‘Tried to. He was a big laddie and I think all his life he'd relied on his size to scare everyone else. Not sure if he'd ever actually been in a fight, before.’
‘Before?’
‘Before I kicked him up and down the playground one afternoon. I got into bother for that.’
‘The belt?’
‘Oh, aye, of course the belt, but his parents called the polis. I was summoned to see Sergeant MacKenzie. Everyone knew Sergeant MacKenzie. I think there was just him and one other cop in the town back then. I went down to see him thinking I was getting sent to the borstal. So did your Granny. He made me sweat in a cell for I don't know how long. I was only fourteen. By the time that cell door clanged opened and I saw him standing there in full uniform, I was more or less resigned to a life behind bars.’ My dad levered himself up from the sofa.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked.
‘The toilet, before you go for a shower and spend the rest of the night in there.’
‘But what happened? Sergeant MacKenzie? What did he do?’
‘He gave me a police recruitment leaflet and told me to come back and see him when I left the school. Best advice I ever got.’
The phone rang. It was Jill. ‘Caught you in, have I? Not out and about on important legal business in a champagne bar?’
I could tell by the sound of her voice that she was kidding, sort of, and for the next half hour we had our first proper conversation since Jill had left for the land of the Toblerone, four and a half weeks before. It was great just to hear her voice. I could have talked on, but my dad came and took over. Though I could only hear one side of their conversation, it started off about me and the state of my flat and quickly reached what appeared to be general agreement on my lack of domesticity. From there they covered a range of topics including my dad's pending birthday celebrations.
‘Will you be back for the party, pet...? No, it's a big surprise... The boys are laying it on for me.... Aye, it's top secret... I'm having it at the West Port... Next Friday night... My birthday's not actually until the Saturday...’
And so it went on until discussions led predictably to the acquisition of a bottle of whisky from Duty Free. My dad wasn't fussy, although he had heard good things about the Springbank eighteen year-old, but Jill needn't think she had to go to all that expense just for him, he said, with a highly voluntary, involuntary, grunt of pain, before going on to update her on the condition of her plants and his heroic watering thereof, because I was too busy, and him with his leg in plaster.
I left at that point. When I returned he was dozing on the couch and the credits were rolling. He stirred when I sat down beside him and tried to locate the remote. ‘Big case starts tomorrow, eh? Have you a clean shirt? You’ll probably be on the telly. I don’t want you showing me up on the news in a grubby shirt.’
‘Clean shirt and clean pants too - just in case I'm in an accident.’ I found the remote. It had fallen on the floor and rolled under the sofa. ‘So, whodunit?’ I asked switching over to the news.
‘The wife.’
‘Was she number three then?’
‘I don't know. I missed some of the programme when I was on the phone to Jill. Must have been, though. She did it after all.’
Perfect logic. ‘Not very original,’ I said. ‘The wife being the murderer? Don't need a theory to work that out.’
He extracted the Sunday newspaper from the side of the sofa cushion an announced that he was off to bed.
‘Unless it was supposed to be a double bluff,’ I said.
‘I suppose that could be it.’ He levered himself upright. ‘To make you think it couldn't be her because it was so obvious that the jealous wife would be the killer.’
He said something else. I wasn't listening. He was right. It was obvious. The jealous wife. Kirkslap was married. According to him it was an open marriage. Did Mrs Kirkslap think the same? I'd read volumes of statements. From the woman at the cosmetic counter who'd sold Violet Hepburn her last tube of lipstick, to the scene of crime officer who'd cut holes in the carpet at the lodge to remove the traces of blood, to the traffic cops who'd stationed the mobile speed camera that had caught the accused's car on its late night tour of the Trossachs, and, yet, there was one important person whose views did not appear to have been canvassed. One person whose evidence could have been crucial, depending on whether she wanted the accused convicted or acquitted. Why, when we were on the eve of the trial, had no-one taken a statement from Mrs Larry Kirkslap?
