Blood Lines

Georgia – or was it Alice? – lifted his heavy leather coat and put her arm around his waist. At least she had the sense to know that we were in deep shit.

‘I’m going ahead with this trial – they can’t prove it,’ he protested weakly.

‘I’m telling you that they can prove this – they have the jewellery, and the DI who says he found it on you.’

‘Bancho is lying, I’ve said that already – and it’s up to you to prove it. Moses says you’re the dog’s bollocks – well, he doesn’t want me sent down, it’s bad for his business, so you’d better do it if you want to stay in his good books.’

Bridget Nicholson sauntered up to us. ‘More trouble, Brodie? Morning, Bernard – you should have stayed with a lawyer who knows how to look after her clients.’

How much had she overheard?

‘It’s never too late, Bernard,’ she called as she walked off. I think he might have gone with her if she hadn’t kept calling him Bernard.

I followed her into court, all the way thinking that there was no way I could see myself bowing to her if she became Lady Nicholson. But I would have to, unless I took my grandad’s advice and applied myself. I couldn’t see it happening – me? Lady Brodie McLennan? I was too young, but if Grandad said it could happen, then maybe I just had to believe, even if it filled me with dread. The very idea of sitting on my arse all day listening to cases would be one of the worst parts. There was no challenge in that for me. Maybe when I was a coffin dodger like the rest of them it would be a grand way of life. But not now.

Court Seven was packed. Lawyers lined both sides of the court walls as they waited their turn. I put my name in to the sheriff clerk, but there was no way they could really call my case any quicker. Sometimes they would do me a favour and call my clients first, but that depended on me having the time to get in there before court started and speak to them nicely. The set-to I’d had with Bridget Nicholson had delayed me, and all morning I’d been trying to catch up with myself.

The queue moved slowly as the judge was a temporary sheriff. His day job was as a property lawyer and he’d never been in a courtroom in his life, so he was taking his time to make sure there were no mistakes. There was a shortage of judges when they had to resort to using clowns like this. Maybe I did have a chance of being Lady McLennan – or should I take my father’s name and follow in his footsteps?

‘Bernard Carpenter!’

The last case was called. I stepped forward and took my place in the well of the court. The Alchemist sloped into the dock.

‘Are you Bernard Carpenter?’ The clerk’s voice was dry and hoarse; it had been a long court roll.

‘M’Lord, my name is Brodie McLennan. I appear on behalf of the accused.’

‘Are you from the same firm as Ms Nicholson, because it says that she represented the accused on the last occasion?’ The judge wasn’t just a pedant, he was also a hermit if he hadn’t heard who I was in the last year. His prissy half-moon rimmed glasses fell to the end of his nose as he peered at me suspiciously. I shouldn’t have been surprised – that’s exactly what happens when the criminal Bar encounter their fellow professionals. Like oil and water, they just don’t mix.

‘I have a mandate to act for Mr Carpenter now,’ I answered.

‘Well, this young man can’t think just because he changes his mind that he can hold up the judicial machinery. Are you ready to go to trial? Because I’ll tell you now, I’m in no mood to grant an extension just to satisfy this young man’s whims.’

It had been my intention to ask for an adjournment, but I knew I was on a hiding to nothing, and so I said what I knew I would regret.

‘The defence is ready and prepared for trial.’

I had one official paper and a scribbled statement from my client. If I was Eddie Gibb I would have been ready to go to trial and win, but no sober lawyer would proceed on that basis. I noted the trial date down, two weeks from today. It would be hard work, especially as the Alchemist was insisting that I prove that DI Bancho had fitted him up. Now I’d had time to think of Bancho rather than push his name out of my mind, I had to admit that we went way back. He was a colleague of an old flatmate, Richard Sturgeon, and a crowd of us used to go out on Friday nights. However, there was no love lost between Bancho and me now, in spite of a couple of drunken snogs in the police club in Gorgie.

