by Grace Monroe
Over his shoulder I spotted her. She was wearing a black blouse and a frown. As she bore down on us, I felt that I should warn my so-called benefactor but I couldn’t quite find the words. As she entered our space I instinctively stepped back.
‘Father.’
Bunny MacGregor’s word was neither a question nor a greeting. Just a bald statement. I could almost see her father-in-law’s heart miss several beats as he stared straight ahead. My own mouth was dry and my heart raced. I knew that I was not just a bystander in this confrontation–Bunny MacGregor was including me in her silent wrath.
‘Darling, are you sure you’re up to this?’
Lord MacGregor turned, and seamlessly kissed her on both cheeks. I had the suspicion that he was not referring to the reception but to some silent vendetta that raged between them.
‘With your continued collaboration,’ she answered, the same lack of warmth in her voice, ‘I’m sure that I’ll pull through.’
Bunny flicked her fingers, and a waiter jumped to attention. I grabbed a red wine from the silver tray, and as I did so, Joe’s remonstrations came to me. I ignored them–I always tended to.
I expected the red wine to soothe me a bit, but it was cold and cheap, its bittersweet taste lingered with me, my lips twisted with distaste. Lord MacGregor looked quizzically in my direction, presumably wondering if it was the wine or the company that was making me grimace.
I blurted out an excuse.
‘I’ve got a big case on and a glass of wine helps me relax.’ I could have kicked myself.
‘My dear, no one here–least of all me–has forgotten about your case.’
Bunny MacGregor’s eyes burned into me as she spoke, deliberately enunciating every word. I marvelled at the woman’s restraint.
Lord MacGregor produced a racking laugh, shaking like a silver birch in the wind. I put it down to nerves. Some people laugh when they are nervous, don’t they? It’s nature’s way of dispelling the darkness.
As I looked at him, his laughter ceased.
‘No parent should have to bury a child, Brodie.’
As he walked away, I thought of Lord Arbuthnot lying on the gurney. Flaccid. Naked. Dead. It was hard to think of him being someone’s child, but he was. I suppose they all were, although I had never thought of it that way. Looking around the room I wanted to escape. Einstein may have believed in the power of imagination, but my mother did not; she believed I suffered from an overactive one. Tonight may have been the first time she was correct. As I looked around the hallowed library, I thought I saw the dead girls walk in and out the genteel group. Every step they took they demanded justice; either that or they were reminding me that I was next. In my mind’s eye Frank Pearson joined them; thankfully he was not dressed as I had last seen him.
Lord MacGregor returned, dressed for the ‘Red Mass’. Despite no longer holding office, like all others high up in the judicial hierarchy, Lord MacGregor was loathe to give up his costume. Indeed he wouldn’t be the first to be buried in it. He approached me directly. I observed the red judicial robes; the silk cloak was ankle length, the collar and cuffs trimmed with white ermine. A white silk band ran down the front of the robe, and for the first time, I noted the significance of the six red Templar crosses upon them.
The Equilateral Blood Cross of the Knights Templar.
If the Templars were the forerunners of the Masons and the Enlightenment Society, then why did our Scottish judges proudly wear the mark of the Masons?
What had Joe said?
Hidden in plain sight?
I felt the familiar stirring of nightmarish panic. A hot flush ran through my body and I wanted to vomit. Tiny beads of sweat broke out along my upper lip.
‘Are you all right, my dear?’ Lord MacGregor was good at sounding concerned, but he held me whilst stepping back, rightly afraid that I would throw up on his hand-made shoes.
The peculiar taste in my mouth persisted, and as I stumbled, he dragged me from the library out into the cooler air of Parliament Hall. Thankfully, the dead remained where I had last seen them. Silence resounded in the great Parliament Hall, and although my mind was fuzzy, I was uncomfortably aware that I had broken my promise to Joe.
‘Don’t ever leave the group, Brodie. And if anyone tries to get you on your own, that’s the bastard you have to watch out for. Well, one of the bastards anyway,’ he’d said.
