Blood Lines (9 page)

I stood at the river’s edge. The water was an accusing finger curling towards me, searching for me. I felt as if it wanted to touch me, to mark me. My world was collapsing.

‘I did this! I did this to myself!’ a voice screamed in my head.

Those six hours when I was supposed to be plotting Duncan Bancho’s ruin? Well, it didn’t happen. All I saw was my own defeat staring me in the face. There was no help or escape. DI Bancho had made it quite clear that his mission in life was to see me behind bars for the murder of Alex Cattanach. Trouble was, my actions for the past God knew how many months made it look as if I had a pretty good motive. My grandad was right, Kailash was right, even Bridget Nicholson was right to a point – I was obsessed with making as much money as possible – but I did it to feel safe. As long as I was joint and severally liable for the debts of Lothian and St Clair WS, then I was weak. One of the downsides of becoming a partner was that I was responsible for any outstanding debts if the firm went down, so I was making sure that there was enough money floating around to stop that happening – the only way I knew to lessen the feeling of fear was to bring in as much work as possible, make myself a cash cow that they would never be tempted to slaughter.

I’d thought that the other firms I was taking from, pissing off along the way, didn’t matter. I couldn’t waste time or sympathy on whether some overindulged lawyer was a few grand down a week. But I did have to care about what effect all of this hostility could have on me and my security.

I could see why Duncan might think I was an obvious suspect. We hadn’t had the sort of relationship where he knew me inside out – thank God – so he could very well believe I would be pushed over the edge by all that had happened to me in the last couple of years. He might also think that I believed I was now protected by my blood line. These were all possibles. Cattanach had been missing for too long. Foul play was the obvious conclusion, given the investigations that had been going on. And, on paper, I looked like a pretty good candidate for the perpetrator.

I tried to comfort myself that at least I wasn’t a complete fool. Even I knew that the offer of a judicial position would be withdrawn now. When Duncan Bancho had arrested me, he had snatched my best hope, even if I hadn’t seemed too keen on it when it was offered to me. There is nothing like something being taken away from you to make it seem attractive.

‘At least your plooks have disappeared.’

A familiar voice shouted at me through the trees. A woman jogger looked affronted, as if the remark had been aimed at her.

I didn’t bother to turn around. ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better? I don’t have spots any more?’

‘Yeah – when the shit hits the fan, you have to be grateful for small mercies.’ Glasgow Joe’s voice came in short bursts as he climbed down the steep embankment.

‘Keep your
Reader’s Digest
homilies to yourself, Joe. Have you been looking for me for long?’

‘I went to St Leonard’s once I heard the gossip, then that wanker Bancho sent someone out to move me along. I wanted to be there – when you were released – but I must have got my timing wrong.’

‘What do you mean you got your timing wrong? You thought I’d be out quickly, didn’t you? Well, so did I, Joe, so did I. When he kept me in for the full six hours, did you think that meant I was guilty? Do you think I did it? Do you think that’s why Duncan Bancho kept me in for the full six hours?’

‘Calm down, Brodie – of course I don’t think you did it. I mean, nothing’s even been proven to have happened. Maybe Cattanach was bent and ran off with money from the investigations? I don’t know what the fuck’s going on, but I do know that Bancho wanted to see you sweat, to make you cry – you didn’t cry, did you, Brodie?’

‘Of course I didn’t.’

‘I did – the first time I was arrested. I bawled my eyes out begging the constable to get my mammy.’

‘You were eleven, Joe.’

‘True, but there were bigger boys than me greetin’ for their maw.’

‘Do you know his sidekick, DC Malone? She was nice to me.’ I believed I would be eternally grateful for that woman’s common decency.

‘Do you mean Peggy?’

‘You do know her then?’

‘Everybody knows Peggy Malone – and I do mean everyone.’

‘Well, she looks a pretty settled item with Duncan Bancho.’

‘That’ll never happen.’

‘Well, I’m telling you it has.’

‘Peggy Malone would never settle with a man – she’s too into women for that.’

‘Don’t tell me she fancies me.’ I felt faintly uncomfortable – had all that bum wiggling been for me?

‘No – she’ll be shagging Duncan Bancho all right, I’m just saying he won’t be the only one.’

I didn’t want to ask Joe how he knew so much about Peggy Malone; after all, he had never claimed to be celibate.

