Crime Fiction (Best Defence series Book 5)

by William H. S. McIntyre

  ‘Possible but extremely unlikely,’ I said. ‘Which takes us, logically, onto the only other possibility – Cree’s lying.’

  ‘Why would he do that? What possible motive would he have? He doesn’t even know me. Why—’

  ‘Let’s take this step by step,’ I said, talking as much to myself as my client. ‘Unless Cree is a mad attention-seeker, the only reason for lying would be to have you convicted.’

  ‘Why would he want to do that?’ Starrs asked, predicting step two.

  ‘Either because he thinks you are guilty and wants to make sure of the verdict. In which case he could be some kind of vigilante—’

  ‘You mean, maybe he knew Doreen and wants someone done for it?’

  ‘Or someone else has put him up to it.’

  ‘One of Doreen’s friends or relatives, do you think? She’s got brothers. They’ve threatened me before.’

  ‘People wanting revenge for Doreen’s death would want you both convicted. If Cree is fabricating his evidence—’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Then he would do it so as to stitch-up both you and Dominic. Easily done. He would just have to change what he says he over-heard. Don’t you see? If Cree is lying, the logical outcome is he wants you convicted.’

  ‘I get that.’

  ‘Well don’t you get it that if Cree’s evidence is bad news for you, it’s extremely good news for Dominic?’

  ‘But the forensic evidence? Doreen’s body? His car? How can he say he didn’t…’

  I let himself work out the answer to his own question. It didn’t take long.

  ‘No way! Dominic is my friend. He would never do anything to get me in trouble.’ So said the young man who minutes earlier had wished we had sealed the deal for him to testify against his friend.

  ‘But all I was going to do was tell the truth,’ he said when I pointed this out to him.

  ‘It would be nice to think that a criminal trial was a search for the truth,’ I said, ‘but, in actual fact, it’s all about winning, and it seems to me that your friend is intent on not losing.’

  ‘But how would he do it? If Dom was going to get someone to be a false witness it would have to be somebody he knew and really trusted.’

  ‘Or who’s been bribed.’

  ‘What does Clyve Cree look like?’ Starrs asked.

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘You said he can identify me. Maybe I can identify him. I know all of Dominic’s friends. If it’s one of them it would give us something to go on.’

  I had to admit that I had not set eyes on the new witness. I referred again to the precognition my dad had taken. ‘Thirty-eight years old. Do you know any of Dominic’s pals that are that old? According to my... to my precognition officer, he’s a great big bloke. Ring any bells?’

  Starrs shook his head. ‘It’s a stupid idea. How could Dominic set something like that up? Firstly, he’s in prison and, secondly, even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have the first idea how to go about bribing somebody.’

  A good enough point to make, I thought - were it not for the fact that, firstly, Dominic’s dad wasn’t in prison, and, secondly, Al Quirk would know precisely how to go about fixing the odds.

  Chapter 29

  Next day, I had Grace-Mary dig out the old file for Dominic Quirk’s RTA case. She brought it through to my room before she left for the evening. It was three inches thick, tied up neatly with red tape. The book of photos which had been a Crown production was in an A5 envelope, sealed with sticky-tape and stapled to the inside cover. My secretary didn’t want anyone accidentally stumbling across graphic reminders of the accident in which a young woman had died.

  I turned to the back of the file and recovered the brief, sewn with pink thread. It contained all the statements and documentary productions. What I was looking for was the actual indictment. I found it and turned to the attached list of witnesses. There she was; witness number 5: Sophie Pratt. I remembered her statement to the police. It had been a horribly wet night. While she’d been standing at the crossroads at Linlithgow Bridge, waiting for the green man, she’d noticed what she’d described as a big white jeep bombing along Main Street. The traffic lights changed to amber then red. The oncoming vehicle showed no sign of stopping. It was at this point that Sophie had noticed the family hatchback pulling out of Mill Road, indicating right. Realising the inevitable, unable to do anything but scream, Sophie watched as over two and a half metric tonnes of SUV slammed into the six year old Renault Clio side-on.

