She took another sip and screwed up her nose. ‘I don’t know what kind of champagne they’re using tonight, but it’s way too sweet. Did you ask for brut?’
Cherry was blonde, beautiful and expensively dressed. Her accent was a cultured mid-Atlantic, but the only bubbly thing about her was the champagne cocktail. Her gaze transferred from window to me. Then again, she was positively stunning. So what, she had a negative personality?
A man with a starched white napkin folded over his forearm materialised at my side to advise that our table was ready. Prior to that moment I hadn’t realised we’d had a table, not even one that previously had been in a state of unreadiness.
Cherry placed a hand on my arm. ‘I thought we’d have a bite to eat. I’m absolutely famished.’
I was pretty peckish myself, although I’d budgeted more for sausages than a sit-down meal, just as I’d come funded for beers rather than Barbotages. The restaurant was situated a few yards from where we were seated, a raised area teeming with business suits, long dresses and supercilious expressions.
‘Kaye tells me you’re a lawyer?’ my date said, after we’d been shown to a table by the window. Her smile was as pretty as a picture and just as painted on.
‘That’s right.’
‘What field?’
‘Criminal law.’
‘You’re not one of those nasty legal aid lawyers are you?’
‘Legal aid? Never touch the stuff. I take it, if you’re a friend of Kaye’s, you’re a journalist. Which newspaper?’
Cherry’s smile switched off. ‘Seriously?’
Had I been misinformed? ‘Er... yes... seriously.’ I lifted my glass to find the measure of Ardbeg had already evaporated.
‘Kaye told me you were a fan,’ she said.
And Kaye had told me Cherry knew I was a lawyer, had heard about some of my famous victories and was dying to meet me. I rolled my eyes as though I’d been kidding, studying the inside of my tumbler, making sure it was empty. It was. Very.
‘Really? You don’t know who I am?’
‘Is that my phone buzzing?’ I put a hand in my jacket pocket and fumbled around.
‘I’m Cherry Lovell from Night News.’
‘I think I’ll have another one of these,’ I said, holding up my whisky tumbler, trying to catch the waiter’s attention. Something I was never very good at.
‘Night News. It’s on Thursdays at ten thirty. We dig down to the dirty roots of politics.’
Ah, politics. That explained why I’d never heard of her. If there were two categories of person I really disliked, politicians were definitely in Category A. Category B was pretty much reserved for any politicians I’d forgotten to include in Category A, along with most Sheriffs.
‘Half ten?’ I took a sharp intake of breath. ‘That’s a little past my bedtime these days. Still, sounds interesting.’
The waiter at last wafted our way to drop off menus and I ordered another round of drinks.
‘What do you know about Kirkton Perch?’ Cherry asked, after the man in the dinner suit had drifted off.
That name again. ‘Kirkton Perch?’ I asked, casually, studying a menu high on price, low on portion size. ‘You mean the politician? Let me see.’ I put on my knowledgeable face. ‘Former Group Captain in the RAF. Winner of a recent by-election for one of the Ayrshire constituencies, and, as the Tories’ only MP in Scotland, now appointed Secretary of State.’ About then the information provided by Billy Paris and Joanna began to peter out. ‘Oh, and he used to play rugby.’
‘What do you know about spaceports?’ Cherry asked.
That they wouldn’t be my specialist subject on Mastermind was the easy answer, but I went instead for, ‘There aren’t any. Not in the U.K.’
‘Got it in one.’ Cherry raised her flute glass to toast my astuteness. ‘What do you think Perch promised the good folk of Ayr if he got elected?’
I needed a bigger clue than that.
Cherry helped out. ‘Go on. What do you think he promised the voters of the constituency which just happens to have Prestwick Airport in it?’
Taking everything in context, I suggested that Perch might have promised the honest folk of Ayrshire that he’d put in a good word for Prestwick as just the very site to host Britain’s first spaceport.
‘Exactly. And not just Britain’s, it would be Europe’s first spaceport.’ Cherry took a quick suck on her straw and then with both hands made an imaginary banner in the air between us. ‘Prestwick: the Place for Space. And what about Neil Armstrong?’
