The Watcher

‘Did you ever doubt it?’ Lavender asked, as her voice started to crack. ‘Another victim of the Ripper?’

‘No, no – it doesn’t have to be. Absolutely not,’ I said, too hastily. She was getting married in the castle and I didn’t want anything to spoil her day. Not even my feud with Joe. ‘It’s probably a suicide: single people get very lonely at this time of year.’

‘Speaking from personal experience?’ she quipped.

I turned my head, not willing to let her see just how close she was to the truth on both counts.

Chapter Two (#u7eceafa5-3462-54de-8f93-ee5e50863b62)

Lothian and St Clair W.S.Saturday 22 December, 8.30 a.m.

‘Do you have a death wish, girl?’

Lord MacGregor shook his head in disgust and threw the weekend paper down on my desk. A silver foil container tipped over, scattering cold chicken and fried rice everywhere.

‘That,’ he continued, pointing to the offending article, ‘is professional suicide.’

Watching him out of the corner of my eye, I refused to turn round. I knew what my grandfather was referring to, and I didn’t want to face his anger. Maybe it had been a foolish move on my part; even he’d acknowledged I’d been keeping my nose clean and avoiding trouble until now. Plus I hated disappointing him, which was something I seemed to have a knack for.

‘What do you think about this?’ He picked up the article again, and threw it down in front of Lavender. She clapped her hands sarcastically.

‘Very dramatic,’ she said. ‘Maybe that’s where Brodie gets her antics from.’ Looking directly into his eyes she added: ‘They do say the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree.’

Using her hand she cleared away the debris of my last night’s meal and threw it in the bin.

‘Seriously,’ said Lord MacGregor, shaking his head in disbelief.

‘Seriously, you’re a well-matched pair of drama queens!’ Lavender snorted and sat down in my seat, opening the offending article out in front of her.

Lawyer Could Force Judges to Declare They AreMasons

‘So you asked a judge if he was a Mason.’ Lavender rattled the newspaper noisily before placing it down on the desk again. ‘I hate to say it … but His Lordship has a point.’

Lavender had been told by my Grandad to call him by his Christian name, but she refused. He was now known to everyone in the office as His Lordship. Initially, it was her way of getting at him, but now they were allies. He had won her over and he was giving her away when she married Eddie on Christmas Eve.

I kept my back firmly to them; I wasn’t turning round to face their torrent of abuse, especially now I had admitted to myself they were right. The case had called six weeks ago in Edinburgh Sheriff Court, but we were still waiting for the judgement to be issued. Anyway, the action on the Castle Rock was revving up, and the rubber-neckers were gathering at the barricade.

‘We discussed this.’ Lavender inserted her face directly in front of me. ‘Are you stupid? It’s not just your livelihood on the line.’ I could feel her hot breath on my neck. She grabbed my shoulder, and pulled me round to face her; I didn’t feel it was a particularly good time to suggest she should perhaps be a little calmer on her wedding day. The consequences of my actions to Scots law were immense. If I was right, the decisions of every judge who was a Mason could be called into question if any party to the case was also a member of the Masonic Lodge.

It all boiled down to the fact that judges are supposed to be impartial, whereas Masons, by their oaths, have sworn to favour their brethren. If the ruling in this case was in my favour, the Edinburgh bar would be eating out of my hand, all bets were off, and lawyers could appeal a decision they didn’t like. Their fees would increase, and it would be new Mercedes all round. Of course, if it went against me – which, let’s face it, was likely – then the judges would really put the boot in. Lav was afraid that fees would go down but Grandad was pissed because he had ambitions for me to be a judge – and I’d just made that even more unlikely.

Lord MacGregor nodded approvingly at Lav, just wishing he’d had the courage to be so forceful – but my grandfather was too afraid of losing me; our relationship was too new and tentative for him to risk such behaviour.

My grandfather.

We had been reunited for just over two years. Weird is not the word for us lot – we make the Addams family look like the Waltons. Lord MacGregor, Grandfather to me and a retired High Court judge to everyone else, had rescued my birth mother Kailash from his son’s clutches. He continued to support her, even after she was charged with the murder of his only child. And if that isn’t Jerry Springer enough for you, my mother’s a dominatrix: a high-class one, very wealthy, but a dominatrix nonetheless. These are the family members who have the temerity to be annoyed when I make questionable decisions …

I kept up a wall of silence. It was the advice I would give to my clients. Say nothing – you can only hang yourself with your tongue. Lavender was persistent.

‘What planet were you on?’ she asked, poking me in the back with her finger.

‘When is it ever a good idea to ask a policeman if he’s a Mason?’ she continued.

I shrugged noncommittally.

‘Then you have to take it one step beyond the bounds of good taste …’

Lavender rolled her eyes and half turned to face Grandad.

‘… and suggest the judge cannot be impartial because he, like the police, is also a Mason!’

