Crime Fiction (Best Defence series Book 5)

by William H. S. McIntyre

  Smith kept a grip. ‘We’d like a little privacy,’ he said, and let go of them.

  If Brendan had had a forelock, and not a scuzz of wiry grey hair, he would have tugged it. Taking his mop and bucket he went around the bar and disappeared through the back.

  ‘You get your money all right?’ Smith asked. Using thumb and index finger, he turned the whisky tumbler around and around, watching the viscous waves coat the inside.

  ‘I got it,’ I said. ‘I just can’t spend it.’

  He smiled. ‘The list?’

  ‘We’re both on one,’ I said. ‘I’m on the list of winners. You’re right top of the losers’ chart.’

  ‘So I should be.’ He had a taste of whisky, smacked his lips and laughed. ‘I actually borrowed money so Devlin could invest it for me. I encouraged others to do the same. Can you imagine how stupid I feel?’

  He took another sip of whisky before dipping into his jacket pockets, either side, and removing a thick envelope from each. He piled them, one on top of the other, between us on the small round Formica covered table. ‘You can touch that,’ he said. ‘Twenty thousand as agreed.’ He pushed the stack across to me. It nudged against my untouched whisky glass. ‘And a little extra for your trouble.’

  I left the bundle where it was, unable to summon the energy to push it back at him. ‘The money was to be for the recovery of a memory-stick. I didn’t keep up my end of the bargain.’

  Smith smiled. ‘You did what I needed you to do.’

  ‘And Victor Devlin? What did he want?’

  Smith’s smile crawled off the side of his face. ‘Victor has everything he deserves.’

  ‘And what did I do to deserve Suzie Lake trying to blackmail me?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Felicity told me about your break-up. If I’d known Jill was such a smart cookie, I could have saved a lot of money on that photographer. Still, say the word and I’ll fix things between you two. I can give Suzie a call, tell her to go round and have a chat with Jill, explain what a perfect gentleman you were at all times.’

  ‘Just say the word? That’s all I have to do?’

  ‘No. You’d also have to forget Clyve Cree and forget the Quirk family.’

  An old guy poked his bunnet head around the front door. ‘You open yet, Brendan?’ He walked in, Racing Times under his arm, giving us scarcely a glance. ‘You two starting early or finishing late?’

  ‘And what if I don’t forget about them?’ I asked Rupert, once the flat-cap had walked past and found a stool at the far end of the bar.

  ‘It seems you’ve already lost your fiancée.’ Smith finished his whisky and stood up. ‘Do you really want to lose everything else as well?’

  I watched him go. It was too early for me and I had a lot of thinking to do without clouding my head with single malt.

  Brendan came through from the back room. ‘I was here if you needed me,’ he said. ‘Didn’t look like anything you couldn’t have handled yourself, though.’

  I was scarcely listening. Absent-mindedly, I stuffed the envelopes into my pockets, took my glass over to the bar and set it down in front of the only customer, who was studying form while chewing the end of a pencil.

  Why would Rupert, Suzie and Clyve-with-a-Y team up to try and save Dominic Quirk from a life sentence? If Suzie was out for money was it the same for Rupert? According to Gail Paton, Rupert had been super-scammed by Victor Devlin. He was top of Devlin’s hit list. And Cree? An ex-marine, now novelist, sometime chauffeur. Eleanor had said he was to blame for Suzie’s problems. If anyone could fill me in on what was going on, surely she could. I still had the Travers, Cowgill + Thomson business card. I phoned Eleanor and told her we needed to speak urgently about Malky’s autobiography. She agreed to see me at noon. That gave me over an hour. Plenty of time. It was only a short walk to the train station, one that I could interrupt with a pit-stop at Sandy’s.

  ‘Your dad was in,’ he said, pulling a tray of bacon out of the oven. ‘He’s looking for you. Sandy picked up the bottom of a morning roll he’d cut in half and held it up. ‘Butter or...?’

  ‘Or,’ I said, and he dipped the half roll into the bacon fat at the bottom of the pan and then pressed it against the hot griddle, letting it sizzle for a few seconds.

  ‘What was he wanting?’ I asked.

  ‘Your head on a plate. Lucky you missed him, if you ask me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Robbie.’

