Before the various scandals surrounding the Artemis company, there was even talk of giving Simon an OBE, which was insane since the most he ever did for anyone else was show up at a few annual charity dinners and bid on stupid prizes offered up by other rich people. He once hit the headlines for buying a painting of a horse by a controversial but popular artist who sold his crap for millions. It couldn’t just be a nice lifelike painting though, nothing as simple as a George Stubbs picture which took practice and skill. The horse would have the face of the buyer. It went for 300 grand. And now somewhere in the Artemis mansion proudly hangs a giant centaur. That was one part of the inheritance I would politely decline.
Anyway, the OBE idea was quietly shelved but Simon remained respectable – held up as an icon of British business. And as a result, Lee got to play the stereotype of the slightly hopeless younger brother with no real ramifications. He was rescued when he fucked up （once sneaking up to the viewing platform at St Paul’s Cathedral after a football match while drunk and making a video of his mates chanting as they mooned over the side of the rails. Someone made a call, and after a fulsome apology to the Church of England, the matter was considered closed） and given jobs by the family which he didn’t need to do much for when his own career ideas went off the rails. In fact, I imagine he was very much encouraged not to take his role in the company too seriously, for fear he might fuck things up.
Aged 29, he met Lara through her work at Artemis Holdings, and married her eight months later with a three-day wedding extravaganza on a Greek island. One of the Bee Gees played, and one tabloid sent a reporter out who infiltrated the party dressed as a waiter. The write-up gleefully commented on the yobbish behaviour of various glitterati guests, including one model who got so drunk that she fell into the pool in a pearl-encrusted couture dress that she’d borrowed for the event. As per Tina, who wasn’t there but who always did her homework, Lara had somewhat cold feet before the wedding, but had been assured that the big affair was just a one-off for family and friends before they settled down. He promised that the party days were over, talking about creating a future where she could be the boss in the family. How little men promise. How much we grasp at it.
His family had bought them a large stuccoed house in Chelsea, just off the Kings Road, and they had Andrew fairly soon after moving in. Lara worked her way up the ladder and seemed to spend the rest of her time either organising charity lunches for worthy groups or lobbying the government on behalf of vulnerable children. The family must have tolerated Lara’s charitable nature, recognising that it lent them an air of respectability, but I imagine that her husband drew the line at ever having these do-gooders step foot in his house. In his own life, Lee clung onto the excesses of his twenties, pictured out at nightclubs in social diaries, cruising the Kings Road in his latest supercar, occasionally being named as a partner in new bars and restaurants which popped up only to shut down six months later when the real owner realised that slim margins and long hours weren’t as glamorous as the opening night may have suggested.
I suspected that Lee liked more than a couple of drinks and a flirt when he went out. His face, once firm and sharp, was now puffy, and his eyes always looked slightly glazed in paparazzi photos.
More often than not, he was driven around town in a lurid green Bentley when he went out at night, an early drink-driving charge （tossed out after a good lawyer argued that his cold medication had interfered with another, more private medication – the papers had a lot of fun with that delicate phrasing） had meant that a permanent chauffeur was a prudent investment. This meant it was easy to figure out where he was if you happened to be in town of an evening, the car would double-park on even the narrowest of London streets, starting off at the most upmarket bars that Mayfair could offer, then heading for the private members clubs, and by 3 a.m., when most of the revellers were starting to disperse, weaving down towards Chinatown, towards the slightly seedier venues which weren’t keen on fully advertising what they did exactly.
I knew this because I’d followed the Bentley on several nights around town. It was the easiest way to do research on Lee. He wasn’t on social media, apart from a scarcely used Facebook account which seemed to peter out sometime in 2010 but which gave me some early amusement with his penchant for doing quizzes about which animal he’d be and what superhero power he’d most likely have （meerkat, laser eyes）。 He rarely left the townhouse until about 3 p.m. for a workout, and then he’d invariably grab a coffee in Knightsbridge where he met other men in Gucci loafers for a catch-up at a café which served drinks in gold-plated cups. They would all keep their phones on the table, as if they were running the country and might have to leave any minute. I’d sat next to their table once or twice, and listened to them talk about the stocks they should invest in, the next Vegas trip they could take, all while they occasionally threw in some casual misogyny just to keep the conversation light. Men of state they were not.