This conversation was embarrassing. I had been posturing in court like a little bantam hen and now that the heat of the battle was over I had to agree with them. It’s all well and good to have nice legal points, but it didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. I stepped out of range of her finger, and turned to face them.

I caught sight of myself in the wall-sized mirror that Grandad had installed so I could practise my jury speeches. Sticking my left hand on my hip, I walked forward, looking more like one of Kailash’s girls on a very rough day than a lawyer.

‘Consider the well-known penalties of the Entered Apprentice who vows to keep Masonic secrets under penalty of having his throat cut, or his tongue torn out and buried in the rough sands of the sea.’ I coughed for dramatic effect and held their eyes, just as Grandad had taught me. I could see he was impressed.

Lavender laughed in my face. ‘What a pile of crap,’ she said. ‘You know that’s just for effect – them and you – trying to make folk think that they’re all mysterious. It’s rubbish, Brodie – but it’s rubbish that you shouldn’t mess with, given how many top people seem to believe in it.’

‘Well – why do they say it if they’re not going to carry out the threat? Anyway, the Crown Office is issuing a written opinion, and it brought our client one step closer to a “not guilty”.’

I walked up to the mirror, not waiting to hear her reply. God, I looked terrible. I started to examine my saggy chin; when did those wrinkles appear? My so-called office assistant approached me. Her eyes were blazing, and holding my gaze she said, ‘You’re selfish, Brodie – it’s going to hurt when you have to think of someone else.’

‘That sounds like a threat,’ I said.

‘No – it’s a promise.’

Chapter Three (#u7eceafa5-3462-54de-8f93-ee5e50863b62)

Girls’ Changing Rooms,The Meadows’ Pavilion, EdinburghSaturday 22 December, 2 p.m.

It was hard to remain silent and he held his breath as he crouched low on the lid of the toilet seat. The girl in the next cubicle was called Rosie. He had heard another girl call for her and now he held the name to him. She sang a well-worn Christmas song under her breath and The Watcher smiled, imagining the song was for him. Certainly, this was shaping up to be his best Christmas so far.

For three weeks he’d staked out the changing rooms, and now he’d won a prize. Not that his previous visits were wasted – no, he’d put his time to good use. As he stared out through the peephole he’d prepared earlier, he reflected on just how good. Rosie continued singing as she washed her hands. The Watcher was pleased. Hygiene was important to him – too important, some people thought; but, as his mother always said, ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness.’

Standing on her tiptoes, in a pink padded Playboy bra with matching knickers, Rosie leaned over the basin and applied a thick layer of lip gloss. She opened her mouth wide and ran her pink pointy tongue over her teeth. The Watcher shivered. Rosie hurried through to the main changing area. She was running late, so discarded her underwear as she went, throwing it over a railing. She removed her bra and put on a sports version. Bending over, she balanced on one leg, and pushed her foot into her football shorts. They had built-in underwear, so she had not put on her knickers, but he felt an irrational sense of disappointment in the girl. Perhaps her morals were not all they should be. And The Watcher didn’t like that; he didn’t like that at all.

‘For God’s sake, get a move on – do you want to miss the kick-off?’ A disembodied voice chivvied them all along, but Rosie was the only one he looked at. The voice was likely to be that of a chaperone, given that the whole of Edinburgh was on red alert with all the terrible things that were going on. If truth be told, it was making things difficult – but not impossible – for him.

Rosie refused to leave yet. She stood in the messy, deserted changing room, swivelling around looking for something, for someone. Looking for him perhaps? A smile cracked his face. He was the last person she’d want to find. Holding his breath, he then exhaled as the sound of her boot studs disappeared into the distance. The Watcher noted with regret that she had stopped singing.

Turning, he stared out of the hole he had cut in the thick frosted glass. Rabbit wire on the outside of the pane obscured his vision but he could see well enough. Well enough to note that Rosie kept glancing back at the changing pavilion. A cold chill of fear ran down his spine as she started to run full pelt to the man.

The Watcher knew who he was by reputation, and he knew that he should be afraid of him – but the path he had chosen did not allow for changes simply because there were obstacles. The big man in a kilt had his arms around Rosie, giving her a pep talk, dispelling her fears. Maybe the big man wasn’t that tough – it was good to know that he wasn’t infallible.

He had come to see someone else, he’d hidden overnight in the changing rooms and it had finally paid off. He’d waited three weeks to see her. The first week she’d had a knee injury, the second was an away game, but the third time was a trick. The girl was skinny; some people might say she looked undernourished. The Watcher didn’t fancy her chances of survival – she would be kicked off the pitch when the game started.

Actually, that could be a problem. The Watcher didn’t want her marked. That wasn’t part of his plan and his plan had been very carefully constructed. He was proud of the attention he paid to detail. A feeling of instant calm came over him as he watched her win the toss. This was going to be her lucky day. The girl was skinny and leggy – she might be ungainly but she was fast. Too fast? Would it be a problem? What if she got away from him? That wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.