Lover in Law Read online

  Table of Contents

  JANUARY

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  FEBRUARY

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  MARCH

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  APRIL

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  MAY

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  JUNE

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  JULY

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  AUGUST

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  SEPTEMBER

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  OCTOBER

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  NOVEMBER

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  DECEMBER

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  EPILOGUE

  LOVER IN LAW

  Jo Kessel

  Copyright © Jo Kessel 2012

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

  The moral right of Jo Kessel has been asserted.

  For Mummy

  I wish you were still here.

  Acknowledgements:

  Gillian Stern and Marc de Leuw, this wouldn’t have happened without you and massive thanks to Carolyn Simon and Claire Sanderson for their reading of manuscripts, encouragement and belief. Anna Maxted, you are officially my inspiration; Drs Daddy, Anthony and Maurice I’m indebted to you for all things medical and more; law guru extraordinaire David Sherborne, your input on all things legal as well as Four Finger Freddie was pivotal. KK, KD, Debs, Nathalie Frischer, Fiona Giles, Gen, Emma Howard, Liz Martin, thank you for being there and listening and humouring me. Jill Robinson and Katie Coleman, sharing a couple of glasses of wine together proved invaluable. And it goes without saying, love and hugs and gratitude to Nathalie, Gabriel and Hannah for giving me enough peace and quiet to write this.

  JANUARY

  Chapter 1

  I couldn’t wait for last year to end. Out with the old, in with the new. To wipe the slate clean, start afresh. Not that it was an annus horribilis. It just wasn’t my annus bestis. When you lose your appetite for sex, orgasms, and champagne, you know it’s all gone a bit pear-shaped.

  The first six months were ok. Work (I’m a Barrister) trundled by with modest success. I’m not bad at what I do and won more cases than I lost. I even made it onto BBC London as the rent-a-quote for crime being on the up in the capital. My crowning glory! Then it all started to go downhill. For reasons I’ll come on to later, I became distracted, took my eye off the ball. I started losing more cases than I won, for the first time ever. There was no panacea for my decline. Champagne, which used to always hit the spot, stopped doing it for me. Too lightweight! Now only a full-bodied Claret or Burgundy will do.

  It’s the first day back in the New Year. I’m late for work and it’s down to Adam. Adam’s my boyfriend of eleven years. We met at college and that was it. The rest of my life mapped out in monogamy. We’re not married, but we do live together. Last year we bought a four-bed Victorian terraced house in Alexandra Park, North London, with plans to fill it with kids. Anyway, yesterday Adam messed up. A good deed turned wrong. I’m not angry. There is a funny side. Let’s just hope it’s not an omen.

  It was New Year’s Day. We’d had people round to celebrate the night before and were cleaning up. Adam put on the washing and transferred it to the dryer. Later, when I shoved everything from the dryer into a basket, I noticed something stuck in the metal mesh at the back of the drum. I leaned in, arm-first, yanked it free after several sharp tugs and, following brief inspection, threw it across the room, petrified.

  “ADAMMMMMMMM!”

  I squealed myself hoarse.

  “Ali?”

  Adam ran into the room.

  “What’s the matter?” he said, looking relieved to see me. “I thought you were being attacked or something with that racket.”

  Frozen, rooted to the spot, I pointed to the evidence, flung into the far corner.

  “RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT,” I squeaked, piercingly high.

  I can NOT do rodents. It’s the long flicking tail that sends shivers down my spine.

  “Dead or alive?” asked Adam, approaching it predatorily.

  “Well, what do YOU think? I found it at the back of the fucking dryer.”

  He crouched over it.

  “Dead. Definitely dead,” he nodded.

  He picked it up from the end of its tail and dangled it upside down. As he approached my direction I cowed towards the wall by the door.

  “Don’t come anywhere NEAR me with that!” I threatened.

  Adam pretended to come my way, but changed course at the last moment smiling, heading for our huge, shiny Brabantia bin. He opened the lid and ceremoniously dumped the rodent inside, slapping his palms clean. Calmer now, I pointed to the dryer.

  “How the FUCK did that thing get in there?” I asked.

  “More to the point, how on earth didn’t I spot it when I put the clothes in?”

  Later that day I was getting my gear ready for going back to work and couldn’t find my wig. I’d taken it out, inebriated, on New Year’s Eve, so everyone could play fancy dress. I think it makes me look about as fetching as a pit-bull terrier wearing lipstick, find it itchy and awkward perched on my long, straight black hair, but Adam’s deluded. He thinks it brings out my green eyes and a touch of the sex kitten. Anyway, I couldn’t find it and went into the lounge, where Adam was lying prostrate in front of the TV, to ask if he’d seen it.

