Watcher

by Grace Monroe

  Maybe a shower would wash the dread away. I tried hot water, and then I switched to cold, even using neon yellow carbolic soap – disgusting doesn’t come close. I use it because Mary McLennan did. She always told me that it kept scabies and ringworm at bay: the estate where I grew up might have been riddled with it, but Mary McLennan would never have allowed anything like that near me. She was proud and she adored me. The shower gave me time to think. The saved phone message was a mystery. I had definitely checked the answering machine and cleared it before I went out. It left only one possibility. Louisa. Louisa must be listening to my calls. I was vaguely surprised, not because I’ve imbued my trainee with any principles or moral fibre, simply I’d thought she was too smart to get caught. Louisa’s brain is as huge and agile as her body is small and brittle. I was disappointed in her lack of ingenuity; still, I’d have to say something so that she didn’t get caught out again in a similar situation with somebody else. Wrapping a fresh towel around me, and placing the damp one on my head, I walked back down the hallway.

  Fear ran up and down my spine as I moved towards my room.

  In the hall mirror, I could see that my bedroom door was open. Louisa wouldn’t be as stupid as that. Quickly, I mentally retraced my steps before taking the shower – yes, I’d definitely closed the door. The umbrella stand in the hall provided the only weapon I had. I threw the wet towel from my head onto the floor – it unbalanced me. The real reason I’ve never bothered about security is that I’ve always thought that I can take care of myself. I picked up an old hockey stick left over from the days when I played at university. Brandishing it, I leaned against the open door; jumping into the centre of the room, I covered all bases.

  Where was he?

  The bed had been made. Very well.

  Lying out on the duvet was my favourite little black dress – now miraculously with all the pizza stains sponged off, Jimmy Choos placed neatly beside it and a pearl clutch bag. I certainly hadn’t laid it all out.

  He knew I was going out tonight. It was exactly the outfit I would have chosen to wear to the WS Library with Grandad.

  On top of the outfit the intruder had left a message. Dropping the hockey stick, I stooped to pick it up.

  Active evil is better than passive good

  The telephone rang, cutting into the silence, and I jumped. Holding the note in my hand I picked it up. Silence. A crackling line. I knew he was there and my skin crawled. I wished that I had my clothes on. Perhaps he could see me? Tightening my jaw, I promised myself that I wouldn’t let him know that he frightened me.

  I picked up the hockey stick again.

  ‘Brodie, Brodie – where are you?’

  His voice had a high, singsong quality to it.

  ‘You’re not very original,’ I told him. ‘The message? The William Blake quote? Spooky guy stuff. Very disappointing.’

  A note of irritation entered his voice. ‘Originality means being brave enough to go beyond what is acceptable. Did you like the outfit I chose for you?’

  ‘Is there a reason for this phone call?’ Sighing, I did my best to sound bored and to hide the shaking in my knees.

  A sharp intake of breath. Maybe he was disappointed that I wouldn’t play ball.

  ‘It’s a warning, Brodie. It’s in both our interests for Thomas Foster to stay in jail. Don’t go to the fiscal and have him released or I won’t answer for the consequences.’

  The line went dead.

  My heart could start racing now – he had gone and I didn’t have to hide it.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Saughton Prison, Edinburgh

  Wednesday 26 December, 5.30 p.m.

  The sleet was driving into the helmet visor and I was steaming up. Visibility was low and the bike was chugging. He’d been built for the black tops of California, not the Western Approach Road in a Scottish winter. The incessant rain had soaked through the leathers and my thighs were sticking to them like sausage meat to clingfilm. It wasn’t comfortable; it wasn’t even safe, so why in hell was I doing it? Maybe I was a masochist after all, or perhaps driving the Fat Boy in conditions like this kept my mind off the real problem.

  Thomas Foster was innocent, and I was being stalked by the real Ripper. He’d threatened me – I knew in my bones that it wasn’t an idle threat. His voice chilled me more than the obscene weather conditions. Active evil is better than passive good. What the fuck did that mean? Whatever it was, it didn’t sound good.

