Free An Immoral Code by Caro Fraser Page A

the high point of the day. This afternoon they were to meet their new leading counsel – some Welsh fella, Freddie had forgotten his name. He trained his eye on the spidery cracks on the ceiling, feeling quite invigorated by the prospect of meeting this new man. It had been one hell of a blow losing Ellwood, but lately he had ceased to pay attention to many of the important points which Freddie made to him in his faxes. Simply took no notice. Now this new chap, he could make him listen – here was an opportunity to get some really sound ideas across.
    Already formulating in his mind the things he would say to their new leader, Freddie turned over and stretched out a hand to the tumbler on the bedside cabinet, fishing with his fingers for his slippery upper dentures.
     
    At two o’clock that afternoon Charles Beecham was pacing impatiently up and down in the hallway of his house, listening to the sound of voices on the floor above him, waiting for the estate agent and his clients to finish their meanderings. This was the second time they’d been here, and the estate agent knew that he had an appointment in town; Carstairs would start tofret if Charles didn’t pick him up on time. Charles glanced at his watch, then heard feet slowly descending the stairs. He fixed his slightly self-deprecating, minor celebrity smile on his face.
    ‘Please don’t think I want to rush you in any way but I’m afraid I have an appointment in town …’ He let his voice trail away, knowing that the woman would take up the thread with vigorous apologies; he could tell, from the experience of recent years, that she found the fact that he was a media personality rather glamorous.
    ‘Oh, Mr Beecham, forgive us. We really mustn’t keep you. It was so kind of you to let us pop round again at short notice. We do like the house so very much – don’t we?’ She turned to her husband, who nodded in a vague way, not looking at Charles. She wanted the house, Charles could tell, but the husband didn’t like the price. They were in for some hard bargaining.
    By the time they had gone, it was nearly two-thirty. Charles drove as fast as was safely possible to Brian Carstairs’ place some thirty miles away. Brian and his family lived in a small boxlike house on an estate which had been built ten years ago, an unattractive, sprawling modern development on the edge of Andover. The houses might have looked smart and new once, but now they looked shabby, too close together, the gardens too small. Charles did not have to wonder how Brian and his wife coped with three teenage children in a house that size; he knew all too well. He sighed as he drew up and glanced across at the house, reflecting that in his own case he had been relatively young, with his life ahead of him. For Charles and Hetty it had been the beginning. For Brian, this was very nearly the end.
    As he had predicted, Brian was waiting for him anxiously. He was a small, spare man in his late forties, with a head that seemed a little big for his body, large, sad, intelligent eyes, and thinning dark hair. Twenty years ago he had been a salesman, selling plastics. Ten years later he had gone into partnership andstarted his own plastics and polythene manufacturing business. Six years later he and his partner had sold it for nearly three million. That was when he had gambled on Lloyd’s, never thinking he could lose. Now, four years later, it was all gone, thanks to Alan Capstall. He and his wife had been forced to sell their six-bedroomed house with its swimming pool, extensive grounds and paddock, the children had been taken out of private school, and they had moved to this dreary semi. Brian spent most of his days applying for sales jobs which he would never get, which went to a younger, more dynamic breed of man – the kind of man Brian had once been.
    Charles saw him watching and waiting behind the net curtains of the small front room, and when he opened the door to Charles a few seconds