Author: Emma Hamilton
Date: 2019-10-11 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; General
Description: Harry has given up everything and lives on the streets with his dog, Jenny. He meets a burnt out and disillusioned divorce lawyer who is searching for purpose in his life, away from the money-driven demands of millionaire clients and big firm profiteering. Once their paths cross, they find a new way together a world of purpose, compassion and family values - but only after the lawyer reveals his former colleagues for the people that they are.
Publisher: Brown Dog Books
Rights: © Emma Hamilton 2019

HARRY

First published 2019

Copyright © Emma Hamilton 2019

The right of Emma Hamilton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Published under licence by Brown Dog Books and The Self-Publishing Partnership, 7 Green Park Station, Bath BA1 1JB
www.selfpublishingpartnership.co.uk

ISBN printed book: 978-1-83952-070-9

ISBN e-book: 978-1-83952-071-6

Cover design by Kevin Rylands

Internal design by Andrew Easton

Printed and bound in the UK

This book is printed on FSC certified paper

HARRY

EMMA HAMILTON

In memory of Jonny Porter.

Foreword

This book is entirely fictional and none of the characters are real or based on real people. Any similarity with real people is entirely fortuitous and unintended. And Jonny? Jonny is real and we haven’t forgotten you.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter One

‘Excuse me. Have you seen the guy who usually sits outside the jeweller’s with a dog?’

‘Sorry?’

‘There’s a guy who sits over there with a dog. I haven’t seen him for a few days. I usually talk to him. I wondered if you might have seen him.’

‘You mean the chap who sits there begging? No, mate. I haven’t. I’ve got no time for people like that.’

‘Oh, he’s alright. His name’s Harry.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you. The other day a woman took pity on one of them and bought him a meat pie from over there.’ He pointed to a greasy spoon café across the road. ‘When she gave it to him, he said, “No thanks, I’m vegetarian.” I’d have rammed it in his fucking face.’

‘Well, I’m veggie, too. I hope no one does that to me when I go out to dinner next. Have a good one, matey.’

‘Some of them get as much as 70 quid a day at weekends.’ I didn’t reply. I suppose I could have told him that I earned £70 in twelve minutes – my charging rate then was £350 an hour. But that was different, of course. I was not a beggar.

Anyway, that was me speaking to the man who sells sunglasses and other junk from a stall on the street. I always used to say good morning to him on my run in to the office – I even bought a pair of shades from him once and wore them thinking I looked cool. Until my eldest son, Paul, heard about it and sent me a text: ‘Dad, I don’t mind you running around dressed like a paedophile but promise me you won’t go within 50 yards of a children’s playground. ‘OK, Jimmy Savile sends his love,’ I had replied. But I ditched the glasses – thinking about it, they were a bit red-tinted and round.

I hadn’t seen Harry for about ten days by then and I was getting anxious about what might have happened to him. The last time I had seen him I had been dying of man flu, the fatal condition no woman ever understands, and had been feeling like shit.

‘How are you, Jon?’ Harry had said when I saw him that morning.

‘I’ll be dead tomorrow, Harry. Man flu.’

‘Seriously?’ Harry hadn’t quite got it.

‘No. I’m just pissing about. Bit of a cold. And you? You look frozen.’

‘Rough night. Got soaked. Jenny kept me warm, though.’

Jenny was his immaculately kept bulldog. She always used to smile when she saw me coming over – well, if a dog can smile, that is. But she looked up at me anyway when I crouched down to stroke her and she sort of wagged her stubby tail.

‘You’re a good girl, Jenny, aren’t you? Looking after the boss, eh?’ I sat on the pavement next to them.

I noticed that Harry was shivering. ‘Harry, you’re shivering. Have you had any breakfast?’

‘Not yet.’ That is ‘not yet’ as in ‘got no money.’

‘Where did you sleep last night?’

‘Usual place.’ That meant that he’d slept in the park. There is a large cement pipe that children crawl through and he used that to sleep in when no one else had got there first. If it rained heavily, however, the water poured in at one end of the pipe and turned it into a stream.

‘Got any plans for the day?’ I asked, not knowing what else to say.

‘Thought I’d catch a plane to the south of France.’ He laughed, showing his rotting teeth that were heavily nicotine-stained. ‘No...Might just go for a walkabout.’

‘Well. Keep in touch. I need to get going, buddy. I’m late… as ever. Get yourself some breakfast.’ I gave him the £2 that I had put in my right-hand pocket earlier that morning, expecting to see him on my way in. I noticed his hands were shaking as he took the money.

‘Thanks, Jon.’ I was about to run on.

‘Oh, fuck it, Harry.’ I reached into my other pocket where I had a D-shaped purse with a load more change. ‘Do me a favour and take the lot, would you?’ I emptied the purse into my hand and gave him the money. It was probably no more than about £3.50 at most. I always shook his hand when I left him and, by then, had even managed to persuade myself not to use an antiseptic hand-wash after doing so.

‘Take care of yourself, Harry.’ Stupid thing to say. No one else would take care of him. Well, no one except Jenny. He’d been on the streets for the past two years. He didn’t drink and didn’t do drugs and that meant that he wasn’t treated as any sort of priority for housing. He kept being told by the housing people that he should go back to Oxford, where he had lived before he walked out of everything he knew without a penny to his name. He had left behind his three kids and his failed marriage and hadn’t been back since or seen any of them again. He named his dog after his youngest daughter.

‘Why not do as they suggest?’ I asked him once.

‘What’s the point? One street looks very much like any other and they’re not going to find me anywhere in Oxford, are they?’

He was right of course and, anyway, he had told me, he was brought up in Southampton: it felt like home and he liked being by the sea. So, he had come here, by foot, when things went pear-shaped in Oxford. And mental health provision for people like him? It’s called care in the community – AKA living on the streets.

‘Were you in trouble when you left?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘With the police, or anything like that.’ He knew what I was getting at.

‘No, nothing like that. And don’t worry, I’m not a nonce.’ Harry is clever and very switched on.

Although, from time to time, Harry did disappear from his usual spot for a few days, there were other stretches when I saw him every day. It just seemed increasingly impossible not to stop and talk to him, so I got to know him quite well after a while. He was always polite and cheery except for once. I had asked him if he missed his kids; that was the only time I’d seen him cry.

He’d wiped his eyes with the back of his filthy hand, sniffed a bit and then asked: ‘Tell me about your kids, Jon.’ So, I did.

I told him all about them and all about myself. At times, it felt like five minutes of daily therapy for me – a kind of role reversal. I think hearing my tale of happy families allowed him a few minutes away from the shit that surrounded him. I even brought my two youngest kids in to meet him once. They were all over Jenny and then asked if they could give Harry the bit of money they had on them. Bless them: they’re good kids even if they did squabble a lot back then.

Anyway, I ran on, feeling pleased with myself, plugging the earphones in and listening to loud trash music as I resumed my geriatric jog and sniffed my way down the street. True to his word, Harry had gone for a walkabout, after that day, which is why I didn’t see him for some time.

‘Morning, sir.’ That was Harvey, the handsome security guard who always held the door open for me as I arrived at the office in the morning.

‘Thanks, Harvey. How’s the best-looking man in town?’

‘Don’t know, sir. You’d best look in the mirror.’

‘I did once. It cracked.’

‘Actually, now you mention it, sir…’ He looked at me and grinned.

‘My talents lie in other departments, Harvey. So they all tell me.’

‘Really? And you believed them?’

Yeah, well, Harvey won that one. Then I saw Arun and thought I would try again. Arun was another security guard. He taught me to swear in Welsh.

‘Testa di cazzo. Come on, you can say it, Arun.’ I taught him to swear in Italian. It means ‘dickhead.’

‘Cachau bant…sir.’ He smiled as only Arun can. It means ‘fuck off’, I think.

‘It’s the way you tell them, Arun. You’re the best.’ I realised that I still had trance music playing on my iPod. Arun could hear it, too, even though the plugs were still in my ears.

‘Makes you deaf, sir.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t catch that,’ I lied. ‘What does?’

Arun pretended he was about to put his hand down the front of his trousers.

‘Save it for later, Arun. Anyway, it’s blind, not deaf.’

‘Not when I went to school, it wasn’t. But you know best, sir. Tidy,’ he said in an exaggerated Welsh accent. Come to think of it, I suppose I lost that one, too, didn’t I?

Chapter Two

‘We need to look through the document you have kindly prepared.’

The guy sitting opposite me was an estate agent or, rather, he owned a string of estate agencies. He was aged 51, wore a designer sports jacket, a designer shirt, designer shoes… everything about him was designer, even his haircut. He also wore designer trousers, no doubt of the type that he had been unable to keep on when he committed the many acts of adultery that his wife had cited in her first draft petition for divorce. I had negotiated the petition down with his wife’s solicitor to one based on a single act of adultery but was left wondering how his grossly overweight carcass had ever managed to perform any sexual act, let alone repeated acts of infidelity. I couldn’t imagine how any woman could have even found his necessary dangly bits under the layers of wobbling flab or found him attractive enough to do the business. It must have been like having sex under a steamroller, not that I have ever tried that.

‘Mr Hamley-Smith, can I just make sure? Have you checked through the document carefully, please?’

‘Of course.’ He shifted in his seat. I had already explained to him that it must contain a full and frank account of all his capital and income. He had to swear that it was true, as to which there were two hopes. Bob Hope and no hope.

Mr Hamley-Smith, or Peregrine as I was asked to call him, was a liar. He had a really irritating habit of sweeping his straight, grey hair back with his hand while throwing his head backwards or pointing with the arm of his designer glasses when he was lying. I knew that, if it ever came to it, he was going to make a lousy witness. But he paid his bills on time and wanted me to pretend that, as decent chaps, we would pull together in his moment of adversity where his wife of fifteen years wanted to make a grasping assault, as he saw it, on his money. Now, when he left the room I really did struggle not to use antiseptic hand-wash.

‘So, you say that the house is worth £1.5 million?’ I asked. His wife was running an argument that she should stay in the family home, so he wanted to respond to that by plainly overvaluing it. I knew it was probably worth no more than about £1.3 million and had a mortgage of £300,000 on it. Peregrine wanted it sold and thought he could get a percentage of the sale proceeds by wheeling and dealing through the divorce case. I touched, once, on the possibility that she might stay there with their two horrid children – the result was spectacular. He shifted in his chair, swept his hair back, pointed at me with the arm of his glasses and lied so much that I found myself looking to see if smoke was pouring out of his underwear.

I had felt compelled to go to the house once for a carnivorous dinner party after the commercial partners had wrapped up a deal for him, my note that I was vegetarian totally ignored. Everything in the house was bright, white, modern and tasteless. We were served canapés by their two spoilt brat daughters who wore fairy dresses and subjected the guests to their under-practised piano pieces during the only lull in the piped boogie-woogie music that played constantly through the ceiling speakers for the rest of the evening.

‘Shoot me. And do it quietly,’ I had muttered to my wife after one of the spotty girls, who had the inapposite name of a Greek goddess, had murdered a simplified version of ‘Air on a G String’.

‘They’ve renamed that piece,’ my wife giggled, out of control. ‘It’s called Air on a Dirty Pair of Knickers, now.’

‘Bet there are skid marks on the piano stool.’

‘Stool on stool, then.’ My wife then laughed so much that a spray of champagne came shooting out of her mouth and she had to pretend she was choking.

‘Now you really are taking the piss.’

‘Stop!’ she told me and went to the loo.

Also at the dinner party had been Peregrine’s elderly mother who looked like a scrawny goat. To signal that we were amongst the least valued guests we were sitting next to her at dinner. Her only conversation had been to say that she preferred dogs to people – not the best way to get other people to warm to you – and didn’t like vegetables.

‘Why don’t you like vegetables?’ Susan, my wife, had asked. What do you say to someone as miserable as that? Met any trolls recently?

‘Because I don’t,’ she had bleated with her clipped Essex tongue and had then carried on chewing the steak and forking bits of it out of her mouth when she found her false teeth could not grind them down.

When we had got back home that night we had sunk a bottle of Prosecco together and both groaned, ‘Never again.’ And we stuck to that.

‘Guess what the gossip is about what Peregrine uses as birth control?’ I said to Susan before the alcohol finally cast us both into booze-ridden sleep.

‘Give up.’

‘His personality.’

‘Can’t take any more,’ Susan said and fell asleep.

Oh well, back to his bloody document of lies. There are lies, damn lies and then there are the utterances of Peregrine.

‘We’d better look at what you’ve said about the company,’ I said, realising that it meant that I was putting his underwear well beyond combustion point.

Peregrine did a multiple lying manoeuvre. Skilful, definitely, but it left me thinking he would fall out of the chair before adopting his prep school manner of fibbing school bully.

