Good News, Bad News

by WHS McIntyre

  Unfortunately, neither his daughter nor his wife – especially not his wife — looked anywhere near as happy.

  ‘It’s very early days,’ I said.

  Mrs Brechin was straight in there. ‘Early days? What do you mean, early days? Antonia is due up in court next Tuesday.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘for a First Diet. It’s only to confirm her plea of not guilty and deal with any procedural matters that need to be tidied up before the trial. At the moment there isn’t much I can do because I’m still awaiting disclosure of evidence from the Crown. That’s why I think it would be best all round if we waited for the witness statements to arrive before we had a meeting to discuss the defence in any detail.’

  ‘But Antonia is due in court next week,’ Mrs Brechin repeated, speaking slowly, enunciating each word, like a Briton abroad who assumes everyone understands English if it’s spoken loudly and clearly enough.

  ‘And if the Crown has not fulfilled its duty to disclose the evidence by then, the proceedings will be continued until it has,’ I said. ‘The whole trial may have to be adjourned to a later date. The court can’t expect us to be ready before we’ve seen the evidence.’

  Mrs Brechin sat back heavily in her chair, unable to look at me.

  Her husband stood and put out a hand to shake mine. ‘There we are then. No point getting worked up about things until we know all the facts, eh?’ He looked from wife to daughter. Neither met his eye. ‘You’ll be sure to give us a call when you have everything, Mr Munro? We can come through to see you whenever you’re—’

  His words were interrupted by a light knock at the door and Grace-Mary entered carrying a brown folder. ‘I thought you’d need this.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, loudly, hoping to drown out the rest of her words and failing.

  ‘It’s the Crown disclosure in Miss Brechin’s case.’ With that and a sympathetic smile at the client and her mum, my secretary withdrew.

  Everyone stared at the folder.

  ‘Well, well. Here it is, hot off the presses,’ I said, with a light little laugh, placing a hand on the folder and lifting it off again quickly. ‘Ouch. Why don’t I read this through thoroughly and then we’ll set up a meeting for, say, the day before the First Diet? How would that suit?’

  It wouldn’t suit, at least not Mrs Brechin. ‘There doesn’t seem to be much to it. Is there any reason why we can’t go over it now?’ she asked, staring fixedly at the thin cardboard folder.

  There wasn’t any reason, other than I didn’t want to tell them the bad news of the Crown case, because they’d be expecting me to come up with some good news for the defence and there wasn’t any. Slowly, I flicked through the various papers explaining what each was as I went. Mrs Brechin was quite correct: there wasn’t much to it. I’d seen the same type of evidence hundreds of times before. Acting on information received, the police obtain a search warrant, carry out a search, find drugs, arrest and interview the suspects and then charge them. That took care of the bulk of the disclosure statements and left only the three Crown productions: a forensic report confirming that what had been found in the search was, indeed, fifty grams of high-quality cocaine; a drug expert’s opinion that the quantity was too great to be consistent with personal use, and so therefore the person in possession must have intended to supply to others; and, finally, a search warrant.

  Drug search warrants were fairly simple, largely pro forma documents. The only essential additions required were the address of the premises to be searched and the date. Occasionally some cop mucked up the address, perhaps put down the wrong number of a flat in a tenement block. Not on this occasion. It was bang on. Same with the date: Friday 27 April. A warrant obtained under section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act required to be acted upon within one month of signing. The one in my hand had been signed only a few days before the search on first May.

  There was absolutely nothing untoward about any of the evidence. It was all simple and routine and as effective as a knot in a noose.

  ‘Well, then . . .’ Mr Brechin clapped his hands together. ‘Now that you have the information, we’d better give you some time to think on where we go from here.’ He put an arm around his daughter. ‘It’s not the end of the world, Toni. What’s really important is that we’re all fit and healthy. If things don’t work out for the best, so be it. No need for everyone to worry themselves to death over it.’

  He rose from his chair and encouraged Antonia from hers. Mrs Brechin remained seated. ‘Quentin, why don’t you take Antonia for a breath of fresh air while I speak to Mr Munro in private?’

