Errors of Judgment (10 page)

Simon watched as the lift doors closed on the woman of his dreams. ‘No,’ he said to the doorman. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

The lift took Rachel to the fourth floor, where she went to her office and closed the door.

An hour later, Felicity was arriving at Vince’s mum’s council house in Deptford. Denise lived in a shabby, pebble-dashed box opposite a villainous-looking comprehensive school surrounded by a high wire fence. Most of the small front gardens of the houses in the street were overgrown, weedy
repositories for discarded household items, but Vince’s mum’s front garden was tidy and well tended, with a low, plastic-linked chain fence. As she stood on the doorstep, Felicity wondered how many people were likely to turn up to a welcome-home party for an ex-con on a weekday. In Vince’s world, maybe more than a few.

Denise answered the doorbell dressed in a short lycra skirt, black tights, and a plum-coloured satin blouse. On her feet she wore fluffy house slippers. Her hair was dyed an extravagant orange-red, and her long, square-cut fingernails were intricately painted and studded with tiny jewels. She was still good-looking for a woman in her mid fifties, but the clothes were too young, and the make-up too much.

Denise gave a yelp of delight when she saw Felicity. ‘Fliss, babes!’ She hugged her and kissed her on either cheek. ‘Big day’s here at last! Come on through and meet the girls.’

Felicity took off her coat and followed Denise into the back room, where three women of Denise’s age, all decked out like ageing barmaids, were busy arranging plates of food on a gateleg table. Denise introduced Shelley, Rhona and Barbara, and they twinkled their fingers at Felicity in welcome. When Denise told them how Felicity had been waiting faithfully for four years for Vince, they all let out little murmurs of sympathy, and Shelley gave her a hug of solidarity.

Felicity glanced around. There was a ‘welcome home’ banner strung over the fireplace. She glanced round, but no balloons, which was small mercy. ‘Can I do something to help?’

Denise grasped Felicity’s hand. ‘Come and help me sort out drinks in the kitchen.’

A serious mountain of booze was crammed into the tiny kitchen. Bottles of vodka, whisky and wine covered the surface of the kitchen table, and four boxes of Stella lager were stacked behind the door.

‘The offie threw in a free box of wine and beer glasses, but I’m still worried there won’t be enough. We’ve got a ton of people coming over,’ said Denise. ‘Here, you get unpacking these, and I’ll sort out what I’ve got in my cupboards. He’ll be here around four.’

No need even to say his name, thought Felicity, as she began unpacking glasses from the box. How had Vince attained this heroic status? Simply by being absent, she supposed, like a Beirut hostage. Forget the real reason.

‘Ossie and Quills are picking him up at three, and they’re taking him for a beer first – you know, just to get him acclimatised, first day out and all that.’ Denise gazed speculatively at two baking trays of sausage rolls. ‘I reckon those should go in the oven at quarter to four. What d’you think?’

Felicity nodded. ‘Sounds about right.’

When she’d finished with the glasses, Felicity went through to the living room, where Denise and the others sat perched on the edges of two sofas, skirts riding up their thighs, making inroads into a bottle of Chardonnay. Denise was holding forth on the iniquities of the British criminal justice system, how Vince should never have been sent down, how he’d only ever been defending himself in a fair fight.

Felicity had heard Denise spin this record countless times over the past few years, always the same old tune. Felicity had her own thoughts about it all. Sure, Vince had been
unlucky. He had punched someone in a brief fight in Soho, and the man had died after hitting his head on the pavement. Vince had never meant that to happen. No question it could have turned out differently. But why, in the recounting of it, was it always Vince who was the unlucky one? How come Vince’s family and friends never mentioned the even unluckier bloke, the one who’d been on the receiving end of that vicious punch? It was like that time she’d ended up at the foot of a flight of stairs, losing the baby, thanks to Vince and his drunken temper. All that agonised contrition on his part. Unlucky old Vince. She hadn’t wanted that pregnancy in any event – so lucky her.

‘Come on, Fliss, have a glass!’ Denise wagged the bottle of Chardonnay.

‘I’m all right for now, thanks. I’ll have one when he gets here.’

