Good News, Bad News

by WHS McIntyre

  ‘Comedy gold, Hugh,’ Gail said, touching up her lipstick by the camera in her phone. ‘So, are we simply knocking this case onto trial or what?’

  ‘No, not necessarily.’ Ogilvie casually flicked through some papers in one of his case files. ‘I’ve decided that if you plead to simple possession today I’ll accept it.’

  I was glad to hear he’d come to his senses at last. ‘You know what?’ I said. ‘I think I’ll take that plea.’

  A smile slithered across Ogilvie’s face. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you won’t. I wasn’t talking to you.’ He looked straight at Gail. ‘The deal is your girl pleads to the reduced charge, and testifies against Robbie’s client at the trial. Interested?’

  Gail looked extremely interested.

  ‘Of course she’s not interested,’ I said, gently pulling Gail to her feet and guiding her a few feet further away so that we had our backs to the PF.

  ‘Don’t even think about it, Gail. We’re in with a real shout here. All we do is turn the tables on this Freya Linkwood. Our girls go in, say they knew nothing about the drugs and that it was all down to her. She’s the one who’s pled guilty to possession of the stuff. We can sell that story, can’t we? You and me? I’m telling you, there’s a big solid reasonable doubt just waiting for us to parcel up and present to the jury.’

  If Gail’s client took the deal Antonia was done for. The two co-accused would testify, reluctantly no doubt and there’d probably be tears, but it would all only make their evidence the more credible and reliable.

  ‘Then again,’ Ogilvie said, upping the stakes, ‘if you don’t want to take the deal, Gail, maybe I will offer it to Robbie’s client. All I’m looking for is one conviction on the supply charge and two for the possession. I don’t really care how it’s carved up.’

  I put my hands on the shoulders of Gail’s black court gown. ‘Don’t listen to him. You know I’d never stab you in the back.’

  ‘No, he’d do it staring you in the face,’ Ogilvie said, enjoying every second.

  Gail nipped her lower lip between her teeth and held it while she stared down at the floor and then, pushing past me, returned to her seat. ‘How about we knock this First Diet on a week, Hugh, and I’ll take instructions?’

  37

  ‘I know how it must seem to you, Robbie.’

  It wasn’t how it seemed that I was bothered about. I was more concerned with how it actually was. It hadn’t taken Gail the seven days she’d been allowed to obtain instructions on the Crown’s latest offer. It had taken less than ten minutes. I was pacing about in the agents’ room when she returned to tell me the news.

  ‘There’s not much I can do,’ she said, easing out of her gown, folding it a couple of times and cramming it into a big carpetbagger holdall. ‘I can only advise and take instructions. I told my client that the deal would be conditional on her giving evidence against Antonia, and that if she did Antonia would likely be found guilty.’

  ‘Only likely? You didn’t tell her Antonia would definitely be found guilty?’

  Gail smiled. ‘I was giving you some credit.’

  ‘So she’s really going to plead and let her pal take the blame?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. I even told her that there could be a prison sentence in it for your client. It made no odds. It’s guilty and I’m going to draft an affidavit so there’ll be no going back.’

  I shoved a chair with the sole of my shoe and walked up the other end of the room to collect my own gown and briefcase.

  ‘If it’s any consolation, I’d rather go to trial,’ Gail called to me. ‘For the money if nothing else. But this deal is best for my client, and her interests have to come first. You’d have done the same thing. Uh-uh,’ she said, waving a hand at me, aborting my protests before they’d been conceived far less delivered. ‘You would have. I know you would. And if you’d have listened to me and Andy at the beginning, neither you nor your client would be in this mess. It was you who talked me into tendering a not guilty plea in the first place. I shouldn’t have listened to you then, I’m not listening to you now.’

  ‘Okay. That’s fine. Fair enough. You wheedle your way out if you must,’ I said.

  Gail marched up to me. ‘I’m not wheedling my way out of anywhere. My client is going into the witness box to tell the truth. It was Antonia Brechin who was supplying the coke. The other two knew about it, but she was the one who bought it and was all set to dish it out after winning her stupid award. If you ask me, it’s all working out as it should.’

