Good News, Bad News

by WHS McIntyre

  ‘I thought you said it wasn’t?’

  ‘I know, but she was going to say it was and then change her mind later after I’d bought it. I spoke to her personally. It was all sorted.’

  I could see where this was going. A land transaction involving Flim-Flam Freddy Fletcher? It must have been the pound signs that blinded Jake to the obvious.

  ‘Once the owner was told the place couldn’t be developed, I hit him with a new offer. Seventy-five grand. We settled for a hundred and I gave Freddy fifty for a finder’s fee on top.’ We had reached the centre of the field. Jake turned and looked back the way we’d come. It was a pleasant enough afternoon, the sun stripteasing behind thin veils of cloud, and only the lightest breeze disturbing the expanse of long grass and weeds as we walked through it. ‘After that, I thought all I had to do was fire in a fresh application to the Council and start building houses.’

  I’d already guessed the rest, although Jake told me it anyway as we made the walk back to the car.

  ‘The woman from the Council’s planning department came to see me again. She said she’d been overruled at a high level and the decision was made that the land should be declared green belt.’

  ‘And Freddy? What was he declared? Dead?’

  ‘No. Missing. Before I could get a grip of him.’

  ‘What about the owner?’

  ‘Gone. I asked about. Someone told me he was Freddy’s uncle. Now I’m stuck with a dilapidated cottage and a lot of weeds in the middle of nowhere. I can’t even rent the field out for grazing because these yellow buggers poison the horses,’ he said, swinging a boot at an impertinent clump of ragwort.

  The visit didn’t help Jake’s mood, the default setting of which was usually best described as perilously unstable. I drove us back to the yard making complimentary remarks about the car as we went along, desperately trying to think of non-inflammatory ways to bring up the subject of Freddy Fletcher again, whether he was still on this earthly plane and what it would cost to keep him here should Jake discover his whereabouts.

  ‘What do you think, then?’ Jake asked, after we’d bounced our way along the potholed road to his yard and I’d brought the BMW to a halt in the compound adjacent to his company headquarters: premises easily mistaken for a rickety old prefabricated hut with some dodgy wooden steps leading up to them, because that’s what they were.

  ‘I like it,’ I said. ‘But three thousand is a bit more than I’d been thinking of paying.’

  ‘It’s a solid motor. But if you want to drive the wife and wean around in a cheap rattly old death trap, that’s up to you.’

  ‘And I felt the brakes were soft.’

  ‘I can have one of the boys check the fluid level.’

  ‘Let me think about it.’ I handed Jake back the keys and was making my way across the potholes back to my own car when he called to me.

  ‘Hey, Baw Heid. If you see Ellen again – tell her I was asking for her.’

  10

  ‘Jake Turpie was asking after you.’

  Ellen Fletcher removed the cotton wool discs from her eyes, fluttered her lashes a few times and stared up at me. She was enveloped in a white robe, a white towel wrapped around her head, white slippers on her feet and reclining on a white sun lounger. The only thing not white about her was her lipstick and the liquid inside the margarita glass. They were both red. She took a sip before replying. ‘You’ve seen him then?’

  ‘This morning.’ I pulled up the adjacent lounger and sat side-saddle. ‘He was telling me the story about how Freddy swindled him.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes, he denies killing your husband, but only because he hasn’t managed to find him yet. He was so suspicious at me turning up out of the blue asking about Freddy, I nearly had to buy a car from him.’

  Two young women who’d been lying on the loungers to our left got up, slipped out of their robes and into the pool where they began a lazy breaststroke, barely disturbing the viscous, azure depths. I was so busy watching I didn’t notice another young woman, dressed in a white smock and trousers, approach us until she’d arrived at our side. Clearing her throat, she looked me up and down before suggesting to Ellen that it might be more convenient if we took our conversation through the glass doors behind us and outside onto the patio. I gathered she’d been sent by the three women perched on stools at the small bar at the far end of the pool, who were sipping cocktails and staring hard at the strange man in his outdoor clothes.

