Crime Fiction (Best Defence series Book 5)

by William H. S. McIntyre

  The same four numbers got us into the agents’ room. There was no-one else there. ‘It’s about Victor Devlin,’ she said. ‘Have you seen him recently?’

  What was she talking about? The whole reason I’d gone through to Glasgow two weeks before was to ask if Gail knew her client’s whereabouts.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she asked, once I’d told her I hadn’t met her client recently or at any other time in the past.

  ‘Of course I’m sure. Why?’

  ‘When we spoke, you were asking about Devlin and a mining operation. What was the stuff called?’

  ‘Tantalite.’

  ‘That’s it. You wanted to know if I’d seen him. Well, you’re not the only one. The cops have asked me the same question.’

  ‘Did they say why?’

  They had. As I’d learned in my initial discussions with Rupert, Devlin had invested a lot of other people’s money very unwisely. Unwisely for them, not so much for him. The police as well as some officers from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs wanted to ask him a few questions.

  ‘They can’t find him, but they know he’s still active. They put a trace on his company’s bank account to monitor it and see where it led them. By the time they decided they needed to put a freeze on it, the account had been cleared out by electronic transfers.’

  It sounded like Victor Devlin, or, possibly, some men with guns had got hold of a certain memory-stick.

  ‘You seem to be well up with the police investigation,’ I said.

  ‘I have a contact. Well he’s more than a contact actually, or he would like to be.’

  ‘Aren’t you the right wee Mata Hari?’

  ‘It’s not like that. Brian’s a forensic accountant. I met him during Devlin’s first case that never went to trial. He was helping the Crown crunch the numbers. After the case was binned he called me, well, actually, I made him call me, he just didn’t realise it, and we’ve been going out ever since. He’s working on the new case now and our relationship has made some of the proceeds of crime team a trifle jumpy, so we’ve had to promise never to talk shop. Jim insists we keep to that promise. Which is why I have to take the occasional shufty into his briefcase, otherwise I wouldn’t even know I was on the Crown’s list of possible money-launderers.’

  ‘What are you going to do? Is there any way I can help?’

  Gail laughed. ‘Don’t worry about me. It’s no big deal. Of course I had money in my account from Victor Devlin. He was my client. I’m not a charity and payments in lieu of legal fees are exempt from the anti-moneylaundering regulations, so long as the fee can be justified. Not a problem for me. I have a stack of files to show the work done. What about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Robbie,’ she said. ‘You’re on the list too.’

  Chapter 35

  I was outside Stirling Sheriff Court, hunting for my car keys when I felt my phone buzz. Over lunch-time, I’d borrowed a phone from another lawyer and called Jill hoping the unrecognised number would fool her. I’d met with some limited success by way of a promise from her P.A. that she’d have Jill call me back.

  I drew the phone from my pocket like a gunslinger. It wasn’t Jill. It was Malky.

  ‘Do you never answer your phone? I’ve been trying to phone you all day,’ he said.

  ‘What is it, Malky?’ My brother only called when he wanted something or was in trouble. So fairly often.

  ‘I’ve got a wee problem,’ he said, sheepishly. ‘Well, actually, it’s you who’s got the problem - and it’s not really all that wee.’

  ‘ Malky, just tell me what it is, will you?’ I might as well add it to my other problems like being a cancelled bridegroom and a suspected money-launderer.

  I climbed into my car. One good thing about the recession was that a lot of traffic wardens had been paid off. Either that or I’d just been lucky and the out of date ticket that I kept lying along the top of the dashboard for all occasions had been enough to keep those still in a job at bay.

  ‘That whisky you got Dad for Father’s Day,’ Malky said. ‘I was round at his house and he was showing it off to me - again.’

  ‘Tell me you haven’t dropped it.’

  He hadn’t. It was much worse than that.

  * * * * *

  The first pleasant evening in a while and my dad was making the most of it, dressed in T-shirt and baggy shorts, sitting in a deckchair at the bottom of his garden doing a newspaper crossword. His feet were resting on a pile of bricks and next to them, on top of a partially constructed barbecue, was perched a familiar cardboard tube, complete with printed tartan and an embossed stag’s head.

