The devil you know, p.28
The Devil You Know, page 28
“I don’t want to do it at all.”
“Dom,” Hilary said, pleadingly, “it has to end.”
“Why?”
“We’re both committed to other people…”
“Are we?”
Hilary flushed. “Even if we weren’t…you’re my client.”
“Not anymore.”
Hilary flinched at his tone. “You’re still my firm’s client. It was never going to last. It couldn’t.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
Hilary sighed. “You can’t always get what you want.”
“Do you still tell yourself that?”
Hilary stiffened. “I’m sorry, Dom. I’m sorry if I’ve misled you or this hurts. I’ve enjoyed our time together. It’s been…” He searched for words. “Good. Very good. But I love Jasper. I’m going to marry him.”
“Better the devil you know, is that it?”
Heat flared in his chest. “You don’t know anything about us.”
Dom leaned forward. “You have this need to overachieve, Hilary. Isn’t dating a movie star just part of that?”
“You know nothing about it,” Hilary bridled.
“Celebrities aren’t normal people, Hilary,” Dom said. “He’ll mess it up. He’ll hurt you.”
“Well, you’d know all about that.” Dom’s face flattened and Hilary reached deep for patience. “He’s good for me.”
“Is that because of who he is? Or what he is?”
“You don’t know him.”
“The whole world knows him,” Dom said mildly. “He tweets every thought that goes through his head.”
Hilary looked away, his jaw aching with clenching it.
“You can’t be happy, Hilary. Or why are you here?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
Hilary glared. “Jazz and I…? Yes, we’ve got some things to work through. We’ll do that once we’re married. We promised each other we would.”
“I think you’re still scared.” Dom put his hand on Hilary’s arm. “Still scared of that darkness. Scared of taking risks.”
“Look… I don’t know what you thought was happening here, but it was never going to last.”
“Why?”
Hilary made an impatient noise and stood, poured himself a triple vodka and downed it. “You mean apart from the fact that you’re a client, you’re married and I’m engaged?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“No,” Dom said, coming over to him. “All those things can change or be lived with…”
“Would you divorce Amelia?” Hilary asked. He held his breath, pained by how much he needed an answer.
“No,” Dom said after a long, aching pause.
“Well then.”
“We can work around it…”
Hilary stared at him. “You expect me to be your shameful secret, your bit on the side? While you and Amelia attend balls and banquets together?”
“It’s not like that…”
“It is. It would be.”
“We’d know the truth,” Dom insisted. “You and me. Isn’t that enough?”
“No, Dom, it’s not.”
“Marry him if you need to,” Dom said after a hard silence. “If you really feel like you can’t back out right now. I understand the pressure of publicity—”
“That’s not why I’m marrying him—” Hilary argued but stopped when he saw Dom’s knowing expression.
“I’ll share you, if I have to, for a while. I’ve waited this long, I can wait a bit longer. But at least acknowledge that we can try to see where this takes us.”
“No,” Hilary said, banging his glass down. “I won’t do it. I can’t.”
Dom’s face was blank. Hilary’s chest was strung with hot wire, tight with everything he still wanted to say but couldn’t.
“Fine,” Dom said, his voice hoarse like he was accepting a prison sentence. “I’ve let you go once before. I can do it again. I think…”
“Dom,” Hilary said softly, “we barely know each other.”
“That’s not true.”
“We’ve just been caught up in…whatever this is. And, yes, maybe I needed a distraction from Jasper until I figured out what I wanted.” Dom’s face darkened and Hilary looked away. “But that’s all it was.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I’m sorry you think I’m the answer, Dom,” he replied. “I’m not. You really don’t know me, not who I am now.”
“And Jasper does?”
“Yes.”
“This is real, Hilary—what’s between us, what has been between us all along. I understand you don’t want to accept it. Not yet. But I think you will.” Dom raised his eyes. “And when you do, I’ll be waiting.”
“Real life doesn’t work like that.”
“It works however you want it to work,” Dom responded. “If you’re brave enough to make it happen. I know you’re brave enough, Hilary. You’re the bravest man I know.”
Hilary gazed into his eyes, a thorn of doubt twisting in his belly. Then he made for the bedroom to find his clothes. Dom stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“I won’t bring it up again,” he said, stepping close and talking into his hair. “I want you to be happy. I’ll let you go, if that’s what it’ll take. Just…please…”
“Please what?”
“Can I see you…until he gets back?”
Hilary didn’t move, didn’t speak. He felt rooted to the rug.
“Let me be your distraction a little bit longer, if that’s really all I was. Then, I promise…if you still want to go, I’ll let you go. You’ll never hear from me again…if that’s what you want.”
I don’t want that…
Hilary stopped the words before they left this mouth. He turned in Dom’s arms. “We should say goodbye now,” he whispered. “It will only be harder if we leave it any longer.”
“Just tell me what you want.”
Chapter Sixteen
“There you are.” Jasper’s voice through Hilary’s car speakers was weighted equally with relief and annoyance. “I heard about the verdict. I tried to call—”
“Sorry,” Hilary said, steering through the early morning drizzle, trying to focus, even though it felt like his mind was being torn in several directions at once. “I went out with Beck. Just needed to switch off for a bit.”