  I turned to see Kaye Mitchell in the doorway, holding a cardboard cup of coffee.

  ‘I was clearing up a few things at my office and your dad was at the front desk wanting to put an ad in about some hospice quiz-night or something. He was asking about Jill and one thing led to another...’

  ‘You told him?’

  ‘He practically wrung it out of me. All that was missing was a hard-backed chair and an angle-poise light in my face.’

  ‘You told him?’

  ‘He already suspected something was amiss and he was bound to find out sooner or later.’

  ‘Find out what?’ Sandy asked, laying strips of bacon onto the roll and squirting it with brown sauce.

  ‘We’re still on for tonight though?’

  I could tell by Kaye’s face that we weren’t.

  ‘That’s the other thing. I had to RSVP with names for security purposes.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m afraid you’re on the not-at-all-welcome list.’

  ‘Find out what?’ Sandy repeated, placing my roll in a paper bag.

  ‘About me and Jill,’ I said. ‘We’re... having some problems.’

  ‘What’s-a-wrong with you?’ Holding the top of the paper bag at each corner, he spun it around a couple of times. ‘You can’t keep a girl for more than five minutes. Remember Zoë? Seriously, Robbie. Australia?’

  I took my breakfast from him, ‘Zoë’s dead,’ I said, and walked out of the door.

  Chapter 49

  ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ Eleanor sat on her rug, leaned back and laughed at the ceiling. Her floral attire had been replaced by an equally voluminous burgundy Kaftan, set-off by a cream, hand-crocheted shawl. ‘ Malky wants Clyve Cree to ghost-write his memoirs? I wouldn’t trust that grunt to write my shopping list for me.’

  ‘ Malky read the book. The one with the submarine on the front. He liked it.’ I was completely winging it now.

  ‘Do you know how many editors worked on that book?’

  I didn’t, but I took a guess. ‘A lot?’

  ‘A very lot. More blood was sweated on re-writes than Cree ever spilled on the battlefield. The war didn’t take as long to get finished as that bloody book did and now it’s flying off the shelves like a budgie with no wings. Clyve Cree might be good at chucking hand-grenades about. Parachute him into Helmand Province with a canteen of water and a machine gun and I’m sure he’ll come back in one piece with a bunch of Afghan prisoners, just don’t ask him to write about it afterwards.’

  ‘So if he can’t write, why is he published?’

  Eleanor tilted her head, cocked an eyebrow, seemingly having problems coming to terms with my naiveté. ‘Publishers aren’t looking for writers. They’re looking to sell books. They’re looking for commodities to meet a market. It’s really only women and kids who read fiction. That’s easy. If your market is women, it’s sex, romance or gory-crime. If it’s young adults then you need wizards or vampires or talking-animals. Men want real life. They want sport and cars and wars. If they absolutely have to read fiction, they want to hear about stuff from people who know what they’re talking about. That’s why Travers Cowgill and Thomson knock-back dozens of submissions a week without even reading half of them and yet someone like your brother can waltz in here and be signed up without writing a word. Clyve is a decorated war hero. He’s been there, done it and has the battle scars and dead foreigners to prove it.’ To illustrate her last remarks, she elevated herself, drifted across the room to the table where copies of Cree’s hardback remained piled, lifted one and turned to Cree’s photograph on the inside of the
front cover. She held it up to me. ‘Of course, it helps if you’re a good-looking soldier and your agent happens to be a wet behind the ears friend of Dot.’ She snapped the book shut. ‘Jim Travers wouldn’t have touched Cree with a bayonet, but him-next-door, swooned and thought he was looking at the next Andy McNab.’ Eleanor tossed the book across the desk at me. ‘Take it. I can hardly give the things away.’ She pulled open a desk drawer and took out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. ‘Don’t worry, things will be different for your brother. Malky’s my boy. If he sticks to telling his story and not actually writing it, I know someone who can knock out an autobiography inside a month. Add a suitably naff title and we can have the whole thing stitched up and in the shops just in time for Christmas.’ She put a cigarette between her lips, raised the lighter to the end. ‘You don’t mind do you?’ she asked, lighting up. ‘I’ll only smoke half.’