‘I don’t see why it’s anything to do with her.’

‘Come on, Peregrine, you know the score. You’ve been married to her for fifteen years. You’ve got two kids.’

‘So what? She had nothing when I married her.’ Peregrine thought he had been a big catch. Big? Yes. Catch? I couldn’t see it.

‘Peregrine, once we have got all the documents sorted, we’ll get counsel’s advice. Ducks in a row first, though, that kind of thing. So, for now, we need to get this document right. I know it’s a pain.’ I flipped the work of fiction that he had prepared – it’s called a Form E, the ‘E’ in this case stood for evasion. He understood about ducks, though; he shot them.

‘Well, I’ve put my share of the company down at the value suggested by our accountant.’ Peregrine, his brother (Bertram) and his mother (Gladys) each had a one-third share in the company which owned the estate agencies. The value of Peregrine’s share had been worked out by their bent accountant looking at the net asset value of the company as shown in the balance sheet of accounts that were two years out of date and then applying a discount of 30% to Peregrine’s share because he only had a minority interest.

‘We may have a few problems with the figure you’ve given,’ I tried.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, the assets of the company include the freehold of all the business premises. When were they last valued for the accounts?’ I could see from the historical accounts that they had not been revalued for years.

‘Whose side are you on?’

‘I’m on your side. But we do need to get this right.’

‘OK, Jon…’

‘Jonathan.’ I was not getting friendly with him again. He was a client. I wasn’t going within a million miles of another dinner party like the last one. Susan would have refused to go anyway. Point-blank.

‘Jonathan. But I would like you to use the figure I’ve given, please. I’m not giving her anything on a plate.’ He tried to put on an ‘I’m the boss’ tone that just made him sound like a complete arse.

‘That’s your choice, I accept. But I will write to you to record that we may have problems with this later.’

‘Just so long as you don’t charge me for the letter.’

Chapter Three

So that was the sort of work I did. Divorces for the big and the brave, or rather the people who could put more than six figures to their wealth. Millionaires, like Peregrine. Some nice. Some not. When I started in this job I used to enjoy fighting for the underdog, but then beggars can’t be choosers, as Harry understands. Your clients pay the bills, so you don’t piss them off.

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 happens 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 list.

‘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.’

‘Look, I’ve got a short hearing in court this morning. Let’s grab some lunch together later.’

‘Good one. See you later. And thanks.’ He is such a nice guy.

Seb and I had just settled down for lunch at a table in the wine bar near the office. I wanted to see how he was after the news I had given him that morning.

‘Oh no. Don’t look but guess who’s just come in.’ Seb gave a sideways glance.

‘Grendel’s mother.’ Seb knew the patois as well as I did.

Clarissa zoned in on us, gave an imperious smile and then crossed over to our table.

‘Mind if I join you boys?’ Yes, I did mind. Big time. But I could hardly tell the senior partner to take a leap, could I? So we were stuck with her. She waved at the barman, tipped her hand in front of her mouth to signal that she wanted her usual glass of chilled Chardonnay, and then made damn sure that she dominated the conversation by droning on about how well the firm was doing.

‘I’ll pay,’ she said when we had all eaten. Seb thanked her and then excused himself from the table, saying he had to get back to draft some documents arising from the hearing he had done that morning.

She stared across the table at me. ‘We have to look after our youngsters, don’t we...and what goes on at home stays at home, eh?’ In other words, remember I’ve gagged you about what was said at the partners’ meeting.

‘Let’s go splits,’ I replied but she insisted on paying. No doubt she would put it down to expenses.

The afternoon was busy and, every time I tried to catch up with Seb, there were other people around. He had to shoot off as soon as possible at the end of the day to get back home for his family. But just before he left he finally caught up with me.

‘If you bump into Freja by any chance, please don’t tell her. She’s pretty down at the moment.’ That was all he had time for; his life revolved around work and family. I never heard of him going out with the friends or playing sport. Much of the time he looked knackered and his conversation was often about broken nights.

When I got home that evening, Susan and I sat down at the kitchen table with each other once the two younger kids were in bed and I told her what had been going on. It was Friday and our ritual was to have a bottle of sparkling wine together to mark the end of the week: we called it Fizzy Friday. The older two kids were out with mates overnight.

‘The partners are so stupid. And so short-sighted.’ That was her response to my account of the partnership meeting. As a GP who works long hours in a community-based practice, she despised the big money-seekers and had no interest at all in the legal luvvies. She even told Clarissa to stop talking shop once – in precisely those terms – at a partners’ dinner when Clarissa was boring everyone to tears by going on and on about her work.

‘They just want as much money as they can get. It’s all about that. They don’t give a shit about clients that don’t have money. Or the likes of Seb.’ It was so helpful to be able to offload how I felt with someone I trusted.

‘Strange form of client care. Can you imagine if my patients were treated like that?’

‘Quite. But then legal rights aren’t visible, are they?’

‘Well, Jon. See how it goes. But you know that if ever you want to get out of the rat race, I would never stand in your way. We don’t need lots of money. We can get by on my pay.’ See why I love my wife so much now?

‘You are very good to me, you know.’

‘I only want you for your body, though. Good job, too. Your mind’s a cesspit.’

‘We’re well matched, then.’ After that it was time for the rest of the Friday night Susan and Jon ritual.

Chapter Six

Seb did not come into work the following Monday. He had been due to represent a child through her guardian in court that morning on an application for what is called an interim care order; social services wanted to remove a young girl from home because her parents were drinking, taking drugs, hitting each other and neglecting the child. So frequent is that type of thing that, when I do work like that now, I abbreviate it in my notes to D, D, DV (domestic violence) and N. Both parents had learning disabilities. … LD x 2 in my notes. Oh, and MH, too – mental health issues.

‘You’d better cancel my appointments this morning,’ I had to say to Jane, my secretary. ‘I have to cover for Mr Pedersen in court.’ There was no one else available to do the case and you can’t drop a court case.

‘Boadicea will love this.’ I like Jane. She’d been with me for about eleven years by then. Susan always calls her the other woman in my life, but there has never been anything like that between us – she has a wonderful partner called Ella, anyway, so a middle-aged married man doesn’t hold out much attraction to her.

‘Well, you know what Boadicea can do, then, don’t you?’

Jane shuffled in her chair, smiled and said, ‘Ouch.’

On my way to court, I had a text message from Seb: ‘Sorry, Jon, Freja is all over the place. I just can’t leave her.’

The hearing happened and the inevitable interim care order was made. It was a typical care case. The mother had been in care herself, came out of care with inadequate support, got pregnant when still a teenager and couldn’t cope with a baby. So the system operated to separate her from her child, declaring that to be in the paramount interests of the child, rather than helping her parent her own baby.

The only other detail I remember is that the barrister for the local authority described the hearing as being like shooting fish in a barrel. ‘Poor fish,’ I had said.

As soon as I got back, I rang Seb.

‘Are you OK?’

‘I am. But Freja isn’t. She’s reached an all-time low.’

‘Is it alright to talk?’

‘Fine. I’m out walking with the kids.’

‘What happened?’

‘She worked out that I had things on my mind on Friday and kept asking me what was wrong. So, in the end I told her.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘Then she kept asking how we were going to manage and getting herself into a complete state. She’s now saying that we should go and live with her family in Denmark.’ Freja is Danish, too, and comes from Aarhus, but she had come to university in England, where she had met Seb who was brought up here.

‘Just take it a step at a time. We don’t actually know what is going to happen here yet.’

‘Maybe not. But we’ve got a pretty good idea.’

‘Are you coping?’

‘Just about. I feel bombed out, really.’

‘Well, I’ll cover for you here, don’t worry. You need to sort things out at your end so just forget about work for a bit.’ I didn’t have any big hearings that week and could shift those that I did have to barristers.

‘Thanks, Jon. Best go. Theo has run ahead.’ Theo was his very active three-year-old.

It took Jane about an hour and a half to rearrange my diary. The next thing that happened that day was that Boadicea came storming into my room as if in a chariot.

‘Can I have a word please?’ she asked, putting her head round the door as if my room was too demeaning to enter.

‘Of course, take a seat.’

‘Do you mind if we do it in my room upstairs, please?’ It wasn’t a question. It was time for me to take a caning in the headmistress’s study.

‘Sit down. Care for some sparkling water?’ she asked me, smiling. I knew I was really in the shit then. She only smiled at me before she bit.

‘No thanks, Clarissa. How can I help?’

‘To cut a long story short, I was a bit worried about the way that you spoke at the meeting on Thursday and I know the other equity partners were as well.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. But, speaking even more succinctly, you know how I feel. I really don’t think that we should give up the legally aided work.’

‘But look. Here’s a printout of the profits. I’ve been discussing them this afternoon with some of the others. It’s only just cutting even.’ In other words, some of the other partners had nobbled her since lunchtime.

‘I know. I helped produce them, remember? But it is still important work.’

‘Depends on how you define important. It’s not going to get more profitable, you know.’

We played verbal bat and ball for a bit more until I got pissed off with the game.

‘Clarissa, this is pointless. As I’ve said, you know how I feel. I’m not going to change my view, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s very disappointing.’

‘And I’m not a child, thank you.’ The red mist came swirling in again.

Clarissa went into the attack on another front.

‘What’s happened to Pedersen?’

‘You mean Sebastian. His wife is seriously depressed so I’m having to cover for him for a bit.’

‘We’re really not very happy about that, either.’ It was plain she had not meant to put it in quite that way.

‘Clarissa, I don’t understand. Are you policing my diary now?’ I knew Jane would not have said a word.

‘Not at all. We’ve had a complaint from a client about you shifting his work around.’

‘Oh yeah. Which client?’ I knew damn well. The one who wanted me to prostitute myself to his lying ways.

‘I’m not at liberty to tell you that.’ Of course not, it wouldn’t go down well when the partners had their next session of gossipmongering.

‘Look, Clarissa. I’m really sorry that we are doing so little to promote your happiness profile. But we need to look after people. You can’t always walk on the other side of the street from the man in the ditch.’

‘What are you saying? What about your clients?’

‘I’ve rearranged them.’

‘But they’re fee-paying clients. You’ve rearranged them to do legal aid work?’ She knew the answer to that already, but I wasn’t going to take it lying down.

‘No. I’ve rearranged them to do court work to which this firm is committed.’

‘Farm it out to counsel please and keep your own work.’

‘Too late. I’ve already done it.’ She plainly knew that, too. The whole conversation was like playing bridge, a game I loathe.

‘You should have asked me first. This really is not good enough. I’ll discuss this with the others and write to you. But it is not to happen again, please. From now on you do your own work, please.’

‘Finished?’ I asked, getting up from my chair.

‘For now.’

Chapter Seven

‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’ Thank God for Jane. I’m not sure that secretaries are supposed to be on-hand therapists but Jane is. I trusted Jane – I still do – and she trusts me. I was best man at the wedding when she and Ella got married.

‘OK. What did she say?’

‘Jane, I can’t tell you. If I did, we would both get crapped on. But you know what happened to the criminal department.’ That’s all it took again. Everyone knew that the legal aid work was under threat.

‘I knew that this was going to happen. Dump legal aid to fill the coffers, and bugger the consequences.’ Jane has a way with words. ‘But it’s not what this firm is about. Until recently, we all looked after each other and cared for our clients. She just wants to turn this into a factory.’

‘Yeah, and she may well be about to succeed.’

‘I’m not staying if that’s what happens. How about all the kids and their poor bloody parents? Who represents them?’

‘Who knows? Anyway, it may all come to nothing. And for God’s sake, don’t leave, Jane. That really would be the final straw. I’d follow you, I can tell you.’

‘Have you ever thought about setting up on your own, Jon? You wouldn’t treat people in the way that she does.’

‘You’re beginning to sound like Susan. She keeps telling me we don’t need the money.’

‘Great minds…’

‘I’ll think about it, but not now. Nose to the grindstone. Do you think you could find the papers for Seb’s court case tomorrow, please? Do you know, I think it will feel quite good to be back on my feet in front of the magistrates.’

Jane smiled at me and then got on with her typing. I tried to carry on reading the papers once she’d found them, but each time I started I found myself drifting away from them and thinking about what I would like to say to Clarissa. When it was time to leave the office, I had to stuff the lever arch file and my laptop into my backpack and run to where I parked the car, lugging what felt like a lead weight on my back. In those days, I always used to dump the car on the outskirts of the city every morning at the point where the rush hour traffic starts to pile up.

‘Jesus, Jon. You look like a packhorse.’ That was Harry when I jogged up to him that evening. ‘Have you just robbed a bank?’

‘Of course. Two, actually… and I mugged a few old ladies on the way.’

‘What have you got in there?’ He lifted the backpack up with one hand. ‘You’ve got the weight of the world on your back.’