  Mr Brechin hesitated for a second and then reached out and shook my hand again. ‘Nice meeting you, Mr Munro. I think we’ll go for a wander up to the Palace. Haven’t been there in ages.’ He leaned down and gave his wife a peck on the cheek. ‘See you back at the car in ten minutes, dear.’

  Mrs Brechin sat there, eyes fixed on mine. When she spoke I hardly saw her lips move. ‘Better make it twenty. I have a few things I’d like to explain to Mr Munro.’

  29

  When it came to explaining things, Mrs Brechin didn’t go in much for bullet points. Nineteen of those twenty minutes later she was still very much in my office and still very much talking. I hadn’t asked for a potted history of the Brechin family, but she served me up one anyway.

  Quentin Brechin had been his father’s pride and joy. As Dux of the High School and president of the debating society, twenty-five years ago he’d sailed into Law at Edinburgh University towing a raft of top grades and high hopes behind him. Hopes that were sunk mid-way through the second year of his studies when he met, and promptly impregnated, the now Mrs Quentin Brechin. Their respective families had urged them to consider a termination or adoption. To his credit Quentin would countenance neither; however, with a further three and a half years of study in front of him, followed by a two-year, low-paid legal traineeship, he’d worked out that his child would be donning her first school uniform before he came close to being able to adequately support a family. So he’d quit. A move that had almost killed his father. I dispelled any uncharitable thoughts I might have on that front, and listened to how, in an effort to support his family, young Quentin had entered the employment limbo where many University drop-outs found themselves: over-qualified for apprenticeships, under-qualified for graduate posts. Undeterred, he’d taken on a series of unskilled jobs, labouring on building sites and dockyards, shelf-stacking and warehousing. He’d been hopeless at them all. So he’d become a house-husband while his wife went out to work, spending his days child-minding and doing domestic chores, washing, cleaning and ironing, most of which had to be redone properly by Mrs Brechin when she came home from work. In his free moments he indulged in his favourite pastime: art, and sculpting in particular.

  Mrs Brechin sat back in her chair and relaxed for the first time since she entered the room. ‘For years no-one was interested in Quentin’s pieces. He made a few sympathy sales to friends and family, just pocket money really, but it wasn’t until quite recently that things took off. Quentin found himself an investor and put that money and all our savings into casting bronze sculptures. He sold his first bronze to an old school chum who put it on display in his office. A rich client noticed it and wanted to know where he could buy one. From there word spread and nowadays there’s barely time for the metal to cool before his latest work is sold. He’s exhibited all over Europe: Paris, Bruges, Berlin, Vienna, even though he hates travelling. If Quentin had his way he’d live in his studio. Sometimes . . .’ Mrs Brechin got out of her chair, walked to the window and looked down on the High Street. ‘Sometimes I think he never wanted to do law. That I was a get-out clause in a contract his father had written for him at birth.’

  ‘He’s a man doing for a living the job that he loves. Isn’t that what everyone dreams of?’ Saying that made me think. What did I love doing most? What were my hobbies? Golf, football, whisky-drinking. Not recreational pursuits that were ever going to make me rich, and
none that could match standing up in front of a jury or getting stuck into a lying, recalcitrant witness. Had I found my niche? Was I doing what I loved?

  Mrs Brechin turned from the window. ‘My father-in-law is a difficult man to get along with. You think he gives you a hard time? Try being me, twenty odd years ago. For years he refused to even speak to me . . .’ Like a proctologist with a full clinic, I could tell there was a ‘but’ coming. ‘But he’s always been there for Antonia. Right from her birth he has supported her financially. He paid for holidays, clothes, sent her to the best schools and paid all the fees. When Antonia was accepted into law at Edinburgh, he almost exploded with joy.’

  I had never imagined there was any news capable of detonating an explosion of joy in Sheriff Albert Brechin, unless perhaps it was news of my retirement or the reintroduction of capital punishment.

  ‘You already know that he cut short his holiday to Madeira when he heard she was in the running for Legal Trainee of the Year, don’t you?’