  ‘Okay, what did Malky tell you?’ I asked.

  My dad didn’t acknowledge my presence. ‘Three across, four letters, first letter ‘L’, last letter ‘R’, one who tells lies.’ He tapped his pen against his front teeth. ‘I’m sure I should know this.’

  ‘I didn’t actually lie to you,’ I said.

  ‘Didn’t you?’ He cast the newspaper aside. The crossword was already filled in. He’d been sitting waiting for me. There was no way this was going to end well. ‘You gave me that...’ he pointed the careless toe of his sandal at the whisky tube, ‘and let me believe you meant it as a gift. When…’ he stifled my attempt at a protest, ‘you didn’t even know what was in it. Although you thought you did. You thought you were giving me a bottle of, of...’ He could hardly bring himself to say the words. ‘Co-op blended. A gift from one of your junkie clients. It’s probably nicked.’

  Malky had left nothing out and added some more to the story by the sounds of it.

  ‘It’s not stolen, Dad. It was a present, but not from a junkie client, from a friend of mine.’

  I could have pretended that I’d only told Malky the story so he wouldn’t feel bad about his gift, but the truth was out now and I couldn’t get the genie back in the whisky bottle. I told him about Suzie, my role in her breakthrough novel and her thank-you present.

  ‘Then the whisky is yours,’ he said.

  I hesitated. There was four thousand pounds worth of whisky in that tacky cardboard tube after all.

  ‘Will you drink it?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. I’d see it as more of an investment.’

  He grunted. ‘I saw the laddie Quirk on the news tonight. What happened to your boy?’

  ‘Wish I knew.’

  ‘How’s business otherwise?’

  Seeing as how I was in truth mode, I told him. ‘Shocking.’

  ‘Then take the whisky. You know me - Islay malts - I can take them or leave them.’

  Even he found it hard to keep a straight face at that. ‘What I mean is that if you’re not going to drink it, sell it. Put it towards that new house for you and Jill.’

  I’d never experienced a panic attack, never really understood the concept until that moment. My chest felt tight, my breathing came sharp and short. Sweat broke out on my brow. If my dad found out that I’d mucked up my relationship with the daughter of his deceased best friend, that there was to be no wedding, no grand-children, no Caol Ila miniatures...

  My phone buzzed. I checked the number and didn’t recognise it. I used it as an excuse. ‘Got to go, Dad.’

  My dad heaved himself out of his deckchair. ‘Wait there a minute,’ he said, and set off down the garden returning minutes later with a paperback edition of Portcullis, first in the Debbie Day series. I didn’t recognise the cover picture. It had obviously been revamped since the first edition came out a few years previously. ‘This her?’ He opened the book to reveal a full page photograph of Suzie on the inside of the cover, looking prettier than ever, but in a serious, authorly sort of a way. ‘Di Prentice up at St Michael’s gave me a loan of it. She’s a big fan.’

  I never quite knew the set-up between my dad and Dr Diane Prentice other than they collaborated a lot over charity events for the local hospice. Whether there was any more to the relationship was something I didn’t care to dwell on.


  ‘If I’d known the hero was going to be a woman, I wouldn’t have bothered.’ My dad had obviously judged the book by its gory cover and not by the blurb on the back. ‘Pretty good, though.’ He flicked through the pages and then held out the book to me. ‘I’ve read the other two as well. Got them from the library. She’s not too bad a writer for a woman. Keeps the usual boyfriend trouble and shoe-shopping to a minimum.’

  I took the paperback from my dad the literary critic. In the unlikely event that I ever managed to find Suzie, I could give her the good news that I had a promo for the cover of her next book. I could see it now. Praise for Suzie Lake. ‘She’s not too bad a writer - for a woman’, Alex Munro. ‘Thanks, but I’ve read it,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t want you to read it. I want you to get Suzie Lake to sign it. It’ll be a nice present for Diane - and it’s the least you can do.’

  Chapter 36

  Mark Starrs was in custody. So Grace-Mary informed me when I arrived at my office next morning, coffee and bacon roll in hand. She put that day’s court files on a chair in my room and the mail requiring my attention in a wire basket on my desk. ‘He was caught last night at his house.’