  I walked into the visiting room in Saughton Prison as if I was straddling a horse. Water ran down the crack of my arse but, luckily, my leathers are black so I escaped the incontinence jokes. I joined the prisoners’ families at one of the tables. The agents’ room where I would normally have seen Thomas was shut; no other criminal lawyer was visiting their client on Boxing Day. The guard hadn’t even been sure whether it was allowed, but had decided to chance it rather than go to the bother of checking with anyone else who would be in a similarly bad mood.

  The girlfriends were there in force, most of them aged fifteen, with babies on their laps; teenagers in skimpy outfits that would not have looked out of place on a Rag Doll lap dancer. Naturally, they weren’t wearing tights or stockings so their legs were covered in the Glaswegian tartan of mottled blue. Celtic tattoos on the ankle were de rigueur. Mothers of prisoners were also waiting to see their sons – the fathers were curiously absent as they had probably been for most, if not all, of their lives. I had more in common with the mothers than the girlfriends – we waited expectantly for the guards to open the doors and allow the prisoners in.

  I bit my nails. I could hear them coming, young boys, barely men, still excited by Christmas. Most of them thrived inside. Their dreams and expectations are pretty limited to start with; doing time simply narrows them down more. Many of them are used to being physically and sexually abused, so there are no surprises there.

  Thomas wasn’t from that mould. My bread-and-butter clients have habits, and they steal to fund those habits, but it’s easy to find junk in the joint. If the government was serious about stopping drugs, prisons would be clean – how hard could it be? CCTV cameras, cops and guards … but prisons are a microcosm of the streets – and they weren’t like any streets that Thomas Foster had walked down before.

  The doors opened and the wave swept in. It was like watching an Internet porn show – I guessed. This display of nubile tonsil hockey had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with passing speed, coke and heroin. Naturally, some of the girls had been searched so they hide the drugs in their anus. I was almost relieved that the Ripper’s phone call had put me off food.

  Thomas Foster wandered in last. He was a Yale WASP out of his league. As a remand prisoner he was allowed to wear his own clothes and he looked – well, he looked great actually. I don’t think Calvin Klein will be using this particular prison hall in his next catalogue, but Foster could have been signed up if he did.

  ‘Dinnae haud yer breath.’ A prison guard leaned on my shoulder and whispered this sage advice in my ear. He’d obviously had garlic bread for lunch. ‘Very popular that chap – look at him – you’d think it was the Queen. You might wait a long time for him.’ The pudgy finger of the guard trembled so much as he pointed at Thomas that the swallow tattoo on his hand looked as if it was flying. Thomas had been called over to meet a mother and he was warmly shaking hands with Mags McIntosh, the matriarch of one of the largest criminal families in Scotland. Her son, Dino, wasn’t one of my clients. I knew him merely by reputation. But if Thomas was under Dino’s protection, Adie must have paid someone very well.

  ‘That laddie would get a biscuit at anybody’s door – he worked all Christmas Day making scrolls.’ The guard, still staring at Thomas, stuck his tongue round his gums, presumably trying to dislodge some of the aforementioned garlic bread. He walked over to another table and brought back a rolled-up piece of thick paper. ‘Here, see the laddie’s work.’ I unfurled the page. The calligraphy wouldn’t have shamed a Jap
anese master. The ivy and Christmas roses looked so lifelike that I was tempted to scratch and sniff. The words, sadly, weren’t of quite the same standard.

  Plenty of love, tons of kisses,

  Hope some day you’ll be my missus.

  ‘And that’s no’ the end o’ his talents,’ the guard said proudly. ‘After the queue had died down for the scrolls last night, they invited him in to play poker. Poker! And him a new laddie – that’s some honour, y’ken. Mind you, I bet they wish they hadnae bothered – the wee bugger won every hand. I was convinced he was cheating, I watched verra closely to see if he was counting cards but he had me fooled.’

  Personally, I didn’t think that was the hardest task on earth.

  ‘You see, miss, he fits right in here.’

  ‘Oh, his mother will be proud.’ I couldn’t help myself but he didn’t get the sarcasm anyway.

  ‘Aye, she should be. We’d taken bets on how long it would be before he started greeting his eyes oot – who could blame him? No one won the pot. He’s made o’ strong stuff that one. Of course …’ he dropped his voice to a whisper, ‘nobody here knows the police suspect he’s the Ripper – otherwise he’d be dog meat.’

  ‘At last,’ I said to Thomas as he strolled up, leisurely.