  Before Sophie was called to the witness box at Dominic’s trial, the Crown had set the scene with some forensic evidence. Because of the rain and the wet road, there had been a lack of skid marks making it difficult to calculate the speed of the Range Rover. Expert witnesses were instructed by each side and there was much talk of impact zones, velocity vectors and friction coefficients. A lot of what was said must have sailed over the heads of the jurors, who just wanted to know how fast Quirk had been travelling. The prosecution expert was a police sergeant from the Traffic Headquarters who had been sent on some courses. By his calculations, the Range Rover had been travelling at over fifty miles per hour in the prevailing thirty mile per hour speed limit. The expert Al Quirk had stumped-up for entered the witness box in a sharp suit and sharper hair-do. She had run several computer reconstructions and confidently assessed that there was simply insufficient data to arrive at any assessment of speed on which to accurately rely. When cross-examined why there could possibly be such a disparity in opinion, she suggested that the Crown’s expert might want to take a refresher course with reference to a new Department of Transport sponsored report containing all the latest scientific findings on the subject. She’d be happy to provide the Crown expert with a copy; she’d written it.

  And then into the witness box came Sophie Pratt, chief witness for the Crown, an extremely nervous twenty-four year-old woman, whose child was being looked after by the court’s witness support team. She held up her right hand, took the oath and rambled her way through a version of events that did not remotely compare with either the statement she’d given to the police or the precognition she’d provided to me. Try as he might, the Procurator Fiscal could not get Sophie back on message. She said she’d been distracted at the time of the accident. The baby was in a right mood, chucking toys around. Yes, she’d told the police the lights were at red, but she couldn’t say for definite. Maybe the wee car had pulled out too early, and, as for the speed of the big white jeep, well... it was difficult to say.

  I hadn’t even cross-examined for fear her evidence might start swinging back the other way. I’d seen that happen too often and, besides, it made for an excellent jury point that the defence had not even required to question the evidence of the Crown’s only eye witness.

  Why had she changed her story? Did the spotlight of the witness box concentrate her mind? Or was there another reason for her change of tack? I jotted down Sophie Pratt’s address on a yellow-sticky and decided to visit her later that evening. A single mum she was bound to be in, feeding the kid, bathing the kid, reading it bedtimes stories or having it defragment her computer hard-drive.

  She was doing none of these things.

  ‘Gone to Thursday bingo, mate,’ said the man who answered the door, shorts, sweat-stained T-shirt, can of lager in hand. I recognised him from court. Not one of my clients, but a regular.

  ‘When will she be back?’ I asked.

  He slurped some lager out of the top of the tin and laughed. ‘Soon, knowing her luck.’ He peered closer at me, as though having difficulty recognising me dressed in jeans and shirt as opposed to my usual working garb: suit, tie and black gown. It was the sort of stare I was sure Clark Kent got a lot. ‘You’re that lawyer, eh? Soph in trouble?’ he slurred, before I could confirm his previous question.

  ‘Not at all. I just wanted to speak to her about a case she was a witness in. I’ll come back tomorrow.’

  ‘So what case is that then?’ The
man was joined at the door, first by a wicked smell and then by a toddler dressed in a grubby white vest and a disposable nappy that had turned an ugly yellow colour and was practically dragging along the floor.

  ‘I’ll go. You’ve got your hands full,’ I said.

  ‘S’all right. You can tell me. What are you wanting her for?’

  ‘I need to speak to her in private. I’ll come back later.’ I waggled my fingers at the child’s sticky wee face and made to turn and leave.

  ‘Is that bitch trying to get rid of me? She trying to get an injunction or something?’

  ‘That’s not why I’m here,’ I said. ‘And it’s not called an injunction in Scotland, it would be an interdict she’d be looking for. But she isn’t. At least not through me.’ I stuck solely to crime; civil law, and family work in particular, being far too murky a world.

  He took a slurp from the can. ‘I hardly touched her. It was just a shove. It was her who hit me first. My lawyer said the case would get booted out.’

