Relatively Guilty (Best Defence series Book 1)

by William H. S. McIntyre

  ‘Second choice? Never. You’re the best. I know that, everyone knows that.’ She absorbed my flattery effortlessly. ‘It’s just that you’ve been too busy. It’s easier getting an audience with the Queen than arranging a consultation with you. And you’re a bully. All your clerks are terrified to put anything in your diary until they’ve checked it three times to make absolutely sure you’re not off on the ran-dan somewhere.’

  Fiona loved it when she was ticked off for being a scoundrel. She took the photo from me, gave it a quick shufty. ‘If you expect me to squeeze any juice out of the Prince of Darkness, then I’m going to need a sight more than your client’s rendition of Jesus Loves Me and a dodgy mascara job.’ She handed me back the photo. ‘See what you can do.’

  CHAPTER 39

  Wahid Sattar threw open the door. ‘I’m not worthy. The great Robbie Munro.’ He dipped in an extravagant bow. ‘Please, come enter my humble abode.’

  I wished I could have afforded so humble an abode as my former colleague. Kingsborough Gardens in Glasgow’s west end, a townhouse in a terrace designed by Alexander ‘Greek’ Thompson or some other equally famous Victorian architect; even with the crunchiest of credit-crunches it had to be worth seven figures and the price had probably increased in the time it took me to walk from pavement to front door. I wiped my feet on an expanse of coconut matting and went inside.

  ‘So, what brings you?’ he asked, closing the front door and padding past me in threadbare tartan slippers and a maroon dressing gown with gold embroidery on the sleeves.

  ‘I just happened to be in the area and thought I’d drop in to see how you are.’

  ‘No you didn’t. You want something. It was the same when we worked at Caldwell & Clark. I’d not see you for ages and then you’d come into my room on the pretence of a chat and end up picking my brains about some crazy defence or other.’

  He showed me through to a large sun-lit room where two small children, a boy and a girl, crawled about the floor, sucking soft toys, dribbling on the furniture and leaving indelible stains on the Axminster. I found an armchair under a pile of soft toys and sat down.

  That it should come to this: Wahid Sattar watching the weans. No more for him the donning of the old tin helmet, fixing bayonet and going over the top into the bomb-cratered battlefield of civil litigation. Not that, with his steel trap of a legal mind, he’d ever needed to be good on his feet; such were his other attributes, his meticulous written pleadings and encyclopaedic knowledge of the law, the opposition had usually capitulated long before they reached the steps of the court.

  ‘How’s life at the Bar?’ I asked.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ he laughed. ‘With this pair to look after? I’ve forgotten what the inside of Parliament House looks like.’ A toddler clambered up onto a small pile of buff files that were stacked against the far wall. ‘In between nappies and din-dins it’s all I can do to write the occasional opinion. Keeps my brain from stagnating, I suppose, but Debs brings in the real money.’

  It was a sin; Wahid sitting at home writing notes for other lawyers when he should have been wowing them up at the Court of Session. It was like sub-contracting Michelangelo to Artex the ceiling.

  ‘How is Deeba?’

  ‘She’s fine. Get down Fara! Still with Dickson Nimmo & Wright and biggest of the big in the A and M department.’

  ‘Shouldn’t worry, it’s probably hormonal – after having the kids.’

  ‘Acquisitions and mergers,’ he said before realising it was an attempt at humour on my part. He gave me a wry smile as he pulled the female child over and poked a spoonful of gloop at her.

  ‘Careful, ‘I said. ‘Some of that’s going in her mouth.’

  After a few unsuccessful tries to feed his daughter, Wahid let go of the child and she crawled off to wreak havoc elsewhere.

  ‘Yes,’ Wahid said with a sigh, ‘Debs is off closing some deal or other. In London, no, wait, it’s Wednesday, could be New York. Meanwhile I’m stuck here with the sprogs.’

  ‘You seem to be coping all right, though. Twins can’t be easy. After them a single kid will be a dawdle.’

  ‘No fear. Two’s enough. I’ve taken care of that.’ He made scissors out of his fingers in case there was any need for clarification.