Chapter 42
What was the most effective way to lead a Crown case? An insecure, inexperienced prosecutor usually started right at the beginning, leading every adminicle of potentially incriminatory evidence available. It might seem the safest way to go, but it could also seriously bore a jury and, of course, every witness the Crown called was potentially, under the right cross-examination, the makings of a reasonable doubt for the defence.
Today would be different. Cameron Crowe sat to my right, Joanna on my left, and across the well of Courtroom 3, Edinburgh High Court, sitting beside junior counsel and a solicitor from Crown Office, was Fiona Faye Q.C.
Fiona was neither insecure nor inexperienced. I knew exactly how the prosecution would play the re-run of H.M. Advocate –v- Lawrence Kirkslap. This time around, the trial would last nothing like four weeks. With Fiona it was all rapier, she left the bludgeon to others. The blade was in and the defence bleeding-out before the accused even knew he'd been stabbed.
Fiona believed that the road to a conviction started with the creation of a strong first impression. No tedious formalities. Present the jury with the best stuff first. Get them on your side straight away. Add to that a strong finish and that's all a jury would remember, needed to remember. What happened in the middle only confused them and confusion in a jury could lead to a nasty case of not proven. Fiona would start and finish strongly, while keeping the beginning and the end as close together as possible. I predicted we were in for a whirlwind of a trial. A trial with the evidence whittled to the minimum. No fat, just the solid bones of strong Crown case.
And my prediction that the Crown would hit the jury hard and fast was proved correct. Once his Lordship made great show of well and truly swearing-in the jury, Fiona kicked off the trial with one of juiciest morsels of evidence available: the bloodstains.
First up to bat was a scene of crime officer. Using books of photographs and police video footage that, as uncontroversial evidence, had been agreed in advance, he talked us through the layout of Kirkslap's country lodge and adjacent garage, paying particular attention to blood staining found on the hall carpet and in the boot of Kirkslap's black Audi Q7.
Although there was no cross-examination of this routine evidence, the careful leading of it, together with the empanelling of the jury and reading of the Joint Minute took us, with perfect timing to one o'clock and lunch. The next witness was a forensics expert who spoke to the DNA analysis of the bloodstains and explained that the odds of the blood not being the deceased's were astronomical.
The day ended. Without the defence having fired a shot, Fiona had left the jury with a first, and, no doubt, lasting impression of Violet Hepburn's blood being found in strange and highly incriminating places, for which, as the jury would find out soon enough, the accused had no reasonable explanation.
‘You've got to hand it to her, Miss Faye certainly knows how to capture a jury's attention,’ Joanna said. After a brief consultation with Kirkslap and Cameron Crowe we were walking down the High Street towards Waverley Station. On the way we passed by Royal Mile Whisky's flagship store, a bottle of Springbank 18 year-old in the front window, a reminder of my dad and a surprise birthday party which as yet was a surprise to everyone apart from him.
‘Crowe will get stuck in about the forensic scientist in the morning,’ I said.
‘He can't stop it being Violet's blood. If only Kirkslap could come up with an explanation about why it was there, or why he was out driving late at night, or
why he arranged to meet a woman he had already threatened because she was stalking him. Or why—’
‘And if he did?’ I said. ‘If he did come up with some reasonable explanations for it all. What then? Violet would still be missing, presumed dead.’
‘If Kirkslap didn't do it, somebody else did,’ Joanna said.
‘Brilliant. I knew I'd hired you for a reason.’
Joanna swivelled ninety-degrees, striking me a friendly straight arm to the shoulder with the heel of her hand. ‘I meant somebody else who made it look like it was Kirkslap.’
‘Do you ever watch TV detective shows, Joanna?’
‘Now and again.’
‘My dad's got this theory that it's always the third suspect whodunit. Last night it was the jealous wife.’
‘And?’
‘And, I think we should speak to Mrs Kirkslap. I'm told she wasn't at court today.’
‘And I've been told she's not the slightest wee bit jealous.’
‘Could all be a front. You know what women are like.’
Joanna, wrinkled her eyes. ‘Tell me.’
