Free Take My Breath Away by Martin Edwards Page A

really think so?’
    ‘Honestly.’
    They bantered like this for a while. Chloe said, ‘You know, I’m so glad you’ve come here. It’s fun to talk to you. Makes a change from the girls in the typing pool. And the solicitors. You’re – well, it’s a funny thing to say, but somehow you’re different.’
    You don’t know how right you are
. ‘I suppose I’d better take that as a compliment.’
    ‘Of course,’ Chloe said. And, beaming from ear to ear, she sauntered back to her room.
    Roxanne couldn’t help liking her. That was the problem. Chloe was warm and straightforward and possessed a love of life that Roxanne found intensely appealing. Perhaps she was jealous, because Chloe didn’t seem to carry any baggage. There was no secret which she had to keep for ever.
    Roxanne was seeing a good deal of Joel Anthony. Somehow she felt safer in his company than when she was with any of the other partners. So far he had neither asked her about her past nor showed any curiosity about her private life. Like Chloe, he was always willing to spare a few minutes to answer her questions, however mundane or naive they might be. Often he spiced his explanations with anecdotes about cases the firm had fought. Triumphs over bureaucracy, officialdom, hallowed legal precedent. Every story cast Will Janus in a flattering light.
    ‘It’s like Fergus says. Without Will, this firm would be just another bog-standard law practice. Will’s broadened our client base out of all recognition. We don’t just serve a narrow interest sector these days. We don’t just focus on employers, or on employees. He’s found a third way. These days, the great and the good beat a path to our door. Number Ten begged him to talk Ali Khan into sponsoring the Media Zone at the poor old Dome. He was close to Diana, in the months before she died. They shared an interest in campaigning against landmines and raising funds for children’s hospices. Salman Rushdie’s a friend, Bob Geldof, the list goes on. Only yesterday he was asked to call in at Lambeth Palace.’
    ‘I suppose I assumed our work would be mostly on behalf of workers and trade unions,’ she said. As the words left her lips, she wanted to bite her tongue. It sounded like blasphemy, although she hadn’t meant to criticise Will Janus or the firm. The trouble with Joel was that he made you feel relaxed, so that you were tempted to drop your guard. She added hastily, ‘I mean, almost all the stuff I’ve seen so far consists of files opened for multi-nationals and favours for the glitterati. It’s fascinating, but…’
    ‘We’ll represent anyone,’ Joel said, interrupting her with every appearance of good humour. ‘As long as they pay our bills. As for the
pro bono
work we do…’
    Her only reservation about Joel, she thought as he launched into a recapitulation of Fergus McHugh’s press release about the firm’s free advice clinic for needy residents of the Isle of Dogs, was that he was so on-message. But he was a brilliant lawyer. She was learning so much from working with him on the Thrust Media sexual harassment case.
    The victim, Gina Mandel, was a sales rep for Thrust Media’s magazine division. She’d complained about her marketing director’s conduct at a bonding weekend at a hotel in Brighton. He’d taken the bonding concept too far. She accused him of propositioning her at the bar in the evening and then following her up to her bedroom and pestering her to allow him to come in. When she said no, he’d tried to kiss her, then put his hand up her skirt before she’d managed to slam the door in his face. Roxanne had handled a dozen similar cases at Hengist Street, but this was the first time she’d acted for an employer in such a squalid little story. Howard Haycraft, the director, had given Gina Mandel a poor performance appraisal a week earlier. He claimed she was taking revenge, although she had been off work with stress ever since and her doctor confirmed that she