by Grace Monroe
One of my mother’s favourite sayings suddenly came clear into my mind: ‘What you dae in the night–the devil sees in the light.’ I thought she used it as a warning about teenage pregnancy, now I understood her true meaning.
‘Objection. M’Lord, my learned friend has no way of knowing that the man who sent the text was Lord Arbuthnot.’
I was deliberately using his judicial title not his actual name. It was a small point, but sometimes your clients demand that you give them a good spraff, especially when their case is hopeless.
‘Your objection is noted, Ms McLennan.’ Lord MacDonald peered down at me, and stroked the front of his robes smoothing the red Templar cross on the white satin. In 1812 there wasn’t a member of the judiciary that had not been a member of the Enlightenment. That was when the robes had been redesigned to honour their Templar past and in true Masonic tradition the meaning of their symbols was hidden in plain view.
‘Now, Mr Buchanan, my friend objected when I asked you if the accused hated all men.’
Roddie nodded to show that he recalled that objection.
‘But are you able to say if Ms Coutts hated any men in particular…’ he rushed his last words out.
I was on my feet.
‘Objection! Hearsay.’
It appeared that Roddie had been well coached for he shouted out too: ‘Kailash Coutts stated that she hated Alistair MacGregor, and that one day she would kill him.’
‘Objection!’ I screamed.
‘You are a bare-faced liar, Roddie Buchanan.’ Kailash was on her feet, the prison guards were struggling to contain her as she tried to jump out of the dock and get to Roddie.
‘Order! Order!’
Lord MacDonald was crimson in the face. The prison guards had pushed Kailash so hard that she had fallen onto the floor of the dock, where one woman pulled her up. Kailash was as red as Lord MacDonald and it was the first time that I had ever seen her dishevelled.
Calmness came over the court, like the morning after a squall, as everyone resumed their seats.
‘M’Lord, that concludes the Crown’s examination of this witness.’ Hector flicked his gown up and sat down.
‘Ms McLennan–in view of the lateness of the hour, court will adjourn and resume on Monday when you may cross-examine the witness.’ Lord MacDonald then turned to Roddie. ‘Thank you for giving your evidence in such a straightforward manner–you are of course still under oath, and you are not allowed to talk about this case to anyone.’
This admonition could not have been more trite. As Roddie stepped down from the witness box and was led outside, the notion of him speaking to anyone else about his private behaviour was unthinkable.
‘Court rise!’ the Macer shouted. Those present shuffled to their feet, and as Lord MacDonald processed out of court, the clerk began to tidy up the well.
I looked across at the window to see how my friend was doing. The bee lay with his legs up against the closed window.
Like everything else–buggered.
THIRTY-SIX
Taking a piece of paper, I walked round the front bench through the well of the court. Picking up the bee on the paper, I threw him out. I was almost caught in my maudlin mood as the clerk handed me a piece of paper.
Meet me in Parliament Hall before you leave for the evening.
Hector
Nothing to lose, I thought and made my way to the Hall. Hector stood before Chantry’s statue of Lord President Blair. As I approached him, he immediately began to talk.
‘Men such as these,’ he tapped the marble shoe and the tap reverberated round the walls, ‘they are more than mere personalities–they represent the law, Brodie. And if a man like Alistair MacGregor is seen to be flawed then the rule of law in Scotland is also faulty. We can’t allow that to happen now–can we?’
The Hall was empty, but I did not feel we were alone. The eyes of judges past stared out of their blackened canvasses and seemed to follow me. Hector did not bother to speak in hushed tones.
He took my arm, and we began a slow procession up and down the tiled floor. The walk wasn’t out of fear of being overheard, no, this was merely habit. Obviously Hector thought we had work to do, and this is how we did it.
‘Why did Roddie give evidence?’ I asked.
‘Well he wasn’t keen, let me tell you.’ Hector stopped conversing to laugh as he recalled just what that persuasive talk with Roddie Buchanan must have been like.
‘Oh, I am sure that you are aware of our debating society, Brodie. It brings with it rights and benefits–but sometimes one is called upon to do one’s duty for the greater good–today it was Roddie’s turn to sacrifice himself.’
‘What will happen to him?’ I asked, out of interest rather than care. I knew that news of his evidence today would leak out and his reputation–which I had fought to save–was now well and truly gone. So much depends on reputation in this game–you have to guard it with your life. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win. Roddie had let his slip, and now he was vulnerable and would be attacked on all sides.
Roddie would know this better than anyone, for he had spent years destroying his enemies by making holes in their reputations–and then he let them be hanged by public opinion.
‘Roddie did what was asked of him. He’ll be taken care of. He might get a Sheriffdom somewhere, or he could be made chairman of a tribunal.’
‘It’s not a bad payoff–at least the pension is good.’
‘Enough of Roddie–you don’t want his sacrifice to be for nothing.’
How little he understood about my relationship with Roddie Buchanan. I knew his evidence would get out because I was thinking of telling the steamie myself.
I grunted. Hector took it that I was in agreement with him.
‘What we want, Brodie, is for Kailash to plead,’ said Hector.
‘I’ve told you she won’t.’
