by WHS McIntyre
‘It’s important,’ Toffee said. ‘I need your help.’
What Stan Blandy and his cohorts did for a living, or how they went about it, was nothing to do with me. I only took to do with it if things went wrong. Up until that point, I preferred to stay well clear. ‘I’m going to the station. If you’ve got something you want to tell me, you’ll need to do it on the way.’
We walked on without talking, up to the Royal Mile and down the side of the High Court, coming to a halt at the top of the News Steps where there was no-one else around.
Toffee took a final draw on the few millimetres of rollie that remained and flicked it into the gutter. ‘Stan can’t find out about today.’
‘Nothing to do with me,’ I said.
‘If he asks, I want you to tell him it was all a mistake.’
‘Was it?’
Toffee rammed a hand into his trouser pocket and brought out a couple of crumpled twenties that he forced on me. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘it was.’
‘What happened?’ I asked him.
He didn’t answer.
‘If you want my help, you’ll need to tell me what the problem is.’
‘And whatever I say, it stays between us? You’ll not tell big Stan?’
My turn to hesitate.
Toffee put his hand back into his pocket and rummaged around. I took hold of his elbow. ‘I’m your lawyer. What you tell me is confidential. But Stan knows you were arrested. That’s why he sent me. It’s only a matter of time until he finds out that you’re a free man, and then he’s going to start asking questions. He might think that what’s good news for you is bad news for him, which will quickly turn into extremely bad news for you.’
I looked at my watch. The trains to Linlithgow ran every half-hour. It was five minutes until the next one and I was approximately four minutes away from the station.
‘I’ll need to go,’ I said, handing him his money back. ‘I’ll not speak to Stan today, even if he calls me. You’d better make your mind up about what you want to tell him. But whatever he is, he’s not daft, and if you being in Edinburgh is a problem . . .’
My phone buzzed. It was Ellen.
‘Did you know?’ She sounded upset.
‘Ellen, I’m right in the middle of something and trying to catch a train at the same time.’
‘Did you know about Freddy and that other woman!’ she shrieked down the phone.
‘I’ll call you back,’ I said.
‘No, I want to see you now. I’m changing my will.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m still at the Balmoral.’
From the top of the steps I could see the hotel standing proudly on the other side of Waverley station, at the corner of Princes Street and South Bridge. Formerly the North British Railway Hotel, the hotel’s famous clock, an Edinburgh landmark, had since 1902 been set three minutes fast to make sure travellers were in time for their trains. Even with that chronological safety net, I wasn’t making mine.
‘I’ll be there in half an hour,’ I said, and hung up before she could shriek at me anymore.
‘Okay, Toffee. I’ll give you ten minutes. What do you want to tell me?’
‘Fancy a rum?’ he asked, pressing the notes into my hand again and nodding his head back the way we’d come, to where Deacon Brodie’s pub was perched at the top of the mound.
‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ve a better idea.’
35
We found a corner table at the café on St Giles Street, next door to the High Court. It was quiet on a Monday morning. Apart from a few lawyers who were killing time for their case to call next door, it was just me, the old sea dog and his tale of woe.
‘You know the procedure, don’t you?’ Toffee asked. Empty of rum, he was sipping miserably from a mug of tea he wished was distilled molasses.
‘No,’ I said, ‘not in detail. Do I really need to?’
Apparently I did.
‘The stuff comes into Antwerp . . .’
I knew from past experience that the Belgian port of Antwerp was Europe’s second busiest, handling hundreds of millions of tons of cargo each year and serving ships from hundreds of worldwide destinations. The operation was on such a massive scale that it was almost impossible to police and security was lax.
‘Could you speed it up, because once I’ve finished this bacon roll I’m out of here,’ I said, bringing about no noticeable change in the pace of Toffee’s narration.
‘From there Stan brings it into a Scottish port, could be anywhere, but it’s usually along the Forth. I pick it up, make the delivery, collect the cash and drop it off. I never see Stan at any stage. Not unless there’s been a mistake.’ He laid his left hand flat on the small wooden table. The pinkie and ring finger were twisted and shrivelled. Did you think all I got the last time for getting caught was fifteen months?’
‘Why do you work for him?’
‘The money. Pure and simple.’
‘If that’s what happens to your hand when you make a mistake, what do you think’s going to happen to the rest of you once he finds out you’ve grassed?’
‘Would you stop saying that?’ Toffee hissed, looking about as though Stan Blandy might emerge from behind the serving counter clutching a two-pound mash hammer.
‘If you didn’t grass, what’s the big problem?’
‘This is between you and me, understand?’
I was really wishing he’d get on with it. Those two twenties in my pocket were counting down.
‘I picked the stuff up like he wanted. No bother. I always do a run to St Andrews this time of year. The last exams are next week and it’ll be one big party. Anyway, then I was supposed to take the money to the drop-off point. It’s a big safe in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere that Stan owns.’
‘And you got caught?’
‘No. I’m in Edinburgh, remember? I made the delivery. I just haven’t dropped the money off yet.’
‘You weren’t thinking of bumping him, were you?’
‘Naw, of course not, the money’s stashed back at my place and I’ll drop it off later today or the morn.’