  Ellen knocked back her red drink, dug a hand into the pocket of her robe and fished out a couple of fifties. ‘Thanks, but we’re fine here,’ she said, thrusting the cash and empty margarita glass at the attendant. ‘I’ll have another one of those and get my lawyer what he wants.’

  ‘A beer is fine for me,’ I said. ‘Anything cold.’

  The attendant stared down uncertainly at the money and glass she now held in either hand.

  ‘The money’s for you, dear,’ Ellen said to her. ‘Put the drinks on my room. Mrs Fletcher, the penthouse suite.’

  Any uncertainty evaporated and the attendant scurried off to fetch our drinks.

  ‘I suppose it does look like Freddy’s alive,’ I said, lowering my voice. ‘That’s something.’

  ‘Aye, something not very much. I told you he was alive. I wanted you to find out how much Jake would take to leave him alone.’

  ‘Freddy conned Jake out of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’

  ‘Was it that much?’

  ‘Yes, and each one of those pounds was Jake’s personal friend. At the very least he’s going to want them all back. Then there’s the interest.’

  ‘What’s a year’s interest come to? Can’t be that much.’

  ‘Jake’s not a building society, he’s an illegal moneylender. The interest will be huge.’

  Ellen looked away. ‘Just tell him I’ll pay him off if he leaves Freddy alone.’

  ‘He’ll want to know how you’re going to do that, and I’m not starting off negotiations by asking him how much he wants and, by the way, Ellen’s won the lottery.’

  ‘Then don’t mention me or the lottery,’ Ellen said. ‘Just tell him that Freddy’s scraped enough cash together to pay him back and see what he says.’

  ‘I’d rather we sounded out this Freddy guy first.’

  ‘I’ve told you. There is no Freddy guy. There is only Freddy.’

  ‘But you haven’t actually seen him?’

  Our drinks arrived. Ellen’s in a margarita glass, my beer in a precariously tall tumbler with a slice of lime jammed onto the rim. Ellen absorbed some red liquid and placed the glass on the small wooden table by her side. ‘I know you think I’m being conned. That’s why I’ve brought you in. I can trust you. Go see Freddy. Satisfy yourself it’s really him, and then you can take the money to Jake. If it worries you so much, there’s no need for Freddy even to see the money. After Jake’s been paid off, and then when I’m . . .’ Her voice faltered. ‘When I’m . . . gone, Freddy can have what’s left.’ She lifted her glass and toasted me. ‘I’m not planning on leaving that much behind.’

  I still didn’t like it. ‘So, you’re saying that Freddy has been gone for over a year, never sent you so much as a postcard from sunny Prague and yet you want to leave him your money? There are bound to be more deserving causes than him.’

  ‘Like you?’

  I laughed. ‘No, I mean like charities, children’s homes, hospices. Not some clapped-out con-artist who ditched you as soon as he laid his hands on a decent score.’

  ‘Freddy’s my husband.’

  ‘Big deal. It’s not like you owe him anything.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ She picked up the glass, drank what was left and waved to the attendant for another. ‘It was my fault he left.’

  11

  Antonia Brechin’s case was called on Tuesday in front of a visiting sheriff who’d been brought in especially. I met her in the lobby outside court where she was anxiously pacing u
p and down, clutching the summary complaint that had been served on her by one of the court cops.

  Across the lobby, the two young women, one blonde, one brunette, whom I took to be Antonia’s co-accused, were each deep in conversation with their own solicitors while friends and family members orbited.

  ‘How’s it looking?’ Antonia’s mum, clothes by Burberry, figure by Cadbury, had a broad freckly face that was unnaturally pale and gaunt that morning. She’d been sitting on one of the public benches and came over when she saw me arrive. ‘Is it serious? Is Antonia going to prison?’

  For simple possession of cocaine, I thought her daughter would be looking at a fine or a spot of unpaid work in the community. That was the good news. The bad news concerned her future in the law.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘she’s not going to prison.’

  ‘But she’ll lose her job, won’t she? They’ll strike her off.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but we’re at way too early a stage in proceedings for me to say what might happen down the line. Right now my only thought is to try and have Antonia acquitted.’

