Blood Lines

‘What? A scruffy wee Skye terrier holding me here? Not even a very bright one at that – he didn’t even recognise his master was kicking up the daisies for years.’

Joe stood beside the gravestone, his kilt swinging as he swayed back and forward, chewing a hot meatball baguette. His legs were muscular and well-formed, black hand-knitted kilt socks lay in puddles at the top of his polished Caterpillar boots. For a biker, Glasgow Joe was fastidious and it showed in the whiteness of his cotton shirt. The cuffs had been carelessly rolled up to his elbows, showing his thick muscular forearms. Unusually for a redhead his skin was golden brown. The epitome of a Highland warrior, he stood six foot four in his size-thirteen stockinged soles. Even though he was off limits for me, I could still appreciate the fact that he was gorgeous as fuck.

A group of Italians on a walking tour of the graveyard had spotted Joe. It wasn’t hard. Like flies to a corpse they swarmed over to him. The girls stood shyly at his side, elbowed out of the way by their buxom mamas who placed their arms around him, and found enough English to ask him what he was wearing beneath his kilt. Joe managed to find a smile for the photographer. He always did. He should be getting a fee from the Scottish Tourist Board given the number of times he found himself in the memories of visitors. They all shouted arrivederci and he shrugged off their thanks. Alone again, he turned to me.

‘Will you sit up, Brodie? Don’t you know it scares the shit out of me seeing you lying there like that? And it brings back some crap memories of the last time we were in a graveyard together.’

I ignored his last comment – did he mean when we considered grave-robbing or when my blood father’s widow tried to kill me amongst the memory of a thousand dead Highlanders? No, I wouldn’t go back to Jerry Springer territory again. My back was beginning to hurt anyway. ‘I would have moved sooner but I didn’t want to interrupt your fan club.’

He stared at me for longer than he needed to. ‘Have you ever considered that men welcome a bit of appreciation?’

‘They get far too much bloody attention as it is, Joe. And if you just let yourself go a bit, the world wouldn’t stop spinning. You’re vain, that’s all it is.’

He looked at his watch. ‘You’re a rotten liar, Brodie McLennan. If I’m not worth your time, how come you’ve been here so long?’

I checked my own watch and couldn’t believe how much of the afternoon I’d wasted talking nonsense with him. God, I’d miss him if we did fall out over this Jack Deans business. I picked my jacket up and ran, with Joe following me. It was easier to deal with Bridget Nicholson and Sheriff Harrison. The problems with Joe put a big tick in the box in favour of being a judge.

‘Joe,’ I wheezed as I ran past the statue of Greyfriars Bobby, ‘you’re forgetting I like cats, not dogs. I’m going to be an old lady with cats.’ My voice was almost lost in my rush.

‘Do you think I came up the Clyde in a banana boat?’ he replied. ‘You’re like that wee dog, loyal to a fault even when it gets you into trouble. Why else would you be representing Tanya Hayder? Everyone else gave up on her long ago.’

As I ran down George IV Bridge, I knew it was true. And I also wondered why, if he knew all about my life, he hadn’t stuck his nose into what I’d done with Jack?

Chapter Seven (#u16ed8790-2977-5cfd-997e-9d1574345488)

Even I didn’t believe that Tanya Hayder had changed her life around like she always promised she would. From time to time I checked on the website for the escort agency she was linked with, just to make sure she was still alive. Tanya’s official photograph on the Flowers ofScotland site still showed her in the first flush of youth. Before sex and drugs had taken their toll, she was the most alluring girl I had ever seen, apart from Kailash. Now, she looked at least double her age and with damn few years left. I often thought the trading standards officers could do her under the Trade Descriptions Act if they saw her advertising pitch.

‘Are you all right, honey?’

That’s why I liked Tanya: she was the one behind bars but she was worried about my mental health.

‘You’re looking a bit peaky, Brodie. You under any stress?’

I rolled my eyes upwards and she understood.

‘You can’t let those bastards grind you down – you’re better than that,’ she continued to try and calm me. ‘We go back a long way, Brodie. Don’t bail out on me now because of some stroppy bastarding men getting to you.’

I never needed to tell Tanya anything because she always assumed it was ‘bastarding men’ who were behind anything and everything. Occupational hazard, I suppose. But she was right – we did go back a long way. Tanya was my first client, I’d had little else to do and so I lavished more care and attention on her than a firstborn. Tanya had been a heroin addict since the age of thirteen, chasing the dragon to escape memories of childhood abuse, which were unfortunately not suppressed. She was a real dripping roast in the early years – her constant appearances in court made her a good source of income for me – but I always supposed (or hoped) that she would escape her destiny. During one interview in Cornton Vale Women’s Prison, she had handed me a white gemstone. I didn’t want to dwell on how she’d managed to smuggle it in.

