Dark Angels

by Grace Monroe

  ‘You’re tense?’ she said, stating the obvious as she pulled my heavy jacket off in two swift movements, giving me no time to protest.

  ‘You’d be better off with someone else…’ I replied. ‘As an officer of the court I can’t lead evidence that would suggest that you met him by accident.’ It was the first time in my life that I had not fought to keep a client. Even as I spoke, it felt alien to me.

  ‘In life, honesty is a fool’s game,’ she replied. Letting the mask of graceful concubine slip, she added: ‘You’re so up your own arse you actually believe people are interested in what you think of them.’

  ‘What do you want me to do, Kailash?’

  Her hands bore down heavily on my neck, making me wince.

  ‘Be a source of pleasure.’

  A statement like that meant I had to turn to face her. I couldn’t ask what the fuck she was on about with my back to her. Was she recruiting me for her brothel or hitting on me? Kailash grabbed me by the arm and I was again astonished at the strength of her grip. Unlike Roddie, I don’t enjoy pain.

  ‘Let’s begin again,’ Kailash decided.

  She pushed my head away from her. Facing the table I noticed that the mobile phone had disappeared without me noticing. Manipulating me by the crown of my head she twisted my neck backwards and forwards. A curtain of auburn curls fell over my face as she pushed me downwards.

  ‘An Indian head massage is what you need, it will dissipate the tension in your shoulders, stimulate your lymph glands, and get the drugs out of your system.’

  ‘Drugs? They’re painkillers.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Kailash had my left ear pressing down hard on my shoulder, so it was difficult to argue with her. The pressure in her hands had eased as I felt the tension leave my scalp and jaw.

  ‘Effective, isn’t it?’ she said.

  An involuntary sigh escaped my lips.

  ‘It’s an ancient traditional Indian remedy, at least 4000 years old. It began in the families; family members would sit behind one another massaging oil into the scalp, promoting and stimulating hair growth.’

  Lifting my thick hair back off my face, and smoothing it around my shoulders she added: ‘Not that you need help in that department.’

  I felt her eyes bore into me: seconds later the phone reappeared, just beyond my finger-tips. One question had lain heavily between us since our first meeting, asking it now could lose nothing.

  ‘Why did you contact the papers about Roddie?’

  ‘Because I could.’

  She stared blankly at the wall behind me painted insipid, institutional green.

  ‘No, I’m not letting you away with that. You and Roddie, your actions, nearly ruined me. I’m liable for that firm’s financial problems–problems that you helped create.’

  ‘Why are you blaming Roddie? He didn’t contact the tabloids.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I blame Roddie?’

  ‘He’s done nothing wrong.’ Kailash’s insistence was like hitting my head on a brick wall. She reached across and touched my hand; hers was elegant, long fingered and creative. Squeezing me forcefully, I looked from our joined hands up to her eyes.

  ‘No. You shouldn’t blame Roddie because he’s innocent…he has the papers to prove it.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ I sputtered.

  ‘But you got me to sign an affidavit, so it must all be above board,’ she said, playing the part of a wide-eyed ingénue. Slowly her smile widened. Kailash was enjoying playing with me and she made no effort to hide it.

  ‘I thought it was a lie.’ I tried to run my hands through my hair but it was knotted and tangled.

  ‘You were meant to think that…You know, when I was growing up in Amsterdam, I wanted to be an actress but there wasn’t enough money in that to live on.’

  ‘Really?’ I answered. ‘I had heard that being a porn star was very lucrative.’ My words fell off her like snow from a dry stane dyke.

  ‘I was making art house films, with young directors who thought they were bestowing blessings in allowing you to work with them.’

  She broke into a dry cough. Opening the door, she asked the warden for some water. I was going to remind her that it was prison, not a hotel, when the warden immediately handed her a fresh glass of cool water. Between sips she continued her story.

  ‘During this period, to supplement my income, I worked as a magician’s assistant. He taught me about misdirection: getting an audience to believe a fantasy you have set up.’

  ‘And that’s what you did to Roddie? Why?’

  ‘It wasn’t to Roddie Buchanan exactly, but to what and whom he represented.’

