An Immoral Code Read Free Page B

first page and recognised the name of the sender. It was the daft old geezer who had been deluging Godfrey Ellwood with missives. Anthony groaned. Now it was obviously his turn. With a sigh, he began patiently to read Freddie’s fax.
    In his own room, Leo chucked his papers onto the bare surface of his desk and sat down, still in his overcoat. He sighed and leant back wearily in his chair. There had been a time, on Fridays such as this with the weekend ahead of him, when his life had been his own, the next two days an expanse of time in which he could do as he pleased. He made a wry face as he thought of all the things which it had once pleased him to do. It had been those very things – the lovers, the rent boys, the occasional enjoyable ménage à trois in his country home, the pleasurable, careless dissipation of his private life which had threatened, a mere twelve months ago, to wreck his career, to blight his prospects of taking silk, of moving on in his professionas a barrister. In this most proper of worlds image was all. At the time, salvaging his respectability in the face of growing rumours had seemed like the most important thing in the world. Yet how might it have been if he had not married Rachel? Leo often wondered this. But it was too late for wondering now. He hadn’t intended to marry her. Not at first. She had been just a good-looking young woman, a solicitor from one of the big City firms, and he had hoped that the fact of having her as his girlfriend would be enough to scotch the rumours which might have wrecked his prospects of becoming a QC. The fact that Anthony had been in love with her had not mattered. Of what significance was that, compared to his own career? Then Rachel had got pregnant, and the rest was history. He had married her, and there she was at home now, waiting for him, with their child, a weight in his heart and in his life.
    Leo sighed and looked up across the room at the familiar, warm rectangular shapes in the Patrick Heron painting which hung on the wall opposite. He remembered purchasing the picture at the Redfern Gallery eight years ago, as well as the two Tabner drawings which hung next to the bookcase, with some of the money he had earned from a large case. It was his habit, if a case was particularly lucrative, to buy himself a painting, or a piece of sculpture, by way of reward. It harked back to his time as a boy in Wales, when he would reward himself with extra sweets, or a comic, if the money from his gardening jobs exceeded the amount designated for his savings account. Gazing at the picture, then at the drawings, it occurred to Leo that this room in chambers was now the only place in the world which was utterly, absolutely his own.
    His mind returned to Rachel. She was going to say something to him soon, he knew. He could see it in her eyes. It was merely extraordinary that she had not said anything before. Where did she think he went on those nights when he did not comehome? She never asked. Her silence was astonishing, unsettling. In many ways, he had hoped that there would be some sort of confrontation before now, that the issue might be resolved. The issue of their respective lives, and of where they went from here. He thought of his infant son, Oliver, and a certain guilt touched his heart momentarily. He did not want to be like his own father, did not want to desert his son and leave a painful space in his life for ever.
    He sat motionless for a moment, toying with the crimson ribbon tied round the papers on his desk, then picked up the telephone and rang Rachel to tell her to book a babysitter, that they would dine out that night.

CHAPTER TWO
    Rachel Davies put down the phone and glanced down at the baby in his carry-seat. She had just been bringing him and the shopping from the car when she had heard the phone ringing. She decided that she might as well leave him where he was; he was quite warm next to the radiator, still asleep, tendrils of blonde hair clinging