Good News, Bad News

by WHS McIntyre

  ‘Me and Jake go back a long way,’ she said. ‘What do you think he wanted?’

  ‘Does Jake know that Freddy’s in Scotland?’

  ‘Not unless you’ve told him,’ she said.

  I hadn’t, though maybe I’d raised his suspicions. Anyway, back to business. I asked Grace-Mary to come through, and after Ellen had signed her will on each page my secretary adhibited her own signature on the last.

  ‘I’ll take this and put a testing clause on it,’ Grace-Mary said. ‘Would you like me to send you out a copy, Mrs Fletcher?’

  Ellen didn’t think it necessary. ‘How much do I owe you?’ she asked, opening her big, pink handbag once Grace-Mary had left. ‘For the wills and for bringing Freddy back?’

  I looked at her. Hard to think that she’d be dead inside three months. Fifty thousand pounds wasn’t a big lottery win. Not if you needed the money to fulfil your bucket list and had chosen to spend your last weeks in a suite at a five-star hotel.

  ‘Joanna and I had a nice time in Prague,’ I said. ‘Let’s call it quits.’

  Ellen shrugged. She stood up and I walked her to the door, where she turned to face me. ‘If Freddy stays alive long enough for you to see him again, tell him I’m alive too, and that I want him to pay me some attention.’ She smiled bravely. ‘Tell him I still have enough strength to tear up a will. That should do it.’

  23

  Freddy was in touch a lot sooner than expected. I was on the High Street, locking the front door to the office, when he appeared from under a bus shelter and fell in beside me as I walked to my car.

  ‘I need to tell you something,’ he said.

  My car was parked outside Sandy’s café. I suggested we go in there to talk.

  ‘No, too many eyes. I’d feel a lot safer if we went for a drive.’

  It was only the back of five. If I went home too early I might be roped into making the tea. ‘Where are you staying?’ I asked. He didn’t answer. ‘I don’t need an address. How about we start with a town or a city or even a point on the compass?’

  ‘East,’ he said. ‘Edinburgh.’

  ‘I’ll drop you at the West End, Haymarket or somewhere around there,’ I told him, once we were in the car and I was trying to find a gap in the traffic to squeeze into. ‘That should give you plenty of time to tell me whatever it is you think I should know.’

  Freddy acquiesced with a shrug and a grunt. We were onto the M90 east-bound before he communicated again. ‘I want to go back to Prague.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Who’s going to stop me?’

  ‘No-one. By all means, catch the next flight. The turn off for Edinburgh airport is only a few miles further down the road, but be aware it’s not what Ellen wants and it’s not hard to change a will.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that. I’m her husband. I’ll still get something when she dies. I know my rights.’

  Freddy had obviously been reading up on the law. Not a good idea if he’d been doing it via the Internet, where a distinction between English and Scots law was seldom made.

  ‘It’s true, you might get something. Or, then again, you might not,’ I said.

  ‘I’d be entitled to half her lottery money for a start.’

  ‘I’ve got some bad news for you, Freddy. Ellen never won the lottery. Well, she did but not half a million.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Fifty grand.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘And I’m guessing she’s spent most of it or she will do over the next few months.’

  Freddy bashed the dash with a fist and threw himself back in his seat. ‘I knew it. All that nonsense about leaving me half a million.’

  ‘Oh, she’s going to leave you the money.’

  ‘How’s that, then?’

  ‘Life insurance.’

  ‘She’s insured?’

  ‘Not yet. But she intends to be. The policy will be valueless until Ellen dies and only worth anything to you if she doesn’t stop paying the premiums or assign it to someone else.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Like a charity.’

  ‘Or her favourite lawyer?’

  ‘Let’s just say there are plenty of ways she can make sure you go back to Prague with nothing but a bottle of duty-free whisky and some Edinburgh rock.’

  ‘And you’re going to tell me what I should do, are you?’

  I took the slip road at the Newbridge roundabout, hoping that from my failure to reply Freddy would reasonably infer that I didn’t care that much what he did.

  He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

  I did.