I tried to stand, but Parliament Hall swam round me. Clutching onto the carved wooden bench, I tried again. Woozily I moved; with great force of effort and will I placed one foot in front of the other. My senses were heightened with fear–and drugs. Someone had spiked my drink.
Every step I took seemed to announce my escape plan to the world.
I just made it across the Victorian tiled floor and was leaning against a wooden bench staring at the south window that dominates the hall. The stained glass is supposed to represent the inauguration of the Court of Session from the Pope. It depicts a man kneeling in supplication. Those in my profession see it for what it is–the first time a lawyer asked for an additional fee.
I rose and was pushing through the antiquated swing door when it was opened from the other side. Falling, I almost knocked Lord MacGregor over. For a slight man, he was remarkably strong. Carrying me easily, he deposited me in the front seat of a car. I seemed to have lost the power of speech and all control of my limbs. A sense of overwhelming doom came upon me.
I was raised Catholic. Since my mother’s death, bitterness has forced a wedge between God and myself. I always wondered if I would turn to God as I was dying.
Just before I blacked out, I prayed to all the angels and saints just as Mary McLennan had taught me.
Remember oh most gracious Virgin Mary that never was it known for anyone to flee to thy protection or seek thy intercession to be left unaided.
TWENTY-FIVE
‘Whore!’
He shouted at me, beside himself with anger. The purple broken veins in his cheeks, just above his beard, seemed almost luminescent, giving him the look of a mad clown; presumably not the image he was looking for.
‘You looked like a cheap dockside whore last night, Ms McLennan.’
‘And you, of course, only like the expensive ones, Mr Buchanan,’ I replied, trying to ignore the pounding in my head. Roddie Buchanan blanked my comment, but the stiffening of his body showed that the words had registered. Jack Deans was right–Buchanan despised me. He indeed thought I was dirt with a degree–so why had he employed me in the first place?
‘I sent you to that reception last night to make a good impression.’ Throwing his hands in the air, he paced around the room before stopping directly in front of me. Swinging my chair round, he placed his hands on my armrests.
Hissing into my face, he asked: ‘And what did you do?’
He stepped back a little to look at me. Did he expect an answer?
‘Apparently, I did nothing more than swan around looking like a cheap tart–rates must have gone up then, Roddie. Have you any idea how much my shoes alone cost? I can’t imagine you haven’t used the girls’ services for a while–so what other reason could there possibly be for you to not know the difference between quality and trash? Do you get freebies? Sympathy shags?’
I thought I was on pretty safe ground if I stuck to insults–the truth was, the events of yesterday evening were shadowy to me. At that moment I would have been grateful for any information, even from Roddie Buchanan.
His left eyebrow was raised and he made a small clicking sound with his tongue. ‘You’ll go too far one day, Brodie. You’re already the talk of the Steamie.’
‘Makes a change from you then–or are you ticked off that someone else is stealing your thunder?’ I was sick of his holier than thou attitude. ‘The Steamie’ was originally the public wash house where women met to clean their dirty clothes and gossip. ‘The Steamie’ to Roddie and me meant any significant gathering of lawyers, principally those who appeared in court. He still hadn’t told me what
I had done, so I was left imagining what the gossipmongers would be making of something I didn’t even know about yet.
‘Brodie, you vomited on Lord MacGregor’s shoes as he tried to hoist you into the car. My car actually, as his own had returned home not knowing that Lord MacGregor would be pressed into service quite so early in the evening. You were not reticent about leaving…deposits in my vehicle as well as on his Lordship’s shoes.’ Roddie’s face registered disgust, and I knew a story like that didn’t need much embellishment. I made no reply to the charge–he wouldn’t believe me that someone had slipped me a Mickey Finn. I knew now that I had been given Rohypnol. The red wine had disguised its blue colour, and it had reacted even more strongly with the painkillers given to me by Jack Deans that I was still taking. He may not have been the one to slip me the date rape drug, but he had provided the jellies sold to him by a source that had made it all even worse. I remembered a client I once represented who had held up an off-licence because he thought the tablets made him invisible, so the fact that I was having hallucinations was now explained. I hoped that I hadn’t been ranting as well.
