The more I thought about the move, the more it seemed like the answer to my problems. True, I’d no longer be my own boss, and I’d have to churn out the billable hours, but I’d be working on high profile cases with properly funded defences and have a steady income. My first salary cheque might even arrive before the man from VISA with his scissors.
That said, my feelings about going to work with Devine were mixed. He was opinionated, greedy, vain and professionally unethical, which was fine by me. The problem was, I knew there was no way he’d let Andy tag along. Grace-Mary, yes; experienced criminal law secretaries were worth their weight in legal aid certificates, not so inexperienced Stirling Uni law graduates. I only hoped that where one door closed, another would open for the boy - and that it wasn’t the door to a Local Authority job or, heaven forbid, the Public Defence Solicitor’s Office.
We left things on the basis that Devine would take the news to his partners for their consent; a formality he assured me; and all going well we’d get together later in the week and hammer out the fine detail.
As I neared home my feelings of exhilaration after playing the King’s and eating a meal fit for one, began to wane at the thought of another restless night. I kept my eyes fixed on the white lines and centre studs as the car sped on down the dark road, my mind racing along with it.
What was I going to do about Max’s murderer? Would Sean agree to Gordon Devine taking up his defence? I recalled Devine’s story about the attorney’s stone and how important it was to know the history of any situation before embarking on a course of action. If Max’s death was linked to Chic Kelly’s blackmail package then I felt pretty sure I now knew most of the history to that.
Many years ago, Frankie McPhee had tried to blackmail the Lord Justice Clerk. When Lord Hewitt threatened to go to the authorities, Frankie needed to act quickly to retrieve the blackmail material. Not so much the photos, I was sure, unless his fingerprints were on them, but the note; it was handwritten – how stupid was that?
To break into the judge’s home Frankie would have needed expert help and who better than his old pal, Chic Kelly? But, according to Chic, he’d been unavailable. Obviously, Frankie had tried to do it himself, been rumbled and ended up killing the judge. Chic’s attempts to clear up the mess by disposing of the murder weapon, had only made things worse and ended up with him being convicted of the murder. Then, after years in jail and with not long to live, he’d looked to cash in on the reward by revealing the true killer’s identity.
The history was clear in my mind. What about the present? Other than the part where Sean Kelly made an appointment to see Max, everything else was extremely hazy.
Back home again I was heating milk in the microwave and listening to the re-assuring stutter of the espresso machine, when there was a loud clatter as my dad came in the back door, tripped over my golf bag and nearly gave me a heart attack.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘I’ll be pushing up daisies if you keep laying traps for me. I nearly set my neck there.’ He stood the bag up, leaned it against a chair and sat down at the table. He was quick to eyeball the cheque that was lying in the fruit bowl.
‘My golf winnings,’ I said.
‘Turned pro have you?’ He picked the cheque up and whistled. ‘Fifteen hundred? That’ll come in handy.
I shoved a mug of coffee at him. He ignored it and studied the cheque that had been signed with a flourish of Devine’s Michel Perchin fountain pen. ‘That’s some signature. Pity it’s illegible. Who’d you hustle?’
‘Gordon Devine.’
‘Don’t say. What were you playing golf with that flannel merchant for? He’s a bigger crook than most of his clients.’ He looked at the cheque again. ‘What’s he like at golf? Any good?’
‘Evidently not,’ I said, retrieving the cheque, ‘but he can afford to be bad.’ I folded the cheque and placed it back in the fruit bowl beside a hand of squishy bananas and a couple of shrivelled-up tangerines.
My dad decided it was too late for coffee and started raking in the cupboard under the sink until he found what he was looking for. He brought forth a bottle and gave the pale liquid inside a little swirl. ‘Rosebank? Nice. A wee bit girly for me but if you’ve nothing from the sacred isle—’
I relieved him of the bottle and replaced it under the sink. ‘They make whisky other places than Islay. Now leave my booze alone and tell me why you’re here. It’s way past your bed-time.’
‘If you’re going to be like that...’
