Bad Debt, page 14
‘Still, it’s all very thin, don’t you think?’ I said, ever the optimist.
‘Without the pickaxe handle?’ Joanna shrugged. ‘Maybe you didn’t go to the shops. Maybe you went somewhere else, and maybe you just happened to pass near to MacDonald’s home. You know what these police mobile phone experts are like with their triangulation reports. If the Crown wants, they’ll triangulate you into a seat in a particular room in a building or half a mile away in a car.’ It hadn’t taken my wife long to start thinking like a defence lawyer again. ‘You could have been going anywhere. Wester Brigg Cottage isn’t that far out in the wilds.’
I thought I saw tears begin to well in my wife’s eyes.
‘You do believe I’m innocent, don’t you Jo?’
She blinked a few times. ‘Speaking as your defence solicitor, it doesn’t matter what I believe,’ she said. ‘It’s what the evidence shows that I’m interested in. With mobile phones the prosecution has the best of both worlds. If you have it with you, it’s the spy in your pocket. If you don’t, they say you left it behind because you were up to no good. Let’s hope we can use the fact you did have your phone and spin it to your advantage.’ Joanna tugged her bottom lip. ‘I just don’t get it. If you’ve been charged with murder and the Crown don’t know about the pickaxe handle, they must have a card up their sleeve.’
‘Like what?’
‘How do I know, if it’s up their sleeve?’ She came closer and kissed me again. ‘Sorry for snapping. Maybe me acting for you isn’t such a great idea.’
I kissed her back. ‘I wouldn’t have anyone else. Who can I trust more than my own wife? So, what should we do?’ I asked, deep down knowing the answer.
‘You give the cops the people who tracked down MacDonald for you . . .’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘I don’t know for certain they did anything.’
‘Robbie . . .’
‘Really, I wasn’t there. Anything could have happened.’
‘Like a zombie attack or something?’
‘No, but someone else could have got to MacDonald. It’s not like that was the first time he’d been assaulted. Look at the Keggie case. Whatever happened to proof beyond reasonable doubt?’
‘Robbie, when are you going to stop thinking like a defence lawyer and start thinking like a juror? If a man goes missing for no reason and his blood is found in his house along with a bloody pickaxe handle that’s been chucked in an outbuilding, that just so happens to have a stranger’s DNA all over it, a stranger who had a grudge against him and whose phone can be put at the murder scene – put two and two together for once and make four. No juror is mulling that over for long and wondering if they have a reasonable doubt. Not when it’s Friday and they’re wanting to get off to the pub or have to get home and make the tea.’
I laughed. ‘Five minutes out of the Procurator Fiscal Service and you’ve become very critical of the criminal justice system.’
‘This isn’t funny, Robbie,’ Joanna said, as though I needed reminding. ‘You said one of the cops from the SCD was a Detective Chief Inspector. When does a DCI ever get from behind the desk and hit the mean streets? If the SCD are involved it’s because they think what happened to MacDonald had something to do with serious organised crime. You’ve not told me the full story. There’s something missing. Those men you were with were sent by somebody. You’ve got a name. The SCD want it. You need to give it to them. Let them take care of things.’
I shouted a final warning to Tina, then turned to Joanna again. ‘What are my other options?’
Tina and Bouncer, four legs trotting, two legs trudging, came down the garden toward us. Joanna took Jamie back from me and kissed his head. ‘There aren’t any,’ she said. ‘You’ve got the number of the SCD – call it.’
25
I did have DCI Sandeman’s number, but I had no plans to call it. Not yet. Instead, I called a different number and arranged an appointment to see one of my former business partners.
Maggie Sinclair, a woman with more sides to her than the Hope diamond and twice as hard, was now semi-retired and a consultant with Caldwell & Craig. Setting up an appointment hadn’t been easy, and I could only be afforded ten minutes of her valuable time, and then only after I’d mentioned it was a confidential matter to do with an important client of the firm.
