Good News, Bad News

by WHS McIntyre

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ I said.

  ‘Quentin was quite fond of my product and I used to send him a thank you every so often via Toffee. Before today, I’d not spoken to Quentin in two or three years, but it turns out that Toffee has been continuing the service by dipping into what belongs to me.’

  A sheen of sweat had distilled across Toffee’s forehead, lining each crease like rain in a gutter. There was no colour in his face and I thought he might throw up. I told him to sit down.

  ‘He’s fine standing,’ Stan said. ‘Me and Toffee have had a chat. He’s no longer in my employ. I’ve given him a severance package. Isn’t that right, Toffee?’

  Toffee pulled the hand out of his pocket. What was left of it was wrapped in a cloth that may once have been white but was now soaked in blood.

  ‘Are you threatening me, Stan?’ If he was, he was doing an excellent job of it.

  He strode forward and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Not at all. I like you, Robbie. I like your wee girl. I even like her mad dog. I don’t threaten people I like. I’m asking you as a friend. Keep Quentin Brechin’s name out of whatever you’re doing. Don’t mention his name to anyone. The man’s weak. If people start asking him questions, he might think he should answer them and, if he does, then my name might be mentioned. If that happened . . .’ He lifted his hand off my shoulder and patted my cheek with it. ‘I’m sure you understand.’

  I peered past him to see Toffee, grimacing in pain and cradling his injured hand. I did understand. I understood perfectly.

  49

  Stan Blandy shipped out, cutting me adrift from any chance of using Quentin Brechin’s drug involvement to my advantage and leaving me marooned with Toffee McCowan. The old sailor was finishing the day two deformed fingers short of what he’d started with, but still thinking he’d got off lightly. I gave him money for a taxi to hospital and swore Tina to secrecy about what had happened, explaining that it had all been part of Bouncer’s training to teach him to be a good guard dog.

  Later that Sunday afternoon, Joanna returned home with a bundle of property schedules wrapped in a copy of the Edinburgh Solicitors’ Property Centre newspaper. By the sheer volume of paper it seemed everyone in East/Central Scotland had a house up for sale. She dropped the lot onto the kitchen table.

  ‘There were some bad men here and Bouncer chased them away,’ Tina said, and then skipped out of the door with the dog trotting after her.

  I laughed. ‘Really. That girl. What an imagination. She’s going to make a great fiction writer.’

  ‘Or a defence lawyer,’ Joanna said.

  I tried to give her a kiss, but she repelled my advances. ‘And where were you off to so bright and breezy this morning?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  If anyone wanted to know ways guaranteed to annoy their fiancée, I was thinking of writing a book.

  Joanna stared through dangerously narrowed eyes. ‘You can’t tell me?’

  ‘All I can say is that I had important legal business to attend to.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, you’re a PF. I can’t tell you for professional reasons.’

  ‘Then tell me for unprofessional reasons. That shouldn’t be too difficult for you.’

  I rose above that remark. Joanna moved closer and began to toy with the collar of my shirt. ‘Can’t you even tell me . . . hypothetically?’

  ‘Your attempts to seduce the information out of me won’t work,’ I said.

  She stepped back giving my shirt collar a parting flick. ‘Don’t think I couldn’t have you singing like a choirboy if I wanted to, but, as it happens, I’m going home.’

  ‘Home? This is your home.’

  She lifted the pile of paperwork from the table and waggled it at me. ‘Robbie, my home, our future home, is somewhere in amongst this little lot. And, if you’re not interested in finding it . . .’

  ‘I am. Of course I am. We can go house hunting next weekend.’

  ‘No, I think I’ll go home next weekend, and see if my mum and dad will come with me to view some properties.’

  That sounded like a great idea to me. If house hunting with Joanna was anything like shopping, I’d just be going along to make up the numbers; however, I couldn’t let Joanna think I was trying to duck out of it.

  ‘There’s no need to bother your parents. I’ll go with you next weekend. Today was a one-off. I had some business to settle and now it’s all sorted, so I’m completely free.’