  Gail might have been right, but I didn’t have to like it.

  We cooled down with a reconciliatory hot cup of coffee in the café downstairs before setting off to our respective offices. Back in Linlithgow I parked my car in its usual place outside Sandy’s, and was about to dive in for a bacon roll when a Range Rover Sport with darkened windows pulled up to the edge of the pavement. A rear window lowered. ‘Get in.’

  I got in.

  The back seat would have been spacious enough if it hadn’t also contained Stan Blandy.

  ‘I want you to settle a bet for me, Robbie,’ he said, as the car pulled away into the early afternoon traffic on Linlithgow High Street. He seemed cheerful enough. It was the way he wasn’t looking at me, but straight ahead through dark glasses at the broad neck of his driver that bothered me.

  ‘Oh, yeah? What’s that?’

  ‘I was talking to a friend of ours. We spoke about him at the football on Saturday.’

  ‘Toffee?’

  ‘Aye. You see how he was lifted last weekend?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘He says everything’s all right and he got a PF lib.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Just like that? Off you go, Toffee. You’re a free man.’

  ‘That’s what happened.’

  ‘And there’s going to be no comeback on me?’

  I took a little longer to answer that question. ‘I don’t see why there should be.’ I looked at the watch I wasn’t wearing. ‘I’d like to help, Stan, but I’ve got a lot of things to do this afternoon. How about we do this some other time?’

  ‘We’re doing it now.’

  ‘You haven’t even told me what the bet is.’

  Stan removed his sunglasses and tucked them into the top pocket of his jacket. ‘You’re a very impatient man.’

  ‘I’m a busy man.’

  ‘Okay. Here’s the bet. I know that Toffee never appeared in Dundee or whatever teuchter court he should have been in. He got taken to Edinburgh Sheriff and then somehow got released. I know you’re good, but you’re not that good. Toffee’s given me his side of the story and he bets that you can back it up.’ Stan raised an arm and laid it across my shoulders like a yoke. ‘You know me, Robbie. I like a flutter, so I took him up on it. In fact, I’ve bet his life on it.’

  38

  Colin ‘Toffee’ McCowan was sitting bolt upright on an old straight-back dining room chair, ankles secured to the legs by plastic electrical ties, arms behind him bound at the wrists. It’s always nice to feel wanted, and I could tell from his eyes that Toffee was extremely pleased to see me, though I could only tell from his eyes, because the rest of his face was wound around with silver duct tape and he was breathing, short and sharp, through a gap at his nostrils.

  We weren’t alone in the derelict dock warehouse. Besides myself and the man in the chair there was Big Stan, his driver and two other men who had been keeping the captive company until we arrived. As our small party approached, Stan ordered the two men to stand guard at the main door while his driver, short and stocky, shaved head, razor scar and a come-ahead expression, took up position behind Toffee.

  Stan clapped his hands together. The sound echoed around the empty building, a reminder that we had the place all to ourselves. ‘Here we are then. Time to find out the winner of our wee bet, Toffee.’ He put a hand on the small of my back and urged me forward so that I was only a yard or so away from the chair. By now Toffee’s eyes were s
howing mostly white. ‘And I don’t want you giving Mr Munro any clues, understand?’

  The driver delivered Toffee a swift punch to the ear, and the old mariner squeezed out a groan of pain, signalling his clear understanding with frantic nods of his tape-strapped head.

  ‘Good,’ Stan said. ‘Over to you, then, Robbie. Explain how come it was that Toffee got arrested by the police and then mysteriously got out again. Maybe I should change his nickname to Houdini.’

  There were two ways of explaining things. Unfortunately, the good way for me was the bad way for Toffee. ‘Well, it’s like this, Stan. Toffee was skimming your quality merchandise, bulking it up with icing sugar and then selling some of the good stuff to his own customers. The cops stopped him and have now got fifty grams of your Aunt Nora in a production cupboard. You could call it disloyalty, I’d prefer to call it business initiative, and the country needs more entrepreneurs.’

