LITMIR.BIZ

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Anita … she’s out on the prowl and your Tony’s a toothsome morsel … Nick Stoddart’s on the slide, pushed down by that chip on his shoulder the size of an oak tree, and his tendency to tipple … Your office colleagues, they’d sure like to be loyal but … self-interest takes the heart out of that …’

      Kemp sat up.

      ‘You were listening to them?’

      ‘I have good ears. Nondescripts like me get overlooked when people are talking … Same as the servants in eighteenth-century novels …’

      Kemp looked across at her fondly, but with some apprehension.

      ‘You’ve been doing some fast reading, Mary.’

      ‘And why not? The Irish have always had a way with words. It’s not difficult to catch up. Tonight I was hearing the hesitations, the spaces between the words … When you listen to the silences you know what’s at the root of the talk.’

      ‘And that is?’

      ‘There is mistrust of you, Lennox, because of the letters … Of your position as head of the firm. Of course, they are all of them lawyers so they’re careful in their speech, for ever looking over their shoulders for fear they’ll get sued for slander … That’s where what they don’t say matters more than their words …’

      She drained the brandy in her glass.

      ‘Mary Madeleine Blane, I think you’re tipsy …’

      ‘And what of it? Isn’t it the truth I’m telling you?’

      Going upstairs with his arms around her, and comfortable in all else, Kemp hoped it was not so.

CHAPTER 7

      Wednesday was an ordinary day. The morning post brought few surprises: fiscal reminders, conflicting claims, routine conveyancing, fervid complaints from dissatisfied clients, the odd appreciation for services rendered, building society cheques towards impending completions, notice of meetings, appeals for charity, and letters from rival firms competing in the matrimonial stakes.

      Kemp dealt with them all, distributing among his colleagues their particular headaches for the day, and taking to himself those in which he was concerned. He dictated, saw clients, drafted documents, perused and completed the various forms required by bureaucracy to ensure every citizen’s right to be heard, to be tried, to be scolded, solaced or compensated according to the law. It was Kemp’s framework, the narrow space in which he operated and within which he fervently hoped his intelligence and expertise might make for, at the very least, a happy compromise – justice was too often a will-o’-the-wisp and hard to catch, an abstract concept only possible in an ideal world …

      It was already five o’clock when Sally Stacey came into his office.

      ‘We’re late, Lennox, we’ll miss the sherry …’

      ‘If it’s what the local Branch usually provides it’s no great loss …’

      As he had predicted, the meeting went on and on, petering out finally just after eight when the old-stagers had run out of steam – and their reminiscences of times past when the budget meant little more than a change in tax without the modern complexities brought about by political expediency.

      Sally Stacey did not say much at the start of their drive back to Newtown, which was unlike her for she was normally quite a talker. Kemp was reminded of what Mary had said about the silences …

      ‘Lennox, there’s something I have to tell you …’ When Sally spoke at last she had her eyes on the road, her hands firm on the steering wheel. ‘It’s about those letters … Of course we were all shocked to see that bit in the Gazette … I got to thinking … You know the reporter, Dan Frobisher?’

      ‘I’ve met him.’

      ‘What you probably don’t know is his background. You remember when I came to Gillorns four years ago? You had me doing matrimonials …’

      ‘I’m sorry for that, Sally. We just thought …’

      ‘Because I was a woman solicitor, the first you’d had, you thought I’d naturally go into that department …’

      ‘It was a mistake. I know that now, and I took you off it as soon as I realized you’d a business brain …’

      ‘You were the only one who guessed … And I’m grateful. What I wanted to tell you was that while I was doing what everyone expected me to be good at – the social welfare thing – one of my clients was Amy Frobisher – well, she was Amy Robsart then …’

      ‘I didn’t know she’d been your client.’

      ‘To put it bluntly, what she wanted was a bastardy order. She was pregnant. She said the father was Daniel Frobisher and he wasn’t keen to marry her.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘She was quite a tough little piece. It was either get him into court or she’d have an abortion.’

      ‘I see.’

      ‘No, you don’t …’ Sally’s hands were gripping the wheel very tightly. ‘She came for legal advice …’

      ‘Which you gave her?’

      ‘Well … up to a point … But when she talked about abortion, I was in a quandary …’

      Kemp waited for her to go on. When she didn’t, he said, gently: ‘I know that you are a Roman Catholic, Sally, and I appreciate that you might have strong views on abortion … but you are first and foremost a lawyer.’

      It was some time before she spoke. They were by now on Newtown’s ring road and the high lamps shone brightly into the car so that he could see the strain in her face.

      ‘I told her she should on no account abort the child.’

      Kemp leant back in his seat, and watched the highway so brilliantly lit, the way forward so clear. Eventually he said: ‘And she took your advice?’

      Sally nodded. ‘She said she would have the baby … In the end the court papers weren’t needed. Her parents made him marry her …’

      ‘So the child was born in wedlock?’

      ‘The child was born mentally defective …’

      Kemp heard the indrawn breath that was almost a sob. He took his time before he spoke.

      ‘It wasn’t your fault, Sally. These things happen …’

      But Sally Stacey would not listen to any words of consolation.

      ‘She burst into my office,’ she went on, bleakly, ‘… it must have been about six months later … She just stood there like a wild animal … and she hurled abuse at me … Because of me, she said, she was stuck with a husband she loathed and a thing she couldn’t look after … She called it a thing … She was only nineteen, Lennox …’

      ‘Have you seen or heard from her since?’

      ‘No.’ Sally shook herself. ‘I had to tell you now because of the letters … just in case there is a connection.’

      ‘I don’t see how there can be. This happened, what, two years ago? And anyway, the letters are coming to me, not you.’

      ‘Amy Frobisher said that day she wished all lawyers would burn in hell … we were all liars and cheats, we wrecked people’s lives and didn’t care … I could only sit there and hear her out. Afterwards I wrestled with my conscience … Had I really done wrong?’

      She was talking now to herself and although Kemp could have answered her, he chose not to. He could have told her she had been wrong, not in her personal conviction, but in allowing it to intrude upon her legal judgement. She would have been very persuasive with Amy Robsart, the strength of her religion

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