Cressida flicked her gaze back and narrowed her eyes.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I mean,’ Debra continued, with a smile both patronising and incredulous, ‘wasn’t there some suggestion that you were involved in working on the dust case? With him, on the very same fraudulent material that led to his arrest?’
Cressida stared.
‘If I were you I’d check my facts before saying something like that,’ she said, ‘or you might find yourself served with defamation proceedings.’
Debra’s mouth dropped open and a murmur issued from around the table, but Cressida held her gaze.
‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘No charges were ever laid.’
But her voice was lost in the rise of outraged ridicule that followed her words. They didn’t understand. She was sick of people making wild allegations about her without the facts. And why here, of all places, among her colleagues, did she have to defend herself?
Then another voice rose amid the din. As heads turned and the noise subsided, Cress instantly knew who it was. She would recognise that honey drawl anywhere. Brian Prendergast, charismatic Head Partner in Mergers & Acquisitions. Cressida had met him only rarely, but every time she had, he’d looked and sounded like his insides were lined with bitcoin. He was the sort of person who got people to do what he wanted without their even realising, and Cressida knew it would be no different now. He held his hands up, pausing for the ruckus to subside. She held her breath and waited.
‘Debra,’ he began, his voice replete with the relaxed and reasoned authority of someone who knew people would listen. ‘You probably haven’t come across our Cressida a great deal.’
Our Cressida. She savoured the thrill. How lucky that she had resisted mouthing off.
‘No I haven’t,’ said Debra. ‘But if she goes around threatening senior partners with defamation in a partnership meeting, she’s not someone I—’
‘If I could just finish,’ Brian interrupted, aiming that platinum smile, and the glances that echoed at Debra from around the table were enough to silence her. ‘It’s correct that we were fortunate to have Cressida spend some time at the Australian Securities and Investment Commission,’ he said. ‘And I say fortunate, because those of us here would remember the good use she put that prosecutorial training to on her return. You would all remember John Gray’s acquittal on the eight hundred million dollar insider trading charge – or more particularly, the legal fees he paid us, which were nearly more.’ There was nodding and a chuckle round the table. ‘And the best of us wouldn’t have lasted half the time Cressida did in our Szechuan office,’ he said, voice rising with both humour and emphasis. ‘Two years, wasn’t it?’ he said, turning to her. ‘Not including the six months you spent learning Mandarin beforehand, am I right?’
Cressida flushed in embarrassment, at the same time weak with relief at the diversion. ‘Something like that.’
‘But all jokes aside,’ Brian continued, his voice dropping to a tone of gravitas, ‘not only the language preparation, but Cressida’s natural’ – he looked at her with obvious admiration – ‘star quality is the only way to put it, and her fine legal mind came in very handy closing a nearly impossible deal while she was at our China office. Some of you would remember the construction of the Dagangshan Dam.’ He paused briefly, then added, ‘In fact, if it weren’t for Cressida, I doubt we would still have a Western China office. We were very proud of her.’ He turned to look at her again. ‘That business with Mr Mitsok is well in the past now, for both Cressida and us as a firm,’ he continued. ‘In my view we would be committing almost as great a crime, if I could be so bold, if we were to hold his acts against his daughter now. She has my vote for the Partnership, that’s certain.’
Cressida took a deep breath and tried not to levitate off the chair. At last. It wouldn’t do to look too eager, she thought, concentrating on keeping a straight face. As if on cue, the door opened and a succession of waiters came in with pale pink, glistening glasses of alternating schnapps and champagne on trays. Cressida stared straight ahead, focusing on a painting on the wall at the far end of the room. Steady, she told herself. Steady.
‘That’s all very well,’ said Andrew. ‘But I’m not convinced.’
There was a murmuring round the table. Cressida sucked in her breath and stared at him.
‘If I could elaborate,’ Cressida said, an amount of serenity having been restored to her by Brian’s words. ‘Of course I helped him,’ she said. ‘I was twenty-five, and he was my father. But if you are suggesting that I had even the tiniest inkling that the other affidavits were …’
But then she stopped. There was no point. He was either for her or against her, and anything she said herself wasn’t going to change that. Her strength was in the rest of them. They’d stand by her. Of course they would.
‘Michael,’ she said, turning to the Managing Partner. ‘Surely this is not the appropriate forum for this. If my father’s conviction is so damning of my partnership application, perhaps someone could indicate why I was asked to put one in?’
Andrew stroked his tie and regarded her. ‘No offence was meant, Cressida. But if it’s not discussed here, then where? To have that blot on your record only two years into practice …’
She clamped her jaw shut and tried not to scream at him. He was my father. I trusted him. How was I to know that he was up to his neck in it? It’s alright for you, she thought, you tax lawyer. You arrogant, self-satisfied princelet of Melbourne aristocracy, with your inheritance of class and knowledge from five generations of law royalty; any blots on your record would have been promptly swept under the carpet by the boys’ club, unlike my father who came here as a scato immigrant and had to prevail over every adversity with spit and toilet paper. It probably wouldn’t help her application if she got up and strangled him, though. Fortunately for both of them, at that moment Brian intervened.
‘Come now, Andrew,’ Brian said, ‘Cressida cannot be asked to account for matters that were never established in a court of law. She is a fine … Oh.’
With a flicker the fluorescents lights above went out, the video links went dark, and the assembled partners became suit-shaped shadows. A murmur of surprise went up and in the dim green glow of the exit signs the Managing Partner moved to the door. He opened it to scan the corridor.
‘Would you believe it,’ he said, returning. ‘The whole floor’s out. We’ll um … Sorry, Cressida. We’ll have to reconvene.’
There was a collective groan, and then the Partners started getting up. Jackets were shouldered amid talk of retirement to the nearest bar for a beverage. Cressida looked on incredulously.
‘What?’ said Cressida. ‘But …’
It will take weeks to do that, she wanted to shout! Eleven years it had taken to get to this meeting. Eleven years of virtual imprisonment in the four walls of her office, day in, day out, whether in Sydney or Vientiane or Sweden or bloody Szechuan Province, through weekends and public holidays and even, two years running, Christmas Day. Of a Senior Associate’s courting and kowtowing, eating food and drinking wine she didn’t want, just to be drunk enough to laugh at the jokes of corporate clients she couldn’t stand, in everything from girlie bars in Singapore to interminable yacht cruises in Sydney Harbour she couldn’t escape (which was almost worse). And here they were, acting like the cancellation of her promotion to Partner was nothing. How could they be so indifferent? Then the room was empty, Debra and Andrew trailing out.
‘Better luck next time, Cressida,’ said Debra. Andrew smirked and drained a schnapps from the sideboard, regarding her, then followed.
Cressida grabbed a glass of the champagne and downed it in three gulps. The bottle’s ornate gold label shone in the half-light –