  She put the paperwork down on the table more gently this time and approached me again. She placed her arms around my neck and kissed me. ‘Okay, next weekend it is.’

  My bluff had been called. That was why I never played poker with women.

  ‘I’ve singled out a few houses and most of them have open days Saturday and Sunday. We can make an early start both days and see how many we can fit in,’ she said.

  I laughed. ‘Of course, when I say next weekend, I mean next Saturday.’

  Joanna let me go and stepped back. ‘Last time I checked we had two days at the weekend.’

  ‘But Sunday’s the Scottish Junior Cup Final. You can’t expect—’

  ‘Yes, I can, Robbie. This is our future. It’s more important than some game of football.’

  I laughed. Obviously, she didn’t realise it was the Scottish Junior Cup Final. I thought it would help if I explained, but Joanna was already marching towards the back door. I went to the kitchen window to see her standing outside, arms crossed, staring down to the far end of the garden where Tina was playing with the dog. Two magpies, sorrow and joy, were perched on top of the former hutch, now kennel, Bouncer jumping about, barking up at them. A sun that had been cavorting in a clear blue sky all day, now had a dark cloud threatening to gatecrash the party. A few drops of rain hit the glass. Tina had already changed her clothes once, following her soaking at the Helix Park. I opened the door and called to her to come inside before the rain came on any heavier. She pretended not to hear me. I tried again. No response. I went out and took Joanna’s hand, although it took three attempts. ‘Next Saturday for certain,’ I said. ‘Who knows? We might like the first house we see.’

  Joanna was rubbish at being in the huff. That was one of the things I liked best about her, because I gave her plenty to be huffy about. We walked together down the garden hand in hand. The magpies that had been sitting on the hutch roof, ignoring Bouncer’s yelps and probably wondering when rabbit would be back on the menu, took off in close formation as we approached. The sun gave a farewell performance before bowing out under a curtain of grey, and its last rays caught the birds’ iridescent plumage. Magpies got such a bad press that I’d never stopped to think how beautiful they were.

  ‘If this was a tropical rainforest and not Scotland, they’d be called birds of paradise,’ Joanna said. ‘Makes you wonder why a birdwatcher like Bert Brechin needs to go all the way to Madeira.’

  It wasn’t Brechin’s leaving the country that I minded. It was his coming back again that I objected to. Especially when he returned early and convicted one of my clients of a politically-correct crime that now threatened to ruin her career.

  The first drops of rain started to fall. I grabbed Bouncer and put him inside the kennel. ‘Stay,’ I commanded. He did. For about five seconds and then jumped out again. I pretended to make a grab for Tina. Squealing, she ran off inside. Joanna and I turned and walked after her.

  ‘And look what he came back to find,’ Joanna said. ‘His granddaughter arrested for drug dealing.’

  ‘All because of a search warrant he’d signed personally,’ I said.

  Joanna stopped in her tracks. ‘No way.’

  ‘Very much way. Kaye Mitchell is all over the story like batter on a Mars bar. Puts a nice angle on it, doesn’t it? Sheriff helps convict his own granddaughter. Bound to be picked up by all the dailies.’

  ‘The whole thing has been a disaster,’ Joanna said.

  I agreed. Talk about Mayday, Mayday? It had been
a calamitous first of May for both Antonia Brechin and Heather Somerville.

  It could all have been so different if only Brechin had stayed in Madeira birdwatching and not come back to convict my client or sign that search warrant.

  Sign the search warrant?

  The magpies had circled around. Swooping down they came in to land atop the hutch again.

  ‘They’re amazing creatures, aren’t they?’ Joanna said.

  ‘Yes, they are.’ I planted a firm kiss on her lips. ‘But not as amazing as you.’

  50

  Antonia Brechin shared the upper floor of a subdivided old stone-built house that had ivy climbing the walls and starlings roosting in the eaves. It was situated on Royal Terrace, a five-minute walk to Linlithgow train station, from where a further twenty minutes would take you into the centre of Edinburgh. There were people living in Edinburgh who couldn’t get to the centre of Edinburgh that quickly.

