Blood Lines. Grace Monroe
the court cops are a different breed. Whether by accident or design, the powers-that-be have reassigned the best negotiators to work there; they are so skilled they should be in the diplomatic corps sorting out the Middle East.
The Alchemist lounged against the glass balcony outside Court Seven. Moses wasn’t there. Instead, the Alchemist’s entourage consisted of two sixteen-year-old schoolgirls, who were definitely not Dark Angels. This was very unusual because the gang were a clannish bunch – once you were in the inner circle, which this boy obviously was, you didn’t taint yourself with outsiders.
I don’t know why I called him a boy – probably more due to thinking he must have made some daft choices to end up here rather than his looks. As I studied him more closely I would have placed him in his early thirties: tall, about six foot three, and I guessed he’d weigh about nine and a half stone soaking wet. His Adam’s apple was the largest I’d ever seen and it bobbed about nervously in his scrawny neck. I sensed that he was nervous because he was having difficulty swallowing. One of the first signs of fear is a dry mouth.
He had all the trademarks of a Dark Angel but there was something different about him, more than just his age. The peroxide-white hair was gelled to perfection, but it was sparse and I just wasn’t used to seeing a balding Angel. It didn’t fit. The Dark Angels were beautiful, in their own unorthodox way.
His skin was pale, except for an angry shaving rash around his chin and a cold sore dominating his thin blue lips – I knew that Malcolm would give an alternative reason for this, nothing as boring as a virus but the consequences of ‘angry words not spoken’. Maybe Malcolm was right in this case. The Alchemist looked the type of coward to keep all his rage inside.
‘Georgia, Alice, this is my lawyer Brodie MacGregor.’
‘McLennan. It’s Brodie McLennan.’
Had he done that on purpose? And what was the deal between posh girls and criminals? Judging by their customised uniforms, these girls went to St Charles’, Edinburgh’s most exclusive girls’ school. They were beautiful in the way only the daughters of the very rich can be, as an ageing pop casanova once said. Their skin was creamy and blemish-free, their confidence was overwhelming – so why were they hanging around this loser?
The Alchemist was clearly much more interested in them than me, and I sensed my time for getting information out of him was fading. I needed the details and I needed them fast.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘The Alchemist,’ he replied instantly, turning round and grinning at his harem.
‘Well, unless you want to do six months for perverting the course of justice or contempt of court, you’ll stop being a smart-arse and tell me your given name … now.’
He stared at me to check I was serious. I didn’t blink.
‘Bernard Carpenter.’
I’d call myself ‘The Alchemist’ with a name like that too, but the girls’ adoration wasn’t dented.
‘It says here,’ I wiggled the complaint under his nose, ‘that on the fifteenth of May, you were caught breaking into a house in Morningside Road. I spoke to the Procurator Fiscal earlier because today is an intermediate diet. I have to say that I have all the prosecution statements and any defence witnesses are ready. Now, the Fiscal told me that you’ve been caught with your dick flapping in the wind. The Crown have productions – namely the jewellery that was taken from the house, and they say that it was found in your possession.’
‘No way – that lying bastard DI Bancho is just out to get me. There is no way that was on me when I was taken to the police station. As a matter of fact, I threw that jewellery away.’
I sighed.
‘Thanks, Bernard – you don’t even have the courtesy or common sense to keep your mouth shut. Now that you’ve told me you did it, I can’t argue in court that you didn’t.’
I was really getting angry with this idiot. He must be a pretty spectacular chemist for Moses to put up with his amateurish attitude. I had a duty as an officer of the court that if a client told me they were guilty then I couldn’t argue that they were innocent. Sweet Jesus, most of the prisoners in Scottish jails were still protesting their innocence.
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