So far, I couldn’t see any misdemeanour that would necessitate Stan getting out the hardware. Drugs delivered, cash collected and about to be dropped off. ‘What’s the problem?’
I had time to take two bites from my bacon roll before Toffee replied. ‘I kept a wee bit of the stuff back for myself.’
‘How much?’
It was a simple enough question, but it set Toffee into plea in mitigation mode. ‘They posh students have more money than sense. They couldnae tell quality gear from a bag of sweets.’
It was Toffee’s way of saying that he’d skimmed some cocaine off the top and bulked what was left with glucose or some other cutting agent.
‘How much?’ I repeated.
‘Never more than fifty grams. Maybe a hundred now and again.’
‘This wasn’t the first time, then?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve got a few regular customers of my own.’
I made the last of my roll disappear. ‘How about you just tell me why the police arrested you in Edinburgh?’
‘I had a blow-out on the Queensferry Road. I was causing an obstruction. The cops turfed up when I was changing the wheel. They were trying to help.’
‘And they found something?’
‘Aye, it was in the wee toolbox thing. I was keeping the stuff in there inside one of those re-sealable sandwich bags. I never had a chance to move it because they sneaked up on me.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘That I’d only had the car a couple of months and never used the toolkit before. They arrested me anyway, but the PF released me to make further enquiries. They’ll probably go and see the last guy who owned the motor. They’ll have problems with that. He’s dead. I bought it off his missus. I don’t know if they’ll come back to me or not. It was only fifty grams.’
‘Enough to put you inside again.’ I finished my coffee, wi
ped my hands on a paper napkin and stood up. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll say nothing to Stan. Why’s he going to be bothered if the delivery was made and he’s getting his money?’
‘Stan is a very cautious man. If he knows I was lifted, he’s bound to ask what happened. Will you back me up if I tell him I was lifted for a breach of the peace in the pub or something?’
I looked down at Toffee’s twisted fingers. Stan Blandy had contacts everywhere. If he was really interested, he’d find out what Toffee had been questioned about. ‘No, your best bet is to tell him the truth,’ I said. ‘Or as near as you can.’
‘I can’t tell him about the . . . you-know-what.’
‘Then don’t, not exactly. The stuff will have been presumptively tested, but will be away to the forensic lab by now for a proper report. That could take months. If Stan checks, all he’ll find out is that you were found in possession of an unspecified quantity. Tell him the police must have found traces that leaked out before you made the delivery.’
Toffee seemed unconvinced. That was too bad. I had more important things to do than devise ways for him to cheat his boss. I left him one of his twenties to cover the bill and was in the foyer of the Balmoral inside ten minutes. I was about to ask reception to put a call up to Ellen’s suite, when the woman herself approached me, dark glasses not hiding the black streaks of her tears.
‘You knew.’
‘Knew what?’
‘Don’t act all innocent. You knew Freddy had another woman.’
‘How would I know that?’ Come to think of it, how did Ellen know?
Ellen’s long-legged nurse was not dressed in her usual trouser-suit uniform today, and more casually attired in neat-fitting jeans and a sweatshirt. She put a hand on her charge’s shoulder.
Ellen shook it off and thumped her fists on my chest. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Over her shoulder I could see the doorman, all top hat, tails and tartan trews, eyeing us up. Slowly he made his way from the revolving doors to stand under the ornate golden chandelier, not looking at us, but making it very clear that he was.
I took hold of Ellen’s wrists. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
‘No, I’m wanting you to cut that cheating bastard out of my will, right now.’
What did she want me to do? Whip out pen and paper and jot down a quick codicil? Maybe the doorman could witness it before he frog-marched us off the premises.
‘Calm down. We need to talk this through.’
‘No, we don’t. He’s not getting my money.’
The doorman cleared his throat and took a couple of discreet yet meaningful steps in our direction. Now wasn’t the time to remind Ellen that she didn’t have any money. She wasn’t actually a lottery winner. She was living off a loan she’d somehow managed to wangle out of Jake Turpie. A loan she’d have to repay one way or another.
‘Come on,’ I said, gently tugging her towards the door. ‘Let’s go for a walk and talk this over.’
Ellen wasn’t for moving.
The doorman came over. I looked up at him. He wasn’t as tall as the Scott Monument but looked to be built out of a similar material. I guessed he wasn’t there just to give guests directions to Edinburgh Castle.
‘Sir?’ he enquired.
‘Just leaving,’ I said.
36
I was intercepted as I walked through the sliding doors of the Civic Centre on my way to court the next morning.
‘What’s new, Robbie?’ Kaye Mitchell’s voice was way too casual. ‘Anything interesting on today?’
In the world of journalism, “interesting” translates as salacious or scandalous. As editor-in-chief of the Linlithgowshire Journal & Gazette, Kaye didn’t normally do her own court reporting and so I knew there must have been a special reason for her to be there that Tuesday morning.
‘Nothing particularly fruity,’ I said, walking on, hoping I might shake her off and knowing I wouldn’t.
‘No special clients up today then? Just the same old faces, is it?’