  This was the best day of the summer so far, which, since we were in Scotland, wasn’t saying much; however, the three young women were taking full advantage, catching the late afternoon rays of a sun that had risen early and wouldn’t be thinking of setting for another five hours or so.

  I’d wanted to come earlier, but it was Monday, usually my busiest day in court, and I did still have a business to run.

  ‘You’ll have to leave.’ Freya Linkwood reached for her iPhone. ‘Andy said I was to call him if you came anywhere near me.’

  ‘There’s no need to phone anyone. I only want a quick word with Antonia and then I’ll be gone.’

  ‘Go away, Antonia doesn’t want to speak to you.’ I’d never paid much attention to Gail Paton’s client before. Gail had made very sure of that. I couldn’t even remember her name, although it was right there on the indictment next to Antonia’s. She was a small woman, her hair, black and sort of frizzy, was pulled tightly and tied in bunches high on each side, dropping down to her shoulders. She wore a lot of make-up for a sunbather and was making the most of her small breasts, which were pushed up and squashed inside a tight-fitting, low-cut T-shirt, like a couple of pink marshmallows in a vice. ‘If you don’t leave right now we’ll have you done for trespassing.’ She’d obviously been spending too much time reading up on the type of law that paid, and neglecting her studies in crime.

  ‘Not in Scotland, you won’t,’ I said, ‘and since I’m not here to commit a theft or cause damage to property, I think you might struggle to have me arrested.’

  ‘We could say you were causing a breach of the peace and threatening us,’ she said huffily.

  ‘You could,’ I said, ‘but you lot are so bad at sticking to the same story you’d only end up with a charge of wasting the time of the police to add to the supplying cocaine on your indictment.’

  ‘Stop it, now!’ Antonia, halter-neck top, cut-off denims and pink sandals, pulled herself out of a padded sunlounger.

  ‘I’m surprised you’re still hanging out with this pair,’ I said to her, as she flip-flopped her way over to me. ‘Are you not scared they’ll stab you when you turn over to tan your back?’

  Antonia took a firm hold of my elbow. ‘I’ll give you as long as it takes to walk back to your car, and that’s it,’ she said. ‘So, if you’ve got something to say, you’d better make it quick.’

  I stopped walking, removed her hand from my arm and looked at her. ‘Re-instruct me to act for you and I’ll have you acquitted. That quick enough?’

  The other two were on their feet, Freya with a mobile phone to her ear.

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ Crinkly-hair said. ‘Have the case put off tomorrow, lodge a complaint against him and see if the prosecution will lower the charges. That way we can all plead guilty to the same thing.’

  ‘Like we were going to, before you got him involved,’ Freya Linkwood added, just so I knew that their verdict on my incompetence was unanimous.

  I didn’t look at them. I looked at Antonia. ‘You can do that if you like, but I don’t think it will work. Should I have followed your instructions and pled guilty right at the start? Probably. You know what the appeal court will ask? They’ll ask if you knew the difference between guilty and not guilty and that, if you did, why didn’t you say something at the time? You’re a lawyer too, remember? Complain against me and I’ll get into trouble, but you’re the one charged with supplying a Class A drug and so guilty that even your best friends are prepared to testify against you. The appeal court isn’t going to throw a conviction like that out in a hurry.’

  Freya’s face was red to the roots of her flaxen hair, and it wasn’t sunburn. She handed me her phone. I didn’t have to put it anywhere near my head to recognise the voice shouting at me. ‘Robbie, what do you think you are doing? Leave my client and get out of there right now, or—’

  ‘Or what, Andy?’

  ‘Or . . .’

  I pressed the red button and tossed the phone back to Freya. ‘I’m not here to talk to you or your lawyer,’ I said. ‘It’s too late for you. You’ve pled guilty and will just have to take what’s coming.’ I turned to Frizzy-hair. ‘As for you, there’s still time.’

  ‘I’m having nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Then go back to your deckchair and leave us alone.’ I took Antonia’s hand and pulled her into the shadow of the building.

