Читать книгу The Angry Sea - James Deegan - Страница 14

2.

SEVERAL MILES NORTH, on the other side of the river, Paul Spicer – senior partner at the human rights law firm Spicer, McGraw and Hill, and long a thorn in the side of the government – was already at his table in the Booking Office restaurant at the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel.

He was eating a much grander breakfast, his plate piled high with crispy bacon and waffles, drizzled with maple syrup in the American style.

He ate methodically, his chin wobbling as he chewed, pausing only to drink from his cup of strong black coffee.

Around him buzzed smart waitresses, eager waiters.

On his left, the morning maître d’ showed another small group of businessmen to their seats, smiling unctuously.

At 7.45 a.m., Emily Souster joined Spicer.

Slim and elegant in her grey trouser suit.

Roedean and Cambridge.

Blonde.

Stunningly pretty.

At one time, Spicer had half-hoped… But she’d made it quite clear that there was no chance of that.

Emily sat down and looked at him, eyebrows raised.

Said, in her cut-crystal Queen’s English, ‘How on earth can you eat that?’

‘Easy,’ he said, in his broad Leeds. ‘Open your gob, shove it in, and chew.’

She shuddered. ‘I’m a bag of nerves,’ she said.

A waitress came over.

Took her room number and her order – no food, just a fresh pot of coffee and a glass of orange juice.

Spicer said, ‘What’s there to be nervous about?’

‘Aren’t you?’ she said.

‘No. I’m ninety per cent certain we’re going to win. And even if we don’t…’

Even if we don’t, we bank our money and move on.

He left it unsaid.

Shot her a glance.

The junior solicitor sitting across the breakfast table from him was a true believer: a passionate human rights lawyer, a righter of wrongs, a romantic burner of midnight oils in pursuit of every cause she could find.

Why was it so often like that?

Emily had known every advantage in life – an ambassador father, the best education money could buy, a trust fund to fall back on… If you grew up like that, it allowed you the space to spend what felt like half the year working pro bono, seconded to crew aid convoys, and going on marches and demonstrations.

Whereas, if you grew up like he had – born to a single mum in Harehills, eating chip butties for tea, sharing bathwater with three brothers…

Make no mistake about it, he loved the challenge, loved picking holes in the government’s cases, but if you came up like that then you knew the value of a quid.

‘There’s no even if we don’t, Paul,’ said Emily. ‘We have to win. We can’t let him rot in there for the next fifteen years.’

Spicer smiled absently.

‘I’ll say one thing, Emily,’ he said, forking half a waffle into his mouth. ‘It won’t be for want of trying.’