  The only entry in my diary that Friday was a trial that had been postponed at an earlier intermediate diet due to problems with Crown witnesses, and so I had the morning to myself. It was a chance to catch up with some paperwork, which usually meant bureaucratic gymnastics with the Scottish Legal Aid Board.

  ‘Where is he?’ I asked.

  ‘Barlinnie for the moment. They’re not sure if they’re going to shift him to Saughton or Lowmoss. It depends on the bail situation.’

  I couldn’t see there being a bail situation for Mark Starrs. How was I supposed to persuade a Sheriff to release once more an accused who couldn’t be bothered to get out of his scratcher for something as important as a preliminary hearing in a murder trial?

  ‘Are you going to visit him?’ Grace-Mary asked.

  ‘Maybe later in the week. I’m too busy today.’ There was also the fact that even though this was a high-profile murder case, the Scottish Legal Aid Board would only sanction two prison consultations and I’d rather use them up when I had something worthwhile to talk to my client about and not merely his non-existent bail prospects.

  Fortified by another bite of bacon roll, I logged into SLAB’s on-line system. Grace-Mary was about to leave the room when I called her back. ‘I have a wee job for you, involving your favourite author,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, yes. And what would that be?’

  ‘Find her for me. I need to speak to her urgently.’

  I could tell my secretary was dying to ask why, but she didn’t. ‘I bet you haven’t phoned Zoë yet, have you?’ she asked on her way out of the room.

  ‘I’ll do it straight after this,’ I called to her, through a mouthful of bread and Ayrshire’s finest.

  The phone rang. It was Fiona Faye.

  ‘I take it you’ve heard?’ I said.

  She had. ‘The Crown is not going to waste any more time. A fresh indictment is ready to be served, expect a final preliminary hearing to follow and the trial up and running inside two or three weeks. It doesn’t give us a lot of time to deal with the damaging new evidence from this guy Cree. Any more info on him?’

  I told her what I knew, which wasn’t a lot.

  ‘I think Mr Starrs should have stayed better hidden,’ Fiona said, and I knew what she meant. There was nothing worse than a Crown witness with no axe to grind. Cree’s evidence was good ammunition for the Crown and even better for Dominic Quirk’s defence. With it, all guns would be aimed at Mark Starrs. We agreed to consult with our client sometime soon in order to finalise the line of defence and decide how best to tackle the Crown’s new witness.

  Half an hour later, Grace-Mary came through with a spiral notepad. ‘Right. The only definite lead I had was the Hay-on-Wye book festival, she was doing a talk there, but that’s passed now.’ She must have sensed my impatience, because she scowled at me and flicked over to the next page. ‘Her next engagement is Bloody Scotland in Stirling and that’s months away. I can’t find word of her appearing at anything in between.’

  I didn’t see how you could lose an internationally acclaimed crime writer during a summer when just about every city, town and village in the UK was hosting a book fair. ‘Have you tried her agent?’ I asked.

  ‘You mean to say you know who her agent is and you never thought to tell me?’

  ‘No. I thought you might have found that out.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Have you tried typing: Suzie Lake’s literary agent, into Google to see what it comes up with?’

  ‘No,’ Grace-Mary answered. ‘Have you?’

  I hadn’t, but I did. The search engine came up with someone called Sam Travers of The Travers, Cowgill + Thomson Agency. They had an office in Edinburgh.

  I phoned, gave the receptionist some old chat about a highly confidential, but extremely urgent matter concerning Suzie and was offered an appointment in a fortnight. Nothing I could say would change her mind. Mr Travers was out to lunch and wouldn’t be back until later in the day. I could try calling then. I didn’t. Instead, I caught the next train to Haymarket, walked down Shandwick Place and located the offices of Travers, Cowgill + Thomson in Rutland Square at the foot of Lothian Road.