It was during my time at Caldwell & Craig that I’d first made the acquaintance of Stan Blandy. He was a client of the then senior partner, who’d specialised in corporate law, and the firm still handled all Stan’s legitimate business interests. I doubted very much that the grand old legal beast that was C&C would have helped launder the money that was used to fund these legitimate enterprises, but wouldn’t have been surprised if it had turned a sleepy eye. All I knew of Stan’s affairs was that occasionally he would refer a client to me, usually on drugs charges. The private fees that followed, never directly attributable to Stan, of course, kept the other partners happy. Unfortunately, in criminal law, rich, private-paying clients like Stan were few and far between. It was Maggie who had persuaded the other partners that crime law didn’t pay, not when a criminal trial at legal aid fixed-fee rates netted the partnership only the price of a decent lunch. Unfortunately, criminal law was what I did, so I’d been given a choice: change what I did or go and do it somewhere else.
That was when I decided to return to my hometown of Linlithgow. With perfect timing, hardly had I pinned my brass plate to the door than the powers that be moved the local Sheriff Court from the Royal Burgh and sent it ten miles south to the new town of Livingston. Other than the additional commute, it made little difference to me. Linlithgow had never seen a crime wave, in fact scarcely a ripple, and to a criminal lawyer location isn’t all that important. What is important is reputation. If you’re selling a house or making a will, people look for the cheapest and nearest option. Those who have concerns over their liberty ask around for recommendations and are prepared to travel. Which was not to say that I’d been inundated with work these past five or six years. Few defence lawyers were nowadays, not with the drop in prosecutions. In a reversal of the adage about sticks and stones, punching someone or nicking their property was fine; call them a bad name on social media or use an incorrect pronoun and the procurator fiscal would throw the book at you. Well, perhaps not the book, but certainly the iPhone. It meant that victims of crime looked for other ways to redress wrongs. One way had been to visit Eddie Frew.
‘I hope you didn’t mind using the side entrance, Robbie,’ Maggie said, fixing me a smile as weak as a politician’s promise. ‘But as you know, there’s been some publicity surrounding you. We’ve asked our friends in the press not to get us involved—’
‘But you aren’t involved.’
Maggie would have wrinkled her face if the Botox injections had allowed it. ‘All the same. Coming in through the front door and past the waiting room would have been . . . awkward, in the circumstances.’
‘You do know I’m innocent?’
Maggie smiled condescendingly and sat herself down behind a desk that wasn’t quite the size of a tennis court. ‘Now, why are you here and what is this about an urgent matter to do with a client of Caldwell & Craig?’
‘I need to contact Stan Blandy.’
‘Impossible.’
‘I don’t need his home address, just a phone number or an email will do.’
Maggie leaned back in her big chair and released a sigh that would have inspired a Venetian to build a bridge. ‘Robbie, even setting client confidentiality aside, you have come across the General Data Protection Regulations, haven’t you?’
I had, and I’d taken the view that they were just an excuse for civil servants and other pen-pushing bureaucrats not to release helpful information.
‘Tell you what,’ I said. ‘How about you give him a call just now and pass me the phone. All I want to do is speak to him.’
‘Concerning what exactly?’
‘Are you suddenly forgetting about client confidentiality and the GDPR?’ I asked.
‘No, I’m not.’ Maggie leaned across her enormous desk at me. ‘If Mr Blandy was your client, you’d have his contact details. Now tell me why you want to speak to him.’
‘Maggie, lift the phone, get Stan Blandy on the line or I’m going to take a seat in the waiting room and tell everyone in there all about how I was once a partner here and am now a murder suspect. If . . .’ I said, putting up a hand to deflect her protests, ‘you try to have me removed, and who in here is going to do that? I’ll cause an almighty scene. Now, is all that unpleasantness really going to be necessary for the sake of a phone call to someone to whom I’m bringing good news?’ It was a bluff. On bail, as I was, and already just having dodged a housebreaking charge, I’d have thought twice about dropping a toffee wrapper.
