Relatively Guilty (Best Defence series Book 1)

by William H. S. McIntyre

  I was in reception putting the day’s case files into my briefcase, Zoë was on the phone and Grace-Mary floating about when Andy arrived. While I’d been off preparing for the French trip I’d left my assistant with a couple of Sheriff Court trials, nothing serious: one an assault, the other a breach of the peace with a resist arrest tagged on. The accused were both long established clients.

  ‘How’d things go on Friday?’ I enquired.

  Andy cleared his throat. ‘Guilty.’

  ‘Which one?’

  My assistant busied himself with some papers on his desk.

  ‘Not both of them?’

  Grace-Mary came over. ‘Did you get the message I left?’

  I ignored her. ‘Please tell me they weren’t jailed.’

  Andy looked up and was about to launch into some mitigation of his performance which would, judging by his results in court lately, probably not have amounted to much.

  Grace-Mary intervened. ‘What did you expect? Andy’s new to the Sheriff Court. He’s got to learn. It’s not like you’ve never got anyone the jail before.’

  ‘But with Sheriff Brechin off on holiday—’

  ‘He’s not. He’s back,’ Zoë said, replacing the receiver.

  ‘What?’ harmonised Grace-Mary, Andy and I.

  ‘Someone left a note saying I was to phone the court first thing and find out which Sheriff had been allocated your trial.’

  ‘That was me,’ Grace-Mary confirmed.

  ‘Well,’ Zoë said, ‘I did. And the clerk told me Sheriff Brechin is back from holiday and doing summary trials tomorrow.’

  My solicitor’s practising certificate flashed before my eyes.

  ‘I thought you said he’d gone to Mull?’ Grace-Mary accused me.

  ‘Arran. And it was Andy who said that.’

  ‘That’s what the clerk told me,’ whined my assistant. ‘Bird-watching. It’s supposed to be his summer holidays. I thought he’d be away for at least two weeks and he’s back after one. I bet he’s come back specially for your trial.’

  ‘That’s that then,’ I said. ‘I’d be as well ripping up my practising certificate right now and save the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal the bother.’

  Andy sat down at his desk and began to rhythmically strike his forehead with the heel of a hand. ‘What are we going to do?’

  Grace-Mary brought him a glass of water.

  Clearly, Zoë was still puzzling over the brevity of Sheriff Brechin’s ornithological excursion. ‘Mull—’

  ‘Arran,’ I snapped at her and then apologised.

  Zoë continued. ‘I’ve been there. It’s quite a small island. I mean there can’t be that many birds on it to watch. Maybe he’s seen them all.’

  ‘Zoë,’ Grace-Mary said. ‘Be quiet and get Dr MacGregor on the phone. Tell him Robbie’s on his way down. She turned to me. ‘If you ask him nicely, Bill MacGregor will write a soul and conscience letter that says you’re not fit for trial tomorrow. Just pretend you’re poorly. Shouldn’t be hard, you’re a man after all. After that you can go home. If anyone calls, Zoë will tell them you’re off sick.’

  Andy leapt to his feet. Grace-Mary grabbed the glass of water he almost spilled in the process. ‘Great idea. That’ll put the trial off for a few months; my traineeship is up at the end of September.’

  ‘I’m not going to see the doctor and I’m not going home,’ I announced. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed I’m in the middle of a murder case.’ I collected my jacket and car keys.

  Grace-Mary barred my way. ‘You’re no use to Isla Galbraith struck off.’

  ‘My trial is tomorrow morning,’ I reminded her. ‘Isla’s preliminary hearing is at noon.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Grace-Mary said, stepping aside. ‘It’s your career.’ She picked up a paper punch and began to make holes in some of the mail, ready for filing. ‘But what about Andy’s?’

  ‘I’ll find him somewhere else to finish his traineeship - if the worst comes to the worst. I’ve not been convicted yet. Let’s not forget the presumption of innocence.’

  ‘Why not?’ mumped Andy. ‘Bert Brechin has.’

  ‘We don’t know for certain if Brechin will be doing my trial. And I’ve got a defence agent - a good one. I didn’t just pick Paul Sharp out of the phone book, you know. It’s not like I’ve hired some dafty from the Public Defender’s Office.’

