‘Problem, Mr Munro?’
‘Could say. I’m doing some research on a case—’
‘And want someone to dig through the Books of Adjournal for you?’
‘Would you?’
‘No.’
‘Come on. It’s not like I’m asking you to journey through the mists of time.’
‘Might as well be. All the records are archived. They’re not even stored in this building.’
‘Then it looks like I’ve had a wasted journey.’
He thought about that for a while then held up a finger. It was clearly a eureka moment, minus only a small illuminated light bulb hovering over his head. ‘I think maybe I can help,’ he said. ‘Do you fancy a small refreshment?’
Not as much, I suspected by the look of his tomato of a nose, as he did. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ve time for a swift one.’ The civil service shuffle had disappeared and he moved much more freely now. Unhooking his jacket from the back of a chair, he lifted a flap in the counter and came through to my side. Two minutes later we were sitting at the bar in Deacon Brodie’s.
‘What’ll it be?’ I asked.
‘Rum,’ said my new-found friend, gesturing to the barman with thumb and forefinger alarmingly wide apart.
The barman poured a double. The clerk knocked it back in one and nodded to the barman who hadn’t moved, the hand holding the bottle poised at the ready. I had the distinct impression the two had met before. His glass recharged, the man in the dodgy syrup seemed to remember why it was we were there. ‘What’s so interesting about a dead judge?’
‘Let’s say I’m following a lead.’
He fuelled his grey cells with another swig of rum. ‘Not an awful lot I can do, really.’ He reached for his glass again but I grabbed his wrist.
‘Do you know Bob Coulsfield?’ he asked quickly.
I racked my brains. ‘The Macer?’
Monarchs have footmen. Army officers have batmen. High Court judges have macers.
‘Aye, the very man. He worked with Jim Hewitt for years, right up until he was bumped off. He might be able to help.’
He made a try for the glass again but I still had a hold on his wrist.
‘Aye, well,’ he looked longingly at the drink just out of reach. ‘Bob’s retired now and hasn’t been well. He stays out your way somewhere and...’ He rescued his arm, put the glass to his eager lips and poured the contents down his throat. ‘I think...’ he rattled the empty tumbler on the countertop. ‘I think I could possibly dig out an address for you.’
CHAPTER 45
‘It seems like only yesterday.’ Bob Coulsfield knelt in his back garden, weeding a rose bed. I leaned against a dilapidated bird table watching him. He ran the back of a hand across his forehead, leaving streaks of dirt across his wrinkly brow. ‘You were just a boy back then. Dodging about Parliament House, always running late and looking for counsel to instruct on some last-minute job.’ The cigarette adhered to Bob’s bottom lip, waggled up and down as he spoke. Although he’d lived in Scotland for many years, he was originally from Newcastle and his Geordie accent remained intact.
He paused to stuff a handful of weeds into a black bin liner. ‘The judge was late that morning. Must have been nearly ten when he got in, which wasn’t like him at all. I had a cup of tea ready and usually we’d talk football first thing on a Monday. He was a great man for the Jam Tarts and seeing as how they’d lost the Edinburgh derby at the weekend, I wasn’t expecting him to be in a right good mood but he were as grumpy as Old Nick and started firing questions at me all about the trial that was due to start that morning. I didn’t know what to say. In all my years as his macer we’d never discussed a case.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Only what I knew: that it was fraud or something and that the advocate-depute reckoned it would go on for at least six weeks.’ He dug into the soil, severing the roots of a particularly stubborn dandelion with the blade of his trowel. ‘I used to hate those white collar crimes, dead boring. Always hundreds of paper productions to lay out. Used to take me ages. Give me a rape or a robbery any day.’
It had started to spit. Bob looked up to the darkening heavens from which he deduced he had a minute or two weeding left before it came on heavy.
‘Go, on,’ I encouraged him.