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘You’d think so, but, not really. Bit of a disappointment actually. I mean, I was dreading going for it, but, I suppose, deep down, every man is sort of hoping the surgeon will take a look at his tackle and order in a squad of workies and some scaffolding. Instead all you get is a couple of toe-curling injections and ten minutes later you’re a jaffa, waddling home to a salt bath.’

  The toddler who wasn’t Fara came over and rubbed his sticky face on one of my legs. I picked him up, not entirely sure what to do next. I smiled. He smiled. Then his features gradually puffed out until they fixed into a rigid expression of supreme concentration. The hue of his chubby little cheeks deepened and a powerfully wicked odour filled the room. I put him down and he toddled off.

  Wahid laid the jar and spoon on the arm of a chair. ‘I heard about Cathleen Doyle. Tragic. Must have been strange for you. Don’t suppose you were too cut up about it, though.’ Wahid caught the smelly child and toppled him onto a plastic mat on the floor. ‘Sorry, that was uncalled for.’

  ‘It’s probably what most people think.’

  ‘I also hear you’ve gone out on your own.’

  ‘Over a year now.’

  ‘Couldn’t believe it when someone told me. I thought you were in with the bricks at C & C. Youngest partner in a hundred years.’

  ‘They stopped doing legal aid work.’

  ‘How noble of you.’

  ‘Not really. Justice may be blind but the other partners weren’t, not for the bottom line. I was given a choice: turn my back on a life of crime or take up my green forms and walk. I walked. It was for the best. It’s been slow but things are beginning to pick up. I’ve an assistant – Andy Imray. I’ve got high hopes for him. He has a good grasp of the law and he’s young and hungry. Like you were before…’

  ‘Before Deeba?’

  Much to my dismay, Wahid whipped the nappy off the child on the mat.

  ‘Lie still, Latif,’ he said, raising the baby’s legs and setting about its hindquarters with a handful of wet-wipes. He looked up at me. ‘What it is to be young and hungry.’

  I averted my eyes, no longer wishing to discuss hunger or anything at all associated with food. I had hoped to broach my difficulties in a more roundabout manner, but at that precise moment my driving ambition was to get out of that room and to breathe in some fresh air.

  ‘Cameron Crowe,’ I said after Wahid had slapped on some cream and parcelled-up the baby’s now spotless behind in a disposable nappy that had little teddy bears printed along the waist band.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s a shit.’

  ‘You came here to tell me something of which I am already well aware?’

  ‘Do you ever see him?’

  ‘Not if I can help it.’

  ‘How well do the two of you get along?’

  ‘There are no hard feelings that I know of – then again, I never tried to wheech the knickers of his fiancée while he was collecting her coat.’

  ‘We kissed and it was only their second date.’

  Wahid laughed. ‘Are you looking for some kind of favour?’ He laughed again. ‘Of course you are or why else would you be here? I very much suspect that unlike me,’ he glanced down at the soiled nappy, ‘you have a life – and a career.’

  ‘The career part is a bit up in the air at the moment. That’s why I’m here.’ I told him about the fake fifty and Crowe’s special interest in the matter of my prosecution.

  ‘And you think I can talk him into dropping the charges?’

  ‘You’ve things in common. You worked together at Caldwell & Craig. You’re both at the Bar - you being senior to him…’

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You t
hink because we’re both members of Faculty, I’ve got some kind of leverage.’

  ‘Well don’t you?’

  ‘There’s no secret handshake, if that’s what you mean. Speak to him yourself.’

  ‘I think I may have burnt that particular boat.’

  ‘How badly?’

  ‘Viking funeral badly. That’s why I thought you might… you know, have a word.’

  Wahid rolled the nappy into a ball and plopped it into an orange, scented disposal bag that had its work cut out. ‘You know I’d like to help, Robbie, but this is your problem, you’ve got to face it like a man. Sit down with Crowe. Hammer out your differences over a drink.’

  ‘Which blood-type does he prefer?’

  ‘It’s the only way.’

  ‘What could I say that would do any good?’

  ‘You could always try apologising. He’d probably respect you for that. Much better than me trying out the old boy routine on him.’

  ‘What you actually mean is that you’re scared of him.’