‘Feels like it. No, it’s only a load of legal nonsense. Papers and that.’

‘You ought to travel light, like me, Jon.’ He laughed. ‘We could show him what the world is really about, couldn’t we, Jenny?’ He gave her a stroke and then kissed her on the top of her head.

‘I might just take you up on that, one day, Harry.’ I sat with him on the pavement for a few minutes more and then did my usual ‘I’m late’ routine.

Monday nights are always busy in our home. Swimming club, music lessons, homework…the usual runabout. Two kids in their early teens with all that involves, and two under ten from our second round of making babies. I remember once exploding when they were all squabbling: ‘Why did I ever have so many children?’ ‘Because you never learnt the meaning of the word contraception probably,’ my eldest son shot back at me, causing even more squabbles. ‘You mean they shouldn’t have had us?’ from the younger ones. ‘Yes,’ from the older ones, and ‘That really is not very nice’ from me.

By the time I got home that evening, I was flustered about the work that I had to do and unceremoniously dumped responsibility for the kids on Susan, who just shrugged her shoulders and got on with it. Her line was always: ‘I know the score.’ My line? ‘I’m being a pain in the neck, I know. Sorry.’

I finally emerged from the study at ten o’clock and headed straight for the wine in the fridge.

‘So, what’s been going on?’ asked a very tired Susan who had just put paid to the final kids’ squabble of the day. It didn’t take me long to explain and when I had finished I thought she was going to stab the kitchen table with the knife she was using to cut up the kids’ sandwiches.

‘What is wrong with that woman? Does she really think she is God Almighty just because she is the senior partner in a small law firm?’ Not the most PC thing to say but when Susan blows, she blows. She is three years older than me and, if ever the chips are down, she tends to revert to being the fourth-year medical student who is dating the new boy from the Law Faculty; and, of that, I have never complained. It makes me feel secure, as I know I am. That feeling…her arm around my shoulder, the tears of kindness in her eyes when I got upset by life’s harshness. My wife. My wonderful wife.

‘It’s Seb I’m worried about.’ I have always known I can tell her the truth, and that really matters.

‘Have you contacted him this evening?’

‘Yes, of course. His mum has come over from Exeter to be with him.’

‘Do you want to go round and see him?’ He lives in Southampton itself, whereas we live about twenty miles away, in the middle of the New Forest.

‘Not now. It’s way too late. But thanks.’

‘He needs to get himself signed off so he can stick a medical certificate under the nose of that miserable bitch.’

‘I’ll tell him to sort that out in the morning.’

‘And tell him that if he needs any help he should ring me. Can you give him my mobile number please?’

‘Sure. Thanks for being so good about this. How was your day?’

‘No, Mrs Smith, you can’t have any more antibiotics. You’ve just got a cold. Man up.’

‘Man up?’

She smiled. Susan has a very soft smile and a beautifully soft voice. ‘Pour me some wine. Surely you’ve got some uses?’

I smiled back: ‘One or two. One or two.’

Then it was time for the best place on earth. My bed. Our bed. The final frontier. Warm and secure next to my wife – even if we were rocked to sleep with the sound of the oldest kids playing some horrid computer games in the background.

Chapter Eight

The following day was spent in court, before a District Judge. I had to cover for one of Seb’s cases in which a local authority sought a care order in relation to a baby boy. The case was only listed for two days because most of the facts were agreed; the question for the court was what should happen with the baby; the local authority wanted to place him for adoption. There was a psychologist who gave evidence that, because of the mother’s own abusive upbringing and learning disability, she needed therapy to surmount the damage of the past. However, the psychologist said, given the delay and the fact that therapy takes time to have an effect, the benefits of therapy ‘were outwith the timescales of the child’. In other words, it was too late now for her to be able to keep her child.

‘Do you know why therapy was not offered to this mother when she was pregnant?’ I asked the psychologist in cross-examination.

‘No, I don’t.’

‘If therapy had been given to her and had worked, are you saying that there is a prospect that she might have been able to keep her child?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘How much would therapy for a year cost, on average, please?’

‘It costs about £100 a session at the moment. So, I suppose that fortnightly therapy sessions for a year would cost about £2,000…allowing for holidays.’

‘How much are you charging for giving evidence?’

‘Is this relevant?’ the psychologist asked the District Judge, looking uncomfortable.

‘Answer the question, please,’ the Judge, who was plainly on to the point, replied.

‘Well, I charged £2,400 plus VAT for my first report.’

‘Right, so that’s about £3,000, including the VAT.’

‘Yes.’

‘And your second report?’

‘£800, plus VAT.’

‘So that’s about £1,000, including the VAT.’

‘And giving evidence today, how much for that?’

‘£1,000, plus VAT and expenses.’

‘So, the cost of your evidence could have provided an awful lot of therapy, couldn’t it? Isn’t that right?’

‘I suppose what you are saying is correct on the mathematics.’

‘What therapy have you identified as being available to this mother?’

‘Well, I haven’t.’

‘Why not? You recommend it.’

‘I can’t answer that.’

‘Would you agree with me that it was obvious from the start that this mother needed therapy – obvious from well before the time of this little boy’s birth?’

‘Yes.’

‘This mother’s own upbringing was so abusive that it was inevitable that she would suffer psychological and emotional damage because of it, was it not?’

‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘Now, imagine that this child is placed for adoption, on your understanding what has been put in place to prevent exactly the same thing happening again when and if this mother has another child?’

‘Nothing as far as I know.’

‘Do you regard that as satisfactory?’

‘That’s not for me to say. But, I’m afraid what I am saying is that, for whatever reason, it is too late now to do anything about this child.’

Well, I did my best but faced with the evidence of the psychologist, the recommendation of the guardian that the baby should be placed for adoption and the weight of evidence from the social services, the outcome was inevitable.

And then, when the case had finished, there was the question of how to deal with a heartbroken mother. What can you say to a nineteen-year-old mother in circumstances like that? Yes, the interests of her child were said to be the paramount consideration of the court. But does that mean you ditch parents? Does it? Really? And how long until she has the next one, lining the pockets of the lawyers and so-called professionals?

Chapter Nine

The letter from Clarissa came on Wednesday, in the middle of that case, as a PDF attachment to an email. It had been countersigned by each of the equity partners. I have kept a copy of it in the file that I have at home for personal stuff and, every now and again, I read it to remind myself why I have done what I have.

‘Dear Jonathan,’ it started. ‘We were deeply disappointed by the very negative attitude that you displayed at the partners’ meeting when the senior partner raised for discussion the issue of whether we should continue to do legally aided work. As she made very clear from the moment she introduced the issue for debate, she was doing no more than initiating discussion about a process of enquiry and consultation that, no doubt, will take some months to conclude. Your intemperate attempt to block that discussion and your dismissive rejection of the good intent of the equity partners traversed the unity upon which this firm has always been based. Please may we ask you to reflect upon this and avoid any repetition of the type of incident that occurred at the meeting? We trust that you will also observe and respect the confidentiality that attaches to partnership meetings and not discuss this issue with others, especially other employees of the firm; I have to warn you that any breach of this requirement would be regarded very seriously.

‘We are also deeply disappointed to learn that you decided, without discussion with any of us, to clear many of your own appointments with privately paying clients to cover for Mr Pedersen’s legally aided work in his absence. This should not have occurred. In future you must discuss any material changes to your work pattern, such as those which have now occurred at your sole election, with one of us. You have elected to cover for Mr Pedersen until the end of this week. After that you must return to your normal duties please, unless specifically agreed with the senior partner. Again, we regret to say that any breach of this requirement will also be regarded very seriously.

‘Please keep a copy of this letter for your records. Yours ever, Clarissa.’

I have learnt never to reply to an email in anger. However, I did email back immediately to say: ‘Dear Clarissa. Thank you for your email. I will respond to it formally once I have had time to reflect upon its contents. Please be so kind as to keep a copy of this email and of the email that I intend to send to you. As ever, Jonathan.’ Then I wrote out a draft of my reply and played around with its wording during the day. I also printed off a copy of the letter that Clarissa had sent, avoiding the mistake of forwarding it to anyone; I had no doubt that my emails over the work system would be policed from that point onwards.

The trick in replying to that sort of email, I think, is to keep it short and not give anything away. I imagined myself in an employment tribunal being cross-examined about my reply in a claim by me for wrongful dismissal. How would it stand up to scrutiny under heavy artillery fire? Further, I made very sure that I did not discuss the letter that I had received or my reply with anyone so that, if asked to account for myself on oath in court, I could give a truthful reply that I had kept it all to myself. So, this is what it looked like when it was finally sent out the following day, Thursday:

Dear Clarissa,

It was good of you to speak to me yesterday. Thank you.

Please can I assure you that my commitment to the work of this firm remains as absolute as it always has been. As you know, I have worked for this firm for many years now, much longer than several of the equity partners, and I take my responsibilities as head of the family department exceptionally seriously. I am sure that, on reflection, you will want to recognise the considerable efforts that I have made to build up this side of the firm’s business and will accept that I have done so. I am also sure that, if you reread my contract of employment, you will want to pay particular attention to the passages within it, especially those in paragraph 2.7, which state that I am responsible for the day-to-day management of the firm’s family law practice. I have not done anything that takes me outside the parameters of the contractual expectations of that document and have no intention of doing so either.

I do not accept that I behaved in an inappropriate way at the meeting last Thursday. Please find attached the minutes of the meeting that I made immediately afterwards. My complaint was that the issue of the continuation of the firm’s legal aid contract was raised without notice at the meeting; it was not on the agenda and nobody had told me that the issue would be raised, despite my responsibilities as head of the family law department. I am sure that you will acknowledge that its omission from the agenda that was circulated a week before the meeting was regrettable and procedurally irregular, although I am also sure that pressure of work must have played a part in the oversight that occurred.

As to Mr Pedersen’s work, the decisions that I made fell squarely within the responsibilities that are delegated to me under the terms of my contract. I had to act quickly because there were court hearings to cover. I made emergency provision to cover his court duties this week but intend to revert to covering my own work (together with the backlog that has been created by the need to take the urgent steps that I did) next week. The effect has been that I have taken on a very considerable additional workload this week to the significant disadvantage of myself and of my family. I had hoped that my efforts might have received recognition, but I anticipate that there must have been some misunderstandings and misperceptions. Nobody has ever doubted my commitment to my clients and I am sure that you will be good enough to accept that there is no basis whatsoever for doing so now.

It has always been a great pleasure to work with you and the other partners and I very much look forward to continuing, over many years ahead, the very good relationship that we have all developed. In particular, you and I have always worked in a collaborative and friendly way for the better good of the firm and those that it employs. You will recollect, no doubt, paying tribute to our good relationship and to my efforts for the firm during the partners’ meeting last year in terms that feature very clearly within the minutes of that meeting, a copy of which, like you, I have retained.

With best wishes and many thanks.

As ever, Jonathan.’ As I pressed the send button, I muttered, ‘Chew on that, you bitch,’ and got on with my work. She didn’t reply.

Chapter Ten

Seb didn’t come in at all that week, but on Friday he sent me an email saying that he would do the three-day case that was in his diary for the following week, starting on Monday. I arranged for the papers to be taken to his home by taxi.

The next Monday passed without incident but then on Tuesday, things fell apart for him completely. He had left home early to come into the office before court to do paperwork. As a result, Freja had been left with the children. She had dropped Theo off at his nursery on time but then had gone back home with the baby Lucas. At about eleven o’clock, there was a frantic call from Freja, asking to speak to Seb urgently. The switchboard put the call through to Jane. Freja was crying and saying that she couldn’t cope.

There was no way that Seb could be pulled out of court in the middle of a case and so Jane rang me to ask what she should do. I was in the middle of a meeting with another rich divorce client so left her to the tender mercies of the barrister to speak to Freja on the phone. I had met Freja quite a few times by then, but did not know her anything like as well as I do now.

‘I need Seb here, Jon. I really need him to come home right now.’ She was sniffing and crying down the phone.

‘Why, what’s happening?’ She sounded right off the scale.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know how to say it. It’s just… I’m frightened…’ and then she started crying again and speaking in Danish.

‘Freja, where are you? Tell me where you are and I will come and find you.’

‘I need Seb, Jon. I really need him here to look after the boys. It’s not fair on them.’

‘Freja, we can’t get in touch with him now. He’s in court. I’ll come and be with you until he’s free. Where are you?’

Eventually, she told me that she was at home with Lucas and that Theo did not need to be picked up until 3 p.m. I had to go back to tell the client and the barrister that I had been called away as a result of an emergency, knowing all too well that there would be inevitable complaints that would follow from the client and the usual battle with Boadicea.

‘Hi, Susan. I’ve got a bit of a problem here.’ I had rung the surgery from the car and asked them to give her a message. She was ringing me back.