  ‘Mrs Brechin, I know how important the case is to your father-in-law, and to you, and especially to Antonia. But defending people against criminal charges is my job. It’s what I do for a living. I’ve been doing it for years, even if Bert Brechin wishes I was the one who’d dropped out of law school. I don’t need an incentive to do my best for a client, whoever’s grandchild they happen to be.’

  ‘Good . . .’ Mrs Brechin smiled a smile I didn’t like the look of. ‘Because I want to make something extremely clear.’ She wasn’t a small woman, and when, with her back to the window, she walked over and planted her hands on the desk, the better to lean across at me, she blocked out a good portion of daylight. ‘When my husband said there was no need for everyone to worry themselves to death over Antonia’s plight, please do not assume those words extended to absolutely everyone. I want one person to be extremely worried.’ The expression on her face avoided the need for further clarification as to who that person might be. ‘You completely disregarded Antonia’s instructions. You can’t possibly deny it.’ Mrs B obviously didn’t know me that well; denying stuff was my stock in trade. I let her continue. ‘I told my father-in-law and he believes that fact alone would be a solid ground on which to make a complaint to the Law Society that would see you struck off.’

  It had taken far longer than the promised twenty minutes, but now at last we were getting to the point. She was threatening me. Well, I didn’t have to sit there and take it. I could stand, and anyway, bullying me was Grace-Mary’s job.

  I pushed back my chair and stood up. She was a tall woman, but I still had an inch or two on her. ‘I did what in my professional opinion I thought would be best in the long run. If Antonia wanted a lawyer to stand up, say sorry and let her face the consequences, she shouldn’t have instructed me.’

  ‘Believe me, Mr Munro, I really wish she hadn’t.’

  I came around the other side of the desk, walked to the door and opened it. ‘In that case, I’ll make this easy. You let me know who you think should represent your daughter and I’ll be more than happy to forward the papers.’ I never liked to see business slip through my fingers, but this was a piece of work I hadn’t wanted to take on in the first place. I was relieved that the poisoned chalice would soon pass from my hands to those of another. I marched over to my desk, snatched up Antonia Brechin’s case file and held it out. ‘Why don’t you take the stuff with you right now and it’ll save me a stamp? Don’t worry, I won’t be charging a fee for the work to date.’

  Mrs Brechin ignored the case file I was holding, gathered her handbag and strode to the door. ‘I’m not worried about your costs. I’m not the person meeting them.’

  ‘Then tell Antonia, or her dad—’

  ‘They’re not paying your bill either. Your fee will be settled by the same person who demands that you continue to act.’ She pushed her big, red face closer to mine. ‘But I’m warning you, you’d better live up to my father-in-law’s great expectations or I’ll see that they never let you near a courtroom again - unless it’s in the dock.’

  30

  The discovery that Sheriff Albert Brechin was not only funding his granddaughter’s legal fees, but insisting I act in her defence was as confusing as it was alarming. He either had great faith in my abilities or else he didn’t want any debate as to who to blame when she was convicted and struck off. I pondered my predicament the next day on the drive back to the office, but things were no clearer as I pulled into my usual parking spot outside Sandy’s café. My mobile buzzed. It was a message from Ellen. She was with Jake Turpie in the Red Corner Bar and needed to speak to me urgently.

  Lunchtime was always the same at the Red Corner so far as food was concerned. There wasn’t any. Not unless you classed SPAM rolls sweating in cling film as a foodstuff.

  ‘This is a pub. You’re here to drink not eat,’ was Brendan the barman’s reply to my sarcastic ‘what’s on the menu today?’ enquiry. He slung a small bag of peanuts at me, and I took it and my ginger beer on the rocks over to where Jake and Ellen were deep in discussion.

  ‘I hear you shared my bad news with Jake,’ Ellen said, budging along a bit so that I could drag a low stool over and squeeze in beside her at a small wooden table. I placed my drink down on the sticky surface beside a pint of heavy and a tulip glass in which a ring of lemon was cast adrift on a sea of red.