The women nattered on. Denise opened another bottle, glasses were refilled, long-nailed fingers scrabbled in the bowls of peanuts and Bombay mix. After a while Denise glanced at her watch.

‘Omigod! Look at the time.’ She scuffed out of the room in her slippers, and returned moments later in shiny,
plum-coloured
platforms. The shoes dramatically altered her height and posture, thrusting her bust forward, balling the muscles on her spindly calves. The doorbell ding-donged and she hurried out to answer it. Seconds later came the sound of Denise’s squeals of welcome mingling with the voices of the new arrivals. Two middle-aged couples entered the living room, bringing with them the cold smell of outside, and two carrier bags full of cans of lager. Felicity didn’t know any of them.

Denise began introductions, but the doorbell rang again
and she went to usher in more people, this time an entire family of three generations – gran, mum and dad, and brood of noisy youngsters.

The tiny living room was suddenly filled with shrill talk and laughter. Felicity made a discreet exit to the relative peace of the kitchen, and decided to station herself there and dispense drinks. She really didn’t want to mingle with these strangers.

She stayed there for the next hour as more and more people arrived, handing out cans of lager and Coke, mixing gin and tonics, cracking the caps of wine bottles and pouring drinks. Denise seemed to have forgotten about her, for which Felicity was grateful. She’d been worried Denise would drag her through to the living room to introduce her to everyone as the love of Vince’s life. Barbara, mildly pissed, came through and relieved the tedium by talking to her for twenty minutes about what a darling Vince had been as a teenager when he was at school with her Ryan, before splashing some Bacardi into her glass and wandering away.

There was still no sign of Vince, Ossie and Quills.

Felicity mixed herself a vodka and Coke and gazed through the window at the little huddle of smokers hunched against the drizzle by the rotary clothes line in Denise’s patch of back garden. Denise came through, her face tense and anxious.

‘I dunno what’s happened to them. What d’you think’s happened?’ She bit her lip, then picked up a half-empty vodka bottle and poured a couple of inches into her wine glass. She pulled her mobile from her skirt pocket and hit the redial button, listened, sighed, put the phone back in her pocket and swallowed the vodka in one. ‘Quills has got his phone switched off. I haven’t got Ossie’s number.’

‘Not to worry,’ said Felicity. ‘They’ll be here soon.’

‘Yeah?’ Denise’s eyes scanned Felicity’s for reassurance, and seemed to find some. ‘Yeah. He’s a good boy. He wouldn’t let his old mum down.’ She glanced out at the smokers. ‘Sometimes wish I’d never given up. I could do with one right now.’ She touched her lower lip with a manicured finger, her hand trembling slightly, eyes distant.

The increasing sense of remoteness which had been growing in Felicity all afternoon felt suddenly complete. She was nothing to do with this. She was a bystander at this grotesque circus, not even part of the audience swigging drink and wolfing sausage rolls in the living room. She wanted to leave, to get out before Vince got here. But she could not abandon Denise. To leave now would be to confirm Denise’s worst fears – that this was pointless, that Vince didn’t care about her or the party, that his priority on his first day of freedom was to go on the lash with his mates.

Suddenly there came the frantic ding-donging of the doorbell, and drunken laughter from outside the front door. Denise gave a screech and hurried down the hall to open it. There on the doorstep was Vince, so pissed he could hardly stand up, supported by his friends. Watching from the kitchen doorway, Felicity recognised Vince’s Turkish friend, Ossie. The other, a thickset man with ginger hair, had to be Quills.

‘Chrissake, bring him in!’ Denise grabbed Vince’s arm and the four of them made their way down the hall, giggling and swearing.

Felicity shrank back from the doorway. She leant against the fridge, and heard a roar go up from the living room. Then Denise shouting, ‘Get ’im on the sofa! Move, Darren!’
Laughter, then someone shouted, ‘Get that man a drink! He looks like he needs one!’ More laughter.

Denise tottered into the kitchen and grabbed a can of Stella from one of the open boxes. She was laughing, her eyes pink and manic. She grabbed Felicity’s elbow. ‘He’s here, babes! Come on!’

Felicity resisted. ‘I just need to go to the loo first. Freshen up.’

