Blood Lines (17 page)

Last night’s fish supper started repeating on me – or maybe it was dismay at the hand fate had dealt Alex Cattanach. I was relieved to see Peggy Malone; she had brought the police car round to the front of the hospital.

It had to be a bad day when the highlight was being arrested and taken to a police station in Inverness.

Chapter Twenty

‘Getting locked up is becoming a bad habit – do you like men in uniform that much, Brodie?’

For once, Robert Girvan was a welcome sight.

‘Thanks for coming, Robert. I wasn’t sure if you would make it. I know that you had agreed to work for Bridget this week.’

‘Have you ever tried saying no to Lavender? Although, between you and me, I think she’s a bit pissed off you didn’t ask Eddie to represent you.’

That was all I needed. I knew Lavender would be hurt, and that was a lot harder to deal with than asking Robert Girvan for help. He threw a pack of chewing gum at me, which hit me on my shoulder and broke my trance. I had been staring at the putty-coloured walls of my cell, praying for a way out.

‘Why did you ask for me anyway?’ he continued. ‘Everyone knows that you feel uncomfortable around me. I would have thought at a time like this you would want a lawyer you liked?’

‘Everyone knows I feel uncomfortable around you? Am I so transparent?’

‘You are when it comes to me.’

‘I wanted you because you’re good – you remind me of someone.’ Girvan looked pleased; he thought I meant myself, but I didn’t, he just struck a chord with me.

‘Robert, I’m sorry if you’ve misunderstood my feelings in the past. What I felt for you was pity, but don’t take that the wrong way. You’re bright, funny, good looking,’ I laid it on thick, ‘and you were shafted by your senior partner. McCoy put you in a position that is damned hard to fight your way out of.’

Angus McCoy was senior partner in McCoy and Boyd SSC – Solicitors to the Supreme Court. Two years ago, Cattanach discovered that McCoy had embezzled over ten million pounds from banks and building societies by conning them into making loans of up to
£
500,000 a time, which he then ploughed into disastrous business ventures. McCoy got wind that he was about to be arrested. He left a taped confession and fled to South America.

Robert and his other partners were left to clear up the mess. Robert had only been made a partner six months before. He was on a salary, he didn’t get a share in the profits, which meant he was basically a slave. A junior partner works all the hours of the day and night and gets paid little more than an assistant. In fact, I’d worked out when I was in that position that I wasn’t even on minimum wage for the hours I worked.

McCoy’s actions meant that Girvan was liable in terms of the partnership agreement for McCoy’s debts. Robert Girvan was declared bankrupt. He’d played the game and he lost big time.

McCoy had a lot in common with my senior partner, Roddie Buchanan. I toiled in that office so I wouldn’t end up like Robert. The irony is, both Alex Cattanach and I would now trade places with him in a heartbeat.

‘McCoy handed himself in, he’s serving ten years. He did the crime and now he’s doing the time. Have you ever met him?’ Robert asked.

‘No, I don’t know that many conveyancing lawyers.’

‘He’s a cool guy – a player. If it had worked out he would have been a hero. After all, he didn’t steal from grannies. It was all institutions, and I reckon he figured if it all went belly-up then they could afford to lose it. Even ten million is tax deductible. McCoy doesn’t hold a grudge against Cattanach for taking him down. But someone does.’

‘And you think that someone’s me?’ I asked him. ‘I don’t have a grudge. Believe me, no one who saw her now would.’

‘It’s that bad? I heard them talking outside. I can’t imagine it, Brodie. The point is, the police obviously believe you were willing to take her out rather than face being in McCoy’s situation.’

‘Whoever goes down for this won’t be in his shoes, they’ll be in Carstairs. When you’re found criminally insane you never get out. Did you tell Bridget that you were representing me?’

‘I thought she might object – so I left it up to Lavender. You couldn’t blame her if she did take it badly – she and Alex were pretty much an item. I expected them to go through a civil partnership in a couple of months when the legislation goes through. I’m not looking forward to telling her.’

‘Why should you tell her anyway, I suppose? It’s only some temporary work, she can’t expect to own you.’

‘Sorry, Brodie, but starting next month Bridget’s offered me a permanent position, with a view to giving me a partnership. My bankruptcy ends in September so I can apply for a full practising certificate.’

