‘Carla wants revenge. Of course she does. I understand that completely,’ said Jessica, sipping a craft beer at a table under the soft light of the semi-private cocktail bar in the Grosvenor Hotel. On one side of her was Maserov. On the other was Betga.
‘Yeah, I understand that too,’ said Betga. ‘But we’re not in the revenge game. We’re not assassins. Sadly. We’re only lawyers.’
‘You’re her lawyer,’ she said, looking at Betga. ‘And you’re her tormentor’s lawyer,’ she said, pointing at Maserov. ‘And yet you’re sitting opposite each other having not the first of a number of drinks together.’
‘Yes, and for not the first time,’ Betga clarified.
‘Strictly speaking, I’m not her tormentor’s lawyer. I’m the lawyer for her tormentor’s employer.’
‘But, if you don’t mind my asking —’
‘Jessica, you should feel free to ask me anything,’ Betga volunteered in a manner that had served him well previously. ‘Maserov too, probably. Ask him anything, about his marriage, for example. He’s very forthcoming, even about his shortcomings,’ he added.
‘But aren’t you bound by lawyer–client privilege, confidentiality, or something . . . to Carla?’
‘Oh yeah, I’m bound by that,’ said Betga, taking a sip.
‘And you’re not just Carla’s lawyer, you’re also her . . . estranged husband?’
‘No, I’m not her husband,’ he spat out flatly and immediately.
‘But he’d like to be,’ Maserov interjected. ‘Their relationship hit a snag when she discovered he was a philanderer.’
‘I’m not a philanderer.’
‘He was unfaithful with a legal recruitment consultant.’
‘It’s a tight job market. A lot of people don’t know that. And it was just once. The recruiter misinterpreted the terms of our arrangement. Wilfully too, in my opinion. I told her I had a daughter, or that I was almost certain I did.’
‘How was that relevant to the recruiter?’ Maserov asked.
‘It suggested I need the job more than a person without dependants does and it also served to make me less desirable as a partner. It was meant to.’
‘Yes, any reasonable woman would have deduced that you were an unreliable philanderer.’
‘I was, the operative word being was.’
‘He’s reformed now,’ Maserov explained to Jessica with the conviction of a lettuce leaf, not one from the core, an exterior one.
‘I’m recovering. I’m in recovery.’
‘Still,’ said Jessica, ‘You’re on opposing sides, the two of you. Is it common for lawyers on opposing sides to be drinking together?’
‘Alcohol is the first and oldest tool in the armoury of alternative dispute resolution, dear Jessica,’ Betga proffered. ‘It’s the great conciliator.’
‘Really? I thought it provokes,’ she said.
‘What did Shakespeare say, “it provokes and it unprovokes”? Right Maserov?’
‘So it also provokes?’ added Jessica rhetorically.
‘Yep, has been known to.’
‘Shakespeare was talking about lechery, not conciliation,’ Maserov corrected.
‘He was right about that too,’ said Betga.
‘Something you’d know about,’ added Maserov.
‘I do know my Shakespeare,’ Betga replied.
‘Didn’t he also say “kill all the lawyers”?’ Jessica asked.
‘Yes, he borrowed the line from Maserov’s wife.’
‘Listen, there’s got to be some advantage to you two being the lawyers negotiating all of this,’ Jessica persisted.
‘Well, not if Carla won’t settle,’ said Maserov. ‘It’s like you said, she wants revenge.’
‘And you can’t somehow structure that into the settlement agreement?’
‘Revenge?’ asked Maserov.
‘What, like an exchange of money and fifty lashes?’ Betga suggested.
‘Torrent Industries can’t be seen to be punishing Mike Mercer lest it be seen as an admission,’ Maserov explained. ‘Part of the value in a settlement is that it goes away without the company having to deal with allegations that it has a toxic sexist culture.’
‘Of the kind it has,’ Jessica interposed.
‘Apparently, yes. You’re better placed to comment on that than me.’
‘Well, take it as a comment.’
‘Duly taken.’
‘What if Mercer is punished, sanctioned in some way but it’s not publicised?’
‘How do you mean?’ Betga asked.
‘I don’t know; what if in addition to a payout, he was fined, or better yet, fired, but in confidence?’
‘I don’t know that I can get that. Malcolm Torrent won’t fire one of his employees as a condition of a private settlement just to satisfy a plaintiff.’
‘What about a few plaintiffs?’
‘It would need to be more than three or four. It would need to be a class action, and even then . . .’
‘So Mercer hasn’t harassed or molested quite enough women?’
‘Not for that. And anyway, he’s too productive an employee. He’s done too well for the company.’
‘So between the two of you, there’s nothing you can do to satisfy her need for some kind of revenge on this arsehole.’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Where’s the justice in this?’
‘What we’re trying to achieve is a legal settlement. It’s a negotiation between parties. Only after it’s concluded do we even think of using words like “justice” and even then only to make the ripped-off party feel better.’
‘But I don’t want her to be ripped off. I don’t want any of these women to be ripped off!’ protested Jessica.
‘Neither do we,’ said Maserov.
‘Then you’ve come to the right place,’ said Betga. ‘The first thing we have to do is get Carla to agree to settle.’
‘Why, because it’s in both your interests for her to settle?’
‘It is,’ said Maserov. ‘But it’s also in her interest to settle.’
‘Yeah, while Maserov is still the lawyer on the other side of this thing.’
Jessica turned to Maserov and suddenly imagined a time when Maserov wasn’t at Torrent Industries anymore. It was a thought she’d not yet entertained and its effect on her surprised her. She felt bereft. A strange feeling took hold of her, a cocktail of emotions akin to those felt when a much-loved friend, the only one who understands you, leaves to go to a new school in another state or when your parents announce that they’re separating or when a pet dies. It was a visceral sensation that came to her pre-rationally. ‘What are you going to do when —’
‘When I’m forced to walk the plank?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m supposed to be figuring that out while I work on these cases.’
‘That’s what I keep telling him,’ Betga chimed in.
‘My initial plan, to the extent that I had one after I buttonholed Malcolm Torrent, was simply to buy time before my execution. But now I want to do more than that. Although I’ve spent much of my life watching civil society going to hell in a handbasket I’m ashamed to say I’ve never given much thought to what women had to put up with till I saw what had been done to these women. So before I’m axed I want to get some justice for them.’
‘But Stephen,’ Jessica said, momentarily placing her hand lightly on his wrist before realising it and taking it away again with slight embarrassment, ‘there can’t be any justice, not of the kind she’s looking for, if guys like Mike Mercer get away with it scot-free.’
‘Jessica, I must be one of the least powerful people you know. I can’t get any kind of sanction against Mike Mercer. I’m still not used to Malcolm Torrent remembering who I am.’
‘You undersell yourself, Stephen,’ she said quietly without looking at him directly.
‘No, I think he’s got it about right,’ said Betga. ‘Which is, you know, healthy, extremely healthy.’
‘I can’t make these incidents go away and I can’t mete out or have the company mete out any retribution. The best I can possibly do is try to get these women a decent settlement before I’m gone.’
‘But Carla’s totally opposed to a settlement.’
The three of them sat around the table in silence. In the distance a crowd of people could be heard singing happy birthday to someone called ‘Kayden’.
‘Do you think it would help if I spoke to Carla? I’ll tell her I’m from Torrent’s HR department, if she doesn’t already know, and I know that’s not exactly going to endear me to her but I’m a woman who’s experienced the culture of the place. Maybe I can, I don’t know, I can . . . apologise.’
‘Apologise? Why would you apologise?’ Betga asked, and then added, ‘Oh yeah, you’re in HR.’