  ‘It’s no good, Robbie,’ she said. ‘Granddad has already spoken to another lawyer. I’m supposed to meet him at court tomorrow. He insists that I say who gave the drugs to me. If I do, he guarantees the prosecution will drop the charge back down to simple possession.’

  Grass on Uncle Ted? That was all I needed. Never mind the distress to Joanna, what if he in turn ratted on his pal, Quentin Brechin? Did Antonia know that her father was on the next rung up the drug-dealing ladder? It was all getting very near to the top where sat the very large, highly vindictive Stan Blandy. Witnesses would lose more than fingers before he went anywhere near prison.

  ‘You’re really going to testify against your boss?’

  She closed her eyes and nodded. ‘How long have you known?’

  ‘Not long,’ I said, ‘and I can understand why you’d want to go down that line, but what if I told you we could leave Ted out of this, and be acquitted, not just of supplying, but of possession too?’

  She laughed disbelievingly. ‘How?’

  ‘I have some very important evidence.’

  ‘What evidence?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t trust you with it. No offence, I don’t trust anyone with it.’

  ‘You don’t trust me, but I’m supposed to trust you?’ She had her grandfather’s knack of raising one eyebrow. It looked better on her. ‘That doesn’t seem fair.’

  ‘I don’t do fair,’ I said. ‘I do what is best for my client and that’s you, if you’ll take me on again as your solicitor.’

  She stepped back into the sunlight. ‘Why should I, after all that’s happened? How do I know this is not just some attempt to get yourself out of trouble?’ The look of contempt on her face reminded me so much, too much, of her grandfather.

  ‘You know what?’ I said. ‘Why don’t you just do what you like? Plead guilty, lose your career, go to prison. Your grandfather does his best to make my life a misery. Why should I care what happens to you?’

  ‘If you hate us all so much, why did you agree to take the case on?’

  ‘Because I asked him to.’ Joanna appeared from the shadows at the side of the big house. ‘I felt sorry for you and thought you needed help.’

  Antonia scuffed the sole of a flip-flop along the ground. ‘Yeah, well, thanks a lot for that.’

  There were tears in the young woman’s eyes when she turned and walked towards her friends. As Antonia approached they reached out to console her.

  Joanna pinched the arm of my shirt and gave it a gentle tug. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

  I didn’t move. ‘Don’t do this,’ I called to Antonia. ‘Give me a
nother chance and I promise everything will be all right.’

  ‘You should really stop making promises you can’t keep,’ Joanna said.

  But I really thought I could keep this one.

  Head bowed, her back to us, Antonia stood with her friends, their arms around one another. I was about to leave, when, suddenly, she straightened, extricated herself from the huddle and strode over to us. She wasn’t crying anymore, the determined expression on her face now less contemptuous and more determined, reminiscent of Sheriff Brechin doing his best not to be persuaded of a reasonable doubt.

  Ignoring me, she turned to Joanna. ‘What do you think? Should I trust Robbie to keep his promise?’

  Joanna looked at Antonia as though she was mad. ‘Trust him? Trust Robbie?’ Then she smiled and placed a hand on the worried young woman’s shoulder. ‘Of course you should trust him.’

  51

  There were a number of First Diets on the court roll that Tuesday morning. Five minutes before the start of court, Antonia Brechin and she of the frizzy-hair were sitting side by side in the public gallery with Gail Paton yet to arrive.

  Earlier, I’d noticed Andy sneak in ungowned to take a back seat. No doubt he’d been sent to keep a watching brief. His own client, Freya Linkwood, would be a witness if the trial went ahead and sentenced once proceedings were over. If she played her part and put the blame on Antonia, she was looking at an admonition, possibly even an absolute discharge, as a thank you from the court for her early plea of guilty and co-operation in convicting her friend.

  ‘A preliminary issue?’ Hugh Ogilvie said, taking the sheet of paper from me. ‘You’ve got to be kidding. You know this should have been intimated three days ago?’

  ‘You’re not going to object to late-lodging are you? You don’t need three days to read three lines.’

  Ogilvie stared at the piece of paper I’d handed him, turning it this way and that as though it were some alien artefact.