‘The astronaut?’ The Robbie Munro edition of the first man on the moon’s biography would have been a short one. Possibly running to a longish sentence.
‘Would you believe Perch is laying claim to him on Prestwick’s behalf because the Armstrong Clan hailed from Langholm, even though Prestwick’s in Ayrshire and Langholm is in Dumfries and Galloway. How pathetic is that?’
‘Perch is Welsh, isn’t he? You’re Scottish, how much do you know about the geography of Wales? Pathetic or not, it’s a policy that got him elected.’
‘And now that he is?’ Cherry finished her drink, removed the straw from her glass and jabbed the wet end at me. ‘What do you think is going to happen? What’s got to happen?’
I thought about that, partially distracted by the colourful scene outside the window. My dad and Tina had been on the Big Wheel a week or so back. I’d really fancied a go. Further down the street the fairy lights on the little peaked roofs of the market stalls twinkled merrily in the cold night air. I could almost smell the sizzling German sausages.
‘Well?’
‘I suppose he’ll have to make good on his promise – although he is a politician and so the promise-keeping thing doesn’t necessarily follow.’
Cherry placed her elbows on the table and leaned forward. ‘I’d like you to tell me everything you know about Kirkton Perch and his relationship to your client, Billy Paris.’
The waiter arrived with fresh drinks and to take our food order. I staved off my hunger pangs with a quick swallow of ten-year-old Islay malt, set my tumbler down again on the table and looked into Cherry’s big blue contact lenses. ‘This isn’t a date, is it?’
She answered me with a so-sue-me raising of a sculpted eyebrow and sipped from a champagne cocktail that should have come with a mortgage.
‘Then you’re here on business,’ I said. ‘In which case I’m prepared to waive my usual consultancy fee, and seeing how Night News is paying, I think I’ll have the filet mignon.’ I handed the menu to the waiter. ‘With chips.’
24
Wednesday morning I was at my desk, sifting through the mail and planning for a future with no legal aid. The short-term strategy involved me contriving a meeting between Billy Paris and Philip Thorn, shortly followed by a meeting between me and a fat cheque. I picked up a letter from the wire basket to which Grace-Mary had attached the printed label, ‘Now’, saw it was a demand for money and dropped it into the basket labelled, ‘Later.’ Joanna had written in pen above it, ‘Much.’
Grace-Mary’s stare burned into the back of my neck. Before I could reach for the next piece of correspondence, a framed photograph was pushed under my nose. A girl in a white summer frock - a white summer frock that had remained white for another forty-five seconds after the photograph was taken - smiled out at me. Tina. She had parachuted into The Life of Robbie Munro Ltd less than six months previously, ripped up the Articles of Association and installed herself as CEO.
‘How is she?’ Grace-Mary placed the photo back on the corner of my desk and, having divested herself of enough outer layers to insulate the loft-space, began to drape them over various radiators throughout the office to dry off.
I confirmed that Tina was doing a lot better. She’d been up in the middle of the night with a sore throat and hadn’t gone back to sleep until about five, but the good news was that her temperature was normal and she was eating again. I’d come into work early so I could take time off to be w
ith her in the afternoon.
‘That’s good. Will I look out the files for court?’
‘Yes, give them to Joanna when she comes in. Her rape’s been deserted pro loco, so she can cover the Sheriff Court this morning while I clear up some paperwork here.’
‘She’s not going to like that.’ Grace-Mary laid a tartan scarf along the radiator under my window. ‘She’s been out of the office a lot recently and has her own paperwork to sort.’
‘Not a problem. I can do it for her.’
‘It’s mostly legal aid stuff.’
‘It’s okay. I know her password. It’s all done online. SLAB’ll never know who’s doing it.’
‘It’s not just paperwork. The High Court unit phoned to say that they want to empanel a new jury for her rape case. I’ll let you break the news. It might even start on Monday if there’s no objection from the client.’
I doubted there would be. Joanna’s client, and especially his wife, wanted the matter dealt with as soon as possible.
‘You do know that Joanna has put in for holidays starting Monday?’ Grace-Mary said.