  It had been a long day in court followed by appointments at the office. Afterwards, I’d gone home to find my fridge had gone Old Mother Hubbard on me and the joys of a supermarket trip awaited me once I’d met with the bingo kid. There were happier bunnies. ‘Listen to me,’ I said. ‘I’m not here about you. I’m here to see Sophie about something that has absolutely nothing to do with you. Tell her...’

  I noticed that Mr Sweaty-T-shirt had managed to shake off the child and was now coming down the two steps from the front door, with a less than welcoming look on his face. I backed away. He tossed the half-full can of lager into a pile of weeds that festooned the dilapidated wooden fence running alongside the gable end of the property. Not a good sign; he didn’t seem to me the sort of person who threw alcohol anywhere other than down his throat.

  ‘What you really here for, ya bastard?’ he shouted.

  I’d already explained the purpose of my visit as best I could and didn’t see the merit in further discussion. I showed him my back, started down the path of broken concrete slabs and was almost on the pavement when I heard rapid footsteps and heavy-breathing. A hand clawed at my face, a finger dug into my left eye. Diplomatic ties now severed, I dipped a shoulder, spun around and landed a punch to the angle of my attacker’s jaw. The blow really hurt my hand. It didn’t do the babysitter’s face much good either. He staggered sideways off the path and tripped over an upturned yellow tricycle that was rusting on a patch of unkempt grass, a single stabiliser reaching for the sky. He didn’t get up.

  Smelly-child sat down on the top step and started to pick at one of the tabs securing its nappy. The kid was an ecological disaster waiting to happen. I went over to Sweaty-T-shirt and gave him a nudge with the toe of my shoe. He groaned, but other than that showed no signs of immediate recovery. I went down the row of terraced houses, knocking on doors as I went until I found an elderly woman who looked like she might know her way around a nappy. I pointed her in the right direction and then did the only thing I could. I found the discarded can of lager, wrapped Sweaty-T-shirt’s hand around it and called the emergency social work team. I had a feeling Sophie Pratt would be getting her interdict, whether she wanted it or not.

  Chapter 30

  The phone was ringing when I got home after work on Friday evening.

  It was Jill. The good news was that she was back in Scotland. The bad news was that she had brought Felicity with her. The amalgamation of Zanetti Biotechnics and the other mob, whose name I’d forgotten, was proceeding apace and the company’s development on the outskirts of Edinburgh was set to open with a ceremony in a week or so’s time followed by a grand charity ball in the evening. Jill and Felicity had been sent north to make the final arrangements.

  ‘You’re always working. I never seem to get to see you these days,’ I complained.

  ‘Why don’t you come through and we’ll go for a drink?’

  It was nearly eight o’clock, I hadn’t eaten, my left eye was sore from my brief encounter with Sophie Pratt’s child-minder the night before and I had some papers to look at for court on Monday, not to mention preparations for Mark Starrs’ continued preliminary hearing on Tuesday. I didn’t care. I hadn’t seen Jill for the best part of a fortnight. I caught the next train and was there before nine. Felicity had booked into a hotel on the Royal Mile and I met them in the basement bar.

  ‘We’re having French Martinis,’ Jill announced as I approached. Usually, Jill could never make up her mind what to drink and almost always plumped for a glass of white wine. ‘This is my third. They kind of grow on you don’t they? I don’t know what put the idea into my head.’

  If Jill saw any change in my facial expression she didn’t mention it, because Felicity had noticed something else.

  ‘Robbie, whatever happened to your eye?’

  Jill looked at me over the top of her martini glass.

  ‘Accident in the garden,’ I said. ‘Same again?’ I went over to the bar and when I returned with another round of cocktails, a bottle of Czech beer and a wooden bowl of nibbles, the conversation had moved onto the guest list for the upcoming junket.

  ‘Your invite is in the post, of course, Robbie,’ Felicity said. ‘These sort of shin-digs needs a little livening-up. Some bare-knuckle boxing might be just the thing.’ She raised her martini glass to me in a toast and I reciprocated with my bottle. Maybe she wasn’t so bad. At least after a few cocktails.

  Meanwhile, my fiancée was failing to see the funny side.

