The Year of Dangerous Loving. John Davis Gordon
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address to the jury. He had to be kicked awake several times before his wife took him home in disgrace: and then, ten minutes later, two shots rang out.
The next morning the front-page headline of the South China Morning Post read: LEADING LAWYER SHOT.
Mr Alistair Hargreave QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, last night drove himself to the Jockey Club Hospital suffering from a gunshot wound to his chest.
Friends immediately rushed to the Hargreave home where a spokesman for the family, Mr Max Popodopolous, also a lawyer, refused to allow Mrs Elizabeth Hargreave to answer questions from either the press or the police. At the hospital another spokesman for the family, Mr Jake McAdam, told both police and the press to ‘get lost’.
Police enquiries continue.
Mr Alistair Hargreave is a former Commodore of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, a fine tennis player, and a leading member of the legal community. Last year his yacht, Elizabeth, won the Hong Kong–Manila race under his captaincy in record time in very bad weather …
The front pages of the Hong Kong Standard and the Eastern Express were in similar dramatic vein. Hargreave had them all on his bed when McAdam arrived the next morning.
‘Thanks, pal,’ Hargreave said, ‘for pulling me out of the soup. Max too.’
‘How you feeling?’
‘Just a flesh wound, Ian says I can go home next week. Home …?’ He snorted softly.
‘You can stay with me,’ McAdam said, ‘until this blows over, whatever it is.’
‘Thanks, but I don’t think it’ll be necessary. Just before the fireworks she announced she was going home to the States forthwith.’
McAdam sat down in a chair. ‘What’s the story?’
Hargreave slapped the newspapers. ‘The police were here earlier. Told them to take a powder, it was an accident. They didn’t believe me but there’s nothing they can do if I won’t testify. She won’t blab anything to the cops, will she?’
‘No, I’ve just spoken to Max on the phone; Liz is all weepy and remorseful. The cops have called again and Max fended them off.’
‘Remorseful?’ Hargreave closed his eyes. ‘What’s Max talking to her about?’ He shook his head. ‘No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to hear what a shit I am.’
‘You’re not, you’re a hell of a nice guy.’
‘Sure.’ Hargreave was silent a moment, then: ‘Old Liz, you know, she’s not such a bad old stick. In fact she’s a very good old stick. She’s just unhappy.’
And she’s not an old stick, McAdam thought, she’s damned attractive. He waited, then said: ‘Why’s she unhappy?’
Hargreave sighed. ‘Don’t want to talk about it. You playing marriage counsellor?’
‘You’ve got a bullet wound – we don’t want you to get any more.’
Hargreave sighed again, eyes still closed. ‘Accident. Won’t happen again.’ There was a silence; then he continued with reluctance, ‘She’s unhappy because the marriage has been going downhill for several years. And that’s my fault.’
Downhill for years? The Hargreaves had always presented a solid matrimonial front to the world. McAdam waited again, then asked, ‘How is it your fault?’
There was another silence. Then: ‘Oh Lord, how can one summarize marriage failure in a sentence? Don’t want to talk about it.’ He sighed. ‘It’s my fault because I’m bored with life here, because I don’t want to have anything to do with the bullshit Hong Kong social scene any more. So she’s bored, because I’m boring. The marriage is therefore boring. Worn out. Don’t do anything together any more. And that’s all I want to say.’
‘You’re not boring.’
Hargreave snorted softly. ‘I even bore myself. I’m bored, Jake. I’m bored with the Law. Been there, done that, every case is just more of the same old guff. I’m bored with lawyers and most of all I’m bored with His boring Lordship. I’m bored with witnesses, with juries. I’m bored with Hong Kong.’ He sighed. ‘About the only thing I’m not bored with is booze.’ There was a pause: then before McAdam could say anything Hargreave continued: ‘What else is there at our age? Got all the money we need – even if we’d like more — but we’ve got enough. We’ve got the success we strove for. So what else is there?’
‘Climbing the Andes? Sailing round the world in your yacht? Buying that ranch and raising those cattle?’
‘But that’s several years down the line, till I’ve recovered from my last stock market misadventure. Meanwhile I have to soldier on.’ He grimaced, eyes closed: ‘And that’s why old Liz pulled the gun on me. To shake me up, give me a fright. It went off, that’s all there is to it. Don’t want to talk about it.’
Like hell that’s all there is to it, McAdam thought. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘boredom happens in marriage.’
Hargreave did not open his eyes. ‘Does it? Or just happens to me? I think it just happens to me. Out there all the other guys who’ve been married twenty years are still happily screwing their wives every night. And old Liz, you know, she’s a very attractive woman.’
Oh dear, McAdam thought – so this is it? He ventured: ‘I doubt all those married men out there are still doing it every night, Al, I was married once myself.’
‘And evidently I’ve got unhealthy appetites. Like booze and gambling.’ He paused. ‘How can you make love to a woman who’s always fed up with you? Always telling you what a washout you were at the dinner party last night, you don’t tell funny stories any more, all you talked about was politics.’
McAdam wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Well, maybe you should spend more time together, take her out for a few romantic dinners.’
‘Bit late for that – don’t feel very romantic with a bullet in my chest.’
‘But you love her.’ He added: ‘Don’t you?’
‘Ask me another one. Right now I’m angry, mortified. Whole town knows. Wish the earth would swallow me up.’
‘Do you think she loves you?’
Hargreave snorted again. ‘She’s too angry with me for that. Fed up with me. This fed up –’ He indicated his chest – ‘even though it was an accident. When people do that, raise their hand to strike, or pick up a weapon, it means they’d really like to do it, even if they stop themselves.’ He sighed grimly. ‘I almost wish she’d had an affair, maybe that would have made me less intolerable.’
‘You told her to have an affair? Last night?’
‘No. She accused me of having an affair. Oh,’ he shook his head, ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Utterly untrue. God, who with? Friends’ wives? Don’t want a guilty conscience as well as being bored.’
McAdam hesitated: ‘Apparently she found some lipstick on your collar?’
Hargreave groaned and opened his eyes. ‘Oh Christ. That was just some Wanchai whore trying to be persuasive. Nothing happened, didn’t even buy her a drink. The cops were with me, they’d bear me out.’ He closed his eyes again. ‘But Liz was furious, yes, accused me of having it off down there, accused me of all kinds of womanizing for years.’ He sighed angrily. ‘Utterly untrue.’
‘So what happened with Elizabeth? You told her you were innocent. Then?’
Hargreave sighed. ‘Furious with me for being late for the CJ’s dinner party. And drunk. I wasn’t really drunk, just exhausted after the case. Fell asleep at dinner. Snored, apparently. Gave me hell coming home, particularly about the lipstick. I refused to fight, went to bed, started to read while she