Dark Angels

Dark Angels Grace Monroe The start of an Edinburgh-based thriller series starring rebellious young lawyer Brodie McLennan, investigating the case of a high-ranking lawyer found dead in mysterious circumstances.A celebrated Edinburgh lawyer is found murdered outside an infamous gay haunt and notorious dominatrix Kailash Coutts stands accused.Against her wishes, headstrong, unorthodox Brodie McClennan is appointed to defend Kailash under the watchful gaze of the 'Dark Angels', a violent street-gang led by the enigmatic Moses Tierney.As the case becomes ever more complex, Brodie receives a chilling photograph, establishing a link to a number of brutal murders and a suspected paedophile ring. It becomes apparent that a serial killer is haunting the city - and that powerful people are involved, intent on covering up past crimes.Brodie herself becomes a target - both for a depraved killer and for deadly forces in the highest of circles…A shocking, atmospheric thriller that combines a centuries-old conspiracy with heart-stopping terror for fans of Ian Rankin and Mo Hayder… GRACE MONROE Dark Angels Copyright (#ua0e78b3d-2497-537b-b13f-f75fe1836b7a) This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. AVON A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2007 Copyright © Grace Monroe 2007 Grace Monroe asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work Extract from Blood Lines © Grace Monroe 2007. This is taken from uncorrected material and does not necessarily reflect the finished book. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication Source ISBN: 9781847560346 Ebook Edition © 2009 ISBN: 9780007335619 Version: 2018-06-19 For my family Maria xx For Paul–I do appreciate you really. Linda xx Table of Contents Title Page (#u36abd5ae-fcc2-5b54-8793-170f46c13415) Copyright (#u2bef27c0-6960-547d-8b16-e7c08f8f36ad) Prologue (#u43178805-1bcd-5477-943e-3e6834adba80) Chapter One (#u2995d01d-fd50-5f37-8c89-2f09eb5ec9cf) Chapter Two (#u11ae95c6-4bf8-5d95-9f42-a2600bb96459) Chapter Three (#u2ddf05ca-6c07-56b4-9cd1-25c1b6dd40cd) Chapter Four (#u8124e508-115c-5422-9b98-b1292bd4ea29) Chapter Five (#ubd7bb84b-7437-5f38-82ce-09e83fe36172) Chapter Six (#u35030740-79d3-54d7-8faa-8273d64fe428) Chapter Seven (#u959ea943-9864-5b26-a7ca-9404ba2ff9f3) Chapter Eight (#ub8c01082-7730-5714-9ad4-8abfbdc3b1dc) Chapter Nine (#uc6e12c95-ced2-5c59-9ff4-d220a5d192ee) Chapter Ten (#u78e69b40-b376-5fb5-a53d-386fde2399a1) Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) PROLOGUE (#ua0e78b3d-2497-537b-b13f-f75fe1836b7a) Edinburgh The cotton sheets feel smooth and crisp between her fingers as she grips the covers. The knuckles on her hands are white and bloodless, the contrast stark. As she weakly reaches for the mask, sweat slowly trickles down from the inside of her armpit. She gets what she wants but the heady smell of rubber almost overwhelms her before the gas and air mercifully take effect. ‘The quicker the hell, the quicker the peace.’ The voice of the woman rasps the tired adage. The girl will have to look elsewhere for comfort. Here, she will find only contempt. She looks around, as she has done many times in the many hours since she was brought to this place. The panelled walls are adorned with ancient smoke-damaged oil paintings, of thin lipped ancestors: no succour will be found there either. The girl throws her head back against the plump, pillows, her black curls sticking to her damp forehead. Another wave of pain overwhelms her, pushing her further down into the abyss. She almost welcomes the pain: she has ignored the ache within her heart for so long that concrete physical agony serves to remind her that, despite everything, she is still alive. The handcuff around her left wrist cuts deeply into her flesh. The skin is red and swollen from earlier attempts to escape. She no longer has the enthusiasm to plan her getaway. Reluctantly, she accepts she is securely chained to the antique brass bed frame. Her desire, her need to be free, has waned. She is sapped of strength, resigned to her fate. Giving birth has that effect. She gasps one word: ‘Water,’ adding ‘Please,’ as an afterthought. ‘Do you really believe that being polite is going to change my plans?’ The nurse expects an answer. None is forthcoming. There is a battle for life going on in the bed in front of her, and strength cannot be wasted on unnecessary words. ‘You must be even more stupid than I gave you credit for.’ The girl tries to wet her lips. Her pulse visibly pounds in her neck. Her mouth tastes like rusty iron filings. Her mind races from one thought to another–the taste of terror reminds her of the dilapidated railings near the school gate. Frantically, her eyes search for water to cleanse her mouth. In every situation the girl looks for something to be grateful for, at this precise moment she is thankful that she cannot imagine what might happen next, appreciative that her mind has narrowed to the extent that all she can think of is water. There is only so much she can do. This baby has plans of its own. It will be born with or without her cooperation. Without concern for its own fate once it enters this world. The nurse will not give her the courtesy of silence. ‘Don’t lie there feeling sorry for yourself. Start pushing, and get this little bastard out.’ A soft, scraping sound fills the room as the nurse bustles importantly, her tights rubbing on her thighs and drowning out the sound of the clock. The girl still knows without the help of any clock–her time is running out. She may not have water–but she needs fresh air. ‘Open the window.’ She despises the way her voice sounds. Reedy and helpless. This time the nurse obliges. The girl/child painfully screws her eyes shut, as the heavy red velvet curtains are drawn back, flooding the room with brilliant sunshine. Through the Georgian sash and case windows, she can see the garden trees in full leaf. From below, the sounds of elegant street life waft in the open window, and birdsong fills the air. Neighbours genteelly pass the time of day, agreeing that it is, indeed, another lovely morning. The waves of pain are coming faster now, and it is harder for her to recover between contractions. A screech of wretchedness escapes her lips, and resounds around the room. Her cries for help and understanding remain unanswered. ‘You made your bed. Lie in it.’ The bed is wet, dishevelled and bloodstained. Nurse McIntyre knows that her instructions are that the flat is not to be soiled, and yet the mess is everywhere. Someone else can take care of it–she’s a midwife, not a cleaner. She justifies her neglect and cruelty by reassuring herself that it won’t matter in the end. She is taking care of the baby, and that is all she has been paid for. The smell of fear is pungent. It seems as if the odour is emanating from the very walls of the elegant room. The girl screams again. Nurse McIntyre watches dispassionately, as the girl throws her sick bowl across the room. Only when it ricochets off the Waterford crystal chandelier knocking a marble bust of Sir Walter Scott to the floor and smashing the nose off the statue in the process, does she feel a flicker of concern–for the broken things, not the broken girl. Their eyes meet and the nurse recoils from the hatred she finds in the panicked velvet brown depths of her patient/prisoner. She recoils still further from the sight of the girl holding the nurse’s own scissors in her hand, scissors left carelessly on the nightstand beside a manacled child thought too pain-wracked to move. Anger and venom flow through the girl’s veins giving her strength. She holds the gaze of her tormentor, silently daring her to come closer. As her head tries to grab onto some plan, some thought for escape, her body lets her down yet again. She feels herself rip in two as the baby’s head appears. The girl lies back on the pillows breathing softly, until she feels the urge to push again. Pushing, she feels her baby turn. Pushing, she feels her baby enter the world. Nurse McIntyre has not yet found the strength to approach the new mother but the scissors fall from her hand as she reaches down between her legs. She lifts her child to her face. They stare silently into one another’s eyes, recognising each other. Locked in love, the girl does not hear the nurse approach. She is unaware before the silent needle pierces her skin. Her heart stops as she feels the jab, and she knows they are undone, she and her baby. At 9.24a.m., the good citizens of Edinburgh see no more than a bustling, uniformed nurse leave an impeccable flat with a swaddled baby in her arms. Without a backward glance, Nurse McIntyre stuffs the keys to the handcuffs into her pocket. In the room of hell that she has just departed, a small droplet of blood forms around the entry point of the syringe as the massive dose of heroin takes hold: it is the only sign of life on the unconscious thirteen-year-old girl who has just given birth. The nurse’s stout, flat feet beat along the pavement of the New Town. ‘There’s no time to dwell on the dead,’ she mutters as the baby begins to whimper. ‘Not while the living are so impatient…’ ONE (#ua0e78b3d-2497-537b-b13f-f75fe1836b7a) Edinburgh, Monday 16 August 2004 The fact that it was raining outside came as no surprise for two reasons. Firstly, this was Edinburgh. Secondly, it was the arse end of ‘Fringe Sunday’, one of the highlights of the summer festival in which all weather forecasts could be shortened to one phrase: pissing down. I had fallen asleep to the persistent downpour, to the sound of water drumming on the Georgian window-panes of my flat. I like the rain; it comforts me–which is handy given that I’ve chosen to live in Edinburgh. That comfort was short lived. As night disappeared into the misty first hours of Monday morning, the dream came again. I saw an unformed face in the dying embers of my bedroom fire, a face I knew, but did not know. I came back from sleep quickly and stared blindly into my darkened room. The dream was quickly slipping and I didn’t really know what had pulled me from it until the telephone rang again. I groped until I found the receiver. I knew the form–no one ever called you in the middle of the night with good news. Callers only think your sleep can be disturbed by death, police at the door, or work. In my case, it was often all three. People often like to think that lawyers can’t sleep because they are so bothered by the ethical dilemmas of their work–the boring reality tends to be that the bloody phone won’t stop ringing no matter the time of day or night. ‘Brodie McLennan?’ ‘Yes?’ I reached for the bedside lamp and switched it on as I answered the call. It was 1.00a.m. My heart was puncturing my ribs, a combination of late-night coffee, unbroken sleep for as long as I could remember, and the anticipation that comes from a straightforward phone call that rarely gives any indication of what the next case will involve. ‘Sergeant Munro here, St Leonard’s Police Station.’ Just when I thought my night couldn’t get any worse. Munro was a copper with an unnatural love of paperwork and a continuing, oft expressed, feeling that ‘wee girls’ shouldn’t be doing big men’s jobs. I was most definitely a wee girl in his eyes, and probably taking bread out of some poor bloke’s mouth by playing at lawyers while I waited for my natural calling of having babies and getting myself suitably chained to a nice shiny kitchen sink. ‘What can I do for you, Sergeant Munro?’ ‘We have a woman in custody, Miss McLennan,’ he informed me as if I would be astounded. He also seemed to emphasise the ‘Miss’ part of his sentence a bit too heavily. I was knackered and I was pissed off already–how should I react? ‘Gosh, really Sergeant Munro? Someone in custody, you say? At the police station? That sounds awfully exciting. Sorry though, I’m too upset about not being married to be able to do anything about it.’ Thankfully, Munro was in official mode, so there was no time for anything but the sound of his voice. ‘We’re about to charge her with murder, but she asked us to inform you. She was quite specific about that. Asked for you by name, Miss McLennan. You’d better come now because we want her processed quickly.’ Munro always wanted anything that involved processing done quickly. It was a moveable feast though, and it generally got ignored. ‘Did you hear me, Miss McLennan? It’s vital that your client get processed as quickly as possible.’ There was the slightest hint of hesitation in his voice. ‘We want her to appear later today. How soon can you get here?’ She was probably a screamer. They wanted her out quickly because the noise was interrupting their telly-watching down the station. Or she was that drunk that the stench of vomit was getting too much. ‘Yes, I heard you, Sergeant Munro. Quick, quick, chop, chop. You haven’t told me my client’s name yet though.’ I sat on the edge of my bed, pencil poised over a yellow legal pad. Did he hesitate, or did I imagine it? ‘Female, mixed race, forty-one years old.’ I scribbled the details as he went on. ‘A taxi driver had found the alleged suspect with the body of the deceased. The nameless male victim was pronounced dead on arrival at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Are you taking all of this down, Miss McLennan?’ I wanted to butt in with: ‘No, I’m thinking about recipes and marrying policemen, Sergeant Munro,’ but managed to keep quiet. ‘Miss McLennan, will you be here shortly? Miss McLennan?’ ‘I’ll be in to the station, Sergeant Munro, as soon as you give me my client’s name.’ There was definitely hesitation this time. In retrospect, I wish it could have gone on for longer. ‘You may be familiar with the name, Miss McLennan,’ he said. ‘Coutts. Your client is Kailash Coutts.’ TWO (#ua0e78b3d-2497-537b-b13f-f75fe1836b7a) Kailash Coutts. Edinburgh’s most notorious dominatrix. The word that said it all. Kailash was named after one of the most sacred mountains in the Himalayas. Pilgrims trek around it three times for purification and blessings, for it is thought to be the gateway to heaven. Never has anyone been more inaptly named. That woman was a signpost on the road to hell. As I hung up, my feet were already on the old wooden floorboards and the adrenalin hit my nerves like a bucket of cold water. The house was quiet–as normal houses should be at that time of night–but I had begun to dread the hours between midnight and 3.00a.m. While the rest of Edinburgh sleeps, the violent and deranged call on my services. Ordinarily in practices they have a rota of on-call solicitors, but we weren’t an ordinary partnership. I was the only solicitor advocate in Lothian & St Clair Writer to the Signet who touched criminal work. The partnership where I worked was founded when Robert Louis Stevenson was a boy. Our client list read like a Scottish Who’s Who. Lothian & St Clair was officially a corporate firm dealing with acquisitions and mergers, business deals and documents, and such like. However, clients would keep being naughty. I made it clear: crime (and the profits which come from representing it in court) should be kept in house. It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a popular idea. I’d have been as well to suggest that we ban double-barrelled names and holidays in Aspen. The price I had to pay for pointing out the obvious was that I got lumped with the whole bloody lot. The tide turned somewhat two years ago. Rather than scumbag clients (whether well-to-do scumbags or not), it was one of our own who needed help. Senior partner Roddie Buchanan’s picture was splashed all over the tabloids. There was some justice in this. The man’s mantra had always been, ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity.’ Somehow he seemed to question the validity of that stance when pictured on the front page of The Sun naked in the dungeon of an S&M whorehouse. I kept Roddie Buchanan’s file at home–away from the prying eyes and empty wallets of summer work experience students who might think to supplement their grants by rehashing old news, or selling pics to their pals. When I opened the folder, loose clippings fell to the floor, scattering around my feet. A hidden camera had snapped a masked Roderick Buchanan Esquire, trussed up like a Christmas turkey. And here was where my past met my present–Kailash Coutts, clad in black leather basque and fishnet stockings stood over him, a large syringe in her hand. Apparently, Roddie had paid her to inject his testicles with water until they were the size of footballs. And they say men don’t have any imagination. On the day The Sun led with the story, Roddie didn’t deign to come into the office. It didn’t matter. He was irrelevant. I was asked–no, told–by my colleagues to represent him. It was up to me to determine what line such a representation would take. I didn’t need anything real. I just needed to throw Roddie and his wife a bone, so to speak. I sued The Sun for three million pounds thanks to a technical error in the wording of the story. In Scotland, if you want to avoid being sued for defamation, then every word printed has to be correct. The article stated (actually, the one-handed hack job leered under the headline: NO BRIEFS, MISS WHIPLASH!!!) that Roddie Buchanan (‘posh Edinburgh legal bigwig’) paid Kailash Coutts (‘infamous pervy S&M Queen’) to inject both of his testicles. I got Kailash to sign an affidavit, in front of an independent Notary Public, to the effect that he only wanted one bollock dealt with. The paper settled, for a derisory sum, but they gave us the all-important apology (notwithstanding that it was printed on page nine). Roddie could now say to everyone that he’d been defamed and his wife could broadcast her husband’s absolute innocence in every drawing room in the city. After all, if the nasty tabloid could lie about the number of testicles involved, it stands to reason that the whole thing could be made up–doesn’t it? In the immediate aftermath of the case, appearing in court was awkward. I was initially greeted with messages for Roddie. The whole business kept every would-be stand-up comedian in a wig and gown going for months, generally along the lines that Roddie had wasted his money given that half of the Edinburgh legal establishment would have been willing to kick his bollocks for free anyway. Turns out that Buchanan was right in one way–there was no such thing as bad publicity. My career–and my fees–rocketed. A grudging respect from him would have been nice though, given that I was the one who had cleared up his scandal–somehow, he just didn’t seem to be able to show that little bit of gratitude. I didn’t take it personally; it wasn’t just me he didn’t like: he may have paid other women a fortune to whack him off with a whip or inflate his bollocks to within an inch of their life, but he wasn’t that fond of the fairer sex. I wasn’t too surprised–I had met Eilidh Buchanan on a number of occasions. Now I was going to have to ask Roddie’s permission to take on this case. Kailash Coutts must have been behind The Sun getting the pictures of Roddie’s hobby in the first place. She certainly knew that we had asked her to be complicit in getting an apology from the paper on a technicality that didn’t matter one bit–in fact, we were all sure she must have had a dozen photograph albums made up of much tastier pics than the paper ever published. There was a clear conflict of interest, and I thought that I should withdraw from acting. My opinion was irrelevant until it had been past Roddie Buchanan. It was a lovely prospect. I had to face calling him at home to inform him that his favourite prostitute was in police custody and that she wanted me to represent her. That was bound to go down well with his wife. My mouth was dry and I felt embarrassingly nervous as I rang his home number. I could have kicked myself the moment the receiver was picked up and I recognised Eilidh Buchanan’s voice. I remembered Roddie was in Switzerland, putting a deal to bed. Details were unnecessary. No matter what, I had to tell her that Kailash Coutts was in custody and I did not want to represent her. She listened as I spluttered out the sparse information. ‘You will contain this,’ she said condescendingly. ‘I will not tolerate the firm splashed all over the gutter press again.’ Edinburgh lawyers’ wives–they’re the ones you don’t mess with. They’re the ones so warm and cuddly that their men pay good money to get whores to dress them up in rubber fetish gear and inject their genitals for fun. ‘I can’t stop it. The trial will be a matter of public record. Open to the tabloids. I don’t doubt that they’ll…erm, re-open old wounds, but there’s nothing I can do about it.’ ‘Well, now…’ replied Eilidh Buchanan. ‘You’ve just laid something on the table, Brodie. I think we need to examine your attitude closely. If you can’t stop what needs to be stopped, we’ll need to find someone who will.’ ‘Is that a threat?’ I asked. ‘I’m just stating a fact. For the record.’ My pet hate is pointless conversation, and nothing could be gained by continuing this t?te-?-t?te, so I said goodbye and within seconds had grabbed my scuffed black biker’s helmet, worn from years of use, and left for St Leonard’s Police Station. The night air was damp and earthy; a soft haze covered the slate rooftops. There were no lights in the windows of my neighbours’ houses. I threw myself onto the kick-start, praying the pistons were on their firing stroke, otherwise I would be thrown off the bike. Not that it was just ‘a’ bike; it was my pride and joy–a 1970 Ironhead Fat Boy Harley, and it thankfully roared into life, the huge 1200v twin engine with straight through pipes woke half the neighbourhood in the process. I looked up. I wasn’t too bothered about waking neighbours, but there was one person I cared about and I cared about the fact that he never got enough sleep (not that I would necessarily ever tell him). I didn’t want to be the one responsible for waking him if he had finally dropped off. The bedside light was still on in the first floor bedroom in our house. Fishy must still have been awake anyway. This must be another night when he would be plagued by his worries, where sleep would evade him, and he would ponder over his work until morning. This would be one more day, when I wasn’t there to listen to him. Fishy and I went back a long way–we had met on our first day in the Law Faculty at university and he was the only student to win more prizes than I did. When I first bought my flat, I adored the isolation. I revelled in the space and light, and particularly in the fact that I could have anyone to stay over without withering looks or comments from others. Of course, by ‘anyone’, I mean men–my track record meant that few of them ever stayed more than one night. My romantic dreams of finding someone a bit more permanent were as much coloured by my habit of pushing away most men who tried to get close as by the fact that they were generally losers anyway. It wasn’t that I didn’t get on with men–far from it; some of my closest friends were afflicted with excess testosterone, and I wasn’t averse to non-committal relationships based purely on a nice backside and a lie-in–but as soon as any man started to get, as my mum would have put it, ‘serious’, the shutters came down and the metaphorical locks got changed. By the time I realised this, I also realised that I was spending a hell of a lot of time alone anyway. I decided that a flatmate was in order and texted lots of old pals from university and around–Richard Sturgeon and I had got on well when we were students together, and I was delighted when he got back to me and said he was working in Edinburgh and needed somewhere to stay. I had hardly seen him recently. We both shared a house, and, when we had time, shared laughs too, but those times were rare just now. Not only were we both working ridiculous hours, but the bone of contention which was always between us seemed to be even more problematical than usual. I wasn’t fighting Fishy–I was fighting DC Richard Sturgeon. I had always thought Fishy had thrown his talent away by joining the police force. I knew how good a lawyer I was, and the thought that the one person who I thought was better than me had actually chosen a different path was unfathomable. His job appeared to be just as stressful as mine, judging by his insomnia and weight-loss, but I didn’t have much sympathy. I just couldn’t understand why he was taking this career path–I wasn’t just being stubborn; I genuinely thought he would be better out of the police force, especially given that he seemed to be miserable all the time anyway. Still, as every women’s magazine on earth would tell me, I needed to be there for him as a friend rather than a constant critic. In truth, Fishy was just another one to add to my list. Another one hacked off at me, another one to push out of my mind as I headed off to the station. Sergeant Munro would be there having a fit at my lack of promptness, and Eilidh Buchanan was already gunning for me. Roll on Kailash Coutts–could it get any worse than a tart who already disliked and had tried to bankrupt me, now demanding that I represent her in a murder case? THREE (#ua0e78b3d-2497-537b-b13f-f75fe1836b7a) There was no traffic–quite right too, normal people should be in bed at this time of night/morning. The cobbles were greasy and wet though, and I had to keep my speed down to stop the bike from skidding on the road. Driving conditions were treacherous. I had no time to enjoy the beautiful buildings as me and Awesome climbed Dundas Street in the heart of the New Town. Stuck at the traffic lights at the bottom of Hanover Street, the Sphinx sitting atop of the National Gallery stared down ominously at me. If she was foretelling something, I couldn’t read her warnings, but I knew that the day would bring a stark new world for someone. Out there, somewhere, a wife was waking up to the news that her husband was dead. Does he have children, I wondered? If so, how will they feel? They will be expected to walk upright, go to work or school, and keep a roof over their heads. Crime rips people apart and I see it every day, it’s what pays my mortgage and it’s what keeps me awake at night. It surprises me that more people don’t seek revenge. The lights changed, and my musings continued. I always think on my bike, solve problems, but Kailash Coutts eluded me. What could this man have done that was so heinous it warranted his murder? Kailash was the self-appointed dissolute ruler of the city. Her wealth, which was considerable, was built on men’s depravity, but to acquire her fortune, she must have seen everything (and been well paid for it). What could have been so new to her, or so terrible, that she felt she had to deal with it–permanently? I wanted to know who this man was who had been dismissed by her. He was probably white, with the usual number of fingers and toes; he was doubtless older than my twenty-eight years. He would be ordinary by most standards, and I’d imagine his wife and work colleagues would have no idea of his secret life. Or would they? One thing my work has taught me: you can never tell someone else’s vice, unless you have that particular sin in you. It was a truth I often saw in my work. Edinburgh is the city of split personalities, its establishment was the inspiration for the original schizo-boys, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and there were plenty of men out there who still led pretty effective double-lives of suburban normality married to episodes in the likes of Kailash Coutts’ dungeon. There wasn’t much I could say in favour of Kailash herself, but at least what you saw with her was what you got, or in any event, it was after the Roddie Buchanan scandal. Edinburgh Castle sat, impenetrable on its rock, shrouded in mist, as I turned down the Royal Mile, past Deacon Brodie’s pub. The sign on the tavern wall told the true tale of his downfall and continued the myth of two-faced Edinburgh denizens: ‘worthy by day, a gentleman burglar by night, hung on the very gallows he invented’. As a child, I had stood with my mother in front of the painting of the hanging Deacon, relentlessly questioning her: was he my namesake? Was I named after Deacon Brodie? To my disappointment, she always blasted my romanticism out of the water, repeatedly telling me that I was named after the old tea factory that our thirteenth-storey flat overlooked. I still clung to the hope that I had more in common with a licentious, gambling, thieving criminal hanged for his sins than a packet of tea. On the opposite corner to the pub that still drew me in, outside the High Court, sat a statue of Hume, the father of Scottish law. Draped in a sheet, I felt the artist could have used some aesthetic licence–the sagging pectorals of the carved man made me swerve every time I drove past, although it appeared that only the pigeons and I took any notice of him. I increased my speed and Parliament House sped by. The route to St Leonard’s was a trail of the crime history of Edinburgh, and the narrow closes where body snatchers and serial killers Burke and Hare plied their trade to keep university anatomists busy flew past. Now a city of repute, the Capital could not easily erase its disreputable past. The new Scottish Parliament building at the foot of the Mile did nothing to expunge its notoriety–a series of architectural and financial disasters had led us to a point where the whole business had made Edinburgh a laughing-stock and bought only a few dodgy constructs with what looked like bingo-winner stone cladding. On every corner in Edinburgh, I see an imprint of crime overlaid onto the landscape. I looked up at Arthur’s Seat, the Salisbury Crags looming ominously in the early morning skyline, and remembered the German bride thrown over its cruel edges to her death. Not too heartbreaking for her new husband as he collected the insurance money. Everywhere was the same, every place had a story of cruelty or jealousy or lust or evil. St Leonard’s Police Station nestles at the foot of Arthur’s Seat, in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town, and is not averse to putting a few new nasty stories into the history of the city. Ordinarily, the streets around the station are, by and large, deserted. But as I approached it in the early hours, it looked like a three-ringed circus. This spelled trouble. Reporters with notepads and tape recorders, like flies on a corpse. They were everywhere. A television crew was on the street, a man in a sodden trench coat talking into a microphone, his face serious as a grinding camera recorded him for the morning news. They were all waiting impatiently, for my arrival. I could have kicked myself for not stopping to put some make-up on, but I genuinely hadn’t realised there would be this much interest in Kailash so early on in the case. Someone at St Leonard’s must have made a tidy backhander alerting the hacks to this one. Reluctantly, I parked and made my way towards them–I didn’t want to look dazed and tired in a million homes tomorrow, but without the benefit of a full-blown Jo Malone overnight kit and emergency make-up box in my backpack, I’d have to accept it. Jack Deans was the first one to notice me as I pulled off my helmet. I always feel obliged to say, ‘Jack Deans, prize-winning investigative journalist’ when I introduce him to anyone. I preferred not to recognise that I still got a very worrying flutter every time the fucked-up waster looked at me. Christ knows why. He was a decade past his best–and that would have been if he had spent his best years sober. A former international rugby player, he towered above me. His eyes slowly lowered to meet mine. They were deep, deep blue and he managed to draw me into his stare–or maybe he was sleep-deprived too and couldn’t focus very well. Deans was definitely handsome, in a worn out sort of way. In his younger years, he covered war zones and corrupt dictators; in his latter years he had lost himself in a morass of laughable conspiracy theories and discovered that he couldn’t quite find enough clarity at the bottom of a bottle of Laphroaig. He claimed he wasn’t drinking these days, but I’d seen him slip enough times to know that he didn’t have a permanent pass for the wagon. I had to shake myself out of my very private but still highly mortifying crush on Deans–he’d never let me live it down if he ever found out. His grey black hair flopped over his right eye as he approached me and I drew myself to my full height (five foot four plus the three inches I got from the rather snazzy Cuban heels on my hand-made biker boots). ‘Brodie!’ shouted Deans, his voice shaped by a past affair with whisky and cigarettes. (‘No! No! No!’ I told myself. ‘It’s shaped by booze and fags and cancer and hardened arteries and all sorts of manky stuff. He is not not not sexy.’) ‘I take it you’re here for Kailash?’ The woman had turned into Madonna–she needed no surname. I was tired and I did actually resent his familiarity, even if I did, on a dull night, often want to get into his no-doubt-vile-but-very-well-filled pants. ‘No comment,’ I said tersely. ‘I’ve been standing here, in this pissing rain, for almost two hours–give me something. Please? Please, Brodie? Pretty please?’ The rain had plastered his hair to the side of his grizzled cheek. Although it was raining, the night air was still–after about thirty seconds with the man, as usual, my bizarre crush had worn off and I just wanted to slap him for assuming he had any right to information from me. I was also not so smitten that I didn’t wonder how he could have been there for nearly two hours unless someone had called him pretty bloody sharpish. I ignored Jack Deans and made my way to the front door of the station and he followed me. His past glories were still sufficiently bright in the eyes of the other journalists present for them to hang back deferentially. The man was tracking me. I felt his eyes bore into me but continued to ignore him, until he grabbed my arm. Instinctively, I smashed my helmet into his knee: to his acolytes (and the CCTV outside the station door), it looked like a clumsy accident, but we knew differently. He crashed to the ground, like a newly cut Christmas tree. Magic moment officially broken. He grabbed my ankle on his way down. Almost toppling, I angrily held my balance. I stared at him, now just wanting this fine gentleman of the press to bugger off out of my way so that I could get on with my job. Rather than look annoyed, or even pained, the face of Deans was the picture of smugness. ‘You don’t know, do you?’ he whispered. I wouldn’t give him the upper hand, wouldn’t start our usual tit-for-tat. ‘You don’t know, do you?’ he asked again, slightly louder this time. I waited all of five seconds before breaking. ‘No, Jack, I don’t know. I don’t know which schemy wee copper has phoned you out of your stench-filled pit at this time of the morning. I don’t know how many Big Macs or cans of cash-and-carry lager you’ve paid him for his trouble. I don’t know why so many half-bit hacks are gathered outside when all they’re going to do is run more pictures of tarts in mini-skirts with a cut-and-paste job pretending to be a story. But I bet, I just bloody bet, you’re going to tell me.’ I stood with my hands on my hips, feeling quite pleased with myself. Losing your cool and shouting outside a cop shop while on professional duty was always a good way to start a case. Jack Deans stood back from me and mirrored my pose, a smile creeping onto his lips. He let his eyes wander all over my face, and, for a moment, I thought I almost saw a flicker of sympathy. ‘Brodie?’ he asked, as if I’d know the answer. ‘Brodie? They haven’t told you, have they?’ I kept my silence this time. If he had news of Kailash, he’d be bursting to tell me anyway. The next words out of his mouth were a statement, not a question. ‘You don’t know who she’s murdered.’ A smile of satisfaction crossed his face. I had to hand it to the grandstanding bastard–this round was going to him. ‘Why didn’t they tell you, Brodie?’ The same question was beginning to float through my mind. ‘If I was you, Brodie, I’d figure out who wanted to throw me to the wolves.’ Jack Deans knew that his special status was coming to an end, the press pack descending, and me running out of patience. He propelled me through the doors into the police station in one fluid movement. ‘Alistair MacGregor,’ he whispered in my ear. I had no time to answer him. I had no time to think. I could only assume that I hadn’t heard him correctly. FOUR (#ua0e78b3d-2497-537b-b13f-f75fe1836b7a) What was wrong with Kailash Coutts? Could she just not keep her hands off the Scottish judiciary? Like most of the men she came into contact with, Alistair MacGregor had another identity–but this one didn’t involve bondage and baby nappy fantasies. No, this one was a shitload more complicated. The dead man wasn’t known as Alistair MacGregor. He was known by his full title, Lord Arbuthnot of Broxden, Lord President of the Court of Session, or, to make things simpler: the highest Law Lord in Scotland. No wonder Sergeant Munro was so keen to get this one processed quickly, and no wonder the entire Scottish media was camped outside St Leonard’s in the wee small hours. I didn’t have any time to wallow in the misery that was hurtling towards me–times were bad when Jack Deans seemed to be the only one giving me a hand–as the full wonder that was front-house in an Edinburgh cop shop opened out in front of me. The smirks on the faces of the police officers at the desk could have made me regret some of my past harsh cross-examinations, but I was more concerned with trying to block out the truly awful rendition of ‘Rawhide’ that was going on as I made my way to the desk. No introductions were necessary. I’d spent far too much of my time here in the past. Desk Sergeant Anderson waddled towards me, red faced and huffing from the exertion of moving two feet without a pie in his hand. His cheap white shirt was see-through, and puckered over his vast gut, the only accessory being some worn-in underarm sweat stains. A veteran, coming up to retirement age, he made it known he’d seen–in his words–young ‘punks’ like me come and go. Given that I was also pretty sure he dreamed of himself with a shiny ‘Sheriff’ badge pinned to his chest, I wasn’t exactly bothered. What did worry me was the fact that he was breathing so heavily he was either going to have an orgasm in front of me, or he was working up to some godawful joke that he’d laboured over since the last time we met. At least the first option might be funny. ‘I’d like to take you to the cells, Miss McLennan…’ he wheezed, pausing for dramatic effect as the lackeys around him waited for the punch line. ‘But you might call me a liar.’ Had the Marx Brothers suddenly been arrested, dragging in Laurel and Hardy with them? Had Tommy Cooper come out of cryogenic hibernation to announce a new career in law enforcement with Ricky Gervais and John Cleese as his loyal sidekicks? Or had some fat sweaty bastard of a useless copper just tried–in vain–to score a lame point against someone who wouldn’t shite on him if he paid Kailash rates? Whatever the reason, St Leonard’s erupted with joy at the witticism launched into posterity–Anderson wouldn’t be able to move for bacon butties and Irn Bru for the rest of his shift given the joy he had bestowed on his colleagues with his pathetic introduction. I vaguely recalled our last meeting–a police assault case involving some wealthy young pro-hunt protesters. I won, although the verdict owed more to the judicial loyalties of the bench, than any great legal point on my behalf. Every dog has its day, and this was Sergeant Anderson’s. His young posse were enjoying his bravado, especially the ones who had also received a tongue lashing from me when they had appeared in the witness box. Just as I was trying to boost myself with the facts of my incredibly superior existence and immaculate professionalism, I caught sight of my reflection in the plate glass windows of the station. Normally, my best feature is my hair; at the moment it looked like the stuffing that escapes from horsehair settees. Dark auburn curls had turned to frizz with the help of the damp night air and my motorbike helmet. The rain and spray from the roads had soaked through my leather jacket, leaving me no alternative but to remove it. I should have known better. I was wearing my favourite t-shirt, soft, grey, and very worn. The kind of garment you wear to bed when your mum says you look a bit peaky. Unfortunately, in this scenario, I don’t have the sort of cleavage which makes a police station full of men look away. They didn’t like me personally and they hated what I stood for–but all that could be forgotten amidst the amazing revelation that I possessed breasts. Sergeant Anderson’s moment of glory was stolen as an entire cop shop launched into a communal wet-t-shirt fantasy. It could be worse, I told myself, before remembering that the belt buckle holding up my leather trousers bore the Harley legend: ‘Born to Ride’. As I followed Sergeant Anderson to the staircase door leading to the cells, I tried to block out the hilarious comments being lobbed my way. There was no denying that I enjoyed the attention that came from being a court lawyer when it suited me, and on my terms, but tonight, going into whatever lay in front of me, I could do without anyone’s eyes and remarks. In fact, I’d have paid good money for an uptight Marks and Spencer suit and button-down shirt. I didn’t exactly look the picture of legal respectability, or the embodiment of my infamous claim to fame as youngest solicitor advocate in Scottish legal history. Still, no matter that I could hide behind all sorts of professional titles such as Writer to the Signet (alongside Sir Walter Scott, no less)–in this place, I was the lowest of the low: a lawyer and a woman. Even my client could probably expect better treatment than me. God knows what she would make of my appearance–actually, she’d probably think that she was being visited by one of her peers, and not a very good-looking one at that. Alongside wondering how Kailash Coutts would interpret me, I also briefly thought of what my mother would say–discomfort made me shut that voice off pretty sharpish. Sergeant Anderson and I formed the start of a cavalcade as we moved down into the bowels of the station. We weren’t alone for long–passing by offices, we were joined by their occupants on spurious errands. They all wanted to see it. To witness the showdown between myself and Kailash Coutts. How would I react to meeting with the woman who was accused of killing another member of my profession? How would I react to meeting the woman who had asked for me by name to represent her even though we had nothing but a history of mistrust and deceit? How would I react to meeting the woman I had always suspected had called the papers to set up Roddie Buchanan and almost ruin me in the process? Although I was Roddie’s junior partner, under Scottish law, I was jointly and severally liable for the debts of our entire firm. This meant that the creditors could come to me for the money had the scandal ruined Lothian & St Clair. I, in turn, would have had to sue Roddie to see a penny of that money ever again. It was a close thing. The scandal and gossip arising out of the Kailash Coutts debacle threatened the very existence of the firm. Clients were bleeding away. Our overheads, mostly high spec offices in Castle Terrace, were prohibitive, and the bank had called in our overdraft. Unpredictably, the last moment change of heart from Kailash Coutts saved us. By signing the spurious affidavit about Roddie’s single rather than dual bollocking, she gave me the ammunition to raise the defamation action. As our motley crew continued downwards to the cells, the smell assaulted me. I felt myself gagging. The noises from behind the locked steel doors made me think of Bedlam. Ruby the turnkey shuffled towards me. I always thought of Ruby as symbolic of this place–nothing was quite right, but there was enough of a superficial attempt to make outsiders think everything could hold together just a bit longer. Thirty denier black tights attempted to cover her gnarled, varicose veined legs. They failed. Her peroxide blonde hair had the vague look of something that had seen a hairdresser once, but the visit had resulted in locks the texture and consistency of a scouring pad. It was in a very fashionable style–for the 1950s, which was approximately the last time any man had considered her attractive. Her real name was Jean, but she always seemed like a Ruby to me in honour of the bright red lipstick she slashed over her gash of a mouth. To be honest, I had been torn between naming her ‘Ruby’ or ‘Blue’–the latter would have been equally appropriate in recognition of the two slabbed cakes of eye shadow adorning her drooping lids. Ruby was oblivious to her failings, but she eyed me up as if I was something she had trodden upon in the street. Obviously, I did not fit her notion of glamour. Fag ash hung from her mouth and keys at her side. Deftly she fingered the collection, recognising every one by touch alone. She unlocked the door–I had never noticed any of them creak before, but when a small crowd is silent, holding its breath, every little noise is exaggerated. The door swung outwards from the twelve-foot cell, briefly obscuring my vision. Epinephrine was surging through my body, heightening my senses, so that I became aware of a scent, delicate and sweet, dancing towards me. I had been taken aback when I saw Kailash Coutts in the flesh for the first time. There are women whose eyes meet for a moment, and, although they are not friends, they know each other. Instantaneously, they sum one another up, their eyes flicking from hair to shoes, and for a second their souls unite. When I met her, I thought: I could be friends with you. We are women at the height of our respective professions, daily we fight men to get on top. In my case it was, thankfully, only figuratively. I recalled the bald details given to me about my client: Female, forty-one years of age, mixed race. Those empty words didn’t come close to describing her, the photographs I had seen didn’t do her justice. Kailash Coutts was a woman gifted by nature–and what nature didn’t give her, she went out and bought. And she certainly knew where to shop. Her long, black hair fell glossily to her shoulders, as she turned to look at me it rippled like a waterfall. A few seconds in her presence and I wasn’t sure whether the voice inside my head sounded like Mills & Boon or Loaded. ‘You’ve got five minutes.’ Sergeant Anderson’s voice was hoarse with excitement. ‘I’ve got paperwork to do if Ms Coutts is to appear in court today.’ I was astounded at the respect he was giving my client. And perhaps a tad resentful that I was never accorded the same. What was it about her, and why didn’t I have some of it? Kailash was the product of an affair between a married Donegal nurse, and a young surgeon from the Punjab. Her father disappeared home to an arranged marriage, her abandoned mother threw herself on the charity of her cuckolded Irish husband. In his generosity, he agreed to keep the child, and raise it as his own provided the baby was white. When she was born, it was immediately obvious that Kailash’s olive skin did not pass the paper bag test. If her skin were lighter than a brown paper bag, she would have been kept and passed off as a genetic throwback to the Spanish Armada that wrecked itself on the rocks off the west coast of Ireland. Unfortunately for the young Kailash, mixed-race babies are often very dark skinned in the early days of their lives. Her fate was sealed. Home for her was a series of fostering residences. Nobody wanted to claim the dark eyed child as their own. Times change. My father abandoned my own mother, yet it was acceptable in society for her to raise her fatherless child alone. My mother adored me–in her own way–and was always determined to give me every opportunity possible, with or without a man by her side. If I had been consigned to the life that Kailash had led, would I have walked in her footsteps? I’m a sucker for any fatherless child. As I looked into the black eyes of Kailash Coutts, I swore that I would do everything I could to get her off. I knew that I was in danger of committing professional suicide. The woman who had almost ruined my firm, almost ruined me personally, was now about to be charged with the murder of one of the highest Law Lords in the country. And, on the basis of us both being deserted wee girls, I had decided she was my new best pal. I grabbed her arm as she walked out to Sergeant Anderson. ‘You have the right to remain silent,’ I reminded her. ‘Use that right. This morning there will be a court hearing. We will make no plea or declaration in response to the charge of murder. Later, there will be a judicial examination. It will be tape recorded, and at that stage we must state your defence, otherwise the Crown can found upon our silence.’ ‘Our.’ I was already linking myself emotionally to her. I would have to pull back, but as Kailash smiled at me, I realised grimly that it wasn’t going to be any time soon. I hoped she understood what I was saying, hoped she recognised the coded message in my words. I did not want to hear that she was guilty, as that would place me in an awkward position as an officer of the court. I was giving her time to think up a defence. I stood for a moment, watching her walk away to be charged with murder, and I silently cursed my own absent father. I was in her web now, and I was sure Kailash Coutts was not going to let me go. FIVE (#ua0e78b3d-2497-537b-b13f-f75fe1836b7a) ‘You look rough.’ ‘I feel worse than I look.’ ‘Well they do say beauty comes from within, so try to cheer up.’ Lavender smiled at me as she handed me a steaming cup of coffee. In that instant I could have forgiven her anything. Even the fact that she was sitting in my chair didn’t bother me–neither of us harboured any illusions over who really ran the show in my office. Lawyers may be the public face, but the real power lies with their secretaries. I sipped gingerly on the burning liquid, staring out of my office window at Edinburgh Castle, as Lavender began to read out today’s cases from the diary. The court diary is the most important record in a legal firm–a missed court date or a misplaced trial is a sack-able offence. The consequences of such a mistake can’t be overstated–it is imprisonment for the client, and even worse for the solicitor. If a punter does not turn up at his trial date, a warrant will be taken for their arrest–if the lawyer doesn’t attend they face contempt of court charges. Going over the court diary was a ritual that Lavender and I did every morning at 7.30a.m. if we could, we gave it the respect it was due even when a huge case like that of Kailash Coutts was going to blow everything out of the water. So much of my time was going to be spent on her, that I needed to ensure that nothing else was going to suffer. ‘How many trials?’ I asked Lavender. ‘One jury, and a continued High Court job. Robert Dunlop already has his papers, he’ll do it for you, and I’m sending the first year trainee in to sit with him. On top of that,’ added Lavender, ‘we’ve got five summary trials and two of them are in Kirkcaldy.’ Her voice got lower, and although she didn’t exactly mumble, she certainly hurried through the next part of her list of points. ‘I instructed Eddie last night and I dropped the files off at his house.’ She fumbled with the pages of the diary as colour flooded her face. I didn’t have the energy to tease Lavender about her unrequited love for Eddie Gibb. Eddie was a brilliant court lawyer whose genius at the bar was exceeded only by his excess in the bar. I was never quite sure whether it was me or Lavender who kept forgiving Eddie his misdemeanours. I do know that Lavender had to pull him out of the pub on so many occasions we had a code name for it–Eddie was in court nine. Most of the Sheriffs knew about Eddie’s difficulty and forgave him for it. I reckon that we all knew we had a bit of Eddie in us. ‘You know I like Eddie as much as the next person, Lav, but we’re shooting ourselves in the foot to put him in Kirkcaldy on his own.’ ‘So Sheriff Robertson hates him? He’s not too fond of you either, Brodie.’ ‘I’m not talking personalities here, Lav–if Eddie has hit the bevvy at lunch time who’s going to pull his arse out the fire? You can’t be in Edinburgh running the show, and Kirkcaldy watching over lover boy.’ ‘Beggars can’t be choosers, Brodie–I had to keep other agency lawyers on standby to deal with Edinburgh, leaving you free to cover the custodies–you didn’t call me last night to let me know if you were overstretched and I didn’t want another lecture on “Delectus Personae”. I did my best, and I think Eddie can do this.’ Lavender’s blonde curls bobbed merrily–in contradiction to her mood. Her forty-three-year-old face was untroubled by wrinkles, fat was the filler she preferred to keep her face smooth, and it suited her. She was gorgeous and I loved her like a sister. Never a size 8, her figure was a walking Rubensesque fantasy. She generally drew men to her like moths to a flame, but Eddie’s love of the booze meant that he always seemed one step away from her, even though he relied on her so much. Lavender knew as much as any solicitor on the team at Lothian & St Clair. She understood what it meant to build a successful criminal practice, and Delectus Personae meant that there were some clients who would only stay with the firm if I represented them. Her intuitive instincts were buzzing last night–she knew we had a client; a Mr Big who would demand my undivided attention. She just didn’t know who it was yet–I hadn’t summoned the courage to tell her. Lavender was indispensable to me. After the Kailash affair, the firm’s serious financial trouble meant that my life hung in the balance–the bank balance of Lothian & St Clair. The only way for me to find freedom was to make the firm financially successful again. To do this I took on every case I could–but there was one difficulty. Although I was prepared to work every hour outside the office, I couldn’t be in two places at once. I didn’t have the resources to take on extra bodies, so I had a team of agency solicitors. Agency lawyers are like Japanese Ronin–Samurai without masters. They are lone warriors who owe allegiance to no one. The Japanese didn’t trust them–but I didn’t have a choice. Anyway, it was generally left to Lavender to keep them in check. She interrupted my thoughts. ‘I’ll find out you know.’ ‘What?’ ‘The secret you’re trying to keep from me–I’ll find out. I always do.’ It was true, no one could have any privacy whilst Lav was about. You simply had to accept it because, as well as running my life for me, her gift of hacking into computers was so useful at other times. It all started with eBay. Lavender began buying and then selling. Buying from the fifteen-year-old shoplifters and then passing it off on the net. Quite the entrepreneur. No one was any the wiser and her computer skills developed until her natural inquisitiveness got the better of her. There was a man–with Lavender every story could begin that way–and she wanted to know more about him. When does infatuation become stalking, as she is so fond of saying? Anyway, this man was interested in computers so Lavender took a course on computer security–how to keep company firewalls safe from hackers. To build firewalls you have to know how to take them down, and the secrets hidden behind those walls were irresistible to her. The mystery man worked in a city bank, and the Metropolitan police completely misunderstood Lavender’s interest in the bank’s security systems. The outcome was leaving her former life in London behind and a change of name–Lavender Ironside, stolen from a gravestone in a Highland graveyard. We were made for each other. Lavender needed me as much as I needed her. I looked over to see what was keeping her so busy. ‘You could at least wait until I left the room,’ I said. ‘You’re showing no signs of going,’ she retorted, unashamedly rifling through my briefcase. ‘You’re so untidy–don’t you realise I have to try and make some sense of all this scribble?’ She pulled my notes closer to her face. ‘Kailash Coutts?’ Her eyes narrowed in contempt. ‘I knew we were desperate to get clients, Brodie, but I didn’t for one moment think things were this bad.’ ‘How do you think I feel? I’ve been up half the night because of that woman.’ Why didn’t you say “no,” then? You’re the one who’s prostituting yourself if you can’t say “no”. ‘I tried–but Roddie wouldn’t let me. Well, his wife had some say in it too.’ ‘I hope that sounds as pathetic to you as it does to me,’ she retorted. ‘Look at me, Lav–look at my life.’ ‘You haven’t got one–you work all the time trying to dig yourself out of a hole caused by Kailash Coutts. A hole that’s getting bigger. We’ve got one jury and three summary trials plus the custodies to be covered in Edinburgh today, and it could all blow up in our face because of that woman. Again.’ ‘Well, here come the cavalry.’ I could see movement through the glass panel in my office door. In they trooped. Robert Girvan–smart and sharp as any bankrupt could be. He had a restricted practising certificate because his senior partner had messed up the firm’s accounts and, like me, Robert was jointly and severally liable for the debts. He was my warning. If at any time I felt like bunking off, I thought of Robert and a shiver ran down my spine. We both knew that was why I gave him work. Danny Bishop–nice guy shame about the face. He was scarred from his cheek to his chin. Legend had it that he went out with his client’s girlfriend and was offered the choice–his balls or his face. Most people knew that although he had chosen the latter, the experience had taken his balls anyway. The trainee was following him, smart-suited and relatively eager, she wasn’t to know that they all looked the same to me; even the ones who were pretty much my own age. Trailing up the rear, both physically and metaphorically, was David Bannatyne. He had his own firm until he left his wife and developed a habit of picking up young men and taking them home only to find that they had loaded his gear into his car and driven off into the sunset without him. These were my Ronin, the ones who were going to save the day. In spite of their personal problems, if you could actually get them into court, they had a flair not often found in the more clerical amongst us. They perched their backsides on any available ledge and looked at me expectantly. As was usual, Lavender handed out the coffee before I dispatched the files and instructions for the day’s work. I started with the trainee. ‘HMA v Marjorie Pirie; it’s a High Court trial. Donnie Dunlop has already been instructed and he appeared on the last date in court–it was continued from the fifth of June because a crucial prosecution witness went into premature labour. It’s straightforward. Just do exactly as counsel tells you and don’t bad mouth the judges to the client.’ ‘Why would I do that?’ the youngster protested. ‘A friend of mine agreed with a divorce client that the Sheriff was a bastard for giving his wife an interim aliment settlement of ?250 per week.’ ‘So?’ David Bannatyne shook his head and got up to refill his coffee. ‘Have you never heard of murmuring a judge?’ he asked. The bemused trainee shook her head. ‘Well, it’s a criminal offence–a judge can say anything they want to you, but if you make any smart remarks back, inside court you’ll get done for contempt, outside court, it’s called murmuring.’ ‘Thanks, David–I’ve put you down for the jury trial. It’s on the list for today but it’s unlikely to start. I think, as usual, they will have a number that will plead. This won’t–inside the file I’ve put a list of recent cases. Andy Gilmore was stopped by police–they searched his car because it was messy with CDs–and they thought the CDs were stolen. In the course of the search they discovered cocaine–it was an illegal search because it’s arguable that they didn’t have justifiable cause to stop and search in the first instance.’ ‘Cheers, Brodie–take it you thought I was the man for this case because I could argue that my car is messy?’ He pulled the file from my outstretched hands–a smile curled round his lips. ‘What am I doing today?’ Danny Bishop looked tired, he was in his early fifties and, although the scar had faded, time was pulling the left side of his face down faster than the right giving him an odd lopsided grin. ‘A two cop breach–in the district court.’ ‘Cheers.’ I turned to face Robert Girvan who was looking at me expectantly. ‘You’re going to be watching my back in Edinburgh-Sheriff court–I’m covering the custodies.’ He looked at me as if to question whether that was everything–I knew that I should warn him that all hell could break loose around me, but somehow I couldn’t find the words. ‘The two summary trials are pretty straightforward. Smile at the fiscal and see if you can get them both put in the same court. One is a breach of the peace. My client assures me the witnesses won’t turn up.’ Robert winked at me. ‘That’s the kind of trial I like.’ He liked it because I still paid him for a full day in court. ‘And the other?’ He waited with interest. ‘The other one is solicitation–Maggie Jones giving a client a blow job in his car.’ ‘For Christ’s sake, Brodie, why are we taking this to trial?’ A grimace flickered across his face. I hadn’t fancied doing this trial either but Maggie was a ‘good client’, namely she was a heroin addict who did anything and everything to fund her habit. Repeat business was always handy. ‘Okay, Brodie, tell me the defence to this one–please don’t say it was because she didn’t swallow.’ Our humour at anytime of the day is black or lavatorial–preferably both. ‘No, it’s not–better than that, Rob. The arresting officer didn’t see any money change hands–so our argument is that she wasn’t soliciting, she was doing it for fun.’ ‘Terrific–at this point I’d like to state it’s me who has to make that argument in court, not you.’ ‘Trust me,’ interrupted Lavender. ‘Brodie would rather be making any spurious point than what she’s got to do today.’ My eyes locked with hers, daring her to say anything more. As usual she ignored me. ‘Well–you’re not saying anything and they’ll find out soon enough. Brodie, in her wisdom, is representing Roddie’s whore.’ ‘Which one?’ asked Robert. ‘Not Kailash?’ Lavender nodded. Robert stood up. He tilted his head and spoke softly. ‘Why?’ is the last thing he said as he left for court. I had stopped asking myself the same question–I was already in too deep. SIX (#ulink_5268d1da-6b3d-5b63-9757-2d12ddec7f14) At around 9.45a.m., Edinburgh Sheriff Court resembles ‘Paddy’s Market’. Squalor and clamour abound, as young men with cheap suits and even cheaper tattoos scramble for justice. At the same time, lawyers with overdrafts and considerably more expensive suits clamber for clients–it’s hard to work out who is more desperate. Preoccupied, I pushed my way through the throng. Journalists jostled with juvenile delinquents, and all of them seemed to want a piece of me. ‘Hey, Brodie!’ A young man, proudly sporting a tattooed blue line across his neck with the immortal words ‘CUT ME’, called out to me. ‘I’m thinking of changing my lawyer.’ Tattoo Boy knew that the press were here to see me and he wanted to be part of the action. Young men like him are known as ‘dripping roasts’, highly prized at the Edinburgh bar for being cash cows. Their criminal activities, and subsequent trials, bought most of the Mercedes cars parked outside court. I didn’t like to turn down such a plea as his, but I had other things on my mind. For one, Jack Deans was bearing down upon me. ‘I hope you’re not feeling as bad as I am, Brodie.’ His voice sounded rough, like heavy-duty sand paper. I was feeling dreadful and he was always guaranteed to bother me one way or another. I’d ignore him. That was always classy. ‘So, Lord Arbuthnot is no more,’ Deans mockingly intoned. ‘How does it feel to be representing his killer? Real step up the old career ladder there, eh?’ I kept ignoring him, this time because I had no answer, not for Jack Deans or myself. BBC Scotland moved in to the gap that had opened up as I moved away from Deans. I had no comment for them either. Disconcertingly, I heard a reporter describe me on camera as the rising star of the Scottish bar. For how much longer, after I’d dealt with this corpse of a case, they didn’t deign to tell me. The public space in front of the courthouse was even more crammed than usual. Everywhere, people mixed cheek to jowl, everywhere, that is, except for one tiny corner. This wasn’t just a piece of ground–this was territory. It belonged to the Dark Angels. Instantly recognisable, their garb was almost a marketing strategy. Long black leather coats. Peroxide white hair worn long and poker straight for the girls, spiked crew cuts for the boys. Black hats, and short black painted nails were obligatory for both sexes, as were the silver-topped black walking sticks they all carried. Their skin was alabaster white, as if they would shrivel in the sun. They were into everything, but, strangely they were never caught, or, at least, never brought to trial. Urban myths existed about their cases being returned to the police marked ‘No Pro’, no matter what they were accused of. The ‘Dark Angels’ were, for some reason, not to be prosecuted. It was a source of speculation in the bar common room as to how they escaped detection. It certainly was not the case that they blended into the background. In the centre of the pack, their leader, Moses Tierney, stared at me sullenly. Moses was his real name, not a carefully chosen brand addition like everything else to do with his gang, and he was born during a brief period in his mother’s life when she was junk free. I had heard that she called him Moses because he was to be her deliverer. Predictably, this wasn’t to be, and after his mother’s death, Moses was taken into care. Her only legacy to him was an overactive imagination and a flair for the dramatic. I had never observed Moses Tierney at court, nor had I glimpsed the ‘Dark Angels’ in daylight before, but I knew who he was, who they were. My gaze locked with that of Moses; he had the stare of a wolf, with pale grey, dark ringed eyes. In all this commotion, he held my attention. I suddenly felt as if he were presenting the Dark Angels to me–he wanted me to see them. To his gang, he was their Messiah, and I had to concede he had kept them out of trouble–so far. ‘Charismatic, isn’t he?’ Jack Deans had sneaked up on me again. ‘Are you wondering why they’re here?’ This time, I nodded in answer. ‘I think we all are. What’s brought them out of their hidey holes at this time of the day?’ I was fixated on the Dark Angels. As I stood watching them, as one, they all stared at me, lifted their walking canes and raised them towards me. Almost in salute. There was no danger in their action. They then turned and slowly filed away. ‘That answers it,’ resumed Jack Deans. ‘They came for you.’ I pulled my eyes away from the bizarre homage in front of me and shot round to face Deans. ‘Are you enjoying baiting me? Winding me up about Kailash and now about Moses Tierney?’ ‘I feel that’s a trick question, Brodie,’ he answered. A part of me knows you want me to say “No” and be gallant and mindful of your feelings and all sort of pish like that. But another part–roughly ninety-nine per cent–wants to ask you if you’re officially off your fucking head? Of course I’m enjoying it. You’re squirming, you have no idea what to do–I’d have to be, at the very least, a practising lawyer not to get any pleasure out of that. ‘And you get a lovely wee blush to your cheeks when you’re mad at me.’ ‘Anything else you want to add before I leave with a highly satisfying picture of me kicking your bollocks from here to Princes Street?’ I asked. ‘Oooh, you been getting ideas from your client?’ Deans mocked. ‘No, I’m pretty much done–I’m happy with my lot.’ I moved towards the sanctuary of the revolving court doors–not quickly enough, as I could still hear Deans shouting something about how he preferred what I’d been wearing last night to my court attire. Kailash Coutts was waiting for me in the cells. She looked like an exotic caged beast, completely out of place. Pacing backwards and forwards, she was ‘motoring’. Distressed prisoners do this, but my senses didn’t indicate that she was troubled. Her brow seemed to be furrowed, quite an achievement given the amount of Botox in there, as she muttered under her breath. Something was wrong though. Kailash was immaculately dressed. Someone had brought her in a fresh set of couture clothes. The way the accused presents themselves is crucial to the outcome of a case. Generally, the better looking you are, the more chance you have of being found innocent or receiving a lighter sentence. But Kailash was an unusual case; she was turning the theory on its head. ‘I never thought I’d have to say this,’ I started, ‘but you look too…’ I was fighting for a tactful way to say it. ‘Expensive.’ Obligingly, Kailash finished my sentence. ‘Absolutely!’ I nodded, foolishly believing she might go along with my ideas. It was pretty unusual for a lawyer to have to tell a prostitute client they looked too tasteful–in this case, Kailash just seemed too good for her surroundings and I was worried the judge might be completely thrown. Murdering whores don’t often look like Halle Berry taking the day off to meander down a catwalk. In return, and with brutal honesty, Kailash looked me over. I had brought my bike to court so that I could park. I’d worn my leathers and changed into a suit in the agents’ room. A well used high street label, my court wear looks even worse crumpled, but it usually suffices. Looking down, I could see some of my buttons were in the wrong holes, giving me an odd rumpled effect. As usual, my striped blouse was unironed. With regard to my shoes, it is sufficient to say that I could not see my face in them. In my favour, my legs were smooth and tanned although bare legs in court is deemed inappropriate in some quarters. ‘Take a look at yourself,’ she sneered as I tried to pretend there wasn’t a problem. ‘You are a professional,’ she informed me. ‘A woman of some importance, and you are dressed like…Well, you are dressed like…’ she couldn’t quite bring herself to spit the word out, and I wondered what descriptive term could possibly make a tart sound as though it was the filthiest word in the dictionary. Kailash’s French manicured fingers stroked her flawless complexion, as she searched for the proper insult. I tried to help. ‘A student. I look like a student. I’m always being told that.’ ‘No,’ she said, wagging her index finger back and forth, as if no student ever looked that bad. She gave up on the put-down, there was clearly nothing awful enough to describe me–and continued the lecture. ‘Brodie, you are unique. How many people have escaped from their upbringing? Truly escaped? You are educated, which is rare where you come from. You are respected–to an extent, but it is still an achievement. And Brodie,’ I could have sworn her voice softened, but I could have been misled by the fact that I was starting to wonder just how she had managed to Google me while in St Leonard’s, ‘you are beautiful, no matter how much you try to deny it.’ I’ve read that if you can speak at the rate of a human heart, you can sell anything. Kailash had that gift and I needed to fight her mesmerism. Her voice returned to normal. ‘We must work on your image.’ I struggled past the image of me striding into court ? la Julia Roberts, styled by Stella McCartney, with a Nobel Prize in one hand and an Oscar in the other. It was hard to decide which fantasy was best, so I went for reality instead. ‘No, Kailash. Right now, we work on your defence.’ Worryingly, I was beginning to notice that Kailash was doing everything she could to avoid talking about what had actually happened. We hadn’t yet had the conversation I have with most clients, where I spend my time trying to get them to shut up. She already knew I didn’t want to hear that she had murdered Lord Arbuthnot, but this was deeper than that. No one pleads guilty to a charge of murder. It is simply not worth it, because there is only one sentence: life. If she told me she was guilty, it would make my job impossible, but she was being even quieter about it all than it usually required. ‘The three defences to murder that apply to you are…’ Kailash stood impassively in the corner smoking an imported cigarette. I prayed she was listening to me. This was all a damn sight more important than taking me for a makeover. ‘Alibi. That means it wasn’t you. You were somewhere else when the murder happened. It helps if you have a credible witness to back you up.’ Fleetingly, I wondered if she knew any credible witnesses. To be openly associated with Kailash Coutts was social, and professional, suicide. A cold, slow, shiver ran down my back, like an ice cube meandering down my spine. I was in that category now. ‘Then, there’s self defence,’ I continued. ‘But, you are only allowed to use reasonable force, and in your case it might be tricky, given that it is the Lord President who’s dead.’ Kailash raised an eyebrow quizzically, as if I did not know my own profession. Regrettably, she might be right. ‘Lastly, and it’s difficult, is the defence of accident. That means you were there. You were the cause of death. But it was a mishap.’ Kailash said nothing. The clock on the cell walls showed 10.30a.m., as a disembodied voice called me over the tannoy. ‘Brodie McLennan to court six.’ A young police officer rattled the bars of the cell. ‘You’re here,’ he said, stating the obvious. ‘Sheriff Strathclyde is on the bench. He’s waiting for you.’ Standing straight to catch his breath, he blocked my exit. I pushed past him, running at full pelt out of the cells, my black gown flying as he called after me. ‘By the way…he’s been on the bench since ten.’ With barely a nod to Kailash, I ran and ran. I didn’t stop until I reached the entrance of the court. My adversary for this morning, Baggy Sutherland, lurched against the doorframe. He had a droopy hangdog look that comes from a lifetime of disappointments. Gifted in court, when he was sober, he could bring a tear to any juror’s eye. His black court gown was in fact green with age. On occasions when I had forgotten mine, his was the only one left hanging in the agents’ room. Wearing Baggy’s gown was like putting on the mantle of Elijah. ‘You’re in trouble.’ Baggy stopped me, and started pulling at my gown. I had no time for pleasantries, I pushed forwards, but he wouldn’t let me go. ‘It’s on inside out,’ he offered by way of an explanation for the mauling which was taking place. Rather deftly, for a man with tremors in his hands, he removed my gown, and turned it right side out. ‘The mood that old bastard’s in, he’d do you with contempt for wearing it that way.’ Baggy was serious. Sheriff Strathclyde had a severe problem with me–even before I acted for his wife in their divorce action. He could find me in contempt of court for anything, even my clothes. I would win it on appeal, but he still had the power. I was anxious to do nothing to offend him. I could almost hear his breath as I walked in. Sheriff Strathclyde is small, very angry, and with a body shape that favours a toad. I intended to walk straight in and proceed with business. He, of course had other plans. He wanted me to suffer. His ball-like face, which looked as if it had been chewed by a large dog trying to remodel its own arse, signalled red for danger. All heads, but one, had swivelled to watch my entrance. Kailash looked intently at the bench. She had taken the direct route from the cells, and had arrived much faster than I could. ‘How kind of you to find the time to join us today, Ms McLennan.’ Sheriff Strathclyde’s voice was chilly, deep, and rich, the product of a very expensive education. ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t find you in contempt of court,’ he spat at me. ‘Right now.’ ‘Well, how about the fact that you have absolutely no right to?’ I countered. ‘I was consulting with a client on a very serious charge.’ It took about a second for me to realise this wasn’t quite the approach I should have gone for. ‘No right, no right!’ Purple in the face, Strathclyde looked as if he were about to explode. ‘No right!’ he continued. ‘It’s my court! I can do as I please! Anything! I can do anything!’ Raising himself up to his full height, he leaned over the bench. For a moment, I thought that he would topple onto me. I was squaring up to him. This day was getting worse with every passing minute and he was a bully. Anyway, surely he wouldn’t respect obsequiousness? ‘Find me in contempt,’ I challenged him, ‘and I will appeal you straightaway.’ No judge likes to have his or her decisions appealed. I had my pen poised noting down every word he said. Strathclyde was well acquainted with the appeal procedure. He knew that judicial words spoken in anger did not go down well over the road in Parliament House. Disdainfully, he flicked his manicured hand in my direction. Feeling more relief than I would ever admit, I took my seat in the well of the court, opposite the Procurator Fiscal. This case, in technical lawyer speak, had all the makings of being a Right Royal Bastard. SEVEN (#ulink_644465a8-4372-5b17-98a8-bf5baf722124) The Fiscal and I had been at university together. Frank Pearson was a mature student when we were both studying together, but the age gap made no difference to our friendship. I always had time for him and I liked the way he never made assumptions about me or my competitive streak. The sheriff clerk looked disparagingly at me as she called the case. I was grateful that indictments are called in chambers, which meant that no member of the press or public was allowed. As things stood, the people who were allowed to be there were causing me enough trouble without any help from outsiders. ‘Are you Kailash Bernadette Coutts?’ The clerk’s voice rang out around the courtroom. The surprise caught in my throat. Bernadette? But then I recalled her Irish mother and realised it could have been worse; she might have had my first name. The clerk’s voice went on as I waited impatiently for my turn. ‘How do you plead?’ That was it. My cue. My curtain call. I leaped to my feet. ‘Brodie McLennan. I appear on behalf of Ms Coutts, who makes no plea or declaration at this stage.’ On indictment charges, you do not plead guilty or not guilty, you do not declare your position, you do not give anything away. I expected to be out of that oaf’s court as quickly as possible, because I couldn’t ask for bail on a murder charge, and I was determined to leave no clue behind me. Kailash would be remanded in prison until the trial, and I would have a chance to reconsider my position at that point. I could already see myself this evening, languishing in a bubble bath, working out whether I should go on with this case, working out how to get out of it. My reverie was soon broken. ‘Ms McLennan, approach the bench.’ Frank Pearson was already there, and deep in discussion with Sheriff Strathclyde. ‘The Fiscal has moved that we carry out the judicial examination now in view of the media interest in this case.’ Frank raised his eyebrows in apology to me. This clearly wasn’t his decision–the word had come from much higher up. I felt as if I had been ambushed and took little comfort from the fact that Frank probably felt the same way. I didn’t have many cards to play. ‘I haven’t had time to discuss this with my client.’ Kailash’s performance at the judicial examination was crucial to the outcome of the case, and I didn’t want her to be thrown in there before I had a chance to discuss matters with her. Sheriff Strathclyde was quick to put the boot in. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting, Ms McLennan, that you would be coaching your client?’ As it is illegal in Scotland to prepare witnesses, I hastily denied it. Under the circumstances, I had no objection that would be upheld. Swiftly, I moved towards the dock. Unlike me, Kailash seemed unperturbed. She was eyeballing Sheriff Strathclyde and he shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. ‘Kailash? I can’t stop this judicial examination.’ Her face did not even register my presence. Trancelike she continued to stare at Strathclyde. I assumed that her stares were to unsettle him, and I assumed that she was trying to unsettle him because he was–or had been–a client of hers. That was all I needed. Maybe she thought she could bribe him or embarrass him into calling off the case. If so, she must have conveniently forgotten just who she was accused of killing. I was losing patience. ‘Kailash!’ I called as loudly as I dared. ‘Listen to me. The Fiscal is about to ask you questions. However, you are entitled to refuse to answer them.’ My heart was beating, a mixture of adrenalin and anger. She wasn’t listening to me and was bound to throw away any slight chance she may have. I had to press on–professional ethics meant that even clients who wouldn’t deign to give me a moment of their attention still had to be advised. ‘You don’t have to answer any questions, and my normal advice would be to say nothing as that is the safest option, but–and it is a big “but”–if you have a good defence, and don’t state it, the Crown can comment on your failure to the jury. Kailash, I don’t know whether you have a good defence or not. This is your call. It really depends on how brave you are.’ I finished my whispered comments to Kailash feeling more of a need to shout explicit advice rather than leave so much to her judgment. She was much calmer than me. Again, no reaction. Her lack of emotion was worrying me. How was she going to act and react when she got up there? Was she going to take the psychopath route? The wounded tart with a heart? Or continue her mad staring at Strathclyde? It mattered to me. It mattered a lot. When a trial lawyer gets started, the victim and the accused are lost. It is merely a fight, a game with the prosecution. And it’s a game I like to win. ‘Kailash, this matters. This will all be tape recorded and go before a jury.’ She surprised me by clutching my arm and nipping it. ‘Did you say this will be tape recorded?’ I nodded my head, resentfully rubbing at the place on my arm where her nails had dug in. ‘Is there any way the tape can be interfered with?’ ‘No, of course not. It’s kept and authorised by the Fiscal.’ ‘And do you trust him? Do you trust that process?’ ‘Kailash, what’s going on? Of course I do. I know Frank Pearson. He’s a good man. But I also know the process. They’re the ones who want this to happen. They’re not going to scupper their own procedures. It’s nothing to be scared of.’ ‘Scared?’ she almost spluttered. ‘Why do you think I would be scared?’ ‘Well, if you’re thinking from the other side and actually believe you, or someone you know, could get in and wreck the tape if you don’t come out of it too well, you can forget that right now. No chance,’ I warned her. She chewed her lips as she was thinking. I have the same bad habit–it saves my nails, but the inside of my mouth resembles a slasher movie. ‘Don’t stand in front of me when I am being asked questions. I want to see him,’ she informed me in an emotionless voice. ‘Kailash, it won’t work. I don’t know how you know him–although it doesn’t take much imagination to guess–but that won’t cut any ice here. It doesn’t matter if he likes to dress up as a schoolgirl or get his arse smeared with peanut butter while a whippet licks it off, you’ve been accused of murder. That’s all that counts.’ ‘You’ve got quite a vivid imagination there, Brodie,’ she responded. ‘I could use you.’ ‘Don’t bother flattering me. It’s standard practice for lawyers to act as a buffer between clients and the bench.’ That was true, but I was also put out at being sidelined. I wasn’t a bit player in this. I was a star attraction and I liked it that way. Nonetheless, I continued. ‘I can’t stop you if you are specifically instructing me that way, Kailash, but remember that you still retain the right to consult with me before you answer any questions. I can’t interrupt in the proceedings so it has to come from you.’ Kailash had already moved on. She hadn’t even heard the last comments. She was, however, the only one ignoring me. Sheriff Strathclyde had his beady little eyes focused right in my direction. ‘If you are quite finished, Ms McLennan, perhaps we may have a moment of your time to begin.’ He was looking anxiously at his watch. It wasn’t any concern for procedures or the fact that he was a dedicated workaholic–rather he was keen not to have a late lunch. Rumour had it that it was generally liquid anyway, and I had certainly seen him carried from the bench on more than one occasion. Sheriff Strathclyde was sweating profusely. Was it Kailash’s gaze, or the effects of last night’s whisky? The sheriff clerk, switched the tape on, and it began. I didn’t listen to her give her basic details, I was just praying my client would speak up. Ordinarily, the less an accused says the better, but this case was unique. We had to come up with a good story–and stand firm. ‘At 11.30p.m. I was walking home.’ Kailash’s clear voice cut through the silence of the court; the only other sound was the whirr of the tape recorder. ‘Alone,’ she added on reflection. We held our breaths as we waited to hear how Lord Arbuthnot of Broxden had died. ‘At present, I do not think it is necessary to state whose company I had enjoyed earlier in the evening. Latterly, I was at the Balmoral Hotel.’ Sheriff Strathclyde continued to shift uncomfortably under her stare. I was annoyed. It sounded as if she was hiding something. Also, there was absolutely no emotion or contrition in her voice. It would not go down well with a jury. Public speaking is the number one fear amongst people–dying is second. That means most would rather be the corpse than give a eulogy at a funeral. But Kailash sounded calm, as if she were reading a bedtime story to a child. ‘I had a couple of glasses of champagne. I decided to go home before I had finished. I brought the champagne flute out with me.’ Her voice was controlled, as if this was perfectly normal behaviour. ‘I crossed the road and was sipping champagne as I examined the large statue of the bronze horseman. This sculpture fascinates me. It is anatomically correct in every detail, except one–its tongue is missing. The artist committed suicide, when he realised this…’ She was rambling. Kailash Coutts still stared at Sheriff Strathclyde, as if they were having a private conversation at a dinner party. ‘Strange,’ she continued, ‘I always thought it was our tongues that got us into trouble.’ Lifting her head even higher, she gestured towards him. ‘Don’t you agree, M’Lord?’ Without waiting for the reply, that would never come, she continued. ‘In the wall of Register House is a seismograph. It is behind glass, and it measures earthquakes.’ Pausing as if speaking to imbeciles, she added: ‘On the Richter scale. ‘It is extraordinary how earthquakes can hit Edinburgh, M’Lord.’ To his credit, Sheriff Strathclyde only flinched a little bit before Kailash continued with her story. I was pretty sure she was enjoying herself as much as anyone could in this situation, but everyone’s patience would run out soon if she didn’t start coming up with the goods. ‘I first saw them in the glass of the shops,’ she went on. ‘Teenagers of both sexes–a gang of about ten.’ For the first time, her voice cracked with emotion. I had an unsettling feeling that she was putting it on, a consummate actress. Why should that surprise me, given her profession? ‘Next, I heard a strange drumming sound.’ Her voice was becoming higher, her own fingers and nails drumming on the edge of the stand. I had to hand it to her–the audience was sitting on the edge of its seat. ‘They were banging. Old fashioned walking canes, I think. Banging them off the pavement, off the pavement, time and time again.’ She sounded breathless now. ‘They gathered round me…black leather coats…their hair was white…and they were frightening. Any exit route was blocked off. I was trapped. Trapped between the wall of Register House and the horseman.’ Kailash asked for water. There was an almost palpable sigh of relief. We all needed a breather ‘The boy…their leader…’ her voice was faltering now, ‘he began the taunts. Asking me for a price list.’ Impressively, Kailash dropped her head, but kept her eyes up, never breaking the stare with Sheriff Strathclyde. She continued in a staged whisper. ‘…for my services.’ I knew she was being polite, but I had hoped, against hope, that we could have kept her profession out of the trial. Although practically everyone in Edinburgh knew exactly what Kailash Coutts did for a living, I had hoped to raise objections if any assumptions about the reason for her movements were made. Surely even notorious prostitutes had perfectly innocent nights out from time to time? As soon as I had the thought, I realised I wasn’t even managing to kid myself. I knew I was clutching at straws–but straws were my only hope at this stage. In my dealings with Kailash, I had kept strictly to the golden rule of cross-examination: never ask a question to which you do not know the answer. I had broken it on only one occasion when I had asked her if Lord Arbuthnot was a client. She had replied that he was not, so I would argue that her sexual reputation was irrelevant if the dead man did not use her ‘services’. ‘Menacingly,’ Kailash went on, ‘he danced around me, weaving in and out, tapping me on the body with his cane. I was in no doubt that my life was in danger.’ Gasping for breath, she pulled a handkerchief out and began wiping her eyes. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief that she was conforming to such a clich?d, but useful, weeping stereotype. ‘I reached into my bag.’ Her voice wavered; she rested her hand against her breast shakily, as if reliving the moment. ‘And I pulled the empty champagne flute out. I was terrified. I smashed it against the wall to protect myself. All I could see was that evil boy, and his strange, strange eyes. But then…nothing that happened next makes any sense.’ She collapsed weeping, and everyone else seemed taken in, but I have studied body language and while Kailash Coutts was a bloody good actress, she was actually a crap liar. When we speak, our body communicates the truth. In court, my senses are heightened by adrenalin. I had watched the micro movements of her eyes when she spoke. She looked down to the left, an indication that she was, at best, hiding something. If she had been telling the truth, Kailash would have looked up to her right, to recall facts. Our bodies do seventy per cent of our communication unconsciously, but Kailash must have missed the lesson on that when she went to stage school. After sipping on some water, Kailash began again. ‘I smashed the glass against the wall, not to use it, but to threaten them, to keep them away. I was screaming for help, but I thought that no one could hear me.’ The Dark Angels had chosen a busy spot in the East End of Princes Street to attack her. I guess some might interpret it as a sign that Moses Tierney and his crew thought they were above the law, although they would have been hidden behind the horseman and the wall in a very short, narrow alleyway. ‘His arms encircled me. I screamed, lashing out with the broken glass. I was so sure it was him, that boy with the strange eyes, and I was scared, so scared. Only when I felt its sharp edges pierce the skin did I notice whoever was holding me did not have a leather coat on–he was wearing a rough green Harris Tweed jacket. Someone had heard me–someone had come to help, and I had rewarded this, this saviour with a broken glass. ‘He started shouting: “Am I cut badly? Am I cut badly?” Kailash gulped for air like a stranded fish as she recalled the night’s events. ‘But the blood just kept gushing out of him.’ So Lord Arbuthnot had died a hero attempting to save a woman in distress. I wondered if he would have rushed to the rescue if he had known who she was? ‘The bunch of criminals fled, but not before they lifted my handbag…and I was left alone with Alistair MacGregor,’ she concluded. I sat up sharply in my seat. She had called him by his own name. She would not have known that, unless she knew him well. Lord Arbuthnot was his judicial title, assumed when he took his seat as a senator in the college of justice. Judges don’t always take judicial titles but his father, Lord MacGregor, was, at the time, still sitting as the Lord Justice Clerk, the second most powerful judge in Scotland. The MacGregors could trace their judicial lineage back for four centuries. But that bloodline ended last night, on a Princes Street pavement. Alistair MacGregor died without issue. Sheriff Strathclyde sat watching Kailash, visibly moved by her story, and somewhat impressed that his deceased colleague had performed such a chivalrous, if fatal task. If a lauded man had to die, how much better that he should die in the pursuit of a noble deed, even if the heroine was a whore. Kailash wiped some tears away and decided she had a few more words to add. ‘I held him in my arms, but the blood just kept flowing.’ She paused and looked at the tape recorder before continuing. ‘I don’t know where he came from…’ She paused again, as though considering the dead man’s options. She lifted her eyes from the whirring tape inside the machine and reverted back to staring at Sheriff Strathclyde. ‘Oh…’ she whispered, before her voice became steadily stronger. ‘He must have come from the toilets.’ Sheriff Strathclyde leaped to his feet as a slow smile spread across Kailash’s face. ‘Stop that tape now! Stop it! I demand that you stop it!’ he shrieked at the stunned clerk. ‘Yes,’ went on Kailash Coutts. ‘I think he did. In fact, I’m positive. Lord Arbuthnot came from the public toilets. He came from the toilets.’ Sheriff Strathclyde was now on his feet, blustering, moving back and forth. ‘I order you to stop! Just stop speaking now, woman!’ Kailash looked at him one more time, looked at the still-whirring tape machine and pronounced: ‘Certainly. I’ve said all I needed to say. Thank you, M’Lord. Thank you.’ EIGHT (#ulink_ecded5e6-e032-5b82-b7f4-43d0d648b979) After the court was cleared and Kailash escorted back to the cells, I left as quickly as possible. I didn’t want, or need, to speak to my client just now, but I did have to go over what had just happened. Alone. Ordinarily, I would have tried to nip back to the flat. Some mornings, some afternoons, some trials just left me needing time spent with nothing more strenuous than a cookbook in front of me. Running often worked, drinking too, but there was nothing more satisfying than taking your frustrations out on a block of meat or chocolate. Today wasn’t shaping up to be the sort where I could slip in a bit of kitchen action–Kailash’s outburst had seen to that. Strathclyde’s behaviour was unheard of–judicial interference with a witness’s evidence may happen, but never so publicly, and never on tape. I couldn’t blame Strathclyde for his outburst. The toilets at the East End of Princes Street are a notorious gay haunt, particularly favoured by those keen on a nice wee bit of cottaging to go with their double lives. Could it really be that, seconds before he died, the Lord President was ensconced in a grubby toilet cubicle, with a stranger? He was married, without children, but Alistair MacGregor and his wife Bunny had a public life that did not allow for any whispers or revelations. They were patrons of a children’s cancer charity, regular visitors to opening nights at the Festival and King’s theatres, and expected attendees at anything involving a ceilidh and small-talk that happened in the city. Actually, I had some sympathy with Sheriff Strathclyde’s reaction. Lord Arbuthnot had died a hero–what had his sexual preferences to do with his death, or the memory of him? As I left the court, the first editions of the Evening News had already hit the streets. As there had been no media present when Kailash had dropped her bombshell, I didn’t expect anything to be splashed across the front page–but it was only a matter of time. I grabbed a copy, just to be certain, and was reassured by the usual headline informing residents that traffic was worse, parking was impossible, and the Enforcers (the Dr Who-type name for the Capital’s traffic wardens), were evil personified. No change there. However, it wouldn’t be long–helped by the selfsame papers–before Edinburgh would be reeling with shock. Particularly the Establishment. Ordinarily, the city was a peaceful place for them. Fist fights, brawls, even murders were common enough, but they were usually the work of what they still considered to be the lower classes who hung around pubs and such dreadful places. Every Friday and Saturday night, a thug would take a fist to his neighbour or his wife, and each weekend there was at least one stabbing in the pubs in Leith. These episodes were just part of life. For those who could buy themselves out of such a world, things were very different. They may worry about credit card fraud, or getting their purse pinched as they leave Harvey Nicks, but what had happened to Lord Arbuthnot would shatter their cosy little world. Public opinion would soon decree that this was no ordinary murder. It had money, titles, gangs and sex–it was a story waiting to happen, and I gave it twenty-four hours tops before the shit wouldn’t just hit the fan: it would splatter us all. With a television crew camped outside my office, I parked in the only spot in Edinburgh where I knew that I would not be harangued by the press. Outside the home of the deceased. Even in death, the elite are accorded privileges. If this had been a ‘normal’ killing, the media would have set up shop–in fact, there would be someone in there right now, persuading the bereaved that telling all to a tabloid followed by a stint on a talk-show would cure everything. Money doesn’t just talk–it buys peace and quiet too, and that was exactly what was happening on Heriot Row. As I surveyed the scene from outside the private gardens opposite Lord Arbuthnot’s home, a small cardboard cup filled with steaming espresso was pushed under my nose. ‘Stop dreaming, Brodie,’ a familiar voice intoned. ‘Keep your eyes open if you’re set on making enemies.’ Jack Deans had emerged from the exclusive private gardens behind me, holding two cups of coffee and a bag of muffins. If past experience was anything to go by, he would have made his purchases in Rose Street at the police box coffee bar. To get to where he was now harassing me, he would have walked down to Heriot Row using the private Queen Street Gardens as a shortcut. Deans couldn’t have known I was parked in Heriot Row–he wouldn’t have seen me, over the high hedges that guarded the occupants’ privacy until the last moment. How had he known I was there? I knew it was pointless to ask him, as futile as asking how he, a mere commoner, had obtained the elusive keys to Queen Street Gardens. Deans would merely state he had his sources. He was a man who got himself into places no one else could. And, I guess my vanity would have to accept that, perhaps, he wasn’t looking for me; perhaps he had decided this was where he needed to be irrespective of who else was hanging around. ‘Beautiful, aren’t they?’ Jack Deans was staring, openly envious, at Lord Arbuthnot’s Georgian townhouse. ‘Rarely come up for sale these houses.’ Scanning, his eyes appeared to be noting every architectural detail. ‘One of the best addresses in the world,’ he went on, as much to himself as to me. ‘Robert Louis Stevenson lived at number seventeen. They’re passed down through families or sold privately to a suitable purchaser.’ Jack Deans’ mouth crumpled at the sides, giving him an air of disappointment, although I doubted if he had ever been in a position to buy one. I didn’t join him in his reverie. I savoured the hot, strong espresso as I observed the house. Sure, it was elegant, but this street has always spooked me. These houses are not homes. They gleamed like the prized possessions they were, but I doubted there was often the sound of children’s laughter or happiness coming from them. Their owners did not even contribute to their appearance–well, only financially. They were largely owned by rich men with wives who lunched. The late Lord Arbuthnot and his wife, Bunny MacGregor, were no different. They’d have a legion of help to keep their little jewel shining, but the place would have no heart like all the others on the street. The house had no front garden; you simply climbed three stone steps from the pavement to get to the door. This did not make it accessible. To the right of the doorway, a plain brass name plaque was fixed, declaring that Alistair MacGregor, Advocate, lived there. Judges remain advocates even when they are senators of the college of justice. Frankly, it would have been dangerous for the plaque to proclaim that this was Lord Arbuthnot’s residence. He was a hard man, a tough sentencer, who publicly and frequently stated that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. The voice in which such statements would be delivered was–had been–rich and sonorous, honed by Eton and polished by Christ’s College, Cambridge. ‘He’s been in the Enlightenment since he was nineteen.’ Jack Deans came back to life and I immediately knew the reason for his interest in this case. My hands gripped the tiny cup that was still warm from the coffee. Turning to face him, I stared with what I hoped was a withering look. ‘So?’ ‘You as well, Brodie? Another unbeliever.’ He was well used to this reaction. ‘I’m meant to get all excited about a debating group for public school boys? For people who should know better?’ I asked him. ‘Brodie! It’s a secret organisation that rules Scotland! Over eighty per cent of the judiciary are members.’ ‘Jack, I’ve heard it all before. From you. Time and time again. I don’t care what little groups little boys join, not even when they keep their membership going when they’re grown men. If they want to shave their left leg and dribble toffee on their right nipple while pledging allegiance to some Faerie Queen of the thirteenth century, good luck to them. If they’re busy with that, maybe they won’t interfere in my cases and real lawyers can get on with real legal work.’ Jack Deans paused, before continuing as if I had never uttered a word. ‘And, as I was saying, all of them became members before they had finished their law degree. Like Lord Arbuthnot.’ He actually did have a point, but I’d be buggered if I’d tell him. Either the Enlightenment Society was the most incredible talent spotting organisation ever or there was something more to it. ‘Listen to this, then, if you think it’s all so innocent.’ Deans was winding himself up to begin a full-blown rant. Behind him I could see that we were being observed by someone hiding amongst the curtains in the late Lord Arbuthnot’s house. ‘In its official biography, it states that if ever judicial interests conflicted, with the interest of the Enlightenment Society, then the society’s interest must be primary.’ This guy was sad and clearly obsessed with conspiracy theories. So what if Arbuthnot and the old guys had got their jobs through nepotism, surely things had changed now? Jack Deans was launching into a history lesson, but I was edging myself back into the shadows of the hedge so that I could see the goings on without being seen. My uninvited companion was making this very awkward. ‘The Enlightenment Society was founded in 1774, by two Masons from the Central lodge. Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott were both said to be members, and given their membership of other societies, I wouldn’t be surprised. The Enlightenment Society still meets every week at the University of Edinburgh. Its members pepper the highest offices in the land. At least eighteen Scottish Law Lords are members. This matters, Brodie, it matters.’ ‘Jack, I. Don’t. Care. It’s irrelevant. The MacGregors are an ancient family, man and boy they have pledged their allegiance to the widow’s son.’ I started to use Masonic terminology, just to wind him up and to show that I was not completely ignorant. ‘Very good, Brodie. You’ve read a wee article somewhere, but obviously not the right one as you’re still so bloody sceptical. Did you know that the Masons began in Scotland?’ I didn’t. We are a small and largely barren land. I could see no good reason why an organisation that has been credited with some of the major changes in world history, such as the French and American revolutions, would begin in the homeland that I love dearly but still think of as a tad parochial. Besides, I was too interested in what was going on within the house. Shaking his head from side to side, Deans lit a cigarette. A sign of the times, he did not offer me one. I was grateful–in a moment of weakness, I would have accepted. He generally claimed it was his last one, and he was in the process of quitting, but he’d wound himself up so much this time, that he didn’t even bother with the pretence. ‘You’ve got so much to learn. And you’ve got to start learning sharpish–for your own safety. I’ll start at the beginning.’ I groaned theatrically, but he still cleared his throat. ‘The Knights Templar fled to Scotland after Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V had their leader, Jacques de Molay, burned at the stake. You’ll know his face, it’s on the shroud of Turin.’ He just tossed that one in, as if everyone thought as he did. ‘Oh, that’s right, Jack. I remember reading that was a pretty recognised thing these days. In fact, I think the Pope has just issued a press release.’ Jack didn’t seem that interested in the black saloon that drew up outside the house. A subservient man in a sombre suit deferentially approached the front door. The undertaker, come to discuss funeral arrangements. I knew that he didn’t yet have the body, because I was due to attend the post mortem later that day. I didn’t get bothered by post mortems–or so I told myself and everybody else–but suddenly, I became acutely aware of the muffin sitting heavily in my stomach. Another reason to resent Jack Deans. ‘In March 1314 they roasted Jacques de Molay over a slow fire on the Ile de la Cite in the Seine. He cursed Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V, ordering them to join him before God’s seat within the year. They were dead under suspicious circumstances within months…and so started the powerful Templar legends.’ ‘Thanks for the history lesson. Got any more on how to shut the fuck up?’ I snapped. The undertaker was now safely ensconced inside. I did not see who had opened the door as it had been such a seamless movement. Annoyingly, and predictably, Deans continued with his discourse. ‘Christendom was a dangerous place for the surviving Templars. Where could they run?’ ‘Shame your brain wasn’t around in those days, Jack–I hear that’s a pretty vacant space.’ I had to hand it to him–he was a born storyteller. He couldn’t keep the dramatic inflections from his voice, and he loved an audience, even a reluctant one. ‘Only a country, where the Papal Bull did not extend would accept them. Robert the Bruce had been excommunicated, and so these learned wealthy knights were welcomed into Scotland.’ Pausing to light another cigarette and draw breath, he continued. ‘There are more Templar graves in Scotland than anywhere else in the world…outside Jerusalem.’ The undertaker left the house. He had been inside for less than ten minutes, insufficient time for a cup of tea never mind to organise a funeral for a Knight of the Thistle. Jack Deans was looking at me expectantly, probing me with his eyes. ‘What?’ I hissed and threw my hands in the air. What did he expect me to say? ‘Is that all you have to add? Scotland’s premier judge has been murdered, and, even off the record, you have no comment. Ach, Brodie–you’re not the girl I thought you were.’ ‘My comment is…it was an accident,’ I said, trying to ignore the flutter I got from him almost complimenting me and almost admitting he thought about me. I almost managed. Incredulous, he continued. ‘It’s the first time a judge has been murdered in Edinburgh. Now you know his background, and you know he was bumped off by a prostitute. Do you still say it was an accident?’ ‘Yeah.’ I answered like a snotty teenager. He looked let down. ‘Not everything is part of some hidden agenda, Jack. Sometimes, most times in fact, things are exactly as they seem.’ The house seemed to be stirring, an old cleaner, dressed in a floral crossover pinny, busily polished the brass nameplate, as if someone of importance was awaited. Not the master of the house obviously. Surprisingly, Jack Deans had no interest in the comings and goings of the house. I was the sole focus of his attention. Scrutinising my face, he sought unknown confirmation of something. Satisfied, he nodded to himself. ‘You’ve a lot to learn.’ ‘So you’ve said.’ Placing his tongue between his surprisingly white teeth, he paused for a moment. Thinking better of what he was about to say, he changed his mind. ‘If you see things as they are, and believe that’s all there is, you’ve led a sheltered life.’ I couldn’t deny it. He was right. I had led a charmed life to date. Although my father had forsaken me before my birth, my mother Mary McLennan moved mountains to give me the future she thought I deserved. Mary was born in a fishing village in the north east of Scotland. It bears no importance to my life, except for one stroke of good fortune: its proximity to Gordonstoun, the school for the Royals. Gordonstoun provides nine free places to children from the surrounding fishing villages. Mary McLennan lied and cheated my way into one after primary school was over. It wasn’t easy. I was an outcast, but, over the years as I saw my peer group take up soul-destroying jobs or sign on the dole, I was grateful for every time she shouted at me and made me study. I never quite understood her passion, to push me up the social ladder, because she was perfectly content with her own life. It just wasn’t good enough for me. Mary worked two jobs to give me the finest. I promised I would repay her selflessness one day. We were both cheated. If there is a God, He saw fit to deny her greatest wish–to see me graduate Suma Cum Laude from the Law Faculty at the University of Edinburgh. Dying from the cancer running rampant throughout her body, doctors were unable to control her pain. Delirious with morphine, she repeatedly begged my forgiveness, crying over and over again that I was meant for better. Without seeing me graduate, she would never know that she had achieved what she dreamed of. I had reached my potential. I had succeeded. Mary was a humbling mother in many ways, and the root of my addiction to work, I freely confess in moments of introspection, came from being a slave to her ambition for me. My reverie was shattered as Jack Deans grabbed me by the shoulders. He swung me round, directing my eye line to the car that had just pulled up outside Lord Arbuthnot’s home. An ancient two-seater Morgan roadster. Racy, with maroon and silver paintwork. The driver parked on the kerbside, directly in front of the house. Flouting the yellow lines he ignored the parking bays where we were. Obviously not an Evening News reader. Jauntily, a tanned old man jumped out with a spring in his step, which belied his years. ‘I thought I told you, Brodie,’ said Jack. ‘You’ve got to keep your eyes open.’ He paused before whispering: ‘I was wondering if he’d show up.’ NINE (#ulink_2f76309d-114a-56d1-9f8a-673b89295f3a) Jack Deans was going to be tight-lipped about this one until he alone decided it was time to speak. This man was obviously important, not merely because of Deans’ reaction, but because of the aura he had about him and which even I could sense from my vantage point amongst the bushes. My heart played knock and rattle with my chest. I knew this man from somewhere but I couldn’t say where. He stopped at the foot of the steps, his back unbowed with age, and his hair silvery white. We were feet from him, as I tried to blend in with the shadows of the hedge. Turning in our direction, as if aware that he was being watched, he looked hard. Intense blue eyes pierced out of his tanned, weather-beaten face. If eyes are the windows of the soul, his was icy cold. At best he could be described as purposeful. No resident of Scotland had skin like that. This man had clearly lived abroad for years–so how did I know him? Pedigree hung about him, like mist at dawn. Surely only mourners would darken the doorstep of the deceased today–but on this man, no trace of grief showed. Breeding had strengthened his upper lip. Jack Deans was still silent as the man turned on his hand-made leather brogues and walked up the stairs. The door was open before he arrived. His appearance was evidently expected. The door had swung open, as if by some ghostly hand; the person opening it remained unseen. Deftly, the old man disappeared inside. I felt a gnawing at my insides. I ached to know who he was. Shamefully, I was willing to trade anything. My voice was high and excited as I spoke. ‘Right, Deans, spill. If you want any inside information, scoops, whatever, now’s your chance. Tell me who he is.’ ‘Calm it, Brodie. Don’t be so impatient. Or so desperate. It’s not your most attractive feature.’ Since childhood, I have found it impossible to believe that patience is a virtue. My right boot tapped a salsa rhythm on the cobbles beside my bike. When anxious, I fidget. Jack Deans was enjoying my discomfort, although he seemed at a loss to understand my urgency. ‘Impressive old bloke, isn’t he?’ he teased me as I nodded assent. ‘I’m surprised you don’t know who he is. He was a fighter pilot during the war…’ ‘Well, I wasn’t around then, and an obsessive interest in military history seems to have passed me by,’ I answered. ‘So, if you could get your self-importance out of a place where the sun doesn’t shine, maybe it wouldn’t kill you to actually tell me who the old codger is?’ Jack Deans stared at me. ‘You don’t even recognise him?’ It was a question to which he expected an answer. I was not prepared to give him any insight into what the sight of this old man made me think–I didn’t quite know myself, other than the vague sense of recognition. ‘Of course I do, Deans. It’s just that I so enjoy our never-ending verbal sparring that I thought I’d keep begging you to tell me just for fun.’ ‘It’s Lord MacGregor,’ he revealed. ‘The old Lord Justice Clerk?’ ‘If you want to put it that way, yes. Personally, I think his role as father of the murder victim is more important.’ I wouldn’t have recognised him from court because he retired from the bench long before I was called. The only thing I knew about his career was that some still said he had retired too young and that the Law of Scotland had suffered as a result of his lack of influence. The need to know how I knew him still gnawed at me. A traffic warden passed his car, stopped to look at it, then, magically moved on. I was still puzzling over this. Edinburgh wardens are mean and vindictive, and generally deserve their press coverage. I personally had never witnessed one walk away from such easy pickings. Speaking of easy pickings, I turned my attention back to Jack Deans. ‘Why were you surprised that he turned up? Surely, a father-in-law would be the first one to comfort the widow.’ ‘I wasn’t surprised,’ he sounded huffy, ‘I just said I wondered if he would. There’s a difference. I like to keep an open mind on all things.’ I snorted before snapping, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, just tell me what the score is here.’ Resigned, he spoke. Slowly at first, as if trying to formulate it all in his head. ‘They fell out years ago. I don’t think they were ever close. No one knows what the cause of the argument was but Lord MacGregor refused to sit on the bench with his own son.’ Jack Deans chewed on the end of his pen, trying to formulate his own answer. ‘The members of the Enlightenment wouldn’t get involved, wouldn’t even try to sort out the mess and old MacGregor resigned.’ I ignored the way Deans had managed to bring his conspiracy theories in again and asked: ‘Was Lord MacGregor involved in the law at all after that?’ ‘No,’ answered Deans. ‘He severed his ties and left the country, although he did keep his flash pad in town. He was a widower, so he took to wandering the globe. Finally, he settled in Thailand, and I understand he married again and has a young family.’ The lives some people lead. At his age, I would have thought he was more in need of a pipe and slippers than a mail-order bride. It was all interesting enough, but still didn’t explain where I knew him from. I waited anxiously for Lord MacGregor’s exit from the house. ‘There was only one connection that Lord MacGregor kept up,’ added Deans. I turned to face him, but he toyed with me like a game show host pausing to increase the suspense. I moved away, keen not to let him see my interest in this matter. Eventually he gave in. ‘The only link that Lord MacGregor maintained was his post as governor at Gordonstoun School.’ Looking at me in anticipation, he continued: ‘Coincidentally, he severed that tie the year you left.’ Again with his conspiracy theories. This time trying to drag me in. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Jack, it’s not unusual for old boys to remain in touch with their schools. Some judges even take their judicial names from their school house.’ Jack Deans cut me short. ‘He went to Eton.’ I couldn’t think about this latest piece of information. The black-painted front door was opening, the brass lion knocker looked positively menacing. It seemed as if nothing was happening, and an inordinate amount of time passed between the opening of the door and the eventual emergence of Lord MacGregor. He walked out of the house alone. ‘Interesting. I would have thought if that pair had buried the hatchet, then Lady Arbuthnot would have seen him to the door,’ commented Deans. ‘Perhaps she’s too upset by her recent bereavement to move.’ ‘You obviously don’t know Bunny MacGregor. Appearances count for everything. Even in death.’ He looked at me conceitedly, and I, for one, was getting heartily sick of this game playing. ‘Jack, I didn’t know we were in a competition. I’m a lawyer remember, not some half-bit hack trying to steal your crown.’ I have learned that where men are concerned flattery gets you everywhere, and Jack Deans was no exception. He softened as he looked at me (and I softened as he softened–to my shame). ‘You’re quite right, darlin’–and there’s no telling what trouble a rookie like you could get into if I wasn’t there to help.’ I ignored him–again–and continued to watch Lord MacGregor. Pushing myself further back into the large privet hedge, I felt confident enough to ogle him. He seemed in no hurry to leave as he squinted his eyes, blocking out the August sunshine. Perched on the top step, he kept watch, and instinct told me he was waiting for someone. The heavy red velvet curtains in the house twitched several times. The unseen observer was also clearly wondering what Lord MacGregor was up to. Jack Deans inclined his head towards Lord MacGregor. ‘His relationship with his son was always troubled. Did you know he was expelled from Eton?’ ‘Who? Lord MacGregor?’ I asked. ‘No, Lord Arbuthnot. He was officially given the chance to leave, so that he could get into another school, but rumour has it that it was serious.’ ‘Serious? In what way?’ I had any number of friends who should have been expelled from school, but it’s very hard to turn away twenty thousand pounds a year. Lord MacGregor was pacing back and forth now. He was obviously not a man used to being kept waiting. A cloud of darkness shifted across his face and, momentarily, I felt sorry for his son. I would not like to cross Lord Gregor MacGregor of MacGregor. Centuries seemed to fade, and I could see him in the role of war chief. Perhaps I should find out about his record in World War II. After all, he was not a man who had mellowed with age. Now glancing at his watch, the famous Highland temper glowed red, under his already sun darkened skin. ‘Are you listening to me, Brodie?’ I bit down hard on my lip. ‘Lord Arbuthnot was expelled when he was fifteen. For being a peeping tom.’ ‘What? I thought it was something awful or murky or at least illegal. He was just a bit of a teenage perv? If snooping on women getting dressed or on couples having it off makes young men criminals, I can retire now. On top of that, what relevance can you–even with your bloody conspiracy theories–think that pretty straightforward adolescent behaviour has on his murder decades later?’ ‘Well, the Jesuits would have disagreed. They believed you could tell the character of a man at seven.’ I repeated the old adage back at him. ‘Give me the boy until he is seven, and I will show you the man. But the Jesuits weren’t in charge in this instance, Jack. And from what I know, it would take more than a bit of schoolboy high jinks to get them to chuck out a blank cheque. For the sake of political correctness, let’s assume the theory applies to the female members of the human race too. Do you want to know what I was like at seven?’ I didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘Fixated on my mother, terrified she would leave me, and clandestinely longing to lead a cloak-and-dagger life like Deacon Brodie. I was a psychiatric case in waiting. Hormones levelled out and now I am the delightful, normal vision of womanly perfection you see before you.’ Silence fell between us, until Jack spoke again. ‘Christ, look who’s coming.’ Moses Tierney was sauntering up the street. A child of the shadows, he spotted me immediately. Raising his cane once more in acknowledgment, I marvelled at his grooming. Black nail varnish must show every chip, but his was immaculate. White blond hair, dyed, spiked and gelled to perfection. Moses walked up the steps of the Heriot Row house. He and the father of the deceased greeted one another like old friends: two dapper gentlemen together. Lord MacGregor placed his arm around Moses’ shoulder in a gesture of support. Together they stood in front of the Georgian panes, staring at the twitching curtains. Whoever was behind them did not come out to acknowledge this silent vigil. Lingering for what seemed to be ages beneath the windows, I was perplexed. Lord MacGregor was, in effect, harassing his daughter-in-law. And he was doing it alongside the individual who had been pointed at by Kailash Coutts that morning as the real cause of Lord Arbuthnot’s death. Jack Deans nudged me overzealously in the ribs. ‘What do you make of that, Brodie?’ ‘I don’t know–unless there’s a problem with the will or inheritance. No matter what the sum involved, death brings out the worst in the relatives. Old families have their inheritance rules laid out from way back. Probably the MacGregors are governed by the law of primogeniture. Primogeniture is a feudal law, it means only the eldest son can inherit. And the dead man has died childless. It’s a fight in the waiting.’ My lecture was shattered by the sound of their leather soled heels, crunching, as the two men turned to face me. Dread cracked through me like a whip and weakened my legs. I moved onto Awesome, the leather bike seat feeling comforting beneath me. I moved faster than I thought possible, thrusting my empty cup at Jack Deans. I jumped up, whamming my foot onto the kick-start, and Awesome roared into life. The noise of the engine momentarily stopped Moses Tierney and Lord MacGregor in their tracks. I drove from Heriot Row, faster than the law allowed. I moved from the land of the living, to a place of death–and I welcomed the change. TEN (#ulink_be301892-5ec8-5f16-afb7-b2f7842c3fef) I rarely see dead people. I try everything I can to avoid it, but when faced with the inescapable I do as I’m told. And this was something I had been told to do. ‘Stand aside, Ms McLennan. Unless you are intent on performing this autopsy for me.’ On the word of the pathologist, I threw myself back against the wall. Squat and easygoing, he required space in which to manoeuvre his considerable girth. Gowned in green surgical robes, he edged past me, buttocks rubbing against the side of the wall. He held his gloved hands aloft: the tips of his fingers were already bloody, as if he hadn’t been able to wait and had already been poking about in the body before we arrived. Professor Patterson, police pathologist and holder of the Chair of Forensic Medicine at Edinburgh University, was now in his sixties. Born with a port wine stain that smudged over half his face, including his right eye, most of his life he had endured the nickname ‘Patch’. Patch was always picked last in games as a child, but he didn’t mind, rationalising that he wasn’t exactly a born athlete. Yet, even in the classroom where he had shone, he wasn’t favoured. Frustrated by this treatment, he turned to his studies and graduated as a doctor. Highly sensitive and intuitive, Patch Patterson recognised as a junior registrar that his patients were frightened by his appearance. A resilient boy from the Western Isles, he embraced the only branch of medicine where his patients could not judge him–the study of the dead. Patch had been my Professor of Forensic Medicine at university, and had also taught Frank Pearson too. He kept people at a distance, but when he liked you, he made it obvious in his own way–he had always been kind to me as a student, and, despite the fact that he sometimes still treated me like one, he had continued his kindness towards me in my professional life. The body, still covered by a sheet, lay on the table, not two feet away from me. Ironically, I had never been this close to the man underneath while he was alive. In life, red silk gowns trimmed with white ermine proclaimed his status. Now, I was doing my best not to stare at the toe tags dangling from the veined blue feet with the usual collection of bunions and corns. Unsurprisingly, the morgue had a distinctive odour, the stale stench of death no amount of air freshener could mask. Had I been led here blindfolded, I would still have known exactly where I was. The clock on the wall showed that it was 2p.m. At this hour of the day it smelled even more unpleasant. ‘Death is the great leveller,’ began Professor Patterson, jovial as ever and keen to chat. ‘Always nice to host a reunion.’ Patch gave the welcoming smile of a genial host. ‘I met him several times at functions,’ continued the Prof as he threw the corpse a sideways glance. I was pretty sure I heard him say, under his breath, to the cadaver: ‘And a right arrogant bastard you were too.’ I looked up sharply at Patch. He smiled and nodded in my direction. My eyes met Frank’s over the gurney. Simultaneously, we rolled them upwards. Although it had been several years since we had been in his class, Patch’s irreverent attitude to death could never be forgotten. Nothing, except children, was so horrific or sacrosanct that he wouldn’t make a joke about it. ‘Lord, Lord, let’s start the cutting.’ The lilt of his voice was high and poetic; it reverberated round the austere, windowless room. Patch had left Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis over fifty years ago, but living amongst the Sassenachs had not dulled his accent. Adhering still to the traditions of his childhood and a staunch member of the Free Church of Scotland, he compounded his position as an outsider. Social pariahs acknowledge one another, and like all fatherless children I collected father figures. I was as close as Patch would come to a friend, and it cut both ways. With the flourish of a magician, he yanked the sheet away. Lord Arbuthnot lay pale, naked and bloodless. The silence of the dead hung heavy in the room, as we came to terms with our own thoughts. I thought of the droves of reporters outside–how much would a photograph like this command? Perhaps Patch was thinking along similar lines as he shouted: ‘I don’t want anyone within fifty feet of this room, is that clear?’ The young morgue assistant responded to his high sharp command, and shuffling off, replied: ‘I’ll see to it, sir.’ A dynamic nod followed, as he affirmed, ‘I’ll keep an eye out…I sure will.’ Hobbling out on his loose-laced skateboarding shoes, the young man did not return to the autopsy room. The four of us were left alone. Lord Arbuthnot hardly counted, although he was the reason we were there. My eyes explored inches of his exposed flesh at a time. Age had undermined his muscle tone and he lay flaccidly before us. Nonetheless, I could see that in his youth, he had been an athlete, and as my mother would have said prior to his demise, he was still ‘a fine figure of a man.’ Ordinarily, death masks are peaceful. Lord Arbuthnot’s face seemed irate. Most of the blood had been washed from his body, but it was still accumulated between his fingers and under his nails. In life, I was sure his hands would have been immaculate–in death, they were downright grubby. ‘He literally bled to death.’ Patch had read my mind–he had an uncanny knack of doing that. ‘Hardly a drop of the red stuff left in him.’ His gloved finger pointed to a jagged scratch on Lord Arbuthnot’s neck. ‘Insignificant, isn’t it?’ Patch was now poking into the small puncture hole. ‘I’ve had worse nicks than that shaving.’ Frank Pearson’s mouth was slightly agape, staring incredulously at Patch’s actions. ‘Could that really be the cause of death?’ he asked. ‘It was the means by which he appears to have died. However, if Ms Coutts had merely placed her forefinger like so…’ Patch pressed down hard with his finger, ‘he would be alive…and looking down on us all.’ Accidental death? My mind was racing ahead to petitioning the High Court for Kailash’s release from prison. I wasn’t really present in the room, my mind was so busy on the next job. I almost didn’t hear Patch speak again. ‘So simple to have saved him, to have saved the life of Scotland’s highest Law Lord.’ Patch’s voice always got higher, when he was onto something. To my ears, he was almost squeaking. My heart was sinking as I knew that this case was just about to get difficult again. ‘Rudimentary first aid was all that was needed. A Girl Guide could have saved this man.’ Patch was almost singing now. ‘I seriously doubt that Kailash Coutts was ever in the Girl Guides,’ I interrupted. ‘Although she’s probably got the uniform these days.’ It was an off-the-cuff remark I was shortly about to regret. ‘Presumption rarely leads to the truth, Ms McLennan, and when you assume facts, you are invariably led on a wild goose chase.’ Patch smiled at me condescendingly. ‘What evidence do you have that Ms Coutts was not a perfectly ordinary child?’ ‘It was you who taught me, Professor, that aberrant behaviour in adults has its roots in childhood.’ ‘How very Freudian of you, Brodie, but the aberrant behaviour you have accused your client of–is it murder or prostitution?’ Frank Pearson stared at me like the adversary he was. I had forgotten he was there. At university he was so insignificant. Obviously the Fiscal’s office had honed his wits. I stared at him with a new respect. ‘Who’s the deviant?’ I asked, trying to regain lost ground. ‘The man who pays ten grand to get his arse whipped, or the woman who does it to him?’ ‘I guess we’ll have to ask Roddie Buchanan that one,’ sniggered Frank. He caught himself quickly, clearly recognising it was inappropriate to be laughing as he stood over Lord Arbuthnot’s naked corpse. ‘If I may continue…’ Patch spoke sternly as if addressing two school children. He switched on his tape recorder and spoke clearly. ‘Although, the entry wound is small…observe the jagged edges of the lesion…it would appear to be consistent with a blow from a broken glass…the downward serration…would indicate the glass was propelled from above the carotid artery…severing it immediately…the assailant was left handed…and strong.’ Patch switched off the tape recorder. He never did that. It was against the standard operating procedure. ‘In view of the deceased’s position and status, details of this autopsy must be held under the strictest security.’ He looked shiftily around. Clearing his throat he continued. ‘It has been proposed that the Lord Advocate may place a one hundred year banning order on some of the papers in this case.’ ‘They can’t do that. It’s a murder trial.’ Frank Pearson sounded outraged. ‘They did it with the Dunblane Report initially,’ I reminded him. ‘They had no good reason to do that, and it would have remained sealed unless some people had fought to get it changed.’ ‘Brodie, they didn’t have a trial there. Thomas Hamilton was shot dead after he massacred those children.’ Frank Pearson had forgotten himself, and was leaning across Lord Arbuthnot’s body. I was wincing at the sight of it, but we court lawyers love a good argument. The rights and wrongs get lost in the fight. ‘Thomas Hamilton was a paedophile. As far back as 1968 if talk is to be believed. Police officers had been questioning his right to run boys’ clubs for years. In particular, in 1991 a police report said he should be prosecuted for the way he ran his boys’ clubs, and his gun licence was revoked. But the report was returned marked “no-pro.” No prosecution by the Fiscal’s service, Frank, because, according to some–nonsense conspiracy theorists in your eyes, I’m sure–in the reports three other people were mentioned: two Scottish politicians and a lawyer.’ Frank Pearson glared at me as I continued to shout at him across the cadaver. ‘The Fiscal’s office didn’t prosecute, Frank. And on 13 March 1996, Thomas Hamilton walked into Dunblane Primary School and shot sixteen children and a teacher…with a licensed gun.’ I was so incensed, I was almost frothing at the mouth. The brutality of those murders had shocked the world but especially Scotland. Nothing like it had ever happened before or since, but I couldn’t understand the link here. Why was I being told the same thing might happen with my case as had happened with Dunblane? Lord Arbuthnot’s death didn’t justify a cover up just because he was a pillar of the establishment. ‘Why does this need to be confidential?’ Patch turned to look at me. He seemed relieved that I had finally asked the question which needed to be spoken. ‘I understand that someone–I don’t know who–will have a “watching brief”.’ I could tell that Patch would have felt more comfortable discussing such matters privately. Guilt stabbed at me. Like Fishy, he had been neglected by me. I figured he felt he had to speak to me now, or he might not get the chance again until the trial. It wasn’t a wise decision. A watching brief meant overseeing how events unfolded, and if anything untoward were to come out then the individual given it would have to act. What form that action would take, I had no idea. A watching brief certainly explained Sheriff Strathclyde’s extraordinary behaviour at the judicial examination. Kailash Coutts was a powder keg, and everyone knew that she would not go down alone–as long as she didn’t take me with her, I felt I could cope. The whirr of the blade and the crunch of bone brought me back to reality. Patch had switched the tape-recorder back on and was cutting through Lord Arbuthnot’s ribcage. Snap, snap, and he was in. Stealthily, like a burglar, he reached inside, droning on into his microphone. I preferred not to listen, concentrating instead on blowing air onto my heated face. Scales were on the bench beside him. He plucked the still heart out of the body and placed it to be weighed. The ancient Egyptians believed that after death, your heart was weighed against a feather; if your heart was heavier you were not admitted to heaven. They understood that you had to receive joy and give joy, and they believed you should be rewarded or punished accordingly. To my fanciful eye, Lord Arbuthnot’s heart looked heavy on those scales. He didn’t give or receive joy from his father. Had he shared such an emotion with anyone else in his life? ‘I hardly knew the man in life–I didn’t like him then and I certainly don’t like him after dissecting him.’ Patch sounded disapproving and it snapped me back to attention. It wasn’t hard to breach his moral code because of the strict tenets of his religion. In fact, it was a surprise to me that he tolerated my behaviour, although he did often say it was because I knew no better. I was sure that wasn’t a compliment. ‘As I said before, to have saved this man’s life would have been so straightforward. It turns out it was only a question of time anyway.’ None of the condemnation had left Patch’s voice. I followed him to the metal side table where he had placed the heart. Scalpel in hand, he progressed with the dissection, shaving slivers from the heart. He stained the shavings and invited us to look down the lens. Chivalry has no place in law. Frank Pearson moved forward to examine the slide first. Nervously, he cleared his throat, and again he coughed. Either he didn’t know what he was looking at or he was reluctant to say. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/grace-monroe/dark-angels/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.