Last Will

by William McIntyre

  3

  Friday morning and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service was no place for a person with a mind of their own, and former PF depute Joanna Jordan, freed once more from the ties that bind, was freelancing as a defence agent. It had been Thursday evening, as I passed on the instructions for Marty Sneddon’s bail undertaking, that I’d come up with a great idea: now Joanna was lined up not just for Marty’s appearance on Monday, but for a whole month’s locum work at Munro & Co.

  The only court case in my diary that happy day was a trial and it had been adjourned at the intermediate diet. I had nothing to do but deal with paperwork and set things up so that Joanna could hit the ground running.

  ‘Of course you know it’s a trap.’ All in all Grace-Mary had taken the news that I was going to be having some time off to bond with my daughter remarkably well, though she did harbour certain concerns. She set two wire baskets of incoming mail down on the desk in front of me. They were colour-coded. Yellow: urgent. Red: screamingly urgent. ‘Or are you too stupid to realise it?’ she added, herself seemingly leaning towards that latter point of view. ‘You’re like one of those big woolly mammoths, happily lumbering towards a big bunch of juicy bananas, not noticing that some cavemen have dug a big hole and covered it with branches and leaves.’

  I came around the desk, pulled out a chair and pressed my secretary down onto it. ‘It’s okay. Barry Munn spoke to the other lawyer. Tina’s grandmother is not going to be difficult about things. You’ve got to remember it was Zoë’s last wish that Tina came to live with me.’

  ‘And you’ve got to remember that your opponent is a woman, that her lawyer is a woman and that in a custody battle anything goes.’

  ‘Sexist and cynical?’ I said. ‘Nice.’

  Grace-Mary took off her spectacles and let them dangle on their gold chain. ‘This is serious, Robbie. A wee girl’s future is at stake. Do you really believe that Mrs Reynolds has had some kind of road to Damascus experience? Or that your boozy lawyer has persuaded her lawyer to change her client’s mind? Barry Munn,’ she snorted. ‘They’ll run so many rings round him he’ll think he’s the Olympic flag. Can’t you see that you’re both being manipulated? Vera Reynolds is setting you up to fail. In twenty-four hours Tina will be on your doorstep, and what preparations have you made?’

  Other than investing in a couple of packets of Tina’s favourite BN biscuits, the answer was not a lot.

  ‘For one thing, where’s the girl going to sleep?’

  ‘I’ll borrow my dad’s camp bed,’ I said. ‘I’ll put it in my bedroom or in the living room and rig up a sort of temporary tent with some sheets. Kids love that kind of thing . . . don’t they?’

  Grace-Mary closed her eyes, meditated a while and then without another word, got up and left the room. Ten minutes later she was back, coat on.

  ‘I’m going out for a couple of hours,’ she said. ‘If you’re looking for the petty cash it’s in my purse.’ She bent over my desk and on a legal notepad jotted down a long list of items, starting with underwear and ending with something called Calpol. She ripped the sheet from the pad and folded it carefully. ‘And I’ll be taking this.’ Grace-Mary lifted my cellphone from the desk and dropped it and the folded paper into her handbag. ‘Your daughter is going to need your undivided attention. Don’t worry, I’ll let Joanna know if anything urgent crops up.’ She snapped her handbag shut. ‘Oh, and if you can think of anything else Tina might need . . . a Calor Gas stove to cook her dinner on . . . some extra guy-ropes . . . be sure to give me a call.’

  4

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘And a good day to you, Grace-Mary,’ I said.

  Wednesday morning I’d dropped into the office on the pretence of giving my locum the low-down on some upcoming cases, but in reality to make sure that everything was running smoothly in my absence. It seemed everything was – alarmingly so. Grace-Mary and Joanna were in reception carrying out a file check, entering court dates and bring-backs into a colour-coded electronic ledger.

  ‘Where’s Tina?’ Joanna asked. ‘Did you not bring her to see us?’

  ‘Her Gramps dropped her off at nursery this morning to give me a chance to tidy the house and do some laundry. That girl goes through some amount of clothes.’

  ‘Get used to it,’ Grace-Mary said. ‘That’s not going to change as she gets older. Unlike men, women don’t go through life relying on only a couple of changes of clothes.’