  I leafed through Cree’s book as though I was interested. There was a memorial on the fly-leaf and below it a list of acknowledgements. ‘You said something before to me about Suzie Lake and money problems and it being Clyve’s fault.’

  Eleanor drew on the cigarette, held in the smoke and nodded. ‘Portcullis took off big time,’ she said, after she’d exhaled long and slow. ‘It’s now had half a dozen print-runs and at least three different cover designs. The minute it broke into the bestsellers’ list, the publishers came back looking for more of the same. Naturally, Jim Travers played hard to get. Once the hook was in, no-one could land a book deal like Jim. He secured a deal for a further three books. Biggest advance this agency ever achieved. Did I tell you that already?’ She had. ‘Well, no agent in Scotland has come close to it since. Real Cinderella stuff. One minute Suzie was punting short stories to women’s mags, the next she had an advance cheque you could have beaten a whale to death with.’

  I wondered aloud how that could possibly pose a problem.

  ‘Four letters,’ Eleanor said. ‘HMR and C.’ Two more puffs, each drag held prisoner before release. ‘There was a big party. All our authors were at it. I introduced Clyve to Suzie. Unfortunately, Clyve knew of a tax shelter that could also turn a handsome profit. I say unfortunately because he put Suzie in touch with his partner’s father who was some kind of jumped-up IFA. He made Suzie a small fortune.’ Eleanor held the greatly diminished cigarette vertically in front of her face and closed an eye. ‘Trouble was she’d started off with a large fortune.’

  Eleanor was looking for somewhere to stub out the small half of her cigarette when the door flew open and Sam Travers burst in. ‘Eleanor, how am I supposed to work if you’re stinking the place out with... Who’s this?’ He asked in a tone that suggested he knew exactly who this was. ‘What’s he doing here?’

  Eleanor picked up a metal bin and ground the cigarette stub against the side. ‘He’s a client. Well his brother is. Now if you don’t mind—’

  ‘Is he here asking questions about Suzie Lake?’

  Eleanor put the bin down and looked at me.

  ‘I knew it.’ Travers man came over to me and grabbed hold of my jacket by the shoulder. ‘Out!’

  I stood. So did Eleanor. She looked like she wanted to object, but was too confused to know what was happening.

  ‘He’s a stalker,’ Travers said. ‘Either that or he’s looking to serve proceedings on Suzie. I’ve already had to throw him out of here once already. Call the police.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ I said.

  Travers strengthened his grip on my clothing. ‘I think there is.’

  He had a face I’d never have got tired of slapping. I was sorely tempted to batter him over the head with Clyve Cree’s hardback. Instead, I pressed my index finger into his manubrium. He instinctively stepped back to where I had handily placed my left foot. Stumbling, flailing the air to regain balance, he was forced to let go of my shirt so he could break his fall.

  ‘Get out of here!’ he yelled from the floor.

  ‘Eleanor,’ I said, as I edged my way to the exit. ‘What’s the name of Clyve Cree’s father-in-law?’ Travers sprang to his feet and leapt for the phone on the desk. ‘Eleanor, just give me his name.’ The woman in the maroon Kaftan stood there blinking, fiddling with the corner of her shawl, too shocked to reply. Travers started punching buttons. ‘Eleanor, what’s his name?’

  ‘Police?’ Travers said. ‘I want to report an intruder at the offices of Travers Cowgill and Thomson.’

  ‘Eleanor, is it Rupert Smith?’

  Eyes fixed on me, Travers recited the address to the police.

  ‘Did Suzie give all her money to Rupert Smith?’

  Eleanor presented me with an expanse of burgundy fabric as she turned to stare out of the window. She wasn’t going to answer. She didn’t need to.

  Chapter 50

  What was it I’d once said? All you need to keep out of jail is a lot of money and a little imagination.

  The one thirty-three from Waverley rattled west, the rhythm of the wheels on the track drumming into me how right I’d been: Al Quirk’s money and Suzie’s imagination.

  What disappointed me most at first was that Suzie would treat me, a friend, the way she had. And yet, the more I thought about it, were we actually friends? Sure we had spent a few months at Uni together many years before - so what? Her time there had been cut short and some of the blame for that fell on me. What had I ever done for her to make us friends? The plot for Portcullis? I didn’t think so, not now. Suzie had other reasons for making gifts of expensive whisky and flattering me into thinking I was some kind of ideas man.