I couldn’t tell him that he would be getting his partnership sooner than he thought. Bridget Nicholson’s appointment to the College of Justice had to remain a secret until it was officially announced. The fates were certainly smiling on Robert Girvan. I didn’t begrudge him, I just wondered when it would be my time.

‘Back to you, though: it doesn’t look good, Brodie. You have a motive, everyone in the job knows it. You were in the vicinity. Christ, even when she was catatonic she still pointed the finger at you. Why does she hate you so much? From what I can tell, she has always hated you.’

‘I
used
to think that.’

‘Don’t tell me seeing Alex in a lunatic asylum is making you soft.’

‘No, although I would understand if it did. I just didn’t know Alex as well as I thought I did. Did you know, she painted her toenails?’

‘Alex is a dyed-in-the-wool lesbian, how would I be likely to know that? What difference does it make anyway?’

‘I know it’s just a little thing, but it got me thinking that she was more feminine, more in touch with her feelings, than I had given her credit for. I always used to think she was an emotionless machine who had it in for me. But what if I was wrong? I do judge books by their covers. Alex didn’t have a vendetta against me, she just genuinely, but erroneously, thought I was involved in something dodgy.’

‘You not calling her Cattanach any more now that you’ve gone soft? How does all this make a difference anyway?’

‘It makes it easier for me. No one wants to be hated for no reason.’

‘I thought you would be used to that by now,’ Robert threw back.

‘That doesn’t deserve an answer. No one wants to be hated. It makes it more acceptable to me that Alex was just doing her job. I made her life hell, I wouldn’t answer her letters, I was petty – I thought she had it in for me because of Bridget.’

‘So you’ve had an epiphany. That won’t cut any ice if this goes to court.’

‘What will?’

Chapter Twenty-One

When I walked into the dock I knew there was a God.

The courtroom was empty because I was on petition and the application for bail is heard in chambers. Which can mean the sheriff ’s private room or that the public is excluded from the ordinary courtroom.

Peggy Malone and Duncan Bancho had returned to Edinburgh, leaving me in Inverness. If the sheriff clerk or the police officers guarding me were surprised they didn’t show it. Maybe Bancho had already been mouthing off about how guilty he believed I was and they all thought this was a done deal.

Anyway, I have never been so pleased to see a Fiscal in my life. Frank Pearson came into the dock and threw his arms around me. For the first time I cried without trying to hide it. I laid my head on his cheap shirt and my tears soaked through to his skin. He stroked my hair; he smelled of the mountains and fresh air.

‘I see you forgot your comb.’

Self-consciously I raised my hand in an ineffective attempt to pat my hair down.

‘Is it that bad?’

‘Am I one to talk?’ he joked, smoothing his receding hairline dramatically. It was good to laugh. I could almost forget what I was facing for a second. Only a second, though.

‘You’re in deep shit, Brodie.’

‘Oh, Frank, I know.’

‘Well, we’ve been there before, honey, and gotten out of it.’

Frank Pearson and I had been to university together, when I got back from searching for Joe in the states. He was older by a few years, but the rest of us still thought of him as a mature student. He had been the Fiscal involved in Kailash’s murder trial. My stepmother had almost killed him. Joe and I broke into his flat and found him lying on the floor after being half-strangled by a noose. Pictures had been taken of him in an auto-erotic pose complete with PVC harness and mask.

Honest information didn’t circulate, but what did were the photographs of Frank.

‘I’m not opposing bail, Brodie – although DI Bancho was insistent that you were a threat to the public because of the nature of the crime. I had to remind him in no uncertain terms that in Scotland the Fiscal brings the prosecution, not the police.’

‘Did I ever tell you you’re my hero, Frank?’

‘Get a grip. To get out of this, Brodie, you’re going to need all the friends you have.’

‘They’re scarce on the ground at the moment.’

‘I guessed as much. So, when I heard you’d been lifted I immediately put in for a secondment back to Edinburgh.’

My heart leaped. An ally in the Procurator Fiscal’s office was just what I needed.

‘Do you think you’ll be able to come back?’ I had to ask him.

‘Well, it’ll be a bit embarrassing – again – but for you I can stand it.’

‘That’s not all I meant – how can you just transfer back to Edinburgh?’