  ‘Acquitted?’ Mrs Brechin looked at me as though I were mad. ‘You mean get her off with it? How can you get her off with it? She’s guilty.’

  Antonia tried to lead her mum away, but the woman was not for budging. ‘Antonia is taking a few days off and then having a meeting with Mr Jordan about her job. You’re married to his niece, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I said, ‘but I’m sure he’ll be fine about everything. Innocent until proven guilty after all.’

  ‘But what happens when she’s found guilty?’ Mrs Brechin’s mouth got small and tight. ‘What then? Her grandfather says—’

  ‘Mum,’ Antonia placed an arm around her mother. ‘At least let Mr Munro read the charge sheet and then he’ll tell us what he thinks.’

  Mrs Brechin shrugged off the arm and returned to the bench with a departing accusatory glance at me as if I were in some way responsible for her daughter’s illegal recreational activities.

  I took the charge sheet from my new client. As I’d thought, the allegation was straightforward enough: a contravention of section 5(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. I turned to the summary of evidence and read that the police had received an anonymous tip-off, obtained a warrant and, on the evening of the first of May, crashed through the door of the flat in Linlithgow that Antonia shared with two others.

  According to the summary of evidence, a wrap of cocaine had been found inside a small wooden box on a coffee table in the living room.

  ‘How bad is it?’ Antonia asked when I looked up from the papers. I could see her mother pretending not to listen in. ‘What’s the worst-case scenario?’

  Clients always want to know the worst-case scenario. Ever since we’d stopped killing criminals in Scotland back in 1963, the worst-case scenario was prison, but clients didn’t want to hear that. Clients wanted their lawyers to say that everything was going to be okay. I’d found the pessimistic approach, or even the honest one, was a sure-fire way to send a client off in search of a lawyer with a more cheerful worst-case scenario; a bit like watching all the news channels until you found a weather forecast you liked. It was easier just to tell clients that everything would be fine. That helped keep them on-board and, if not exactly happy, at least with some hope to cling onto. If, at the end of it all things did go disaster-movie, well, so long as I’d tried my best, I could always console myself with the fact it wasn’t me going to prison.

  ‘It’s early days yet,’ I said, cheerfully, ‘but, trust me, there’s definitely scope for optimism.’

  Antonia’s lovely smile threatened to break out, but disappeared at the sound of a court officer calling to me from the top of the stairs. It was Eleanor Hammond the Sheriff Clerk, Bert Brechin’s right-hand woman. I walked over to see what she wanted.

  ‘Sheriff Brechin would like to see you and his daughter-in-law in chambers,’ she said, meeting me halfway.

  I went back down the stairs and over to the now slightly less disconsolate figure on the public bench. ‘Mrs Brechin, your father-in-law would like to see you in chambers. I take it you know the way. I’ll wait here with Antonia.’

  There was no danger of me going in for a quiet chat with Sheriff Brechin. He’d only demand I hand in my marching papers, and, tempting though it was to be shot of the case, the certain knowledge that my involvement would annoy him, somehow, made all the hassle worthwhile.

  With her mother away, Antonia wanted me to give her my real opinion. ‘Did you mean that? Are you really optimistic or was that for the benefit of my mum?’

  ‘You made no comment when interviewed by the police, so that’s good. Now I need to find out what the other two have said. If they’ve also kept quiet, then all the police have is some drugs in a box on a table in a flat. How can they prove who had the necessary knowledge and control to constitute possession? Worst case, I think I can do a deal with the PF so that one person pleads and the others have their not-guilty pleas accepted.’

  ‘And who would that one person be?’

  ‘Let’s put it this way, if I’m doing the dealing it’s not going to be you.’

  She did smile this time, and I remembered the pretty young woman I’d first met at the awards dinner, her face flushed with excitement and pride. The smile slowly dimmed. ‘But why does anyone have to plead guilty? I thought you said every snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty?’