  There was no note of criticism in Ellen’s voice, and yet I knew I should never have mentioned her private affairs to anyone. The state of her health was her own business, and not for me to go bandying about with the likes of Jake Turpie. If I’d known she owed Jake money I definitely would never have mentioned it. Then again, if she had been straight with me from the start I wouldn’t be here making do with peanuts for lunch when I could be at Sandy’s café laying waste to a crispy bacon roll.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ Jake asked me before I had a chance to say anything by way of apology.

  ‘What am I going to do?’

  ‘Aye, Ellen’s borrowed fifty grand off me and she says she’s spent it.’

  I was still trying to work out where I fitted into all of this when Ellen spoke up, giving me a chance to crack open my bag of peanuts.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jake. I needed the money to try and bring Freddy over here so I could see him before . . . before I . . .’

  Jake turned his head and studied the demented fruit machine that was flashing and bleeping away to itself in a darkened corner of the bar. Ellen reached out, took hold of one of his hands with two of hers and squeezed. ‘When I first found out I wasn’t well, I think I went a bit crazy. I really am sorry, Jake. I should have told you I couldn’t pay it back.’

  “Sorry, Jake?” The woman was into him for fifty large, with no means of repaying, and the best she could come up with was, “Sorry, Jake.” The most bizarre part of it all was that Jake seemed to be accepting the situation. How come? There were people with body parts broken or missing because they owed Jake a fraction of that amount or had been a day or two late in their weekly instalment plan.

  ‘It’s going to be okay.’ Ellen patted his hand like he was a brave wee boy in the dentist’s waiting room. ‘Robbie will work something out for me. Leave it to him. He’ll get you your money back.’ She got up from the table, leaving her red drink undrunk. ‘I’m going to leave now,’ she said. ‘I know you two boys will have a lot to talk about.’

  The brief ray of sunshine that sliced through the door and split the dimly lit bar seemed to rouse Jake from his contemplations.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  I dropped a few peanuts into my mouth and chewed. ‘Well what?’

  Jake looked at me like I was stupid. ‘My money? What are you going to do about getting it back?’

  I palmed some more nuts, dusting the salt off onto a floor that wouldn’t notice the difference. ‘You know, Jake, Ellen has obviously lost the plot, but I think you’re losing it too. First of all you let yourself be conned by Freddy Fletcher, the world’s worst conman,
then you give his dying wife fifty K, and now, suddenly, you expect me to do something about it?’

  Jake swiped the packet of peanuts from my hand, sending it across the bar. Individual nuts scattered like shrapnel, striking one or two of the less nimble patrons.

  Brendan ‘The Linlithgow Lion’ Patterson, proprietor of the Red Corner Bar, was an ex-boxer who’d won medals for punching people on the head until they fell over. He kept in practice with awkward customers but, despite this outburst, he just stood there polishing a beer tumbler with a grubby tea towel as though nothing had happened.

  ‘You better do what Ellen says and sort this, Robbie,’ Jake growled. ‘I want the money I’m due back from her . . .’ He stabbed a finger at the door. ‘And I want the money I’m due from her man or else I’m having someone’s head on a plate, you understand?’

  To be honest, I didn’t. In fact, I was having great difficulty understanding my role in any of it. ‘You don’t think you’re being at all unreasonable, Jake?’ I said. ‘Considering the mess you’re in has got bugger all to do with me.’ There were a few spilled peanuts lying on the table top, and it was still lunchtime. I picked one up. Jake jumped to his feet, put a hand under the table and hurled the whole lot, drinks and all, across the room, leaving me sitting on a small isolated stool, holding a single peanut halfway to my mouth, while glass and beer splintered and sprayed about me. A soggy slice of lemon came out of orbit and touched down on my right knee. I brushed it away and stood up. Even in the dim light of the bar I was aware of a shadow falling over me. I turned around to see the immense object that was Deek Pudney. He must have been sitting in a corner making himself inconspicuous. How was that even possible?

  ‘Tell me again how unreasonable I’m being . . .’ Jake said, his words accompanied by the weight of one of Deek’s boxing-glove-sized hands resting on my shoulder. ‘And we’ll see if I’m losing the plot.’