‘I’ll see if I can get one of the other doctors to cover some of my appointments. Ring you back.’ Ten minutes later she rang back and said that she would drive to Freja’s home by 2 p.m.

So, that’s how Seb’s life went pear-shaped. Susan arrived bang on time. She wrote a prescription for Freja to have some Valium and spoke to her with all the gentleness that Susan has; kindly, in her soft voice, holding Freja’s hand. I hovered around, trying to make myself useful, but not achieving anything other than keeping Lucas, and later Theo, entertained. We stayed with them that afternoon until Seb got home. Seb then finished off the case the following day with his mother coming over to help Freja with the children, but there was no way that he could continue to work while all that was going on. Once again, Susan, my wonderful wife, sorted everything out.

‘Seb needs to get himself signed off. I’ll speak to his GP if he likes.’ And she did just that.

So, in the end, Seb was signed off for stress and that, in turn, led to real financial problems for him. His rights to sickness pay under his contract were limited to a month on full pay, and then to another month on half pay. State sickness benefit was about £85 a week at the time. Anyway, after a few weeks, his doctor felt unable to sign him off for stress any longer as there was nothing actually wrong with Seb – he just didn’t feel able to leave Freja alone with the kids.

‘Sickness benefit is not ‘I’ve got trouble at home benefit,’ his doctor eventually told him, apparently.

So Seb resigned and, of course, with resignation he lost any entitlement to other benefits for nine weeks. How was he supposed to pay for the house and everything else?

‘We need to help them. We earn enough.’ How many wives would take that line about a husband’s work colleague? But Susan took it.

‘Between us we earn over £275,000 a year. We can’t just stand back and watch Seb and Freja lose the roof over their heads.’

I spoke to the mortgage company on Seb’s behalf and agreed a reduced mortgage payment for six months. Beyond that, Susan and I paid two of their credit card bills and gave them £6,000 – the most capital they could have without their benefits being affected. We also kept them afloat for the first nine weeks. It took a lot of persuading for Seb to accept it all but, in the end, we called it a loan. It made no difference to us.

As I expected, Clarissa was horrid about the whole issue. I could almost feel the ripple of delight when she heard of his resignation. It was just what she needed to help with her plan to stop legal aid.

‘Should we not at least pay him something to help him on his way?’ I needn’t have bothered even asking.

‘I’ll speak to the other partners.’

And I’m sure she did, and I am equally sure that they also saw that this was an opportunity to give legal aid work a hard kick in the bollocks. What hope that the death-scavengers from probate or the commercial guys who got their rocks off on money would ever agree to help someone financially? The answer to my question came back very soon later – ‘No.’ What’s more, she even asked me to explain to her in writing why I had gone off to see Freja that afternoon.

‘Why do you fucking think?’ is what I wrote in the first draft of my email, but Jane told me not to send it. ‘Because she was very unwell. Please come and speak to me in my office if you wish to discuss this further,’ was my eventual reply.

So, bang went Seb’s job. Susan and I sorted out some therapy for him and for Freja, and it was so good to watch them both gain in confidence as the therapy took hold. It was touch and go for Freja for a while but, by the end of six months she pulled through and got herself off the pills. It was a long and hard graft for them both, but that is not my story to tell.

Best story from Seb’s therapy?

‘Tell me,’ his therapist apparently asked him once, ‘what happens if you don’t express your anger?’

‘You murder your fucking therapist,’ Seb replied – or so he told me. But see? He really did learn. I think I taught him well.

What did matter to Susan and me, though, was the way that Seb, Freja and the two boys became part of our family. Our kids worship Seb. He knows just how to be with them, how to mess around in play, but also help them with things. And Freja is a soft, kind, beautiful woman whose gentleness would bring tears to my eyes at times as she spoke of her love for her two very good-looking boys and for her very handsome husband. She is also a brilliant artist and used painting as part of her therapy – she is now a very successful painter. And what goes around, comes around, as this story shows.

Chapter Eleven

All that happened over the summer. Although English summers are full of rain, at least they are moderately warm and so Harry was pretty chirpy for much of the time. But by November, it was dark and beginning to get cold. Every time I saw him, I could sense that he was getting more and more worried about the winter ahead.

‘How are you going to manage when it gets really cold, Harry?’ I asked him one morning.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve managed before.’

‘How do you keep warm?’

‘Turn up the central heating.’ He was trying to put on a brave face.

‘No, really?’

‘I don’t know. I’m trying to find somewhere to live but… well, you know what it’s like.’

‘Let me think about it, Harry. I’ll see what I can find out.’

I got nowhere. The local authority housing officer that I spoke to was both sincere and useless; he used words that I did not understand but which, when summarised, meant, ‘nothing we can offer’. If that was the case, why not just say it without committing people to listening to push button messages on the phone and repetitive, electronically reproduced music (what is worse – ‘Air on a bloody G String’ again).

The housing charities I rang couldn’t help either. They were swamped with referrals and none of them held any housing stock of their own.

‘There must be something that can be done,’ I kept finding myself saying.

As one lady told me: ‘If it was as easy as that, there would be no homeless people; we would have found homes for them all.’ I don’t think that there used to be this problem with homelessness when I was young. Maybe there was and I just didn’t see it.

Susan and I even looked at paying for the deposit on a rented flat for Harry – £800 or thereabouts – but the only flats we could find also had landlords that wanted us to guarantee the rent for at least six months. However much sympathy I felt for Harry, I was not doing that. I didn’t even ask Susan what she thought because, knowing her, she would have said that we should do it. I just told her no one would accept him.

So, I bought Harry a tent. It cost £49.99 from a camping shop and came with a free sleeping bag. At the time it went some way to salving my conscience but was sticking a temporary plaster over a very large wound and, in the end, it just made things worse. How? Like this:

It was the pre-Christmas everyone-gets-pissed time, lots of office workers, out of their skulls on drink, wandering around in costumes singing and behaving like leery idiots.

The night before had been cold but not wet. I was running into work thinking about the Christmas break ahead and the skiing holiday that we had planned. Anything to shut out of my mind the fact that this was also the day of Peregrine’s final hearing – the day when the financial squabble between him and his ghastly wife would finally be decided by the court.

The first thing that I noticed when Harry came into sight was that there was no Jenny. The second thing that I noticed was that Harry did not even look up as I pulled my earphones out and said my usual, ‘Hi there, buddy.’

‘Where’s Jenny, Harry?’ He didn’t reply. He was shaking and didn’t look at me.

‘Come on, Harry. What’s happening?’

‘They killed her.’

‘What do you mean, they killed her?’

‘I mean they killed her.’

‘Who did, Harry?’

‘The lads that burnt down the tent.’

‘Burnt down the tent?’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

‘You know.’ He didn’t want to talk. I sat down on the pavement next to him.

‘Harry, I don’t know. Tell me.’

‘They threw petrol over the tent and then set it on fire. They were pissed. Jenny tried to protect me, so they kicked her to death. It’s as simple as that.’

‘Where were you?’

‘I couldn’t stop them.’ He obviously thought I was asking why he hadn’t protected her.

‘No, that’s not what I meant. Are you OK … were you hurt?’

He showed me his hands which were bandaged.

‘I was in the tent. That’s when it happened.’

‘Oh, Harry. I am so sorry.’ I put my arm around his shoulder, hoping that he would lean into me, but he didn’t. It felt like hugging a statue.

‘Who bandaged your hands?’

‘The hospital. The police rang an ambulance and so I spent most of the night waiting in A and E.’

‘What happened to the bastards who did this?’

‘Don’t ask me. They fucked off.’

‘Where is Jenny now? What happened to her?’

‘One of the policemen got a black bin bag and put her in the boot of the car.’ That’s when he started to cry. The second time only I had seen him do that.

‘Happy fucking Christmas,’ he finally said as he wiped the snot from his nose and the tears from his eyes.

I was really late by then. I was supposed to be meeting Peregrine at 8.45 a.m. to walk him around to court and it was already 8.35 a.m.

The two women who ran the shop outside which he was sitting had always been very kind to Harry and had started a Christmas collection for him – I knew this because they had asked me to contribute. I went into the shop. One of the women was in tears.

‘How can they do that?’ she asked… ‘How can people behave like that? Look at his hands! And the dog – why kill the dog?’

The other woman just said: ‘Well, it’s Christmas. The rich get pissed at Christmas, don’t they? Then they kick the shit out of the poor.’ I didn’t have time for that.

‘Look, can you take care of him a bit today and I will see if I can get him into a hotel or B and B place tonight?’

‘My lover, we always do take care of him.’ She came from Bristol, I discovered, and had a strong accent.

‘Harry. I’ve got to go now,’ I told him. ‘I’m going to find somewhere for you to stay the night. Can you be here at 6 o’clock this evening? I’ll meet you here.’ I gave him some money and pelted off down the street as fast as my geriatric legs would take me.

Was he there later? Of course not. He doesn’t do charity and, when hurt, he disappeared into hiding, like a fox that had been knocked down by a car. And, anyway, why wait for the next load of pissed-up bastards to deliver the modern-day Christmas message and kick the shit out of him? It was a month before I saw him again. A month in which a lot else happened.

Chapter Twelve

Arriving late at the office wearing running gear on the day of a big court hearing is not the best way to impress a client, certainly not a client like Peregrine. And, chance being what it is, Peregrine was having a row with the security guys as I arrived.

‘You’re not searching through my fucking bag.’

‘Well, sir, then I am afraid you can’t go in.’ Harvey was only following protocol and was right to do so.

‘Do you know who I am?’

‘No, sir. But if you tell me I’ll make a note of it and pass it on to the police when I ring them.’ Harvey rarely comes second.

‘Don’t be so fucking stupid.’ A wobbling mass like Peregrine can rarely get the ball back over the net, even in a game of verbal tennis like that.

‘I’d like to speak to the senior partner…now.’ It was the outwitted prima donna’s last stance – do what I want or else I’ll have an even bigger tantrum and drag everyone into it.

Arun was about to weigh in and, if the stories of his weekend work as a bouncer were true, that meant smack the man in the face first and ask questions afterwards. It was tempting to let him, very tempting, but no. I intervened.

‘OK, OK. What’s the problem?’ I asked. Peregrine looked at me with utter disdain.

‘I am not having this black guy searching through my personal possessions. Who does he think I am? One of your criminal clients?’

‘Now, now, Peregrine, you know full well I don’t do crime. Looks like things are getting a bit heated here. OK,’ I turned to Harvey. ‘I think that we had better let this gentleman through. He’s with me.’

Harvey just shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ll make a note of this and report it to my boss.’ Peregrine turned on him: ‘You fucking do that. You just do that. And I’ll have you out of a job before your filthy fingers can fiddle their way down the situations vacant column.’

Arun by that stage had taken out his phone and was filming Peregrine. ‘Smile please...I think that you just threatened my colleague here.’ Then he took a flash picture straight into Peregrine’s face. ‘Not bad ID, that. Look good in the papers.’

‘No, this won’t do. We are moving on from this, please. Come on, Peregrine.’ I ushered him away. ‘And I’m really sorry, Harvey.’

As we got into the lift, Peregrine looked me up and down as if I were the scum of the earth.

‘I hope you’re going to change before we get to court.’

‘Of course I will, Peregrine. Of course I will.’

‘Well, none of the other partners dress like that.’ I let him have the last word. He needed that.

‘Ma’am, before my learned friend calls his evidence, I wonder whether I might outline our case to help you.’

‘Well, I think that I know what the issues are, thank you. But if you want to set out your position orally at this stage, I won’t stop you as long as it’s brief.’

Peregrine’s silk wanted to get in from the start, even though, as the respondent party, it was not his turn to make a speech under the usual rules of procedure. ‘To summarise the key points of our case, we say that the value of the husband’s shares in the business should be totally ignored because they are non-matrimonial assets and that, if contrary to that primary submission you do take them into account, their value should be discounted by 30% because the husband only has a minority interest. The matrimonial assets, amounting to just over £1.2 million, can be distributed so that the wife has £850,000, leaving the husband with a very small proportion of the liquid assets and all of the risks of the commercial assets, the shares. The company is not doing well and there is a huge risk, which the husband will bear, that things will deteriorate further. We accept that the wife should have maintenance of £30,000 a year for a limited period but, bearing in mind her age of 43, the ages of the children and her ability to work in the future, we contend that there should be a clean break in four years’ time, ending the wife’s rights to maintenance. Generously, the husband accepts that the wife should have 60% of his private pension policy by way of pension sharing order, so she will have a pension fund of about £120,000.’

The judge, faced with our top-notch London QC, was making notes on her computer and keeping her eyes firmly away from the silk’s smooth gaze. She spent most of her time doing care proceedings and small civil claims – car crash cases and the like – so this case was beyond her usual comfort zone although she handled it, and the imperious silk, very well. The trick is never to engage with people like that and she was an experienced judge.