Denise put one taloned finger to the side of her nose and winked. ‘You go and make yourself gorgeous!’ She left with the can of Stella. Wife-beater, thought Felicity. That was what Vince and his friends always used to call that particular lager. The thought had come into her head from nowhere.

She stepped quietly into the hallway, hoping no one would see her through the half-open living room door. She found her coat buried beneath others on the banister, and for a panicky moment thought she’d left her handbag in the living room. Then she saw it beside the hall table. She picked it up and opened the front door, closing it behind her as quietly as she could, even though the sounds of the homecoming celebration were too loud for anyone to hear her leave.

At half past five Rachel left her office. As the lift descended she leant back and closed her eyes briefly. What a hellish day. A wasted morning when she’d been too nervous to do any serious work, leading up to a squalid lunchtime rendezvous that had left her feeling humiliated and stupid, followed by an afternoon of self-loathing. To top it all, she’d been chased by the client on the casino case, and had had to ring Anthony up and nag him, which she didn’t like doing, and which he hadn’t much cared for either. The work just wasn’t getting done on time. It wasn’t like Anthony. He was
normally so conscientious, so on top of his game. Probably distracted by some new woman, thought Rachel gloomily, as the lift doors opened.

She stepped out onto the pavement into the swirl of evening commuters and found it was raining hard. She groped hopelessly in her bag for her umbrella, before realising she must have left it at home. Great. She was going to get soaked walking to the station, on top of everything else. Suddenly someone touched her arm. When she saw it was the young man from the wine bar, she sighed in annoyance.

‘Are you stalking me, or something?’

‘Sort of.’ He held his own umbrella over her. ‘Look, don’t get angry, and don’t get wet. I just want to talk to you.’

She stared at him. ‘Have you been waiting here all afternoon?’

‘Hardly. I only work across the road.’ Rachel liked the way he laughed when he said this. But she had had enough of men for one day. She turned away and started to walk in the direction of Bank station. He hurried along next to her, holding his umbrella gallantly over her head.

‘Come for a drink with me? Please?’ She kept walking. ‘Just one?’

She glanced at him, noticing that he had deep-set grey-green eyes, and was probably older than she had first thought. Early thirties, probably, though his slightly round face made him look younger. ‘You’re very persistent, aren’t you?’ she replied.

‘It’s my best quality. If you won’t come for a drink with me tonight, I’ll just have to wait outside your office again tomorrow night.’

‘Tomorrow’s Saturday.’

‘That’s true. OK, Monday night.’ He bumped into a fellow pedestrian and apologised, lost Rachel in the crowd, then caught up with her again. ‘So you might as well give in now.’

They had reached the junction of Gracechurch Street and Cornhill. Rachel stopped, and he did too. They stood together beneath his umbrella, the rain teeming down, people bustling past. He gazed hopefully at her, and she found herself thinking how random this was, unplanned, out of nowhere. The way things should be. She also found herself thinking that there was nothing to hurry home for – Oliver was having a sleepover with Josh.

‘It’s Friday. Everywhere’s packed.’ She realised she’d just said yes.

He realised it, too, and smiled. ‘I booked a booth at Abacus.’

‘Wasn’t that just a bit presumptuous?’

‘Do you have to talk to me like you’re constantly telling me off? I haven’t done anything particularly wrong, you know. I just saw you and liked you, and hoped we might get to know one another. Frankly, I thought booking Abacus showed a bit of foresight.’

Rachel smiled. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

He put out his hand. ‘Simon Wren.’

Rachel shook it. ‘Rachel Davies.’

‘Come on, then, Rachel Davies. Before the lights change.’ He took her arm just above the elbow and hurried her across the road. Rachel found she didn’t mind the proprietorial gesture at all, nor the assumption that lay behind booking the cocktail bar. It was quite nice to be taken charge of. She would just go with it, and see where the evening took her. Maybe she would even have reason to be grateful to Andrew Garroway.