  He knocked a cigarette out of the pack onto his hand and placed it between his lips.

  ‘No, really,’ I said. ‘Don’t smoke. I don’t like it.’

  With a show of effort Freddy returned the cigarette to the pack. ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘You’ll just have to wait until I drop you off.’

  ‘No, I mean about Ellen. Listen, Robbie, you’re a man of the world. You don’t think I’ve spent all that time abroad without attracting some interest from the opposite sex, do you?’

  It wasn’t a problem I’d been wrestling with. Freddy was a middle-aged man with odd facial hair, a weird taste in clothes, and who made a living selling fridge magnets on a bridge. I didn’t think it impossible that the women-folk of the Czech Republic might have found the necessary willpower to resist.

  ‘I’ve a woman. We live on the outskirts of Prague. I can’t just leave her to fend for herself while I wait months for Ellen to die. What if she drags it out?’

  ‘Drags it out? Drags out dying?’ I pulled in at the side of the road and switched on my emergency indicators. We had just passed the turn-off for Edinburgh Airport and were nearly at Gogarburn Golf Club. ‘You know what, Freddy? I think this is far enough. You want my advice? Stay in Scotland. Pay attention to Ellen, who is still your wife after all, make her last days happy and collect your money. Alternatively, and personally I’d prefer it if you did this, bugger off back to Prague and I’ll make sure that every last penny Ellen leaves goes to the nearest orphanage.’

  ‘And if I stay, what happens if Jake catches up with me? That was a near miss today. If I’m seen strolling around with Ellen he’s bound to find out.’

  ‘Freddy, I’m not your life coach. You’ve got a tough decision to make, and only yourself to blame. What made you con Jake Turpie of all people? I thought you grifters researched your marks before pulling a stroke. It wouldn’t have taken much investigation to realise that Jake wasn’t a man to forgive and forget and chalk the loss of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds down to experience.’

  ‘He didn’t lose a hundred and fifty grand. He got a cottage out of it.’ Freddy reached for his cigarettes again and then remembered my no smoking policy.

  ‘That’s not the way he sees it.’

  ‘Would you believe I never intended to roll Jake?’

  ‘Come off it.’

  ‘You don’t even know what happened.’

  ‘Yes I do. Jake told me. You talked him into buying a piece of land and received a whacking great finder’s fee after telling him it was suitable for development.’

  ‘That’s how Jake sees it.’

  ‘What other way is there to see it?’

  ‘The correct way.’

  I switched off the emergency indicators. This I had to hear. ‘Okay, I’m dropping you off in Corstorphine, but no further. You can make your way back to wherever you’re going from there.’ I pulled out into traffic again. ‘So what is the correct way to look at it?’

  Freddy produced the pack of cigarettes again, pulled one out and held it up to me.

  ‘All right, but open a window,’ I said.

  He lit up and took a deep drag. Blue smoke curled up his nostrils. ‘It’s like this. The head of the planning department owed me a favour. She tipped me off about a mix-up that meant the land was no longer green belt. It was just s
itting there ready for someone to build houses on it. I told Jake my idea of tricking the old guy who owned the place.’

  ‘You mean your uncle?’

  Freddy smiled. ‘You got me.’

  ‘Any chance you could just tell me the truth?’

  Freddy thought about that as though it were an interesting concept he’d never considered before.

  I had no time to tip-toe through his tulip field of lies. ‘So long story short, you conned Jake and left for the Czech Republic taking his money. Why not take Ellen with you?’

  In reply, Freddy drew on the cigarette and flicked ash out of the window.

  ‘You could have contacted her,’ I said. ‘Let her know what was going on, given her the chance of joining you in Prague. You’ve made a good enough job of staying hidden. What was Jake going to do? He gets a nose bleed if he leaves West Lothian.’

  Freddy sucked in more smoke and studied the glowing end of his cigarette. ‘If I tell you something you promise you won’t mention it to Ellen? Ever?’

  I promised. I didn’t expect to see Ellen again.

  ‘My woman in Prague didn’t always live there. She came with me from here.’

