Bad Debt, page 17
Give them the name of Stan Blandy? Not likely. ‘That’s a lot of speculation on your part,’ I said.
‘No . . .’ Sandeman took a couple more quick drags and dropped the cigarette stub out of the window. ‘That’s police work. It’s what we do. Give us a name and let us do the rest.’
31
‘They’ve served the indictment!’
Thursday morning, breakfast was running late at the Munros. I was making a cup of tea while Joanna furiously mashed Jamie a banana in a wee yellow bowl. He’d already eaten half my porridge. My son might only be ten months old, but he had the appetite of a plague of locusts at an all-you-can-eat salad bar. When he was born and the midwives had brought tea and buttered toast, he’d thought it was for him. Joanna stopped mashing. ‘Why didn’t you tell me last night?’
‘I thought it would be better after a good night’s sleep. I didn’t want to keep you up worrying.’
‘But it’s way too early. The indictment shouldn’t be out for months yet. What’s so urgent? Someone must be pushing this. Who at Crown Office really hates you?’ That was a list that would take someone a long time to compile. ‘I mean, they don’t have a body, they don’t have a murder weapon . . .’ Joanna had read the expression on my face, even though I was unaware it had changed. ‘No, Robbie. Tell me they haven’t got it.’
I took the spoon and bowl from her and gently lowered her onto a chair by the table. ‘It’s been lodged as a label,’ I said.
‘And?’
‘And there’s a forensic report showing blood on one end and my DNA on the other.’
Joanna gripped her brow with one hand and massaged it, gazing at the floor.
‘I had a quick consultation with Fiona Faye yesterday. She’s all set to take on the defence, but—’
‘She wants to know why your DNA is on the pickaxe handle?’
I nodded.
‘And where you were on the night in question?’
I nodded again.
‘What did you tell her?’
‘She knows my defence is a work in progress, and that she’ll need to be patient.’
‘Patient? How can she be patient if there’s a preliminary hearing coming up in the next two weeks? If your defence is alibi it’ll have to be lodged. And then there’s your witness list. Have we got someone lined up to throw doubt on the DNA evidence?’
‘Calm down,’ I said, inserting a spoonful of mashed banana into Jamie. ‘There is some good news.’
Joanna looked up, expectantly.
‘I don’t think he’s dead.’ I said.
She frowned. ‘How can you possibly say that?’
Jamie was doing his imitation of a fledgling, head up, mouth open. ‘I’m not the one saying it. The police are.’ I tried to spoon in some more banana and only narrowly missed. I wiped my son’s face with kitchen roll and tried again.
‘I don’t understand,’ Joanna said.
‘It’s like this. The cops stopped me on the way home last night.’
‘The ones from the SCD?’
‘Yeah, they’re not buying it.’
‘Not buying what?’
‘I said right from the start that it was strange that a nobody like Angus MacDonald goes missing for less than a day and somebody reports it. When does that ever happen for an adult male? And when the cops go searching for him, they are immediately so suspicious of foul play that they get the necessary authority to obtain information on the movements of my phone. How long do inquiries like that normally take? Weeks? Months? No, someone must have contacted the cops and said there’d been a murder. This wasn’t a routine missing person’s inquiry. And after all that, what do they find – no body, just some blood on a kitchen floor and a pickaxe handle—’
‘With your DNA on one end and his blood on the other,’ Joanna reminded me once more, as if I could forget.
‘We won’t know that for certain until the forensic report comes in, Jo, but, yes, probably. Even so, don’t you think it’s all very convenient? What easier way to make yourself disappear?’
‘I can think of a few ways that wouldn’t necessarily involve sloshing your own blood all over the floor,’ Joanna said, relieving me of bowl and spoon. ‘Anyway, why would he want to disappear?’
Jamie tried to grab the bowl from Joanna, but she pulled it out of the reach of his sticky little fingers.
‘I had chat with Hugh Ogilvie,’ I said.
‘And?’
