Blood Lines Part 7

'Yeah when the s.h.i.+t hits the fan, you have to be grateful for small mercies.' Glasgow Joe's voice came in short bursts as he climbed down the steep embankment.

'Keep your Reader's Digest homilies to yourself, Joe. Have you been looking for me for long?'

'I went to St Leonard's once I heard the gossip, then that w.a.n.ker Bancho sent someone out to move me along. I wanted to be there when you were released but I must have got my timing wrong.'

'What do you mean you got your timing wrong? You thought I'd be out quickly, didn't you? Well, so did I, Joe, so did I. When he kept me in for the full six hours, did you think that meant I was guilty? Do you think I did it? Do you think that's why Duncan Bancho kept me in for the full six hours?'

'Calm down, Brodie of course I don't think you did it. I mean, nothing's even been proven to have happened. Maybe Cattanach was bent and ran off with money from the investigations? I don't know what the f.u.c.k's going on, but I do know that Bancho wanted to see you sweat, to make you cry you didn't cry, did you, Brodie?'

'Of course I didn't.'

'I did the first time I was arrested. I bawled my eyes out begging the constable to get my mammy.'

'You were eleven, Joe.'

'True, but there were bigger boys than me greetin' for their maw.'

'Do you know his sidekick, DC Malone? She was nice to me.' I believed I would be eternally grateful for that woman's common decency.

'Do you mean Peggy?'

'You do know her then?'

'Everybody knows Peggy Malone and I do mean everyone.'

'Well, she looks a pretty settled item with Duncan Bancho.'

'That'll never happen.'

'Well, I'm telling you it has.'

'Peggy Malone would never settle with a man she's too into women for that.'

'Don't tell me she fancies me.' I felt faintly uncomfortable had all that b.u.m wiggling been for me?

'No she'll be s.h.a.gging Duncan Bancho all right, I'm just saying he won't be the only one.'

I didn't want to ask Joe how he knew so much about Peggy Malone; after all, he had never claimed to be celibate.

I turned to face him, throwing myself against his chest and listening to the Water of Leith run past me over the stones. His leather jacket was soft against my face. I pressed in so hard I could hear his heartbeat. I had my excuse ready. I was only protecting myself from the midges if Joe asked why I was getting all cuddly and soppy. He didn't.

I suddenly thought of something. 'How did you know where to find me?'

'I knew you thought you needed a miracle and when divine intervention is your only hope, you come to St Bernard's Well.'

'It's never worked before,' I whined.

'It has I told you; your spots have gone.'

We came to the well when I was thirteen to wash my face in the healing waters, because Joe told me pilgrims had been coming to this site since the thirteenth century.

'Nothing happened, Joe, I was still acne-ridden and, at thirteen, spots are social suicide.'

'And where's your acne now, Brodie?'

'It disappeared when I was sixteen.'

'See? I told you it would work. Some miracles take longer than others. Your spots disappeared and your chest arrived that seemed pretty miraculous to me.'

Was it my imagination or was his heart beating faster? Reluctantly, I pushed myself away from the safety of his arms. That was a bad habit of mine, rejecting protection. It was sod's law that the midges really started to swarm around my head and munch on me.

'I see they still like you then,' Joe commented.

'Parasites always do.'

I waved my hands around my face like a lunatic and, as a result, the little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds promptly bit them. I climbed up the riverbank to the glorious pseudo-Roman temple that occupied the site of St Bernard's sacred spring. Maybe, like the holy man, I had been restored by the waters, because I certainly sprinted up that bank. Waiting for Joe to join me, I leaned against one of the ten Doric pillars that supported the temple roof, and I stared at Hygieia, the G.o.ddess of health.

'What's happened to you now?' shouted Joe. 'Any chance you've perked up there? What's wrong, Brodie?'

'Everything, Joe; everything in my life is s.h.i.+te.'

'Not everything you can see and you can hear. Helen Keller couldn't do any of those things and she danced on Broadway.'

'At least she didn't have to listen to people criticising her all the time. Did you ever think of that, Joe? I am just so tired of snide remarks.'

'Well, do something about it, then. When did you become so pathetic?'