‘Hewitt wanted to know more, so I was sent out to speak to the Clerk, Jock Morrison it was, remember him? Mind the way his long hair used to poke out from under his wig? I think he was a veggie an’ all. Anyway, he tells me it’s tax evasion. I asked him if there was a lot of money involved and he comes back with, ‘best part of a CRUISE missile’; just the sort of sarky remark you’d expect from a lefty like him.’ Bob was in full flow, punctuating his sentences with stabs of his trowel. ‘Anyway, his lordship empanels the jury and then discovers he’s left his pen in chambers. He looks at me like it’s my fault and sends me off to get it. I mean, I’ve a bloody four-foot solid silver mace to carry, you’d think he could manage a four-inch gold fountain pen.’
Bob stood up. He tied a knot in the black bin bag and put it on a pile of similar bags at the side of his hut. Touching the cigarette in his mouth with his hand for the first time since we’d started our conversation, he threw it down and ground the butt into the earth with the heel of his boot. ‘Come away in,’ he said. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
Bob lived alone in a house to the south of Falkirk, not far from the monument to the second Battle of Falkirk where in 1746 the Jacobites scored a victory over the royal troops of King George II. Through the kitchen window there was a fine view down the valley, across the smoking stacks of Grangemouth and over the Firth of Forth to the Kingdom of Fife.
He took off his gardening jacket, hung it on a nail on the back door, went to the big white sink and rubbed a large green bar of soap in his dirt-blackened fingers. After carefully washing and drying his hands he went over and filled the kettle. It was a museum piece, huge, with a flame-blackened base. It even had a whistle. He put it on the hob and lit the gas. He seemed to do everything in slow motion as though he’d got all day to do it, which he probably had. It came to me that he might be making the most of my visit. I didn’t suppose many folk came to see him. I sat down at the kitchen table.
‘You were saying?’ I asked, wishing the old man had a fast forward button. ‘About Lord Hewitt?’
‘Oh aye, well, I assumed his pen would be lying next to his newspaper - he liked the crossword - but it wasn’t there. He’d been in such a black mood that morning he hadn’t even opened the Scotsman. I didn’t want to go back without it. I looked everywhere, even in his briefcase. Eventually, I found it in the top drawer of his desk. That’s when I saw a big brown envelope and a folder inside. I could see it contained photographs – well I could after I’d had a look inside, like – and right away I knew what was going on. I also knew that Jim Hewitt would never let himself be blackmailed.’
From my briefcase I took the blue folder containing the photos and laid them out on the table.
‘Look anything like this?’
‘Aye,’ said Bob. He lifted the flap and removed one or two of the photos, holding them at arm’s length and squinting. ‘Disgusting.’ He laid them down again, reached into one of the kitchen units and brought out a pair of mugs. ‘Would have been a bloody scandal if word of them had got out.’
‘But word didn’t get out.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, it never did.’
Bob took a large brown teapot down from a shelf.
‘Never mind the tea,’ I said. ‘I want to know what happened.’
Bob sighed. ‘Well, the judge always took a break mid-morning. He said it was to let the jury have a coffee, but personally I think it was more to do with his bladder. There’s me all set to nick off for a cuppa but Hewitt insists I call everyone into chambers: the Advocate-depute, defence counsel, solicitors… It was standing room only. Once everyone’s gathered he takes the folder from his drawer, doesn’t open it but lays it
down in full view. He asks if anyone knows about an unusual package he has received that morning and, of course, no-one does. ‘Good,’ says Hewitt, ‘then no-one will mind if I hand it over to the proper authorities.’ Next morning he was dead. I never saw those photos again – until now.’
The kettle whistled and Bob rinsed the inside of the teapot with a splash of boiling water.
‘What happened to the trial?’
‘Collapsed.’ He poured us each a mug of tea. ‘That same day, right after lunch. The Crown had spent the morning with one or two formal witnesses, I wasn’t really listening, and then at two o’clock they put in this D.I. He’s hardly got warmed up when the A.D. says, ‘I wonder if you would kindly look at Crown production number fourteen.’ So I goes off to fetch it from the production table but it’s not there. ‘Is there a problem Mr Coulsfield?’ the judge asks. All eyes are on me. What can I say? I tell him production fourteen is missing and he glowers at me over the top of his half-moons. ‘What is production fourteen?’ he asks and the A.D. tells him it’s a search warrant. He’s got the look of a man who’s found shit on his shoe.’ Bob pushed a carton of milk across the table to me. ‘They searched the court room for hours looking for that warrant.’ He laughed. ‘Quite amusing really, a bunch of cops searching for a search warrant. They never found it. Didn’t surprise me, mind. You know what security was like back then. Be the same now, I expect, even with all them rag-heads blowing themselves up and flying planes through windows. There’s always counsel, solicitors, clerks, cops, journalists, court runners, coming and going.’