Maggie’s hand moved towards the phone and then withdrew.
‘What kind of good news?’
What difference would it make if I told her? I delved into my pocket and placed the mobile on the desk. I still thought it strange that a teenage boy would choose a pink sparkly wallet as a phone cover.
‘I have a phone belonging to him,’ I said.
Maggie sat up straight. She picked up the phone and stared at the sparkly cover, turning it over in her hand like it was some archaeological find. ‘No, Robbie . . .’ she said, voice raised but showing no outward sign of emotion, though that may have been down to the Botox. ‘What you have there is my phone.’
There are times that even amidst the impenetrable confusion, basic instincts kick in. I reached out and grabbed the mobile out of her hand.
‘And you can have it back,’ I said. ‘Once you’ve made the call.’
26
The call was made. I met Stan the next day. Stan didn’t like meetings with criminal lawyers at the best of times. He liked being seen meeting criminal lawyers about as much as the average Scottish Nationalist likes being seen in Union Jack underpants. For that reason, anywhere with CCTV coverage was a no-go, thus ruling out most of central Scotland’s public areas. Which was why I had returned to the offices of Caldwell & Craig. I arrived via the side entrance around half-twelve, the arrangement being that Stan would give me a maximum of thirty minutes before he took Maggie to lunch, and I went back to Linlithgow and a bacon roll at Sandy’s.
Maggie met me at reception and guided me through to the boardroom, where two rows of empty chairs stared at each other across a wide expanse of mahogany. I pulled one out and sat under the gaze of her late father, Tom Sinclair, whose oil painting hung on the walls alongside some former senior partners of the grand old law firm.
Maggie herself had for a short time been senior partner of Caldwell & Craig. Moneywise, she no longer needed to work. Which was good because she’d always preferred others to do that for her. She’d been married three times, most recently to Alasdair Brodie, aka Lord Bantaskine, who, like his father and his father before him, was a High Court judge. The ancestral Bantaskines had each at one time held the position of Lord President of the Court of Session, Scotland’s senior judge. It was only a matter of time for Alasdair. In Scotland, when it came to the justice system, we liked to keep things in the family. Thus far for Maggie, all three of her marriages had been financially advantageous, the two divorces even more so. How she managed to lure so many wealthy men into her web, I didn’t know. For me, the thought of romance and Maggie Sinclair was as irreconcilable as peanuts and chewing gum. I was sure her two ex-husbands now felt the same. Some said the excellent divorce settlements had been all down to her legal expertise. Personally, I thought anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves wedlocked to Maggie would be happy to pay the ransom money just to escape. Why the present incumbent was still hanging in there, I couldn’t understand. Just as I couldn’t fathom why Stan Blandy had been chauffeuring Maggie’s stepson across Central Scotland on a Friday night. Surely, it couldn’t be love.
The Stan Blandy I knew was a hard-nosed businessman, in the same way Ben Nevis was a bump in the road to Fort William. Relationships were dangerous and an unnecessary distraction from the business of making money. I’d heard him say many times before that women were not to be trusted. Stan must have an angle, for there’d never been so much as a whisper of an affair or the possibility of a Mrs Blandy. Stan loved himself too much. It was said that he’d have sex with himself, if he could turn around quick enough. But people change with age. Now in his late fifties and with enough cash to sink one of the ships that he’d sailed into UK harbours transporting Colombian cocaine via Antwerp or, occasionally, premium MDMA from the Netherlands, had Stan decided it was time to relax, sit on his piles of money and experience all the things he’d missed out on – like romance? No, I couldn’t see Stan falling into that trap. And certainly not with Maggie Sinclair.
‘It’s complicated,’ Stan said, when I asked him about it.
‘I’ve only got a law degree, but try me, I might understand,’ I said.
‘Maggie had to go to some do for judges with her husband. She lives in Edinburgh now . . .’
