Chapter 1

“Caleb, it’s Sally for you.”

Nicola Goldbourne, of Latimer and MacPhearson, Solicitors (I’m Caleb Latimer), in her usual efficient way processed all calls to my office, but always, even when she knew I was ‘not to be disturbed’, would put Sally through. My wife Sally was always brief and to the point.

I was with a client. The young man was some twenty-three years old and had been caught breaking and entering a house by the owner, a burly bricklayer, who put an arm lock on him and got the lady of the house to phone the police. So the accused and I were working on his defence, and I was trying to convince him that it was not a good idea to try to sue the owner of the house for assault.

That was my job. Normally I did house conveyancing, drew up wills, acted in divorce cases (though I didn’t like that part much), that sort of thing, but I’d also put myself on the panel for legal aid work. I certainly met a good cross-section of the public that way, and the divorce and legal aid clients were usually the cross ones.

I excused myself to the young criminal, and asked Nicola to put Sally through.

“Caleb,” she began. “Can we delay dinner? I’m caught here with a tricky problem and I can”t leave it.”

Sally was an accountant. She used to be freelance when the children were at school, but was now working for a company. Her work was typical small company accountancy – small to medium business accounts and personal tax work.

“OK, darling.” I said.

“Thanks. Love you!” and she was gone.

It was the end of the working day, Thursday. I finished with my client and admonished him to be at the magistrates’ court in good time the next day. The last thing I wanted was an arrest warrant sworn out to find the man. The lad promised. I had heard it all before.

Nicola put her head round the door and smiled her beautiful smile. She was a pretty woman of about thirty – and had been with me for eight years. We worked well together and had got to the point that we could almost read each other’s minds.

“I’m off now Caleb. See you tomorrow.”

“Thanks Nicola. ‘Bye!”

I had two documents to read, but they did not take long and soon I was ready for home. I called in on Gordon McPhearson, my partner, on my way out. Gordon worked far too hard, and I was always on at him to take things more easily. Gordon was 54, ten years older than me, and I feared for the man’s heart. Gordon did not take exercise and sat at his desk too long. He was overweight, bordering on obese, but he did not worry about it, in fact he was among one of the most optimistic and cheerful people I knew.

“Gordon, come on! It’s time to go,” I urged him.

“I’ve just got–” began Gordon.

“You don’t have to,” I chided. “Come away. How about a pint? Sally’s home late tonight.”

“All right,” he grumbled. “Just a quick one.”

We locked up, walked to the pub round the corner from the office, and sat nursing our pints. The beer was good there, and we appreciated it as a relaxant after the pressure of the day.

“Corrie still thinks I’m having an affaire with Jenny,” muttered Gordon. “She can’t believe that I need to get on top of everything before I come home. She thinks I’m getting on top of Jenny, and things are getting a little strained. I tell her to come over and make spot checks, but she won’t. She says she trusts me, but she doesn’t really.”

Jenny was Gordon’s Personal Assistant. She was twenty-four, blonde and curvy with blue eyes and strikingly beautiful. Thus I could understand Corrie’s suspicions, even though they were completely erroneous; indeed the thought of tubby Gordon cavorting on top of the devastatingly trim and athletic Jenny was ludicrous, though I have to say, one does see the most attractive young women with the most unprepossessing older men.

I remembered the uncomfortable few weeks with Sally years before when I appointed Nicola. Sally was most unhappy when she saw her; it wasn’t only Nicola’s pretty face and gorgeous body, but that she had such a sunny and caring personality as well. Nicola always looked after me like a mother hen, even though she had been half my age when I appointed her. That was water under the bridge and the two women were now friends and often ganged up on me; not that I minded being outnumbered in the slightest.

“I’ll come and vouch for you if you like,” I suggested, with a grin.

“No need, old man. It keeps her on her toes to think that I can pull a girl as young and pretty as Jenny.”

We both laughed, and I got the next round in.

When I returned with the beer, I made yet another attempt to get Gordon to come with me to the gym and lose some weight.

“Gordon, you’re heading for heart disease, or worse, a serious heart attack. You need to lose weight and get fit.”

“I’m happy as I am Caleb, and I’m not going to come drinking with you after work if you keep on at me. I can’t think of anything worse than running on a treadmill for hours. I’ll get by. I don’t smoke, and I don’t drink all that much. I just like my food. And Corrie has now started keeping my diet fairly fat free.”

“But you need exercise as well, Gordon. How about coming jogging with me?”

