by Grace Monroe
Moses’ breathing was still laboured but it had slowed down as the child tried to make sense of the scene around him. I could see his eyes moving around slowly under his lids, as he carefully took in every corner of the room.
‘Tell me about the room, Moses,’ I urged again.
‘It’s not a room,’ he said petulantly, ‘I told you it’s a dungeon–a real one too ’cos it’s dark and they torture in here.’
‘What have they got there to hurt people, Moses? How do you know they torture people?’
‘Not people, not big people–just kids. Only big girls get hurt here, that’s what my friend’s telling me. She’s shouting “don’t cry, Moses, the devil only hurts big girls, you’re safe honey, just pray to the angels.”’
‘What is the devil doing to her, Moses?’ I asked. When people are in a trance you have to get into their mind-set; I couldn’t argue with him that it was just a man hurting his friend.
‘He’s got her tied to a cross–not like the one Jesus died on though. This one’s like the one on a Scottish flag.’
‘What’s your friend’s name, Moses?’ I asked, keeping my eyes on Joe and Jack.
‘Laura. She’s called Laura.’
I closed my eyes, for I too had seen Laura Liddell tied to a St Andrew’s cross.
‘What’s happening now, Moses?’
He clenched his eyes twice, as if he could not quite believe what he was seeing.
‘Tell me, now!’ I tapped my finger on his forehead, bringing the same effect as hitting a dog on the nose with a newspaper–although it doesn’t hurt, obedience follows.
‘He’s got a stick in the fire–and he’s shooglin’ it about. The lady’s in the background with a camera–he’s taking the stick out of the flames and it’s got prongs on it, they’re hot, they’re burning hot, they’re glowing.’
Moses sighed deeply. He needed a rest; his nervous system was exhausted. I could have no pity–I needed to know more than he needed to tell.
‘Go on, Moses.’
I squeezed his hand harder. Glasgow Joe could see the pain the boy was in and he hit me across the back as if to say, ‘give it a rest’. In spite of the tears freely flowing down Joe’s face, I continued. I tapped Moses yet again.
‘Laura’s crying, she’s begging him to leave her alone. She tells me to look away but the lady holds my head–so I have to see. She makes me see. I hate her. I hate her so much.’ This was all whispered. Silence followed, Moses was alone in his shock. Hot fat tears escaped from under his lips.
‘They’re hurting Laura so much–her skin is burned away and it smells like ma granny’s Sunday roast. I don’t want to see any more, Laura can’t speak to me, they’re pulling me beside her, they’re chopping her up like some deid cow, and the lady’s taking pictures,’ he continued, shaking his head.
‘I know it must hurt, Moses, but you must go on.’
‘It’s the wrong girl. What I can’t understand is–I think they hurt the wrong girl.’ He kept shaking his head. ‘They hurt the wrong girl. Laura could have lived. They got the wrong one.’
‘Moses?’ I steadied his head.
‘Moses?’ I said in a firmer tone.
‘Why do you think the devil hurt the wrong girl?’
He considered my question for a moment and then replied:
‘Because he kept calling her Kailash–and her name’s not Kailash, it’s Laura.’
FORTY
I did not turn to see Joe or Jack’s reaction. I didn’t even have time to check my own. I continued to work with Moses. Rocking his head back and forth, I told him that he would wake on the count of five. I threw in a gamble by telling him that he would recall everything that had happened. In addition I gave Moses a post-hypnotic suggestion that any time I snapped my fingers and told him to sleep, he would immediately go into a trance deeper than the one he was in today. If he was agreeable to that he had to raise his forefinger on his right hand. Silent body acknowledgements are the most effective.
Tired and drained, Moses wearily opened his eyes.
‘What the fuck have you done to me?’
‘Where do you sleep, Moses?’
Staggering up, he led me to a large room with a double bed in it. Pushing him down, he fell softly like a baby. I snapped my fingers, and told him to sleep. As I left the room he was mercifully unconscious.
On the way home Jack and Joe bombarded me with questions. Too tired to answer, I ignored them for the entire journey–that doesn’t mean that I didn’t hear Jack’s incredulous praise or Joe’s warnings.
