Bad Debt, page 6
‘And what about the police interviews? Have you even bothered to listen to them?’
There was a window envelope stapled to the inside cover of the case file. I could see it held some blue-and-white memory sticks which in turn would contain recordings of Simon Keggie’s police interview as well as his caution and charge. There was no need to listen to them. Eddie Frew had gone with him to the interview. According to the summary of evidence, there’d been a lot of questions, each met with no comment from beginning to end. I’d have expected no less.
Joanna flicked over a few pages to find the copy indictment. ‘And the victim, whose name by the way is Angus MacDonald, didn’t break in, he was invited to your client’s home—’
Invited? What was my wife talking about? ‘He wasn’t invited. That’s the most disputed part of the whole case. He broke in.’
Joanna pointed to a sheet of paper. ‘Invited. That’s what’s down in MacDonald’s police statement. He was invited to Councillor Keggie’s home to discuss some important business.’ She closed the binder. ‘There’s absolutely no evidence of a break-in, whatsoever.’
‘Important business?’ I laughed. ‘What important business would that be?’
‘I suppose we’ll find that out at the trial,’ Joanna said.
I was going to have to put Joanna right on this. It would save time later. ‘My client doesn’t know this MacDonald guy. Why would he invite a strange man to his house in the middle of the night?’
Joanna gave me a condescending look. ‘MacDonald has no previous convictions and is a freelance wildlife photographer. He takes pictures of bunnies and wildcats and stags. He’s not a housebreaker. There are probably all sorts of reasons why older men invite younger men to their homes late at night, Robbie. You’ve obviously led a very sheltered life.’
‘A romantic rendezvous at Keggie’s house when Mrs Keggie was a few yards away in bed with the flu or something?’
‘And . . .’ Joanna continued before I could interrupt further, ‘it’s reasonable to infer from the wounds to his head and back that he didn’t whack himself with a walking stick. Therefore, the only contentious issue is whether your client acted in self-defence, and the Crown position is,’ she held up a hand to silence further protests, ‘that, even if MacDonald was a housebreaker, hitting the victim—’
‘Alleged victim . . .’
‘Repeatedly with a blunt object, after he must obviously have been incapacitated, was not a proportionate use of force.’
‘Proportionate is as proportionate does,’ I said. ‘How proportionate should you be if you happen to meet an intruder late at night in your own house with your wife in her sickbed? Did you give that guy on Friday night a proportionate kick in the shins or did you kick him as hard as you could?’
Joanna sighed. ‘The blows were to MacDonald’s back. He was clearly trying to get away.’
‘Or looking for a weapon of his own,’ I said. ‘Why should my client take the chance?’
‘So, it’s a case of beat senseless, ask questions later?’
‘He’s sixty-odd years of age with a dying wife—’
‘She had a bad cold.’
‘And some stranger enters his house in the dead of night – what’s he supposed to do?’
‘Not beat the person’s brain to a pulp for a start,’ Joanna said.
‘He’s alive, isn’t he? And I don’t see any mention of lasting brain damage,’ I said. ‘It’s not even down as an attempted murder.’
Joanna came back with, ‘Well, it should be in the High Court if you ask me. Crown counsel probably went easy on him because your client’s a politician.’
‘No, Jo. It’s more to do with the fact that my client is a very popular local politician, sixty years of age, with an exemplary character, and because your bosses don’t like throwing big High Court money at a case that’s a dead cert loser. They just feel obliged to go through the motions in case someone complains.’
Joanna sniffed. ‘We’ll see how much of a loser it is when we’re facing off in court. You can give the Crown witnesses your usual bludgeoning, then I’ll dissect your client’s testimony like he’s a frog in a high school biology lab. After that it’ll just be a case of speeches to the jury.’
‘Your usual one where you say you are prosecuting in the public interest and the horrible defence lawyer is trying to get a criminal off?’ I asked.
‘You’ll find out when you hear it. All I can say is that it will be a sight better than yours, which I imagine will be along the lines of housebreakers deserve all that’s coming to them.’
I didn’t dignify the remark with a reply, close enough to the truth though it was.
