Relatively Guilty (Best Defence series Book 1)

by William H. S. McIntyre

  ‘Was there something else?’ he snarled at me.

  I remained seated. ‘I did a lot of work for you when I was working through here with Caldwell & Clark.’ He looked away. ‘Never too busy. Always ready to drop everything at a moment’s notice, pull any stroke I could to spring your boys. Kieran couldn’t have run for a bus far less the City Council if it wasn’t for me.’

  ‘And you were well paid.’

  ‘I know that, Dexy, but what I’m trying to say is –’

  He thumped the table with a fist. ‘I know what you’re trying to say. I’m just not listening.’

  I looked up at him. ‘Dexy, I want you to give me your word you’ll leave Malky alone.’

  ‘That it then?’ he sneered. ‘The bitch is dead, now the brothers can settle their differences.’

  ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘No?’

  He delved into his pocket, took out a photograph and threw it down on the table: Cathleen, wearing a black gown, a red silk cape trimmed with white fur across her slender shoulders, in her hands the burgundy scroll that held her medical degree. She was smiling. She was very young and so very beautiful. I turned away. Dexy seized the collar of my jacket. ‘You want me to forgive and forget?’ He forced my head down, making me look at the photo. ‘Then tell me you can do the same.’

  I wrenched free of his grip, stood and picked up the glass of whiskey. ‘To Cathleen,’ I said and downed it in a oner.

  ‘Didn’t think so,’ he said.

  I straightened my jacket. ‘Thanks for the drink.’

  ‘Get out,’ Dexy growled. ‘And tell your brother he’s a dead man.’

  CHAPTER 10

  Malky was lying on the couch when I returned home later that evening. ‘Where have you been?’ he asked from behind the sports pages.

  ‘Glasgow.’

  He discarded the newspaper. There was a mixture of fear and hope in his eyes. ‘You spoke to Dexy?’

  I nodded, pushed his legs to the side and sat down beside him, balancing my briefcase on the arm of the sofa.

  ‘What did he say?’

  I tried to sound upbeat. ‘Could have been a lot worse.’

  ‘What did he say – exactly?’

  ‘He… he didn’t promise anything.’

  Malky slammed the palm of a hand hard against his forehead.

  ‘I tried.’

  ‘Yeah? Well thanks for nothing.’

  ‘I can work on him some more. Give it time. The man’s just buried his daughter.’

  ‘I don’t have time.’ Malky got up and went through to the bedroom.

  I followed and watched while he filled a holdall with the few clothes he’d brought with him. ‘Going somewhere?’

  ‘I can’t stay here any longer.’ He stuffed a shaving kit on top and zipped up the bag. ‘Now Dexy knows I’ve been to you for help, this’ll be the first place he sends the boys in the back-to-front balaclavas.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘Why should you care?’

  ‘Because you’re my brother.’

  He snorted. ‘You care more about your precious clients than you do about me, always have done.’

  ‘You think so?’ I left him, went through to the livingroom and returned with my briefcase from which I took out a sheet of printed-paper that I handed to him. ‘Then sign this.’

  ‘A contract?’

  ‘My terms of engagement letter. I’m obliged by the Law Society to provide a copy to all my new clients. He stared at the document long and hard. ‘Standard terms,’ I said, pointing to the pencil line at the bottom of the page. ‘Sign and I’ll do everything I can on your behalf. You know I’d never let down a client.’

  ‘Would you like it in blood?’ he said, eventually, still staring at the sheet of paper.

  ‘No,’ I said, pushing a pen between his fingers. ‘Ink will do just fine.’

  CHAPTER 11

  First thing to do was find Malky a safe house. My dad had been sworn to secrecy, so when we arrived at his place shortly after five on Thursday afternoon, it was just him, half a dozen of his mates and a crate of Deuchars I.P.A.

  In the midst of the party atmosphere, I took the old man aside while his pals swarmed over Malky and had him sign autographs, purportedly for grand-children with names like Archie and Big Dode and who, if they actually existed, would surely be too young to remember Malky’s brief but golden era.