“Just leave it alone, Caleb. You’re on the edge of losing a friend here.”

“Better that than permanently losing a partner. I worry about you, old friend.”

“Yeah, and so does Corrie and so does my ‘other woman’ Jenny. But I’ll be all right.”

I knew when I was beaten. Gordon and I had been through this many times before, so we tacitly agreed to move on to talk business in a general way until the second pint was drained, when we went our separate ways.

March in Britain is a month that does not know whether it is Winter or Spring, though it tends to the former, but that early March evening it was definitely Spring. The air was warm thanks to a southerly breeze even though darkness was falling. It made me long for the hour to go forward so there would be lighter evenings.

I usually walked to and from the office each day, thinking it helped to keep me fit, along with running some early mornings and my weekly visit to the gym.

The walk only took twenty minutes. That particular evening it was a real pleasure. It reinforced my feeling that all was well with my world. I had a wonderful, pretty woman who adored me (Sally, not Nicola). Well, perhaps Sally would have cavilled at that. She was a church-going Catholic and would assert that God was the only object of her adoration, but I was sure I was next in line after God.

I myself had no official religion, still don’t, though I lean towards Buddhism. It is an agnostic religion, and that fits with my view of the world. Its uncompromising justice – you always reap what you sow – appeals to me. Every action, every desire would determine the quality of your next life, good or bad. As I walked home that evening, I thought I must have been pretty good in my last life to have the one I was living at that moment, although I’m not sure there’s any past or future life beyond this one at all!

I never had any trouble with bringing Martin and Elizabeth, our two children, up as Catholics: children make up their own minds when they are old enough and I still think that one could do a lot worse than have the moral framework Catholicism gives one. Now our two were at university, I knew that Martin wasn’t going to church any more, though Lizzy was. Their choice.

I reached home and once inside, began to prepare a stew for dinner which we had previously frozen. It was near seven-thirty when Sally rang to say she was on her way, so I knew I had half an hour to get the dumplings into the stew and steam the vegetables.

When she arrived I watched her come through the door. I loved to do that. First there was the sharp inhalation and the exclamation “Wonderful smell!” then as she saw me waiting, her face would light up with her brilliant smile as she ran down the hallway to hug and kiss.

As I drained the vegetables and thickened the stew, she prattled on about the client who had messed up his tax return and how much time it had taken to get the correct information from him.

I made appropriate noises, as I was engrossed in buttering the beans and setting out the pans on the table. Except for special occasions, we always served straight from the pan on the kitchen table to save extra washing up.

Over the meal, she came to the end of recounting of her day and asked me about mine. We discussed the young criminal and she gave her usual opinion about rehabilitation and I countered with the need for justice to be done, while telling her wryly that I knew that I would defend the miscreant mainly by offering factors in mitigation, in order to lessen that same justice! She laughed at that.

In reality we agreed that both aspects were important, though she leant to the former view of forgiveness and I to the latter one of justice and punishment. She was deeply imbued from her strict Catholic upbringing with the idea of confession and forgiveness, whereas I had seen the callous and casual attitude to the law of many of the legal aid cases I had to deal with, which I averred demanded punishment.

After the meal I loaded the dishwasher while Sally went to have a shower, and then I went into the living room and turned on the TV for a comedy programme we both loved.

She came down in her towelling robe as it started and sat by me on the sofa. It was a good episode. When it ended I mixed a gin and tonic for her, getting a whisky for myself. Meanwhile she had casually undone the belt of her robe and it gaped sufficiently to allow me to see she was naked under it. The invitation was clear!

I placed the drinks on the coffee table and sat down by her and she immediately cuddled up, putting her head on my shoulder and giving me a clear view of her pert breasts. She allowed her legs to fall slightly apart and the robe to fall obligingly to her sides. After twenty two years of marriage she still turned me on so easily!

Of course, half a year earlier, Sally’s lascivious behaviour would have been unusual, but now that Elizabeth had followed Martin to university, Martin having left us two years earlier, we were alone in our empty nest, so she could be as seductive as she wished, wherever she wished, and I was certainly not complaining.

So it was not unusual for Sally to take the initiative and make a play for me, and that in different parts of the house. I know we had christened every room in our eagerness, including the hallway, stairs and landing!