  “Where’d you leave it?” he asked.

  “I thought I’d left it on the back of one of the chairs in the kitchen, but it’s not there.”

  He thought for a second.

  “Oops,” he placed his hand casually, almost playfully, over his mouth.

  “Adaaaaaaaaaam?” I accused.

  “I think I might have put my dirty clothes on top of your wig.”

  He pulled an apologetic face. I didn’t understand what he was saying at first, but after a couple of seconds I worked it out, ran to the bin, pushed up my sleeve and dug in bravely, brazenly pulling out the rat by the scruff of its hairy grey neck. Only it wasn’t a rat, it was my wig, shrunk to Barbie doll-size by the dryer.

  Adam joined me by the bin.

  “I’m so sorry. It was an accident. I’ll get you a new one.”

  I was upset, it has to be said—the wig had cost three hundred quid and was a present from my parents—but the sight of it, flapping between my thumb and index finger, resembling a well-used Brillo pad, was really rather comic. I sat the offending article on top of my head.

  “Do you think they measured me right at the shop?” I joked.

  Adam wrapped his tall chunky frame round my gangly boyish one.

  “Thank you for not being angry,” he said. As we tilted our heads to kiss, the rat
ty wig was dislodged from its pew, floated to my feet, landing with a gentle plop. We both burst out laughing.

  ***

  I’m late for work because I had to stop off first at Ede & Ravenscroft, makers of wigs and gowns, in Chancery Lane, to get my head re-measured. And I’m going to be even later because Adam wanted me to research something for him in the law library. I’m waiting for the librarian to bring me an old statute book.

  Adam’s a hotshot TV Producer. He works mainly on what they term in the industry as ‘infotainment’. Shows which aren’t serious enough to be called ‘factual’, nor frothy enough to count as ‘light entertainment’. He’s currently developing programmes. When I mentioned some of the silly, antiquated laws that still stand in this country, he thought there might be a germ of an idea there. Like you’re not allowed to fall asleep on a bus in London. Like ladies can’t eat chocolates on public transport. Like it’s unlawful to be drunk on licensed premises. Like it’s against the law to eat mince pies on December 25th.

  The silly law that amused Adam the most is that a man is allowed to wee in public, as long it’s on the rear wheel of his car and his right hand is on the vehicle. He said he’d love to try THAT in front of a police officer and then wondered if that could be the premise of a fly-on-the-wall spoof TV show. So he asked me to check it out.

  I don’t mind. I’ve always loved the library. The smell, the aura, the feel of all those dark wooden shelves and the leather-bound books that they’re laden with, many of which date back a fair few centuries. I often come here just to sit and think and not do any work at all.

  The librarian returns, carrying a huge red leather-bound book like a tray.

  “Here you go,” she loads it onto my waiting, upturned hands. “The Public Order Act, 1861. I think you’ll find what you’re looking for on page 4005.”

  I thank her and head for the nearest available pew. The book weighs a ton. I lay it down on the table, then take off my bag and sit down. First I touch the cover, trace small circles with the flat of my palms. Then I lower my nose to it, and take a deep, slow inhalation. It smells musty and woody. If books were described as wine, this one would be a touch of old berries, with an excess of tannin, and a mellow, earthy finish. I carefully open the book in half, thumbing lightly to page 4005. The first thing I notice isn’t the law that Adam’s after, although it is there, in black and white. It’s a small scrap of old parchment covered with black ink doodles, lodged in the deep fold of the book. I carefully ease it out. A lot of it’s just shapes, triangles, and 3-D squares, that kind of thing, but written three times, one under the other, is the same, smudged Latin phrase. ‘VERITAS VOS LIBERABIT’. The law is full of Latin, probably because so much of it and its traditions are archaic. I’ve picked up a bit on the way, but I’ve never heard of this one.

  “Excuse me,” I say, in a hushed voice, leaning towards the man on my right, who looks bookish and grey enough to know a spot of Latin. “Do you know what this means?”

  I show him the scrap of paper.

  “Veritas vos liberabit,” he whispers. “I’m pretty sure that means the truth will set you free.”

  “The truth will set you free,” I repeat. “Thank you.”

  He nods politely, then shifts back to his place.

  The truth will set you free. Now, there’s a concept! Where love is concerned, it might be accurate, but where the LAW is concerned it certainly doesn’t always apply.