Peregrine’s former wife, represented by a barrister who did a lot of that type of work, sat sobbing into a handkerchief. Peregrine had insisted that we did not tell our opponents that we were employing a silk, but the barrister did not seem remotely uncomfortable about being pitted against a QC who was such a drama queen. The silk tried to give the impression that he could smell his opponent’s excrement and also kept trying to pull rank – a very unwise thing to do in front of a local District Judge.

What, in normal language, was our silk saying? He was saying that Peregrine had owned the shares in the business before the marriage, and so the shares should be totally ignored and his former wife should not get her dirty mitts on any part of them. But, much more than that, he was trying to say that their value should be totally ignored when looking at what was fair. If the judge disagreed then, he said, the shares should be knocked down in value because the husband only had one-third of the total shareholding in the company – nobody buying a one-third interest in the company would pay full value for it because the control would still lie with the other two shareholders who were also members of Peregrine’s family. £850,000, topped up with maintenance for four years, would give her more than she needed. She could buy a house, invest the rest of her capital and retrain over the next four years. The pension was the cherry on the cake. The business was on the skids.

What Peregrine was saying about the business was, of course, rubbish. The silk knew it was rubbish, I knew it was rubbish, but Peregrine insisted and the client’s instructions were the trump card. Peregrine and the other two shareholders, brother Bertram and mother Gladys, had suppressed his income from the business ever since they got wind of the divorce and were running a totally false argument about how the business was faring. There was no way that Peregrine would ever sell his shares on his own; if any shares were ever sold by anyone it would be on the basis of a company buyout in which all of the family members would sell all of their shares to an outside buyer. In legal language, it was a quasi-partnership and the minority discount argument relating to the value of the shares was a joke. Hidden in the accounts was a massive amount of undrawn income in a directors’ loan account and Peregrine’s suggestion that the other directors would not let him touch the loan because it was needed to weather the storm of a downturn in business was also a badly told fairy story. The man was a liar and came from a family of liars.

So, Mrs Hamley-Smith was the first to give evidence in her East London accent and, after answering some gentle questions from her own barrister, saw the QC’s guns turning on her. He obviously thought that she was easy picking and too unintelligent to deal with the likes of him.

‘Mrs Hamley-Smith, what exactly did you bring into this marriage?’ the silk asked her in very aloof cross-examination.

‘Two children, actually and I supported your client for years in his business and through his many affairs.’

The District Judge intervened. ‘I’ve read the papers. I know the background.’

‘Thank you, Madam,’ the silk persisted. ‘Now, can you answer the question, Mrs Hamley-Smith? What did you bring into this marriage financially?’

‘You didn’t ask me that. Anyway, you know the answer already.’ More tears. ‘I had nothing when we met, I was still in my twenties. But I’ve given everything to that man. My whole life.’

‘It’s called pond life,’ Peregrine whispered to me. God, I hated the man.

‘You were working as a waitress in a bar when Mr Hamley-Smith met you, weren’t you?’

‘Well, I worked in a pub. Yes.’

‘You had no money at all, did you?’

‘He knew that when he asked me to marry him. Where do our children fit in with all this?’

‘So, the answer to my question is “No,” isn’t it?’

‘If you say so.’

‘Look,’ the judge intervened again and looked directly at the silk. ‘I’ve already told you I’ve read the papers. I don’t need cross-examination on this.’ I had once heard her say to a stroppy barrister: ‘in a battle between the bench and the bar, the bench wins.’

The silk moved on after pausing to write down a note, pretending that Mrs Hamley-Smith had just conceded a big point. He was just trying to push her around.

‘Thank you for that, Mrs Hamley-Smith. Now, as you know the family home, Casa Blanca, has been valued at £1.3 million.’ Peregrine had not got his way on the valuation. ‘It has a mortgage on it of £300,000. How do you think you can stay there?’

‘Why shouldn’t I?’ She reminded me of a cat flying out of a corner with its claws extended. ‘It’s the children’s home. It’s my home. It’s our only security.’ Then she looked across the small courtroom at Peregrine. ‘Perry, how could you do this? How could you do this to our beautiful girls?’

‘How do you expect the mortgage to be paid?’ The silk ignored the histrionics.

‘How do you think?’

‘Please don’t ask me questions, Mrs Hamley-Smith. We’ll get along a lot faster if you just reply to what I ask you.’

‘Just listen to counsel’s questions, Mrs Hamley-Smith, and do your best to answer them.’ The judge was on firmer ground this time.

‘He can pay it. He always has.’

‘Where would he live then? Almost all of the free capital is tied up in the house.’

‘Wherever his trousers next take him.’ Bad answer. More tears. Loads of huffing and complaining from Peregrine.

‘I think we will take ten minutes, please,’ said the judge.

When the case resumed, the silk messed around with questions about how much Mrs Hamley-Smith needed if she was going to buy a new home – could she be rehoused for £500,000? Easy – yes, but that would not buy anything like what they were used to. It would mean moving area. The usual replies to the usual questions.

Then he turned to what she could earn and all hell broke loose on that one as well. She had six GCSEs, no work qualifications and no work experience other than behind bars and in restaurants. She was not going to work as a receptionist. It was like Bonfire Night.

‘Mrs Hamley-Smith, what are you going to do all day when your children are at school or when the children are with my client?’

‘What, once a week on a Sunday afternoon, when he remembers?’

‘Answer the point, please, Mrs Hamley-Smith. Are you not going to want to do some sort of work at some point in the future?’ The judge was trying to stop the rows.

‘Well, yes. But it will take time…when the girls are a bit older.’ In the end, in answer to the judge’s questions rather than the silk’s, she said that she thought that she should be able to find some sort of work in about three years’ time and could earn something like £12,000 a year.

Peregrine’s evidence saw his glasses coming repeatedly off his nose, his hair swept back constantly and lies pouring from him in a never-ending stream of mendacity. He had filed a narrative statement setting out all the evidence he wanted to give; I had swallowed my pride and written the first draft of the statement for him, although he had amended it heavily. The silk was wise enough to say: ‘You have seen the position statement that I have filed with the court on your behalf and you have filed a narrative statement which is flagged in the bundle. Are the contents of those statements correct to the best of your knowledge and belief?’ It is always a good idea to get a lying witness that you are calling out of the witness box as quickly as possible.

The barrister for Mrs Hamley-Smith made a good job on the company accounts and pulled to pieces the argument that there should be a discount in the share values for minority holding. He successfully derided the suggestion that Mrs Hamley-Smith could get a well-paid job and made a reasonable job of showing that Peregrine could draw much more income from the company if he wanted.

And there was one particular piece of evidence that went like this:

‘For the purposes of the record, please Mr Hamley-Smith, I need to ask you this. Within the past two years, have there been any discussions or negotiations with any third party or amongst the shareholders about the sale of the business as a whole?’

‘None at all.’

‘So, let me understand this. I want to break it down. You and the other shareholders have not discussed the sale of the company ever during the last two years?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you know of no discussions or negotiations with any third parties about the sale of the business either in whole or in part?’

‘That’s right, too.’

‘You’re quite sure of that?’

‘If my learned friend has any positive evidence to put on this point it should have been disclosed and he ought to put it now. Properly. Otherwise this is a totally reprehensible fishing exercise,’ the silk jumped in. Peregrine could obviously not resist smiling at him.

The barrister persisted, however, and the judge didn’t intervene. ‘I’ll take it that the answer then is “No”.’

‘I thought that this line of questioning wasn’t going any further.’ Peregrine tried but failed; I remember thinking, ‘Shit, where is this leading?’

‘Answer the question, please.’ The judge could sense the tension, too.

‘The answer is no.’ Peregrine pointed the arm of his glasses at the barrister, shifted in his seat and swept his hair back. He then smiled at the judge and I had a horrible feeling that he was about to call her sweetheart. She did not smile back. She was now much more on her home territory and had begun to get the case, and Peregrine, into her grasp. The issues were pretty clearly defined and were not very difficult once all the blather was stripped away. It was obvious that she had taken a strong dislike to Peregrine and was not going to let the silk push her around.

Then it was time for speeches. The silk tried his best to be condescending to the judge and I found it fascinating to see how she handled it.

‘My Lady…I mean madam.’ That was one technique that he used, trying to emphasise that he usually practised in the High Court where judges are addressed as ‘My Lord’ or ‘My Lady’. ‘Madam’ is the term of address for a District Judge, two levels down from the High Court bench. The judge knew exactly what he was doing and eventually looked away from him, raised one eyebrow and stopped typing, drumming her fingers on the desk.

Then it was, ‘In the Central London Court we approach this issue daily and, invariably, the judges there recognise the near impossibility of selling minority shareholdings.’

‘Thank you,’ said the judge. ‘Perhaps you will forgive me then if after this case is over I telephone some of my colleagues who sit there just to check what you are saying. I used to be in chambers with two of them.’

‘Well, there may be some slight variations in practice…’

‘And there is High Court authority on the point of discount where there is a quasi-partnership anyway, isn’t there?’

‘Of course. But that’s not the point.’ The judge stopped typing again. There was a pause and then she said, ‘Do carry on please,’ as she tapped some figures into a calculator on her desk, ignoring what the silk was saying.

At the end of the speeches, the judge looked exhausted. It had been a heavy case to manage. ‘I’ll give a reserved judgment,’ she said. ‘There are matters that I need to think about and I need to review the figures carefully.’

Chapter Thirteen

‘I want to appeal.’ I had asked Peregrine to come into the office as soon as I had received the judgment two weeks later. The judge had done a very neat job. She rejected the arguments about discounting the value of the shares due to minority interest, but accepted that the shares were non-matrimonial assets and had been kept distinct from the matrimonial pot. However, she did not simply ignore their value as the silk had argued; she said that it was highly likely that, at some stage in the future, they would be a considerable source of wealth to Peregrine. Further, she found that, as things stood now, Peregrine had access to much more wealth through the company than he had admitted, and she approached the case on the basis that Mrs Hamley-Smith should have enough to meet her income and capital needs. The judge thought that she needed £700,000 for a house in the same area, £20,000 for a car, £20,000 for furniture and £75,000 to meet her debts, including her legal costs. She also needed a contingency fund of £35,000.

The house, therefore, had to be sold and Mrs Hamley-Smith got the £850,000 offered by Peregrine together with 60% of the pension. So far, so good. But she also got £60,000
a year in maintenance and provision for the children, with any child support being in partial satisfaction of the order. The maintenance was to reduce by £12,000 a year after three years. Worst of all, for Peregrine, the judge had not limited the maintenance in time. So, unless the court varied it later in subsequent proceedings, Peregrine was faced with an open-ended liability to pay maintenance for the rest of his life – or at least until his ex-wife died or remarried. It also meant that, if he ever did sell his shares or come into money, she could apply to the court to capitalise her maintenance – that is get a lump sum of money from Peregrine in exchange for her giving up her rights to be maintained by him. As Arun might have put it, that really did get him by the short and curlies.

She also found, as was true, that Peregrine would be left with a very substantial income, even after paying maintenance (at least £175,000 p.a. net) and had the very valuable shareholding.

‘If you want to appeal, you will need permission to appeal first. And we will need to get leading counsel’s advice before we do anything. We need to move fast because you have to apply for permission to appeal within 21 days of the District Judge’s decision.’ I couldn’t bear to look at him.

Explosion time. ‘How much is all this going to cost? How much more fucking money do you want out of me? First of all, you give totally duff advice. Next, you lose my case and then you tell me I have to pay for the privilege. You better sort this out or I’ll sue the lot of you. It’s called negligence.’

‘And that, I think, is called a threat. You need to calm down.’

‘Fuck off. Don’t tell me what to do. You wait until I tell Clarissa.’ I noted the first-name terms. ‘She’ll have your balls on a plate.’

‘No, she won’t. And, anyway, I keep my balls in my trousers or in my matrimonial bed.’ I had had enough.

‘What do you mean by that?’ He had his hands on the desk and was trying to stand over me as I sat on the other side – only his stomach got in the way.

‘You had better go away, Peregrine, and think about it, please. It may be far better now if you go to another solicitor.’ He stormed out, leaving his designer man bag behind. I went after him.

‘Er, you left your handbag behind.’ Did he say thank you? You’re kidding.

After that, a number of things happened. First, Peregrine took his flabby carcass to another solicitor. I had written to him immediately after our meeting to remind him of the time for appeal and of his right to seek different representation. His new solicitors wrote to me within five days of our meeting, telling me that ‘their client’ was deeply dissatisfied with the advice that I had given and intended to appeal the judge’s decision. They ‘reserved the right’ to claim the costs of the appeal as part of the damages claim that their client intended to bring against me.