I turned to face him, throwing myself against his chest and listening to the Water of Leith run past me over the stones. His leather jacket was soft against my face. I pressed in so hard I could hear his heartbeat. I had my excuse ready. I was only protecting myself from the midges if Joe asked why I was getting all cuddly and soppy. He didn’t.

I suddenly thought of something. ‘How did you know where to find me?’

‘I knew you thought you needed a miracle – and when divine intervention is your only hope, you come to St Bernard’s Well.’

‘It’s never worked before,’ I whined.

‘It has – I told you; your spots have gone.’

We came to the well when I was thirteen to wash my face in the healing waters, because Joe told me pilgrims had been coming to this site since the thirteenth century.

‘Nothing happened, Joe, I was still acne-ridden and, at thirteen, spots are social suicide.’

‘And where’s your acne now, Brodie?’

‘It disappeared when I was sixteen.’

‘See? I told you it would work. Some miracles take longer than others. Your spots disappeared and your chest arrived – that seemed pretty miraculous to me.’

Was it my imagination or was his heart beating faster? Reluctantly, I pushed myself away from the safety of his arms. That was a bad habit of mine, rejecting protection. It was sod’s law that the midges really started to swarm around my head and munch on me.

‘I see they still like you then,’ Joe commented.

‘Parasites always do.’

I waved my hands around my face like a lunatic and, as a result, the little bastards promptly bit them. I climbed up the riverbank to the glorious pseudo-Roman temple that occupied the site of St Bernard’s sacred spring. Maybe, like the holy man, I had been restored by the waters, because I certainly sprinted up that bank. Waiting for Joe to join me, I leaned against one of the ten Doric pillars that supported the temple roof, and I stared at Hygieia, the goddess of health.

‘What’s happened to you now?’ shouted Joe. ‘Any chance you’ve perked up there? What’s wrong, Brodie?’

‘Everything, Joe; everything in my life is shite.’

‘Not everything – you can see and you can hear. Helen Keller couldn’t do any of those things and she danced on Broadway.’

‘At least she didn’t have to listen to people criticising her all the time. Did you ever think of that, Joe? I am just so tired of snide remarks.’

‘Well, do something about it, then. When did you become so pathetic?’

It was a question I had been asking myself since Duncan Bancho had arrested me. Somehow it seemed so much more insulting when asked by someone else.

‘You have choices,’ stated Joe.

‘What? What choices do I have? Private practice is becoming impossible, thanks to the Edinburgh Bar complaining about me to the Law Society. The complaints about me haven’t stopped – that’s all the mail I get from them these days. One way or another, it’ll ruin me.

‘The one thing keeping me going recently was the thought that I could escape private practice and become a sheriff. Now, thanks to Bancho, that can’t happen. Before becoming a judge I have to sign an affidavit that there are no court actions outstanding against me. I can’t do that. Even if Bancho fails in hauling my arse into the High Court on some trumped-up murder charge, he has promised he’ll still do me with wasting police time.’

‘You don’t need to be a lawyer, Brodie. There are other ways to earn a living.’ Joe’s whisper entered my ear, curled all the way down the inside of my neck, into my chest, where it stopped my heart.

And, for the first time in years, I realised I wanted to do this job. I’d been kidding myself. I loved fighting with the Crown Office. I relished my small victories of holding on to someone’s liberty. Punters who had been given every opportunity in life and squandered them annoyed me. I was only too aware that I could have gone either way. Each time I looked into a client’s face and heard about their tragic background, I thought, there but for the grace of God go I … Luckily for me, I’d had Mary McLennan. It was the thought of her – the woman I still considered to be my real mother, even if she hadn’t carried me in her belly and brought me into the world – that kept me going through all of this.

The clock on the church tower in St Stephen’s Street interrupted my thoughts as it chimed eleven bells. The sky was bright and clear. Summer in Edinburgh was a gorgeous time. The birds made noises as they flew overhead. They circled slowly before roosting in the trees that lined the walkway by the Water of Leith. I should have expected it. But even as I felt the wet blob land on my head I didn’t want to acknowledge what had happened.

