Duty Man (Best Defence series Book 2)

by William H. S. McIntyre

  Mercifully, most of what was left of Jacqui remained covered by a sheet and I was shown a selection of potentially distinguishing features of which I recognised the tattoo of black and white Scottie dogs at the top of her right arm, the mole on her top lip and a small scar at the corner of her right eye, or socket as it now was.

  It was well after six when I dropped off the traumatised Butch. I was fairly shaken-up myself. I hadn’t truly seen the hairdresser as a gun-wielding assassin but her disappearance had shed a shadow of doubt over Sean Kelly’s guilt and been the reason I’d felt justified in representing him. Now it transpired that Jacqui had also been shot dead, and her body dumped where clearly no-one ever expected it to be found. I would have ditched the Kelly boy’s case there and then had it not been for the ramblings of his father which, together with Frankie McPhee’s arrival at my office only days after Max’s murder, had presented me with a new, if not yet reasonable, doubt. I needed to think seriously about what to do next, but right at that moment I had an even more pressing matter to attend to.

  As I returned home that Sunday evening I stopped off at the office to pick up the Salavejus file. I had my closing speech to make in the morning and although I knew the line I was going to take, it wouldn’t do any harm to refresh my memory on the evidence given that I was going to have to ask the jury to ignore most of it. My mobile phone rang when I was walking up the stairs. It was my dad.’

  ‘Robbie? Where are you?’

  ‘The office.’

  ‘On a Sunday?’

  ‘’fraid so. You know how it is for us bucket-shop proprietors. We can’t be taking time off like proper lawyers who do work for decent clients.’

  There was silence on the other end of the line.

  I laughed. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ he said, airily. ‘I’ve not eaten yet and I was just wondering if you’d be dropping by for your tea.’

  My dad was sitting at the kitchen table when I arrived at his place half an hour later. There were plates, forks and knives and a bottle of brown sauce laid out and he had a kitchen-roll bib tucked into the neck of his shirt.

  ‘Did you remember the pickled egg?’ he asked as I set down before him a bottle of Barr’s Irn Bru and a warm newspaper parcel. As if I’d be allowed to forget.

  After we’d eaten, I washed and put away the dishes while the old man made us a cup of tea.

  ‘How’s the case going?’ he asked.

  I didn’t think Max’s death was a subject we should discuss just when relations between us were improving. ‘Is that why you asked me round? To talk about my work? I thought it was just an excuse for a free fish supper.’

  I followed him through to the sitting room where he plumped himself into his usual armchair and pulled the local newspaper from the side of the cushion.

  ‘I was reading about it in the paper.’

  ‘I think we should leave Max’s case out of it for tonight.’ That’s how I still saw it. It wasn’t Sean Kelly’s case it was all about Max and finding out who’d killed him.’

  ‘Not Max - the soldier you’re representing.’

  ‘Soldier?’

  He gave me his, I’m-one-step-ahead-as-usual, look and handed me the newspaper.

  War Hero Stands Trial for Cop Assaultproclaimed a small headline on page seven, part of the weekly court roundup. Oskaras Vidmantis Salavejus, Lithuanian-born former Captain in the Royal Anglian Regiment, assaulted a high ranking police officer, a court heard. Salavejus seized Detective Inspector Douglas Fleming (36)– they had to be kidding: thirty-six, was that all? -while he dined at a local restaurant and struck him on the head and body to his injury. Salavejus (33) who was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross during service in Afghanistan denies the charge. The trial continues before Sheriff Albert Brechin, Robbie Monroe defending.

  Pity they hadn’t spelt my name right – as usual - all Marilyn’s fault. I folded the newspaper and gave it back.

  ‘Thought you should know. The guy’s obviously done out of the park but... well, if you pled him guilty... you know what Bert Brechin’s like with soldiers,’ my dad said.

  It hadn’t escaped me that the only time Sheriff Brechin ever showed any sign of leniency was when dispensing justice to soldiers, serving or veterans.

  He handed me the newspaper again. ‘You can keep it if you like,’ he said.

  I knew it was my dad’s attempt at a peace offering.