It was a question I had been asking myself since Duncan Bancho had arrested me. Somehow it seemed so much more insulting when asked by someone else.

'You have choices,' stated Joe.

'What? What choices do I have? Private practice is becoming impossible, thanks to the Edinburgh Bar complaining about me to the Law Society. The complaints about me haven't stopped that's all the mail I get from them these days. One way or another, it'll ruin me.

'The one thing keeping me going recently was the thought that I could escape private practice and become a sheriff. Now, thanks to Bancho, that can't happen. Before becoming a judge I have to sign an affidavit that there are no court actions outstanding against me. I can't do that. Even if Bancho fails in hauling my a.r.s.e into the High Court on some trumped-up murder charge, he has promised he'll still do me with wasting police time.'

'You don't need to be a lawyer, Brodie. There are other ways to earn a living.' Joe's whisper entered my ear, curled all the way down the inside of my neck, into my chest, where it stopped my heart.

And, for the first time in years, I realised I wanted to do this job. I'd been kidding myself. I loved fighting with the Crown Office. I relished my small victories of holding on to someone's liberty. Punters who had been given every opportunity in life and squandered them annoyed me. I was only too aware that I could have gone either way. Each time I looked into a client's face and heard about their tragic background, I thought, there but for the grace of G.o.d go I ... Luckily for me, I'd had Mary McLennan. It was the thought of her the woman I still considered to be my real mother, even if she hadn't carried me in her belly and brought me into the world that kept me going through all of this.

The clock on the church tower in St Stephen's Street interrupted my thoughts as it chimed eleven bells. The sky was bright and clear. Summer in Edinburgh was a gorgeous time. The birds made noises as they flew overhead. They circled slowly before roosting in the trees that lined the walkway by the Water of Leith. I should have expected it. But even as I felt the wet blob land on my head I didn't want to acknowledge what had happened.

'That's lucky, you're destined for greatness,' said Joe, smiling as he took his clean white hankie to my hair. 'You've got to read the signs, Brodie. Before I spoke to you this morning, I thought you had two choices: take your grandad's advice and become a sheriff, or be hounded out of the profession.'

'Has he been speaking to you as well?'

Joe nodded.

The old man was nothing if not thorough.

'Kailash wants me to get out as well. I suppose I should listen to her after all, she is my mother.'

'Your mother is dead, Brodie. I will never consider that woman to be your mother.'

I wished he hadn't said that because, although I denied it to Joe, when the cell door slammed shut on me I was crying for my mammy, and it wasn't Kailash Coutts. Joe saying what he had just made me feel her loss even more, because he had adored her too. Mary McLennan fought for me and she would have taken on Duncan Bancho too. But, as Joe had brought home to me, she was dead.

His hatred of Kailash struck me as odd, and I wondered if there had ever been anything between the two of them. I knew Joe wasn't a monk, and she was very attractive. Even so, I shuddered at the thought.

'Anyway, I've changed my mind. You still have the two choices jump or wait until you're shoved. But, you're a fighter, Brodie you can think of something else, and I'll stand by you when you decide to do that.'

I considered what Joe had said jump or be pushed.

Or fight.

'Maybe I do have another option,' I said to him, as I got up and he followed me.

'What if I decide to fight him?'

'Who?'

'Duncan Bancho.'

'It would make a d.a.m.n sight more sense for you to take on Lord MacGregor than to fight Lothian and Borders Police, Brodie.'

'Well, it makes no sense at all for me to fight my Grandad, he's on my side.'

Joe looked more worried than angry. 'So am I, and I'm telling you leave the police alone. Run away, Brodie, because it's the only way to win this fight.'

'He's a corrupt police officer,' I replied.

'Says who?'

'The Alchemist.'

Even in my temper I knew I was on shaky ground.

'Give me a break the Alchemist, or whatever poncey name he calls himself by tomorrow, would sell you for a bag of smack. There's no honour amongst thieves, Brodie, you know that. Just because Duncan Bancho decided to give you a taste of your own medicine doesn't mean he's a bent copper. How would you like it if he was going round spreading rumours about you?'

'Joe! He is! He's saying I murdered Cattanach or at best that I'm money laundering!' I spluttered. Bancho didn't seem the innocent victim in all of this.