  ‘And us?’ Grace-Mary enquired further. ‘Me and Zoë? You lose this trial, we lose our jobs.’

  ‘And if Isla Galbraith is convicted she goes to prison for life. Sorry, but I’ve no time to be ill. I’ve got to go see my client.’

  Silence. I walked to the door aware of three pairs of eyes watching me go. I turned. ‘Look, it’s a long drive. I’m not promising anything but maybe I’ll catch something debilitating on the way back.’ And on that note of optimism I set off to see Isla, intent on finding out why she’d allowed herself to be charged with murdering a man who wasn’t dead.

  CHAPTER 52

  Chez Galbraith was a new-build on the outskirts of the village of Drymen, a village twenty miles north of Glasgow and only a couple of miles from the south-east corner of Loch Lomond. It was part of a small private development that was still very much at phase one, with building plots dotted about in various stages of construction; some with newly laid founds, others with brickwork ongoing, scaffolding outside and a cement mixer in the garden. Isla’s house was situated at the top of the estate where a few of the properties were completed and occupied. I parked my car at the kerb next to a mountain of topsoil, and walked up a newly-laid path of slate slabs that had bedding plants neatly set out either side along its length.

  Mrs Clegg was waiting for me at the door. She looked frail and drawn; no wonder with her daughter’s court appearance the next day. ‘Come away in Mr Munro. Isla won’t be a moment,’ she said, letting me into a porch that smelled of emulsion paint and guiding me down an avenue of cardboard boxes that overflowed with crockery, books, ornaments and assorted bric-a-brac. ‘You’ll have to excuse the mess.’ She opened the door to the sitting room: magnolia walls, oatmeal carpeting, brown leather suite. In one corner near the big bay window stood a silver-bezelled flat-screen TV: In another some more cardboard boxes stuffed full of odds and ends waited to be unpacked. ‘Isla and Callum only got the keys the week before…before... as you can see…’ Mrs Clegg looked around the room and then stopped to stare out of the window as though in a daze.

  ‘It’s a great view,’ I said.

  The old woman snapped out of her trance and smiled sadly. ‘Yes. The West Highland Way is practically at the bottom of the garden. I think that’s why Callum was so keen to move here. He was always a boy for the great out-doors.’

  I reclined in an armchair, waiting for my client to make an appearance.

  ‘I don’t know what’s keeping her.’ Mrs Clegg sat down on the sofa and then stood up again. ‘I’ll just go and see where’s she’s got to.’

  ‘I’m here mum.’ Isla Galbraith stood in the doorway. The plain white cotton frock made her slim figure seem thinner than ever. Her hair fell long and lank about her shoulders and what little make-up she usually wore was missing. The silver charm bracelet, I noticed, was back on her wrist.

  Mrs Clegg collected a big ball of pink wool and knitting needles from the arm of the sofa. ‘I’ll leave you two alone.’

  ‘No, Mum,’ Isla said. ‘I’d like you to stay.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ I said. ‘What we have to discuss is highly confidential.’

  Isla gave me a fiercely stubborn look that I hadn’t seen before. ‘No. I want my mum to stay.’

  Mrs Clegg looked mildly surprised and yet pleased. Without a word she sat down on the couch again and was joined there by her daughter.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you today,’ Isla said once we were all settled. ‘Has something happened? Has the Lord Advocate agreed to drop the murder charge?’

  ‘No...’ I had been looking forward to
this moment. Now that it had arrived, and with Mrs Clegg sitting listening in on what should have been a private conversation between me and my client, I wasn’t sure what to say. My French discovery would bring to an end the present proceedings, but that wouldn’t be an end of the matter. There was still an unsolved murder out there. Isla was not yet in the clear.

  The carriage clock on the mantelpiece chimed twice. I decided to come straight to the point. ‘I found Callum. I was speaking to him at the weekend.’

  Mrs Clegg opened her eyes wide at me and gave her head a little shake, presumably trying to attract my attention to what she regarded as an unfortunate slip of the tongue.

  ‘How was he?’ Isla asked after a short pause.

  ‘Alive,’ I said. ‘I take it you’re in contact with him?’

  ‘No. I don’t even know where Callum is. I think it’s best that I don’t.’