‘Anyway, it’s a bit of a departure for you, isn’t it?’ Joanna said, airily, opening the binder and burying her nose in it again. ‘You usually stick up for housebreakers.’
‘I usually stick up for alleged housebreakers, and so did you once.’ My wife had either forgotten her time as a defence lawyer, or else my dad’s views on the presumption of innocence were beginning to rub off on her. ‘Whatever you think, Jo, I still say you’re taking a risk. If . . . or, I should say, when you lose horribly, people might say you lost so your husband could win.’
‘Not people who know me,’ Joanna said, not looking up from the papers. ‘And since I use my maiden name in court, no one in the public benches need know our relationship.’
‘They might if they catch us snogging at coffee break,’ I said.
‘Right at this moment, I don’t see that as being a problem,’ Joanna said, marking a section of the medical records with a yellow highlighter pen. ‘Just like I don’t see myself losing, horribly or otherwise.’
There’s no telling some people – my wife being one of those people. I went inside and rescued a pot of cheesy beans. I was about to shout my daughter in for her tea, when she burst through the back door trailing muck. Joanna followed with Jamie in her arms.
‘There’s a monster in the garden!’ Tina yelled.
The imagination of a seven-year-old is a wonderful thing. My daughter would do well to retain it if she was ever to follow in her old man’s footsteps as a defence lawyer. ‘You mean there was a monster in the garden, but now she’s come in for her favourite cheesy-beans on toast,’ I said.
‘No, really, Dad.’ Tina tugged at my sleeve. ‘There’s something in the bushes up at the trees.’
Our garden was what I liked to call eco-friendly. Others called it unkempt. My dad referred to it as ‘the jungle’. Sometime ago I’d made half-hearted attempts to tame the wilderness, until my enthusiasm for horticulture had waned a few yards from the back door, whereupon things deteriorated into a sea of long grass, wildflowers and gorse bushes before coming up against a copse of spindly birch trees that separated our property from the fields beyond.
The toast under the grill began to smoke. ‘Go and see what she’s on about, Jo,’ I said, rushing to grab it.
‘It’s nothing,’ Joanna said. I’d heard that line somewhere before. I hadn’t buttered the toast before Tina screamed, ‘Dad!’, and, dropping everything, I ran outside to meet my daughter coming back in a hurry.
‘What is it?’
‘The monster,’ Tina said.
I could hear Bouncer barking somewhere off in the distance.
‘I’ll go take a look,’ I said. ‘Tina, take off your shoes and go and wash your hands. And your face, come to that. We’ll get to the rest of you later.’
Joanna stepped in front of me. ‘There’s no need. It’s probably just someone out for a walk who’s got lost. He’s away now.’
‘He?’ I said.
Joanna shrugged. ‘He, she? Difficult to know at this range.’
Bouncer was still barking. ‘I’ll go and bring the dog in,’ I said, and edging past Joanna made my way outside. At the far end of the garden I could see Bouncer jumping about frantically, growling and yelping his head off. I called to him to shut up, and he eventually obeyed. Together we walked through the wilderness to the birch trees. When we made it to the other side of the copse, acres of grass stretched before us, and, in the distance, skirting the edge of the field, a tall dark figure trotted in the direction of the road. Whoever it was, they were too far away for me to chase after or even yell at, so I went back inside.
When Tina was fed, cleansed of mud and beans, story-read and tucked up for the night, I joined Joanna, who was sitting on the sofa with Jamie on her knee. The TV was showing a crime drama about a missing child. I always felt sorry for TV cops, spending all their time looking for lost kids or chasing serial killers, especially when they had their own personal demons to deal with, usually drink or a child custody battle with a divorced wife who secretly still loved them, not to mention the cost of maintaining an unusual motor car. I could tell Joanna wasn’t really watching it. She was holding our son tight and staring out of the window into the darkness.
‘You know that dancing programme’s on, don’t you? The one you never miss?’ I said.
She stroked Jamie’s head, looking past me out of the window. Then her eyes came back to mine. ‘It was him,’ she said.
‘Who?’
‘Out there. At teatime. It was the man from last night.’
9
Monday morning. A court holiday. It was just me and Grace Mary. I was in my office, checking my diary. She was in reception, bashing away at a keyboard.