I didn’t.
‘Well, you should do. You signed off on them ages ago. She’s got a skiing holiday arranged with her family and some friends. Flies out to Serre Chevalier on Wednesday and comes back the day after Boxing Day.’
‘Christmas in the French Alps? How much am I paying her?’
‘Not enough. It’s a present from her mum and dad.’ Grace-Mary sniffed. ‘You know you’re putting that girl under far too much pressure.’
‘You know what they say about diamonds.’
Joanna came in and dumped her satchel on my desk. ‘That they’re a girl’s best friend?’
‘That they’re lumps of coal that did well under pressure,’ I said, trying not to dig a pit for myself.
Grace-Mary came to my rescue. Sort of. ‘I forgot to ask, Robbie. How did it go last night? The big blind date?’
‘Let’s just say: as blind dates go, Cherry opened my eyes to a few things,’ I said.
Grace-Mary groaned, and, there being no drying space available for her gloves, left the room.
Joanna went over to one of the filing cabinets. ‘What was she like?’ she asked over her shoulder.
‘Blonde, pretty. Not as pretty as…’
‘As?’
You, was the answer, but I wasn’t saying it out loud. I didn’t have to be an employment lawyer to know the meaning of sexual harassment and constructive dismissal. My boss was hitting on me with inappropriate compliments, making me feel uncomfortable. I couldn’t work under those conditions. Men don’t have to put up with that sort of thing. It was sex discrimination. Thank you, Miss Jordan. How much compensation would you like?
I coughed to cover my pause. ‘Not as pretty as she looks on telly.’
‘She’s on TV?’
‘Yes, Cherry’s on some news programme.’ I’d forgotten the name already.
‘Night News? You were out with Cherry Lovell? That’s who blind-date-Cherry was?’
‘You know her?’
She did. Joanna knew all about her, as she did about a lot of minor celebs. How could some people be so interested in other people’s lives? I hardly knew what was going on in my life far less what Night News’s anchor-woman got up to in her spare time. Or her working time for that matter.
‘It wasn’t really a date, was it?’ It had taken Joanna approximately thirty seconds to discern what had taken me a trip to Edinburgh and a couple of single malts to work out. ‘If you’d told me that’s who you were going out with, I would have known…’ Joanna’s turn to clear her throat.
‘You’d have known what?’
‘I would have known you weren’t her type.’
‘Oh, you would have, would you? And what’s her type, then?’
Joanna rubbed a hand down the side of my face. ‘You haven’t shaved.’
‘I’ve not slept either, but that’s not the point. Out with it. What’s Cherry Lovell’s type and why am I not it?’
Joanna wrinkled her nose sympathetically. ‘I’d say she was more into the fiendishly-handsome, absolutely-loaded, daredevil-pilot type.’
I had to concede that I couldn’t fly nor was my bank account in credit. ‘No, it wasn’t a date. It was more of a honey trap. She wanted to grill me about Billy Paris. Cherry didn’t think I’d speak to her about a client in a professional setting, so she gave Kaye the job of introducing us. She said Kaye owed her one.’
‘Did you tell her anything?’
What could I say? I’d gone on a social basis. Cherry was there on business. She’d brought her expenses account with her and the Aspen Lounge’s list of single malts was as long as Santa’s naughty list.
‘Billy Paris?’ Joanna pressed further. ‘You mentioned him to me before, but didn’t say why he was so important.’
‘Old client of mine. Ex-Army. The cops think he had something to do with sabotaging the helicopter that crashed and killed Philip Thorn’s son.’
‘Why would he want to do that?’
‘Cherry Lovell thinks Kirkton Perch was behind it.’
‘Kirkton Perch ordered an assassination?’ Joanna’s reaction was even more extreme than mine had been when Cherry had presented that particular theory, though by that time my incredulity had been eroded significantly by several single malts. ‘And why would he want to do that?’
‘Because Jeremy Thorn made a late bid for his airport at St Edzell Bay to become the basis for the U.K.’s first spaceport. Until then Prestwick was more or less in a one horse race.’
