got was a pocket calculator and a folder of brochures on – of all things – security systems.’ He laughed. ‘Talk about locking the stable door – Mary and I were just about to have the whole house done.’
‘Well, it looks as if you’d better get on with it. I’ve had a word with the officer on patrol. Constable Barnes was in Station Road about midnight. There was a bit of a fracas at the Victoria pub but he soon cleared that up, and his beat would take him round your crescent in the early hours and he saw no one acting suspiciously – in fact, he saw no one at all though there’s the usual number of cars and vans parked … He wouldn’t have been able to see your front door anyway for all those damned bushes in your garden. Yes, I take your point about the fire, I don’t believe in coincidence either. Someone wants to scare you, they begin by letting you know how easy it is to get at you and your house is the obvious target. That and the letters … Just our luck they managed to pinch them back.’
‘Pure chance,’ said Kemp. ‘There’s no way they could know where they were. I think you’re right, breaking in that door and leaving it open was just a bit of showing off. They never went further than the outer hall, they spotted the case and simply lifted it, probably thought it would cause me embarrassment if I had clients’ files in it. Anyway, apart from the writer, no one knows such letters exist except Mary and myself, and now you.’
‘And I’ve not mentioned them to anyone on the force. I was waiting to get them to put them under the usual analysis. Well, we’ll just have to bide our time and see if you get any more of the same.’
‘I hope not,’ said Kemp, fervently. ‘Such vicious stuff has an unnerving effect on one. You and I can handle break-ins and burglaries, even that knock to my car if it was part of the whole scheme, because it’s men’s hands that wield the chisels or turn the steering wheel … Even pushing fire-lighters through the letterbox makes a loutish kind of sense. Plenty of our minor criminals get a kick out of bashing property – makes them feel bigger than they are. Vandalism grown up. But the letters, that’s something else again, the sheer malice behind them, the anonymity …’
‘Let me see your copies on Saturday evening,’ said John Upshire, briskly. ‘I’m still to come, am I?’
‘Of course you are. Mary’s not the kind to let this business get her down. Nor am I, if it comes to that – which is just as well for I’ve enough obsessed clients without becoming one myself.’
As he returned from the police station to his own office Kemp attempted to switch his attention from personal matters to the more pressing affairs of the practice. Despite recent shake-ups in the profession, Gillorns remained the eminent legal firm in Newtown, with a high reputation for probity and fairness, and Kemp was determined to keep it that way. Having over the past few years gathered round him not so much a team as a coterie of lawyers who worked in their separate fields but could stand together when required, he knew that he was the pivot of the firm, he held it together. Like John Upshire, not all of them had approved of his marriage, perhaps sensing a change in him. Despite their being friends as well as colleagues, he had spoken to none about the letters, for the animosity displayed in them seemed too personal – at least so far. But he knew how easily the reputation of a legal firm can be damaged when the character of any member is impugned, and there had been more than a hint of that behind the writing.
Had Kemp confided in anyone it would have been Tony Lambert of his Trusts department, who had a wise head on young shoulders, but Tony had recently become engaged to a pretty law student from Australia and it did not seem fair to intrude upon his present starry-eyed contentment. Michael Cantley’s insight into the thought processes (where such could be discerned) of Newtown’s up-and-coming young criminals might be of help should the scaring tactics be repeated, but in Kemp’s view the mind of the anonymous writer was of a different generation. Cantley had been with the firm for many years; he might yet have to be consulted if old files were to be exhumed. So might Perry Belchamber who had come over from the Bar and specialized in matrimonial matters; if, in the past, a troubled family had eaten bitter fruit, their children’s teeth could be set on edge …
Kemp couldn’t find the right quotation for that so he dismissed the whole matter of the letters from his mind and concentrated on Friday’s business.
There was no lack of it, despite the recession having trailed its dusty underskirts over all aspects. Instead of houses happily changing hands weekly on the new estates built in the boom years, now the property files were full of repossessions, and anguished cries from the building societies. ‘Ignore them as long as you can,’ Kemp told Charles Copeland, his conveyancing clerk. ‘Where there’s a roof there’s hope … I’d rather be blamed for the law’s delay than have families out on the street.’
It saddened Kemp to handle the failures, the flow of bankruptcies, the winding up of small firms set up in the good times with such high hopes, those who had ventured too far, been too sanguine in their expectations and now found themselves facing a harsher reality.
Surprisingly, the figures for divorce had gone down. There were still the inevitable matrimonial disputes – paired-off humans being what they were – but couples were tending to stand together in adversity, or, as a cynic might have it, they were looking more closely at the financial consequences of splitting up one home and providing for two. A statistician might have an interest in this effect of hard times but there could be little comfort in it for moralists.
One of Kemp’s cases in court that morning brought him up against an old adversary, Nicholas Stoddart, who had been a colleague in the firm some years ago. Stoddart had left Gillorns in a move which was of benefit to both parties. Kemp had discovered in the past of this envious man a shady episode which might never have come to light had Stoddart not attempted to smear someone else, thus showing himself as not only untrustworthy but vindictive also. It was upon this latter ground rather than the misconduct itself – which could be seen as merely an ambitious young lawyer’s attempt to outsmart an opponent – that Kemp had accepted Stoddart’s resignation.
Nick had taken his undoubted talents as a bold litigation man to the City for a while, but now even there the sturdiest of companies were shedding twigs like trees under storm, and Stoddart was back in Newtown. Not that he would have it that way. According to Nick Stoddart, the local firm of Roberts could hardly wait to engage his services.
Watching him now, on his feet before the Bench, Kemp felt a grudging admiration for Nick’s powerful presence and skill in argument. He should have been a barrister, he thought – not for the first time – and indeed, Stoddart’s appearance would have been the better for a wig. As it was, his heavily handsome features seemed to be tacked on to a head too small to hold them and the brow which should have been impressive failed at the low hairline. To make up for this disunity – of which he must have been aware since he had once confessed to Kemp that he practised his important speeches in front of a mirror – Stoddart employed a trenchant style which had put the fear of God into many a hapless witness.
In today’s case there was no need for such histrionics. A mere neighbourhood dispute about barking dogs, bad feelings, bad language and some bad law; in Kemp’s opinion it should never have been brought before the Bench. Getting to his feet and saying so succinctly he caught the nods of approval from the magistrates and heard them dismiss the claim of Nick’s client, with costs against him. Those who had retained Kemp grinned all over their homespun faces, despite their Worships’ admonition for them too to go away and try to get on better with their neighbours.
That was entirely Nick’s fault, thought Kemp, he went at it as if it was a murder trial at the Bailey.
Kemp stuffed the folder into the tattered old satchel he was using in place of the stolen briefcase, and bowed his way from the court. On the stairs he met Stoddart who, not surprisingly, was in a black mood.
‘Damn