That evening, Sir Vivian was hosting his celebrated champagne and hotpot supper party at his spacious apartment in Westminster. Sir Vivian was a person of some eminence in the legal world. He had lately been Recorder of London, was a Bencher of the Inner Temple and a Judicial Appointments Commissioner, and had interests which extended beyond the law and into the arts. Besides being an accomplished cellist and chairman of the Trustees of Glyndebourne Arts Trust, he had also written a well-received history of the Dutch Republic, and a biography of the painter Duncan Grant. Sarah was his only child, the product of a late marriage. Sarah’s mother had died when Sarah was just fifteen, and he had never remarried – partly because he had loved his wife too deeply to wish to replace her, and partly because he found the rewards of middle-aged bachelorhood too varied and enjoyable to want to tie himself down again. Although now in his early seventies, he remained suavely
good-looking, and was one of the most popular ‘spare’ single men of a certain age among London hostesses.

Tonight’s party was one he held every autumn, and to which he invited prominent people from the world of the law and the arts to eat lamb hotpot and quaff champagne. (It was well known that the arriviste Jeffrey Archer had appropriated this idea, as he had so many other things, after being taken in the early seventies to one of Sir Vivian’s parties by the young David Mellor, then a pupil in Sir Vivian’s chambers). There was always much demand for invitations among the great and the good, and every year Jonathan Kittering and his wife Caroline, though merely a retired couple from Woking with no standing in either the world of law or the arts, were sure to receive theirs. Jonathan Kittering and Sir Vivian had been close friends for many years, ever since their schooldays, and one incident in particular had had a lasting effect upon Sir Vivian and had shaped certain of his attitudes.

In his teenage years Vivian Colman had been slender, golden-haired, and a precociously gifted cricketer, good enough to be chosen at the age of sixteen to play for the First XI against Uppingham. Daunting though it was for a year-eleven boy to be batting and bowling in the company of the gods of the upper sixth against the school’s fiercest rivals, he had acquitted himself exceptionally well. On that sunny afternoon in early June 1956, he had taken four wickets and achieved his first half-century, and been named man of the match. Young Vivian’s quiet pleasure in the day was, however, sadly spoilt when, later in the pavilion, after the others had gone to tea, Edwin Challoner, the captain of the First XI, tried to seduce him. Vivian was deeply
upset and horrified, and it was by the merest good fortune that Jonathan Kittering had come into the pavilion at that moment and interrupted the incident. Challoner left swiftly, leaving Kittering to calm and reassure his schoolfellow.

Throughout the long years of friendship which followed, neither of them ever referred to the incident again, but its legacy to Sir Vivian was a lasting gratitude to his friend, and a profound distaste for the unnatural tendencies displayed by the captain of the First XI. He had never been able to reconcile himself to the increasing tolerance towards homosexuals, and what he regarded as their ghastly practices.

When Sarah had announced her engagement a few months ago to the son of his oldest friend, Sir Vivian had been not only delighted, but relieved. Dearly as he loved his daughter, theirs had always been a somewhat awkward relationship, particularly after the death of Sarah’s mother. Without his wife to bridge the communication gap, Sir Vivian approached sole parental care of his extremely attractive and sexually precocious daughter with bafflement and anxiety, feeling the best he could do was to give her a generous allowance and hope she’d be bright enough not to make any disastrous mistakes. When Sarah left her boarding school to go to Oxford to study law, he had naturally been pleased, but wasn’t convinced that she had the necessary drive and tenacity to make much of a career of it. In his view, the best any girl could do was to find some decent man with a fair amount of money, and settle down. That Sarah had chosen to do this with the son of his best friend was more than Sir Vivian could have hoped for.

On the eve of his party, fifteen minutes before the
guests were due to arrive, Sir Vivian wandered through the reception rooms, surveying the array of glasses and bottles of champagne cooling in their baths of ice. He had toyed with the idea of cancelling the party a few weeks ago, fearing that, with a recession impending, it might look overly extravagant. But he was glad that he hadn’t. Besides, the simplicity of hotpot hinted at austerity. This year’s gathering would be more than a mere social event – it would also be a special celebration of the fact that his only daughter was to marry the son of his oldest friend. Smiling with satisfaction, he went through to the kitchen to see how the caterers were getting along.