  The driver scratched his nose with the back of his hand. A hand that was holding a lock-back blade with a five-inch serrated edge.

  I decided to go with the version we’d agreed over a bacon roll two days previously, hoping the prisoner had done the same. ‘Toffee had a blow-out on the Queensferry Road. The cops turned up, became suspicious and found some powder in the boot of the car, must have leaked out of a package. Toffee told them he knew nothing about it and the PF had to release him.’

  Stan eyed me, like I was trying to sell him a 99p Rolex.

  ‘You know something, Stan? You are one very suspicious individual,’ I said, trying to make light of an extremely heavy situation.

  After a moment or two, Stan jerked his head at the driver who cut the plastic ties holding the prisoner’s hands together. ‘Looks like I’ve lost another bet,’ he said. ‘It’s getting to be a habit. Just take a finger off him, Rab. One of the knackered ones. He’ll not miss it.’

  The driver grabbed the hand that Toffee was using to rub circulation back into his wrist and brought the knife to bear.

  ‘Hold on!’ I shouted. ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘Carelessness,’ Stan said.

  ‘Carelessness? I hate to say it, Stan, but if anyone’s been careless here it has to be you.’

  The driver, who had shown no emotion at being asked to remove one of the old sailor’s digits, suddenly looked pained. He glanced from me to Stan, blinking rapidly.

  Stan’s eyes narrowed. He raised his hand, belaying the finger-sawing order. ‘I’m . . .’ He had a problem with the word. ‘I’m careless, am I?’ he just about managed to croak.

  ‘When I say careless . . .’

  ‘You did say it. You said I was careless. So tell me in what way you think I’m not careful, will you, Robbie?’

  I cleared my throat. ‘Okay. Who’s the registered keeper of Toffee’s car?’

  Stan didn’t know.

  Toffee tore his hand out of the driver’s grasp and used it to pull duct tape away from his face. ‘It’s me. The car’s registered to me.’

  ‘There you are,’ I said. ‘What are you doing, Stan? Letting an ex-con drive his own car on a drugs delivery? When the cops saw him broken down at the side of the road, the first thing they’d have done was check the reg to see if the tax and insurance were up to date. The second thing they would have done is check Toffee’s record on the PNC for outstanding fines or warrants. Once they saw his previous conviction, they’d have been on the alert for signs of drugs before they came anywhere near the car. To do this sort of delivery properly, you should have—’

  ‘Properly?’ Stan winced as though he would have preferred the rough amputation of one of his own fat fingers than have his business practices criticised further. ‘You don’t think I do things properly?’

  I was in too deep to stop now. ‘First of all the car should have been registered to someone else, secondly whoever wrapped the stuff should have made a better a job of it so that there were no spillages, thirdly, you shouldn’t have used someone with a criminal record to do this kind of work.’ I manufactured a smile. ‘You said it yourself. You’re a big softy.’ Stan’s eyes narrowed. I pressed on. ‘Anyway, the good news is that there’s nothing to worry about. Nothing links you to Toffee or the car.’

  After an age, he grunted, ‘Aye, all right. Let him go.’

  The driver stooped to snip the ankle ties, allowing Toffee to climb shakily to his feet.

  A barely discernible jerk of Stan’s massive head was the only invitation Toffee needed to stumble headlong for the door, ripping tape from his face and not looking back.

  On the return trip to Linlithgow we didn’t talk any more about Toffee or what had happened in the warehouse, and the Range Rover stopped precisely where I’d been picked up less than an hour before.

  ‘How much am I due you?’ Stan asked, as I bid him farewell.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For Toffee the other day.’

  ‘I never had to do anything. Call it quits for Saturday.’

  ‘The football was on me. How much for going to court?’

  If I turned down the offer of money, Stan would think something amiss.

  ‘It was just a couple of hours of my time.’

  Stan reached into his jacket pocket and removed some crisp, red fifties from a wallet the size of a suitcase. ‘Oh, and, Robbie . . .’ He held the notes out to me. I tried to take them, but he didn’t let go at first. ‘See, if I find out that you and that wee bastard have been lying to me? We’ll see who’s a big softy then.’