‘It’s faith,’ she had told me. ‘The stone represents faith.’

I’d taken it from her all those years ago and still had it in my purse. Foolishly, I believed that as long as it was safe, we both had a chance.

‘We don’t have long, Tanya, you know the form.’

‘Enough that I know you’re in bigger shit than me. Where were you when they called my name out?’

‘A victim of my own success, Tanya.’

‘Get me out of here, Brodie – I can’t do another stretch. Please, Brodie, I promise you this time I’ll straighten myself out, just get me into rehab.’

‘Tanya, I told you last time that I got you the deal of the century – probation with your record? And what did you do with that great chance? You shagged a police officer – how many times have I told you not to have any drugs on you when you’re on the game?’

Drugs were an illness with her; she was more to be pitied than punished. I knew that with Tanya I overstepped the mark, but someone had to care. The Fiscal claimed to understand when she was a Crown witness at the age of twelve, but where was the therapy or stable home when she needed it? Now, her background reports sounded like tired old tosh trotted out by lawyers and social workers, although it didn’t make it any less true.

‘I did not. I always double-check with the hotels to make sure they’re not the vice squad. This gadge had a suite so I thought I was safe – vice are too tight to take a suite. Anyway, when I got there it was a police officer, they had ordered a few working girls to entertain some business colleagues so I thought it was okay. I’ve got some scruples, I didn’t go with the pig, I went with the pal. Nice black guy. I could tell he was using because his top lip was covered in sweat. He paid me in smack – it was good stuff and I was hoping he would ask for me again but I never got the chance. That pig booked me for drugs. I tried to tell them I got them from their pal but they wouldn’t believe me. Said his pal was a fisherman from Pakistan, but that was a lie ’cause I used to work the boats in Peterhead and all the men there have rough hands and he didn’t. Really rough hands. They get them from mending the nets.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ I cut her off as quickly as I could. There was always a story with Tanya. ‘You were caught with drugs. There is not going to be a trial. You’ll be sentenced for your original offence today and for the breach of probation. It’s not your first offence so they don’t need social enquiry reports – you’re off to prison this afternoon, Tanya, for a long time.’

As I said them, I thought my last words were unnecessarily hard. They were true, of course, but there was no need to kick her when she was down. Apparently, Tanya thought so too.

‘Who were you with, when you should have been representing me?’ she asked angrily.

‘You wouldn’t know him.’

‘You’d be surprised who I know. Must be somebody important to make you abandon me.’ She liked to twist the knife. Most addicts are experts at emotional blackmail.

‘I bet it was one of those Dark Angels – you seem to be Moses Tierney’s personal tart these days.’

I ignored her insults, but she went on.

‘Get me probation and I’ll give you information that will help your client. I don’t need to know who he is just now to know that I’ve got a link to practically everybody in this city – and information on most of them.’

‘There’s no way I can get you probation today, Tanya, but I will try.’

I ignored the line she was throwing me about the Alchemist. I would have put up a good spraff for her anyway, regardless of the personal cost.

Chapter Eight (#u16ed8790-2977-5cfd-997e-9d1574345488)

‘Are you still hanging around here? You’re like a bad smell in a toilet.’

‘Has anyone ever told you – you don’t do yourself any favours, Brodie?’

I was still really annoyed with Bridget Nicholson and I suspected that the only reason she was still here was to witness my humiliation when I asked for probation for Tanya. She swept past me into Sheriff Harrison’s court.

As a rule, after lunch, the Sheriff Court is almost deserted as the swathe of human detritus has completed its tasks in the morning and only a few ongoing trials remain. A courthouse is a horrible place to be. It shows you the very worst that humanity has to offer. Greed. Malice. Violence. Debauchery. Old lawyers’ tales tell of a young man in the seventeenth century about to sit his Bar exams who had a vision that he was at the mouth of hell. It sounds pretty likely to me that he got to live his vision when he became a lawyer.

‘Sheriff Harrison will see you in chambers now,’ said Andy, the macer, interrupting my thoughts.

Whenever I get anxious my bowels turn to water, and this, annoyingly, was one of those times. There was no way I could keep his Lordship waiting, so I breathed deeply and clenched my stomach muscles as the sweat formed on my brow. This was one situation where my nerves always made an appearance – too much was beyond my control.

The doorway to the sheriff’s inner sanctum looked innocuous enough: an expensive, plain light-oak door. Gingerly I knocked on it, trying to wet my lips with my parched tongue.

‘Enter.’

Sheriff Harrison wore his twilled silk gown but his wig lay on a pile of law reports. If this was his attempt at informality, he was failing. In spite of my best efforts – head up, shoulders back – he must have known I was afraid.

‘I suppose you’ve heard? I’ve missed my tee-off time at Muirfield.’