  ‘No-one’s to know he’s here – okay? He’s taking Cathleen’s death very hard. He wants some peace and quiet, away from the media. You know how it is.’ I found it difficult lying to my dad even though I’d had plenty of practice. Perhaps it was because I was beginning to have second thoughts about taking Malky there. After all, it wouldn’t be much of a safe house if word filtered back to Dexy Doyle that his target was being baby-sat by a geriatric.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ My old man, ushered me down the hallway. ‘Have no fear, our lips are sealed. We’re all ex-cops, well not wee Vince but he was in the Black Watch – you’d need to torture him for weeks to make him talk. That or buy him a few drams.’

  ‘I mean it.’

  He opened the front door. ‘I know and it’s good of you to be so concerned,’ he lifted one bushy eyebrow. ‘Considering.’

  ‘He’s my brother.’

  ‘And don’t you forget it.’

  Malky came out of the kitchen. ‘Dad, you got any more pint tumblers?’

  ‘Bottom cupboard under the cutlery drawer.’ My dad nudged me out of the door. ‘Now away you go. We’re going to watch some fitba’ and I’m sure there are loads of criminals needing their hands held.’

  Malky returned, bottle of beer in one hand, glass in the other. ‘You know I might just get to like it here.’

  I left him to it. A few days with my dad and his mates, endless video re-runs of past World Cup failures: death would come as a welcome relief.

  I was halfway down the garden path when I realised my mobile phone was buzzing in my suit pocket. By the time I had fished it out I’d missed the call. I re-dialled and to my surprise Zoë answered.

  ‘Robbie, thank goodness,’ she said. ‘I’ve gone and left my handbag at work.’

  It was absolutely no trouble for me to nip back to the office, collect the handbag and personally deliver it to Zoë’s place, a one bedroom flat in the residential development of what had once been St Magdalene’s distillery on the banks of the Union Canal on the outskirts of town. Whisky had been distilled in the area for hundreds of years. By the early eighteenth century, and before his meeting with a certain Mr Hare, William Burke was one of the navvies who’d helped route the Union canal past the distillery to ship the casks of fine Lowland malt. When Malky and I were boys we’d spent many an evening fishing at the spot where the distillery’s outlet poured into the canal in the hope that the warm water would attract ‘Big Joe’ a mythical giant pike, said to live in the canal and so enormous he had to swim further along the canal to the basin in order to turn around.

  ‘I don’t know what I’d have done,’ Zoë said as I stood on her front doormat holding her handbag like an obedient stick-fetching puppy. ‘I’ll need to go to the supermarket, there’s not a bite of food in the house. Not that I’d have starved to death.’ She patted her flat stomach as though it were a paunch.

  ‘Well, I’m not prepared to take that chance,’ I told her as I handed over the bag. ‘Can’t have the staff dying of hunger. Not when business is picking up.’

  She laughed.

  ‘Sorry about the other night…’ I said.

  Blank stare.

  ‘When we were supposed to go out for coffee…?’

  ‘Oh that? Don’t worry about it. Sandy kept me company.’

  I thought I detected a mischievous glint in her eye. ‘Anyway, I was thinking, seeing as how we’re both, you know…?’ A puddle of sweat formed in my lower back. What was I doing? Zoë was so pretty. Really pretty. Out of my league pretty. I stumbled on. ‘And it’s that time of …’ I checked
the wristwatch that I never wore. ‘Maybe…’ Zoë smiled encouragingly.

  ‘Fancy a fish supper?’ I asked.

  She didn’t.

  The Champany Inn a mile out of Linlithgow on the road to Blackness was one of Scotland’s finest eateries. The main restaurant was booked-up months in advance but if we were prepared to wait for a table they could squeeze us into the less pricey Chop and Ale House. We sat at the bar where we eyed-up the menu and I carried out some mental arithmetic. I had a little money with me, but assuming marinated grilled herring for starters followed by steak and chips and a pudding of malted waffles and whipped cream; twice, by my calculations - if you added in the highly recommended soft, fruity Pinotage and coffee - I’d be at least thirty quid plus a tip short and that wasn’t including a taxi. The realisation hit me like a crossbow bolt to my wallet. I was discreetly patting myself down for cash when I felt a reassuring crinkle in the top pocket of my jacket. Andy’s fifty-quid bung. Never had I been so grateful to Jake Turpie. In fact never had I been grateful to Munro & Co.’s landlord until that moment.

