There were plenty such coats: they were built to last. Like the moss-coloured German variety and the bomb-proof Burberrys which he did not like either. Camel hair belonged on camels.
Thomas was thinking to himself how much Marianne would have enjoyed that observation when the receptionist phoned from downstairs and said a man wanted to see him. About making a will, or something. Thomas never denied the walk-in trade who had included his better clients, directed by someone else who knew this convenient address. The plate outside advertising his presence was very small. One had to know. When the man in the camel hair coat walked in, Thomas was pleased and unsurprised because after all, he wasn’t the first to wait outside on a bench before coming in and he himself desperately needed distraction. Even hardened lawyers regarded consulting another lawyer on a private and confidential matter as something akin to going to the dentist, but all the same, it was unusual to wait in winter. Never mind the coat; the tone of voice adopted by the downstairs receptionist suggested that this one not only passed muster but was OK to look at. Shirley knew his criteria for acceptability in the male of the species, which were roughly similar to her own. Any man allowed into the premises without an appointment had to be reasonably dressed and body-odour free. Being perfectly formed was a bonus.
The man who came into Thomas’s office had shed the camel coat, which he carried, and emerged from it as an athletic figure, in fitting jeans and short leather jacket which offset a neatly turned bum, a narrow waist and slim hips. His eyes really were the most startling blue against a tanned skin. He had an innocent way of turning and shutting the door behind him that showed every aspect of his physique with the modesty of a shy schoolgirl. He seemed to be twirling and asking, Should I do this? Where would you like me to sit? Is this the right thing to do? What he said was, ‘How kind of you to see me, may I sit here?’ speaking in a pleasant, low-pitched voice, while extending his hand. Thomas took it, charmed.
‘Rick Boyd,’ the man said.
Then the handshake made him whimper, disgracefully. The man had a hand as big as a spade. It enclosed Thomas’s hand up to the wrist and felt cool and almost metallic. His thumb seemed to gouge Thomas’s palm painfully, so that he breathed in sharply, and gritted his teeth for the brief moment the sensation lasted and once released, disguised his reaction in the quick business of sitting behind his own desk. Rick Boyd sat gracefully, maintaining eye contact with Thomas, smiling and pleading for his attention with a slightly apologetic air. Once he was seated, he looked smaller and vulnerable and Thomas decided that the brutality of the handshake was either sheer clumsiness or his own imagination. He was trying to remember why the name was familiar and registering the fact that Boyd was really quite alarmingly attractive.
‘What can I do for you, Mr Boyd?’
A familiar name, only just swimming into focus. Someone he had heard about rather than met. Rick Boyd ran his huge hand through his black hair, making it stand on end, adding to his air of uncertainty and making him look youthful. He had the kind of face that would always look young, what with high cheekbones, those eyes and white teeth, although he must have been thirty-five at least. Thomas was no good at guessing ages, everyone seemed young to him. Boyd: Marianne. Something clicked.
‘Wills and probate are my main trade, Mr Boyd,’ Thomas said, putting on his well-rehearsed avuncular act. ‘But you do look a bit young for that kind of thing.’
‘I haven’t come about making a will. I came to ask about Marianne Shearer. The late Marianne Shearer.’
He emphasised the word late, with exaggerated respect and kept his voice low.
‘Oh.’
‘Perhaps I should have written, but I was passing by, and I was away, and I only just heard, and I went to the inquest, and, oh dear…’
He looked as if he might be overcome with emotion, then recovered and leaned forward, clasping the enormous hands over his knees as if he was afraid to let them out of his sight.
‘Your name was on the record at the inquest, so I thought you might be able to help. I wondered if, as her executor you could tell me why? Such a lovely woman. So successful, so professional. We were close, Mr Noble. Extremely close. The fact is, I wanted to find out if she had left me anything. I don’t mean money, I mean a memento.’
Thomas gazed at him. A beautiful, disproportionate man whose name he remembered, now. Not a toy boy, although it would not have surprised him if Marianne had at least one of those about her person. She might have been over fifty but there was nothing wrong with her appetites for any number of things. Mr Boyd and Ms Shearer had certainly been close and she had talked about him at length, without ever alluding to his charisma. Other people had, though, and Thomas could feel the first stirrings of acute unease. In the face of it, ignorance was the best policy and he let his own blandness speak for itself.
‘Why?’ Rick Boyd murmured, brokenly. ‘Why did she do such a thing? I can’t understand. She knew I was coming back. She knew I would have helped. Why didn’t she say anything? She promised she would send everything to me.’
Thomas resorted to pomposity to hide his surprise.
‘Really, Mr Boyd, I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about what might have led to my client taking her life, let alone the manner of it. It’s a mystery to us all and I’m afraid I don’t know anything about her extensive acquaintance, or to whom she was close. I’m relying on everyone else to enlighten me, I’m merely an administrator. Please accept my sympathy. Time may unravel the mystery, it very often does.’
Boyd placed his hands in a position of prayer and spoke with greater determination. He did not seem to like platitudes. Thomas gazed at him, finding the flaws in a handsome body, the hands too big, the curved torso too long for the rest of him.
‘Having done time myself, Mr Noble, I can understand that, but I don’t want you to misunderstand me. I’m not after money, and I’ll wait for explanations, but she had something she promised to send me. She had something of mine, to say nothing of what she had of my heart. I poured my heart out to her, you see and she recorded it. She made notes about me on paper, on her laptop, her phone and she would have kept them all. She said she would send them all back so no one else would ever see them. She’s the only one who knows me, and since we adored one another, I’m sure she’d want me to have what she promised.’
Thomas had been disposed to like the man because of the way he looked, but the demanding tone irritated him. He had him placed now and his appeal faded abruptly. Boyd, as in R v Boyd, Shearer’s last big case. The subject of that messy box of paper, over there. A triumph for a maligned man, she said, but that surely did not entitle him to anything, not even ten minutes of his, Thomas Noble’s time, not even if he had the novelty value of being the first, the only person to express grief over her death.
‘A dead person’s personal effects, their notes, love letters, records, their whatever else, remain theirs until disposal, Mr Boyd. Her brother, Mr Frank Shearer, has the final say in that. He’s the sole heir of her estate. I’ve no idea what precisely it is that you want, but Ms Shearer’s notes and records are hers and hers alone.’
‘I don’t want them all, sir, I just want the confidential information which relates to me. I’d like it now, before it falls into the wrong hands.’
He was out of his seat now, advancing towards the desk with his fists clenched and then, as if realising what he was doing, he retreated back to his seat with his head held in his hands, sobbing.
‘I loved her, Mr Noble, I loved her. She saved me, you see.’
Thomas maintained his best inscrutable look while clenching his own hands under the desk to keep himself under control. He loathed displays of emotion, especially when they failed to convince him and he had begun to find the person opposite more than a little frightening. Boyd. Charged with kidnap, abduction, rape, grievous bodily harm, and in Marianne’s words, Quite deliciously ruthless, dear, but only a danger to very silly women. Nonsense. Involuntarily, his gaze shifted from Boyd to the boxed transcript in the corner of the room. Boyd wiped his eyes. Genuine tears, but so were those of crocodiles. Thomas wanted him to leave. He wanted it with an intensity of revulsion that unnerved him and it occurred to him that Boyd would not go unless given some sort of promise. He would stay where he was with his big hands and his intimidating weeping. Thomas managed a smile.