  ‘Sorry to have kept you, ma’am – these people have been kind enough to make me one of their own. They’re so kind.’ He leaned in close and I exchanged the smell of garlic breath for that of Clive Christian cologne. As I looked around the meeting room in Saughton, I was hard-pressed to recognize the kind people drawing Thomas Foster to their collective bosom; they all looked like they’d stab him for a packet of fags, but his soft American drawl was hypnotic – maybe they’d fallen for that too. I sat back in my chair refusing to be drawn in, but it was hard work. ‘Like I said, ma’am,’ he continued, ‘some of these men are fine, fine people … but I do want out of here. Do you know what I mean?’

  I ignored him. I thought I’d told him to stop calling me ma’am. It made me feel old.

  ‘Did you know that Katya Waleski was a prostitute?’ I snapped.

  ‘Do I look as if I have to pay for sex?’ he quickly replied.

  I wanted to ask him what a man who pays for sex does look like; unfortunately, thanks to close association with Kailash, I knew, and, by and large, they did not resemble Thomas Foster.

  The voice of the Ripper ran round in my head – it was in my best interest for Thomas Foster to stay in jail. Or what, I wondered? I had no idea, but professionally, I knew that I couldn’t let Foster linger in jail. There was a little voice in my head that was telling me to save my own backside and let him rot, but I didn’t see how keeping him in there would actually help or protect me. Anyway, I was used to ignoring that little voice. The sooner the real Ripper was caught, the better for every woman – including me.

  ‘Katya Waleski died from a heart attack,’ I told him, and watched his face to see any reaction. Relief. Relief flooded through his eyes.

  ‘I thought she died from the fall,’ he muttered. ‘From the castle walls?’

  ‘Under normal circumstances that wouldn’t help,’ I told him. ‘But her heart failed – that’s why she fell.’

  ‘So … there’s no way they can blame me for that, right?’

  He wasn’t exactly heartbroken, but why should he be? Some quick screw had almost had him done as a serial killer – I couldn’t really expect him to be weeping and wailing over her. ‘She was a young healthy woman – the heart attack was caused by the cocktail of drugs she’d taken. Did you supply them?’

  He looked insulted at the question. ‘No, of course not,’ he said, shaking his head and looking down at his hands. ‘It was stupid, ma’am. We met in a bar. Susie Wong’s, I think it’s called. I asked around as to where I could get some gear – and we bought it from some blind guy. They looked suspicious, the guy and the other one with him, but – you know, dealers generally do.’

  Moses. My suspicions had been confirmed. Katya Waleski had been killed by the new improved ecstasy provided by Cal, Moses’ chemist.

  ‘Is something the matter?’ Foster asked me.

  ‘No,’ I said hastily. ‘I was just wondering how quickly we can get you released.’ I knew that Cal had supplied the drugs but if he was ever arrested it would be covered under client confidentiality. There was no way I could go to the police, so I was out of that one, even if the weight of Katya Waleski’s death felt pretty heavy on my shoulders. ‘Just one more thing, Thomas,’ I added. ‘There was a message written on Katya’s chest. Whoever did it used the victim’s own lipstick – any idea how it got there?’

  His pink tongue appeared between his lasered white American teeth. He appeared to be thinking and it looked like hard work. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I can’t help you, ma’am. Maybe it could have been written by the police as a joke, or maybe by the person who found the body? Anyway, I’ve got to go.’

  With that, he got up. Half turning he asked me: ‘I don’t wish to tell you how to do your job, ma’am, but did you ask the police where they found her handbag – and if her lipstick was still in it?’

  It shouldn’t have taken a genius to figure out that question.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The Signet Library, Edinburgh

  Wednesday 26 December, 8.30 p.m.

  I was late but I had nothing else to wear except that bloody outfit picked for me by the Ripper. I searched. Everything in my wardrobe was now lying on the floor. I even rummaged through the piles of clothes that had been left in heaps for God knows how many days. I couldn’t wear my leathers and that wasn’t because they were too wet – the problem with my attire came from the fact that I was Grandad’s partner at a function in the Signet Library to honour his legal career. He was being inducted into the legal equivalent of the Hall of Fame. Naturally, the event was being held in a swanky place. Although it’s a working library, the Signet has been described as Edinburgh’s best-kept secret for events and nights out, located in Parliament Square, just off the Royal Mile. You have to walk past St Giles’ Cathedral to get in, which brought the Ripper’s handiwork to mind again, but I had to put that out of my mind. The library had been completed in 1822 – George IV described it as Europe’s finest drawing room. King George knew a thing or two, I’d imagine, and he would probably have warned me that turning up in a tatty frock was a no-no. In spite of the fact it made my skin crawl, I put on the black dress. I promised myself that I would burn it when I got home.