  I burst the fifty on aperitifs.

  ‘Here, try some of this,’ Zoë said, after I’d finished my half of Rosebank, product of another former-distillery situated further west along the Union Canal at Falkirk. She lifted her tiny glass to my mouth. ‘Arran Gold. It’s like Bailey’s but it isn’t.’

  I took a sip. Cream and whisky. It was just so wrong.

  ‘Hmm, nice,’ I said. Zoë giggled and with a finger wiped cream from my top lip.

  ‘That’s him over there.’

  The loud voice jolted me from my reverie. I turned to see two black uniforms standing over me.

  ‘Mr Munro?’ said one of them.

  Typical. That was life as a defence agent. I couldn’t get away for a couple of hours without some zoomer getting lifted and needing me to tell them to say nothing to the cops.

  ‘Who is it this time?’ I asked the policeman with an air of resignation.

  A hand clamped down on my shoulder. ‘This time - Sir - it’s you.’

  CHAPTER 12

  I’d been lying on the plastic mattress staring at the ceiling for what seemed like most of the night when I heard a key in the lock and the cell door swung open.

  Andy walked in and looked around. ‘Love what you’ve done with the place.’

  ‘Get me out.’

  ‘How do I do that? I don’t even know why you’re in. All they’d tell me was that it had something to do with counterfeit money.’

  I pushed the cell door shut almost decapitating the custody sergeant. ‘Think of something. After all you got me in here.’

  ‘What do you mean? Wait a minute. ‘It wasn’t that fifty? The one Jake Turpie bunged me? You want me to tell the cops what happened?’

  Not if it involved mention of Jake’s name I didn’t; I liked having fingernails. ‘We’ll discuss Jake later. For now just engage your natural charm and concentrate on getting me out.’ I banged on the cell door and eventually the custody sergeant returned with a rattle of keys. I put my hands on Andy’s shoulders and pushed him forward. ‘Mr Imray would like a word with the Inspector.’

  ‘That wasn’t much fun,’ Andy advised me later when I joined him at the charge bar. ‘I don’t think they like you much here.’

  Andy had yet to fully appreciate that if you were a defence agent and the cops liked you then you probably weren’t doing your job properly.

  The custody sergeant slapped a large plastic bag on the counter. He pinged off the red plastic security tag, drew back the zip and began to pull out my property, item by item.

  D.I. Dougie Fleming hovered in the background, looking like he was enjoying every minute of my discomfort. Fleming had most of the attributes one would expect of a Detective Inspector: late forties, shabbily-dressed, a heavy drinker with a marriage on the rocks; the man was only an interesting car short of his own Sunday night TV series.

  ‘One jacket. One belt. One pair of shoes. One pair of shoe laces. One tie – silk – very nice.’ The custody sergeant shoved the clothes at me, then turned the bag upside down and emptied out the remaining contents. ‘One wallet, containing three tens, two fivers…’ he was about to count some loose change but I swept the money off the counter and stuffed it into my jacket pocket.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll see you at the trial, Mr Munro,’ Fleming called to me. ‘Unless you’d care to agree my evidence. I’m only speaking to a few formalities.’

  ‘There’ll be no trial and I’ll be agreeing bugger all,’ was my response.

  ‘Not even your reply?’ he smirked.

  ‘You made a reply?’ asked Andy, incredulously.

  When it came to police interviews, the Munro & Co. two point plan was, one: say nothing and two: keep your mouth shut.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I told my assistant. ‘Inspector, I’d like to see your notebook.’

  Fleming grinned. ‘All in good time. I’m sure you are aware of the Crown’s disclosure policy. Wouldn’t want to be getting away ahead of ourselves, would we?’

  CHAPTER 13

  Linlithgow Sheriff Court, Friday, and I had to deal with a number of clients who, like me, had been released on police bail. Most were drink drivers from the previous weekend, looking to plead guilty and thus do me out of a trial fee. Each had some pathetic excuse from which I had to concoct a half-believable plea in mitigation. Presenting Sheriff Brechin with the plain truth: he got blootered and drove home – sorry ‘bout that, just wouldn’t do.