I picked up the phone and rang through to her. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing happening today?’
‘Absolutely zilch,’ Grace Mary said. ‘You’ve already asked me that twice. Now, can I get on with what I’m doing for five minutes without you disturbing me?’
She hung up. I flicked over to Tuesday and called her back. ‘Looks like I’ve got some intermediate diets tomorrow. Could you give Paul Sharp a call and see if he can appear and knock them onto the trial date?’
‘Anything else?’
‘No, that’s all.’
I turned the page. Wednesday. Keggie’s trial was bound to last more than a day. I buzzed through again. ‘While you’re at it, Grace Mary, better see if Paul’s free to cover my remand court cases on Wednesday too.’
‘He’s not your servant, you know,’ she said.
He wasn’t, but he was a pal, and I’d covered for him many times before when our roles were reversed. I began to sift through a basket of mail to see if there was anything in it apart from bills, then had a thought. Joanna wasn’t working today. Maybe we could do lunch. I searched around for my mobile but I couldn’t find it. I must have left it in reception.
‘Do you ever get shooting pains like someone’s got a voodoo doll and they’re stabbing it with a needle again and again?’ Grace Mary asked when I rang to find out if she’d seen my phone anywhere.
‘No, why?’ I said.
‘How about now?’
‘Just have a wee look around and see if you can find my mobile, would you?’
‘I don’t need to look around,’ she said. ‘It’s here in your jacket pocket. It went off a minute ago. Mr Paterson wants to come in later to discuss his licensing appeal tomorrow. Though, if you ask me, the Council should have closed that dump of his years ago. It’s like the OK Corral down there at weekends.’
‘Tomorrow?’ I said. ‘Are you sure? I thought it was next week. It can’t be tomorrow, I’ve got Simon Keggie’s trial starting. You know that.’
‘No, I don’t. You told me the Keggie case was starting last Friday and might collapse.’
‘No, it was supposed to start on Friday, but it didn’t. Don’t you remember? That’s why I came back from court early to find you up to your ears in emergency knitting.’
‘When you came back early, I thought that was because it had collapsed,’ Grace Mary said. ‘You never told me it had just been postponed. You were always going on about it being a slammed drunk. Anyway, Mr Paterson is keen to know how things are coming along.’
Coming along? Things had come along about as far as me opening a case file and writing Brendan’s name on the cover. I needed to think. Fortunately, with the practice I’ve had over the years I could do that quickly. ‘Phone him and tell him everything’s going great.’
‘But you haven’t done anything.’ One of Grace Mary’s more annoying habits was pointing out the actual facts of any given situation.
‘I’m not finished,’ I said. ‘After that, phone the Council and find out the chances of having the hearing continued for a few weeks or even just a few days.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘My unforeseen unavailability.’
‘But it wasn’t unforeseen. The hearing date’s been pencilled in the diary for ages,’ she said, at it again with the facts.
‘Then make something up.’
‘I made something up the last time.’ There had been a last time? ‘Don’t you remember? You had that case in Inverness for the road rage guy? I got the Board to put off the hearing. They didn’t like it very much then and I don’t think they’ll like it any better now. What are you going to do?’
Other than allow Brendan the use of my head as a punchbag, I had absolutely no idea.
‘Leave it with me. I’ll think of something,’ I said. ‘Any other good news?’
‘I meant to tell you: Mr Blandy called before you dragged yourself in this morning.’
‘What did he want?’
‘He never said. He’s going to call back.’
‘Don’t suppose he left a number?’
‘Never does.’
‘And talking of numbers,’ I said. ‘I have one I’d like you to do some research on.’
‘What kind of research?’
‘I’ve got a car number plate here, and I want you to find out whose it is.’ I dug in my trouser pocket for the piece of paper on which I’d written the number scrawled on my wife’s hand on Friday night.
‘And how, precisely, am I supposed to do that?’ Grace Mary asked.
‘I don’t know . . . Try—’
‘Magic? Robbie, if I could find people based solely on their number plate number, I’d have my own show at the Fringe.’
‘The number must be in my jacket,’ I said. ‘Could you have a look?’