  39

  The month of May is a busy month for football. Pretty much like every other month of the year, Joanna would say, but, really, you couldn’t ask for more than the chance to watch the finals of all the major competitions: Champions League, Europa Cup, Scottish and English FA Cups, as well as the league play-offs north and south of the border and, of course, pride of place, the Scottish Junior Cup Final.

  The last Tuesday of the month would see the second leg of the semi-final between Linlithgow Rose and Irvine Meadow, the tie poised on a knife-edge after a draw in the first leg and home advantage now with the Rose.

  I had been going. I wasn’t now. Malky and my dad were.

  Joanna, not long into her new job and being extra-dedicated, was working late on a cold-case she’d been lumbered with. That left me to look after Tina. Tuesday night was golf lesson night. I was in the garden with Malky, talking football. My dad, a maroon and white scarf knotted about his neck – only football supporters wore woolly scarves in summer – was giving his granddaughter a few last-minute golf tips.

  ‘That’s right, straight back, bend your knees, plant your feet, keep your head still, swing smoothly, right elbow in by your side, don’t flap it about like a chicken and shift your balance nice and easy.’

  It was a lot for a five-year-old to take in, but at least golf was diverting Tina’s mind from other things, like her missing bunny rabbit. I should never have left Tina alone to feed her pet on Sunday night. After feeding it that final carrot, she’d been unable to resist opening the hutch door for a goodnight cuddle. Rosie had jumped out of her arms and disappeared into the undergrowth, and undergrowth, as well as all sorts of different kinds of growth, was something there was a lot of in my dad’s back garden. The animal hadn’t been seen since, despite us wedging the hutch door open in hope of its return.

  ‘What do you make of the Linlithgow’s Rose’s chances tonight?’ I asked Malky, who, not surprisingly, was confident of a home win and a triumphant stroll to the final for the team he’d played for in his youth – until, that is, a magpie touched down and hopped over to the empty hutch where it began to show interest in the bowl of rabbit food that had been left to lure the missing Rosie.

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You see that magpie?’ he said. ‘That’s one for sorrow.’

  ‘Yeah, sorrow for the Irvine Meadow supporters,’ I said. ‘Have some faith in your team.’

  ‘No. It was me who saw it, that means I’m the one who�
�ll be sorry. That’s how it works.’

  I didn’t know who drafted the legislation on superstitions, but my brother seemed to be familiar with all the various rules and regulations. ‘It’s okay. I saw another magpie a wee while ago,’ I said. ‘That’s two for joy and since I’m a Rose supporter too—’

  ‘How do you know it was definitely a different one?’ Malky asked.

  ‘A different one?’

  ‘Aye, are you sure you haven’t just seen the same magpie twice?’

  ‘It wasn’t wearing a name badge, if that’s what you mean. It was a magpie, black and white, yellow beak, lots of feathers, wee bit arrogant looking.’

  ‘It won’t count if it was the same one. It’ll still mean sorrow. You can’t just go following the same magpie around all day until you get to the wish you want.’

  Two more magpies came in to land next to the first, and saved me from having to put up a defence to the accusation that I was some sort of ornithological stalker. ‘There you are, then. That’s either three or four magpies we’ve seen today, depending on whether I saw the same one twice, so that means either—’

  ‘Three for a girl or four for a boy.’ Malky was all smiles now. ‘We just need one more for silver, like the cup.’

  I could almost hear my brain cells pleading for mercy.

  Meanwhile my dad’s golf masterclass continued. ‘Pretend that’s the ball.’ He pointed to an unsuspecting daisy that had mined its way up through the lawn. ‘On you go, pet, in your own time. Head up, chest out, chin in and keep your eye on the ball.’

  Tina swung like she was killing a cobra. The daisy had never really been in any danger. The first attempt hit fresh air. The second removed three inches of top soil a foot away from the flower and splattered it across the kitchen window.

  ‘I don’t bother with all that,’ Malky said.

  For someone who had taken up golf fairly recently, and had never had a lesson or practised an hour in his life, my brother was infuriatingly good at the game.

  ‘All what?’