  ‘If you think it will be of any use to you.’

  Oskaras Salavejus: hero to zero. He was an officer, if no longer a gentleman. ‘You know what, Dad? I think it just might.’

  Chapter 30

  Monday morning. I sat thumbing noisily through the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995; a piece of legislation subject to the frequent whimsy of the Scottish Government. It used to fit in my pocket. These days I could hardly lift it off the table. When the PF reached what he no doubt regarded as the exciting climax to his remarks, the heavy volume sort of accidentally slipped through my fingers onto the floor and I was pleased to see that this minor incident had diverted the attention of several members of the jury.

  Eventually, Ogilvie sat down. It was my turn. From experience I was well aware that jurors fell into two categories: those who didn’t want to be there and those who wished they were somewhere else. I was also sure that the attention span of even the most diligent juror could be measured in seconds rather than minutes and that those who had day-dreamed their way through the evidence dared not admit it to their colleagues - even although they’d all done the same. That’s why the closing speeches were so important. A short, sharp speech, spoken with conviction, was often all a lazy inattentive juror needed to reach a decision.

  ‘Mr Munro?’ said the Sheriff. I didn’t move. ‘Mr Munro?’ I remained motionless, deliberately building the tension, making sure the jurors were paying attention and at the same time readying myself to say whatever it took, just so long as when I sat down again the masters of the facts saw neither black nor white - only grey. ‘Mr Munro, if you will.’

  I waited a little longer. I could hear one or two of the jurors fidgeting, shifting in their seats wondering if something was wrong. When I sensed all eyes were on me, I stood and faced them. They weren’t fifteen men and women. They were fifteen hurdles standing between me and victory. I wouldn’t be long. The more the defence lawyer says, the guiltier the jury thinks his client is.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ I rubbed my brow for effect. ‘I know you will not have found this an easy case to judge.’

  From his vantage point in the public benches, D.I. Dougie Fleming failed to suppress a chortle. Momentarily distracted, I looked over just in time to see Andy come into court and take a seat at the back, the merest hint of a sadistic grin on his face. How pleasant it is, when the sea is high and the wind is dashing the waves about, to watch from the shore the struggles of another. Lucretius: not the cheeriest of Roman philosophers, probably why he topped himself.

  I continued. ‘The Crown would have you believe my client carried out a brutal, unprovoked assault on a police officer. Not a bit of it, ladies and gentlemen. What happened in the Bombay Balti was something selfless. Something courageous. Something noble.’

  I turned to look at my client and all fifteen heads in the jury box turned with me. Oskaras sat slumped in the dock. I willed him to sit up and look more heroic.

  ‘My client has served his country, served you and me, ladies and gentleman, in the killing fields of Afghanistan and Iraq. Laid his life on the line so that others might live.’ I put my hand in my pocket and produced a medal. It was my dad’s Police Long Service medal, but it looked the part. ‘Helping others, with no thought for himself, is second nature to Captain Oskaras Salavejus, holder of the conspicuous gallantry cross.’

  ‘M’Lord. None of this was led in evidence.’ The PF was on his feet objecting.

  Sheriff Brechin for once saw things the way of the defence. ‘Are you disputing the fact that the accu
sed is a Captain or the holder of an award for gallantry, Mr Ogilvie?’

  ‘Neither, M’Lord,’ muttered the PF, sinking slowly to his seat again.

  I couldn’t have timed the PF’s objection better. His apparent unwillingness to let the jury hear of my client’s status and bravery in the field would not have gone unnoticed.

  I battered on. ‘You see, my client’s selflessness, and sense of duty are things Detective Inspector Fleming and the Procurator Fiscal can’t understand. Please don’t view the events in the Bombay Balti through their jaundiced eyes. Don’t accept their distorted vision of what took place. Do not bow to the Crown’s demands to find my client guilty.’

  One or two of the jury were now casting suspicious glances in the PF’s direction. They had no idea where I was going – not yet - but no-one, Procurator Fiscal or not, was telling them what to do.