‘Out with it. And if you’ve come to rant on about Frankie McPhee, you needn’t bother.’
‘Seen through him have you?’
‘Like a double-glazed window.’
‘Good because if I get the chance to nail that bas—’
‘I know how you feel about him, thanks.’
‘And anyone who sides with him.’
‘Flies with the crows, you mean?’ I felt we’d had this conversation already.
‘Exactly.’
‘You’ve retired,’ I reminded him.
‘Once a cop—’
‘Dad, why are you here?’
‘I’ve something to tell you. ‘He rubbed his throat, a painful expression on his face. ‘I think you’ll want to hear it,’ he croaked, pathetically.
I fetched the bottle of Lowland malt and poured us each a small measure. He took a sip, smacked his lips and cleared his throat noisily as though his vocal chords were now sufficiently lubricated for him to pass on the important news he’d come to deliver. ‘The dead hairdresser—’
‘Jacqui Dillon?’
My dad nodded gravely. ‘The gun... the one that killed her. There’s nothing certain yet…’
‘It was the same one that killed Max, wasn’t it?’
‘They’re pretty sure.’ My dad sighed. ‘Look, this is all still hush-hush. The details haven’t been officially released.’
‘So how come you’re in the know?’
He finished his drink and helped himself to another. ‘I was talking to Dougie Fleming. Good man, known him since he was a blue band. Hates you of course.’
‘So maybe he is innocent.’
‘Who?’
‘Sean Kelly – you know my former client – the one who’s on remand for Max’s murder.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Come off it. Max was killed on the Friday night. Sean Kelly was arrested in St Andrews late Saturday. I was at the police station early on the Sunday morning when they were bringing him in.’
‘So?’
‘So, according to Butch—’
‘Who’s he?’
‘The salon manager at Jay Deez. He said that Jacqui was at work until closing time on the Friday Max died. So Sean would have had to have shot Max and then shot Jacqui within twenty-four hours, otherwise he would have been in police custody at the time of her death. That’s what I call an alibi.’
My dad wasn’t so easily persuaded. ‘Or maybe he killed them at the same time. Maybe she was in his office.’
‘What else has Dougie Fleming been saying?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean did Fleming say something to you about Max and Jacqui?’
‘No. Should he have?’
For a girly whisky, my dad didn’t seem to mind drinking it.
‘You know they don’t make Rosebank anymore,’ I said, pulling the bottle out of his reach after he’d replenished his glass, leaving behind only an inch in the bottom.
‘My dad frowned. ‘Oh, I see. Like that is it? I tell you what I know but you keeping everything to yourself?’
‘It’s not like that?’
‘No? What’s it like then?’
‘Petra Lockhart has this theory about Max and Jacqui being an item.’
My dad laughed. ‘No danger. Not Max.’
That’s what I’d thought until Brendan’s revelation about his night out with Max and the girls and then there was Jacqui’s mobile number on Max’s diar
y print-out.
‘And anyway, if Jacqui was with Max in his office the Kelly boy would have killed her there and then and left her. Why cart her off to the Bathgate Hills?’
In his efforts to protect Max’s honour my dad was inadvertently making a good point for Sean Kelly’s defence. After all, Sean had travelled by bus from St Andrews to Linlithgow. It wouldn’t be easy transporting a corpse by public transport. ‘Then you’ve got to admit, as reasonable doubts go it’s a belter,’ I put to him.
‘Maybe.’ My dad rubbed his moustache contemplatively with a finger. Sean Kelly wasn’t off the hook yet. ‘Unless the wee bastard had an accomplice.’
The gun was in a drawer in my bedroom. If it was found, I knew how it might look.
‘Dad. There’s something I want to show you.’
I left to fetch the bright blue folder. I thought about showing him the gun as well and then remembered the old man’s blood pressure. When I returned, the level of the whisky bottle was even lower. I dropped the folder on the kitchen table. He pulled it towards him. ‘What’s this?’
I opened the folder and laid out the photos. My dad donned his reading glasses and didn’t say anything until he had carefully studied each one.