  I tried a chapter of Clyve Cree’s book. Maybe it said much about my literary leanings that I quite liked it; however, it wasn’t enough to keep my mind off the author’s role in Dominic Quirk’s case. Time and again I found myself piecing together the plan to free the murder-accused. I had to admit, it hadn’t been a bad attempt and surprisingly subtle.

  With the kind of money Al Quirk had at his disposal, he could have charged right in there and tried bribing someone involved in the case: a judge, a prosecutor, some jurors, even a defence agent, but it would have been a high risk strategy. If someone had blown the whistle, there would be no place to hide and no second chances. No, Al was a man who knew his limitations. In attempts to pervert justice, just as in business, he relied on experts.

  Enter Suzie Lake. Thanks to Rupert, Suzie had lost a fortune. She was in debt and needed money. As a writer of fiction she knew better than to tackle a crime head-on. Better to come at it from an angle. Find a way to influence the outcome of the trial without any of those participating realising what was happening. First thing you needed was someone involved in the case to give you the inside track. Someone so stupid, or so infatuated, that he’d roll over and let you tickle his tummy while he spelled out all the weaknesses in his client’s defence so that you could strengthen yours.

  At least it was over and no harm done, I thought as I ceased my mental self-flagellation, alighted from the train and commenced the walk back to my flat. It was back to square one for Dominic Quirk’s defence. Mark Starrs was copping a plea and once the deal was done there would be nothing his father, Suzie, Clyve Cree or anyone else could do about it. If they hatched some other scheme to free Dominic that was somebody else’s problem. I wasn’t paid to see that justice was done. My only concern was my client and, if I happened to also have made twenty grand cash out of it, my lips would be sealed on the aborted attempt to pervert.

  My dad was waiting for me when I arrived home. He was on his hands and knees in the porch, directly inside the front door, taping a worn section of carpet. ‘Tripping hazard.’ he said. ‘The tape will hold it just now, but you need a mat to cover it, better still a new carpet or some proper lino, and not that vinyl stuff.’

  I’d really wanted to avoid him for at least another twenty-four hours. I might be on the blacklist for Zanetti’s charity ball, but that wasn’t going to stop me. One way or another I’d get to Jill and demand that she listen to me. I’d done nothing wrong
. She’d have to believe me.

  With a grunt and a great deal of effort he raised himself into an upright position. ‘Where have you been? Up and away early for a Saturday, weren’t you? I hope you weren’t driving, you had a bit to drink last night. How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m fine, Dad, and I’ve been working.’ What else could I say without bringing up the subject of Jill.

  ‘Well?’ he said. ‘Are you not going to ask me why I’m here?’

  I thought I knew the answer to that and it wasn’t practising his DIY. ‘Listen, Dad, do you think you could butt out of my private life?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know you mean well...’

  A knock at the door. I caught sight of a dark uniform outside the front window. Cops. Travers had actually called them. What a wee shit. I’d thought he was bluffing me.

  ‘Inspector Fleming asked us to pop round, sir.’ My dad had opened the door to a police officer, young and female. ‘Mr Munro?’ she said.

  ‘That’s me,’ said my dad.

  ‘Can we come in?’

  My dad stepped aside and I could see there was another cop there, an older male. I recognised him from somewhere. The witness box probably. The two cops walked into the hall.

  ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘This is my house. What’s this about?’

  ‘Who are you?’ the female officer asked.

  The older cop came to the fore. ‘They’re both Mr Munro. It’s you we want to speak to Mr... Robbie,’ he said to me before turning to my dad. ‘Sorry, Alex, we’ve had a report and been asked to check it out. It’s probably nothing.’

  ‘If it’s about that idiot Travers, it is nothing,’ I said breaking my cardinal rule of telling the police zero, something not so easy when you’re the subject of the investigation.

  ‘It’s about the theft of a bottle of whisky,’ the male cop said. ‘A very rare one.’ He patted the breast pockets of his tunic in turn and then looked over his shoulder at the WPC.