  ‘By now,’ I continued, ‘you must surely know my client’s true motive.’ I looked at the jury, making eye contact with each of them, one by one. Fifteen blank expressions stared back at me. They were hooked. It was time to summon the mist of reasonable doubt.

  ‘Captain Salavejus may have had a couple of drinks too many. He may, indeed, have been loud and raucous. Perhaps his singing was off-key, but - when duty called - he was there. Oh, his methods may have been crude, his efforts clumsy and misunderstood,’ something caught in my throat, it was a technique that had taken many speeches to perfect, ‘but, ladies and gentlemen, I can assure you, my client’s actions came straight from the heart.’

  Chapter 31

  The trial was over by mid-day. After some unusually fair directions by Sheriff Brechin the jury came back in half an hour with a not proven verdict on the assault charge and a guilty on the breach of the peace. Brechin imposed what was for him an extremely lenient thirty-day back-dated sentence, which meant that with time served Salavejus was once more free to go forth and offend. And like most clients for whom a defence lawyer achieves a really good result, he didn’t wait to say thanks.

  Pleased at the result, I let Andy take me for a celebratory drink. The Red Corner Bar was my dad’s local, sitting sandwiched between a wine bar selling over-priced Beaujolais and a pseudo-tavern pouring pints of beer with bits in it. Personally, I’d have found either of those neighbouring drinking holes preferable to the Red Corner, but there was somebody there I wanted to see. Cutting our wake through the cigarette smoke, we made our way past the social lepers congregating outside the front door and into the pub where a couple of regulars shifted themselves an inch or two to let us in at the bar.

  The barman who was standing at The Deep End, so named because of the number of older patrons who sat at that end of the bar and occasionally had trouble getting off their stools and making it to the bog in time. He was holding forth to a covey of flat-caps on the subject of some off-side goal or other and in danger of rubbing a hole in the pint glass he was drying with a grubby towel.

  Andy waved at him.

  ‘With you in a second,’ the barman said, acknowledging our existence without looking in our direction.

  I sat on a high-stool and studied the limited array of single malts on the top shelf, my eyes wandering down to the gantry below the optics where the synthetic smile of a scantily clad page-three girl beamed out at me from behind a few strategically placed packets of peanuts. To her side was a framed black and white photograph of a boxer, his hair slicked back, hands wrapped in white gauze. He was crouched, ready to spring and unleash the fury of his fists. The time it was taking to get served- I knew how he felt.

  Eventually, the barman placed the thoroughly dry beer glass on a shelf and made his way down to what I logically assumed, and sincerely hoped, was The Shallow End. He was new, or at least I hadn’t seen him before. Andy, ever the optimist, ordered two chilled bottles of Innis & Gunn and settled for two luke-warm pints of heavy. I could see him hungrily eyeing up some SPAM rolls that lay asphyxiating in cling-film on a tin tray so I shouted up a couple of bags of dry-roasted.

  The barman set down the pints and tossed the packets of nuts on the counter beside them. ‘Six – twenty,’ he said, holding out a hand.

  ‘Is the boss in?’ I asked and the barman grunted in confirmation. ‘Tell him Robbie Munro’s here - I’ll be over there.’ I left the empty outstretched hand and ushered Andy to a table near the fruit machine.

  ‘And so ends the bloody business of the day,’ I said, after I’d sipped the head off my pint.

  ‘That was quite a speech.’ Andy set down a half empty glass and wiped his mouth. ‘First time I’ve heard the Heimlich manoeuvre being put forward as a defence.’

  I tore open my bag of peanuts. ‘Thanks. I was quite pleased with it.’

  ‘You know,’ Andy said, ‘I did a lot of work on that file and I don’t recall Mr Salavejus, or anyone else, saying that they thought the Inspector was choking.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘No – I don’t. Are you really telling me he told you to put forward that defence?’

  I palmed a handful of peanuts.

  ‘Well?’ Andy demanded.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The Heimlich manoeuvre.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Were those his instructions?’

  I didn’t like the way the conversation was headed. Client’s instructions were all very well in theory, but start going down that road in practice and I found you ended up with either a transparently implausible defence or the truth - both were usually best avoided.