  I looked across the lobby at the other two snowflakes. If no-one pled guilty the case would go to trial and anything could happen. We needed a sacrificial lamb. Someone for the Crown to lay on the altar to the God of conviction statistics. Both of Antonia’s co-accused were young women. Each had a defence solicitor with them. I recognised their lawyers. Gail Paton, hair scraped back and too much make-up. She’d been around the legal block so often they probably had a street named after her. I’d never persuade her to sell her client down the river.

  The other lawyer was Andy Imray, my former assistant, clad in a pristine black gown that put my tattered, bullet-holed one to shame. Andy, never the most confident of young men, looked more worried than his client, an attractive blonde girl whom I recognised from the Awards Dinner.

  I gave him a friendly wave. Our paths hadn’t crossed in a while and on the last occasion we hadn’t parted on the best of terms. I’d heard Andy had forsaken crime, gone off to Edinburgh and joined one of the big corporate firms, operating in some field of law I knew very little about; there were acres of those. I was sure that if my ex-employee had any recent experience of litigation, it would be instructing counsel in the rarefied climes of the Court of Session and not rolling around in the blood and sawdust down at the Sheriff Court. Ten minutes alone with him and I’d have him loading his own grandmother onto a cattle truck.

  ‘That’s true, Antonia, I did say that. But sometimes it’s best if one of the snowflakes takes the fall so that the others can simply melt away.’

  12

  ‘I wondered when you’d show face,’ was Hugh Ogilvie’s welcoming remark to me as I walked through the side door into Courtroom 4. The Procurator Fiscal was standing at the table in the well of the court sorting his case files. The only other person present was a Bar Officer sitting in a corner reading a paperback. ‘Can we make this quick? I want to make a start and put a few cases through before lunch.’

  I could make it very quick. ‘Antonia Brechin and chums,’ I said. ‘You know you’re never going to prove a possession charge against them all.’

  ‘Do I? How’s that then?’

  ‘Because no-one’s admitted to knowledge of the drugs.’

  ‘They’re the tenants of the property. The drugs were in a box on a coffee table slap-bang in the middle of the sitting room.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to make this quick, Hugh?’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘One out of three would do for you, wouldn’t it?’

  Ogilvie looked at his watch and nodded to th
e Bar Officer who folded down the corner of a page, closed his book and went off to open the doors to the public. It was about as exciting as the life of a Bar Officer got.

  ‘No.’ Ogilvie donned the black gown that was draped over the back of his chair. ‘I want them all to plead guilty to the charge as libelled.’

  I laughed. ‘Of course you do, Hugh, and it’s good to have dreams and ambitions, but we all know that’s not going to happen. These are young lawyers. They’re still training. A conviction for possession of cocaine could see them struck off. They’ll certainly lose their jobs, and finding another won’t be easy with that on the old CV. They might have to stop being lawyers and go out and actually work for a living.’

  ‘Then your client and her pals should have thought about that before they started getting themselves involved with Class A drugs.’

  ‘Did you mark this prosecution?’ I asked.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Then you’ll know the relationship between my client and Sheriff Brechin?’

  ‘Of course I do. Why on earth has she instructed you?’

  ‘Long story. But how do you think Brechin is going to react if word happens to filter back that you wouldn’t cut his granddaughter a break?’

  ‘You mean when you tell him?’

  ‘He’ll find out without me having to say a word, and I wouldn’t like to be you when he does. He might even stop prosecuting cases from the bench and start coming up with reasonable doubts. Maybe you should have thought about that before you started prosecuting his granddaughter for the sake of a few grams of coke.’

  ‘I did think about it. Very hard.’

  ‘So let’s get this straight,’ I said, ‘just in case Brechin should ask. You’re insisting she pleads guilty, no matter what?’

  Ogilvie straightened the stack of files that lay on the table before him. ‘It’s a waste of time threatening me, if that’s what you’re trying to do. I happen to have spoken with Sheriff Brechin off the record. There was enough cocaine found to constitute a dealer’s quantity. Those three are lucky they’re not on petition for intent to supply. Then it would be prison and not just some employment problems they’d be facing. They’ve got yours truly to thank for it being kept at simple possession. Bert Brechin knows that and he’s not expecting any more favours from me.’