  The function was in the Upper Library. Luckily it was a drinks reception for four hundred of his closest friends and no one noticed that I was late. Grandad was talking to the lord justice clerk of the Court of Session when I walked in, so I stayed out of his way: I didn’t care for the company he was keeping. The lord justice clerk is Scotland’s second-highest judge; he is in charge of a group of judges known as the Second Division. I’d had an appeal before him last month and the old bastard threw it out with an unnecessarily cutting judgement. Obviously, I would never cast aspersions on his legitimacy out loud; not least because to speak against a judge is called ‘murmuring’: it’s a criminal offence. No wonder they think they’re God Almighty.

  Still, it was nice to see them fawning over Grandad. My heart sank as he waved me over. I overheard him as I got closer, and he sounded like a boastful mother at a parent and toddler group. ‘Yes! Yes! She’s a chip off the old block!’

  I didn’t like the sound of that – just exactly which block was I chipped from? My prostitute mother? My paedophile father? Neither passed the functioning test, which was why I had given up on parenthood before I’d even started. I was pretty sure that Grandad meant that I was like him though – if that was any better, given the type of son he’d fathered.

  ‘Brodie!’ Grandad exclaimed, as he reached out and pulled me into the company, making sure to keep hold of my back in case I ran. Like slugs to lettuce, the senior members of the bench, all old men, crawled towards us. Nodding acknowledgement to one anot
her, no one nodded in my direction. I noted that they were drinking whisky, probably the finest single malt, whereas I had been palmed off with cheap cava masquerading as champagne.

  ‘Ah, Miss McLennan!’ Lord Port Soy, the justice clerk, smiled showing his tombstone teeth. He managed to make my name sound like a disease. After the day I’d had, I wasn’t taking any shit.

  Grandad leaned across and whispered a warning in my ear. ‘Play nice,’ he hissed. His grip on my back seemed to tighten. Lord Port Soy leaned into me, glancing over both shoulders before he spoke again. The cadre of slugs shuffled closer until we were huddled together like a rugby scrum. It wasn’t pleasant – where was the salt when you needed it?

  ‘You’re representing Adie Foster’s son.’ Lord Port Soy seemed to be leading the cross-examination. I didn’t reply because it wasn’t a question. ‘I was across at Yale in ’52. I knew his grandfather.’ Grandad pinched me, so I nodded at the lord justice clerk, feigning interest in what he was saying. I was not naive enough to think Hector McHale, as he was formerly known before he became a judge and assumed his new title, was merely passing the time of day with me. Whatever his game was, I wasn’t interested in playing ball.

  ‘We were all very pleased that you’re the defence agent,’ he said, looking around the cluster of men, who nodded their agreement alongside some gruff mumblings. ‘Now in the past, even the recent past …’ The lord justice clerk raised his shaggy white eyebrow and I knew that he was referring to the case last month. I also understood he wanted a favour from me and that he wouldn’t have given me such a shitty decision if he’d ever believed he would be in this position. Was it possible? Was I going to have the last laugh? ‘Well, let’s just say that we’ve had our differences, my dear, but I think you may have misunderstood the aims of our society.’

  The penny dropped and my heart sank – he was talking as head of the Enlightenment Society not as a member of the judiciary. ‘We are mainly a charitable organization, upholding society,’ he said, as they all nodded and murmured. ‘Sometimes it is difficult – justice is not always what it seems and we must intervene. With young Thomas Foster there are difficulties with his case that must be ironed out. At the moment, my dear, it really doesn’t suit us for Thomas Foster to be released on bail. The public are quite happy that the Ripper is behind bars. If he were to be released the effects on the city would be catastrophic.’ The muttering increased in volume. ‘The terrible media campaign behind all of this has been successful in whipping up hysteria. We can’t allow that to get even worse, can we?’