A Calculating Heart Read Online Free PDF

unregulated life he leads. It was always going to rebound on his professional standing some day.’
    ‘Jeremy, if I didn’t know how much you cared about the image of chambers, I’d say you actually sound pleased.’
    Jeremy raised his eyebrows. ‘Merely saying that it’s about time Leo had his come-uppance.’ He marched on upstairs to his room.
    Anthony went into the clerks’ room, and found a huddle of barristers mulling over Robert’s copy of
The Sun.
    ‘Seen this?’ David Liphook, a stocky blond man in his mid-thirties, passed the paper to Anthony.
    Anthony took the paper and scanned the front page, absorbing the contents. He flicked through quickly to the inside pages. How much of this could possibly be true? He felt cold at the possibility. No, it couldn’t be … But he’d thought he’d known Leo, and just look how far he’d been deceived. Come to think of it, heremembered a conversation with Leo several months ago, one in which he’d admitted knowing this woman Angelicos, having some kind of a fling with her …
    ‘I haven’t a clue what to make of it,’ said David, and shook his head.
    ‘I personally think the woman’s off her head,’ said Michael Gibbon, leaning his thin frame against Robert’s desk and folding his arms.
    ‘Very possibly,’ said Will Cooper. He looked languidly round at the others. ‘But how much close scrutiny does Leo’s private life bear?’ He shrugged.
    ‘The fact is,’ said Michael, ‘one month ago Leo took out an injunction against Melissa Angelicos to stop her harassing him. Doesn’t that tell you something?’
    Will raised his eyebrows. ‘It tells me there’s no smoke without fire.’
    ‘They were co-trustees of Chay Cross’s museum,’ said Michael. ‘Anthony knows all about it.’ This was a reference to Anthony’s father, ex-hippy and waster, who had managed, thanks to the caprices of the modern art world, to reinvent himself as one of the leading postmodernists of the day. The wealth attendant upon such fashionable success had enabled Chay Cross, with the help of some local authority funding, to open a museum of modern art in a defunct Shoreditch brewery, of which Melissa Angelicos and Leo had been trustees, along with others.
    ‘I’d hardly say that,’ said Anthony. ‘I barely knew the woman.’
    What about Leo?’ asked David.
    ‘Well, he
knew
her, obviously …’
    ‘Do we mean in the biblical sense?’
    Anthony was at a loss. Before he could find words, Michael Gibbon cut in. ‘Look, whatever the nature of the relationship, I’m pretty much sure from what Leo told me that these allegations against him are pure fabrication.’ He tapped the paper. ‘Leo is quoted as saying as much.’
    ‘What d’you reckon?’ David asked Anthony.
    Anthony folded the paper and handed it back to David. ‘I don’t know any more about it than the rest of you – not as much as Michael, at any rate – but I don’t believe a single word this woman has written. If Leo says she’s lying, then that’s good enough for me.’
    ‘Too bloody right! Good for you, Mr Cross!’ Felicity, who had been listening, banged down her pen and got up from her desk. ‘I don’t know how anyone can think otherwise, frankly. You lot should stick up for one another.’
    ‘It’s not a question of loyalty,’ said Will, ‘so much as veracity. I doubt if even
The Sun
would print this kind of thing if there wasn’t something behind it.’
    ‘That’s rather a naive point of view, if I may say so,’ said David. At that moment Henry came through the swing doors, balancing his lunchtime packet of sandwiches on top of a steep bundle of papers. What’s your take on all this, Henry?’ asked David, tapping the paper.
    Henry waved the paper away wearily and took off his jacket. He sat down, adjusted his red braces, opened his sandwiches and sighed. ‘I don’t know where he findsthe time, to be honest. Not with the amount of work he has.’
    ‘You’re not saying you believe