I had swallowed more than the prescribed dose just to ensure I could get through the evening. Ingesting Rohypnol, on top of what I had taken, gave me the adverse reaction. It had probably saved me, foiling the killer’s plans. My eyes scanned Roddie–a supercilious smile twisted his face. If that scenario was correct then Roddie had actually helped save my life in a funny way–if his car hadn’t been so readily available, what would have happened to me? I preferred to believe an alternative version–that someone had set out to ruin my reputation, and they had done a damn fine job. I may have been between a rock and a hard place but I didn’t want to be beholden to my senior partner on top of that.
I left without thanking him. Trying not to skulk I set off to make my way to Parliament House. Maybe there I could find something that would identify whoever had tried to drug me.
The windows in Parliament House continued to rattle, restless like me, reacting to the summer storm that was brewing outside. The place was built in the 1630s, and the Parliament of Scotland met there before the union with England in 1707. It felt old, and weary. I sympathised, before coming up with what I thought was my best idea of the day–I needed to slip Joe’s leash to give me time to think.
I sat in the corridor, trying to occupy my mind. The corridor is in fact a law library built by the Faculty of Advocates to connect Parliament House and the National Library of Scotland. It is a long narrow room, with columns of small desks. Old leather bound books line the walls: not just law books but one of the finest antiquarian collections in the world. First editions of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson were almost common given that they were advocates too.
Although it was August, the Scottish summer demanded that on days like this, great fires were blazing in Parliament Hall, but none of their warmth permeated through to me. I longed for my soul to be warmed.
At one end of the corridor sat Prather’s desk. Prather is in charge of everything, and can procure anything you want. Like an East End market trader, Prather has his sources. Amongst his assets are his workforce, a group of octogenarian men who have no name; they are simply known as Prather’s men. Silver buttoned lackeys, they fetch and carry for us. If anyone wishes to contact me whilst I am in the corridor, they stop at Prather’s desk, and one of Prather’s men will come and tell me.
The corridor was quiet today because the court was on summer vacation, and most of my brethren at the bar had other lives. In light of recent events, I found it difficult to concentrate. The atmosphere in the corridor was draining me. I sought a distraction; scanning the corridor I could see nothing, except fellow advocates who like me had nowhere else to go.
Sunlight shone through the glass at the other end of the corridor; the window emblazoned with the crest of Bloody McKenzie. In the dim and distant past, he was the Lord Justice Clerk; the position that Lord MacGregor had occupied prior to his retirement from the bench. Judges in Scotland are split into divisions and houses. The Lord Justice Clerk is the ‘high heid yin’ of the second division. The judge in charge of the first division is the Lord President. The Lord President is pre-eminent, it must have irked Lord MacGregor that his son had reached a height above his. Way back when hanging was allowed, and Bloody McKenzie was the Lord Justice Clerk, he loved to see them swing. Lord MacGregor’s laughter could be seen in a different light if he was anything like his predecessor, for Bloody McKenzie was particularly fond of hanging children. Justice was seen to be done when he himself died slowly and painfully of inoperable kidney stones. They buried him in Greyfriars churchyard, and the children of Edinburgh sang and danced on his grave.
Bloody McKenzie, Bloody McKenzie
Used to hang the Weans
Bloody McKenzie, Bloody McKenzie
Died in awfy pains
Now there was a lawyer. Not a nice one, if there is such a thing, but at least he was a character.
I felt jaded and weary, my injuries were hurting and work couldn’t hold my attention. I kept having to remind myself that, despite the agency lawyers, I didn’t just have Kailash’s case to deal with. For another client, I was writing an opinion on the validity of a family trust. A son wanted me to find a way for him to sell on the family estates. Albeit that he was a member of one of the oldest, wealthiest families in Scotland, I couldn’t be bothered to find him a source of cash to fund his cocaine habit. Not that I make moral judgements with clients–I just found it all a bit tedious.