‘Where’d you get them?’ he asked, replacing the photos inside the folder.
‘Sean Kelly had them stashed in a pigeon loft, or I should say his father, Chic Kelly, did.’
‘Why?’
I removed the note, still in its plastic bag, from the folder. ‘See the numbers on this?’
‘ APF crime reference number isn’t it?’
‘I think it was Lord Hewitt’s last case. These photos were sent to the judge before the trial.’
‘What trial? Wait, don’t tell me – Frankie McPhee?’
‘Correct. And I think we’ll find the note was written by him as well.’
My dad took the note and held it to the light. A familiar look of triumph spread across his face that meant he knew something I didn’t. ‘No, I don’t think we will.’ He set the note down on the table, then reached over, took the cheque from the fruit bowl, unfolded it and laid it alongside. He removed his glasses and sat back in his chair. ‘It was written by his lawyer,’ he said, smugly.
I studied the cheque and the note. The digits written on each were in a similar hand, no, not similar, identical.
Frankie McPhee and Gordon Devine; it was quite a team.
CHAPTER 48
Wednesday morning, I wasn’t far from Sandy’s and breakfast when a car pulled up at the kerb. It was Detective Chief Inspector Lockhart, in civvies and looking as good as ever.
‘Mr Munro, can you spare a moment?’
‘Business or pleasure?’
‘I’m afraid I’m never off duty,’ she said. Sounded ominous. Sounded like me. ‘Know anything about a Vauxhall Corsa, registered to one Arthur Ramsay, now of Queensland, Australia, found rammed into a close entrance in Fountainhall and subject of a number of unpaid fixed penalties and parking tickets?’
‘Clearly, officer,’ I said, ‘you’re mistaking me for someone who doesn’t know of his right to remain silent.’
She smiled thinly and pulled out into a gap in the traffic. We headed west along the High Street. It was only after a mile or so, once we’d crossed Linlithgow Bridge, leaving the Lothians and entering Central Region, that she spoke again.
‘All right, I’m officially no longer in Lothian & Borders jurisdiction. Off the record, tell me - what the hell is going on?’
Her directness surprised me almost as much as her apparent naivety.
‘Please. Do you know how many of my clients are in the jail for speaking to cops, off the record? Your colleague, Dougie Fleming, being responsible for the majority of them.’
From somewhere in the deepest regions of my jacket pocket I felt faint vibrations. I dug out my phone. It was Gordon Devine. I hadn’t expected him to get back to me this quickly. I apologised to Lockhart and took the call. Devine wanted us to meet up at his place in the country the next day to talk terms over lunch. I agreed, wondering if I should take the chance to ask him about his role in Frankie McPhee’s attempted blackmailing of Lord Hewitt. Was it possible to get sacked before actually starting work?
‘Inspector Fleming has his policing methods, I have mine,’ Lockhart said after I’d put my phone away. By this time we had sped on to the Lathallan roundabout and down the hill past the artificial ski slope at Polmont and into Grangemouth. ‘I don’t know how many of your clients he’s verballed. What I do know is that you’ve a client awaiting trial for a murder that he didn’t commit.’
‘What makes you so certain?’
‘Because I interviewed him. I’ve seen enough killers to make me a good judge and my gut says Sean Kelly’s not got it in him. I suppose he could have been involved in some way or other but I’ll guarantee he never pulled the trigger.’
‘Sounds like you’d be an excellent character witness. Any actual evidence to go on?’
‘Have you read the lab reports? There wasn’t a trace of gunshot residue on Kelly - his skin, his hair, his clothes -nothing. These days they can locate and identify a single microscopic particle. The stuff hangs around in the air for hours in enclosed spaces, sometimes days. I wouldn’t be surprised if the cleaner who found Abercrombie, even the cops who attended the scene, were covered in it. You ask me? Sean Kelly wasn’t there when the shots were fired.’
