There were four women, former employees of Torrent Industries, suing the company for sexual harassment. But only one of them had engaged a lawyer. The other three were apparently unrepresented. At least this was on the face of it what their pleadings suggested. This piqued Maserov’s interest. Why would three out of the four of them sue the construction behemoth without engaging a lawyer? How would they know where to start? Even from Maserov’s earliest glimpse of their files, and it was a mere glimpse, nothing in them appeared to him un-legal. Each one of the three unrepresented women had a statement of claim that read as though they had been drafted by a skilled and even motivated lawyer.
It seemed likely that the three had actually engaged a lawyer to draft their pleadings but why, wondered Maserov, would their lawyer hide his or her identity behind the clients? Since their time at Torrent Industries coincided, it was likely that all four women knew each other, and yet only one, a Carla Monterosso, had a lawyer acting for her who was willing to admit it. Maybe the one lawyer was acting for all four of them? But then why be open about it in Carla Monterosso’s claim but not in the others?
Maserov was confident Bruce Featherby would have some information or at least a theory about this, which was why he picked up his phone from what felt to him like the sanctuary of his office at Torrent Industries headquarters.
‘Bruce Featherby?’ whispered Featherby anxiously, almost breathlessly, down the phone when seeing the prefix of the incoming call from Torrent Industries. But it wouldn’t have taken a call from Torrent Industries to stimulate an autonomic fight or flight response in him. No, ever since his first encounter with Maserov over the phone he had begun to speculate that he, Featherby, was being considered for the category of ‘former person’. In fact he might already have been consigned to it. If not, perhaps his every move now was being scrutinised to determine whether or not he should be allowed to stay on the partnership track or else, like a wart, be frozen off the body politic of the competition for partnership at Freely Savage.
Why did this inexplicable Maserov thing have to happen to him? If only someone else had been handling the Torrent Industries sexual harassment allegations. And perhaps former personhood wasn’t the end of this, not even the worst of it. Maybe he had already signed his last departmental birthday card for someone he saw every day and didn’t know.
‘Bruce, it’s Stephen Maserov. How’re things? This a bad time? I got the files, thanks. Tell me, why are three out of the four plaintiffs representing themselves or seeming to? What do you make of that?’
‘I can’t talk to you, Maserov,’ whispered Featherby, as though even telling him that might be bad for him.
‘This a bad time? I can call you back. I just thought you might know something about their lawyer. The unrepresented plaintiffs’ files have the fingerprints of a lawyer all over them.’ Maserov wasn’t meaning to fan the flames of Featherby’s anxiety but that’s what he was doing.
‘I can never talk to you,’ answered Featherby with a low quiet steadiness to his voice.
‘Featherby, we’ve been through this. Okay, I got the files but I hope there are no hard feelings between us.’
‘No one will talk to you,’ said Featherby quietly as he placed the phone down into its cradle. Maserov was going to have to figure this out on his own.