  ‘From Scotland?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You’re telling me that you ripped off Jake Turpie so that you could make a new life for yourself in Prague with some other woman?’

  Freddy took two rapid puffs and pinged what was left out onto the A8. ‘So, you see, taking Ellen with me was the one thing I couldn’t do.’

  24

  Hugh Ogilvie was a man who liked to smile every morning just to get it out of the way. It seemed I was to be the victim of his grin for the day.

  ‘I’ve got some good news for you.’

  Words I’d never heard him say before. We were standing in the corridor outside Sheriff Brechin’s chambers. What exactly the good news might be I’d have to wait to find out, because just then the door opened and Eleanor, the Sheriff Clerk, ushered us in for the adjustment hearing on Heather Somerville’s appeal.

  Summary appeals were dealt with by a process known as Stated Case, probably the most inefficient and unfair method of reviewing a possible miscarriage of justice ever invented. With no audio or video record of the evidence, everything was based on the presiding Sheriff’s recollection of the evidence, and some sheriffs were excellent at re-writing history to suit their verdict. After Heather Somerville’s stated case was finalised, it would be signed and sent to the Appeal Court for consideration. If it was thought to have merit, a date would be fixed for a formal hearing. I wasn’t keeping a space free in my diary.

  We were shown to a couple of chairs in front of the Sheriff’s desk, Ogilvie smiling smugly as Brechin poured scorn on each of my proposed adjustments. Since the only argument I could put forward was Bert Brechin’s unreasonableness in rejecting the notion that a wee girl slapping her big boyfriend was too trivial a matter for the law of Scotland to concern itself with, I’d not anticipated a hearty welcome; however, the temperature in the room was a few degrees cooler than expected, and our backsides hadn’t warmed the seats before we were out in the corridor once again, where Hugh Ogilvie was still exercising those under-developed smile muscles of his.

  ‘Well, are you going to tell me this good news?’ I asked.

  ‘Buy me a cup of tea first.’

  Buy the Procurator Fiscal a cup of tea? I’d thought about pouring a hot drink over his head many a time, but pay for one and let him drink it? ‘You know, Hugh . . .’ I said, after the several seconds it took my brain to accommodate the suggestion, ‘I think I’ll have to decline. I wouldn’t like to leave you open to accusations of accepting bribes.’

  He tugged me by the arm. ‘I’ll take my chances. Now, do you want to hear the good news or not?’

  ‘Teaspoon? Or am I supposed to rely on Brownian motion?’ Ogilvie enquired, when I brought one mug of coffee, a cup of tea and a tiny jug of milk back to the round metal table where he was making himself comfortable.

  ‘This good news really better be brilliant news,’ I said on my next return from the counter, rattling a teaspoon into his saucer.

  ‘Did they run out of biscuits?’

  ‘You’re in training for a half-marathon, remember?’ I said. ‘Now, let’s have it, what’s the good news?’

  Ogilvie poured milk into his tea and watched it swirl around, before giving it a stir. ‘Antonia Brechin,’ he said, taking a sip.

  ‘What about her.’

  ‘A decision has been made to drop the possession charge.’

  Perhaps he did deserve a chocolate biscuit. ‘I thought you told me you couldn’t do that.’

  ‘I couldn’t. It wasn’t my decision.’

  ‘Whose was it?’

  ‘Because the three accused are trainee-solicitors, the case should have been run past Crown counsel before I marked it for prosecution.’ Ogilvie drank some more milky tea. ‘When someone on high heard about it, they called for the papers to be sent through to Edinburgh to be reviewed there.’

  I could hardly believe it. Someone in Crown Office had done Brechin a good turn, either an old pal doing him a favour or a new one looking to be owed one. I didn’t care. A touch of spin here and there and I’d be modestly accepting all the credit from my client and her mum, along with payment of a fee note that reflected such a great success.

  We were drinking our drinks and discussing the case and other matters in an almost civil manner, when I became aware of a shadow looming over me. It was Gail Paton looking decidedly unhappy about something.

  ‘Does Gail know the good news?’ I asked Ogilvie.