‘They're devious.’ I remembered the recent blow to my shoulder and took a swift step out of arm's reach. ‘Or they can be. Some of them. Not all and without prejudice to present company,’ I thought it best to add.
‘Really?’ Joanna seemed hugely under-whelmed. ‘Is that the best you can come up with?’
‘What other theories have you got?’ I asked.
‘Just one,’ she said. ‘That our client is a murderer. And not a very good one.’
Chapter 43
Thanks to the prompt end to the court day I was able to return to the office before five where I left Joanna to sign the mail and deal with the collection of yellow-sticky notes, mainly phone-backs, that, in usual fashion, Grace-Mary had left stuck to my computer monitor.
Routine tasks thus delegated, I crunched up the driveway of chez Kirkslap, officially titled Addison House, shortly before six, where I was met by the lady of the manor who showed me through to what I assumed was the library, due to all the shelves with books on them. It's not every house that has one.
Marjorie Kirkslap, née Addison, sat down opposite me on a Chesterfield, the green leather faded and cracked. If I owned the Kirkslap heap, I might have been tempted to keep the books, but throw out the ancient furniture and stick in a snooker table.
‘I don't know how right and proper this is,’ she said, like there was a difference between the two. ‘After all, you're my husband's lawyer—’
‘And I thought you might like to know how the trial is going. I noticed that you didn't make the court today,’ I said.
Actually, it was first time I'd clapped eyes on Mrs Marjorie Kirkslap. She was tall and thin, hair either not yet grey or expertly dyed and cut short. Although she had the merest dab of powder on her cheeks and only a hint of colour on her lips, if I hadn't known she was nearly sixty, I would have guessed her age to be easily ten years younger. She was wearing a shapeless brown woolly jumper with a mustard cravat tied around her neck, tan slacks and, on her feet, a pair of ox-blood brogues. She looked at me, wondering why I was really there, too polite to accuse me of anything. I'd have to be careful. Even if I wasn't there to confront her, in the library with the candlestick, I did hope to glean, by way of stealth cross-examination, anything upon which I might base my jealous wife theory.
She pulled back the sleeve of her pullover and looked at the tiny face of a delicate gold wrist watch and then checked it with a monstrous marble mantel clock above the fireplace. ‘Lovely isn't it,’ she said, mistaking my, how-could-anything-be-so-hideous, look for one of admiration. ‘Edwardian. French movement.’ I adopted an expression which I hoped made me look like I knew what she was talking about.
‘It was a gift,’ she said. ‘From the Queen.’
At least she was engaging in conversation. Not about anything I was interested in, but it was a start.
Further along the mantelpiece was a photograph of a man in some kind of uniform, holding a feathered hat under one arm, a sword in an ornate gold scabbard at his side.
‘My father. That photograph was taken back in the early seventies when Charles Hope took ill.’
This time my face could register only a blank.
‘The Marquess of Linlithgow. He was Lord Lieutenant of West Lothian for twenty or so years. He was unwell for a time and father stepped in for a few official duties. We used to fly the Lion Rampant from the top of the house. It's one of the privileges.’
It was all highly edifying, but not what I'd come to learn. I wanted to know more about the famous open marriage of the Kirkslaps and just how much of a two way street that was.
‘I'm an Addison,’ she said. ‘We've been landowners here for hundreds of years. My father was a Baronet. Did you know?’ I didn't. ‘The Baronetcy was created, or, more likely, purchased, back in the seventeenth century. My older brother holds the title. He lives in Canada now.’ She smiled. ‘It's down to me to stay home and keep the family crest polished.’
She looked set to divulge some other fascinating historical fact when an elderly man appeared in the doorway carrying a galvanised tin bucket. It looked heavy.
‘It's gone six, Marjorie,’ he said. ‘Are you forgetting that important phone call?’
Really? I was getting done over by the important phone call routine? Did she actually expect me to fall for that? She stood. I had the distinct impression that my hostess didn't really care whether I did or not. She was leaving. She'd been stalling all along, feeding me the Addison family history while waiting for this chance to escape.
