Present Tense

by William McIntyre

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ I said, pretending my news was so important I had to stop to impart it, rather than admit it was so I could catch my breath. ‘I mentioned to Cherry your theory that she might have sabotaged the helicopter to get back at her ex-fiancé. It got me a ginger beer shampoo.’

  Joanna seemed unduly pleased about that. ‘I thought it was looking particularly lustrous this morning,’ she said, giving the top of my head a rub.

  Our rape-accused client was waiting for us at the front door of the court, stamping his feet against the cold, his perpetually distraught wife by his side looking pale, drawn and thoroughly miserable.

  ‘You’ve met Mr Munro before,’ Joanna said, as I shook hands with the Howies in turn. ‘As I mentioned yesterday, he’s going to sit in and instruct counsel at the trial today. I’ll be here for a while this morning, just to bring him up to speed and make sure we’re all set to go.’

  The client seemed less than thrilled at this. He wandered off to stand beneath the statue of David Hume, nowadays better known for his lucky golden toe than his thoughts on radical philosophical empiricism. Joanna followed. They spoke for a few minutes and then my assistant returned alone.

  ‘If Howie thinks buffing up Hume’s shiny big toe is going to bring him luck, he might have to think about using power tools,’ I said to her.

  ‘Robbie, we need to talk. Let’s go upstairs to the agents’ room.’

  I was happy to talk, though I had a better location in mind than the stinky wee hole of a room the High Court provided for the use of solicitors.

  ‘Does everything with you have to revolve around food?’ Joanna asked, looking at her watch. Food-wise, the café beside the court had not scaled the dizzying heights of Bistro Alessandro, but it could put together a bacon roll that was almost at the same culinary altitude as one of Sandy’s. Unfortunately, they were out of bacon and I had to make do with a toasted cheese croissant.

  ‘Not just food,’ I said, lifting the lid and squirting in a sachet of brown sauce, ‘coffee’s very important too.’

  It didn’t take Joanna long to apprise me of the situation. Our client had been doing some thinking. Generally it was better if clients didn’t, but he had and come to the conclusion that he didn’t want me. He wanted Joanna. Who could blame him?

  ‘Too bad. He’ll just have to make do,’ I said. ‘You can’t not go on holiday because of that sex-beast.’

  ‘Alleged sex-beast. Remember?’ Joanna said.

  ‘What’s wrong with me anyway?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘Do you want details, or will bullet points do?’

  ‘Funny.’

  Joanna screwed up her face sympathetically as though I might be suffering a crisis of confidence. ‘It’s nothing personal, Robbie. Well, actually it is. Why did you have to go and call him a numpty?’

  ‘I didn’t. Not exactly.’ When I’d first met Howie in the police station all those months ago — before the interview in which he’d found it necessary to try and be helpful — I’d told him only a numpty would answer any questions the cops asked.

  ‘That’s sort of the same thing. Isn’t it?’ Joanna said.

  ‘It was a turn of phrase. A joke.’

  ‘Hugely amusing, Robbie, and look where your sense of humour has got us.’ Joanna, who’d turned down the offer of food, tore a hunk from my croissant and popped it into her mouth. There were no calories that way. ‘It makes sense me staying, whichever way you cut it. Even if you could do Howie’s case, who’d deal with the Sheriff Court business?’

  ‘It’s easy.’ I pulled my plate a little closer. ‘You go skiing, I’ll contact Paul Sharp and ask him to cover all our cases for the rest of the week. He can just adjourn everything. Everyone is winding down for Christmas. No Sheriff is going to get worked up at the thought of having to go home early by putting a few cases off until next year.’

  ‘And new work? Who does that? Robbie, this is the busiest time of the year.’ Joanna had made up her mind. She would not be found clad in a shocking pink glacier ski-suit gracing the snowy slopes of les Hautes-Alpes this winter season. ‘Even if I stay, we’re going to need Paul to help out anyway. This case is going to take two of us. I want you here to keep an eye on Howie’s wife. She’s liable to become hysterical and I don’t want it rubbing off on him. I want her nowhere near the courtroom when he’s giving his evidence.’