  By the time I arrived, Sam Travers had only just returned from lunch and would have great difficulty cramming me into his afternoon’s busy schedule. I said I was prepared to wait and was grudgingly shown to a room with some uncomfortable hard-backed chairs and an ancient teak coffee table that was host to a thousand mug-rings. High in one of the corners of the room a tiny flat screen played CNN, volume off, subtitles on. After I’d read the rolling news a few times I lost interest and, before I felt compelled to read one of the mags, I glanced around the wall at the framed photographs of those I reasonably inferred to be clients of the firm. Some I guessed would be authors and thus readily unidentifiable. One, a former soap star, I recognised from TV; any more of a ham and he’d have been honey-glazed. Nowadays he spent a lot of time extolling the cuisine at a particular fast-food restaurant chain, the doors of which I doubted very much he had ever darkened without a fat endorsement cheque on his hip. In the main they were just people with lots of tooth enamel.

  Eventually I was forced to flick through one of the magazines, before turning my attention to the Independent: a newspaper with little enough Scottish football in it at the best of times, far less the close season. I had been waiting at least forty-five minutes when the receptionist came through.

  ‘Mr Travers wonders if you’d like anything while you’re waiting,’ she said.

  ‘A coffee would be nice,’ I ventured, before realising that I had interrupted her.

  She gave me a tight little smile. ‘There is a water cooler outside this door and, if you like, I can fetch some more mints.’ She gestured to a small smoked-glass ashtray on the edge of the coffee table that contained a few sweeties and then left.

  I was on my fifth pan-drop when she returned to say that Mr Travers would see me now. I followed her through.

  For some reason I had imagined Mr Travers as an elderly gentleman in a tweed suit with a reasonable amount of facial hair, who’d managed to struggle back to the office after a liquid lunch and planned spending the rest of the afternoon dashing off a batch of rejection letters. He was in fact very young in T-shirt and jeans, with a mass of dark hair that was arranged in a fairly haphazard fashion on the top of his head. He sat reclined, ankles crossed, heels resting on a chrome and glass desk, the tyre-track soles of his boots on display. He didn’t get up when I was shown in, just swirled a finger around in the air and then pointed grimly at the plastic bucket chair in front of me.

  ‘You’ve got five. Pitch it,’ he said, leaning back, hands clasped behind his head.

  ‘I’m not—’

  Mop-head unlocked his hands and snapped fingers at me. ‘Synopsis?’

  ‘No
, you don’t—’

  ‘What are we talking? I don’t do kids, Y A, poetry, short stories and no porn unless it’s Fifty Shades—’

  ‘I’m not here about a book,’ I said. Fifty shades of grey best described my underwear drawer. ‘I’m here about Suzie Lake. We’re friends. I’ve something very important to ask her, but I can’t seem to track her down and she’s not answering her phone.’

  He looked at me suspiciously. ‘Friends? Who are you again?’

  ‘Robbie Munro. We were at Uni together. I gave Suzie the idea for her first book, you know, featuring what’s-her-name, the policewoman.’

  ‘Debbie Day?’ Travers jerked a thumb at a framed promotional poster on the wall displaying the three covers of Suzie’s crime series fanned out and the author’s signature boldly scrawled across the bottom in black marker-pen.

  ‘Yeah, that’s it, the first one, Portcullis, that was me.’

  The young man removed his feet from the desk and sat up straight, a worried look on his face. ‘Can I see some ID?’

  It wasn’t a problem. I took out my Law Society photo identity card and handed it over to him. He studied both sides of it and handed it back. ‘Are you a lawyer?’

  I stifled the surge of sarcastic comebacks and settled for, ‘yes.’

  ‘Then I know exactly why you want to speak to Suzie and...’ He rose from his seat, walked over and opened the door. ‘I think you should leave.’

  He couldn’t possibly know what I wanted to speak to Suzie about. I told him so. ‘It’s a personal matter. All I need is a means of contacting her. Maybe she has a new phone. How about an email address?’

  ‘I’m going to count to three,’ he said.

  After the ‘are you a lawyer’ remark, I had my doubts he’d manage. I stood. ‘I think you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick, Mr Travers. I’m Suzie’s friend.’

  He held the door open even wider. ‘You’re either a stalker, in which case I’m going to call the police, or you’re here to serve a writ or something. Either way, you’re leaving. Understand?’