‘There’s a shortage of Fiscals in the service because the pay is so bad. There is even more of a dearth with my experience. I could go anywhere I want, because all the regional offices are willing to cut one another’s throats just to solve their staff problems.’

‘You’d do all that for me, Frank?’ I asked. ‘The safe money’s on me going down.’

Frank smiled.

‘Well, let’s just say I’ve learned never to bet against you. One way or another, you usually find what you go looking for,’ he said.

Now was not the time to tell Frank I was going after Alex Cattanach’s attacker.

Chapter Twenty-Two

‘The police believe that Alex Cattanach was attacked by a lawyer with a grudge,’ said Jack as we got back to business.

‘No, Jack, the police believe that
Brodie
attacked Cattanach. They have a motive and she was in the vicinity when the attack occurred. They’ve stopped looking for anyone else now that they’ve got you, Brodie.’

I’d been released on conditions of bail, and Frank, Jack and I were all huddled in the hack’s car like a bunch of terrified hoodlums.

‘Well, there must be other lawyers who hate Cattanach – Brodie wasn’t the only one she was investigating. Anyway, I’ve done some research,’ said Jack. I could have kissed him.

‘Alex Cattanach was appointed Chief Accountant to the Law Society in 1998. Since that appointment she has pledged to weed out rogue or bent lawyers. She sent teams of investigators into firms on routine inspections – these routine inspections have resulted in nineteen solicitors on petition charges, which means they will serve a minimum of five years in prison if they are found guilty. With such scrutiny Alex has, naturally, made enemies. As she was fond of saying in the press, “It all depends on how well your firm is doing; if it’s not doing well that seems to be an excuse for turning a blind eye to money laundering.”’

‘So that’s why she was determined Brodie must be guilty?’ asked Frank, as Jack put his notebook down. ‘After the business with Kailash and Roddie, the firm is in dire financial straits. But, still – I thought lawyers were supposed to believe that you were innocent until proven guilty?’

‘Alex Cattanach is a bean counter. She has an excuse. The rest of the Bar also believe I’m guilty and they don’t have an excuse,’ I said, peeved.

Frank looked at me with sympathy.

‘I’ve heard Cattanach lecture on crooked solicitors – she seemed calculating but fair. I don’t get why her treatment of you, Brodie, has been anything but. Could someone else have thrown a spanner in the works?’

He’d asked just the right question. ‘I’ve always thought Bridget Nicholson was behind it,’ said Jack.

‘I think we’ve got to concentrate on the facts. It’s not a story for a Sunday newspaper, Jack, it’s Brodie’s life we’re talking about.’

‘Well, you’re naïve beyond belief if you think this isn’t going to hit the papers.’

‘I didn’t say that. Look, Brodie, here’s a list of the solicitors currently on remand.’ His finger was agitatedly hitting the page he held.

‘There are twenty names on this list, Frank. Do you really think Alex’s attacker is here? Where do we start?’

Frank had a plan already worked out. ‘I thought we’d better visit McCoy, Robert Girvan’s old boss. I wouldn’t put it past him to have paid someone to carry out the attack.’

‘God, Frank, you haven’t seen Alex Cattanach – this was no hired assassin. Her attacker is sadistic, when you look at her wounds you can feel the sick pleasure he got. He enjoyed this.’

My phone had been ringing throughout. ‘You’d better answer that mobile,’ said Jack.

I pushed my hand into my pocket, pulling out discarded sweetie papers at the same time. Even before I looked at the number I knew who it was and I didn’t want to take his call in Jack’s presence. I felt as if I was committing adultery. I wasn’t going out with one of them and I was no longer married to the other, so I don’t know why I felt in such a dilemma, but that’s what was going through my mind. You could cause trouble in an empty house, Mary McLennan used to say to me. She was right. I flipped my phone open.

‘Joe.’

‘Why did you go to Inverness without telling me? Why did Jack Deans take you? What’s he expecting – a medal?’

I think he might have gone mad if I’d told him what Jack was hoping for.

‘It was Jack who found Alex Cattanach,’ I started to explain.

‘Yeah, and the stupid bastard didn’t realise Bancho was tailing you. This isn’t a time to put your trust in amateurs, Brodie.’