I was aware that Maggie had moved in with her latest marital victim to his modest eight-bedroom mansion house set in a manicured acre-and-a-half somewhere in Wester Coates. She probably thought she was slumming it. Less than twenty-five minutes east of my own home, it was way too close for comfort.
‘She dropped the kid off earlier and asked if I’d go back for him. He must have taken her phone with him.’
‘You and Maggie . . .’ I said. ‘Are you . . .?’
‘Maggie’s a married woman, and we’re not here to discuss her personal affairs. What do you want?’
What did I want? Was he for real?
‘What I want, Stan, is for you to get me off the hook for this murder charge,’ I said, as calmly as I could.
Stan mulled that over. ‘I could maybe put some pressure on a few jurors, when the trial comes around . . .’
‘You said you owed me a debt for stopping Maggie’s son getting bottled.’
‘And you asked me to find the guy who was annoying your wife.’
‘That’s right. Find him. Not have your guys abduct and murder him, leaving me to take the rap.’
Stan’s face widened to accommodate his smile. ‘You wouldn’t be doing anything stupid like recording this conversation, would you?’ he said.
My lungs were too fond of oxygen to try anything like that on with Stan Blandy.
‘Didn’t think so,’ he said. ‘Not that it matters. The man you asked me to locate was located. Anything else that happened is down to you.’
‘Stan, the meeting I had with MacDonald lasted all of five minutes. What happened afterwards had nothing to do with me. I never saw him again. He ran away, your guys killed him and yet it’s me who ended up on remand at Lowmoss.’
‘Where I made things as comfortable for you as I could,’ Stan reminded me.
‘I know that,’ I said. ‘And I’m grateful . . . I suppose . . . in a way, but I should never have been there in the first place. Your man, the driver—’
Stan shook his head. ‘He did nothing. Trust me. I’ve asked him. If he had done something, he’d have told me. He rids the world of some scumbag? I don’t see that as a sackable offence. But all my employees know there are some things I don’t forgive. Lying to me is one of them.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Was there anything else?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You still owe me.’
Stan failed to understand why. ‘I found the man for you. That was the favour you asked for saving the boy. It’s a shame things didn’t work out, but—’
‘I’m talking about returning Maggie’s phone,’ I said.
‘It was good of you. That’s the only reason why I’m here.’
‘She asked me how I came by it. I haven’t told her. Not yet,’ I said. ‘I haven’t mentioned that her stepson, probably a future judge if his family tree is anything to go by, almost got carved up by a Buckie bottle on Linlithgow High Street because you couldn’t be relied on to pick him up on time.’
The kind of people who threatened Stan Blandy were usually trying to save themselves the 7,000 Swiss francs to pay Dignitas. He looked at me in the way a child looks at an injured fly and wonders what would be the most fun: pulling the wings off or just a straightforward splat.
‘Stan Blandy is beholden to no one. That’s what you told me,’ I said.
Stan’s lips barely moved. ‘Don’t bring me into this, Robbie. Do and prison will be the least of your worries. Bottom line, I found a man for you. That’s all.’
‘Really? Well, you found him very quickly. I know you have ways and means, but locating him inside twenty-four hours, and all you had was a number plate? That’s impressive even by your standards.’
‘Not really. I took the reg, gave it to someone I know, and they came back with the name and address of the person it was registered to.’ Stan stood up, walked around the table and stared down at me. ‘I’m sorry, Robbie. Truly, I am, but there was no reason for me or my boys to kill MacDonald. I did what you asked. We’re quits.’ He walked to the door and turned to look at me again. ‘And just in case you’re wondering, what that means is that you don’t ever try to speak to me again on this or any other subject unless I want to be spoken to. Understand?’
27
‘And you believed him?’ Joanna handed me my baby son and placed the changing mat on the floor in front of me. ‘This mysterious underworld figure whose name you’re too scared to even mention to your own wife who also happens to be your solicitor?’
