It was Monday, early. My office was tidy, a cup of strong coffee already halfway gone, when our head clerk Paul knocked and entered carrying a file under his arm. Usually he’d throw it on my desk, like a knight delivering a head on a plate, but today he waited, holding it close to his chest.
‘So have you spoken to Martin Joy this weekend?’ he said, putting both hands on my desk.
‘Briefly,’ I replied, feeling a spidery flush of guilt creep up my neck.
‘And?’ said Paul, unsatisfied with my answer.
‘He told me about the police appeal. I suppose his divorce is the last thing on his mind right now.’
Paul raised his eyebrows; an expression of disapproval. Disapproval of Martin and presumably disapproval of me for being Martin’s brief. I very much doubted Paul harboured any concern for the whereabouts or indeed safety of Donna Joy; he was thinking about the firm. Suspicion on Martin put the spotlight on us too and messy tabloid stories were most certainly bad for business, especially when your business was quick, discreet divorces. From Paul’s point of view, the Joy case was like the iceberg to his Titanic.
‘So what’s the latest?’ he said, his eyebrows still up.
‘Mrs Joy is still missing,’ I said, aware that I was not quite meeting his eye.
‘I am aware of that, I do listen to Radio 4.’
I smiled, but this clearly wasn’t a time for levity.
‘So what do you think?’ I asked. ‘Did you see the TV appeal?’
‘You mean, do I think he’s involved in her disappearance?’
‘Yes,’ I said more boldly.
I watched him carefully. Paul hesitated and shifted his position, knitting his brows. In the usual run of events, his loyalty to the clients almost surpassed his devotion to the barristers in chambers, but Martin Joy had brought the firm into disrepute, so Paul was conflicted. Tell me about it, I thought as I watched him struggle.
‘In all my time working in family law, I’m surprised we haven’t come across this before,’ he said finally.
‘Come across what?’
‘The conveniently missing wife.’
‘Conveniently missing?’
‘Well, it is very convenient, isn’t it? What’s at stake in this divorce? A hundred million, give or take? Maths is not my strongest point, but I’d guess that a fifty per cent split of a hundred million is a lot of money.’
I made sure that my face didn’t give anything away.
‘The reason we don’t come across it more, Paul, is that, however hard it is for the husband to give up half their net worth, they find the idea of twenty years in Belmarsh even less appealing. Otherwise, we’d be knee-deep in bodies.’
Paul nodded in agreement. ‘Still, the police are taking this seriously. They don’t do a telly appeal for any Tom, Dick or Harry.’
He glanced at his watch and shifted back into efficiency mode. ‘I spoke to Vivienne and Charles last night,’ he said, name-checking our two most senior members. ‘Vivienne suggested we talk to John Cook at the Beresford Group – a PR outfit. They do reputational management work. I’ve just called him and he can do a conference call in twenty minutes. I suggest you sit in on the meeting.’
He stood up, still clutching the file, and as I collected my things to go to the conference room, I saw him disappear in the direction of Tom Briscoe’s office, no doubt off to give him the work that a few weeks earlier he would have given me.
‘There are two ways you can jump,’ said the voice of John Cook from the speakerphone in the middle of the table. So far, I had kept absolutely silent throughout the conference call, merely grateful that Vivienne’s choice of reputation management expert was not Robert Kelly, whose details I had given Martin. ‘You can keep your distance from the police investigation, and close down any enquiries from the media with a short, polite press release that you are simply representing Mr Joy in a family law matter. Or, you could use Mr Joy’s unexpected profile to promote your chambers. Donna Joy’s disappearance makes this a high-profile case and if she doesn’t turn up it could run and run.’
‘You mean any publicity is good publicity?’ said Paul drinking his coffee.
Charles Napier, our head of chambers, peered at Paul over the top of his glasses with a look of undisguised disapproval.
‘Obviously we want to be as supportive as possible to our client,’ said Charles Napier, directing his attention back towards the phone sitting in the middle of the table.
‘By the same token, we also need to minimize any potential scandal. That is an absolute imperative.’
‘Is there anything I should know about, beyond the usual reputational issues?’ asked Cook.
Vivienne shot a look at Charles, who was removing his glasses as if he were emphasizing a particularly delicate point of law.
‘We have two barristers up for silk this year, Mr Cook. One of them, Francine here, is representing Martin Joy in his divorce. Whilst one would expect the judicial appointments system to be scrupulously impartial, we can’t afford to let any potential criminal investigation into Martin Joy affect the chances of our barristers being appointed Queen’s Counsel.’
‘In which case we will distance ourselves as much as possible from Donna and Martin Joy,’ confirmed Cook. ‘Shut down social media references to Burgess Court, draft a press release. I’ll get my team on it and call you back this afternoon.’
When Paul and Charles had left the boardroom, I hung back, hoping to talk to Vivienne McKenzie alone.
‘What’s this really about?’ I asked her when she had closed the door behind her.
‘“Really about”?’ She put her notebook on the table and looked at me quizzically.
‘The Beresford Group charge about £500 an hour. Are chambers really prepared to risk that to help me and Tom make silk?’
Vivienne gave me a maternal smile.
‘You don’t miss anything, do you?’
‘Call me a cynic,’ I said, realizing my hunch was correct.
Vivienne didn’t speak for a few moments.
‘You should know that we have been approached by Sussex Court chambers about a possible merger.’
‘A merger? Surely this should have been discussed with the tenants.’
‘There’s nothing concrete to discuss. Yet,’ she added pointedly. ‘And if such a merger were to go ahead, it could be incredibly beneficial for all of us. Sussex Court are a big, powerful – and, truthfully, more prestigious set than we are. However, we all agree that there are benefits from economies of scale. It’s a particularly important step for Burgess Court, as we all know that, moving forward, smaller sets are going to struggle to survive.’
The shock of learning that Burgess Court might be in financial trouble stunned me to silence for a moment.
‘What has this got to do with Martin Joy?’ I asked cautiously.
‘If anything has happened to Donna Joy, and if her husband had anything to do with it, it will attract a lot of unwelcome attention. Sussex Court are conservative. Their head of chambers is positively reactionary. A whiff of scandal might scare them off.’
‘But you’re talking as if the police have arrested and charged Martin,’ I said, hearing my words speed up. ‘We have no reason to even believe he is a suspect, no reason to believe that anything awful has happened to Donna Joy.’
‘Charles even wondered if you could, if you should drop Martin as a client.’
‘Drop him?’
She waved a hand. ‘He was just being hot-headed. But … divorce proceedings obviously can’t continue. Even if Mrs Joy turns up overnight, we should encourage Martin Joy to step back from anything litigious. For now, at least.’
‘I can’t say that to him.’
Vivienne gave the faintest of smiles.
‘Yes you can,’ she replied, her eyes peering through the thin grey slats of the blinds that covered the picture window to the conference room. ‘Because, unless I am very much mistaken, Martin Joy has just turned up in reception.’