The Brothers of Baker Street (11 page)

“I had a Man U cap that I had saved for weeks to buy. Because our seats were, unfortunately, in the Chelsea section, my father gently suggested as we left the house that I leave the cap at home. But I refused. I was full of pride for our team, afraid of nothing, and I insisted on wearing the cap.

“It was the first professional game I had ever seen live and the most wonderful game ever played, even though our team lost finally on a penalty kick. The winning fans were boisterous, and as we exited, a hooligan ran by and snatched the Man U hat off my head. My father just reflexively reached right out and took it back. And then the Chelsea yob turned back toward us, along with two of his drunken friends. But a bunch of Manchester fans had seen the exchange, weren’t putting up with it, and a brawl ensued.

“The bobbies arrived eventually and arrested anyone who was too injured, drunk, or slow to flee. And with me in tow, my father was not quick enough.”

“I’m sure you were moving as quickly as possible.”

“I’m afraid I kept trying to get back into it with the Chelsea louts. I took my football very seriously then. But the end result was me sitting in a room with a police matron while they booked my father. Then my mother arrived, Nigel with her, posted a bond, and we all went home.

“There really should have been nothing more to it than that. But there had been a stadium trampling just a few weeks earlier; people had been killed, and now the London tabloids were all on a tear about footballer hooligans. The Crown Prosecution Service gave in to the public frenzy and brought felony charges—even though it should have been just a misdemeanor even if my father had started it. Which he hadn’t.

“The sensible thing from that point would have been just to try to plea to a lesser charge. But not my dad. ‘Our livelihood depends on my good name,’ he said, and so it went to court.

“He went to Lincoln’s Inn to meet our barrister, and I went along.”

“That sounds like trouble,” said Laura. She was leaning forward on the table, toward Reggie, paying quite close attention.

Reggie felt encouraged. He continued.

“The barrister sat behind this huge mahogany desk, green felt writing pad in the center of it, a wooden case with shining gold pens, and a brass lamp. I was impressed. I was sure we couldn’t lose when I saw all that.”

“Your desk is like that,” said Laura.

“My desk is larger.”

“Of course it is. Go on, then.”

“Well, then came the day of the trial. One of the Chelsea fans had sustained a broken arm—probably from repeatedly bashing it on my dad’s hard head. This wanker got on the stand, showed off the locations of various contusions, and said how it was my father who had done it.

“It was nonsense, every bit of it; my father had been too busy herding me out of the way to take a swing at anyone. The man was lying, and no better at it than a schoolboy.

“I kept waiting for the judge to turn his head to the jury and roll his eyes. And at any moment I knew our barrister would leap to his feet, point to the man in the witness box, and demand: “‘Sir, are you or are you not a sniveling liar who has concocted this gigantic fiction of an injury for no other purpose than to support a concurrent civil suit and enrich yourself and the mistresses you seek to entertain?’”

“Or words to that effect,” Laura volunteered.

“Yes. But the judge never did. And the barrister never did. In a case that should have been shown the door at the preliminary hearing for a contemptible lack of evidence, my father was found guilty and sentenced to thirty days, and required to pay a five-thousand-pound penalty that captured every bit of savings our family had.

“After the proceedings, my mother and Nigel and I walked by this very pub on our way to the tube. The two barristers—the one who represented my father so ineffectually, and the one who prosecuted him without cause—were standing right down there, under the first chandelier, buying each other pints. I found it annoying, and I wanted to go inside and set things straight. But they wouldn’t let me in.”

“Self-preservation on their part, I suspect,” said Laura.

“My father never recovered from this,” continued Reggie. “I knew he wouldn’t, even then; I could feel what it would do to him. He lost his business. He lost his health. He died just before I got to Cambridge on my scholarship.”

There was a pause now. Laura was looking at Reggie as though she hadn’t seen him in years.

Reggie himself seemed a bit embarrassed, and he focused instead on his Guinness.

“For quite a long time after, I wished that I had not worn the cap,” he added, in a sort of mumble, looking down into the warm beer, and Laura almost didn’t catch it.

“Why have you never told me that story before?” she said.

Reggie shrugged. “You never asked?”

“It’s not a woman’s job to ask everything, Reggie; how can she possibly know just what question to pose? You’re supposed to volunteer something now and again and leave some bread crumbs.”

“I’ll try to remember.”

“So. You stayed away from the traditional barrister haunts all these years while you became the best barrister any barrister could hope to be, and then you stayed away some more, just to rub it in, and to really prove the point, you established your chambers all the way over on Baker Street. And now, just when it’s looking like you can’t make that work, you’ve proven all those naysayers wrong, in spades. And so now you come in, for your victory lap.”

Reggie shrugged.

“But it’s more than that,” said Laura, studying his face. “This is the victory lap for your father.”

Reggie gave that some thought, then nodded very slightly. He looked across at Laura, who had now begun to seem perturbed.

She looked back at him and said, “I can’t believe this. You pick tonight to start telling me things? You are completely impossible.”

“I’m communicating. On the right track now, aren’t I?”

She shook her head. She seemed to not want to make eye contact, clearly still annoyed.

“So then … what is it you wanted to tell me?” said Reggie.

Laura leaned back in the booth now and began looking about the room—anywhere but at Reggie.

“Have you ever noticed how many clocks they have here?” she said.

He hadn’t.

“And none of them with the right time. What time is it, do you think?”

“Quarter past.”

“Had no idea we’ve been here so long. Time to push on, don’t you think?”

“It’s only been thirty minutes.”