  ‘Oh, I know all right,’ Gail said. She slapped a familiar type of document down on the table beside my almost empty coffee mug. It was a service-copy indictment.

  Ogilvie knocked back the last of his tea and stood up. ‘Well, thanks for the cuppa, Robbie . . .’

  I picked up the papers and read: ‘Her Majesty’s Advocate against . . . Antonia Brechin!’

  ‘Yes,’ Ogilvie said. ‘Sorry about that. I gave you the good news, and never got around to telling you the bad. Anyway, Miss Paton will fill you in on the details, got to dash.’

  By the look on Gail’s face, she was going to fill me in all right. I flicked to the next page. The charge was similar to the previous one, except now the allegation of possession of cocaine had been altered by the addition of the words ‘with intent to supply.’ We’d gone from a contravention of section 5(2) to a breach of 5(3). It was a minor amendment with major consequences.

  Gail snatched the indictment from me and made as though to hit me over the head with it. ‘I told you we should have pled guilty. Now we’re looking at a jury trial and a solemn conviction. That’s definitely striking-off material for our clients. Maybe even the jail. Meanwhile young Andy’s client gets a slap on the wrist for simple possession and brownie points for pleading at the earliest opportunity.’

  No wonder Brechin had been even more frozen-faced than usual. What would my client say? I’d gone against her express instructions to plead guilty. Even worse, what would Joanna say?

  ‘Well?’ Gail demanded. She sat down opposite me in the seat vacated by the PF. ‘Any more bright ideas? While you’re thinking one up, I’ll have a milky coffee and a KitKat.’

  ‘It’s easily fixed,’ I said on my return, bearing Gail’s refreshments. A few minutes standing in the queue was all it had taken for me to come up with a cunning plan. It was a gift I had. ‘We go to trial and get Andy’s client to give evidence and say the drugs were hers. She’s bomb-proof. The Crown has accepted her guilty plea to simple possession, it’s too late to amend it to an intent to supply charge for her.’

  Gail thought that over as she dunked a chocolate finger into her coffee and took a bite out of it. ‘She’ll never go for it.’

  ‘Of course she will. They’re all pals, aren’t they? Three girls who share a flat, chat about boys, discuss colours of nail varnish, share clothes, they probably have bedtime pill
ow fights when no-one’s looking.’

  ‘Perhaps in your feverish imaginings, Robbie.’ Gail wiped crumbs from her lipstick. ‘But I reckon there’s about as much chance of Andy’s client taking all the blame as there is of her climbing into a wee frilly nightie and beating her co-accused about the head with a sack full of feathers.’

  I dismissed her fears almost as quickly as I nicked one of her KitKat fingers. ‘I doubt very much if Andy’s client will need to go anywhere near the witness box. As soon as the Crown gets word of what’s going to happen, they’ll pull the plug on the whole proceedings. Why go to the expense of a jury trial when the result is a foregone conclusion? Waste of time if they’ve already got a guilty plea from Andy’s client, even if it’s only to possession.’

  Gail carried out the same old routine with her next piece of KitKat and washed it down with another gulp of coffee. She looked at her watch. ‘Got to go, I’ve a case calling in five minutes. Who’s going to speak to Andy about this?’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ I said. ‘I’ll charge through to Edinburgh and have a face to face with him.’

  Gail stood. She looked marginally happier than she had previously, although that may have been down to the chocolate rather than her faith in me to resolve matters for our respective clients.

  ‘Do that,’ she said. ‘I want some kind of a game plan in place before I present my client with this.’ She folded the copy indictment lengthways and flapped it in my face.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Leave everything to me. Andy’s my former trainee. I taught him everything he knows. He’d do anything for me.’

  25

  ‘Not a chance, Robbie.’

  I’d had Grace-Mary track down Andy’s new employers. The Linkwood Rattray Law Group operated from several floors of glass and steel up at Quartermile. It looked like the sort of place that had an employee dress code, made sure no-one left the building until they’d squeezed every second out of every billable hour and bought lots of tables at legal awards dinners.