‘And there was you too.’
Bob snorted in derision. ‘Me? Never. Completely trustworthy me. Fair enough, the productions were my responsibility and the court manager did have a go at me later about keeping vigilant but anyone could have done it if they knew what to look for and were prepared to take a risk. It’s a wonder it doesn’t happen more often.’
I helped myself to sugar. ‘And the photographs? Did you tell the police about them?’
Bob lit another cigarette.
‘No chance. Too many awkward questions. At least the old bastard died with his reputation intact.’
‘He was gay, Bob. He wasn’t a child killer.’
From the look on the old man’s face he didn’t seem to appreciate the difference.
‘Don’t suppose you remember the name of the accused.’ I crossed my fingers.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I remember his name all right.’
‘Care to enlighten me?’
Bob took his mug over to the window and stared out at his garden deep in thought.
‘I left court the back of four on the afternoon of the trial. By half-past I’m waiting for a train to the High Station, when who should come along but the accused. He’s got a few gadgies with him. Rough lot. He walks over to me smiling, friendly like, shakes my hand. Then he gives me an envelope, about an inch thick, and tells me he wants me to go back to the court and fetch that.’ Bob nodded at the blue folder lying on the kitchen table. ‘Now I’m worried. He’s maybe got a friendly face but there are a lot of unfriendly faces with him and they’re all looking at me. I had to tell him there was no way I could do it ‘cause I’d seen Lord Hewitt put the folder in his briefcase before he went home that night. I tried to give him back the envelope but he wouldn’t take it. Put that towards a holiday, he says, or if you feel you want to tell anyone about our conversation you’ll have enough for a really nice coffin.’ Bob flicked the ash off his cigarette into one of the numerous ash trays; most of them were full. ‘That night and the next day I made a few telephone calls, asked some questions about the accused and realised I had a serious choice to make. I chose a fortnight in Majorca.’
‘And the name of the accused?’ I said, repeating my original question. ‘Do you remember it?’
‘McPhee. Killed some bloke a few years later, I heard.’
I sipped at my tea. I couldn’t say I was greatly surprised by Bob Coulsfield’s disclosure but it was progress. I’d come hoping to learn the significance of the photographs and the note and if there was any link to Frankie McPhee. It was clear to me now that Frankie had been behind an attempted blackmailing of Lord Hewitt and, with the judge threatening to go to the police, I could understand why he’d want the photos back.
I joined Bob at the window. The rain had stopped and the dandelions in his rose beds would be sprouting. He’d be off out again soon to get half an hour’s weeding done before sunset. I suppose gardening helped keep his mind off things. He drew hard on his cigarette, coughed and spat blood into the sink. Lung cancer. Inoperable. Maybe he’d still be around in the spring. If not there’d be flowers for his grave.
CHAPTER 46
The King’s Course Gleneagles: a seriously good golf course for seriously wealthy people. My very own wealthy person was waiting for me on the first tee. Gordon Devine was clad in a salmon pink cashmere sweater and a pair of sky blue slacks. The stump of a cigar was clenched firmly between his teeth. It was cold but dry and bright for the time of year and a peaked sun-visor that matched his trousers protected his blinking eyes from the weak winter rays.
It had been quite a while since I’d swung a club in anger but somehow I felt Devine would be nothing to worry about. We agreed to play off scratch.
Devine gestured to the tee. ‘Shall we say five a hole, just to keep it interesting?’
The pro shop at Gleneagles offered free wooden tee pegs, a generous gesture of which I’d taken full advantage, and, placing the best ball I could find on one of the recently acquired pegs, cracked a nice drive that couldn’t have been far short of two hundred yards. Not bad for me. It came to rest just off the fairway in some light rough. I felt good and made a mental note to get out more.
