Dark Angels

‘Alone,’ she added on reflection.

We held our breaths as we waited to hear how Lord Arbuthnot of Broxden had died.

‘At present, I do not think it is necessary to state whose company I had enjoyed earlier in the evening. Latterly, I was at the Balmoral Hotel.’

Sheriff Strathclyde continued to shift uncomfortably under her stare. I was annoyed. It sounded as if she was hiding something. Also, there was absolutely no emotion or contrition in her voice. It would not go down well with a jury. Public speaking is the number one fear amongst people–dying is second. That means most would rather be the corpse than give a eulogy at a funeral. But Kailash sounded calm, as if she were reading a bedtime story to a child.

‘I had a couple of glasses of champagne. I decided to go home before I had finished. I brought the champagne flute out with me.’

Her voice was controlled, as if this was perfectly normal behaviour.

‘I crossed the road and was sipping champagne as I examined the large statue of the bronze horseman. This sculpture fascinates me. It is anatomically correct in every detail, except one–its tongue is missing. The artist committed suicide, when he realised this…’

She was rambling. Kailash Coutts still stared at Sheriff Strathclyde, as if they were having a private conversation at a dinner party.

‘Strange,’ she continued, ‘I always thought it was our tongues that got us into trouble.’

Lifting her head even higher, she gestured towards him.

‘Don’t you agree, M’Lord?’

Without waiting for the reply, that would never come, she continued.

‘In the wall of Register House is a seismograph. It is behind glass, and it measures earthquakes.’

Pausing as if speaking to imbeciles, she added: ‘On the Richter scale.

‘It is extraordinary how earthquakes can hit Edinburgh, M’Lord.’

To his credit, Sheriff Strathclyde only flinched a little bit before Kailash continued with her story. I was pretty sure she was enjoying herself as much as anyone could in this situation, but everyone’s patience would run out soon if she didn’t start coming up with the goods.

‘I first saw them in the glass of the shops,’ she went on. ‘Teenagers of both sexes–a gang of about ten.’

For the first time, her voice cracked with emotion. I had an unsettling feeling that she was putting it on, a consummate actress. Why should that surprise me, given her profession?

‘Next, I heard a strange drumming sound.’ Her voice was becoming higher, her own fingers and nails drumming on the edge of the stand. I had to hand it to her–the audience was sitting on the edge of its seat.

‘They were banging. Old fashioned walking canes, I think. Banging them off the pavement, off the pavement, time and time again.’ She sounded breathless now.

‘They gathered round me…black leather coats…their hair was white…and they were frightening. Any exit route was blocked off. I was trapped. Trapped between the wall of Register House and the horseman.’

Kailash asked for water. There was an almost palpable sigh of relief. We all needed a breather

‘The boy…their leader…’ her voice was faltering now, ‘he began the taunts. Asking me for a price list.’

Impressively, Kailash dropped her head, but kept her eyes up, never breaking the stare with Sheriff Strathclyde. She continued in a staged whisper.

‘…for my services.’

I knew she was being polite, but I had hoped, against hope, that we could have kept her profession out of the trial. Although practically everyone in Edinburgh knew exactly what Kailash Coutts did for a living, I had hoped to raise objections if any assumptions about the reason for her movements were made. Surely even notorious prostitutes had perfectly innocent nights out from time to time? As soon as I had the thought, I realised I wasn’t even managing to kid myself. I knew I was clutching at straws–but straws were my only hope at this stage. In my dealings with Kailash, I had kept strictly to the golden rule of cross-examination: never ask a question to which you do not know the answer. I had broken it on only one occasion when I had asked her if Lord Arbuthnot was a client. She had replied that he was not, so I would argue that her sexual reputation was irrelevant if the dead man did not use her ‘services’.

‘Menacingly,’ Kailash went on, ‘he danced around me, weaving in and out, tapping me on the body with his cane. I was in no doubt that my life was in danger.’