‘You will excuse me,’ she said, leaving me no choice than to follow her to the library door, and the tin pail carrying old man. She put out a hand. ‘Lovely to meet you. I'm sure you will do your very best for Larry, won't you?’
‘This way, sir,’ said the elderly man, gesturing open-handed down the hall towards the front door.
‘Worked here long?’ I asked, as he led the way to the front door, still carrying his shiny bucket.
He laughed. ‘Oh, I see. You think I'm the butler. No such luck. I'm Gordon - that's Marjorie's Uncle Gordon. If I was the butler at least I'd get paid.’
‘Let me get that.’ I took the bucket from him as he switched it from one hand to the other. It was unexpectedly heavy. I felt a twinge in my greatly improved ankle, still the pain would be worth it. If I couldn't get anything useful from Kirkslap's wife, maybe I could interrogate this old duffer into revealing something interesting. ‘Where to?’
He thought for a moment and then smiled. ‘To feed the duke and duchess.’
I followed him out of the house, across some garden ground and over a dyke to a small track. Set back from it were some sandstone blocks and other materials beside a partially completed structure that looked like it was going to be some kind of outhouse.
I enquired about the building work, but the old man, who wasn't the most talkative, just grunted and marched on, with me following and the bucket of grain, bread and wriggly maggots, growing heavier with every step.
‘You're Larry's new lawyer, then,’ he asked, eventually, as we trudged forever onwards and, usually, upwards. ‘What happened to the last one? Inman or Irving or—?’
‘Imray?’
‘That's the chappie. Where's he this weather?’
Uncle Gordon nimbly jumped a burn. I almost did too, but my heel slipped on the grassy bank, dipping into the water, soaking my sock.
‘You've met Andy, that is, Mr Imray, then?’
‘Yes, he was up here before the first trial. Asking a lot of impertinent questions about Marjorie and Larry.’
I wasn't sure what to say. I'd been hoping to ask a few myself.
The duke and duchess, it turned out, after what must have been a half-mile limp down the track, through a gate, over a stile, over another stile, across a burn and up a hill, were a peacock and peahen, shacked up amidst a small copse of trees. Sweating, breathing hard, my left s
ock squelching gently, I set down the bucket. ‘So, Lawrence and Marjorie... where did it all go wrong?’
Uncle Gordon didn’t reply, just reached into the bucket and threw great handfuls to the birds.
‘Shame when a marriage takes a nose-dive, isn’t it?’ I thought those old boys liked nothing better than a chat and a bit of gossip, but Uncle Gordon’s only response was to scatter more feed mixture.
‘How did Marjorie take it? All Larry’s fault, I suppose. Success gone to his head.’
The old man finished scattering and dusted off his hands. With a green, welly-boot he pushed the bucket onto its side and emptied out the rest of the contents onto the grass, amongst which I noticed two building bricks. No wonder the bucket had been so heavy.
‘Know where your car is from here?’ Uncle Gordon asked, sitting down on the trunk of a fallen tree and taking out his pipe.
I confirmed that I could probably locate my vehicle without too much difficulty.
He packed the bowl with tobacco he’d teased out from a well-worn leather pouch.
‘Good,’ he struck a match and gazed out at the rolling West Lothian countryside. ‘You can bugger off back to it then.’
Chapter 44
Car heater on full blast to dry my wet clutch pedal foot, I drove straight from the seat of the Addison family to Glasgow, phoning Andy on the way to tell him that I'd meet him in a pub in the Merchant City we both knew well.
‘What's the emergency?’ he asked. We took our pints and managed to find some elbow room further down the bar.
‘Why didn't you tell me you'd already been to see Marjorie Kirkslap?’ I said. ‘There's nothing in the case files about her, no precognition, no attendance note, nothing.’
‘You've been then?’
‘Yes, I've been. Fat lot of good it did me. I thought I might be on to something there.’
Andy sipped the head of his pint. ‘What happened to your head?’
‘I slipped. Don't change the subject.’
Killer Contract (Best Defence series Book 4) Page 19