Devine grunted faint approval and flipped his cigar behind him where it lay smouldering on the closely mown grass. After a few stretches he strode onto the tee and stared down the fairway, visualising the line of his drive. His caddie, a wee man with a walnut of a face, put a driver in his outstretched hand. The gleaming new club had to have cost more than all my gear put together. After a couple of practice swishes, Devine tee’d up, heaved the club at the ball and sent it careering off to the right, deep into a sea of gorse. Playing three of the tee, his next attempt found an even more impenetrable patch of rough. He stooped, picked up his cigar and took a puff, blinking furiously.
‘Your hole,’ he said, pointing the way to the next tee with the handle of his driver.
As we walked on, it was hard keeping my mind on golf and off Bob Coulsfield’s revelation about Frankie and Lord Hewitt and how it all might relate to Max’s murder. Even although I was no longer instructed by Sean Kelly, in a way, knowing what I did, I felt responsible for his defence. I couldn’t help thinking that by refusing to tell me where the blackmail package was, and now by my dismissal, he was trying to protect me – but from whom?
My second drive was almost as good as my first. Devine stepped up and nobbed his blow fifty yards straight left into the undergrowth. He hurled the driver to the ground.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me today,’ he complained. ‘I don’t normally play this badly.’
The caddie picked up the club and he muttered in my ear as he went off in search of Devine’s golf ball, ‘he has played before then?’
While Devine was swinging like an axe-murderer, I couldn’t believe how well I was playing. It should have been a battle of the hackers but I was striking the ball like a dream and was six up after six. I lost the seventh, after my playing partner fluked a chip in from the rough, and the eighth when my wayward drive found a bunker with a side like the north face of the Eiger. The ninth was halved so at the turn I was four up and despite minor signs of a deterioration in my game, the ease with which I was winning was such that I thought I might have to deliberately misread a few putts on the back nine, just to be sociable.
As we made our way to the tenth I unwrapped my half-time chocolate bar as Devine chec
ked the scorecard.
‘If I’d known you were this good I’d have asked for some strokes – or bet less money,’ he laughed.
Somehow I didn’t think four holes at a fiver a hole was going to trouble a man who must have lost more than that in golf balls so far.
‘Two grand,’ he said. ‘What’s that in Legal Aid terms? Four fixed fee cases?’
The chocolate turned to dust in my mouth. Five hundred a hole?
It was Devine’s honour but he waved me onto the tee: less to do with good manners than the fact he’d produced a banana from somewhere and was now munching away at it.
I sucked chocolate off my fingers. My hands were shaking as I pulled the driver from my bag. Five hundred a hole? The state my finances were in, I’d thought a five spot was a risky enough wager. I bent to tee up the ball and could hardly get it to balance on the peg. I peered into the distance and found a red flag fluttering far off on the horizon. The fairway seemed awfully narrow, the gorse creeping in from either side. I took three deep breaths, steadied myself and swung.
‘Unlucky. First bad one today,’ Devine said, cheerily, as my golf ball scuttled off at an acute angle and buried itself in the long grass.
His caddy sidled up to me as Devine stepped onto the tee. ‘Nae worries, son. This clown couldnae hit a coo’s arse wi’ a banjo.’
Devine wound up his swing and released. There was a horribly satisfying ping as titanium met Titleist and the little white ball rose into the air as though setting off on a mission for NASA. It soared for a mile or two before falling to earth, splitting the fairway. It was the kind of drive Bing Crosby used to sing about.
‘That’s more like it,’ Devine said. ‘Now you’re in for a game.
CHAPTER 47
I drove back down the A9 flushed with success. After eventually winning by three holes I hadn’t felt so bad about buying Gordon Devine dinner, even at Gleneagles prices. We spent the evening eating and talking over his job offer and sometime after the pistachio crusted sea bass with artichoke foam, and shortly before the carpaccio of pineapple, I’d agreed in principle to join Hewitt Kirkwood & Devine as a senior associate with partnership prospects.
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