  Mrs Clegg put a hand on her daughter’s knee. ‘Fergus, dear,’ she said softly. ‘You don’t know where Fergus is.’

  Isla bowed her head and began to cry. Mrs Clegg threw me an annoyed look as though by my thoughtlessness I had upset her daughter.

  ‘Mrs Clegg,’ I said. ‘Isla knows where Fergus is. He’s lying in a grave under a tombstone marked, Callum Galbraith.’

  Mrs Clegg took several gulps of air and looked as though she might pass out. ‘What are you saying?’ she managed to gasp.

  I felt I’d said enough for the moment.

  Mrs Clegg turned to her daughter and gave her a shake. Then another. Harder. ‘What’s going on?’ Isla said nothing, just continued to cry. Her mother took a deep breath and closed her eyes, mouth quivering. She might have been praying. After a minute or two Mrs Clegg, her emotions once more in check, rose and left the room. Isla continued to sob uncontrollably, something to which I was by now immune. After a short while her mother returned with teapot, three china mugs and a jug of milk rattling on a tray.

  ‘I want to know everything.’ The calm of Mrs Clegg’s voice was betrayed by the unsteady hand she used to pour out three mugs of tea. I took the one that was offered me thinking better than to ask for sugar. Isla, whose flow of tears had not once let up during her mother’s absence from the room, didn’t react when a steaming hot mug was pushed at her. Mrs Clegg’s eyes narrowed, her mouth puckered. She put the mug down on a small side table, squared up to her daughter and then cracked her across the face with the flat of her hand. Isla sat bolt upright, cheeks flushed and streaked.

  ‘You will tell me everything,’ said her mother. ‘Or I will call your father in here right this minute.’

  As threats go, I’d heard worse, but as though on cue the jolly Mr Clegg poked his happy face around the door and came into the room. He was wearing a tweed bunnet, white shirt and corduroy trousers. Judging by the amount of mud on his clothes I gathered he’d been doing a spot of landscaping in the back garden.

  ‘Hello, Mr Munro, lovely day again. Thought I heard the kettle,’ he said cheerily and stared down at his stocking feet. There was a hole in one of his socks. He wiggled a big toe through it and looked around the room as though expecting an equally big laugh. He noticed Isla’s tear-smeared face. His smile disappeared. ‘What’s wrong, dear?’

  Isla turned away. Mrs Clegg went over, licked a finger and wiped a smudge of dirt from her husband’s face. She pecked him on the cheek. ‘Everything’s fine,’ she said, gently ushering him from the room.

  Her husband gone, Mrs Clegg handed the mug of tea to Isla who this time accepted.

  ‘Out with it,’ she said.

  Isla tried to speak but once more burst into a fit of sobs.

  ‘Callum wasn’t killed,’ I said. ‘It was Fergus.’

  Mrs Clegg blinked rapidly, composed herself and said calmly, ‘Is this correct Isla?’

  Her daughter sniffed and nodded.

  ‘And Callum...’ Mrs Clegg’s eyes were fixed on her daughter, ‘where is he?’

  ‘France,’ I said.

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Hiding.’

  Mrs Clegg glowered at her daughter. ‘Isla. Did Callum kill Fergus?’

  Isla dissolved into more floods of tears.

  ‘Don’t answer that,’ I said rather unnecessarily, for Isla was clearly incapable of coherent speech. ‘Mrs Clegg, remember what I told you about discussing the case? What Isla tells me is completely confidential but if she says anything incriminating to you then that’s evidence. You could end up being compelled to testify against your own daughter.’

  ‘Firstly, Mr Munro,’ Mrs Clegg said, primly, ‘I’m not discussing the case – Isla isn’t charged with murdering Fergus, and, secondly, I’m not asking if she killed Fergus but if Callum did.’

  Any flies on the old woman had signed a lease.

  ‘Isla,’ I said. ‘I really think it’s best if I speak to you alone.’

  ‘No,’ Mrs Clegg said.

  ‘No.’ Isla wiped teary eyes on the sleeve of her dress. ‘I want my mum to stay.’

  Clients. The job would be so much easier without them. I couldn’t let Isla admit anything, not even to her mother. The fact that she hadn’t killed her husband didn’t alter the fact that someone had been murdered in the Galbraith bed. There would be another enquiry in which everyone, including Isla’s mother, would be interrogated. The embarrassment my revelations would cause the police would ensure that those detectives still left in a job would be a whole lot more thorough with their investigations the second time around.