  Shortly before noon, one of the resident band of court police officers began pacing the hall, shouting names and distributing summary complaints. Nestled among the section fives, was a summary complaint for me. I turned to the charge sheet. It alleged a contravention of section 15(1) (a) of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981.

  ‘I don’t know why you don’t just march right in and tell the Sheriff exactly how you came by the forged fifty and let the cops take it from there,’ Andy suggested for the umpteenth time that day.

  ‘Because,’ I said, ‘Jake Turpie wouldn’t approve and, unlike the Sheriff, his sentencing powers are not limited by the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act.’

  ‘But it’s the truth.’ Andy wasn’t helping.

  ‘Look,’ I told him, ‘it’s not that bad. I don’t know what Fleming’s on about. Probably just trying to wind me up. I said zilch. He wouldn’t dare verbal me. All the prosecution have got is me handing over a single fifty. The essence of the crime is tendering something which you know or believe to be a counterfeit bank-note. If I tell the court I got it somewhere else and was unaware it was a fake, who can say otherwise? It must have been a reasonably good forgery, because I never noticed and neither did you. There’s no way they’ll be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I knew it was counterfeit. All I need to do is tell them I got it at the pub or something.’

  ‘You’re going to lie? Commit perjury?’

  ‘But it’s the truth. I didn’t know it was a fake. The charge is uttering as genuine currency that I knew to be counterfeit. Where it came from is an irrelevant detail.’

  ‘So it’s okay to lie about that part? Tell the truth, that’s what I say. After all it’s your career at stake. A conviction for uttering counterfeit money and you can kiss your practising certificate good-bye.’

  ‘What about yours?’

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘If I tell the truth,’ I reminded him, ‘then all I can truthfully say is that you gave me the fifty. I don’t know where you got it from.’

  ‘I got it from Jake Turpie…’

  ‘So you say. That’s what’s known in the trade as hearsay evidence.’

  My assistant blanched.

  ‘Court!’ the Bar Officer called as the Sheriff came onto the bench and took her seat.

  ‘Oh, just great,’ Andy said.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘The Sheriff. She used to be my Roman law tutor at Uni. I hea
rd they’d made her a floater.’

  ‘Foxy. I’ve been meaning to brush up on my Institutes of Justinian.’

  ‘Don’t expect me to introduce you then. We fell out quite badly over a late dissertation on Latin maxims.’

  ‘Must have been pretty late.’

  ‘Still is.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ I said. ‘Dum spiro, spero.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’ Andy asked.

  I looked up and gave the Sheriff a smile. She responded with a curt little nod of the wig. I turned again to my assistant. ‘If you’d only done your homework you wouldn’t need to ask.’

  ‘Robert Alexander Munro!’ called the clerk once the end of the roll had been reached. I’d had a word with the clerk who’d agreed to call my case last so that there would be fewer people around. It was really up to the Procurator Fiscal, as master of the instance, to decide on the order of business, but if the clerk conveniently couldn’t find the papers then there wasn’t much the P.F. could do about it.

  It was almost one o’clock when I removed my gown and took my place in the dock, pleased to see the court was clear of spectators and journalists and that, apart from one or two punters waiting to sign their bail papers, only officials remained in the courtroom.

  If the Sheriff recognised her former student clad in a tatty black gown and rising unsteadily from his seat, then she never let on. Andy introduced himself and tendered my plea of not guilty. It couldn’t have been easy for him; his first appearance in the Sheriff Court and he was defending his boss.

  ‘It’s a straightforward matter M’Lady,’ said, Hugh Ogilvie, Procurator Fiscal. ‘There is no reason why both parties can’t be fully prepared in three weeks, so I suggest the clerk fix an intermediate diet in around two weeks’ time and a trial the week after.’

  It was an unexpected suggestion. The court diary normally worked on a minimum eight week turn around for summary trials. Either the P.F. couldn’t wait to stick the boot into me or else he just fancied noising up my fledgling defence agent; probably the latter. I’d always figured Ogilvie for the kind of guy who’d enjoy drowning kittens in a bucket.