'Face it, Brodie. Bancho's not bent, he's just human. You can't pin all your problems on him. Word will get out, everyone will know that you were hauled in by mid-morning. Edinburgh is a village. I should know I get told everything you get up to.' He had turned his back to me but I still heard him whisper the last words. 'Even when I wish that I didn't.'

I wasn't going to let on that I heard that, as I had the uncomfortable feeling he could only be referring to Jack Deans.

'I know that Duncan Bancho is bent.'

'Don't give me that c.r.a.p just wanting someone to be crooked to fall in with your plans doesn't work.'

'I know, Joe, I just know. And I'm going to prove it.'

'Are you going to tell me it's women's intuition, Brodie?'

Joe was shouting now people on the streets up ahead were beginning to look back at us.

'Tell me, just tell me this if your intuition is so b.l.o.o.d.y good, how come you're in this f.u.c.king mess?' He was pulling at his hair, his face was red with frustration, and beads of sweat formed above his eyebrows.

'You're a stubborn cow, Brodie, always have been.'

'And you'd know, wouldn't you, Joe? Just like you know everything, always know what's f.u.c.king right for me?'

Glasgow Joe stopped, pulling me back by the elbow as he did so. His face went back to a colour closer to normal, and he looked me straight in the eye.

'I knew you as a girl, Brodie McLennan, and I know you as a woman. Nothing's changed. The fact that you were once my wife doesn't make a blind bit of f.u.c.king difference.'

Chapter Eleven.

I couldn't bear to go into my own flat but I knew I had to.

I'd run as quickly as I could from Stockbridge, no mean achievement, but I had the hounds of h.e.l.l at my feet given what Joe had dredged up. There were certain things we never spoke of, places neither of us wanted to go that he had crossed the line terrified me, and reminded me of how much I depended on him. If we went down that path again, the one that he had broken every rule by mentioning, it could finish us forever.

I lingered for a long time at the front door. Long enough to become embarra.s.singly aware of the signs of neglect. The black gloss paint was starting to peel and the ornate bra.s.s door-knocker was tarnished. I ran my finger around the outsized lion's head. It was an original Georgian feature. As I stared at it I expected it to speak to me, warn me to mend my ways.

The twitching of my neighbour's curtains was all the encouragement I needed. I had entertained them enough for one day. I followed the smell of hot coffee and cigarette smoke into the drawing room. It was in darkness, the curtains still drawn from when I'd got up that morning after my night in the cells, lit by a single red tip. As my eyes adjusted, they followed the cigarette to the lips of Kailash.

Rather than open the curtains, I switched the main chandelier light on, hoping it would hurt her eyes or, at least, make her feel less at home.

'How did you get in?' I snapped at her.

'Is that any way to speak to your mother?' she shot back.

In the harsh light Kailash appeared shattered and, for the first time, I noticed the fine lines around her eyes. She was vulnerable. The disadvantage I had in being an only child was that I knew I had put that look in her eyes. Motherhood was a lot easier for Kailash to get into than it was for her to get out of. I could have kicked myself for even letting that thought into my mind, remembering too late that my mother had been repeatedly raped by a paedophile before giving birth to me and signing her own expected death sentence. I couldn't deal with the guilt I felt so I did what I always do when I am uncomfortable about facing emotions. I attack the best form of defence.

'You didn't answer my question how did you get in here?'

The tone of my voice cut into her. I thought I had never seen her so exposed.

'Don't be so b.l.o.o.d.y naive, Brodie your inexperience is hurting us all.'

Kailash stood up and stubbed out her cigarette. She had only taken a couple of draws on it and the long stem broke in half before she crushed it beneath her fingers. Leaning against the mantelpiece, she took a deep breath to steady herself.

Her tone changed slightly, becoming about a millionth of a degree warmer. 'Brodie when did you last change the locks on your front door? You don't have a burglar alarm. How many people have had access to your keys since you moved in here? Do you know the lock on that front door was so loose I could have put my shoulder to it and it would have caved in?'

'What is this? Twenty questions? I know we've missed a few Christmases together, Kailash, but ...'