  ‘What happened?’ Mrs Clegg demanded.

  It was clear the old woman was not going to let up and I thought it better if I spoke to her since nothing I said could later be attributed to my client. ‘I think what may have happened is… I think Callum may have caught Fergus and Isla...’ I searched for the right words. ‘Breaking the seventh commandment. Again.’

  I expected a shocked reaction. It didn’t come. ‘And so Callum killed him?’ said Mrs Clegg, matter of factly, as though her son-in-law had been found smoking behind the bike shed.

  ‘Possibly. I don’t know for certain and, frankly, don’t care. What I do know is that since Isla’s confession relates entirely to the murder of her husband, it was clearly fabricated and of no evidential value. There will be a new murder enquiry of course, and the Authorities will be starting off with a clean slate. So will we. This time Isla will say nothing to the police and when the Crown takes into account her affair with Fergus—’

  ‘That will all have to come out?’ asked Mrs Clegg.

  ‘I’m afraid so. And with Callum being on the run… well you can put two and two together and so can the Lord Advocate. I doubt very much if Isla will even be prosecuted. Not with murder at any rate. Maybe an attempt to defeat the ends of justice by covering up her husband’s crime.’

  If that ever happened, I’d argue that covering up for a spouse was an implied duty of the wedding oath. Love, honour, obey and not clipe on one’s better-half. To expect otherwise would be a breach of article 8 of the good old ECHR. Worth a try. Whatever happened, the case was going to run and run. My client would be on the front page of every newspaper for weeks and I’d be right there beside her. What had started off as a damage limitation exercise was rapidly evolving into a major marketing coup for Munro & Co.

  ‘What about Callum?’ Mrs Clegg asked.

  ‘Callum?’ I allowed the visions of newspaper headlines and TV interviews to dissipate for a moment. ‘A European arrest warrant will be issued, followed by a man-hunt and I expect he’ll be caught; sooner or later. Bound to be - the amount of publicity this case will attract.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘If he’s convicted of murder: life imprisonment. The same as would have been the case for Isla.’

  Mrs Clegg was having problems coming to grips with this. ‘But if he acted in the heat of the moment…’

  ‘I’m afraid the defence of crime passionnel is no longer with us. Not even as a reason to reduce a murder charge to culpable homicide.’ Another recent ch
ange in the law. Another example of Callum Galbraith’s bad luck.

  ‘The man found his wife in bed with his brother,’ Mrs Clegg snapped. ‘Do you think it’s fair that a good man like Callum Galbraith should go to prison because he reacted to that? Do you think that would be justice?’

  What could I say? I was a criminal defence lawyer. Justice didn’t play a big part in my daily routine. I was interested in results. If justice equated to guilt or innocence then that depended on whether at least eight out of fifteen jurors had a reasonable doubt.

  ‘Well do you?’ asked Mrs Clegg, advancing into territory I’d always found it best to avoid. ‘Is it justice for Callum to be locked-up for life because of one moment of anger – righteous anger - and all because of his lecherous, drunkard of a brother and this harlot?’

  Isla bowed her head. Her mother glared at me. Nothing I had to say on the question of justice was going to help. I didn’t make the laws, I had to work with them, sometimes work around them. The only certain thing about the criminal justice system was that the people who made the rules kept changing their minds. These days, Parliament said it was a crime to smoke in a pub or forget to put on a seat belt. Same with drinking in public. Under the Scottish Government it was a crime to picnic in your local park if you fancied a crisp Chablis with your chicken salad. Religion seemed little better. One day Gays were an abomination, the next they were taking the service. The fact was: times changed, laws changed, morals changed. Justice was a moveable feast; a pie supper wrapped in tabloid newspaper. The only thing that never changed was my duty to do the best for my client. I’d let other people decide if the outcome was justice or not.

  Mrs Clegg leapt at her daughter, seized her wrist, ripped off the silver charm bracelet and hurled it across the room. She looked ready to give Isla another skelp and my client looked set to take it. I intervened, pulling Mrs Clegg away and sitting her down in the armchair I’d vacated.