Gasping for breath, she pulled a handkerchief out and began wiping her eyes. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief that she was conforming to such a clichéd, but useful, weeping stereotype.

‘I reached into my bag.’ Her voice wavered; she rested her hand against her breast shakily, as if reliving the moment. ‘And I pulled the empty champagne flute out. I was terrified. I smashed it against the wall to protect myself. All I could see was that evil boy, and his strange, strange eyes. But then…nothing that happened next makes any sense.’

She collapsed weeping, and everyone else seemed taken in, but I have studied body language and while Kailash Coutts was a bloody good actress, she was actually a crap liar. When we speak, our body communicates the truth. In court, my senses are heightened by adrenalin. I had watched the micro movements of her eyes when she spoke. She looked down to the left, an indication that she was, at best, hiding something. If she had been telling the truth, Kailash would have looked up to her right, to recall facts. Our bodies do seventy per cent of our communication unconsciously, but Kailash must have missed the lesson on that when she went to stage school.

After sipping on some water, Kailash began again.

‘I smashed the glass against the wall, not to use it, but to threaten them, to keep them away. I was screaming for help, but I thought that no one could hear me.’

The Dark Angels had chosen a busy spot in the East End of Princes Street to attack her. I guess some might interpret it as a sign that Moses Tierney and his crew thought they were above the law, although they would have been hidden behind the horseman and the wall in a very short, narrow alleyway.

‘His arms encircled me. I screamed, lashing out with the broken glass. I was so sure it was him, that boy with the strange eyes, and I was scared, so scared. Only when I felt its sharp edges pierce the skin did I notice whoever was holding me did not have a leather coat on–he was wearing a rough green Harris Tweed jacket. Someone had heard me–someone had come to help, and I had rewarded this, this saviour with a broken glass.

‘He started shouting: “Am I cut badly? Am I cut badly?” Kailash gulped for air like a stranded fish as she recalled the night’s events. ‘But the blood just kept gushing out of him.’

So Lord Arbuthnot had died a hero attempting to save a woman in distress. I wondered if he would have rushed to the rescue if he had known who she was?

‘The bunch of criminals fled, but not before they lifted my handbag…and I was left alone with Alistair MacGregor,’ she concluded.

I sat up sharply in my seat. She had called him by his own name. She would not have known that, unless she knew him well. Lord Arbuthnot was his judicial title, assumed when he took his seat as a senator in the college of justice. Judges don’t always take judicial titles but his father, Lord MacGregor, was, at the time, still sitting as the Lord Justice Clerk, the second most powerful judge in Scotland.

The MacGregors could trace their judicial lineage back for four centuries. But that bloodline ended last night, on a Princes Street pavement. Alistair MacGregor died without issue.

Sheriff Strathclyde sat watching Kailash, visibly moved by her story, and somewhat impressed that his deceased colleague had performed such a chivalrous, if fatal task. If a lauded man had to die, how much better that he should die in the pursuit of a noble deed, even if the heroine was a whore. Kailash wiped some tears away and decided she had a few more words to add.

‘I held him in my arms, but the blood just kept flowing.’

She paused and looked at the tape recorder before continuing.

‘I don’t know where he came from…’

She paused again, as though considering the dead man’s options. She lifted her eyes from the whirring tape inside the machine and reverted back to staring at Sheriff Strathclyde.

‘Oh…’ she whispered, before her voice became steadily stronger.

‘He must have come from the toilets.’

Sheriff Strathclyde leaped to his feet as a slow smile spread across Kailash’s face.

‘Stop that tape now! Stop it! I demand that you stop it!’ he shrieked at the stunned clerk.

‘Yes,’ went on Kailash Coutts. ‘I think he did. In fact, I’m positive. Lord Arbuthnot came from the public toilets. He came from the toilets.’

Sheriff Strathclyde was now on his feet, blustering, moving back and forth.