‘Are you sure that laddie’s gonna be OK? Should you not have told him just to forget everything again? To bury it down deep and never, ever think of it again?’
I didn’t need their questions, I didn’t need their noise. I just needed to get home, rest and then try to make some sense of it when I woke.
When I finally got there, I fell into my bed and needed no hypnosis to make me sleep soundly. I intended to sleep like the dead. I must have done for a while, but then, as usual, the phone rang. Automatically, again as usual, my hand reached for the receiver.
‘Is that Brodie McLennan?’
I screwed my eyes tightly, trying to force some fluid into them, for my lids were stuck to my eyeballs. My life was like a psychotic Groundhog Day. Fumbling I found a pen, and muttered that it was Brodie McLennan speaking.
‘PC Fulton here. Ms McLennan, we’ve got a young man on the Forth Road Bridge threatening to jump unless you come out to see him.’
I needed no name from PC Fulton.
‘Tell Moses I’m coming.’
FORTY-ONE
Orange and pink streaks cracked the sky over the Firth of Forth. It looked like a celestial tie-dye gone wrong. I didn’t need a shepherd’s warning to tell me this was going to be a difficult day.
It was dawn and the Forth Road Bridge was practically deserted. The motorists who did pass Moses were either too tired or too focused to notice him standing on the edge of the structure holding on to a thick steel suspension wire.
The Forth Road Bridge was built in 1964, and opened by the Queen. A smaller version of the Golden Gate Bridge, it spans the river Forth, providing a gateway to the north. It sits parallel to the beautiful maroon cantilever bridge, the Forth Rail Bridge, built by the Victorians in the heyday of railways. It’s the scourge of commuters but a favoured haunt of suicides.
In the distance, to the north, I could see the hills. It was such a clear morning I felt as if I could see forever. But as soon as I fixed my eyes on Moses, all thoughts of views and scenery quickly disappeared. He was dressed as I had left him, standing in a slight breeze swaying with exhaustion and nerves. His knuckles were bloodless with tension; in spite of appearances he had a tight grip on that rope. He wanted to live.
PC Fulton was an older bobby, a couple of years shy of retirement; he knew how to handle the situation, although I doubted if he had ever been on any negotiation courses. Having made the decision to manage the state of affairs, he made a judgement call to keep it low key; this principally meant that there was no ambulance standing by. There were only the three of us, and thankfully the elements were being relatively kind. Far, far down below I could see the blue grey river swell and lap against the enormous posts that held up the bridge. To my mind it looked hungry for Moses, and if I couldn’t talk him down there was no one else to save him.
The roar from Awesome’s pipes made him turn to see me. I raised my hand in salute to him before I dismounted. I had come alone. I gave myself the excuse that I did not want to wake Joe–in truth I couldn’t bear the thought of him saying ‘I told you so’.
PC Fulton moved towards me, a stout comforting figure. Over his arm was a rough grey prison blanket.
‘Sorry to wake you–but I got the call. I know the lad and headquarters thought I could handle it. It’s not even my beat–I’m Muirhouse, this is South Queensferry.’
I put my hand out to shake his.
‘It’s OK–I know
him. I don’t mind.’ Like rapid gunfire, my words came out–broken. I didn’t want to say that I felt responsible or to offer any explanations. Moses had coped with this for years–even if it had been buried. I had screwed that up, messed whatever delicate balance he had, and now a boy who had dealt with his demons for years was trying to end it all.
‘Moses–get your arse down from there now,’ I barked at him, the wind carrying my words. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I could see that PC Fulton had been trying the softly, softly approach for the last five hours.
‘Fuck off, Brodie–I’m going nowhere till you promise.’ His voice was bitterly strong.
‘What do you want me to promise, Moses?’ I asked, anxious to agree to anything so that I could get him down quickly and without PC Fulton asking me any awkward questions.
‘I want you to swear you’ll make me forget again–and I want your word that you’ll get those bastards.’
PC Fulton looked at me quizzically but I was in no mood to offer chit-chat.