  Andy looked at me accusingly. ‘You made it up didn’t you?’ He didn’t quite synchronise the words with his next pull from the pint glass and so spilled some beer down his front. ‘The whole thing. It was a complete fabrication.’ He dabbed at his tie with a beer mat.

  ‘A fabrication?’ Next he’d be calling the defence a tissue of lies and I might burst into tears.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t the truth.’

  ‘Quid est veritas?’ I asked. Lapsing into Latin is usually a good way to end an unwanted conversation, but Andy wasn't to be so easily put off. ‘Let’s leave Pontius Pilate out of this.’ He ripped a corner off his bag of nuts, poured some into his mouth and chewed for a moment. ‘The fact is you made it up. The entire defence, you invented it.’

  ‘Flatterer.’

  ‘I’m being serious, Robbie. You can’t just make up a defence and then present it to a jury, like it’s been handed down to you on tablets of stone - it’s completely unethical.’

  His voice was loud and one or two regulars turned to stare.

  ‘Keep talking,’ I said. ‘I need all the publicity I can get.’

  ‘It’s not funny. You deliberately misled the court.’

  ‘That presupposes I knew the truth of what happened,’ I said.

  Andy gave a hollow laugh. ‘You must have done. It was obvious from the statements – they were all on the file. I know. I took them.’

  I pushed my peanuts to the side. ‘Tell me. Were you in the Bombay Balti on the night in question?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘Then you don’t actually know what happened.’

  ‘Neither do you.’

  ‘That’s my point. Neither does the Procurator Fiscal, though it didn't stop him from charging my client with assaulting Dougie Fleming. All I did was present the jury with an alternative scenario. One that, for all I know, might have happened.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Andy said. ‘In a parallel universe.’ He swung back on his chair. ‘Come off it, Robbie. There’s no doubt that Oskaras Salavejus was as guilty as sin.’

  ‘Oh yes there is. At least eight people on the jury had a doubt.’ I studied the face of my assistant. So keen, so earnest, so much to learn.

  ‘Andy,’ I said, ‘it’s important you know what being a defence lawyer is all about. Boilermakers make boilers, shoemakers make shoes, bookmakers make lots of money and defence lawyers make doubts. Good defence lawyers make reasonable doubts. It's our job. It’s what we do.’


  Andy turned his attention to his pint, brows knitted. ‘Robbie...’ He looked worried. ‘Criminal defence work... I don’t know... I don’t know if I can do what you do. I don’t think I can just make stuff up.’

  ‘You don’t have to make up defences,’ I said. ‘Every puzzle has a solution, every crime has a defence. It’s only a matter of finding it. And stop worrying about the truth so much. It can look after itself.’

  Andy stared deep into the beer glass then up at me. ‘And the law? What about it?’

  The boy was deeply troubled. Who cared about the law? It changed all the time. The politicians couldn’t leave it alone for five minutes.

  ‘Court work is war,’ I told him. ‘And to quote Cicero: ‘in times of war the law is silent’. In court, all that matters is that when the smoke clears you and your client are still standing and there aren't prison bars between you. Victory, that’s the thing. It’s what reputations are made of and in our business reputation is everything.’

  Andy shrugged. Unconvinced. ‘And justice?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s blind,’ I said. ‘Which is handy if you want to pull a fast one.’

  I would have loved to have continued the debate. Jurisprudence was my favourite subject at Uni: no right or wrong answers just plenty of waffle; however, at that moment the back room door swung open and out walked a man on legs that were not long enough for his body.

  Brendan Patterson was as short and wiry as the tufts of hair that sprouted from the neck of his shirt, his ears, his chin, everywhere, in fact, apart from the top of his head. His face was tanned and leathery, inscribed with deep creases, his nose flattened and crooked. White scar tissue stood out vividly beneath each eyebrow. One look at him and you knew he had no problem emptying the bar at closing time. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said.

  I stood up. ‘We’ll talk about this later.’ I told Andy and ruffled his hair. He hated it when I did that. Which was mainly why I did it. ‘I’ll see you back at the office.’