‘You also told me that you were prepared for this trial–but you didn’t have a clue what you were up against in there, did you?’
We paced in silence.
‘Look, I’m not here to make your job difficult, Brodie. I would accept a plea to culpable homicide.’
Culpable homicide–it was something. At least life imprisonment would no longer be mandatory. Sentence was at the discretion of the judge.
‘OK, Hector–if I could get her to plead to culp hom then I would also want it accepted by the Crown that she had diminished responsibility.’
Hector looked interested.
‘How was her responsibility for her actions diminished?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know–I’ll think of something.’ And I knew that I would. I was great at doing pleas in mitigation–where an accused had been found guilty, and the court is asked for mercy. But one thing I knew, was that no matter how good I was I did not want to throw myself on the compassion of this court.
‘I’ll ask her to plead to culpable homicide and the Crown agrees that her responsibility was diminished–but I want an understanding that she’ll get no more than four years,’ I stressed.
‘That would mean that she’d be out in two years–is that all the killing of the top Scottish judge is worth to you?’
‘Look, Hector, no more poncing about–that’s the deal I’ll put to her. You still have to prove motive and Kailash swears that Lord Arbuthnot had never been a client of hers.’
‘So she didn’t deny knowing him–just that he wasn’t a client?’
‘However she knew him, nothing about this is going to look good for our legal system, so I suggest you take my offer to your superiors.’
‘No need. I am authorised to agree anything–within reason.’
He shook my hand.
‘I might not get her to agree before Monday,’ I warned.
‘You’d better–otherwise Lord MacDonald is calling the press and the jury back in and your client will go down for murder, and Roddie’s career will go down the toilet taking yours with it. Jointly and severally li
able, remember? You’ll be working until you’re my age just to pay off Roddie’s debts.’
I watched him walk away. Unfortunately, the bastard was right. Roddie had one of the most impressive art collections in Scotland. The paintings, mostly modern, had been bought with the firm’s money but Roddie had been sly enough to ensure that they were all in his personal name. The current overdraft of the firm was nothing compared to the fee income; but if that should stop overnight, then we would go into free fall.
Suddenly I felt very tired. I did not know if I had the strength left to save myself, let alone Kailash. I walked to the corridor where my box was stationed as I had arranged to meet Joe there. He was unwilling to let me leave Parliament House on my own on the grounds of safety–God love him if he actually thought I was safe inside these ancient walls.
Hector McVie and the Enlightenment had just filleted me better than any butcher of a serial killer could.
Joe leaned against my open box, weariness showed in his eyes. I wasn’t the only one being affected by events.
‘Brodie!’ he shouted, as if I could miss him. Raising his huge hand in the air, I saw that he had a brown paper parcel in it.
‘Somebody’s left his calling card.’
My heart sank; whatever was in that package, it was not good news.
The battle on two fronts continued.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet
eating her curds and whey;
along came a spider
who sat down beside her
and frightened Miss Muffet away.
Patch, Glasgow Joe, Fishy, Jack and I sat in my kitchen. This was becoming quite a habit, and it wouldn’t take a mastermind to work out that my house had become one of the only places we all felt safe. Rich coffee in mugs, chocolate chip shortbread I’d made in the early hours of the morning earlier that week, and a parlour game in front of us. It was like playing pass the parcel. The package contained many layers, the first was the hand-written note with the nursery rhyme.
Glasgow Joe held it up.
‘Does anyone know what this means?’
I took the paper from him and looked round at the usual motley crew that surrounded me in my kitchen. Nursery rhymes were not what you would expect Joe, Jack, Patch and Fishy to have intimate knowledge of.
‘I’ve heard it argued that every nursery rhyme has a political meaning–or it records some historical event.’
Jack picked up my thread of thought.
‘That’s right–“ring a ring of roses” is about the great plague. But I don’t know what the spider thing is about.’
I examined the nursery rhyme again.
‘Miss Muffet is supposed to represent Mary Queen of Scots–and the spider is John Knox. He “frightened” her to leave Scotland and she threw herself on the mercies of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, who beheaded her.’
‘The bodies in the bag had been decapitated,’ Fishy added.
‘Perhaps we should look at what’s inside the rest of the parcel before we comment,’ said Patch. Another layer of brown paper hid the contents. Like a child at Christmas, Joe pulled it off.
‘A bit of care is required here, Joe–you might destroy something.’ Patch was testy as he took the parcel from Joe’s hands.
‘There’s a newspaper clipping. It looks like an old story.’ Patch put on his glasses and examined it.
‘Oh, it’s about that baby that was found washed up at Portobello…’
‘Let me see it.’ Fishy took the paper from Patch.
‘We already have this particular article in the police file,’ he said. ‘This is in better condition though–I suspect someone bought a copy of the original paper and took this out. I’ll follow up with the Evening News and see if they have a record of who bought it.’ Fishy wrote down the action that he had committed himself to take; it would have to wait until morning as the payment department at the newspaper was shut for the evening.
‘The person who left this–thing for you…do you think they didn’t know that we already had the album? If so, then they’re not the killer.’ Joe’s voice was soft and plausible.