“Sure, I understand. But, Jesus, what a result. Well done, Hil. Plenty of people think you’ve worked a miracle there.”
“He didn’t do it,” Hilary said as he turned a corner and Greenwich fell behind the gauze of rain in the rear-view mirror. “The jury saw that in the end.”
“That man walked because of you, not because he was innocent.”
Hilary winced. “Whatever. It’s done.”
“I’m glad,” Jasper replied, sounding relieved. “And not just because of the wedding…”
Hilary winced. His thoughts whirled like a plug had been pulled on his sense of security. He opened his mouth to say something—he wasn’t sure what, only that he couldn’t keep it in—but then Jasper was talking again.
“I just wanted to congratulate you, but I gotta go. We’re live-streaming an interview in a sec. Just tell me you’re okay?”
Hilary tried to answer the question himself, found he couldn’t. “I’m fine,” he lied.
“Great. Speak soon. Be good.”
Jasper hung up. Hilary hesitated then dialed another number.
Dom picked up after one ring. “Hilary?”
Hilary let out a breath, his fingers going cold, even while a fire lit in his chest. “We’ve got two weeks. Make them count.”
* * * *
Hilary never left anything at Dom’s flat—not a change of clothes, not a phone charger, not a toothbrush—despite the fact that he had to be up before six every morning to get back to his own place to change before work.
He divided his brain down the middle. Dom existed in one part and the rest of his life existed in the other. He was scrupulously careful to never allow them to blend. It took almost constant vigilance, and he wondered more than once how Dom and Amelia could bear to live like this.
But as he worked, attended meetings, took lunches with clients, that small, private part of him continually glowed with anticipation, silently counting the minutes to when he’d next cross the threshold of the Greenwich flat, let the lift door shut on reality and give himself up to the world Dom made for him, filled with warm caresses, whispered confessions and seismic orgasms.
That part of him never looked at the calendar, never acknowledged that the days were ticking by and soon, Jasper would return. Reality had to return with him, and the wedding day was getting closer by the minute.
And so it was a few nights later that he woke to find himself alone in Dom’s vast, pillow-strewn bed. He squinted at his phone screen to discover it was a little after two in the morning then noticed there was a light under the door. He emerged, blinking, into the sitting area, bathed sickly white by the light of Dom’s large television. His broad back was silhouetted against the screen, and Hilary could see that his body was rigid as iron.
“Dom?” he murmured sleepily. “What is it?”
Dom didn’t answer. Hilary put his glasses on, and the screen came into focus.
A serious-faced newsreader spoke into the camera, a picture of a hollow-faced, gray-haired man in a suit being hustled into a car by several armed police in the corner of the screen. Hilary took a step closer so he could read the subtitles.
…shocked this evening to learn of the arrest of Clarence Lavelle for child sex offenses. In a statement, the Crown Prosecution Service have revealed that the former Foreign Secretary has been under investigation for several months and that, after a warrant was issued to search Mr. Lavelle’s property, they now have enough evidence to charge him with possession of indecent imagery and several counts of sexual assault of a minor. Mr. Lavelle has yet to make a statement, but it is believed…
The TV blurred before Hilary’s eyes. “Jesus, Dom,” he breathed. “You knew him, didn’t you?”
“My father knew him,” Dom said, his voice so low it was barely audible. “Worked with him. Had him over to the house.”
Hilary swallowed. “Did he ever…?”
“No,” Dom said quickly.
“You said your father would never allow anything like that to happen to you,” Hilary said, unable to look away from the screen. “You were talking about Lavelle?”
It was a long time before Dom answered. “My parents sent us to our rooms whenever he was visiting. He had this way of looking at me and my brothers…”
Hilary went cold. He tried to take Dom’s hand but was overwhelmed with the futility of the gesture, so kept still.
Dom sipped whiskey as they showed the footage of Lavelle being escorted from his mansion, camera flashes bleaching the scene white every few seconds, the man’s jowly face blank, devoid of emotion.
“But one time,” Dom spoke quietly, without turning, “he was drunk, upstairs, searching for the bathroom. I was on the landing, seeing what the noise was…”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.” He downed his drink and glared at the screen. “He tried to touch me. I broke his nose.”
They stared at the screen in silence as a DCI addressed questions from a crowded pressroom, the subtitles flashing the shocking revelations in bold white script making Hilary’s stomach churn.
“I’m sorry.”
“Nothing for you to be sorry for.”
“I’m sorry I never knew.”
Dom finally looked at him. His face looked unfamiliar in low light. “No one knew. He told my family he’d walked into a door.”
“People did know, though,” Hilary said as the subtitles listed high-profile names connected with the cover-up. “Too many people.”
“Pretty much anyone with influence enough to help him cover it up…including my parents. It wasn’t unusual. It just wasn’t talked about.”
“And yet Eloise invited him to that banquet?”
Dom’s grip tightened on the glass.
“Did she know? About his connection to you?”
“She knew.”