As a result of that letter I informed Clarissa about the threat of a negligence action and she, in turn, had to inform our professional insurers. Clarissa was clinically cold about the whole issue. ‘I very much hope that what he says is not true.’ That was it – the full extent of the support that she wanted to offer.

Ah yes. But then the truth, like Peregrine’s dick, will out. On the very day that Clarissa exuded those words of kindness in her concise and supportive email, I received another email from Mrs Hamley-Smith’s solicitors. They didn’t know yet that I had been sacked but they did know that Peregrine wanted to appeal. He had been bullying his wife ever since the hearing.

The email had four attachments. The first was an affidavit, that is a statement that is sworn to be true, from Peregrine’s former secretary. Peregrine had been having an affair with her while the divorce was happening and, as a result of that and of her position in the company, she knew all about the business. Her affidavit said that he had ditched her a few months ago, after they had argued. They had argued for two reasons. First, because he dismissed her and threatened to tell her husband about their affair. But second, because he had made her type the final draft of his narrative statement in which he had said that there were no discussions about selling the business. She knew that what he said was not true. How? Because she had typed all the emails and letters by which Peregrine had entered into the negotiations. And, to protect herself, she had emailed copies of the negotiations to herself when she left so that, if ever he did threaten again to tell her husband about their affair, she could use them to get him to back off.

So, the second attachment contained all the exhibits to her affidavit. And the third attachment was probably even better. Peregrine, no doubt attempting to rebut any suggestion that he might be sexist, had wanted to show his even-handedness by having a relationship with one of the negotiators then employed by the firm – a young man called Mark. Mark had been contacted by Peregrine’s secretary after she was booted out of the firm and, quite obviously, Mark did not like the way she had been treated. So he had sworn an affidavit, too. Everyone knew he was gay – why should he hide it? It was no skin off his nose (er, do I mean to put it in that way?) that he had had an affair with the boss and, what is more, he was by then employed by a rival firm which, no doubt, loved to hear of Peregrine’s troubles. Indeed, as Mark’s affidavit alleged, Peregrine had had even gone so far as to tell him: ‘Who gives a fuck about the homophobic anyway?’ Fair comment, I suppose.

The fourth attachment contained the exhibits to Mark’s affidavit. Quite unnecessarily, I am sure, the first exhibit showed a pile of Peregrine’s designer clothes on the floor of the young man’s flat with the unmistakable, beached whale-like features of a naked Peregrine sleeping on Mark’s bed. But also annexed to it were copies of the documents that Peregrine, in his amorous zeal, had shown to Mark to persuade him of his future riches and the rich pickings (or maybe I mean dippings) that lay ahead. Mark had photographed them on his phone.

The email itself was very simple. ‘Our client has been deeply distressed to receive the attached and wholly unsolicited documentation. She has no personal knowledge at all as to whether the contents of the attached documents are true and does not in any way wish to influence your client when he is making a decision as to whether to pursue the application for permission to appeal which he apparently intends. However, it would not be proper for us to fail to disclose this documentation to you and so that is why we have sent it with this email. Of course, if there were to be an application for permission to appeal we would be duty-bound to apply to adduce the attachments as fresh evidence before the appeal judge. We are sure that you also understand, of course, that, if it were shown that the contents of the affidavits were true, it would mean that your client has committed perjury in the light of the evidence that he gave to the District Judge. We have no wish at all to see the police involved with this family and, for our client’s part, she feels enough is enough, particularly bearing in mind the interests of the children. Despite the contents of the attachments, we thought that it might help you to know that she is prepared to leave matters as ordered by the district judge in the absence of any appeal by your client. Should there be an appeal, she will cross-appeal and seek the necessary leave.’

‘Jane, come and look at this!’ I had no business to tell her, but there again, I really did not give a toss by then.

There was no appeal. I had forwarded the email to Peregrine’s new solicitor.

Chapter Fourteen

‘Jon, for goodness’ sake, quit before it wrecks you.’

I had come home on the day that I received that email and slammed a whole bottle of Prosecco down my throat in under ten minutes. Then I had just sat at the kitchen table playing around with my phone in a complete daze.

‘It’s all a game. One massive, stupid game,’ was all I could think to say.

Susan came and sat next to me at the table and took hold of my hand.

‘I can’t bear to see you so unhappy.’

‘How can people be like that? Why am I spending my time working with people who behave like that? What am I doing?’

I turned to Susan and buried my head into her shoulder. And then I cried while Susan stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head. I cried in a way that I had never cried before as an adult. Yes, I was drunk but I felt stuck, trapped. I had the most wonderful home life that was available to me and where I was loved …where I was really valued. My wonderful family. My home. Where I belonged. And yet as soon as I opened the door and went out into the world I was faced with Peregrine, Clarissa, the torment of Harry’s life, the harshness with which Seb had been treated. It felt as though I was drowning in the sea with the most beautiful beach just out of reach. In vino veritas.

‘Jon, you can’t go on like this. It will kill you. You can’t keep working these long hours and trying to take on so much. Life is a temporary affair. You know all that. It’s what you tell me all the time. Don’t waste it. It’s not a dress rehearsal. Every coffin is the same size, rich or poor… Remember?’

‘I know. I know.’

Then my eldest son, Paul, came in, saw what was happening and put his arm around me, too. ‘Dad, it’s OK. Really it’s OK.’ He didn’t say anything else. He is so like his mother.

I sorted myself out. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve had too much to drink.’

‘Dad. Let’s all do something together...some family time. Let’s sit down and watch a film. How about Born Free?’ It is the film about Elsa the lioness and Paul knew it was my favourite film of all time. The kids and I had watched it together many times when they were younger.

‘You are a very clever boy, Paul, and so like your father. Same looks, same manner.’ Susan looked at me and smiled; she knows how to look after us so well.

Paul looked at me and grinned. ‘Yuck. You’re bloody joking. And there was I thinking I got my looks from you, Mum.’ But he kept his arm around my shoulder as he said it.

‘Jon, why don’t you sit down quietly and write out what it is you want to do? What it is that you are really thinking? Then you and I need to sit down together, on our own and sort this out for you. But do it tomorrow. Let’s watch that film, now.’

It was very good advice. I still have the piece of paper on which I wrote down my thoughts the following day. They went like this:

1)   More than anything else in the world I want to be a full and happy member of my wonderful family. I love each one of them and I want to look after them to the best of my ability. I want to be my wife’s lifelong companion and the best father that I can be to my children. Nothing matters more to me than that.

2)   I want to be a proper, grown-up, fulfilled man. I do not want to be caught up in the commercial world where nothing matters except money. I feel that if I continue in my present job it will turn me into something that I am not.

3)   I want to be a good man, someone who serves a purpose. Someone who can be wise and, in time, get old happily. I do not want to spend my life being competitive. I want to be myself, as I am, not someone that I am forced to be.

4)   I want to be able to understand what life is about. To find my own beliefs. To understand faith…religion… all the things that we used to talk about when we were younger but now seem to have been pushed aside by the demands of daily life.

5)   I want to have time to enjoy things. To walk more slowly, drive more slowly, admire the world around me. Smell the air around me and enjoy it. Look at the stars. Join in with things with my friends and family rather than having to spend so much of my time with people I don’t like.

6)   As to the job that I do, I want it to be something that I believe in.

And then Susan and I sat down and had a long, long talk. Cups of tea, no booze, kids banned from the room until we sent out the papal smoke allowing them to come back in.

‘Right,’ Susan said at the end, ‘one of two things is going to happen now. Either you promise me that, within six months, you will be out of this wretched job that you are doing, or I will go into your office stark naked, waving a bottle of vodka and telling them you are married to an alcoholic sex maniac.’

‘Er…I think that we better have a word with the kids.’

Chapter Fifteen

Christmas and the skiing trip came and went. I had spent a lot of time before the break searching around for Harry but it was like looking for a needle in a very big haystack. We spent Christmas Day with Seb, Freja and their boys, which was fun; then they came and house-sat for us while we were away. However, my thoughts about Harry were like a constant dull headache, always there at the back of my mind.

We had decided that I would not say anything at work, except to my secretary Jane, until I knew what I was going to do next. However, my plans were pushed along after the secretary to Humphrey the humper, the commercial partner, had a long chat with Jane soon after I came back to work from the holiday. Jane, of course, told me all about it.

‘Jon, I think you ought to hear about this.’

‘What?’

‘What Sophie, the humper’s secretary, has just told me.’ Jane knew all the nicknames I used for my colleagues – in fact she had made up many of them herself.

‘OK, spill the beans.’ I thought it would just be another round of office chat.

‘Well, you know that there were negotiations for the sale of Mr Hamley-Smith’s business?’

‘Yes.’

‘Guess who gave them legal advice about the deal.’

‘I have not the first clue, Jane. Go on, hit me with it.’

‘Humphrey.’

‘What? He couldn’t have done. He knew that I was doing the lying bastard’s divorce.’

‘Well, he did. And Sophie says that he gave express instructions that you were not to be informed. They’re long-standing friends, aren’t they?’

‘Humphrey would never be that stupid…surely?’

‘Sophie says he was.’

‘Well, I’ll never be able to prove it. He will deny everything.’

‘That’s why Sophie gave me the password to her computer and told me where you will find the folder containing the documents.’

‘Yes, but they will all be password-protected as well. He’s not that stupid.’

‘Nor is she. She has removed the password from two of them – here’s a piece of paper with the details. Just don’t drop her in it.’

‘How do I avoid that? It will be obvious that she gave me her password.’

‘No, it won’t. You can say I gave you her password because she and I share our passwords so that we don’t get locked out if we forget them.’

‘Yeah, but that would put your head right on the block. I’m not doing that.’

‘Jon, do you really think that I will stay in this vipers’ nest after you’ve gone? Anyway, they wouldn’t dare do anything against me. I’d have their balls for breakfast in the employment tribunal if they did.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Go for it.’

‘Is it true, please Humphrey, that you were instructed to negotiate the sale of the business on behalf of Mr Hamley-Smith?’ I had called a meeting with Clarissa and Humphrey in Clarissa’s room and had told them that I had received information, from a source that I was not going to name, that the firm had been instructed on his behalf.

‘This is preposterous,’ Humphrey shot back. ‘I am not here to suffer your intolerably bad cross-examination.’

‘That’s fine, Humphrey. Then I will refer the issue to the Law Society and to the police and let them deal with it.’ I knew that I had all the ammunition I needed. There was no hurry. Playtime!

‘Of course, if any of this is true, it is potentially a really serious criminal offence, isn’t it? Attempting to pervert the course of justice? Bad, bad news that. What’s more, you both knew that I was acting in the divorce. You explain to me, please, why I was not told about what was going on?’

‘What are you trying to suggest, Jonathan? Think very carefully about what you are saying.’ Attack was Clarissa’s form of defence. However, I had foreseen exactly what she would do and was prepared for it. Also, why was she defending Humphrey? I knew precisely why but enjoyed playing my cards very close to my chest.

‘I’ll tell you what I am going to do, Clarissa. I’m going to leave the room now so that the two of you can have a little chat. In ten minutes’ time I’m going to return, however, and you will tell me what you want to do about this. If I don’t feel you have told me the truth then I will pick up the phone and speak to the police and then I will email the Law Society. So, you had better make it good.’

‘How dare you threaten us in that way?’

‘No, Clarissa. It isn’t a threat. It’s a promise. Think about it. And also,’ I picked up the closed file that I had placed on the table in front of me, ‘you might want to bear in mind that you don’t know what information I have. And, until you have made your decisions, I’m not going to tell you, save to say that it may well put both of you where you belong. In the shit.’

‘You foul-mouthed bastard.’ Humphrey was never very good with words.

‘Humphrey, dear boy, I think that is the pot calling the kettle black.’

‘You’re bluffing. You have absolutely nothing on us. If you had you’d show us the file now.’

‘Risky line that, Clarissa. Shall I just make the call, then?’

I came back in exactly ten minutes by which time the mixture of strong perfume and overpowering aftershave had turned the air to near poison.

‘Jon, I am really sorry that this is happening and think that we all need to see how we are going to contain this problem. In the interests of us all.’ I knew that she would try that one.

‘No, Clarissa. You and Humphrey must tell me the truth. Over to you.’

‘Well,’ Humphrey said, ‘I accept that Mr Hamley-Smith did consult me about the possible sale of the business, but I told him that I couldn’t get involved until after the divorce was concluded. That’s all it is, Jon. I think that you must have got the wrong end of the stick, somehow. You know how office gossip and Chinese whispers work.’

‘Clarissa?’ I turned to her to see what she wanted to say.

‘Don’t ask me, Jon. I just know what Humphrey has told me.’

‘OK. And can you help me, please? When did Mr Hamley-Smith first consult you?’