‘No–I’ve had this feeling for a while that I’m just not asking the right questions.’ I sipped my icy Mexican beer, the lime that was inserted into the bottle neck nipped a tiny cut that I had in the inside of my mouth. The tip of my tongue was covered with incisions, where my teeth had inadvertently sliced into it whilst I was thinking.
‘I can’t get the answers–because we are not looking in the right direction. I think this is a reminder that this baby is important in all of this. We’ve been looking at the girls. Maybe the baby is the real clue.’ I was tired after a hard day in court, all I wanted to do was guzzle pizza and drink beers. I had an appointment with Kailash in the morning, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.
‘Has anyone come up with anything on this baby because I don’t have much?’ Fishy looked hopefully around the table.
‘I found the original report but it tells me nothing–the local bobby received a call from a woman walking her dog on Porty beach. He investigated, found it was indeed a baby, attempts to find the mother drew a blank, possibly because the baby had been in the sea for some time.’ Fishy read the notes in a monotone voice from his black police notebook.
I weighed out the flour for the pizza I was making–it always relaxes me after a day in court–and Patch screamed in horror.
‘Careful! We’ve got evidence all over the place here!’
‘If we don’t catch him without resorting to forensics then I’m dead,’ I said.
‘We can use both.’
Patch had already placed the nursery rhyme note and the newspaper article in evidence bags. He wore white cotton gloves as he unwrapped the next layer. Disappointingly, there was nothing; it was simply padding for the chief clue. Carefully, with the skill he used in dissection, Patch removed the last layer. He placed it before us. We stared in silence, horrified, because we knew what it had done.
I couldn’t touch it.
‘Well, now we know what that bastard meant by spider.’ I opened another beer, without bothering with the lime.
‘His spider…’ I pointed at it with the bottle, ‘was a medieval instrument of torture. It’s made of iron–the pincers are meant to represent spider’s legs.’
Their eyes followed me as I walked around the kitchen, I stopped for a moment at the stainless-steel range cooker to stir the thickening crimson pasta sauce.
‘The tongs would be heated in a fire–then attached to a woman’s breast and pulled and twisted until the breast was mutilated or it came off.’
The pizza dough was rising in the heat of the kitchen; I pushed my finger deep into its gooey mass, and deflated it. The bread mixture clung tackily to my finger as I tried to push the thoughts of burning young flesh from my mind.
Fishy had opened the photograph album at the set of pictures that depicted Laura Liddell’s torment. The second image in the series illustrated just what exactly ‘the spider’ was capable of.
‘We have to stop this bastard…’ Joe didn’t finish what he was about to say but I knew that he could not bear the thought that the killer may use that instrument on me. I wasn’t too keen on it either.
‘We have to find Moses Tierney–and make him tell us what he knows,’ I said. My appetite had gone; even the difficulties I faced with Kailash were nothing compared with this.
‘Moses?’ asked Patch. ‘What do you want with Moses?’
‘He’s the boy,’ shouted Joe. ‘Isn’t he? He’s the boy in the photograph–the one watching. And you…’ He looked at Jack, ’you’re the one who knows where he is–he’s your fucking grass, isn’t he? He’s the one who told you about the break-in at Fettes? He’s the one who told you what was really taken?
‘Don’t you worry, Brodie–I’ll make the wee bastard talk. He’ll even fucking sing for you after I’ve finished with him.’ Joe was growling. I was glad he had refused an
y alcohol, drink mellows him and I needed him to be as mean as hell.
‘Joe, remember what he’s been through, what he’s seen. Nothing that you do to him could be as bad as the “Devil” has already done.’
I picked up my helmet, and switched off the cooker–our appetites had disappeared.
‘Patch–you see if you can find any autopsy reports on the baby. Fishy–you look through the records for any assaults where the perp used instruments of torture.’
I walked up to Jack Deans, and stared at him.
‘And you…it’s about time you took us to Moses.’
‘How’d you know I can find him?’ he asked.
‘Because we give you more credit than we should,’ I replied. ‘We’ll follow you.’ I was angry with him for still holding his sources close to his chest, even if it hadn’t taken Joe that long to work out that he was Jack’s informer. As soon as we saw the photograph of the young boy with the haunted eyes, we realised that information had been sitting in Jack’s lap all the time. A look of recognition passed between us. We knew exactly who it was. The roar from the street almost rattled the windows. Joe was impatient; he had already started up Awesome. Fishy and Patch had already moved from the table, anxious to get started. Only Jack was slow. I glowered at him from the kitchen doorway.
‘Shift your arse…now,’ I shouted, too anxious to be polite. I was determined to find out what I needed to know, and I was no longer naive enough to think it would be either painless or trouble free.
‘This may not be the best way to go about it, Brodie.’
‘What do you want me to do, Jack–sit and wait until he comes for me? That delinquent has inside information–he knew that I was the next victim, why else would he have gone to court that day?’
I pulled my bike jacket roughly over my shoulders, forcing my arms in. Taking my temper out on myself was not one of my better ideas.
‘Think about it, Jack–there’s only one way he knew that I was next. It’s because he is still in touch with the killer. Moses can lead me to the killer.’