Hilary felt sick. “Then why—?”
“Eloise would do almost anything for appearances. And the Lavelle family are influential, even now. But I have a line.”
Hilary held himself very still. “Where did you go, Dom? That night?” Dom gazed at him, his eyes reflecting the light from the TV. “It’s over. You don’t have to hide anything anymore.”
Dom set his glass down, took Hilary’s hand and drew him close. He kissed his jaw, the hollow under his chin, then his lips.
“Let’s not talk about it anymore,” he whispered, brushing his tongue over Hilary’s lips until he sighed and opened his mouth to him. Dom slid his tongue in, holding him tight, and didn’t stop until Hilary had forgotten all about his question.
* * * *
Almost a week after the trial, Hilary was startled out of a reverie when Janice opened his office door with an earnest expression on her face.
“Your meeting with Mr. Gunnerson, sir.”
“Yes, of course,” Hilary said, tucking his phone and the WhatsApp conversation with Dom hurriedly out of sight. “Is Beck ready?”
“He just wants you.”
Hilary fought the sinking feeling as he left the office.
The old lawyer wore his usual inscrutable expression as Hilary took his seat in front of his boat-sized desk, but Hilary had worked with him long enough to recognize the look in his eyes.
“Something wrong, sir?” Hilary said, fighting a blush as the one hundred and one possible things that could be wrong rose in his mind.
“Yes and no,” Gunnerson said, interlacing his fingers on the desk. “It’s not been publicly announced yet, but I thought you should know… Bruce Merriweather has finally been charged—two counts of murder, one of obstruction of justice.”
Hilary held himself very still.
“He has pleaded guilty to all charges and been sentenced to life.”
“I…” Hilary started, cleared his throat and tried again. “Good. Some answers for the parents, at last.”
“Some,” Gunnerson said, “but not all.”
“How do you mean, sir?”
Gunnerson extracted a piece of paper from the file on the desk and held it out. “Merriweather’s confession.”
Hilary’s skin tingled as he read.
“He knew too much about the crime to leave the police in any doubt as to his being the culprit. He knew more about the holes in the gun club’s security than the prosecution. He has also volunteered the location of a private security camera on which the police found footage of him planting the silencer. So he’s told them everything…apart from why.”
Hilary focused on the typed script rather than meet his boss’s eye. “The police and the CPS still saw it as enough to charge him.”
“They did,” Gunnerson inclined his head. “And rightly so. The man did it. There’s no question about that. However…” Gunnerson straightened in his seat. “It’s clear that he did it—did all of it—because of his obsessive devotion to that family. Which makes me question—”
“Dominic Hart-Gosford knew nothing about this,” Hilary said, fighting to keep his face blank. “Nothing.”
Gunnerson was quiet a long time. “As it stands, there are no legal ramifications that can be leveled at our client, and that’s all that matters. But I won’t be the only one looking at this matter and thinking there are pieces missing.”
Hilary swallowed. “You don’t think this is over?”
“I’m saying that unless something distracts the media soon, there’s a chance they could get hold of a thread and pull. And we need to do what we can to stop that happening.”
“Merriweather acted alone,” Hilary said. “He has said as much. The family is not culpable for his actions.”
“Yes, I am aware. But we need to keep our eyes and ears open.”
Hilary frowned. “In what way?”
Gunnerson looked him in the eye. “I think the trial has given you and Mr. Dominic a…shall we say, renewed connection?”
Hilary’s stomach lurched as he tried desperately to read any potential implication behind his employer’s words. “I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”
One bushy eyebrow twitched. “I have read the transcripts of the trial. Your closing statement makes it clear that you care about the man’s welfare. And the company phone records show he’s been in contact with you regularly since.”
Hilary clenched his teeth.
“And there is nothing inherently unusual about that,” Gunnerson went on airily, though there was no mistaking the knowing look in his eyes. “Plenty of clients are…grateful…to their solicitors after such a near miss. But the best solicitors use every situation purely for the benefit of their clients.”
“What exactly are you asking me to do, sir?”
Gunnerson turned his fountain pen over in his hands. “I feel it would be to our advantage if you could use your connection to keep your ears open for anything further that might…complicate things. So that if anything more does come out of any of this, we’ll be prepared.”
“Are you asking me to spy on my client?”
Gunnerson’s lip turned up. “Not spy, my boy. Just…stay focused on them all. And if you find anything of concern, anything that leaves them potentially vulnerable to further legal consequences, you come to me immediately.”
Hilary held his tongue with an effort.
Gunnerson tilted his chin. “We have a duty to protect our clients, Hilary. And you’ve done a tremendous job with this case, as I expected. But if this really isn’t over”—he laid his hand on the file containing Merriweather’s confession—“we need to be prepared…for our client’s sake. Understand?”
Hilary hesitated then nodded. “I understand, sir.”
“I knew you would, my boy. Oh, incidentally, you should know that the partners are meeting next week about the junior partnership. I know you’ll be off on your honeymoon soon,” he said, pulling more files across the desk and opening them, “but I have a feeling you’ll be returning home to some very welcome news indeed.”