‘Oh Jon, I can’t remember…We had one meeting. Probably about a month before the divorce hearing. I haven’t heard anything since.’

‘Is there anything else that I need to know?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Can we all go home now?’

‘Well, that’s up to you. But, before you do, you might want to look at this.’

‘What is it?’

‘It is a copy of an attendance note. I have the originals locked in a safe somewhere.’ The safe was at Seb’s house and I had copies in the safe at home as well.

‘How the hell have you got copies of his attendance notes? Have you been searching through his files? If you have, that is it. You’re out of this firm.’

‘Clarissa…you may just want to look at the document first. Because if that document is true, then you are not just both out of your jobs, but you are also going to be struck off, I would suggest.’

‘Give it to me please.’ Clarissa snatched it from my hands.

‘Of course. Now…Another ten minutes? No more please.’

The document that I had shown them had been typed three months before the divorce hearing. It was a note of a meeting between Humphrey, Clarissa and Peregrine. It recorded that Peregrine and the other two shareholders had received an offer from a large corporation to buy the whole of the business for £10m on the basis that Peregrine would remain employed as a consultant for five years afterwards at a salary of £175,000 p.a. The document also recorded that ‘P H-S insists that this offer must not be known to his wife since it could affect the divorce settlement. We agreed that no further action should be taken until after the divorce and that we would create an information wall with the family department. The need for confidentiality was stressed.’

‘You told me barefaced lies, didn’t you?’

‘No, I didn’t. I just couldn’t remember the detail.’

I’d had enough. I showed them the next copy document.

‘You see this document, Humphrey?’ I pushed it across the table to him, ‘Read it.’

It read:

‘Reading divorce bundle: Ten units – 19.00 hrs to 21.00.

Speaking to SP: Two units – 21.06 to 21.18

Speaking to P H-S: Four units – 21.30 to 21.54.

‘It’s a time recording, Humphrey, isn’t it? Written by you – those are your initials at the bottom. You knew that the only way you were going to get paid is if you filled out a time sheet – you could not even resist getting paid for something like that, could you?’ I enjoyed that bit. ‘Let me tell you what it means.’

‘You don’t have to.’ Humphrey now looked as white as a sheet.

‘No, I’m going to tell you. For the purposes of the record.’ I took my phone out of my pocket and laid it on the table. I had recorded everything.

‘How dare you record a meeting without asking for our permission?’ It was Clarissa’s last attempt at a stance.

‘Shut up, Clarissa…This document says that you spent 120 minutes reading the bundle that I had prepared for the divorce hearing. It says that you then spoke to someone referred to as SP for twelve minutes. And that you then spoke to Mr Hamley-Smith for 24 minutes. Now, help me, Humphrey. Who might SP be?’ I knew full well.

Neither of them said a word.

‘Well. I’ll help you with that. SP means ‘Senior Partner’. And Clarissa, that’s you. Shall I tell you how I know that?’

Silence.

‘Because of this.’ I pushed document number three across the table. Sophie had done a very good job and I knew its contents by heart. ‘Let me tell you what it says: ‘Speaking to HR: Two units – 21.06 to 21.18. It’s signed by you, isn’t it? CJ is Clarissa Jones. HR is you, Humphrey, isn’t it? Humphrey Reid.’

More silence. I could feel the adrenalin really running now. I was loving every single minute of this.

‘And there is lots more to come. Let’s start with this. Would you like to read to me the dates at the bottom of both of those time recordings?’ I waited but they didn’t reply. ‘Well, I’ll tell you. They both bear the same date, you see. And guess what that date is?’ I didn’t even wait this time. ‘It’s the day before the divorce hearing.’

‘What point are you trying to make, Jonathan?’

‘Oh, I think you know the answer to that very well. But I’ll explain. This means that you, Humphrey, went into my room on the night before the divorce hearing. You read the bits of the file that were relevant to you – the bits about the company. You knew what Peregrine was saying about the business. You knew he was saying that it wasn’t going to be sold. You then spoke to Clarissa here.’ I looked across at her. ‘You can only have been discussing the business – otherwise the time recording would not be in the business file, would it? So, you knew what Peregrine was saying also, didn’t you, Clarissa? You knew he was going to lie. And then, Humphrey, after speaking to Clarissa, you spoke to Peregrine for 24 minutes and gave him advice for which you then charged him. Tell me, Humphrey, what did you advise him?’

‘I really can’t remember.’

‘Oh, I think you can, Humphrey. I think that you need to do better than that.’

‘I reminded him of what we had discussed three months before.’

‘You told him to keep his mouth shut, didn’t you and, of course, if that is right, that is conspiracy to pervert the course of justice? And what happens to people who do that, Humphrey? And you, Clarissa?’ Seb had helped me research cases where people had been sentenced for that offence.

‘I don’t know.’ He looked sick by then.

‘Oh, of course not. Because you two closed down the criminal department last year, didn’t you? Well, I’ll help you.’ Seb had photocopied a few pages from a sentencing textbook for me. ‘They go to prison. Especially if they are professional people who are advising others to lie. I suppose it’s what is called a deterrent sentence. What a mess you’re in, aren’t you?’

‘No, you’re wrong.’

‘I’m not, you know. But I’m going to help you even further. Look at this.’ It was another time recording. It read:

‘Discussing outcome of divorce hearing. Capital OK – but open-ended maintenance. Needs to appeal. Must close down JB then wait at least nine months. Buyer OK with that but keen to start due diligence discussions.’

‘Perhaps you could explain, Humphrey, exactly whom JB might be? Or shall I tell you?’ I paused for a little bit of dramatic effect. ‘It’s me, isn’t it? Jonathan Browne. You discussed with Mr Hamley-Smith the need for him to appeal and to get me off the case. And look at the date of that … the very date that Peregrine told me that he was thinking of suing me…no, suing us as a firm…for negligence and of complaining against me to the Law Society. That must have been part of your plan as well. You were manipulating me, your own professional partner. That is not very nice, is it?’

‘No, you’re wrong.’

‘I think that you are repeating yourself, Humphrey.’

Was I wrong? Of course not. They both knew the score. And to help them, I told them the prepared story of how I got the information off Sophie’s computer.

‘So, don’t blame Sophie. And if you try to blame Jane, you might want to think how all this would sound in an employment tribunal.’

But I had saved the best until last. Mark might have an odd choice in men and have enjoyed a bonk with the boss, but actually he has a heart of gold. He has now also become a family friend and a good pal to Seb and Freja – Seb has straightened him out a bit – no, I don’t mean that…Seb has encouraged him to find a slightly less tumultuous way of life and he now has a decent partner, a great guy called James.

Mark is also quite good with a camera and after Peregrine finished dipping his wick with Mark he had then gone off elsewhere. But not very far. Indeed, only as far as was necessary to have a grope with Clarissa outside her hedged-off house before disappearing inside for night-time activity that would disgust even the most polluted of minds. Mark, somewhat unhappy with the way he had been treated by his former flabby playmate, had taken pictures of them from the top of the wall outside Clarissa’s house – and they were excellent-quality pictures, too. The pictures showed Peregrine’s podgy hand disappearing up her skirt and his slobbering mouth round her exposed left breast.

‘You must have been very cold, Clarissa. It was December, after all.’

‘You little prick,’ Clarissa said.

‘Is that what you said to him that night? How unfair – I’m sure it can’t be true. It sounds so very disappointing. I am sorry.’

‘What do you want?’

Chapter Sixteen

So, I told them. I handed to them my next document. I had typed it the previous night and had then asked Susan and Seb to check it. The document read:

My terms are these:

1.   In this document ‘Senior Partner’ will mean Clarissa Jones and ‘Commercial Partner’ will mean Humphrey Reid.

2.   The firm will pay for me to have legal advice about the full terms of this agreement and its drafting up to a cost of £2,000. The terms recorded in this document are subject only to that advice.

3.   I will retire as a partner with immediate effect upon the signing of the final agreement between me and the firm.

4.   The firm will pay me as a consultant for six months at the same rate as I am currently paid. For the avoidance of doubt, that is £14,000 a month. During the consultancy period the firm will also continue to make pension contributions on my behalf as at present.

5.   During the period of the consultancy, I will be entitled to take six weeks’ leave and my full pay and all other contractual rights will continue during that period.

6.   The firm will give me a full indemnity against any liability to the firm or for any activity past, present or future of it.

7.   Once I have set up my own solicitor’s firm, but in any event within six months of the signing of this agreement, the firm will take all steps as it is able to assign to me (or such business or person as I shall nominate in writing), the legal aid contract for family work currently held by this firm.

8.   The firm will release me from any covenants restricting my ability to practise as a solicitor.

9.   The firm will release my secretary from her employment when requested by me on any date within six months of the signing of this agreement and, until then, will not take any steps to terminate her employment save in the event of future gross misconduct committed after the signing of this agreement.

10.   The Senior Partner of the firm will sign positive references in relation to me and my secretary when we leave, in terms that we will have drafted and submitted for signature.

11.   The Senior Partner will write a letter thanking the secretary of the Commercial Partner for the excellence of her services to the firm and ensuring her of the firm’s commitment to her future employment with it.

‘I’ll see you in the morning and I expect the document to be signed by 4 p.m. tomorrow afternoon. Think about it overnight. Now, home time. I am going to see my lovely family and have a nice meal with them. I hope you will do something similar.’

I am not Christian, but Seb is, and my very final parting shot was in the words that he had spoken when I first told him what they had done. ‘For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Timothy. Chapter six. Verse ten.’ I was on such a high.

Rounding this bit off, Clarissa and Humphrey did think about it overnight, but it was not as simple as them saying “yes” or “no”; they had to get the other partners to agree. So next day they arranged an emergency meeting of the partners, having told me what they intended to say.

The meeting happened a few days later.

‘Thank you, everyone for coming. We wanted to call this meeting because we thought that you would like to hear some very good news – with Jon’s great help we have found a solution to the legal aid problem that we were facing and I am sure that, like me, you will be delighted.’ Jaws hit the floor and some people looked at me, quizzically.

‘Yes, well, Jon has decided that he wants to set up on his own and has been good enough to say that he will take over our legal aid contract. So the public will continue to benefit from his inestimable services and we won’t have to make any difficult decisions, ourselves, about whether or not to continue legal aid. Of course, only if you agree.’ She did that frosty, determined smile which meant: ‘And if you don’t agree, I will remove your balls with my own teeth and then stick them in a grinder.’ There were no other female partners; Clarissa would have stung them to death.

‘How much will Jon pay us for taking over the contract?’ Probate George did not even look at me when he spoke.

‘Oh, there is no question of payment, George. Jon is helping us by doing this. Anyway, Humphrey, I think that I am right to say that the legal aid contract has no commercial value.’

Humphrey looked sincere and assumed the appearance of someone who was expressing his considered opinion of the contract’s commercial worth.

‘No, that’s right, Clarissa. It really hasn’t got any value and, you know, it’s all part of a deal with Jon that we have thought about very carefully. So, we do recommend this to you.’

‘What about the goodwill that attaches to the contract?’ George is such a pillock.

‘George, there isn’t any. Remember the accounts?’

George was far too stupid to pick up the vibes, all of which were screaming, ‘Shut your mouth, George!’

‘So.’ He turned to me. ‘When are you going?’

‘Six months’ time, George. I will be so sorry not to work with you anymore.’ I even managed to smile at the bastard. He didn’t ask about holidays.

‘I’ll draw all this up. Does everyone agree that this is the best way forward?’

There were mutterings and some more stupid remarks from George but it didn’t take long. So, bingo! Game over. Welcome, new world.

Chapter Seventeen

‘Look at the stars, Jon.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look up at the stars and tell me where it all ends.’

‘What, you mean space…It doesn’t, does it?’

‘Well, if that is right, how many other civilisations are there out there?’

Harry and I were lying on our backs in the park where he slept, next to the cement pipe where we were stretched out toe to toe, looking up at the night sky. It was one of those crystal-clear February nights, and there were no lights nearby to dim what we could see. I was also fucking freezing in a way that I had never known before. I was wearing every bit of clothing I had brought with me, was wrapped in my sleeping bag, had two hats on my head, two scarves round my neck, thermal skiing gloves on my hands, and was lying on an insulated camping mat. But I was still very cold. It was minus six degrees centigrade and, as I had said to Harry, if I were a brass monkey, they would have fallen off.

‘Do you look at them a lot, Harry?’

‘What?’ He laughed.

I realised what I had said. ‘Oh, bloody hell. The stars, I mean.’