The lone piper outside St Giles’ Cathedral was playing the ‘Piper’s Lament’. The skirl of pipes wafted in, the mournful tune matched my mood, and I wondered if he’d witnessed my performance with Lord MacGregor’s shoes. The piper had stamina in abundance; he had played for at least twelve hours yesterday, and there he was back at his pitch.
I could hear the north wind whistling round the windows again, rattling them once more. My nerves were frayed. I tried to switch my attention, and imagine what the wind was doing to the piper’s kilt. His hands were occupied holding and playing the pipes. What if the wind blew his kilt up around his ears? The Japanese tourists would get more than they bargained for and maybe he’d get charged with lewd and libidinous conduct. I berated myself for wasting time on more kilted fantasies before remembering that I had read somewhere that when faced with an untimely death, the sex drive increases.
I looked around at some of my fellow advocates and wondered if perhaps the dead didn’t walk all year round in Parliament House. Down from me, two desks on the right sat Dr Death–a name the man openly acknowledged–with twisted grey skin. Every inch a Nosferatu, I half expected him to be afraid of the sunlight, not that there was much in Scotland even at this time of year. Previously he had frightened me. How long before I ended up like him? Now I just hoped I would be given that opportunity, not have my life taken away before it had hardly begun.
Prather’s man tapped my shoulder. Without speaking, he placed an envelope before me. Disturbance of any sort, and talking in particular, is frowned upon in the corridor. Prather’s man tottered off without waiting for a reply to the message.
Meet me in the Octagonal Room now
If a fellow advocate wanted to speak to me about a case, we would walk up and down Parliament Hall, to avoid being overheard. My unsigned note showed that the author was unaware of the customs of this place–maybe they had recently been called to the bar or were a devil? A devil is a trainee advocate who is under the tutelage of a senior member of the bar. They help prepare cases–they do whatever their devil master orders them to do. But there was another, more obvious option–clearly it could be whoever was after me.
I made my way to the Octagonal Room with the voice of Joe in my ears, despite his absence: ‘Are you stupid, Brodie? What in hell’s name are you doing? No one knows where you’re going, no one really knows what’s been happening.’
Whoever had written this note needed me–I just didn’t know for w
hat purpose. Maybe it was all really straightforward–a devil who had taken a shine to me, or a rookie who needed my help.
‘Your recklessness will be the death of me,’ my mother had often admonished. I hoped that it would not be the death of me.
My deliberation hadn’t taken much more than two minutes. I decided I’d better have a cooling off period. Me on one side, my mother and Glasgow Joe on the other. I always think best when I’m walking, so I went to check my box. When called to the bar, all advocates are given a box outside court nine. As advocates retire or become judges, each advocate’s box moves through the system, hopefully rising to a better position each time. As I approached my box it was open–if you are working your box is always open–and was gratifyingly bulging. The higher the pile in your box, the greater your standing at the bar. Size equals merit. Size definitely matters.
As I tried to concentrate on the work in my box, my body started to rebel–it wanted to feel the wind on its face, or just to experience something other than my thoughts. My feet sprang over the worn, herringbone wooden floor. Before I knew it, I had crossed the empty Parliament Hall, and was heading down the Arbitration Steps.
The steps are so aged that, although they are made of stone, they dip in the middle where people have walked for almost 400 years. The carved oak hand-rail is blackened and smooth from centuries of sweaty hands. Normally, the sense of history overwhelms me as I walk down those steps, but on this occasion, I barely noticed.
In the middle of the Arbitration Steps there is a small rectangular landing; hanging high on the wall is the Culloden flag. Worn to the weave in places, it is the flag the Scots carried at that fateful battle. If it was an omen, I again failed to notice, my eyes were looking downwards through the black wrought iron rails. I skipped past it, and headed on down the next flight of steps.
My heart was racing, although I was not running. Exhilarated to be on the move, and out of the corridor, I felt like a child bunking off school. I was aware of the silly grin on my face, which was not appropriate in these hallowed halls.