  I was going to protest until I considered my own wardrobe: suit for work, jeans and some casual shirts for not-work.

  ‘What’s with the suit, anyway?’ Joanna asked. ‘You look like you’re ready to start back.’

  ‘Just thought I’d swing by and see how things were going. I’ve got some time before I have to collect Tina, so if anything’s needing done, clients needing seen . . . ’

  ‘We’re managing fine, thanks.’ Grace-Mary came from around her PC, leaned against the edge of the reception desk and studied me closely. ‘So you’re coping all right with fatherhood?’

  Coping? I was doing more than just coping. The last few days had been the longest, most difficult and happiest of my life.

  ‘Hanging by a tack,’ I said, laughing. ‘No, really, everything’s going fine.’

  Grace-Mary didn’t look too convinced. ‘And how is the wee lamb handling her new surroundings?’

  The answer to my secretary’s question was that the wee lamb was great. The best. I couldn’t believe how quickly she’d settled in. She’d lost her mother only three months ago, been transported across from the other side of the world, first to live with her aunt, then with her grandmother and now with a father she’d only recently discovered she had. And yet she seemed to be taking it all in her size three stride.

  ‘How are the sleeping arrangements working out?’ Joanna asked, smirking. ‘Grace-Mary told me about them. Sounds exciting.’

  I had to admit that, sleeping-wise, everything had not gone according to plan. At least not to my plan. As predicted, Tina had thought the camp bed set-up great fun. Such fun, in fact, that after the first night she’d let me try it out and from then on she and her menagerie of soft toys had moved into my double bed. ‘I’m looking for somewhere bigger,’ I said. Until then sleeping on a camp bed was a price worth paying.

  ‘So what are your plans for the rest of the day?’ Joanna asked.

  ‘Like I say,’ I swivelled the computer screen to face me. ‘I can help out here for a while if there’s anything needing done.’

  Grace-Mary turned the screen around again. ‘There’s not.’

  ‘In which case, after I collect Tina from nursery we’re going to Sandy’s for lunch and from there it will be the swing-park or maybe that new indoor play area, depending what the weather’s like.’ I reached out and lifted the corner of a file. ‘Anything happening that I should know about?’

  Grace-Mary slammed her hand down, pinning the file of papers to the desk. ‘Everything’s just fine. Isn’t that right, Joanna?’

  The phone rang. Grace-Mary went across the room to answer it, giving me a chance to talk shop with Joanna. ‘How did the bail undertaking for Marty Sneddon go on Monday?’

  She winced. ‘Not so good, I’m afraid. From what you told me I thought it was going to be a summary complaint. You know, plead guilty, slap on the wrist and home again.’

  ‘It wasn’t?’

  ‘You never told me that Deek Pudney had been badly injured. They put Sneddon on a petition for assault to severe injury and permanent disfigurement. I had to wait all day for the case to call.’

  It wasn’t exactly what Jake had been hoping for. Still, it couldn’t be helped. But there was more bad news.

  ‘And it turned out that Marty had a previous for assault on indictment. It was years ago, but enough for him to be remanded under section 23D. He’s up for full committal next week.’

  ‘Does Jake know?’

  ‘Not sure. He
hasn’t been back in touch.’

  ‘He has now,’ Grace-Mary said, holding the receiver out to me, hand clamped over the mouthpiece.

  ‘Tell him I’m not here.’

  ‘You tell him.’

  I went over and took the receiver thrust at me. ‘Jake, how’s it going?’

  Rather surprisingly, it was going fine. I’d expected a rant on the subject of Marty Sneddon’s incarceration, but he never mentioned a word about it. Even when he asked if he could come and see me about something urgent and I told him I was very busy, he didn’t seem to mind. We left things on the basis that I’d do my best to catch up with him sometime over the next few days.

  ‘What did he want?’ Grace-Mary asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ll phone him later. I’ve got his number on my mobile. By the way, where is it?’

  ‘Perfectly safe,’ Grace-Mary said, patting the big black handbag that hung over the back of her chair.

  ‘Yes, but it would be equally safe with me, where it’s supposed to be,’ I said.

  Grace-Mary thought about it and then said, ‘No, you’d just answer it or do something stupid like actually call Jake Turpie. The man’s a nuisance and you’ve got a daughter to look after.’ She climbed out of her seat, went over to one of the cabinets and pulled out a file. When she returned to her desk she stared up at me as though surprised I was still there. ‘Was there anything else?’