  Babysitter for a client’s wife? Was this what I’d come to?

  ‘I think you’re mistaking me for some kind of manservant. The Howies aren’t the Glass brothers and I’m not wee Alfie. This is legal aid.’

  ‘Don’t start, Robbie.’ Joanna snatched another piece of croissant before I could fend her off. ‘If you didn’t go around calling the clients names, it could be you in court and me keeping Mrs Howie under control. As it is, you might as well be doing something useful, seeing how you can’t get paid to do anything else. Have you thought about what’s happening next week? It’s Christmas and the week after that is Hogmanay. There’ll be tons of new custody cases.’

  Joanna’s timetabling of statutory holidays was impeccable. She was equally correct to be worried about the next few days and the potential loss of business for the firm. Christmas was the season of goodwill and blazing family rows. The Lord Advocate’s zero-tolerance policy on domestic-related incidents was the Crown’s gift to defence lawyers. Every sherry-fuelled Christmas quarrel between spouses or partners was now considered a crime. Hordes of accused, many who’d never dreamt they’d ever fall foul of the law, were crammed into police cells like toys into a defence lawyer’s stocking. They all needed legal representation, and we at Munro & Co. were happy to provide it.

  I tried to console myself with a bite of what little croissant was left. It didn’t work. Not even one of Sandy’s bacon rolls would have.

  There was no time for further discussion. It was knocking on for ten o’clock and court would be starting soon. Joanna departed, leaving me to finish my breakfast. I was reading a newspaper a previous customer had left behind, when the light from the window was eclipsed and I felt the urge to look up. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

  DI Christchurch gave me a polite nod. Thankfully he’d left his bulldog outside. ‘Morning, Mr Munro, I’d like you to accompany me, if you don’t mind, there’s—’

  ‘I do mind.’ I tossed the newspaper aside, aware that those at nearby tables were becoming interested at what was going on at mine.

  ‘If you’d keep your voice down and let me finish, Sir.’ Christchurch pulled up the chair recently vacated by Joanna and sat down. ‘There’s someone who’d like very much to meet you.’

  ‘And who would that be?’

  The DI leaned across the table. ‘The Secretary of State.’

  I hadn’t totally forgiven Cherry Lovell for pouring a drink over my head, even though I’d probably deserved it. Still, I had to hand it to her, she did know a lot more about politics than I ever would. I could visualise those fingers from the night before, rubbing together, and remembered her words, they might come up with some other way of keeping you quiet.

  I was a solicitor and an officer of court. It would be an insult for the Government to think it could offer to buy my silence. But seeing how I didn’t know anything, I was happy to let it try.

  38

  Edinburgh likes a statue and that of Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, Member of Parliament, First Lord of the Admiralty and Governor of the Bank of Scotland, has pride of place in the middle of the street named after him.

  Prior to that Tuesday afternoon I’d given no thought to the address of the Secretary of State’s Scottish headquarters. I knew his office in London was based at Dover House in Whitehall and had mistakenly assumed that when north of the border, Kirkton Perch would have a berth down at the row of upturned boats at the foot of the Royal Mile. Not so, instead he was to be found in the West End on one of Edinburgh’s grander thoroughfares.

  Number One Melville Street was in the New Town, situated on a corner
of crossroads next door to the Japanese Consulate and consisting of five floors, including attic rooms and a basement. If it hadn’t been for the Union Flag and Saltire flying either side of the royal blue front door, it would have gone unnoticed as just more office space in the New Town.

  Since Christchurch had been sent on the errand to find me, it was even clearer now that the Secretary of State was using the Ministry of Defence Police as his own small army. Despite the spotlight shining on me and my now deceased client, I’d not felt so much as a tug from an officer of Police Scotland, and from that fact it was safe to assume the regular Force had been told to back off while the MDP took care of things. Kirkton Perch thought he had me on a string. Well, if he wanted a puppet show, he was going to have to pay or I was bringing out the scissors.