‘That’s lucky, you’re destined for greatness,’ said Joe, smiling as he took his clean white hankie to my hair. ‘You’ve got to read the signs, Brodie. Before I spoke to you this morning, I thought you had two choices: take your grandad’s advice and become a sheriff, or be hounded out of the profession.’

‘Has he been speaking to you as well?’

Joe nodded.

The old man was nothing if not thorough.

‘Kailash wants me to get out as well. I suppose I should listen to her – after all, she is my mother.’

‘Your mother is dead, Brodie. I will never consider that woman to be your mother.’

I wished he hadn’t said that because, although I denied it to Joe, when the cell door slammed shut on me I
was
crying for my mammy, and it wasn’t Kailash Coutts. Joe saying what he had just made me feel her loss even more, because he had adored her too. Mary McLennan fought for me and she would have taken on Duncan Bancho too. But, as Joe had brought home to me, she was dead.

His hatred of Kailash struck me as odd, and I wondered if there had ever been anything between the two of them. I knew Joe wasn’t a monk, and she was very attractive. Even so, I shuddered at the thought.

‘Anyway, I’ve changed my mind. You still have the two choices – jump or wait until you’re shoved. But, you’re a fighter, Brodie – you can think of something else, and I’ll stand by you when you decide to do that.’

I considered what Joe had said – jump or be pushed.

Or fight.

‘Maybe I do have another option,’ I said to him, as I got up and he followed me.

‘What if I decide to fight him?’

‘Who?’

‘Duncan Bancho.’

‘It would make a damn sight more sense for you to take on Lord MacGregor than to fight Lothian and Borders Police, Brodie.’

‘Well, it makes no sense at all for me to fight my Grandad, he’s on my side.’

Joe looked more worried than angry. ‘So am I, and I’m telling you – leave the police alone. Run away, Brodie, because it’s the only way to win this fight.’

‘He’s a corrupt police officer,’ I replied.

‘Says who?’

‘The Alchemist.’

Even in my temper I knew I was on shaky ground.

‘Give me a break – the Alchemist, or whatever poncey name he calls himself by tomorrow, would sell you for a bag of smack. There’s no honour amongst thieves, Brodie, you know that. Just because Duncan Bancho decided to give you a taste of your own medicine doesn’t mean he’s a bent copper. How would you like it if he was going round spreading rumours about you?’

‘Joe! He is! He’s saying I murdered Cattanach – or at best that I’m money laundering!’ I spluttered. Bancho didn’t seem the innocent victim in all of this.

‘Face it, Brodie. Bancho’s not bent, he’s just human. You can’t pin all your problems on him. Word will get out, everyone will know that you were hauled in by mid-morning. Edinburgh is a village. I should know – I get told everything you get up to.’ He had turned his back to me but I still heard him whisper the last words. ‘Even when I wish that I didn’t.’

I wasn’t going to let on that I heard that, as I had the uncomfortable feeling he could only be referring to Jack Deans.

‘I know that Duncan Bancho is bent.’

‘Don’t give me that crap – just wanting someone to be crooked to fall in with your plans doesn’t work.’

‘I know, Joe, I just know. And I’m going to prove it.’

‘Are you going to tell me it’s women’s intuition, Brodie?’

Joe was shouting now – people on the streets up ahead were beginning to look back at us.

‘Tell me, just tell me this – if your intuition is so bloody good, how come you’re in this fucking mess?’ He was pulling at his hair, his face was red with frustration, and beads of sweat formed above his eyebrows.

‘You’re a stubborn cow, Brodie, always have been.’

‘And you’d know, wouldn’t you, Joe? Just like you know everything, always know what’s fucking right for me?’

Glasgow Joe stopped, pulling me back by the elbow as he did so. His face went back to a colour closer to normal, and he looked me straight in the eye.

‘I knew you as a girl, Brodie McLennan, and I know you as a woman. Nothing’s changed. The fact that you were once my wife doesn’t make a blind bit of fucking difference.’

Chapter Eleven

I couldn’t bear to go into my own flat – but I knew I had to.

I’d run as quickly as I could from Stockbridge, no mean achievement, but I had the hounds of hell at my feet given what Joe had dredged up. There were certain things we never spoke of, places neither of us wanted to go – that he had crossed the line terrified me, and reminded me of how much I depended on him. If we went down that path again, the one that he had broken every rule by mentioning, it could finish us forever.