  We were back to Kailash acting like Proteus, withholding information.

  ‘Give people the fantasy they want, Brodie–everyone wants to see a lawyer caught with his pants down.’

  ‘But what was in it for you?’

  ‘I do not consider myself a prostitute. I am not a prostitute. I am a courtesan. A woman like me earns a great deal of money when she is young, but as she ages…well, the outcome is self evident, therefore I had to change the playing field, and Roddie was an announcement to men of a certain persuasion that I was back.’

  For once lost for words, I watched Kailash lean against the wall, and slowly light a cigarette. Casually blowing smoke into the air she spoke confidentially.

  ‘I think you’ll find that these are yours.’ She handed me back the packet of cigarettes that I kept in my pocket to give to clients.

  ‘Don’t try to sidetrack me.’ I could feel my blood bubbling inside me. ‘What you’re telling me…you mean…that was all just an advert.’

  Kailash now looked indignant.

  ‘What do you mean “just an advert”? Do you have any idea how much that kind of coverage would cost?’

  ‘So it worked then? Dream scenario–you’re never off your back.’

  ‘It’s hectic, Brodie–but I never work on my back.’

  Kailash had played us all. Lothian & St Clair, one of the oldest law firms in the world, had been brought to its knees by the marketing ploy of a prostitute. I could barely take it in. The woman sitting opposite me looked like a demure Hindu princess–what kind of mind could work in the way she had just described?

  Lord Arbuthnot’s trial would receive wipeout coverage from press and TV. Kailash was lining up to play the race card. If she went into the witness box dressed as she was, no politically correct jury would find her guilty. And if they did there would be hell to play from the outside world. The prosecution was in trouble, unable to bring up Kailash’s past to destroy her reputation because it had nothing to do with the murder.

  My choices had become even narrower.

  ‘Did you tell me the truth to make me afraid of you?’

  ‘No…because the people you are dealing with are much more dangerous than I am. They’ve been at it for centuries.’

  My mother had worked too hard for me to throw everything away on a whim. I made for the door, turning back to face her, I tried to keep the loathing out of my voice.

  ‘Your trial starts Friday. I’ll see you there.’

  I snatched her mobile from the table, secure in the knowledge that I had something to hold against my own client.

  The roar from Awesome’s pipes was drowned out by the sound of Kailash’s voice, as I replayed our interview in my mind on the journey back to Edinburgh. I wondered if I could have handled it differently. There was another little niggle that kept pointing out to me that all of my moral musings were totally irrelevant if the killer got me first. The trial was inevitable–my appointment with the killer was not.

  I had no advice for myself–but Kailash should have remembered that the bird that walks into the cage on its own sings more sweetly.

  THIRTY-ONE

  ‘Don’t just stand there with a bottom lip like a wash-hand basin…tell me what’s wrong.’

  Joe turned my bad mood back on me as he stood behind the bar at the Rag Doll. T
rade was quiet for a Thursday lunchtime; a few of the regular clientele were playing pool in the dingy back room. The smoke created a fog, which obscured their faces, the only noise was the sound of the balls clacking and the patrons’ occasional idle shrieks. To all intents and purposes we were alone. The floor was tacky with spilled alcohol, and my feet stuck to it as I fidgeted. My eyes searched around for somewhere uncontaminated to place my helmet. The air was unpleasantly sweet, stale perfume lingered long after the dancers had left.

  ‘This place smells like the inside of a whore’s handbag, Joe.’

  My nose wrinkled dramatically. Wiping the stray flies from my face with a handkerchief, I was dismayed to note the dirt that was retained by the cloth. Thankfully, Joe didn’t suggest that I get myself a full-face helmet; he knows that I love the wind on my face, being able to tell the changes in temperature between a forest and an open moor land. He understands that I like to be close to the elements. I could never have stood a nine to five desk job.

  He knows all of this but was still growing impatient with my reticence.

  ‘The cleaner’s coming in a minute or two…just tell me what’s happened.’

  ‘Kailash.’

  That one word, and the look on my face, made him renege on his earlier prohibition.

