Blood Lines

‘Who said anything about murder?’ Bancho asked.

‘Come off it, no one thinks Cattanach has simply had a hissy fit and walked off in a huff.’

‘I’m not releasing you, Brodie – you’re in for the full six hours. And then who knows?’

‘Are you threatening to stitch me up?’

‘Well, you believe that little bastard – what does he call himself?’

‘The Alchemist.’

I finished his sentence for him, even though I remembered it was something he’d always hated.

‘Yeah – you believe him. I’m bent, aren’t I?’

‘I don’t believe him …’

He didn’t give me a chance to finish.

‘You don’t believe him? Then why are you persecuting me and spreading it round the Sheriff Court that I fitted him up? That I planted evidence on him?’

A fine film of sweat beaded his top lip, and for some reason I thought of Tanya Hayder. An overwhelming hunch told me not to irritate him. I had painted myself into a corner and I had to find a way out. Bridget Nicholson had obviously overheard my conversation with the Alchemist and had wasted no time in causing further trouble for me.

‘I don’t believe him, but that’s not my job. My job is to investigate his defence. He’s entitled to a defence.’

Wheedle and cajole, those were my instructions to myself.

‘Do you sleep well at nights?’

‘Very well.’

I lied. It just slipped out; I had meant to agree with him. Anything to get home and wash the smell of desperation that clung to these walls from my hair. He shook his head and circled me.

‘When you were a little girl did you dream of representing scumbags like Bernard Carpenter?’

I didn’t reply.

‘You lawyers are all the same – authorised pickpockets.’ ‘It’s my job,’ I shouted after him as he closed the door, leaving me alone with his insults, which naturally I replayed. I objected to being called a legalised thief. I worked within the system. It was how things operated. In the last two years of practising law I had come to think of it in a straightforward way. The law was a bulky, decrepit engine that dragged in individuals, ruined their lives and wasted their money. I was just an engineer. I was a specialist at going into the engine, repairing things and taking out what I needed in return.

I had fallen out of love with the law. The law-faculty philosophy about the merits of the adversarial method, of the weighing scales of justice, seemed like shit to me now. There were too many hopeless cases, too many miscarriages of justice, too many vested interests. Something had changed for me. I used to believe in the law more than anything; I’d lost a part of myself when that changed. My quest for truth had recently been abandoned. The law was not about justice. It was about arbitration, amending and stage management. I didn’t deal in guilt or blamelessness, because everyone had done something wrong. This fact was of no consequence, because every trial I took on was laid on shifting sand. A case built by worn-out and poorly paid drudges. The police didn’t have the time or staff. They made mistakes. And then they papered over those mistakes with lies. My trade was to strip the paper and find the cracks. To insert a crowbar into those cracks and open them. To make them so wide that the case fell apart, or my clients slipped through.

Much of humanity thinks of my type as the devil incarnate. But they are wide of the mark. I am a slippery seraph. I am the true dark angel, necessary to both sides. I think of myself as an engineer, but I am more important than that. I am the oil and I allow the cogs to keep turning. I help keep the engine running.

But, more importantly, I hate to lose.

The Alchemist’s case would change things.

For me.

For Bernard Carpenter.

And certainly for Duncan Bancho.

After all, I had nearly six clear hours to focus on his downfall.

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

I got through the six hours – of course I did, I had no choice – but I wasn’t left unscarred.

As usual, I’d started off a difficult morning with a run. However, instead of calming me, I felt awful. I didn’t know what was worse, the nausea or the fear. One threatened to choke me, whilst the other chilled me to my marrow.

I stood at the river’s edge. The water was an accusing finger curling towards me, searching for me. I felt as if it wanted to touch me, to mark me. My world was collapsing.

‘I did this! I did this to myself!’ a voice screamed in my head.

Those six hours when I was supposed to be plotting Duncan Bancho’s ruin? Well, it didn’t happen. All I saw was my own defeat staring me in the face. There was no help or escape. DI Bancho had made it quite clear that his mission in life was to see me behind bars for the murder of Alex Cattanach. Trouble was, my actions for the past God knew how many months made it look as if I had a pretty good motive. My grandad was right, Kailash was right, even Bridget Nicholson was right to a point – I was obsessed with making as much money as possible – but I did it to feel safe. As long as I was joint and severally liable for the debts of Lothian and St Clair WS, then I was weak. One of the downsides of becoming a partner was that I was responsible for any outstanding debts if the firm went down, so I was making sure that there was enough money floating around to stop that happening – the only way I knew to lessen the feeling of fear was to bring in as much work as possible, make myself a cash cow that they would never be tempted to slaughter.

I’d thought that the other firms I was taking from, pissing off along the way, didn’t matter. I couldn’t waste time or sympathy on whether some overindulged lawyer was a few grand down a week. But I did have to care about what effect all of this hostility could have on me and my security.

I could see why Duncan might think I was an obvious suspect. We hadn’t had the sort of relationship where he knew me inside out – thank God – so he could very well believe I would be pushed over the edge by all that had happened to me in the last couple of years. He might also think that I believed I was now protected by my blood line. These were all possibles. Cattanach had been missing for too long. Foul play was the obvious conclusion, given the investigations that had been going on. And, on paper, I looked like a pretty good candidate for the perpetrator.

I tried to comfort myself that at least I wasn’t a complete fool. Even I knew that the offer of a judicial position would be withdrawn now. When Duncan Bancho had arrested me, he had snatched my best hope, even if I hadn’t seemed too keen on it when it was offered to me. There is nothing like something being taken away from you to make it seem attractive.

‘At least your plooks have disappeared.’

A familiar voice shouted at me through the trees. A woman jogger looked affronted, as if the remark had been aimed at her.

I didn’t bother to turn around. ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better? I don’t have spots any more?’

‘Yeah – when the shit hits the fan, you have to be grateful for small mercies.’ Glasgow Joe’s voice came in short bursts as he climbed down the steep embankment.

‘Keep your Reader’s Digest homilies to yourself, Joe. Have you been looking for me for long?’

‘I went to St Leonard’s once I heard the gossip, then that wanker Bancho sent someone out to move me along. I wanted to be there – when you were released – but I must have got my timing wrong.’

‘What do you mean you got your timing wrong? You thought I’d be out quickly, didn’t you? Well, so did I, Joe, so did I. When he kept me in for the full six hours, did you think that meant I was guilty? Do you think I did it? Do you think that’s why Duncan Bancho kept me in for the full six hours?’

‘Calm down, Brodie – of course I don’t think you did it. I mean, nothing’s even been proven to have happened. Maybe Cattanach was bent and ran off with money from the investigations? I don’t know what the fuck’s going on, but I do know that Bancho wanted to see you sweat, to make you cry – you didn’t cry, did you, Brodie?’

‘Of course I didn’t.’

‘I did – the first time I was arrested. I bawled my eyes out begging the constable to get my mammy.’

‘You were eleven, Joe.’

‘True, but there were bigger boys than me greetin’ for their maw.’

‘Do you know his sidekick, DC Malone? She was nice to me.’ I believed I would be eternally grateful for that woman’s common decency.