  Wahid tied the handles of the nappy bag in a knot and lobbed it into a wicker basket by the side of the door. ‘Petrified.’

  CHAPTER 40

  The golf ball soared into the afternoon sky like a little white dove with a rocket strapped to its tail feathers, eliciting a ripple of applause from the few spectators who, with apparently nothing better to do that sunny Thursday, had chosen to follow our group, or, rather, Malky.

  My brother replaced the furry head cover and dropped the driver into his golf bag, like he was slotting a sword back into its scabbard after despatching a villain.

  ‘Good shot,’ said Steve, the young SPGA pro’ who made up our three-ball. ‘Better hope no-one on the handicap committee saw that one.’

  Tuesday lunch-time, as soon as I’d evicted Malky and my dad from the office, I’d had Grace-Mary phone around and locate the organiser of the Pro-Celebrity golf tournament. As I suspected there had been some call-offs and has-been footballers were always in demand for such events. At first Malky hadn’t been too keen but the mention of appearance money helped change his mind, as did realisation that the alternative was another day cooped up with my dad and his cronies, watching football DVD’s and re-living his famous cup-winning goal.

  ‘It was fourteen years ago. I’m beginning to wish I’d put it over the bar,’ he told me as we searched for my ball in the rough. ‘I never realised how skilful I was. I always thought the ball got fired into the box and I stuck my head in the way. Apparently there was a lot more to it than that and wee Vince can prove it in super-slo-mo and from various angles.’

  We reached the approximate area where my drive had buried itself in the long grass. I stamped around and eventually stood on something round and hard. I picked it up. It looked like my golf ball, but then there wasn’t much to distinguish one from another. I tossed it onto the fairway and continued my slow progress to the green.

  Malky missed a four-footer for a par. Steve sank his from double the distance. I slapped him on the back. ‘That’s why you’re the pro. Malky, put me down for a six will you?’

  ‘Why? Are you only counting your putts?’ he asked. When it came to sporting activities my big brother was always a stickler for the rules. What was the big deal? It was a game. In my line of work laws were there for the bending, how much bending generally depended on the size of the fee. Malky put a ten on my card and marched off to the next tee.

  The par three seventeenth at Linlithgow was a short dunt with a pitching wedge or, if you were me, a whack with a seven iron that scuttled along the ground, down the hill, across the green and into the canal at the back. The other two were still laughing about it as they holed-out at the last. Thanks to my performance we were out of the prizes. I put my lack of form down to the fact I’d had a lot on my mind lately. That and a paper-cut on my right index finger sustained on the edge of a particularly sharp legal aid certificate.

  ‘You know, I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders,’ Malky said as we were changing our shoes in the car park. He was really sold on the Dexy Doyle blood-money scenario. Call me cynical but I couldn’t help keeping a weather-eye out for snipers in the bushes. I had felt more at ease before Dexy had come over all conciliatory.

  ‘Malky,’ I said, ‘I don’t think we should completely-write off Dexy’s previous threats. After all, nothing’s really changed.’ By which I suppose I meant that Cathleen was still dead.

  He chucked our clubs into the boot of my car. ‘Calm down. Dexy Doyle’s not going to try anything - not in broad daylight - and I’ve been thinking: first and foremost, Dexy’s a businessman. When was the last time he was in any bother? Taking money off me is much more his scene these days.’

  It was true. The small matter of half a dozen handguns aside, Dexy had kept a very low criminal-profile recently and certainly his chain of drinking dens gave the impression of being legit. Maybe Malky was right. Dexy had made his money, bought his pubs and just perhaps he liked things the way they were. The older a man gets, the less appealing a prison sentence. Could be that my brother was entitled to feel relieved. I might have too if it wasn’t for the fact that I could still remember the times I’d acted for Dexy and his associates. Some of the Crown photographs were still branded on my memory. Photos that showed or alleged to show – for it was never proven - what happened to people who displeased Mr Doyle.

  I climbed into the car. Malky walked away.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ I called after him.

  ‘If they’re paying for the pleasure of my company, the least I can do is mingle. How much was my fee?’ he asked when I caught up with him at the club house door. ‘Five hundred?’

