‘About last night-’
I waved my hand. ‘It’s OK, Sam. It was just one of those things. You don’t have to-’
‘No! I mean I don’t feel bad about it. Do you?’
‘It was lovely.’ I smiled at her, remembering her surprising curves and her sharp teeth.
She toyed with her cup for a bit. ‘And I go north. Ever been up there?’
‘To Skye?’
She shrugged. ‘Just a thought.’
‘It’s a great thought.’ It was. But what then? It would be a strange foundation for a love affair. Was there anything other than guilt to build on?
‘But? Forget it, Brodie. It’s time you went back.’
She got up and clattered dishes in the sink. I went over and put my arms round her and held her to me. She resisted at first but then slumped and I realised she was crying. I turned her round and held her sobbing body to me till she was still.
‘I’m sorry, sorry…’ she began.
‘So am I, Sam. But you know it wouldn’t work. Not…’
She pushed me away. ‘What are you talking about? It’s not about you!’
‘Oh, right. I mean what…’
‘He’s dead and I couldn’t save him.’
‘You did everything possible.’
‘Not enough. I wasn’t good enough. They shouldn’t have appointed me. I shouldn’t have taken the case on. I didn’t have the experience.’ Her face was blinded by tears again, this time with anger.
‘How do you think I feel? My blundering around got Mrs Reid killed. Her four weans are missing! I probably got the bloody priest murdered! If anyone’s to blame it’s me. I used to be a detective! I couldn’t detect a currant bun in a tea house.’ Suddenly we were shouting at each other.
She waved her arms. ‘Listen to us! Mea culpa, and that’s it? We both just let it go at that? This time next year we’ll drink a toast to absent friends, shed a tear of remorse and carry on? That’s bloody it?!’
‘What else can we do? We can’t bring him back!’ Even as I spat it out, I knew what else. So did she.
We stood, chests heaving staring at each other. Her challenge had caught me out. I’d judged victory or defeat solely in the context of saving Hugh’s neck. He’d died. We’d lost. Time to move on. Revenge was surely a tawdry objective. But what about justice? I was a sceptic. Everything I’d seen in the last month had reinforced my view that it was as rare as hen’s teeth. And if it did exist, who would deliver it? The legal brains and the law enforcers had let Hugh down. If Sam and I left the field now, who would pick up the banner? I faced her probing stare.
I smiled. ‘You just don’t like drinking alone.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind. I’m good at it.’
‘What, then?’
‘Five wee boys vanished. We found one, dead. This is a habit. If Hugh didn’t do it, who did? It will happen again.’
‘You want us to play detective?’
‘I want Slattery’s head on a plate.’
‘OK Salome, nothing would make me happier.’
She inspected my face for irony. ‘Are you serious? If you are, I am.’
I sighed. ‘Sure. Why not? I’ve got enough bones to pick with him.’
She sat down facing me rubbing her face dry with the dish towel. ‘All right. Where do we start?
I realised I was already prepared for that question. ‘At the beginning. When you got in involved. You told me before that you shouldn’t have been given the job. It didn’t add up. Maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong direction. Talk me through the process. I mean, tell me how you were appointed.’
She stared at me for a bit longer then nodded her head. ‘I’ll make tea.’
‘It’s all about contacts,’ she said. ‘First, you need to be a member of the Faculty of Advocates, headed by the Dean. We all work as independents but we belong to one of twelve groups or stables. The most senior are King’s Counsel. Normally, KCs get the toughest roles but it’s not mandatory. Though I’m not yet a KC, I’ve been around. I’ve served often enough as junior counsel. It’s not unusual in itself that I was given this work.’
‘Who decides?’
‘Strictly speaking, you get instructions from a solicitor. In this case my old firm were given the case, as a pro bono.’
‘So it was normal to come to you, an old girl of the firm?’
‘Partly, but it’s not clear why they were chosen as Hugh’s solicitors in the first place. And they could easily have picked someone more senior and experienced.’
‘So how does an advocate get selected?’
‘It’s not that formal. You have to serve your time, of course, and senior advocates and judges are always keeping an eye on you. Most of it gets done in the corridors of the Advocates’ Library in Parliament House. Or over a glass of Scotch in the Glasgow and Edinburgh clubs.’
‘ That’s why you practice.’ I nodded at the whisky glasses on the sideboard.
‘That’s for my own sanity. They don’t let women in those clubs. I stand more chance of making Pope. It’s just a wonder they thought of me at all, far less assigned me to lead on a capital case.’
‘Your father’s reputation?’
‘That’s all I can think of. I’m not such a high flyer, you know.’
‘I rather think you are, but you need more than talent to succeed in this game. Still and all, it’s not exactly a favour to drop this one on you. So, there are two possibilities. Either someone thought that no one would blame you if you didn’t get Hugh off, given the sheer weight of evidence. And that you’d come out looking plucky and smart but not having lost anything. A kind of salute to your father.’
‘Or?’
‘Or someone didn’t want to take any risk that Hugh would get off.’
Her face flushed. ‘By giving it to someone incompetent!’
‘No! And I’m not going to butter you up any more than I already have by saying how wonderful you are. You know you are. You’re not a bad lawyer either.’ I smiled.
She threw her tea towel at me. ‘Sod!’
‘Sam, can you find out who put your name up? Because maybe if we knew that, we’d know why.’
She stared into her cup, looking for her future. ‘I should have done this before, shouldn’t I? I didn’t want to find out, Brodie. I just wanted to believe I was good enough. That my father would have been proud. Do you understand?’
‘Only too well.’
‘I’ll make some calls. It’s time I did some more socialising. What will you do?’
‘Go to the bank. I need cash.’ My heart sank at the prospect, not just because I would be dipping into my meagre savings but because of the sheer amount of bureaucratic effort involved in cashing a cheque at a bank other than my own in far-off South London.
‘I can help. You can still be on the case. They pay from public funds.’
‘You’ve been more than generous. But I think that that case is over. This is personal. But if you’d let me stay on a week or two?’
Her cheeks went pink. ‘Of course, Brodie. Your old room’s yours for as long as it takes.’ If I read that right she was saying that the old arrangements – prior to last night – would hold good too.
‘Could I borrow a pad of paper?’
She delved in her briefcase, which sat on the sideboard, and plonked a lined foolscap pad in front of me. She retrieved a propelling pencil and rubber and handed them to me.
I drew five circles on the pad and started to write names into each. I pointed to each one in turn.
‘I’m going to find out what links the late Father Cassidy, Hugh Donovan, Glasgow’s Finest, Mrs Reid and the Slatterys.’
‘You think the police are bound up in this?’
‘I know they’re incompetent. They’re also arrogant and pigheaded and would rather do time in Barlinnie than