I stopped. I could see Antonia and her mother on the top landing of the stairs leading to the court. I didn’t want them to see me talking to the press. ‘I’m sure you know very well that Sheriff Brechin’s granddaughter is appearing today.’
‘Just an in-out procedural diet, is it?’
‘There’s going to be no plea of guilty if that’s what you mean.’
Kaye pursed her lips and nodded her head a few times. ‘So, I might as well not be here?’
‘That’s entirely a matter for you.’
‘Going to be pretty embarrassing for Bert Brechin, wouldn’t you say?’
Antonia had gone through the door, but her mother remained resolute at the top landing staring down at me. ‘These things happen,’ I said. ‘She’s not the first grandchild to have experimented with drugs and won’t be the last. See you later.’
‘I wasn’t talking about the drugs, Robbie!’ Kaye called after me.
I stopped, turned and walked back to where she was standing, looking pretty smug about something. ‘Okay, let’s have it.’
‘You mean you don’t know?’ Kaye picked at a thumbnail. ‘Maybe it’s not true then. A little bird told me . . .’ She looked up. ‘Actually it was a great big one in plain clothes.’
‘Don’t tell me, Dougie Fleming?’ Over my career I’d had many a run-in with Detective Inspector Douglas Fleming, usually in connection with his notebook. Dougie Fleming was a cop who believed confession was good for the soul — and his conviction statistics.
‘You know I can’t disclose my sources,’ Kaye said with a smile that confirmed my guess.
‘And you would believe a word Fleming said? Talk about journalistic licence? Have you seen the admissions in his notebook? He makes up better stories than you do.’
‘So you don’t know?’
‘What don’t I know?’
‘Where would you like me to start?’
‘Kaye . . .’
‘Sorry, my lips are sealed.’
Mrs Brechin’s eyes were laser beams. I suggested Kaye and I meet at Sandy’s later for a coffee.
‘Will there be cake?’ Kaye asked.
‘There could be, but you’d have to unseal your lips to eat it.’
I could tell Kaye had milked the suspense as much as she could and was dying to tell me. ‘The search warrant,’ she said.
‘The one in Antonia’s Brechin’s case?’
She nodded.
‘What about it?’
‘Guess who signed it?’
‘Oh, let me see. I’m guessing it was a sheriff?’ I reined in my sarcasm. ‘Wait . . . not . . . ?’
‘Yes. Or so I’m reliably, or according to you, perhaps not so reliably informed. That’s why I wanted to check if you’d had the warrant disclosed to you by now.’
I had. I’d also perused it. Maybe it was because I was so used to seeing Brechin’s signature at the end of a search warrant that it hadn’t clicked. I usually just checked to make sure the date and place were accurate and that it had been enforced within the one-month time limit.
‘I’ll check it when I get into court,’ I said. ‘I can’t do it now. My client’s mum is giving me the evil eye.’
‘Strange that he’d sign a warrant to allow the police to search his own granddaughter’s flat, don’t you think?’ I had to admit it was surprising. Very surprising. ‘And what about the sheer nerve of a cop presenting a warrant for signature to the suspect’s grandfather?’ That wasn’t quite so surprising. When it came to brass necks, if you melted down D.I. Dougie Fleming you’d have had enough raw material to start your own colliery band.
Mrs Brechin was waiting for me when I reached the top of the stairs, her face set like there had been a sudden change in wind direction. ‘Who was that you were talking to? She’s a newspaper reporter, isn’t she? Was she asking about Antonia’s case? She was, wasn’t she?’ Mrs Brechin was doing a fine job of answering her own questions.
‘You can’t blame the local press
for being interested,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing the general public likes to read about more than some prominent figure being disgraced.’
‘Even if it’s not the prominent figure who suffers, but a young girl?’
Antonia Brechin was not a girl. She was a woman, one who must have known the risk she ran buying cocaine. Now wasn’t the time to go into that.
‘The Press is just doing its job,’ I said.
‘What did she want?’
‘To know if anything would be happening today. I said that Antonia was pleading not guilty and so she’s not interested. They only print a story where there’s been a conviction. No-one wants to read about someone being acquitted.’
‘But she’ll be back?’
‘It doesn’t matter if she is. Antonia’s case will be a headline one day, and a fish and chip wrapper the next.’
‘So you think Antonia will be found guilty?’ Mrs Brechin was working herself up into quite a state. There was no sign of Mr Brechin.
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Yes, you did. You said the newspapers only print the convictions and then you said Antonia would be a headline one day and—’
I was saved by the loudspeaker system announcing that proceedings were about to commence. Cutting Mrs Brechin loose, I took off down the corridor for Court 4 where Gail Paton had blown in from Glasgow leaving a trail of expensive perfume. She came over and sat down beside me in the well of the court. ‘I hear you’ve sorted a deal to have the charge reduced to simple possession again. When were you going to tell me?’
‘I was keeping it a surprise,’ I said.
‘I bet you were. And am I to be included in this arrangement?’
‘That was the plan.’
‘Was the plan?’ Hugh Ogilvie looked up from his pile of red folders. ‘You’ve no signed confession for me? Your man not prepared to take the rap? Get it? Take the wrap – with a W?’