  ***

  My win/lose ratio went downhill because a year ago we decided, on a ‘que sera sera’ approach, to try for a baby. It was fine for the first six months, but then the failure started to get to me. It wasn’t the failure per se. It was the lack of control I had over the situation. Normally, I know what I have to do to succeed. To work harder, try harder. But where Mother Nature is concerned, there’s only so much one can do to help. When sex and orgasms kept proving fruitless, I kind of lost focus on work and stopped caring quite so much.

  We had a good chat yesterday, Adam and I. We do that every year, on January 1st. Assess the highs and the lows of the past twelve months, our hopes for the future. We decided that what matters, first and foremost is US. The fact that we love each other so much after 11 years. We’ve been together since I was a fresher at Brighton University. Adam’s been there for me through thick and thin, more than my parents even, because they emigrated to Canada for my Dad’s work when my twin sister Kayla and I finished school. They’d wanted us to go with, but we decided to stay. Our friends were here and we’d both got places at college here. Adam and I also decided, even though we’re still fairly chill on the baby front and I’m young (if 29 counts), to get checked out just in case. And I resolved to do my damnedest to sharpen up at work, which I’ve always loved and been good at until six months ago.

  I toy with the idea of pocketing the doodle scrap of old parchment, as a talisman. At the last minute though, I decide to leave it where it belongs, safe in history, next to the silly law that lets a man pee on his Porsche in Oxford Street. As I close the statute book and pick up my bag, I decide to see the shrinking of my wig as a positive. Perhaps the new wig will be an even luckier wig, a fresh start, a new beginning for a New Year, full of enjoyable sex, orgasms, and champagne. An annus mirabilis!

  Chapter 2

  “So how are things, Alison Kirk? No REALLY, how are things?”

  I’m made uneasy by who’s asking this question. We were six having a pub lunch in The Wig and Pen. Anyway, I’m now alone with my mentor and head of Chambers, Maxwell Hood QC, sitting opposite each other on a small, rickety wooden table loaded with an alarming number of empty glasses. Two of them are mine. I’ve taken heed of my New Year’s resolution, toasting my first day back at work with bubbles. They’ve hit the spot.

  “I’m very well, thank you Max. REALLY, very, very well.”

  He looks like he’s about to say something else, but he doesn’t. He just looks at me, which I find slightly unnerving. Good Barristers do that. They have this ‘look’. It’s designed to make people squirm in the stand, make even the innocent feel guilty. That’s how I feel, even though I’m sure it’s not intended.

  Maxwell is a doppelganger of Dustin Hoffman, only much, much fatter. He might be short and squat, but he’s tall in stature. He’s a brilliant orator, one of the best in the country, and I’ve got him to thank for being where I am. As a graduate of a second-rate university, I was a persona non-grata where getting pupillage was concerned. But for whatever reason, he saw something in me, took me on and under his wing, despite being graded a spectacularly unremarkable ‘competent’ in the qualifying exams. When I’d got to know him better, I asked why he’d offered me a job. He said he’d seen me as tarnished silver. Would shine nicely with a bit of polish. Anyway, my sixth sense sniffs that he might be questioning my sheen. I was hoping nobody would notice if I stayed low-key, but losing ten of my last twelve cases obviously didn’t pass Max by.

  “Is everything alright at home?”

  “Yes Max, it is.”

  I pause, reflecting. Either I can brush off his concern and let him think he’s barking up the wrong tree, imagining things, or I can take the bull by the horns, show him that I know where he’s coming from and not to worry, it’s all under control. I pick the latter.

  I cast my eyes down at the empty glasses, then up at him and match his gaze full on.

  “I have been going through some personal stuff recently and I let myself take my eye off the ball, but everything’s fine now.”

  He nods.

  “I’m pleased to hear that Ali, really, I am. But you know what they say in the business. You’re only as good as your last case. When you’ve got a generally good track record, which you do, you can afford the odd blip. And we all know that some cases you just won’t win, for whatever the reason. But I’ve been disappointed in you, these last few months. I expect more. You can’t let your personal life interfere with your professional performance.”

  My heartbeat steps up a gear, a ci
rcle of nausea starts to spin behind the top of my ribcage. I hate being reprimanded, but most of all I hate letting Max down. He’s been so good to me. He gave me the chance when nobody else would and he’s always fought my corner.

  “I know. I expect more of me too. I won’t let you down again.”

  I mean what I’m saying one hundred per cent.

  “Good Ali, but talk is cheap. Results are what it’s all about.”

  “I know. I’ll do better, I promise.”

  He smiles warmly, pats his hand paternally on my two, which are crossed at the fingers, resting on the table.