‘Why would he need to kill someone for that? Where’s the competition? Prestwick already has a major airport and the infrastructure that goes with it. What has Saint..., whatever it is, got, other than sheep on the runway?’
I knew the answer to that. ‘An eastern seaboard, easy access to the E.U., a fraction of the annual rainfall of the west coast, no major population centres nearby to endanger, yet close to areas of high expertise in IT and engineering, like Aberdeen and Dundee. Militarily it’s handy for the RAF bases at Lossiemouth and Leuchars and also Kinloss Barracks, not forgetting the local MP and MSP are both Nationalists and so it will have the backing of the Scottish Government and also be able to press its case in London.’
‘You sound like a lobbyist.’
‘I’m a good listener.’
‘Sounds like quite a date.’ Joanna’s bad mood from the day before seemed to have lifted. ‘Of course, there could be another reason for the death of the handsome, millionaire pilot.’
I’d thought that too. Why did it have to be sabotage? It was more likely to have been pilot error, mechanical failure or freak weather conditions. Joanna had another theory. ‘Did you know Cherry and Jerry Thorn were engaged to be married?’
‘Who says?’
Apparently all the gossip websites said. Jerry Thorn’s love life had been common knowledge to anyone who could be bothered to care. His romantic encounters were splashed across the internet, a lot like his helicopter and the North Sea. All I knew was that I’d read nothing about it on the BBC Sports pages; however, more conclusively, I also knew that Billy Paris had been cautioned in relation to the death of Jerry Thorn and his fiancée. How could that be if she had been very much alive and plying me with alcohol less than twenty-four hours before.
‘I said Cherry and Jerry were engaged,’ Joanna said. ‘Then along came Madeleine Moreau and your blind date got traded in.’
‘And what should I take from that? That Cherry killed her ex-boyfriend because he dumped her?’ I wasn’t buying what Joanna had for sale. If history had taught us anything it was that the Robbie Munro road to romance was a rocky one. I’d been given the heave-ho more often than a rope on a boat and yet had thus far refrained from any homicidal tendencies.
‘You have a very twisted and suspicious mind,’ I said.
‘She’s a woman. We need twisted and suspicious minds to keep a step ahead of you men,’ was Grace-Mary’s
take on things as she returned to give Joanna her marching orders along with a bundle of files. ‘Robbie wants you to do the Sheriff Court today. He’s going to stay here and catch up with some extremely important paperwork.’
‘Robbie, I’ve been at the High Court for the last week. I’ve got my own stuff to catch up on,’ Joanna said, not unreasonably.
‘After that he’s going home to see Tina. She’s got the flu,’ Grace-Mary said unhelpfully, and withdrew from the room.
‘Tina’s got the flu?’
‘It’s more of a bad cold,’ I said.
‘Yesterday you said she had a sniffle.’
‘These things can escalate quickly with kids.’
It didn’t take Joanna long to come up with her own diagnosis. ‘She wasn’t well last night and you were out on a blind date?’
‘You know what would really make Tina feel better?’ I said. ‘If your client could see his way clear to finding her one of those Pyxie Girl dolls for Christmas. Have you asked him?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Could you?’
‘Before or after I secure your lying tongue to the desk with this stapler?’ Joanna asked, wielding said item of stationery.
The phone on my desk rang. I didn’t care who it was, I was taking the call.
It was Maggie Sinclair. ‘Robbie? We have a big problem.’
Actually, it was worse than that. We had a massive problem.
25
The massive problem had been fished out of the Forth & Clyde canal not far from Lock 16 at Camelon on the outskirts of Falkirk and was now taking up drawer space in an NHS mortuary.
The news had been imparted to Maggie Sinclair by Sir Philip Thorn. The fact that he knew Billy Paris was horizontal with a tag on his toe before I did, meant any chance of my receiving a finder’s fee was as well and truly deceased as my former client.
It was nice of Maggie to pass on the news, which was why I thought it strange. Maggie being nice? To me? She’d only have bothered to phone if in some way I could be of benefit to her. Other than resurrecting Billy Paris, I was bereft of ideas.
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