Apparently not. According to Grace Mary, she had better things to do than waste her time playing private detectives. ‘The only important number today, is the telephone number for West Lothian Licensing Board,’ she said.
She was certainly right about that, but, on the long established principle that it’s never a good idea to try and talk a civil servant into anything before lunch, especially not on a Monday, I asked Grace Mary to phone the clerk’s office at two o’clock and give them the old clash of court commitment routine. ‘Tell the clerk that my business in the Sheriff Court has to take precedence over their kangaroo tribunal. Or words to that effect.’
Grace Mary came through five minutes later with my jacket. ‘They’re on holiday,’ she said, hanging it over the back of a chair. ‘Like everyone else apart from us.’
Part-timers. I’d need to phone the clerk’s office first thing in the morning and give them a dose of Human Rights and denial of access to justice, and any other legal sounding rubbish I could think of. Around half-past three, I was thinking of ways to avoid Brendan, when the door to my office was thrown wide and he marched in, clutching a bottle of Springbank twenty-one-year-old single malt by the neck.
‘Brendan, I’m glad you’re here,’ I said.
He waved a hand. ‘Just a flying visit. I’ve only come to say thanks and to give you this.’ He plonked down on my desk the bottle that I’d last seen on Friday night, the fill level just below the shoulder.
‘Thanks,’ I said, lifting the bottle and checking it for a detonator. ‘What’s it for?’
Brendan leaned over and gave me a slow-motion tap on the jaw with his fist. ‘Don’t be modest. It’s not like you. I just got a call from the chairman of the Licensing Board sub-committee half an hour ago. On his day off, no less. He said that in light of certain representations made on my behalf, the Board didn’t think it necessary to uphold any of the complaints made against me. My slate’s been wiped clean, just like your bar tab. We both get to make a fresh start.’ He pinged the bottle with his finger. ‘Don’t drink it all at once.’ And with a wink and a ‘See you later,’ he was gone, leaving me staring at the bottle of Campbeltown’s finest and wondering if the world had gone mad.
Grace Mary rang through from reception. ‘Mr Blandy for you.’
I picked up the receiver in a daze. ‘Hi Stan. What can I do for you?’
‘It’s not what you can do for me, Robbie. It’s what I can do for you.’
‘Is this about Friday night? Really, Stan, there’s no need . . .’ I thought about Brendan’s sudden Licensing Board reprieve. How wide did Stan Blandy’s tentacles stretch? ‘Actually, do you think you could try and find someone for me?’ I said.
‘Just give me a name,’ he replied confidently.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a name, or even an idea as to where to start looking. ‘In fact,’ I said, getting out of my seat and rummaging around in my jacket pocket for the scrap of paper. ‘All I have is a number plate.’
10
‘There are no opening speeches in Scotland,’ Sheriff Sibbald told the ladies and gentlemen of the jury, first thing Tuesday morning. ‘Apart, that is, from this one where I tell you there are no opening speeches.’ It wrung the usual polite smiles from the fifteen, and the trial started, as they usually do, with the prosecution calling a Scene of Crime Officer to speak to some photographs.
After being talked through shots of the exterior of the accused’s house, showing no signs of damage to the doors or windows that might have indicated illegal entry, we moved onto snapshots of blood spatters and droplets in the porch, on the inside of the front door, on the doorstep and garden path. Then we were treated to some images of the complainer’s injuries. After the jury was sufficiently warmed up, Joanna called the complainer. I could sense the ladies and gentlemen start to take interest, shifting in their seats, ready to weigh up the prosecution’s star witness. And what a witness he was. Seriously. Could this trial get any better? Simon Keggie was in his early sixties, and although he was a hefty individual, the one thing that had concerned me was the possibility the alleged victim would turn out to be a six-stone weakling. He wasn’t. He really wasn’t. He was a big man with short dark hair and an expressionless face. His thick eyebrows were woven with thin white scars, his nose was spread and thick. It was a face that had caught a lot of fists in its day. Slip him into a stripy top, chuck a bag marked ‘swag’ over his shoulder, and you could have looked him up in the dictionary under ‘V’ for villain. How could a face like that not have a criminal record?