  Felicity noticed. ‘Seriously, Robbie, you’re most welcome,’ she said. ‘Jill’s been a real brick. We could never have got this far so soon without your better half. She’s quite the little taskmaster when she gets started. Not one to let an obstacle get in her way.’

  ‘How’s Rupert doing?’ I asked, a fraction of a second before Jill’s heel crunched the top of my foot.

  Felicity frowned, tanned wrinkles deepening. ‘Seen neither hide nor hair. One minute his Merc is mowing me down and it’s the theatre and champers all round, the next he won’t return my calls.’ She tutted. ‘Men.’

  ‘That’s a shame. I’ve been trying to track him down myself,’ I said, dragging my injured foot away to safety. ‘We had a business deal and—’

  ‘You did not,’ Jill said.

  ‘How do you know we didn’t?’ I asked.

  ‘Why would someone like Rupert want to do business—’

  ‘With someone like me?’

  Jill backed off and took a sip of her cocktail. ‘What I mean is—’

  ‘I know what you mean and—’

  ‘If you don’t mind...’ Felicity stood. ‘It’s been a long day and we’ve an early start.’ She came around the table, gave Jill an arm’s length hug and patted me gingerly on the shoulder, as though I might be contagious. ‘Night all.’

  ‘That was your fault,’ Jill said, after her boss had drifted away.

  I didn’t want to start an argument and, anyway, if I had been responsible for Felicity’s early departure, I was glad.

  Jill was only getting started. ‘Oh, and the fresh black-eye was a nice touch.’

  ‘It’s not a black-eye. It’s a graze. Quite sore, though.’

  Jill feigned a sympathetic face. ‘Gardening - it’s a dangerous business.’ Her expression swiftly changed. ‘Especially when you don’t have a garden.’

  I took a slug of beer and smacked my lips. ‘Miniatures,’ I said, trying to lead us onto the well-worn path of wedding arrangements. ‘My dad said I was to ask you about miniatures.’

  ‘Miniature whats?’

  I explained about my dad’s idea in relation to wedding favours.

  Jill sighed, took a gulp of her cocktail.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘The wedding,’ she said. ‘I’ve had so much on my mind with the Zanetti/Lyon amalgamation and now I’ve been put in charge of organising this opening ceremony. After that, goodness knows what else will come up. When am I supposed to have time to arrange a we
dding? And then there will have to be a honeymoon and—’

  ‘Let’s not have one,’ I said. ‘Let’s save ourselves twenty grand, nip along to the registrar’s and we can go off on a holiday when things are less busy for you.’

  ‘Oh, I see. So what do I tell my mum? Don’t bother buying a hat, me and Robbie are jumping the broomstick?’ Jill wasn’t letting up, face flushed, eyes flashing. ‘And at the same time I’ll tell my Canadian relatives: you know that trip to Scotland? Well it’s off, but, hey, never mind we’ll send you a postcard from somewhere hot. Is that it?’

  That did more or less sum up the Robbie Munro ideal wedding. ‘You’re the one who’s too busy to plan a wedding,’ I said. ‘Why not tell your Canadian cousins, who have never bothered to visit you ever, that if they’d like an all-expenses-paid trip to Scotland, they should enter a competition?’

  ‘Everything’s always about money with you isn’t it?’ Jill said.

  It was the sort of thing people who had money said to those who hadn’t.

  The waiter came over to our table, putting hostilities on hold. He asked if we wanted anything else to drink. According to Jill, we didn’t. She knocked back her pink cocktail and set the glass down on the waiter’s tray. The waiter handed me the bill. Jill snatched it away, took out a pen, wrote a room number and signed.

  ‘Staying here tonight?’ I said, once the waiter had wandered away. ‘Zanetti paying?’

  Jill had calmed down. She smiled at me, her lips not troubling her eyes. I’d seen the signs before. I was in deep doo-doo. I’d fallen into some kind of trap. To paraphrase a line from the movies: I was dead - I just didn’t know it yet.

  ‘Yes, the accounts department will be wondering why there are so many French Martinis on my expenses sheet this month.’

  I still had half a bottle of beer left. I drank it. I had a horrible feeling where this conversation was headed, but it would have been unwise to give away anything at that stage.