‘He believes Simon Keggie and MacDonald were up to something. He doesn’t believe there was a break-in.’
‘I said all along MacDonald hadn’t broken in,’ Joanna said. Without taking her eye off me, she scored a bullseye on the moving target that was our son’s mouth.
‘Ogilvie thinks Keggie or MacDonald or both of them managed to nobble Josh Wedderburn, so he’d have the case time-barred.’
The kettle began to boil as Tina bundled her way into the kitchen, satchel upside down over her shoulders, looking for someone to put her hair into bunches.
‘There’s bands in the drawer. Give them to your dad,’ Joanna said, her voice lighter, more relaxed. An air of optimism gathered like the steam from the kettle, filling the room.
‘Not him, Mum. You. Dad’s hopeless.’
Joanna handed me the bowl and spoon again. ‘So, what else did the cops say? I take it they still want to know who it was abducted MacDonald in the first place? Why don’t you tell them? What harm can it do if he’s not dead? Doesn’t make them murder suspects. The cops probably only want to find out if they were in on the plan to fake MacDonald’s death, which they probably were.’
I didn’t know what I thought about that. Was Stan in on it in some way? He’d certainly found MacDonald with supreme ease, but then, someone with an inside track to the DVLA or police national computer could have done that, and Stan certainly fitted the bill. I had to speak to Stan again, explain the situation and tell him I needed to give the cops names. It wouldn’t have to be his driver and the other big clown. Two patsies would do. What was the worst that could happen? They’d be charged with wasting police time. It had all been a practical joke: Angus MacDonald trying to escape child maintenance payments or something. He’d put them up to it. There were countless ways they could spin it, just so long as they admitted that the man I was charged with murdering wasn’t dead.
I placed the bowl on the highchair and let my son get stuck in. I hugged my daughter, kissed my wife and went back to Jamie and the mashed banana before there was an environmental incident. I was thinking about another slice of toast when Joanna’s phone buzzed.
‘That was Grace Mary,’ Joanna said. ‘They’ve found MacDonald.’
I turned around, smiling. ‘I knew it. Where?’
Joanna blinked a few times. Her bottom lip trembled. ‘He was floating in the River Avon, downstream of Muiravonside Country Park.’
32
Jeff Freeman’s trial came around sooner than I had anticipated. Sheriff Albert Brechin presiding, the weasel that was Josh Wedderburn prosecuting. Wedderburn smiled across the well of the court. It was two o’clock on a Monday afternoon and the procurator fiscal depute was keen to finish early.
‘Shouldn’t take more than half an hour, should it, Robbie?’ he said with a smirk. Under legal aid rules, if a trial didn’t last more than thirty minutes the solicitor wasn’t paid. It was why a lot of us defence lawyers suffered from weak bladders and sought toilet breaks if the prosecution looked set to crumble before the half-hour mark. ‘It was good of you to agree the police evidence by joint minute, but you might have shot yourself in the foot, don’t you think?’
I gave him the best worried expression I could fake. ‘What do you mean?’
He laughed. ‘Well, you’ve agreed the Crown case. There’s nothing I need to do other than put the joint minute up, show the video to Brechin and let him stick twelve months up your paedo film director. I mean, it’s obviously obscene, filming two seventeen-year-old girls prancing about wearing nothing but thongs you could have cut a camembert with.’
He was still sniggering when the sheriff was led onto the bench. Eleanor, the sheriff clerk, called my client’s name and the bar officer showed him into the dock. Brechin opened the red cover of his immense hardback notebook, took the lid off his fountain pen and stared down at Wedderburn. ‘Who’s your first witness, Mr Fiscal?’
‘M’Lord, my friend . . .’ by which he professionally, if erroneously, meant me, ‘has kindly agreed a large part of the Crown case and a joint minute of admissions has been lodged.’
Brechin put his hand over the front of the bench and the sheriff clerk passed up to him two sheets of paper, stapled at the corner.