While her father was inspecting trays of hotpot, Sarah was still in the office, trying to catch up with the last of her work. She’d already received more than one frosty reproof from her boss, Hugo, about sloppiness and bad timekeeping. Two weeks ago she couldn’t have cared less, confident that as soon as she was married she was going to dump the job. But Toby’s redundancy had changed everything. Until he found something else, they badly needed Sarah’s money. Only an hour ago, Hugo had dropped an urgent new matter on her desk, barking, ‘I need it tied up by the end of the day, so make sure you get it done tonight.’

She was leafing through the file when her mobile buzzed. It was Toby.

‘I’ve just had a shower, and I’ll be leaving the gym in ten minutes. Do you want me to pick you up?’

‘I’m still at the office. Probably going to be here for another half-hour at least. Bloody Hugo dropped something on me at the last minute. One of our major clients wants
reinsurance cover for a tanker going to Yemen. You go on without me. I’ll see you there.’

‘OK. Don’t work too hard.’

She clicked the phone off. That was a laugh. At least she had a job. All very well for people with time to spend in the gym. Why wasn’t he out there trying to find something? So far as she could tell, he’d done nothing all week. She turned back to the file. She’d got cover for seventy per cent of the risk, with the last thirty per cent still to get. In theory, she could go straight to her father’s bash from the office, but she really wanted to go home and have a shower and change, and not turn up in her office scruffs. So she needed to wrap this up in the next fifteen minutes, if possible. She pondered for a moment, then picked up the phone, deciding to give Gerald Last at Haddow Syndicate a shot. With any luck she’d catch him before he headed off to the wine bar for his Friday night drinking session. Gerald was a smooth operator, one of the old-school, long-lunching brigade who gave the lie to the notion that the City was no longer a sexist institution. He largely despised City women, but he liked Sarah because she was attractive, had decent legs and nice tits, and was a good sport. As a result he and Sarah had done a fair amount of business over the past year or so. Sarah, with robust cynicism, knew exactly how Gerald’s mind worked and was prepared to flirt and massage his ego to get the job done.

She found Gerald still in his office and, after some preliminary banter, explained what she needed.

‘Who else is on the slip?’ asked Gerald.

Sarah gave him the names of the other underwriters.

‘Fine,’ said Gerald. ‘Don’t see a problem.’

‘Great. Can I bring the documents over now for you to sign?’

‘Darling, I was just on my way out. Let it wait till Monday. You can take it you’re covered.’

Sarah hesitated. Strictly speaking she should get Gerald to initial the slip, but clearly he’d rather be heading off to Corney & Barrow than waiting around at the office for her. Besides, she was in a hurry, too. ‘OK. We’ll do it first thing on Monday. Thanks for that. Maybe see you for a drink soon?’

‘Charming idea,’ said Gerald. ‘Enjoy the weekend.’

Sarah put the phone down. Job done. She logged all the information on the computer, saved it, and hurried back to the flat in Docklands to shower and change.

By the time Sarah arrived at her father’s house, the party was well underway, the rooms ringing with well-bred chatter and laughter. It had taken Sarah longer to get ready than she’d anticipated. For some reason she felt the need to dress bravely, and had opted for a stunning little black Marc Jacobs number with the sheerest black stockings, which made the most of her legs, plus a pair of new Manolos with four-inch heels. Even without the dress and the heels, she knew she was the youngest and sexiest woman there. One glance round the room told her it was the usual crowd of Daddy’s moulting old birds and buffers. She gazed round at the crowd of lawyers and artists and writers, and reckoned the average age must be sixty.

Sir Vivian greeted his daughter with a kiss, dwelling on her appearance with a mixture of pride and anxiety, and reflecting that, like her mother, she was too extravagantly
pretty. He introduced her to a brace of elderly Benchers, one tall and crumpled, the other short, round and bald. They beamed with pleasure at the sight of a pretty girl and, forgetting their years and imagining themselves thirty again, they battled with one another to occupy the small talk high ground while pretending not to eye her cleavage. Sarah made a show of listening as she scanned the crowd for familiar faces. After a few minutes she saw Caroline Kittering heading straight for her, bright-eyed and clutching her champagne glass. Her face was pink, possibly from the effects of champagne, possibly because she was kitted out in full Country Casuals rig, wearing a woollen skirt, boots, and a quilted navy gilet over a cashmere jumper.