  ‘Langavullin or Bruachacladdich?’ Seeing that my mood was dark and barren, Joe offered me the peaty malts of the Island of Islay, grasping that only those spirits could alter mine.

  ‘Uisge heath the water of life…or as your mother used to say…more like uisge bais tae me. Thon staggerwatter’ll be the death of you. You mark my words, the pair of you…where you’ll end up, you’ll have cause tae scream oot for water.’

  Mary McLennan was a native Gaelic speaker, a strict teetotaller who abhorred drink, especially on a fourteen-year-old girl. The famous tirade Joe was referring to was when we got drunk at a Christmas dance when I had returned back from school for the festive season, and he had had to carry me home. Grabbing me by the ear, and marching me to the toilet, she shouted at Joe: ‘Drink’s bad on a man but worse on a woman.’ I flushed at what she would think of my drinking now, but it wasn’t enough to stop me.

  ‘Slange’

  Our glasses met in mid air, and clinked. I took the crumpled piece of paper with the Indian proverb that Kailash had given me out of my pocket, and pushed it across to him.

  ‘Who told her?’ he asked me accusingly.

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  Reaching across I lifted the bottle of whisky, and with my glass in the other hand walked to the leatherette bench seat. After pouring myself a generous glassful, I started to play with the cardboard beer mats, anything rather than look Joe in the eye. The barmaid on duty had returned from the cellar; Joe left the bar and followed me to my table. Striding across the open floor he looked like a Titan; his golden red hair was sleek and orderly for him. For the first time this summer he was wearing jeans and cowboy boots, dressed like that he wasn’t in the mood to play.

  ‘What do you mean she didn’t say?’

  He didn’t wait for me to answer.

  ‘Can I get in to see her…’cos by God if I can…She’d tell me who her spy is. I’d like to teach her a few tricks on how to hurt people–consultancy like that might boost her business.’ Joe emptied his glass in one.

  ‘She does have a spy but I don’t want to think who it could be,’ I said, refilling his glass.

  ‘Well it’s hardly a long list, Brodie–not many people knew that information. There’s me, Fishy, the Professor, Jack Deans and you. Take your pick.’

  ‘I think that was her plan…to make me suspicious of everyone.’

  ‘Why would she want to do that? She’s surely got enough on her plate.’ As Joe spoke he handed me a packet of cheese and onion crisps. His eyes said: ‘eat or regret it’.

  ‘Kailash thinks that I’m in more trouble than her. She’s not too bothered by the murder charge.’

  ‘She’s bluffing…it’s just the way of the street–look after number one.’

  I knew Kailash was undisturbed by her present circumstances and something told me she was playing a game. Right from the start I had the feeling that she had caught me in her web, and I would not easily be released. Well, that had been proved correct today, but no one wants a lawyer who doesn’t want to act for them; especially a lawyer who they believe is already in the pay of the other side. For some reason I was an important player–I just had to find out why.

  Glasgow Joe was munching his way through his second packet of crisps as the music started up for the next show. Punters of various ages, shapes and sizes wandered in.

  ‘Joe, I tried to withdraw from acting for Kailash, but she refused to accept it. I’m confused–I can’t understand why she is insisting on me, especially now she knows that they want me to act as an Amicus Curae.’

  He was now facing the stage, watching the dancer. I, on the other hand, was looking at his broad black t-shirted back. Speaking over his shoulder, one eye still on the stage, he said, ‘It’s a new girl. I’m interviewing her…keep talking, I’m listening.’

  ‘Although they’ve asked me to be an Amicus Curae, I haven’t agreed and I haven’t had to do anything yet that would jeopardise Kailash’s case.’

  The girl on the stage was obviously new to the game. Stumbling around the pole, she fumbled to take her clothes off. To me, her efforts were laughable compared to the gymnastic excellence I had witnessed the other day. But the men, including Joe were lapping it up, her naïvete made them feel as if they were voyeurs watching a maiden innocently taking her clothes off rather than a bunch of lairy wasters in a skanky pub.