As it was, the last case called before lunch meant I had to stand and wait until the court was cleared; which really meant until the judge had left the bench. It was like watching a kettle boil. Eventually, I could go. As I left, Andy, the court macer, approached me.

‘Sorry to bother you, Brodie.’

Andy was a nice guy, and I could tell by his face that he hated to be the bearer of bad news.

‘Don’t worry, Andy, I won’t shoot the messenger.’

‘You might – you put your name in to represent Tanya Hayder? Her case was called and you didn’t appear. I did everything I could because I saw you were having difficulties this morning. The sheriff clerk kept it back right to the end – it only called five minutes ago. You were just too late.’

‘Story of my life, Andy. So what’s to happen now?’

‘It’s Sheriff Harrison and he wants to see you at two o’clock in chambers. He’s pretty mad – he was playing golf at Muirfield and he’s had to cancel because of this.’ Andy patted me on the back and we left the court together as I moved towards my next run-in.

‘Bernard! I want a word with you – in private.’ I was past being polite. ‘You heard what went on in there.’ I inclined my head towards the court, not giving him the chance to wriggle out of my question.

‘I …’ he started to stammer.

I cut him off.

‘This trouble is of your own making. If you want to go to trial on that defence in two weeks make sure you have five grand in my hand before close of business on Friday.’

I turned and left without waiting for a reply. I was stopped in my tracks by a voice I knew only too well.

‘Charging Kailash’s prices now?’

Glasgow Joe was back.

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

Joe never had approved of me lying on tombstones.

‘Aren’t you scared of the dead?’

‘It’s not the dead you should be afraid of, Joe – it’s the living.’

Greyfriars Kirkyard was the nearest green space to the court, and my favourite lunch spot. Mary, Queen of Scots had opened its gates to the townspeople of Edinburgh when it was still a rural site. Glasgow Joe and I had left court to get some peace and quiet – and, despite the tourists and snogging teenagers, we almost managed it. I was at my usual dining spot, Alexander Scroggie’s flat tomb. With raised legs, it looked rather like a small mossy table, situated in the best site in the graveyard, under a large oak tree. I liked to lie on it and watch the clouds go by whilst I ate my sandwiches. I didn’t mind that it was hard and cold. The only drawback was that crumbs fell down my neck, and I knew that at four o’clock I’d still be finding them inside my bra.

‘Are you in trouble, Brodie?’

‘Of course. Didn’t you used to tell me that trouble was my middle name?’ I said to evade his real question.

‘You were seven. I thought you’d grow out of it.’

Joe and I had been at junior school together. The girl whose mother had aspirations for her never fitted into the tough Leith environment – but when the hulking ginger ogre that was Joe, even as a kid, descended from the West, I knew I had a friend. The fact that he was still around owed as much to his doggedness as my lure. He’d saved me more than once, and I hoped he’d always be there to do so. If he found out about Jack Deans, though, it could be the end of what we had established over years.

I watched a cloud that looked like a dragon pass in the otherwise clear blue sky.

‘You had a lucky escape then, Joe.’

‘Is that what you think? Is that what you think happened to us? I escaped you?’

I didn’t like the way this conversation was heading – how much did he know? I tried to make the peace – we had fallen onto the edges of an argument far too quickly today, and I didn’t want him, of all people, to be upset or angry with me.

‘What difference does it make, Joe? Our past is far away, and all we’ve got to worry us is whether you’ve eaten all the chocolate brownies.’ Maybe I could distract him – if only Awesome was parked on one of the graves; that would get his attention. He loved that bike as much as I did. In fact, I sometimes marvelled that he’d ever been able to hand it over for my twenty-first, given how much he still treated it as his own possession.

‘Here, Joe – do you think the ghost of Burke’s watching me?’ As I lolled on the grave, I could almost imagine the days when the famous resurrectionist used to sit nearby watching the burials, so he could come out after dark and dig up the bodies.

‘Don’t act tough and intelligent, Brodie, I know you’re just soppy about that daft wee dog,’ threw back Joe.