‘I look at them all the time. You see, I may be a beggar here and seen as only a small blob on the pavement by everyone. But, if you look up there, aren’t we all just tiny specks of dust?’ I had never heard Harry talking like this before. When we had spoken previously, he was the beggar and I was the rich guy, the ‘I’m always late’ guy who dished out charity to cure his conscience – a very uneven playing field where we played in conversation for a bit before I went on to my rich, comfortable world and he stayed on the streets. This was Harry speaking: the man, not the beggar.

‘Harry, how did you come to be on the streets…really?’

‘I just went walking.’

‘Come on, Harry. It’s more than that. What happened?’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Then I’d like to hear it. We are not short of time.’

We had agreed that I would join him on the streets for ten days. After Jenny was killed, Harry had gone off around Southampton before making the 15-mile walk to Calshot Beach where he slept behind the multicoloured huts. When he had got his head together, he came back to sit outside the jeweller’s where the two ladies looked after him so well. I was very relieved to see him.

As part of my new world, getting back to what life is really about, I wanted to see what it is like to have nothing except the very basic requirements of life, to strip everything down and have no clutter, no paraphernalia, no junk. I gave myself a budget of £5 a day and even left my mobile phone behind.

Susan understood immediately. Although it meant me being away for ten days and leaving her on her own with the kids, she not only agreed, but also encouraged me to do it. The kids took more persuading.

‘What the bloody hell do you want to do that for?’ Paul asked but, in the end, just shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Am I bovvered?’ before giving me a proper man hug and muttering ‘lunatic’ in my ear. After hearing what I said to Paul, Josh, aged thirteen, asked if he could come, too, leading to a row with Paul who said: ‘You only want to go so you don’t have to wash.’ Gemma, eleven, asked where I would go to the loo and, when I told her that I would use the public toilets, just said, ‘Yuck,’ before asking if she could turn on the telly. Lucy, our youngest, asked me for a cuddle and suggested that I should take Buster with me. Buster was her never-go-anywhere-without-him teddy; she is very loving, like her mum.

So, there I was, in February, on the streets with Harry. I had asked him if I could spend ten days with him and he had agreed.

What, then, was the story he told? The story he told was one that left me feeling more and more foolish that, for so long, I had allowed his depth, his wisdom, his warmth, his faith and everything else that I then learnt about him to go unnoticed. How could I not have picked it up? But then I suppose that is what happens when everyone is so defined by role.

Harry spoke for most of the night and, the more he spoke, the more I got drawn into what he was saying. He had a degree in English from Sheffield University and then had qualified as a teacher. He came from a background that sounded secure and perfectly average – two parents at home and a younger sister. He had worked for a few years as an English teacher in a very deprived area, but had got increasingly disillusioned with what he was doing. That’s when he had started getting depressed and, as he had sunk lower and lower, so his wife had got more and more fed up with him. He did not say a word against her, though, when he was describing what happened and just said: ‘I hated myself so why should she not do so as well? I wasn’t helping with the kids, was a useless husband to her, and was just a pain.’

Harry had tried all sorts of ways to sort himself out, he said. He’d been on pills prescribed by the doctor but they just made him feel like a zombie. He tried therapy but that didn’t work either. In the end, he said, one of his fellow teachers suggested that he should try meditation and referred him to a local group of Buddhists.

‘That’s when my life changed,’ he said. ‘For once I found something in which I believed. Somewhere I could go and not be told what I should or should not do but where I was encouraged…supported…to find my own solutions through meditation…by thought.’

‘Are you Buddhist, Harry?’

‘Yes, I am. I hope you don’t mind.’ There was a pause and then I looked at him. To my own surprise I found myself reaching over and taking hold of one of his hands.

‘Harry, I want to ask you a huge favour. Please would you help me with that… would you explain to me what faith means? Not now…but over the next few days while we are together? I know it sounds stupid but, you see, I’ve ignored it for so long and now I really don’t want to carry on like that any longer.’

He squeezed my hand and smiled a rotten-toothed smile. ‘We’ve all the time in the world.’ I let go of his hand.

‘Sorry, I forgot. Is your hand OK?’

‘It’s fine now, Jon. It’s fine.’

Harry went on to describe how, as he began to feel stronger, he found it more and more difficult to live his life as it was. Hated by his wife, a failure as a father and a failure as a teacher, he said that he reached a stage where he couldn’t see the point of continuing as he was. The more he thought, the more he accepted the four noble truths of Buddhism, he said: that all life involves dukkha or suffering, that the origin of suffering is attachment or craving for worldly phenomena, that if we rid ourselves of attachment and craving we end our suffering and that the route to rid ourselves of that is to follow the eightfold path of rightful living.

And over the next nine days he taught me what the eightfold path means – right view (in the sense of correct outlook), right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood (in the sense of correct way of life), right effort, right mindfulness (in the sense of correct state of mind) and right concentration.

‘So, one morning, I just went walking. I had my wallet, about £25 and a credit card. And, once I had started walking, I felt that I didn’t want to stop.’

‘Do you ever think about going back?’

‘No, I don’t. I don’t belong there.’

‘Do you enjoy your life?’

‘No, I don’t think that I do. But I don’t know how to change it.’

‘Harry, I’ll do a deal. You help me understand faith. I’ll see if I can help you think about what you want to do with your life. Fair do’s?’

‘Fair do’s.’

Chapter Eighteen

So, besides being fucking freezing, what is it like on the streets? The first thing that you notice is that you become invisible. It feels like being litter. People plainly know you are there, but they look straight through you because they don’t want to make eye contact with a beggar and… what?... you certainly don’t trust a beggar – even though I was not actually begging. I was just sitting there. Over those ten days, people who I knew would walk straight past me and I suspect most of them genuinely did not see me. What is more, I was out of role, so they didn’t expect to see me either.

During the daytime, if someone talks to you as you sit on a pavement, they are usually about to say something horribly charitable or else just horrible. And, at night-time, if people talk to you it usually means that they are totally pissed and may be thinking about kicking your head in. So, I learnt to keep my eyes down and just sit, passively.

The next thing I found was that it is incredibly boring – there is nothing to do and, for a lot of the time, you don’t want to do anything, either. I didn’t have a phone to play with, money to buy things with or anything to look forward to. If Harry had not been there, I would have had no one to talk to either and, as he said, when you are on your own on the streets you get incredibly lonely. There is no community on the streets and you never trust other people who are in the same position as you are. So, you start playing around with thoughts in your mind and you feel as though you are going mad.

Nobody trusts you either. When Harry and I bought food together, people tended to treat us like biblical lepers – they kept as far away as possible and, when we went into the supermarket down the road, we were watched all the time in case we did a runner with something that we had nicked.

Very quickly I also came to understand the sense of hopelessness that Harry and other homeless people feel. It’s like being stuck in a transparent bubble – you see the world going on around you, but there is no way you can join in. There is a feeling that you have no future – you’re never going to get a home to live in, you’ll never improve and things can only go downhill. Like shit, you can only go down the drain. I also found myself worrying all the time about my health in a way that I never normally do and I was only on the street for ten days. Harry had constant pain in his rotten teeth but no means at all of getting dental care.

The final thing that I want to mention is that you stink and never get properly warm. At home, I shower twice a day and, even more than that when I do exercise. I use soap and dry myself with a clean towel. I change my clothes. I use deodorant and aftershave that costs more for a bottle than all of the money I spent in ten days. On the streets, I didn’t change clothes once and I never took all my clothes off – I’d have been arrested if I’d tried that outside the two ladies shops. There is nowhere to wash and getting to public toilets is a drag and involves a walk of about half a mile to get to somewhere that is, itself, filthy and which also stinks... So we used to pee down a side alley between two shops and do the rest in the park behind a tree before picking it up in a polythene bag and chucking it in the bin.

But, with all that said, those ten days taught me things that nothing else could have done and they took me to something that I had searched for all my life. Faith. Pantheistic faith. To a belief that there is no such thing as them. There is only us. That there is only one universal, overarching truth – that God is the force that unites us, be we beggar or be we prince. And so it is our contribution to our shared existence as part of God that defines our value, a contribution that can be defined in one word, compassion. Shared suffering. The truth that Harry taught me during those ten days is not earthbound either, as most monotheistic religions are. It has nothing to do with Jerusalem or Bethlehem. It is universal. If there are living beings elsewhere, as there must be, I cannot see why that core truth should not apply where they are, as much as it applies here.

I know now that I don’t believe in the Christian God and never will do. Harry doesn’t, either. There is no creator God; if there is, what was God doing for the infinite years before creation? But, because of all that Harry has taught me, I know that God exists. And when I die, as die we all must, I will not continue as a separate entity, I wouldn’t want to anyway, but if I have shown compassion to life around me, then I will have contributed to the force that unites us all, to God. If I haven’t, well, then I have been a waste of space.

When I was with Harry, he gave me his most prized possession. It was a book, by then filthy, and somewhat torn. It is called The Good Heart and is a discussion between His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, and Christian academics. Like Harry, I have found it to be the most influential book I have ever read. And, like Harry, I have read it cover to cover many times.

So, Harry, I want to thank you. Susan and my children want to thank you. Homeless and penniless you might have been, but you gave me something that is worth more than all the riches in the world. Faith. I am a lousy Buddhist, I know, and very shaky on the concept of reincarnation, although I’m not sure if that matters at all. But as I watch you now, as I do most days when we work together, I am constantly reminded of all that you have taught me.

I also think that I kept to my side of the bargain. I helped Harry decide what he wanted to do with his life. And the answer to that did not lie in money. It did not lie in going back to his family because that was, by then, a closed door. The answer was simple. He learnt to be happy. He learnt that it was OK to get off the streets, to accept the friendship that was offered to him by me, my family, my friends and the community in which we live. He even learnt to look after his teeth.

So, what did we do in those ten days? In one sense, sweet fuck all. But, in another sense, we changed each other’s lives. I taught Harry to live again. He taught me something much more important and much more enduring…faith. A faith that has let me understand my place in the world and has reinforced my love for my family – the place where I truly belong...

So, that is why this book is called Harry. How could it not be? Susan suggested the name.

Chapter Nineteen

What happened next? Well, the legal aid contract was assigned to our new firm and we rented small offices above a corner shop. We make a reasonable living but nothing like the amount that I earned before; Susan and I just don’t need it anyway. We are still far richer than the vast percentage of people in the world and we lack nothing. We work with the bigger firms as well to do pro bono work when needed and, in doing that work, I have met some of the most committed and morally driven lawyers I could ever hope to meet.

There are only two partners in our firm, me and Seb. We have a wonderful and hard-working secretary, Jane, who is not only very good at her job, but also feeds us with a never-ending stream of filthy jokes – see what I mean about being a lousy Buddhist? My favourite? What’s the difference between a cockerel and a lawyer? A cockerel’s primal urge at dawn is to cluck defiance. Her worst? A man goes to a fancy dress party wearing only underpants. ‘What have you come as?’ the hostess asks. ‘A premature ejaculation,’ the guest replies. ‘I don’t understand,’ the hostess says. ‘I’ve just come in my pants.’ Thank you, Jane.

According to Sophie, Humphrey had been asked to draft the documents releasing Jane from her employment with the firm and had told Sophie: ‘If Jon wants the dyke he can have her.’ Mysteriously, after Jane left, Humphrey’s prized possessions, the orchids and the big cactus that he kept in his room at work, died after someone watered them with bleach. It must have been one of the temporary cleaners.

And we now have a trainee legal executive, the funniest man in town whom Jane has taken completely under her wing. Mark, the very handsome Mark, whose trousers are sometimes possibly a little bit tighter than they should be (I told you I’d get that bit in, Mark) but, there again, in the wise words of Peregrine, who does give a fuck about the homophobic? James, Mark’s very handsome partner, certainly doesn’t – thanks for clearing that remark, James.

And who helps us with our business? With the admin, the VAT, the bundles, helping clients as they go through the misery of family litigation, business development and all the rest? Who maintains our business premises (as well as our home)? Who looks after our welfare at work? Who reminds us all not to forget our spiritual needs in the hurly-burly of legal practice? Harry does. He is not always there, he remains wonderfully untamed, but we all love him even when he disappears on one of his walkabouts. He lives in a flat which is clean and bright. He dresses simply but smartly and has even taken up jogging. He now looks like a totally different man. Most of all, though, he has found happiness, even though our attempts at getting his kids to see him didn’t work out. And when Harry smiles, showing off his capped, white teeth, the world lights up around him and, for some reason, he reminds me of Jenny – she used to bare her teeth slightly in a nervous smile whenever I saw her.

What about me? It doesn’t need saying. I have the companion and love of my life, Susan, with whom I share everything and who gives me more love than I could possibly deserve. I have the best children that any father could ever wish for and I love each one of them without any limits. I have the friendship of Seb and Freja. I have the joy of knowing Theo and Lucas. I have Jane and I have Mark…and James. And I have Harry. I also have faith. Who could possibly have more than me? I am the richest man on earth.