Sheriff Brechin studied the two-page document through the half-moon spectacles that sheriffs are born wearing. ‘It says here the police attended the accused’s home and took possession of Crown label 1. What is that, procurator fiscal depute?’
‘It’s the mobile phone belonging to the accused, M’Lord.’
‘I see.’ Brechin continued reading. ‘It was in his pocket. And there was found on said mobile phone video footage which was later transferred onto Crown label 2—’
‘A pen drive, M’Lord,’ Wedderburn chirped, without being asked.
‘And that this transfer was carried out by the High-Tech Unit of Police Scotland, and Crown production 1 is the certificated evidence of that?’
‘That’s correct, M’Lord. All your Lordship need do is view the material on label 2 and decide whether it comprises indecent images of Dani Quin and Layla McEwan, the children referred to in the charge.’
At this invitation the sheriff rose from the bench.
‘I have viewed the material in chambers,’ he said upon his return, some time later.
‘He has,’ Eleanor the clerk mouthed silently to me. ‘Several times.’
Sheriff Brechin lifted the joint minute and continued reading. ‘I see the accused was arrested and later, when questioned, following caution and charge, said, I was making a movie. You’ve got to start somewhere.’
The young PF depute smiled up at the bench and nodded. His naivety was like a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately for him, I was about to let go an enormous fart into that fresh air. I almost felt sorry for him. Josh Wedderburn was a recent recruit to the Procurator Fiscal’s Office in Livingston. We hadn’t crossed swords on more than half a dozen occasions, whereas Sheriff Albert Vincent Brechin and I had been going at it hammer and tongs for what seemed like forever.
The sheriff held up the joint minute of admissions by a corner, using finger and thumb. He didn’t say anything at first, probably racking his brain for other occasions when I’d agreed any evidence at all, far less the entire Crown case. There weren’t any. He turned over to the second page, most likely to check that I hadn’t signed it ‘Mickey Mouse’.
After a moment or two he waved the papers at me. ‘And you’ve agreed this, Mr Munro? The whole Crown case?’
I stood. ‘Indeed, M’Lord.’ And sat down again.
‘Well, procurator fiscal?’ he said.
Wedderburn got to his feet. ‘Your Lordship has viewed the video footage and it’s been agreed in the joint minute that the footage was taken from the mobile phone belonging to the accused, and found in his possession. He also admitted under caution that he’d been making what he describes as a movie, so I’ll lead no further evidence and close the Crown case.’ With the elegant flourish of a concert pianist he tossed his black gown back and sat down again. Then he made a gun out of his two fingers, pointed them at me and stage-whispered, ‘Over to you, Robbie.’
I rose to my feet. ‘M’Lord, I’d like to make a submission that there is no case to answer due to insufficient evidence.’
Wedderburn was on his feet. ‘M’Lord, this is nonsense, Mr Munro agreed the evidence, it’s right there in the joint minute.’
‘That’s what worries me,’ Brechin said. He looked down at me, literally as well as figuratively, and said, ‘Before you start, Mr Munro, having viewed the video evidence I can tell you I’m left in no doubt as to its indecency.’ Brechin’s jowls wobbled at the memory.
‘M’Lord,’ I said. ‘It’s admitted that the video your Lordship has taken the trouble to view was made by my client and was indeed found in his possession. Although it’s not stated in the joint minute, I’m even prepared to agree that it’s indecent. However, what my friend has failed to prove is that either of the subjects of the video, Dani Quin or Layla McEwan, was under the age of eighteen at the time.’
The PF must have had springs on his feet. ‘M’Lord, my friend knows that the age of a complainer is presumed to be the age set out in the charge, unless preliminary objection is taken at the outset of the case.’
Brechin’s gaze slowly turned from me to Wedderburn. I thought I saw, perhaps for the first time, pity in his eyes. There is a scene at the start of one of my favourite films, The Matrix, where a squad of policemen are sent to apprehend a female character called Trinity. Agent Smith of the Secret Service tells the police lieutenant to have his men stand down for their own protection, to which the lieutenant says, ‘I think we can handle one little girl.’