Sarah excused herself from the Benchers and greeted Caroline, stooping a little, because of the heels, to kiss the air either side of Caroline’s downy cheeks.

Caroline scarcely bothered to return the kiss, but launched straight in. ‘Toby told us the other night about losing his job. It’s simply ghastly. You poor children. Of course, I blame this wretched government.’ She glanced around. ‘Where is Toby? I’ve been looking for him everywhere since we arrived.’ She took a gulp of her champagne. ‘What was he thinking of, letting a whole week go by before telling us?’

‘He probably didn’t want to worry you.’

‘Of course, it means you’ll have to put the wedding back—’

But whatever else Caroline had to say, Sarah wasn’t listening. She had just caught sight of Leo on the far side of the room. He was leaning against a doorway, glass in hand, deep in conversation. The sight of him was a jolt to her senses – the handsome, well-defined features as youthful as
ever, his intelligent gaze and the flash of his disarming smile as familiar to her as though she’d last seen him yesterday, rather than four years ago.

She tore her gaze away and tried to pay attention to Caroline.

‘Because,’ Caroline was saying earnestly, ‘who knows how long this recession will last? Toby doesn’t seem to realise that things have changed. He has commitments now.’

‘Don’t you think this is something we should talk about when Toby’s around?’ said Sarah. She glanced again in Leo’s direction. She had to talk to him. He might leave at any minute. The two elderly Benchers were hovering hopefully a little way off. Sarah grabbed Caroline by the elbow and steered her towards them.

‘Caroline, may I introduce you to Mr Justice Waddell and Mr Justice Huntsby-Stevens?’

Having parked Caroline with the Benchers, she made her way quickly through the throng of people to the doorway. But he had disappeared. People were coming and going, but there was no sign of Leo. She felt an unnerving, unexpected sense of panic. Then a voice in her ear said, ‘Hello, young lady.’ She turned, and there he was.

She smiled, intent on remaining cool. ‘Leo. How lovely to see you.’

‘And you. What a long time it’s been.’ He drained his glass of champagne. ‘You look, if I may say so, as lovely as ever.’

‘Thank you.’ She was conscious that her heart was thudding.

‘You do realise, I’ve been coming to these parties of your father’s for the last three years, hoping you might show up?’

‘You’ve had other ways of getting in touch.’

‘True. But we always had a – what’s the word? – a capricious friendship. I was fairly confident that our paths would cross again. I enjoyed leaving it to fate.’

‘And letting fate decide whether the moment would be auspicious – or inauspicious?’

‘Inauspicious, it seems. I gather I’ve lost you to some lucky young man.’ He lifted her left hand, so that light glittered from her engagement ring.

The combination of his touch and the ridiculously affected nature of their conversation was too much. ‘Leo, can we stop this bullshit? I need another glass of champagne. I feel like getting rat-arsed. God knows, I’ve reason enough.’

Leo caught the eye of a passing waitress, and she refilled their glasses.

‘OK, bullshit over,’ said Leo. ‘So, tell me about your fiancé. He must be an exceptional individual to make you want to settle down. I never saw you as a one-man girl.’

‘You know how it is. The mating game gets exhausting after a while.’

‘Really? I recall you as having considerable stamina.’ Leo’s smile was just short of suggestive, but in his blue eyes she felt she could read their whole history, every sexual encounter, every bed-warmed conversation, every tetchy disagreement, every pleasurable weekend passed in the ease of one another’s company. What had happened to all that? As though reading her thoughts, he added, ‘I’ve thought about you a lot. In fact, when Anthony told me you were engaged, I felt—’

‘What?’

‘Something selfish. Proprietorial. Totally unjustified, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘So tell me about him. Who is he, what does he do?’

‘His name is Toby Kittering, and he’s – that is, he
was
a merchant banker, until a week ago. He got canned.’

‘That’s bad luck.’

She couldn’t meet Leo’s eye, not wanting to find herself, and her disloyal thoughts reflected there. ‘Yes, well … It makes things difficult.’ She glanced around the room. Anywhere but his penetrating gaze.