  ‘Well, while I’m here I thought I could just take a swatch at a few files, maybe—’

  ‘Joanna,’ Grace-Mary said. ‘Show him to the door. And, Robbie, the next time you drop in, bring your wee girl with you or don’t bother coming at all.’

  5

  ‘Mr Munro, I wonder, could I have a word?’

  Nursery places weren’t easy to come by, so it was with some difficulty and at a price that I’d managed to find Tina a berth Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings at The Little Ships Nursery, situated within a newly refurbished building in a wynd just off the High Street.

  A seascape mural with blue sky, white-sailed boats, plenty of seagulls and a hooped lighthouse, stretched the length of the reception area, from the main door right down to the rows of coat racks, where each peg was identified by a different nautical symbol or sea creature. Tina’s was an anchor. She’d wanted the smiley starfish.

  ‘Mr Munro!’ I identified the source of the voice floating above the heads of the other parents who’d come to collect offspring as being that of Mrs Fitzsimmons, boss, or maybe that should have been captain, of The Little Ships Nursery. Her age and attire set her apart from the other childcare staff, who were generally a lot younger and wore powder-blue tracksuit bottoms and sweatshirts embroidered with little yacht motifs, rather than fetching, aquamarine trouser suits. Mrs Fitzsimmons took me by the upper arm and steered me away from the crowd. By the grim look on her face I thought I might be headed for the brig.

  ‘There’s been an . . . an incident.’ Mrs Fitzsimmons stroked her red, white and navy-blue silk neck scarf.

  I looked around. There was no sign of my daughter amongst the kids who were wandering through to the changing room to be stuffed into coats and have black gym shoes exchanged for outdoor footwear. Where was she? I had the sudden feeling that someone had opened my mouth and tipped the contents of an ice bucket down my throat. I tried to speak, but the only sound I could emit was a croaky, ‘Tina . . . ?’

  ‘Tina’s fine, but I’m afraid she’s been involved in a slight contretemps with another child,’ said Mrs Fitzsimmons.

  I took a deep breath and released. Tina was fine. A contretemps I felt sure I could deal with.

  ‘Zack,’ Mrs Fitzsimmons continued, ‘is quite a demanding child and one, it’s true, with certain . . . proprietorial issues, however—’

  ‘Proprietorial issues?’

  ‘Difficulty sharing,’ she clarified.

  The other parents and children were starting to drift past and away, waving to the blue-clad helpers standing guard either side of the front door as they went.

  ‘Where’s Tina?’ I asked flatly.

  ‘I’ve told you, Tina’s fine.’

  ‘Yes, but where is she?’

  Mrs F took a step closer to me. ‘Zack and Tina didn’t see eye to eye over the counting bricks.’

  Was that all? ‘Oh well,’ I said. ‘Worse things happen at sea, I suppose.’ Only I found that amusing.

  ‘There was a fight.’

  I could see where this was going and whether it was the relief of knowing that Tina was all right – whatever – I was prepared to be magnanimous. ‘Boys will be boys. I know you’ll have taken the appropriate action and I assure you there’ll be no complaint from me. I’ll buy Tina some ice cream and—’

  ‘Actually, not so much a fight as an assault,’ Mrs Fitzsimmons continued.

  I could feel a surge of anger. If that little brat had hurt my daughter . . .

  ‘Tina punched Zack. Twice. Apparently her Gramps refers to it as the old one-two.’

  Over to my left an unhappy-looking woman, holding the hand of an even more unhappy-looking boy, exited through the heavy swing doors from the main play area. They were escorted by one of the nursery helpers who held a white tissue clamped to the boy’s nose.

  ‘Zack?’ I asked. ‘Big for his age, isn’t he?’

  Mrs Fitzsimmons signalled to another helper who disappeared through the swing doors, reappearing momentarily with Tina stomping along behind her, head bowed, arms stiff at her side.

  ‘We’ve had a talk, Tina and I,’ Mrs Fitzsimmons said, once Tina had drawn up alongside. ‘It won’t happen again. Will it, Tina?’ My daughter didn’t twitch a muscle. ‘Mr Munro, if Tina is to remain here at The Little Ships she’s going to have to learn that violence is never the answer. Perhaps you could pass that message to her Gramps.’