“Well, yes, but even so—”

“They haven’t even brought your shepherd’s pie yet.”

“They’d better bring it in the next five minutes then. And when they do, less talking, and more eating.”

Now she folded her arms and sat back, in a sort of mock-pleasant way, that said very clearly that she was not involved, and not intending to be, in any intimate conversation of any sort of significance.

“The lights are so lovely here, don’t you think?”

Clocks. Lights. She would be commenting on the furniture next, and just hours before she had said they needed to chat, and here he was perfectly willing to do just that, and just generally communicating like bloody hell, and now she was clamming up like a corporate officer in the dock for fraud.

It was aggravating, and though something was telling him not to, he pressed the issue.

“You said we should have a chat. And I am here, ready to chat.”

She stopped looking about. She looked directly at Reggie. She sighed. She looked away again, then back at Reggie once more, and then she put her hands on the table and blurted:

“Robert Buxton has asked me to marry him!”

The acoustics in the pub were remarkable. Or perhaps some words were heard less often than others and attracted more attention. Whatever the reason, several lawyers standing at the near side of the bar on the lower level looked up.

And then the comfortably dark shadow of the corner booth was broken by a bright white flash.

Laura raised her hand to shield her eyes; Reggie turned and looked behind to see the source of it, and then the white flash happened again.

Reggie stood, blinking, and thrust his arm out, but wasn’t able to grab the photographer, who retreated quickly back onto the stairs toward the lower level.

“How will we ever get out?” said Laura.

“This way.”

Reggie saw the red neon lights of an emergency exit at the near end of the corridor; he grabbed Laura’s hand, pushed the door open, and they made their way down the stairs to the street.

They stepped out into a light rain. The alarm bell was ringing from the emergency exit, but there did not seem to be any paparazzi still in pursuit.

The rain was beginning to increase. Reggie waved for a Black Cab.

But there was no need. Before the cab could pull up, a white limo drove in front of it and stopped at the curb.

The limo driver jumped out and opened the door for Laura.

She hesitated. She seemed almost about to keep walking toward the cab instead, but the limo was right there in front of her, the driver expectantly holding the door.

And then, from somewhere deep inside the limo, Robert Buxton’s voice called out, “Heath! Good to see you!”

Laura turned to Reggie and said, “Why must you insist on communicating so damn bloody much?”

“I thought … communicating…”

“It’s quite the cat’s pajamas, but I didn’t want to tell you this. I mean, not now … with all that you told me, and with me still—”

“You still what?”

“Nothing,” she said, and she got in the limo. “I didn’t want to talk about this. You made me.”

“But I didn’t think that—” Reggie began, but he didn’t get to finish. Without even waiting for the driver to help, Laura got in next to Buxton and yanked the limo door shut.

The limo pulled away. Reggie remained standing flat-footed at the curb.

*   *   *

In the limo, Laura settled in—sort of—next to Buxton.

Buxton had his briefcase open, and he was on his mobile. But now he looked up at Laura.

“Sorry,” he said. “Tomorrow’s edition.” He shut off the phone.

“Of course,” said Laura. “One must always be looking ahead.”

“Did you tell him?”

“You mean Reggie? Tell him what?”

“That we’re getting married?”

Laura hesitated. She had not given Buxton his answer yet. She was acutely aware of that fact, even if he was not.

“Actually, we were talking about that,” said Laura, in just a bit of a lie, pointing at a copy of the
Daily Sun
that Buxton had in his open briefcase.

Buxton picked up the paper to see what she was referring to, then said, “If he’s still bothered that anyone else in the world should catch a glimpse of the world’s most perfect breasts, then I’d say he’d better get used to it.”

Laura nodded very slightly but said nothing. She assumed Buxton meant Reggie getting used to Buxton seeing her breasts, not the rest of the
Daily Sun
–reading world seeing them, but his meaning wasn’t entirely clear. She decided to let that go—for now.

She had an impulse to look back through the window at Reggie as they drove off, but it would have been rude with Buxton next to her there, especially under the circumstances, and she resisted it.

Whether Reggie stood there watching, or simply shrugged and walked away, or ran down the street after the limo, waving his arms like a lunatic, she would not get to know.

Pity. She did want to know.

*   *   *

And in fact, Reggie did stand there watching. But as Laura rode off in the limo, lawyerly onlookers had accumulated at the entrance to the pub, just a few yards away, and there was a danger of a return of paparazzi.

So now Reggie turned on his heels and walked quickly away in the opposite direction on Fleet Street.

Reggie walked rapidly, covering several blocks in a very short period of time, though clearly it would make no sense to walk all the way back to Baker Street. He wasn’t paying much heed to anything, but the rain was coming down heavily now, getting under the collar of his macintosh, and he realized that in the rush he had left his umbrella in the pub booth. He continued walking. But in another block, getting drenched, he began to wish that he had not let the cab go.

And then, just as he was thinking about trying to flag down another, a Black Cab, already occupied, pulled up to him at the curb.

The door opened, and the passenger called out to him:

“Is this a good time for the rain check?”

It was Darla.

“Couldn’t be better,” said Reggie. He got into the cab beside her.

“Then let’s make it a proper one,” she said. “I’m buying you a pint. Where shall we go?”

“Wherever you like.”

“The Olde Bank pub on Fleet Street,” she said to the driver.

Bloody hell, thought Reggie, that’s an unlucky and almost certainly unwise choice, and he considered countermanding the instruction, even though he had invited her to choose, and even though his umbrella was still there at that pub.