  Blushing, with her head downcast, the girl finished her routine to rapturous applause. Inadvertently, whilst bending down to pick up her clothes she gave them a full view of what they were secretly hoping to see. She stayed in that position for some time, her legs straight and open; her young slim hips to the audience. When the money started landing all around her, I twigged her. She had been playing them all along. The men were still fooled–or still wanted to be. Kailash would have been proud.

  Giggling, with her clothes in her arms, she struggled to carry all the money that had been thrown. I could learn something from her. She had used her sexuality in a completely different way to the other dancers. There was a charm about her that made the men feel superior, as if they could teach her something, and the way she innocently smiled at them let them think she would let them.

  Play the daft lassie, and win.

  Let them all think I was doing their bidding but be my own master.

  ‘She was good, wasn’t she? For her first time, I mean,’ Joe beamed breathlessly, as he pushed himself up from the table to offer the girl a job. I caught the girl’s eye as she stood at the bar; our eyes locked, and a conspiratorial smile passed between us.

  ‘Yes, she was good,’ I replied.

  Music thumped rhythmically, it was loud enough to make my seat vibrate. Around the empty stage, several young men danced enthusiastically like Masai warriors, bottles of expensive premium lagers in their hands. I was bathing in the acrid smell of sweat that accompanied their endeavours, when a bone thin man pushed through their group. I prayed that he was not making his way to me. I should have known my luck was rubbish these days.

  ‘Brodie McLennan…you’ll maybe no’ remember me.’

  He was right–I didn’t know him, but I did know what ailed him. Prematurely aged, ravaged by illness, black marks upon his face. Scar carcinoma. This man was dying from HIV. Without a cure, the disease demands that the victim takes care of himself. A junkie doesn’t love himself enough to do this, otherwise he wouldn’t be a junkie. The man proffered his hand; the skin was paper thin like an octogenarian’s–tattooed on his knuckles were the letters L.O.V.E.

  I stood up to take his hand, his body trembled, but his handshake was dry and firm.

  ‘I’m Maggie Liddell’s laddie…. Shirley’s brother.’

  ‘And Laura�
��s uncle.’

  ‘Aye…Duncan Liddell’s my name. We’ve all heard of you, Brodie. Your ma was a proud woman–you’ll miss her.’

  Sitting with Duncan Liddell here in the Rag Doll made me feel guilty about denying my heritage, dropping my accent, and never explaining where I came from if I could help it. At times like this I agreed with many of my detractors that I had no place being in Lothian & St Clair.

  ‘I came to say thanks. I got a taxi down from Mile End House–to shake your hand and say thanks,’ he repeated, wheezing all the while. Humility is not an emotion that I am familiar with, but Duncan, with his sparse brown hair and cheap clothes humbled me. Edinburgh was once the AIDS capital of Europe, thanks to the shooting galleries of the eighties. That’s probably when Duncan became infected, shooting up smack at the garages at the bottom of the flats.

  ‘You confirmed to my mother that Laura was gone and now she can start to grieve. We’ll have a memorial service and we can mark Laura’s life. I’d like you to speak at it.’ His voice was shaky and speaking took a tremendous amount out of him.

  ‘I wouldn’t know what to say.’ I instantly recoiled at the notion. ‘I’m not the right person.’

  ‘You’d find something, Brodie. You’re the only one that’s got the education to stand up to them, the only one of us.’

  ‘Who do you think I’m standing up to, Duncan?’

  He was confused. My words were lost on him. His eyes clouded over, the medication he was on was affecting him and as he began to ramble, I sat back and listened to someone else’s troubles.

  ‘Although my ma’s had six bairns, she had a lot of miscarriages as well. My father, the drunken auld bastard, wouldnae leave her alone. After I was born she had six miscarriages. In between having us, ma wis depressed and couldn’t take care of us. Anyway, just before Shirley was born, my oldest brother and me were taken into care–put in a residential school at South Queensferry.’

  Beads of sweat formed on Duncan’s brow and his nose began to drip; he didn’t seem to notice even if I was fascinated. Retelling this saga was taking its toll on him. He reached across and touched me as I poured him a glass of whisky, and handed him a cigarette.