The lack of gunshot residue was definitely one chink in the prosecution armour. There was also the fact that the gun that killed Max was probably the same one that killed Jacqui. I assumed that piece of evidence would be disclosed to the defence at some stage but I didn’t want to mention it in case I landed my dad in trouble for leaking information. A bit of work on both those lines of defence and they might very well evolve into a reasonable doubt.
‘Why don’t you tell the Crown about your concerns?’ I said. With Lorna Wylie as his lawyer, having the Lord Advocate drop the case was definitely Sean Kelly’s best chance.
Lockhart glanced right and left as she slowed for the junction at the foot of the hill. ‘I have and it’s made no difference. The plain fact is that Sean Kelly is the only show in town. Let’s not forget the eye witnesses and the fact that he was in Mr Abercrombie’s diary as his last appointment on the evening in question. Then there’s the forensics indicating he was involved in a violent struggle with Mr Abercrombie shortly before his death.’
‘What about Jacqui Dillon?’ I asked. Lockhart’s source seemed to have been right about her and Max having an affair.
‘She’s a puzzler. I don’t know what to think. You’ll be aware that traces of her blood were found in Mr Abercrombie’s office,’ Lockhart said. ‘Actually, not traces - quite a lot. It looks like she was shot there and her body dumped.’
That more or less answered the point my dad and me had discussed the night before. What other important new information was I missing out on? But why would the killer get rid of Jacqui’s body and not Max’s? Had Irene Abercrombie discovered her husband’s infidelity, shot them both and got rid of her rival to save face? Or had she employed a hitman?
‘Whoever did it would have needed a vehicle,’ I said. ‘As far as I’m aware Sean Kelly came to Linlithgow by bus. He doesn’t drive far less own a car.’
‘No,’ Lockhart said, ‘but Frankie McPhee does, and I understand you’ve been driving around in it lately.’ Lockhart took her eyes off the road and looked at me instead. ‘This discussion between us is unofficial. Now is your chance to tell me anything important you think I should know. My rank allows me to exercise a certain amount of discretion.’
I didn’t reply.
She continued. ‘I don’t believe Sean Kelly killed Max and I think you can help me find out who did.’
I shifted slightly in my seat. Finding the real killer was precisely what I wanted. How much could I tell her? About the attack at my home, the one I’d failed to report? About the gun I’d held onto for the past week and a h
alf? I knew the way so-called informal discussions with the police could go. If I came clean and handed over the gun, it might help catch Max’s killer, but even if it didn’t, there would always be the consolation of nailing a defence agent for being in possession of a firearm. I might even be in the frame for Max’s murder on the basis of fingerprints and DNA on the murder weapon. Whatever Lockhart might say about her discretion, she didn’t decide who to prosecute and possession of a handgun was a zero-tolerance offence. Whether I’d be prosecuted was down to the Crown Office and unfortunately I couldn’t count the Lord Advocate amongst my close personal friends.
‘What do you think I can do?’ I asked. ‘Did you not hear? I don’t act for Sean Kelly anymore. If you want the real killer, you’re going to have to do your job.’
Lockhart made a right turn opposite Grangemouth Stadium, past the enormous BP settlement tanks and in the direction of Bo’ness on the south bank of the Forth. In summer, close your eyes and the aroma of sweet garlic growing wild on the embankment of the Bo’ness & Kinneil Railway line was more reminiscent of Provence than the outskirts of Scotland’s main petrochemical plant.
‘I’m trying to do my job,’ she said. ‘Encouraging witnesses who may have valuable information to come forward is all part of it.’
I couldn’t argue with that, but I tried. ‘What makes you so sure I can help catch Max’s killer?’
‘I believe that Abercrombie’s death is somehow linked to Chic Kelly and I think it’s more than coincidence that the person charged with the murder is Chic Kelly’s son.’
It was so tempting to tell her everything. Could I take the chance? ‘What’s that got to do with me?’ I asked, stalling.
‘I know that you visited Chic Kelly in prison. I also know that Frankie McPhee, a former associate of Kelly, has been seen around your office lately. I’m sure you must know that Mr McPhee is on licence for murder—’
Duty Man (Best Defence series Book 2) Page 18