‘No, Lieutenant,’ says Agent Smith. ‘Your officers are already dead.’
There was a look of Agent Smith about Sheriff Brechin as, seemingly resigned to the inevitable, he drooped an arm down from the bench to receive from the clerk a sheet of lined paper with my handwriting on it, and Jeff Freeman’s signature at the bottom. ‘It seems the accused handed in such an objection at the pleading diet,’ he said.
Wedderburn demanded to see the written objection. ‘This was never intimated to the Crown.’
From my case file I produced the copy of an email I’d sent to the Procurator Fiscal’s Office the same day I’d met Jeff Freeman – the day before the pleading diet. I’d deliberately sent it to the general office and equally deliberately addressed it to no one, confident that it would receive no one’s full and undivided attention.
‘Never mind,’ I said, as I handed the copy email across the table to Wedderburn. ‘Looks like you’re going to get that early finish right enough.’
33
The rest of the working week passed in a blur of court appearances, paperwork and late nights. The whole time my pending trial was hanging over me like a shroud thrown over the sun. Friday evening, I was sitting at my desk, staring at the wall. All the things I could have done with my life. All the things I didn’t do and would probably never get the chance to. I didn’t like to say anything to Joanna, but I was trying to put my affairs in order. If I was sent to prison what would she do? Would they give the wife of a convicted murderer her job back with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service? I didn’t think so. In which case I had to make sure she had a business worth running after I’d left. Relationship-wise, I couldn’t bear to think of Joanna wasting the best years of her life with a husband in prison, having to drag the kids back and forwards to visit their jailbird dad. Better for her to make a clean break. Better for me too. I could get my head down. Serve my time.
It was nearly nine o’clock when Joanna called.
‘Do you know what time it is? When are you coming home?’
‘Just finishing off a few things,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back in half an hour.’
‘Are you okay?’
Okay? Yeah, I was just dandy. I bit my tongue. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Well you don’t sound it.’
‘Joanna, what do you want? I’m busy.’
‘Yes, you are – busy dodging me and the kids. What’s up with you? You’ve hardly spoken to me all week, even though we’re supposed to be sharing the same office, and the kids have hardly seen you.’
‘I’m sorry, Jo, I’m just trying to . . . you know . . . sort things out for you. In case . . .’
‘I can sort things out myself, thanks, Robbie, and there isn’t going to be an in case. You need to snap out of it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. What would you say if you were one of your clients? You’d tell them to get a grip. The Crown case has so many holes, you could spit peas through it. And Fiona Faye is the best in the business, she’ll rip the prosecution to shreds. There’s a way out of this. You need to focus. Try and stay positive.’
Easy for her to say, I thought as I cancelled the call. All I could think about was giving Sandeman and Dicker what they wanted. A name. Stan Blandy. It was that simple. Tell them it was Stan’s men who had abducted and murdered MacDonald and let them take care of it from there. It was so tempting. So the right thing to do. And yet, so dangerous.
My phone wasn’t back in my pocket before it buzzed again. The screen showed a withheld number. It was Stan. For a moment I thought his powers extended to mind-reading. He came straight to the point.
‘Where’s Maggie’s phone?’
I didn’t understand. It was just over a week since I’d returned the phone to Maggie. It was the reason I’d been permitted an audience with him.
‘I gave it back to her,’ I said.
‘That wasn’t her phone.’
‘And it’s taken her a week to find that out?’
‘The one that got nicked was her old phone. The one you gave her had the same cover, but the phone’s not hers. She didn’t notice it until she tried to transfer some stuff from it to the new one.’
Having had the phone cracked, Stan had also made the sort of enquiries only he could make and discovered the phone I’d given to Maggie was in fact registered to an owner in Fife who’d reported it stolen months before when on a pub crawl in Linlithgow. Another of Meeko’s victims, I assumed.
