ‘Come on. Bedtime. As in bedtime, sleep time. And keep your thieving hands to yourself. It’s late.’ She was knackered and needed to close down.

  ‘Maybe just a cuddle?’ She was really making an effort but I knew she just needed sleep.

  ‘Your wish, my command.’ I knew she’d be asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  As we went upstairs she asked: ‘Oh yes. How was the partners’ meeting?’

  ‘Nothing unusual. Clarissa stripped her clothes off and danced naked on the table in high heels.’

  ‘Right…right. And what did you do? Join her?’

  ‘No. I threw up.’

  We fell into bed and before I had even put my arm around her she was fast asleep. I ran my fingers through her golden hair and kissed her on the forehead, feeling the warmth of her soft body as it fitted next to mine. I love my wife. I really do love her. She feels like home.

  Chapter Five

  ‘I need to have a word, Seb.’

  Seb, the assistant solicitor at the firm, was home-grown, in the sense that he had worked with me as an articled clerk before getting taken on five years previously. I had worked with him for about seven years by then and thought of him as if he were my son. He is a tall, handsome man – half-Danish, very clever and very principled.

  ‘What’s the buzz?’ he asked as he closed the door to my room behind him. It was one of those difficult work conversations. I knew that I could trust him, but I also knew that if I told him precisely what had happened at the partners’ meeting all hell would break loose if anyone found out that I had done so. However, I didn’t want it all to come as a bomb-drop later and just felt it would be totally unfair that he should be left in the dark. So I had planned what I was going to say.

  ‘Seb, you know there was a partners’ meeting yesterday.’ It was obvious that he could sense that I was heading him towards an iceberg. He’d lived through the sinking of the criminal department the previous year and knew full well that the family legal aid work was next on the lis
t.

  ‘Don’t tell me. They want to axe legal aid. I’ve seen this coming a mile off.’

  ‘Seb, I can’t tell you and it’s important that I don’t make tidal waves for either of us by explaining exactly what was said. Nothing has been decided yet, but you know what happened to crime last year.’ That was all I needed to say.

  For him, it was very far from good timing. He and his wife, Freja – pronounced Freya – had just had their second son and Freja was suffering from postnatal depression. What’s more, they had just moved house and taken on a pretty hefty mortgage.

  ‘Oh, good grief.’ At that time I had never heard Seb swear, unlike me.

  ‘Well, we’ll just have to see what happens. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘It really could not have come at a worse time for us. Goodness only knows what Freja will make of it.’

  ‘It may come to nothing. Who knows? I’ll also keep my ears open for any jobs that are going.’

  ‘There aren’t many of those at the moment, are there? Not in this field of work.’

  ‘I’ll make sure you’re alright, one way or the other. You do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I know you will. It means a lot to me. What has happened to the world?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. Everyone seems to be out for what they can get, chasing the big number. I’m sorry to land this on you. I really thought about saying nothing, but then realised I couldn’t. I hope I’ve done the right thing.’

  ‘I’m glad that you told me. The other lot would have left it until the day they ordered me to clear my desk. At least this way I can try to plan ahead.’

  ‘We’ll just have to wait to see what happens.’ I was repeating myself. I didn’t know what else to say. ‘I’ll keep you as up to speed as I can.’

  ‘Don’t get yourself into trouble, though. I’ll keep my lip buttoned. You haven’t actually told me anything.’