I therefore slid to my knees and turned to face her, edging between her thighs which she obligingly opened. She edged her body to the front of the sofa, this being her invitation to me to apply my oral efforts to her vulva, upon which I used my tongue skilfully if I say so myself, tantalising her to her obvious delight. She began to caress and squeeze her breasts, moaning quietly to herself as she did so.

Eventually she allowed the word ‘please’ to escape, and I knew it was time to relieve her frustration. The lightest touch of my tongue sent her over the edge and she cried out prettily as she came. I caressed her with my tongue, she giving mewling and whimpering cries as her body cramped and stretched. I continued thus until she pushed my head away. She smiled down at me and I grinned back. I raised myself vertically and we kissed long and wetly.

“My darling,” she murmured, “I love you so much!”

“And I you,” I breathed. We hugged and our hands were all over each other’s backs.

I stood and she immediately unfastened my trousers and pulled them and my briefs down. I was more than ready as she pulled me into her embrace and took me rapidly into her mouth. The sensation always felt new and overwhelming, and I let out a groan.

Whatever it was she did with her mouth on that ultra-sensitive part reduced my legs to weakness every time. She applied her hand to the root of my penis and stroked gently up and down as her mouth did its magic. She always knew when I was near, and this time she took her mouth off me and said the magic words.

“Come in?”

I needed no further encouragement and knelt again, pushing into her hot body. She closed her eyes and a contented sigh escaped her lips as she lay back, bringing her feet onto my shoulders and mashing her pubis against mine. I thrust, picking up speed and strength until she was grunting with the sensation of being filled.

Her mouth dropped slackly open and she began to pant as her second orgasm began to take hold. She always said it was a totally different sensation, that internal orgasm. The sight of her reckless abandonment to that feeling was always enough to push me over the edge and I came, moaning and gasping, finally collapsing onto her semi-prone body, as her legs dropped to the floor.

We lay for some time until she made a small movement, showing she was uncomfortable being half on and half off the sofa, so I raised myself off her, withdrawing my shrinking member from her and sitting down next to her as she pushed herself back and sat up. I put my arm round her and she snuggled into my chest. There was no need of words, and the TV continued to provide an irrelevant background noise while we relaxed with each other. Her next comment, however, was far from romantic or relaxed.

“Oh hell, I’m leaking all over the bloody sofa!”

She sprang up and ran to the downstairs toilet, cupping her hand under her as she went. She was right, there was a small puddle of my emission on the leather. I got some paper kitchen towel and was mopping it up when she arrived with a toilet roll.

It was enough to break the mood and we then busied ourselves making ready for the next day, and eventually repairing to bed where we re-established the cuddles we had had before, and so to sleep.

The next morning, Friday, dawned cold, wet and windy. I arose as usual at six and went running for half an hour, before returning, soaking wet, to put the kettle to boil and grab a quick hot shower. Then on to awaken Sally with a mug of tea and a kiss, which turned into a snog.

Once up, our morning followed its usual pattern, and after breakfast we kissed, and she offered to give me a lift to the office in view of the weather, but I decided to walk in spite of the rain, and she drove off, windscreen wipers on ‘continuous’.

The saying goes that if March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb and vice versa. I trudged to work in my long raincoat, fighting the gusty wind with my umbrella, hoping that the month would go out like a lamb, and that the change would come soon.

Nicola was already in the office. She travelled in by car and thus bore no sign of the inclement weather. She looked fresh and bright, and her smile lit up her face as I entered.

“You look inordinately cheerful this morning,” I told her after the usual greetings and pleasantries had been exchanged.

“Got a date tonight,” she smiled, “the first since Jonas, but I’m going to take this one very slowly. Once bitten...”

She had fallen for Jonas in a big way but, he treated her like dirt. He moved in with her, and they were together for six months before one of Nicola’s girlfriends told her of the other girl he was shagging at work during the lunchtimes.

The revelation had stunned her and she immediately finished with him, but then had trouble getting him out of her flat. It took Gordon, Robert Fortman, our friend who was a policeman, and me, to ‘persuade’ him he ought to leave.

It destroyed her confidence in boyfriends for months afterwards, and she kept clear of that sort of entanglement, preferring the company of her girlfriends.

I told her how happy I was that she was over Jonas, and she grimaced at the mention of his name.

Then it was down to business: the magistrates’ court for my client of the previous day, a couple of searches for house conveyances, then an appointment with a woman in connection with her marriage problems, and finally a couple of solicitor’s letters, one over a tall hedge dispute, and the other trying to get a shady double glazing outfit to refund my client’s money.