LITMIR.BIZ

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this one.’

      Duncan spoke this time, glad to stick the boot in. Peggy looked as if he had personally slapped her. Either she was really excellent in her role as the good cop or she was in the wrong profession.

      ‘If they’re talking about me they’re leaving some other poor sod alone.’ I feigned a bravado I wasn’t feeling; even I could hear the crack in my voice.

      Bancho sat down opposite me. After explaining who was present and the date and time, he threw a newspaper at me, an updated version of the story that Kailash had read out.

      ‘So? Cattanach is missing. What’s that got to do with me?’

      ‘Jesus, Brodie – I thought you were supposed to be bright? Cattanach was investigating you in particular – in fact everyone at the Law Society is saying that you were the piles in Cattanach’s arse.’

      ‘Cattanach had it in for me because of Bridget Nicholson – everyone knows she hates me.’

      Peggy watched me intently; maybe they were a good team after all.

      ‘Cattanach’s a professional – you’re kidding yourself if you expect anyone to believe that you were being investigated for no other reason than Cattanach’s girlfriend doesn’t like you.’

      It did sound petty and unlikely, even to my ears.

      ‘Where were you on the fourth of August?’

      Strangely enough, I knew the answer to that question.

      A smug smile broke out on my face.

      ‘I was at the MacPherson Clan gathering in Newtonmore, with my grandad and another three thousand people.’

      ‘Your grandfather? What was a MacGregor doing at the MacPherson show?’

      ‘He’s friendly with the clan chief.’

      ‘Oh, as he would be – well, don’t expect me to be influenced by your high-ranking relatives. He’s no better than you.’

      Obviously, Duncan Bancho was angry at my cast-iron alibi. I stared him out and leaned back in my chair. He would have to release me soon, unless he was simply being a bastard.

      ‘Switch that damned thing off and go and get us some tea,’ Bancho shouted at Peggy, who clearly responded to him when he was masterful.

      The door clicked behind her. Duncan and I were left facing each other. The ghost of my ex-flatmate, Fishy, hung between us. Duncan was wearing well. Expensive haircut, the right amount of product in his light brown hair, and a carefully sculpted beard that screamed too desperately ‘I’m an individual’.

      ‘Still biting your fingers, I see.’

      The skin around my nails was broken and raw. Mechanically, I pulled them back and hid them under the table. I was annoyed at giving him the upper hand. We were at war – psyching one another out.

      ‘You’ve got a dick and a brain, Duncan, but only enough blood to run one at a time. What do your superiors say about you and Miss Moneypenny?’

      ‘It’s none of their fucking business and it’s certainly none of yours. You never change.’

      ‘You’re right, I haven’t changed – when did your beard go grey?’

      ‘Piss off. It’s a goatee.’

      ‘Bit sensitive about your facial hair there, Duncan.’

      He leaned over the cheap table and spoke into my face. Little flecks of spit landed on my cheeks.

      ‘Don’t think I’m impressed by your family connections – the MacGregors were cattle thieves and blackmailers. You come from criminals and nothing’s changed, no matter how you dress it up.’

      My first thought wasn’t to wonder how he knew about all that, but of how much he knew about my father? Had Fishy said anything about him, or about me? I was on the back foot; sometimes I should just learn to shut up. After all, it’s what I told my clients.

      ‘I think if you look at the clan motto it says, “My race is royal”.’

      ‘It can say anything it bloody wants, Brodie. Doesn’t mean it’s true.’

      ‘You know me, Duncan. Do you really think I could be capable of disposing of Cattanach, or anybody else for that matter?’

      ‘You did a really good job of stitching up Fishy and he was your friend – what would you do to someone who was threatening your career, your livelihood, your dreams? Your work is all you’ve got, Brodie. Now tell me, if you were in my position, wouldn’t you wonder?’

      I couldn’t explain to him about Fishy in case I gave too much away. Another thing I had to thank Kailash and my father for. There was no way he could or would know the full story – how embarrassing for them that the boys in blue hadn’t noticed a psychotic paedophile serial killer in the canteen. They weren’t the only ones though – I’d shared a flat with him during the whole episode and had still thought he was innocent. Really, me and the cops were on the same side when it came to Fishy – he’d stitched us all up – but they’d never admit it.

      ‘Are you going to release me now?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘You know you have nothing on me – unless you’re saying that Lord MacGregor, the ex-Lord President, was my accomplice in murder.’

      ‘Who said anything about murder?’ Bancho asked.

      ‘Come off it, no one thinks Cattanach has simply had a hissy fit and walked off in a huff.’

      ‘I’m not releasing you, Brodie – you’re in for the full six hours. And then who knows?’

      ‘Are you threatening to stitch me up?’

      ‘Well, you believe that little bastard – what does he call himself?’

      ‘The Alchemist.’

      I finished his sentence for him, even though I remembered it was something he’d always hated.

      ‘Yeah – you believe him. I’m bent, aren’t I?’

      ‘I don’t believe him …’

      He didn’t give me a chance to finish.

      ‘You don’t believe him? Then why are you persecuting me and spreading it round the Sheriff Court that I fitted him up? That I planted evidence on him?’

      A fine film of sweat beaded his top lip, and for some reason I thought of Tanya Hayder. An overwhelming hunch told me not to irritate him. I had painted myself into a corner and I had to find a way out. Bridget Nicholson had obviously overheard my conversation with the Alchemist and had wasted no time in causing further trouble for me.

      ‘I don’t believe him, but that’s not my job. My job is to investigate his defence. He’s entitled to a defence.’

      Wheedle and cajole, those were my instructions to myself.

      ‘Do you sleep well at nights?’

      ‘Very well.’

      I lied. It just slipped out; I had meant to agree with him. Anything to get home and wash the smell of desperation that clung to these walls from my hair. He shook his head and circled me.

      ‘When you were a little girl did you dream of representing scumbags like Bernard Carpenter?’

      I didn’t reply.

      ‘You lawyers are all the same – authorised pickpockets.’ ‘It’s my job,’ I shouted after him as he closed the door, leaving me alone with his insults, which naturally I replayed. I objected to being called a legalised thief. I worked within the system. It was how things operated. In the last two years of practising law I had come to think of it in a straightforward way. The law was a bulky, decrepit engine that dragged in individuals, ruined their lives and wasted their money.

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