‘I’ll do everything I can.’ I shouted but under my breath I whispered, ‘But not today for I have to see Kailash.’
‘What was that?’ PC Fulton asked.
‘If you want to keep him safe–do us both a favour and lock him up. I’ll come down to St Leonard’s as soon as I can–but it might not be until tomorrow morning.’ The breeze muffled my words, and PC Fulton blinked, convinced that he had misheard me.
‘You want me to lock that laddie up?’ He looked at me doubtfully.
I nodded. ‘I want you to lock him up to keep him safe–if you take him to the Royal Ed he can walk straight out again and finish what he started.’
‘The boy needs help not prison. He’ll get more of that from a psychiatrist at the Andrew Duncan Clinic than down the nick. As I said, I knew his family. I want to do what’s right for him.’ PC Fulton was adamant.
‘If you want to keep him safe then the only place for him is St Leonard’s–then I’ll come and take him off your hands and get him the attention he needs.’
It may have been beginner’s luck, and the fact that he was ready to come down, but Moses allowed PC Fulton to get near him. His thin limbs were frozen stiff from holding one position for so long. We approached him cautiously, I was more wary than the constable because I suffer from vertigo. Like the pull from a magnet I felt myself being drawn to the edge. A cold trickle of sweat ran down the inside of my arm, dizziness threatened to overcome me, but I made myself keep moving. PC Fulton had climbed the barrier as elegantly as his chunky thighs would permit; I was in no position to criticise style. I was several feet behind the constable praying that, by the time I reached them, there would be no need for me to go over the side. My eyes kept being dragged to the water as it greedily lapped the posts.
With the expert cast of a fisherman the constable threw the blanket around Moses, swaddling him like an infant he effortlessly bundled him over to the safe side of the bridge.
Half carrying, half pushing him, Fulton got Moses to the car. As Moses sipped the hot coffee that the constable’s wife had made for his break, PC Fulton charged him with breach of the peace, and read him his rights.
I told Moses exactly how I would protect him. What I would do to help him adjust in the future, and why those bastards that hurt him and the girls were going down. The trouble was, he was ten miles down the road by the time I thought of words adequate enough to express my opinions.
As I watched the Panda car driving off, guilt ripped my heart to shreds. It was too early to go to Cornton Vale, and I couldn’t face Joe round the breakfast table. When I have bad feelings, I try my damnedest to ignore them. This was one of those times. Fast driving, hard liquor and sweet food are the best panacea. Even if it hadn’t been dawn I had work to do so I headed off to do it–and get a couple of Mars bars along the way.
FORTY-TWO
Tempus fugit. Well, it might for some people at some times, but it didn’t for me that morning.
I sat on the hard kerbstone beside Awesome waiting for ten o’clock so that I could be allowed into Cornton Vale. A probationary prison officer eyed me suspiciously as I thumped down my scraped bike helmet on the counter.
‘Agent visit,’ I answered the unspoken query in her eyes.
‘What firm?’ Disbelief rang soundly in her voice.
I looked around for someone I knew, an old hand was coming on duty.
‘How’s the bike running, Mike?’
‘Sound as a pound, Brodie.’
He nodded to the new officer and the agent signing-in book was passed through the grille.
‘Kailash Coutts. She’s on remand–she should be in D Hall. Mike, can you bring Kailash out for an agent visit?’
The echo of heavy doors being unlocked resounded through the prison walls. I sat in the agent’s room, and waited.
Her scent preceded her. Prisons generally stink. Male prisoners are worse than female, and the strange thing is, it’s not because they are dirty. An odour of hopelessness emanates from their skin. It’s horrible, but Kailash was different.
In spite of the debacle that was the first day of her murder trial she floated in, her emotions hidden behind a mask of exquisite grooming.
‘You came.’
It was a statement, not a question, almost as if she expected me to abandon her, and resign from acting before the court on Monday morning. Perhaps I would have done if my own options were not so limited.
‘You don’t expect much of me,’ I replied.
‘I knew what I was getting before I asked for you that first time.’