  Tina mumbled something.

  I hunkered down. ‘What’s that, honey?’

  ‘He wanted all the bricks to himself, but we’re supposed to share.’

  It should have been a proud moment for me. My daughter’s first plea-in-mitigation, and to an assault charge at that; however, I could sense her words of excuse were having about as much effect on the nursery manager as mine tended to have on Sheriff Brechin.

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘but you can’t go hitting people. It’s not nice.’

  ‘He’s not nice!’ Tina shouted.

  Mrs Fitzsimmons clapped her hands together. ‘All right then. I’ll leave you two to have a chat and . . . ’ she patted Tina on the head, ‘I’ll see this young lady back here on Friday.’

  Tina pulled her head away and did an excellent impression of one of her grandfather’s trademark grunts. I hurriedly got her inside a puffy pink anorak and we left, skirting the genetically modified Zack and his mother on the road out, and arriving a few minutes later at Sandy’s café, where my dad had already captured his favourite corner table. Tina ran over and gave him a hug.

  ‘Tina! Come here quickly!’ Sandy yelled. ‘See what I make for your lunch.’ Tina released the old man from her stranglehold and ran to the counter where the café owner was waiting.

  ‘Don’t forget our bacon rolls!’ I called after her.

  My dad penned an answer into his crossword, folded his newspaper and set it down on the table with an air of satisfaction. I’d always struggled with crosswords – the proper kind, the cryptic ones. He always made them seem so easy.

  ‘How long did that take you?’ I asked, studying the white squares filled with neatly printed letters.

  ‘About two cups of tea,’ he said, taking a final slurp from the big china mug that Sandy kept especially for him.

  ‘I don’t think I could even get one clue in that time. Burn em in boxes for instance? What kind of clue is that?’ I asked.

  ‘A tricky one,’ he said. ‘But they usually are. You just have to solve it piece by piece. Don’t start at the beginning, that’s too obvious. What kind of boxes do you put stuff into?’

  ‘
Cardboard?’

  ‘Crates. Put em into crates and you’ve got cremates. I thought your legally trained mind would have worked that out. It’s all perfectly logical –unlike wearing a suit when you’re about to have lunch with Tina. What’s wrong? I do hope everything’s okay at work. You know I hate to think of all those criminals being sent to the jail if you’re not there to hold their hands.’

  ‘Everything’s fine at the office, thanks,’ I said. ‘Wish I could say the same for the nursery.’

  ‘Problem?’

  ‘Zack.’

  ‘Oh, him. The bully. What’s he up to now?’

  ‘Crying a little and bleeding a lot. Seems like someone gave Tina a few boxing lessons.’

  He put down his mug and shrugged. ‘A girl has to be able to look out for herself these days. It’s not safe out there.’

  ‘Dad, this is not the mean streets of East LA. She’s at nursery school. She goes there to colour in and make art out of cornflake packets, not to dispense her own brand of justice.’

  My dad snorted. ‘Have you seen the size of that Zack kid? I’ll bet there’s not too many forks in his family tree. He’s like a gorilla.’ He paused to take another drink of tea. ‘Make anyone believe in evolution, that Zack would. What do you want Tina to do when he starts throwing his weight about? Scream and run away like a—’

  ‘Wee girl?’

  Tina arrived at the table carrying a big white plate. ‘See what Sandy made me.’ She tilted the plate at us. Spaghetti hoops hair, ketchup eyes, a fried egg nose and a big curved sausage smile all threatened to slide off and onto the floor.

  My dad rescued the plate and set it down on the table. I removed Tina’s coat and while she was grabbing her fork and knife, managed to stuff a paper napkin into the neck of her T-shirt.

  Sandy came over with a plate of four bacon rolls, nodded down at Tina’s lunch and took a grip of my shoulder. ‘You want I knock you up one of those instead, Robbie?’

  ‘There’s only us, here, Sandy,’ I said. ‘You can go easy on the accent. You’re sounding more like Robert de Niro every day and, thanks to her trainer here, the Munro family has already got its own Raging Bull.’ I jerked a thumb at my dad and Tina in turn.