  Flanked by the two MDP officers, the security checks on arrival were dispensed with, and upon our entry I was asked to wait in the lobby. Two minutes later a compact man in brown suit, checked shirt and no tie bounded down the stairs. ‘Mr Munro? Kirkton Perch.’ He strode across the hall and shook me firmly by the hand. If he’d once had a Welsh accent it was now AWOL. ‘I’m stepping out,’ he called to anyone listening who might be interested, and, placing a hand on the small of my back, gently ushered me out of the front door again and down five or six well-worn sandstone steps to the pavement.

  Once on the street I had a better chance to take him in. Oozing energy, he was lean and athletic with an excellent head of sandy hair and a smile that wouldn’t have hindered his career as a baby-kisser.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, marching ahead of me. What position had he played in his rugby days? Scrum-half? Or was it fly-half? He certainly wasn’t big or ugly enough for a forward, but as someone who’d traded broken noses with big Billy Paris he must have had a lot of nerve and, I noticed, access to a better plastic surgeon.

  Trotting to catch up, I pulled level with him as he crossed the road and took to the cobbles, up Walker Street and then left along William Street. With any number of licensed premises to choose from, Group Captain Perch selected the nearest. The two MDP officers had tagged along and took up position outside.

  ‘A swift medicinal or two is just the thing for this damn flu that’s going about,’ he said, once we’d found a table. ‘I’ve too much to do to let it take a grip.’ Judging by the broken blood vessels on his cheeks and invisibly-mended nose, keeping a step ahead of ill health was a constant chore. ‘What are you having?’

  It was eleven o’clock and, strictly speaking, too early for me; however, to refuse would have seemed churlish and, since the Secretary of State was paying, I graciously accepted a pint of lager-tops. Perch had the same, minus the dash of lemonade and with a very large brandy to keep it company.

  ‘Thanks for coming to see me,’ he said. ‘You’ll know why I wanted to speak with you.’

  ‘Night News?’

  He nodded. ‘Cherry what’s-her-name didn’t do either of us any favours, did she?’

  I wasn’t so sure now. It depended on what Perch thought I knew and how much money he was prepared to throw at me to find out.

  ‘If you know who caused that helicopter crash, you also know it wasn’t me. Am I correct?’

  I stalled by taking a drink of beer.

  ‘So, I need your help,’ Perch continued, fighting off the germs with a nip of brandy. ‘I need you to hand over to me all the evidence you have relating to Jeremy Thorn’s helicopter crash.’

  I thought it about time I said something and so played along. ‘Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that I do have the proof. If I were to give it to you, thus allowing you to vindicate yourself…’ I paused to let him take up where I’d left off. He didn’t. There was no subtle way to say it. It was all I could do to refrain from rubbing my fingers together. ‘What would be in it for me?’

  ‘In it?’

  I nodded encouragingly.

  ‘For you?’ Puzzled, the Secretary of State thought another sip of brandy would assist his deliberations, before eventually coming up with, ‘Why, the truth would be in it for you,’ he said, washing the distilled grape juice down with a swig of lager.

  The truth. Why did it insist on rearing its ugly head every time I was homing in on a few quid?

  Perch killed any remaining bugs with one final gulp of brandy. ‘Are you saying that you’d be happy to conceal the evidence that would clear my name? That you’ll let that reporter ruin my political career unless you are paid?’ At last he was getting there. Or, actually, no he wasn’t. ‘I don’t think so, Mr Munro.’

  ‘Then maybe I should give the information to Cherry Lovell,’ I said.

  He shrugged his ministerial shoulders. ‘Perhaps you should. At least then Ms Lovell wouldn’t be able to accuse me of falsifying the evidence.’

  Was he telling the truth, or was this a test to see how much I knew? He seemed genuine enough. But then again, he was a politician. Which was it? Refuse to assist and I could be doing him a grave injustice. Help him out and, if Cherry was right about things, I’d be signing my own death warrant. According to her, whatever it was I had was the only thing keeping me alive.

  With another short draught of lager, Perch rose to his feet. ‘I’m leaving now,’ he said, in case I hadn’t got the message. The smile was gone, together with any traces of flu. He couldn’t resist a parting shot. ‘You know the problem with people like you? There’s always got to be something in it for them. No sense of duty, no sense of standing up for what is right.’