That could have been taken as a compliment, but I decided not to press her on it. As I pulled the cheap wooden chair away from the table, its legs scraped along the floor, making a screeching noise that set my nerve endings tingling. I took her file out of my bag, and placing a pen in my mouth, tried to think of a way to start to broach all that I had to say.
‘Take that pen out of your mouth–you look like an imbecile. I hope that’s not a habit you’ve got,’ she chided me.
I placed the pen, dripping with saliva onto the table. It was a bad habit of mine but no one except Mary McLennan ever told me off for it. Miffed, I decided to spit it all out, starting with the court case. Kailash might have known what she was getting when she asked for me but I had no idea. I still wasn’t sure what I was dealing with.
‘The evidence against you yesterday was pretty damning,’ I began.
‘He’s a lying bastard,’ she replied.
‘So what? No one’s going to believe that Roddie was double-dealing. You set him up. Everyone thinks he pays for ball torture. Why for God’s sake did you do it?’
I had never fully bought into the idea that Kailash used the photographs as a marketing tool. If the rumours were true she was richer than Croesus and didn’t need to resort to cheap stunts.
‘Roddie might not be into the “white room” scene–but he’s into pretty much everything else. Stuff that I don’t approve of.’
I almost choked. ‘What could be so bad that you don’t approve of it?’
‘My motives don’t matter at the moment. I deemed it necessary that Roddie be brought down a peg or two–they needed to be shown that I could get to any one of them if I chose.’
Sullenly, I stared at her as she continued.
‘Roddie was drinking red wine. He didn’t know who I was. I slipped Rohypnol into his drink–it was simple; the red wine camouflaged the blue dye that’s supposed to act as a safety device. In a few seconds he was unconscious.’
‘And then you could do what you wanted?’ I shook my head, remembering I had heard similar words and how they had come from me talking about my own situation.
‘I don’t apologise for my lifestyle.’
‘I could almost understand it if you needed the money–but you don’t.’
‘Ever read Freud?’ Kailash asked derisively.
‘No jury is ever going to believe you. The affidavit you signed–you said Roddie only
wanted one testicle injected. Why didn’t you tell the truth then?’
I shoved the photograph of her and Roddie across the table at her. Unconcerned she picked it up and examined it, a sly smile crossed her face as if even now she did not regret what she had done to him.
‘Not even you believed me when I told the truth. I knew what I could get away with and it worked.’
‘Well–you’re not going to get away with it this time. Hector McVie wants you to plead to culpable homicide–I’ve got him to agree to that.’ I coughed to cover my unease. ‘On the basis that you had diminished responsibility.’ I finished hurriedly, but started up again so that she did not have a chance to speak. ‘Hector also said that he could guarantee that Lord MacDonald would sentence you to four years–you’d be out in two; it’s the deal of the century.’
Kailash stood up. The chair fell loudly on the floor.
‘The deal of the century?’
She spat it right back at me.
Turning her back to me, I thought she was going to leave. Instead she pulled her white silk trousers down, just enough to show me a well-toned brown buttock. On the pert muscle was a keloid scar.
‘When you can tell me what that is,’ she screamed, jabbing her finger into it, ‘then we’ll talk. You’ve got a lot to learn, Brodie.’
Looking at the scar made me feel faint. It was still so vivid, so raw. Time hadn’t made the wound heal in any way that could make what I was looking at acceptable. Kailash had been branded, and my sympathy for her was only reinforced by the fact that she was being so emotional for the first time in front of me. But, like my client, I had a professional duty–and being horrified or empathetic didn’t come into it.
‘I’ve seen one before. Not as distinct but I haven’t been able to get much information on it.’
Something in my voice made her relent. Softly her zip screeched as she refastened her trousers, and sat down. In my mind’s eye all I could see was the scar.
‘It’s a brand. Like a cattle brand. The symbol was constructed out of very fine metal and then it was heated to 1400 degrees Fahrenheit. Branding is very rare–in New York it seems that everyone has a tattoo and yet there won’t be many people who have a brand. For those that do it’s an art form–mine was not.’