  ‘Three. Well, two fifty-five - after my commission.’

  ‘Not exactly the Nike deal is it?’ he grumped as we squeezed our way into a main bar area that was heaving with golfers interspersed by the occasional D list celeb. In the middle of the room was a table stacked high with prizes. We were hardly in the place when Malky was dragged away by a couple of soap actors who were probably household names in some very sad households.

  ‘Hey, baw heid!’

  I recognised Jake Turpie’s voice over the hubbub. Obviously he’d had plenty of practice yelling orders over the sound of heavy plant machinery at his scrapyard. The stocky wee psychopath was sitting on a stool at the corner of the bar, his minder, Deek Pudney, beside him, sipping a lager tops and keeping an exclusion zone around his boss.

  ‘Didn’t know you were a golfer, Jake,’ I said, once I’d managed to push my way through the throng. ‘Should you not be at the yard crushing something?’ Like cars – or fingers.

  ‘Golf? That’ll be right,’ said Jake. ‘Naw, I’m a sponsor. The thirteenth. Par three, whatever that is. Did you not see my sign?’

  I hadn’t.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘Very nice.’

  ‘I’m dissecting – into car sales.’ He meant diversifying. I didn’t put him right. He wouldn’t have appreciated it. ‘I’m having my whole yard done up and thought I should be doing more to provoke the new business.’

  ‘You mean promote?’ I blurted by mistake, still getting to grips with the idea that someone had actually managed to talk Jake into parting with cash for something as ephemeral as his name on a golf hole.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ He glared at me. ‘Promote.’

  A roar of laughter from Malky’s group helped ease the tension.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘what’s the beer like here?’

  Jake pointed to the shot glass on the counter in front of him. ‘Peppermint. My guts are killing me this weather.’

  ‘Not easy to get served, is it?’ I hinted.

  Jake glanced in the direction of the barman who immediately shunned the hordes pressing in on the bar and came over.

  ‘That dodgy note of yours…’ I said casually, after I’d sipped the head off a pint of heavy. ‘The one you bunged my assistant.’

  Jake’s face solidifie
d.

  ‘It did cross my mind,’ I said, ‘that someone might come forward and say they’d given the money to me and that it was all a terrible mistake. You could add any fine onto next month’s rent.’

  Jake snorted. ‘I’ve not had this month’s rent yet. And, anyway, I can’t go getting done for stuff. I‘ve just applied for my second-hand car dealer’s licence.’

  ‘What about Deek?’ I suggested. ‘It’s not like he’s going to notice another conviction.’

  ‘Deek’s busy that day,’ Jake said. ‘I think he’s washing his hair.’

  The big man grinned like a neep lantern and rubbed a calloused hand over his buzz-cut, pretty much exhausting that particular line of defence.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘how is the new arm of your business?’

  ‘Early days.’

  Which I was sure was his way of saying diabolical. Hardly surprising. Forget the dire economic climate; who in their right mind would buy a second hand car from Jake Turpie?

  ‘Like you say - you need to promote the business more. Get some publicity. Have you thought about having someone endorse it?’ I said to a vacant stare. ‘You know - someone help to advertise it.’

  ‘Like a celebrity?’

  ‘What about that wee bird that does the weather?’ suggested Deek. ‘She’s here. I saw her.’

  ‘You kidding?’ I asked.

  Jake winced and pressed a hand against his stomach. ‘Like an acid pit.’ He took a sip of peppermint cordial. ‘The weathergirl. What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘We…ll, I suppose she’s quite well known, but she’s not from Linlithgow. You want someone the people around here can identify with. A local boy done good.

  ‘You?’ Jake asked, with what I thought was an excessive air of incredulity.

  ‘Someone,’ I went on, ‘that people like and admire.’

  He took another drink of peppermint cordial. ‘Not you then.’ Cue hoots of laughter from Malky’s group. Jake swivelled on his stool and looked over, his beady eyes zeroing in to fix on everyone’s favourite ex-footballer. He jumped down from his stool. I put the flat of my hand on his chest. He stared down at it and then up into my face. ‘Careful.’