  I got to my feet a lot quicker than he had. Any more from him and he’d be hoping he’d kept the phone number of his nose surgeon handy. ‘You’re getting all teary-eyed because you’re being wrongly accused by Cherry Lovell? Well, I stand up in court every day defending the rights of people who say they have been wrongly accused by the State, Mr Perch. That’s what I stand for. You’ve bombed some foreigners, I’ll give you that, but what have you actually ever stood for – except Parliament? You’re Welsh. Had you ever been to Ayrshire before being parachuted in from Tory HQ? What was in that for you – Mister Secretary of State? I’m a lawyer. My business is funded in the main by legal aid. It’s not much, but it’s a living. At the moment I am struck off the Criminal Legal Aid register which means that—’

  ‘Times are hard. I understand perfectly.’ Perch was cool under fire.

  ‘No, I don’t think you do, sitting up here on Melville Street or down in London with your ministerial salary, copper-bottomed pensions from the RAF and now Westminster, I don’t think you do know what it means to me, my employees or my family.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Munro. I’d hoped you’d see reason, in which case I might have been able to bring to bear what influence I have to help you out of the difficulties you find yourself in professionally, but I will not use the public purse to bung you for information that on any view of decency and natural justice should already be in the public domain.’

  He turned on a heel and strode to the door where Christchurch and the Bulldog were waiting for him, leaving me standing at the table with most of a pint to drink.

  ‘Would it help if we didn’t say bung and called it a consultancy fee?’ I shouted after him.

  He didn’t reply. Probably just as well, for whatever evidence I had, there was still the small matter of finding it.

  39

  There are many analogies used to describe the criminal justice system. It is often likened to a game, a sport, two sides pitched against each other, attack and defence. In actual fact there is very little sporting about a competition between the State with its unlimited funds, ranks of police officers, procurators fiscal, advocate deputes, precognition officers and clerical staff on one side and on the other a legal aid lawyer who hasn’t seen a pay rise since dinosaurs ruled the earth.

  To stick with the theme, the best comparison I could think of was poker, and a professional, high-stakes gambler, surrounded by stacks of chips, facing off across the green felt at a schoolboy clutching his pocket money. The prosecutio
n could afford to bet high and only when it held all the aces. No bluffing required. Not so for the defence. The defence had to play the cards it was dealt, albeit after some expert shuffling.

  Which was why I was used to making the most out of what little I had. Bricks without straw. Sometimes bricks without bricks. It was a skill I hoped to put into good use when negotiating with Philip Thorn. I badly needed to cut a deal to pilot Munro & Co. through the financial turbulence thrown up partly by my bureaucratic failings and partly by the Scottish Legal Aid Board’s unwillingness to see that the ends justified the means – even if the means were not time-recorded in triplicate.

  To go back to the card-playing analogy, what I really needed was an ace up my sleeve. I thought I had one. Billy Paris had told me he had the evidence to prove who’d killed Jeremy Thorn, and he’d told wee Maureen that he’d given it to me. The problem was that, after a great deal of searching, I’d been unable to bring the card up my sleeve down into the game. I didn’t even know for certain it was there. Which was why I needed help.

  ‘Oh, no, it’s you,’ were Wahid Sattar’s warm words of welcome as he threw the front door open and a blast of central heating hit me full on. He looked me up and down. ‘Robbie Munro. If you’re here, either I’m in big trouble or you are, and, having seen you on TV the other night, I’m going to guess it’s you.’

  I invited myself in, pushing past Wahid and letting him close the door before we lost any more of the polar ice-caps. He followed me through to the sitting room which smelt less of nappy than I recalled it had on my last visit.

  ‘How’s Deeba?’ I asked.

  ‘She left me.’

  Wahid’s high-flying, corporate-lawyer wife had flown off. There’d been a custody battle, he’d got the kids, and, to be fair, a nice little piece of real estate in the New Town, only a short walk from Kirkton Perch’s residence.